*SIGH*

So remember how I was going to always plan my use of frozen chicken ahead of time? I fail. As a result I now have an addition to make to my list of cooking lessons: always take your own advise. On Tuesday I got home, wanted to make chicken fried rice, remembered that the chicken was still frozen and decided to blaze on ahead anyway. Bad choice. I ended up with something strangely akin to rubber, sponge, and chicken all at once. I had already made a terrible choice in deciding to re-freeze this chicken and then I just added on to it. I couldn't even pry the chicken out of the tray, much less pry the two breasts apart- so I ran hot water over it- a great idea, had I put the chicken in a plastic bag first.

Mealgonewrong and Other Delicacies

College is a time of learning many things- specifically today I would like to address one lesson in particular which is of the utmost importance- how to, and NOT to cook.

Once you leave your parents' house and have a kitchen of your own you find yourself- gasp- having to prepare ALL of your own meals. This can be a challenging and exciting affair and leads to many new and interesting discoveries. You very quickly learn many lessons on how NOT to cook.

Lesson #1: Always check inside the oven BEFORE turning it on lest something flammable be stored within unbeknownst to you.

Lesson#2: Always be sure that you have burners on "low" when planning on simmering something like, oh, say, pasta sauce- lest you end up with a blackened brick rather than the delicious dinner you had planned.

Lesson #3: While freezing things like pasta sauce and chicken is a great idea, always be sure you plan which night you are actually going to use said ingredient. Otherwise you may think to yourself one night, "hey, I think i'll make something delicious out of that chicken i have", only to discover that, no-no you won't- that chicken is still in the freezer, frozen solid.

Lesson #4: When making something you've never made before, always be sure you really DO know what your doing before embarking upon the creation of said dish. It is not enough to say," I've seen my mother make this before, it's easy". When that is your thought process, you may be sure that disaster is all but inevitable.

When disaster strikes, however, all is not necessarily lost. Just when things seem bleakest and dinner a shattered dream there is the greatest potential for greatness. As proof of this, I would like to tell you of the creation of mealgonewrong (said in a French accent, of course). It was a Monday evening. We had chicken (not frozen), ground beef, and potatoes. We had planned on caramalizing the potatoes, but I, having not retreived the actual recipe from my mother, had simply guessed how to make them. The caramel, well i'm not sure what it did, but it wasn't what it was supposed to do. The caramelizing failed. So we threw all the ingredients into a skillet together with some herbs. It was missing something- so we added some onion. Still, it lacked something, so we dug through the refrigerator and pulled out some cheese. That was it! It was perfect, simple but perfect! Out of the ashes of cooking failure we had made something amazing- we had made Mealgonewrong!

"Nasty Uncomfortable Things"

I know it's been a while since I've posted. Part of this, of course is that I was out of the country and had much better things to attend to than blogging, but part of it also is that I am sure that I should say a few words about my trip, but after being part of something so amazing summing it all up on an online blog seems somehow sacrilege (let me clarify in case anyone has been out of the loop, I was in Moshi, Tanzania for two weeks).

Nonetheless, I must say something about it. I cannot very well tell each and every one of my many tales on this page but I will try to do justice to my experiences. To put it simply: God did amazing things; He touched many people in profound ways and I got to be part of it.

En route to Tanzania I began reading the Hobbit for the second time- it seemed a fitting book to read. Starting off on my adventure I didn't feel much different than Bilbo did starting on his: small and insignificant and not very excited about my adventure ( "Nasty uncomfortable things! Make you late for dinner!). I was late for dinner (and other meals) many times, and quite often was a little uncomfortable but God used me to do great things and brought out more of the courage that He gave me (just like Bilbo's adventures brought out his brave side). Maybe that's the most amazing part; there's nothing in particular that I have to offer that such a great God could need but He took me all the way to Tanzania and let me be a part of the things He's doing there. I will tell you a bit about what it was He, and we, did. A small group from my church along with approximately 70 other people were with Leif Hetland's ministry Global Mission Awareness. We worked with a conference called the African Call during which we had pastor's conferences, women's conferences and rallies. During the conference God moved in power. He healed people of blindness, deafness, deformities, paralysis and any number of other ailments serious or otherwise when we prayed for them (or in many cases when we hadn't prayed for them). We also cast out demons from many people by God's power and authority. We saw one girl who was healed of a severe physical deformity when we cast a demon out of her. We had people dancing wildly who minutes before had barely been able to walk. People who's failing eyesight or hearing was restored. People healed in the conferences and people healed on the streets. I saw demons manifest in people for the first time- and thereafter cast them out for the first time. Almost everyone I prayed for was healed. It was thoroughly amazing to say the least.

The hardest part is figuring out how to minister here in the same way that we ministered there- but I know God will teach how to do it. I know he has even greater things in store for me and I cannot wait for the adventures that He'll take me on next- nasty uncomfortable things though they be.

Jambo Means Hello

I know you've all always wanted to know how to say "hello" in Swahili, so there you go-jambo. I have learned this, and many other, valuable pieces of information in my attempts to learn Swahili this past week. I should have started on this endeavor a while ago but I was distracted (by such silly things as finals) and then I forgot about it. I am pleased to say that I am making significant progress, though I don't think that have such phrases as "Would you like to pray to receive Jesus as Savior?" quite down by the time I leave. On that note, I leave in just two weeks. I'm starting to feel ever so slightly...oh... freaked out? That might be a little too strong a phrase though. One would think that I, intrepid world traveler that I am, would not be worried about a mere two weeks abroad, but, alas, one would be wrong. Don't get me wrong, I'm excited- it's like when you first get on a roller coaster and start going up the first hill- that sort of "freaked out"- the good sort- and I'm really excited about stepping out of my box to do what my beloved Jesus is doing. But anyway, we were talking about Swahili. I've had an interesting time trying to figure out some little bit of the language and so far I think it's going rather well. (My favorite thing to say is the poetic-sounding "asante sana" or thank you very much.) I discovered an online Swahili-English dictionary (I did print up four pages of useful Swahili from the group I'm going with so I'm not dependent on whatever resources I scrounge up myself). This dictionary is perhaps not the most dependable resource, as demonstrated by the example sentences they offered:

for "young person" (I don't remember the Swahili translations, sorry)
"Each policeman had got for himself more than one young wife".

Really? The abundance of young wives for policemen is really what you think of when you hear the word "young person"?

for "young girl" (Oh, dear, where will they go with this? more about young wives?)
"all men like to be with young girls".

Fantastic. (I am happy to say that there were no other example sentences like that one.)

for "woman (old enough to be an aunt)" (Wow, that's one oddly specific word)
"The father of John is like my aunt".
wait, what?
"the FATHER of John (okay) is like my AUNT".
If I could type the transition from puzzled face to greatly amused face, I would, but as that is not an option, it will have to suffice for you to imagine it.

If they can't even manage to translate "mama" (the swahili for mother) to mother correctly (it was mama in the Swahili version so I'm assuming that was their intent) then I'm not entirely sure that I should trust to their accuracy (of course the proceeding example sentences had already made me think that this was not the most reliable of dictionaries). So that is the end of me looking up online Swahili dictionaries, though it was quite fun. :)

Clinicals

I've been very lax about writing. My deepest apologies.
Anyway, on to our subject today! I'm not sure how much I've told you all about clinicals (you all mainly being all you Matsons as I think most of my other readers have heard about it in great detail), so I will summarize it for you:
Upon my last chat with my academic advisor I learned that there was the possibility of starting clinicals this fall (for you non-nursing people clinicals are when you actually go work at a hospital as part of your classes), however i needed a GPA of at least 3.3 (mine was slightly below that) and my AP scores weren't in. So I studied practically every spare moment I had, and after much drama managed to get the AP scores delivered, but I was sure I hadn't done quite well enough to get that 3.3. I'm sure you can see where this is going. I just checked my grades (finally) and my cumulative GPA is 3.331! I'll find out if a start clinicals mid summer (possibly while i'm in Tanzania).

Hallelujah!

So, as you all know I have been in need of money for this mission trip. Well, for the past few weeks I haven't had any real hope that I was going to go. I keep saying "If God really wants me to go He'll provide the money even though it seems impossible" but I haven't actually thought I was going to go. I was just going to wait till May 15 (at which point I need all the money in) and then drop out of the trip if (and when) the money didn't come.

I came home for the weekend and upon arriving home found an envelope on my dresser. It was from my church. It was a check from my church (I have not filled out the application for financial assistance from the mission board- I was going to do that this weekend). I was somewhat surprised and pleased- that is until I opened the envelope and looked at the check- then I was whole lot more than just SOMEWHAT surprised or pleased- shocked, amazed, dumbfounded, ecstatic, might work better. Let's just put it this way- it was far more than i would have dared to expect or hope for. Suddenly this mission trip thing is seeming a lot more possible! Which is perhaps the scarier possibility!

(In other news, i think you should all know that there is a "Large Wife Sale" going on in my neighborhood. No joke! I saw a sign for it when I got off the highway!)

News

I havn't posted for a while. Sorry.
so, let me attempt to catch you up a bit. There really isn't much to tell so it should be easy.
My swing dance team (the Cat's Pajamas) competed at the Intercollegiate Swing Battle a couple weeks ago. We didn't place, but we didn't expect to, or really care, we just wanted to have fun- which we did! WE had tons of fun, it rocked. And we didn't get last! Which is great because we're a new team and most of us are new dancers. I ended up dancing 5 nights in a row. It rocked.
I think that just might be all the news I have to share with you right now. Lame. Well I'm still doing well in classes, I had two tests yesterday, it's snowing which ruined my plans to go dancing in Denver tonight (and also cancelled dancing last night) and it's time to sign up for classes for next semester. Oh, and I'm going to try to find a job for summer (i'm not so sure that that will work out) and I still need money for Tanzania so be praying for that cause I know that God is fully capable of providing everything I need and that he wil give me the money if he wants me to go.

Lve you all!