youth ministry, jersey shore, and pancakes with janis... welcome to my monday.

today has been quite the day. i spent all morning sitting mindlessly on the couch, because i haven't had the chance to completely veg out for a day since i've been home from college. believe me... i took full advantage of that. i've been staying really busy lately doing hair on the side for friends and family (hint hint... MAKE AN APPOINTMENT with me!) and i've been looking for new jobs for the summer. i'll let you know in a few days how that goes...

so, i met up with matt pilla today to talk about youth ministry and where we want it to go this summer. he's the youth pastor for Gloucester County Community Church (hint hint... come out on sunday!) we had a long talk about what we wanted to do directionally for the next few months and i can't wait to see what God does with it. Jessica Klein and Karolena Szloack are my two new summer leader interns. they are both really awesome girls that i can already see God using in a big crucial way this summer. reason being... they both said they excelled in organization! thankkkkk you Jesus for that one. not saying anything... but matt pilla's desk could speak for itself in saying how much we need an organizer! can't wait to work along side of them and have some of the administrative pressure lifted from me and matt.

i also had a long talk with him about influence. it seems to me, that the more and more media and internet become a part of our youth kids lives... the more and more patching up we have to do. mending the mind of a teenager after years of desensitization to the explicit media that is constantly bombarding them has proven to be a hard task. over the past few years, media, radio, and the internet have become more overwhelmingly "rated R" if you will. it's a scary thing when a youth kid is able to sit through an hour of some of the trashy shows on TV and not even flinch through the content. i made a comment on my Facebook status the other night about how i wanna meet snooki from MTV's "The Jersey Shore". i have been known at school at the "jersey girl" being as i am the only jersey they have ever seen out in the mountains of virginia. making a comment that i thought to be harmless, not thinking of the reality of what i had said... i watched as some of my youth kids played into my joke saying they were in love with the show. i only said it to be comedic of the fact that i am "the jersey girl" at school, and low and behold... i've created my very own monster. i apologize, because what i said was not at all to condone the behavior i have seen on that show, and it was not to justify watching the show what so ever. infact, i don't do much watching of it myself because it's not only offensive to my state because it makes us look bad as a whole, but honestly i can't bare to look at the sexual content of it for more than a few seconds. it's over the top, and it's not what i want my youth kids to be putting into their minds. what you feed to your brain, there so your mouth and heart reproduce. i don't want those things coming out of me, and i pray that you do the same to avoid that kind of lifestyle. forgive me for allowing myself to become desensitized to the reality of my statement. besides... after people meet me... they say "snooki who?" i am the original jersey girl :)

i also spent a few hours tonight with one of my very best life long friends, janisssss perryyyyy! hey gurrrrl heyyyyy! i meet up with JP at one of our favorite diners to eat some late dinner. well, actually... i ate... she cheered me on as she bit off all of her fake nails at the table (mm, appetizing). our waitresses name was Stacy, and it wasn't but 30 seconds after she told me her name that we became best friends. she kept saying how cute i was... (yeah, i have that effect on people.) janis and i talked for a long while about some really incredible news. at 40 beautiful years young, and after over 20 years of successful youth ministry and devotion to kids everywhere, janis perry is looking to start a family of her own! thank God because that woman was born to be a mother! she has been going through the long and grueling process of fostering with intention to adopt a little girl. i'm sharing a part of janis's life with you, and praying that you will likewise be lifting her up through this process. she is born for this kind of stuff and i can't wait to see her with baby in tow. she shared some stories with me tonight about going to classes, and having to make sure her apartment was in perfect condition, and playing phone tag and the waiting game for months now. it is so much more of a process than many people believe to be true. and for that, she definitely deserves to be commended for her patience and diligence. it takes a very special person to adopt a child who is not their own into their home and raise them as a single mother... and janis is nothing short of everything a child could hope to raise them. she is such an example of what a mother should be. i should know... because my mother reminds me all the time, that i had two moms raising me. my own mother, and then there was janis. she helped my mom, and my mom will be the first to tell you, janis deserves a lot of the credit for who i am today. sometimes... i think that could be a good thing. other times... well... sorry janis :)

overall, today was a day filled with many thought turning processes. i've learned things that will make me wake up tomorrow a little different than i did today. but isn't that the whole point in living and learning? every day is a learning experience. take the knowledge you've been given and store it away. look onto the examples others set before us in love. and wake up tomorrow morning, excited to live a little differently, and walk with our heads just a little bit higher. because God is good... and we get the chance to learn for another day. the bible says, "counsel and sound judgment are mine; I have understanding and power." proverbs 8:14 - - there is power in knowledge.

this has been--
meira... mostly.