Where Your Treasure Is...

Dave Ramsey has complete taken over my life. I can't even walk into a store without thinking "is this Dave Ramsey approved?" I cling to my brown envelope system and make every dollar stretch until the next payday. I am definitely becoming the nerd of the relationship - monthly budget and all! I think Dave would be proud of how far we have come in the past 13 weeks, since we first began Financial Peace University. It has been a lifestyle change for us and I hope we can keep this gazelle intensity until the day when we are finally able to say "I'M DEBT FREE!!!!!!!"

With all this talk and focus on money lately, I keep going back a verse in Matthew: where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. What does that mean exactly? If I were to take it literally, it would mean that my heart is in a savings account, or being doled out to different masters each month. At first, this was hard for me to grasp. It seemed incredibly selfish and almost counter-Biblical. But after several tough conversations, I have come to realize a few things:

1. Money is a tool. It does not define who you are. Having it is nice, but it does not necessarily make you happy. I think managing your money (even if you don't have very much!) is the key to happiness and financial peace.

2. Motivation is key. Planning for your future does not mean you are selfish. It means that you have a plan. If your motivation for saving money is to hoard or be a miser, then you are in trouble. A wise friend compared it to the parable of the talents. God wants to see us build it up in order to take care of others. Giving is a key part of Dave Ramsey's plan as well.

3. Don't lose hope. Ten more years of student loan debt seems extremely overwhelming to me right now, but with the debt snowball and some personal sacrifices we can pay it off early and be debt free by the time we are 35 - which sounds pretty good to me!

4. Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. After much soul searching, I have found this saying to be true. A majority of our monthly income goes to student loan debt and I get so caught up paying the bills that I don't stop to think about why. We both went to college. We had four + years of incredible learning experience, and we met people who will be our friends for life. We had experiences that have forever changed our worldview. My heart is in the pod watching hours of Friends with my mater. It is in the lobby making forts and at McConn having serious conversations instead of writing papers. It is in the midnight walks to Circle K and the all night homework sessions at Southside. We both had the opportunity to travel overseas and see that the world is bigger than our own backyard. These are the memories that Sallie Mae cannot take away from me. These are the things I treasure.

So, friends, I leave you with this: I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want [Philippians 4:12].

Leaving and Coming Home

It has been one week since I stepped off the plane back on to American soil. Seven days of yawning and blankly staring and readjusting to the reality that is my life. You can blame it on jet-lag, but I have come up with the term "Post-travel Depression." I am becoming all too familiar with this restlessness within calling me to my next adventure.

I feel incredibly blessed to have been able to experience so much of the world at the age of 25. But the more places I go, the more I want to see. I'm afraid that this sense of adventure for what lies beyond is causing me to miss what is right in front of me. Don't get me wrong - Madison is a beautiful place to come home to. It seems like everything bloomed while we were gone.

Spring is here, and with the changing of the colors I am reminded that I must change too. I must adapt to my environment and learn to thrive right where I am. A flower is beautiful and can remain beautiful because of the simple fact that it has roots. Despite my wanderlust, I too have roots that must be nurtured in order for me to grow.

Now, before I get too sentimental I wanted to share with you some highlights of my trip!!!!!!!

Day 1 - March 13, 2012
We arrived in Dublin at 7 am local time after a brief and restless sleep in the airplane. But we were ready to go! After waiting for James in the airport, he finally came and we headed out to see Dublin. We decided a bus tour was the best way to see all the sights. We stopped at Trinity College to have a look around and ran into some people we met in the airport - it's a small world! We continued on the tour and stopped again at the Guinness Factory, where we got to take a tour and enjoy a pint (well, some of us). Brad fell asleep when we got back on the bus so we decided to head to the Hill of Tara on our way to Enniskillen. Driving into town, we ran into Mark Campbell! Tiredness began to set it, so we ordered pizza and stayed in for the rest of the evening. Early to bed. End day 1. 

Day 2 - March 14, 2012

We started off this day with a drive around Enniskillen. James took us to the top of a big hill (mountain maybe?) to see the view. Incredible. We jumped off of some rocks then we got back in the car and drove to an old castle. We climbed around and took pictures like we were in a band. Then James had a meeting at the mall so we walked around. We ate lunch at Mauds then did a walking tour of Enniskillen, where we ran into the second kid - Alanah! James had to work at night so we went to visit him at the pub. He got off work early so he gave us a little Irish drinking lesson ;) Let's just say it was a late night... End day 2.

Day 3 - March 15, 2012

We got off to a late start today, but James took us to his actual village where we got to meet his mom and talk to the classes at her school. We also got to meet his grandparents. He took us to an old water mill that he dreams of turning in to a theatre. We encountered some sheep in a field, so we quickly left. We continued our driving tour and ended up having lunch at the Red Pepper! We arrived at the Giants Causeway at sunset and it took our breath away. We climbed down on the rocks and sat in awe of the beauty. We drove to the rope bridge, but it was closed so we left for Belfast. We checked in to our hotel then scoured the town for some food. Best fish and chips ever. Went to Tesco and James bought an airmattress/sleeping bag combo. Back to the hotel for snore-fest 2012. End day 3. 

Day 4 - March 16, 2012

Today was a day full of fun in Belfast. We met Fr. John in the morning and had coffee with him at his parish. It was so refreshing to hear his stories about Ulster. His passion is contagious. He sent us off with well wishes to see the peace walls. We went on a brief driving tour and stopped at a divided park before meeting Johnny for lunch at the John Hughes Pub - amazing food and company! We did some shopping in Belfast then drove through the puddles to see more murals and the new Titanic exhibit. After a very tiring day, we drove to Portadown to have dinner with Mario, Maura, Keith, Jennifer, and Patricia. It is people like these that remind me that there is still hope for humanity. We headed back to Enniskillen and the boys went out for some pints. Kim and I spent some time with our friends Katniss and Peeta. End day 4.

Day 5 - March 17, 2012

ST. PATRICK'S DAY!!! Lindsey picked me up in the morning for some girl time. She showed me the bakery where she works and we went shopping in her village. She took me to a place called The Watermill Restaurant and we enjoyed lattes and an amazing view. We went to her house (McDonald Farm) and her mum made breakfast for us :) We met the others in town for the parade!! Some UP kids found us outside of the Crowe's Nest and we all watched the parade together. Good times! We went back to the house to rest up before a long night in town. James' housemates had some friends over so we did some pre

Day 6 - March 18, 2012

Today was another slow start. When we finally got moving, we went to Omagh and visited the Ulster American Folk Park. We walked around in little villages and saw what it was like in the good ole days. We were a little tired and a little crabby and a lot hungry so James took us to a fine dining establishment. Only it took FOREVER and then our chicken was dry - first world problems. We got home just in time to take a nap. James went to work and the rest of us chilled. Housemates took us out for some Chinese carryout, complete with chips. You can never have too many potatoes! End day 6.

Day 7 - March 19, 2012

I really can't remember how this day started. All I know is that we ended up at some BEAUTIFUL cliffs and we got to see an Irish beach :) I think I found my next summer home! We visited a friary and got bracelets with the saints on them, then we had lunch at The Thatch in Belleek. Belleek Pottery was next where we did some shopping and had tea with James' mum! We got all caught up on the family gossip then headed back to Enniskillen to meet up with some past UP teens. It was a great way to spend our last  night in Northern Ireland. Except for packing. Packing sucks because it means you have to leave. End day 7.

Day 8 - March 20, 2012

The trip home was long and they almost didn't let Brad on the plane in Chicago. But everything worked out and we arrived home in one piece - minus the pieces of our hearts that are still across the pond. Peace out Ireland - we'll see you in a few years!

For corresponding pictures, please see my albums on facebook.

Love and peace,

Katie

Heavy Heart

I have had a lot on my mind today and my heart is heavy. I don’t know if you have noticed or not, but the internet is exploding with updates about KONY 2012. If you haven’t watched this video yet, you should. It is well worth 30 minutes of your life. It has sparked in me an inner conversation about passion and purpose that I feel like I must express. 

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To me, the video is about so much more than a bad bad man who must be caught and brought to justice. It is about a movement - people getting behind a cause they believe in and refusing to be silenced. It is about becoming one voice and shedding light on injustice and bringing hope to the invisible children in Uganda and all across Africa.

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I came home from South Africa in 2009 with a fire in my belly to change the world. I had dreams of going back to Cape Town and telling the world about the people I met - their tragic and beautiful stories that would otherwise go untold. Slowly but surely, my life went on. 

            I got a job. 

                   I got engaged. 

                           I got comfortable. 

But it was like my life was in a constant state of reverse culture shock. I could not reconcile the things that I had seen and the stories I heard with the abundant life in America. I saw so much greed when I came home and so much entitlement. But I told myself that I had to get over it and get on with my life. I felt like I was wasting time and disappointing God by not being able to come to terms with what He was trying to teach me. It sent me into a downward spiral of depression and guilt. 

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I started meeting with a mentor and I would sit in his office and just cry because I didn’t have words to express what I was feeling. Eventually we were able to have speak and he challenged me with the question: why? 

Why did life have to go on the way it did before I went to Africa? 

Why was it okay to go back to “normal” life? 

The short answer is, it’s not okay. 

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Because I have the knowledge of injustice in this world, it is my responsibility to do something about it. Now, we could debate for hours exactly what that should look like, but the fact is 

I am responsible.

                                                                                                  

I think that is why people are so up in arms about this video and the whole KONY 2012 campaign. They don’t like for their little worlds to be opened up and exposed to these things. But here’s the thing - this world has extremely dark places that cannot be escaped or explained away. 

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And we have a choice. We can either choose to stay informed and speak out and take action, or we can choose to sit idly by allowing our complacency to dictate our lives. My choice is to stand. It is to be a voice for the voiceless and to empower the powerless. This whole thing teaches us that we can respond. We can move. We can change reality.

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This is my passion. This is my calling. And it is my earnest prayer that my life will plant seeds of peace and justice. 

Too Little, Too Late

I always think of the right thing to say after the situation has already passed. Usually this just means missing a punch line or some sort of witty reply. But tonight it came in the form of immediate regret. I have been a volunteer mentor at the juvenile correctional facility for nearly two years. I have been mentoring the same girl for the past year and a half. In that time, none of her family has come to visit. No letters have been sent. Two birthdays have come and gone without word from the ones who gave her life. Two Thanksgivings, Christmases, Easters, Halloweens, 4th of Julys. And now they want to send her home - to a place of abuse, neglect, drugs, hatred, and fear. Tonight, during our last visit, one of her friends asked if I loved her. My response was awkward silence followed by, “ummmm uh, that’s a weird question to ask.” Not my finest moment. What I wanted to say - what I should have said but couldn’t, was “Yes. Of course I love her. I think of her as a sister. I want what’s best for her, I want to see her succeed.” I wanted to tell her how strong and brave she is considering everything she has been through. Now I’m afraid she’ll never know. I’m afraid she’ll never know that life doesn’t have to be dark and lonely. There can be so much good. In my perfect world I would take her home with me and show her all the things she has missed out on by being placed in an impossibly hard life from the start. In that perfect world, she would know love and acceptance and she wouldn’t have to fight for attention. But we are stuck in this world - the one that is not perfect by any stretch of the imagination. In this world, her dad called and told her that he didn’t want to come get her. In this world, Monday (the day of her supposed release) will come and she will wait for a father who probably won’t show up. And my life will go on too, because in this world it has to. Right now I am struggling to reconcile these two worlds - the one that exists now and the one that I know will someday come.

I want to believe that things will work out, that despite her doubts her family will come and there will be a joyous reunion.

I hold on to the hope that the world we are currently living in - with all the pain and destruction and disappointment - will not last forever. 

The Empty Space of an Open Door

This is my prayer in this season of my life. Although these words are not my own, they ring true in my soul as I rise each morning with this restlessness and aching for change. I ask that you pray this prayer with us as we figure out what our next steps are.

"Lord, help me now to unclutter my life, to organize myself in the direction of simplicity. Lord, teach me to listen to my heart; teach me to welcome change, instead of fearing it. Lord, I give you these stirrings inside me. I give you my discontent. I give you my restlessness. I give you my doubt. I give you my despair. I give you all the longings I hold inside. Help me to listen to these signs of change, of growth; help me to listen seriously and follow where they lead through the breathtaking empty space of an open door." [Common Prayer - A Liturgy for Ordinary Radicals]

Dream Awake

I have been having these vivid dreams lately, the kind where everything is in perfect clarity and I wake up confused about what exists in my dream world and what exists in my actual world. I have random flashbacks throughout the day of things that happen in my dreams, but they are quickly forgotten.

I have been thinking a lot about dreams lately, and not only the kind that happen while you are sleeping. I’m talking about the life-changing, earth-shattering dreams that happen while you are awake. These are the dreams that creep into your sub-conscious, slowly at first, until they are all you can think about. They start from a tiny seed planted in your head by yourself or maybe someone else and grow into this all-consuming force that you have to talk down daily. Otherwise they will take over your life and force you to make a change because once these dreams exist, there is no way to keep living like you did before they were there.

Just like there is a difference between sleep dreams and awake dreams, there is an obvious difference between being asleep and awake. There are several things you cannot do while you are asleep that you can while you are awake. Like breathing, for instance. Brad is a snorer – which I do not understand at all. I often yell at him in the middle of the night, asking if he has forgotten how to breathe normally. When you are asleep you can’t see. Your eyes are closed and you are unaware of things that are happening around you. You also sometimes can’t hear. I mean, how many times have slept through an alarm??

I say all of that to make this point – sometimes I think we act as if we are asleep when we are really awake. We go through life and pretend like we can’t see the bigger picture that often has been in front of us all along. We are also great at pretending like we can’t hear. Sometimes it is the gentle whisper that we ignore, but sometimes it is the big life-changing earth-shattering dreams that we pretend don’t exist. Breathing isn’t really a huge issue, but are we really experiencing the abundant life as it was meant to be lived?

We pull up excuses like the covers over our head and push the snooze button for what seems like the hundredth time and roll over into a new day. As we are going through our daily routine, the awake dreams start to creep up but we push them back down so we can get through the day, meet the deadline, go home to fix dinner and do it all over again.

I am going to be vulnerable with you about my dreams right now. Maybe if I list them here for all to see, I will find some sort of accountability. Or maybe I just need to know that I am not alone when it comes to having dreams that aren’t being fulfilled. So here they are. Some are vague and broad and some are very specific. My dreams, to name a few:

·        Adopt international children

·        Have children of my own someday

·        Join the PeaceCorps

·        Live overseas

·        Start a Fair Trade store in Madison, IN

·        Be a part of something bigger  

·        Visit my friends in Northern Ireland

·        Be part of a great community

·        Serve the least, the lost, and the broken

·        Love my enemies and work towards peace and reconciliation

·        Educate people about what is going on in the world

·        Advocate for the powerless and empower them

·        Work for an organization like Toms Shoes

·        Get a tattoo that says Jubilee J

I have been blessed with some amazing experiences and opportunities in my life so far. And Brad and I have been incredibly blessed in our marriage. Things have always had a way of working out for us. So am I just some kind of huge selfish jerk who can never be satisfied? Or is it something more? Are these dreams of mine crying to be heard and unsettling my normal life in the process?

We have been having some pretty serious conversations in our household lately. They always start off innocently enough and end with me crying and repeating the phrase “I feel stuck” over and over again until I am pretty sure Brad wants to punch me. One of our options (my favorite one!) is applying for the PeaceCorps. Brad is ok with this option, but he keeps asking me really difficult questions about why I want to do it. I can answer his questions with logical responses, but I know that what he is getting at is a much deeper issue. We recently read this article in Relevant Magazine’s Reject Apathy. The article is called “Saving the World Without Losing Your Soul.” Here is my favorite part (emphasis added):

But building a relationship abroad isn’t the answer if character and conscience haven’t first been examined on the home front. Chris Heuertz has too often seen Christians presume that relocating to a poverty-stricken country will be the answer to a lacking prayer life or deeper sense of nearness to God. Although occasionally this can be true, it’s the exception, not the rule. If not addressed at home, lack of discipline will follow a believer to the field.

“We’re over-saturated with information, and this information has awakened a responsibility,” he says. “But who we are follows us. Going to Kenya isn’t the solution if you can’t live justly at home. You don’t change just because your context does.”

All hope is not lost, however, for those who don’t yet feel like they’re living the way they’re called. The first step, according to Heuertz, is learning to love locally. “The best practice of learning to love the so-called ‘other’ is learning to love the person nearest you,” he says. “The consistency will follow us.”

But I am left with questions. Is this the sleeper’s response and an excuse to not take action? Or is there wisdom in these words? Am I alone in this struggle? Comments greatly appreciated.

Shark Fishing

This blog has been a long time coming. So many things have happened between Easter and now but I feel like I am just now getting a chance to catch up with it all. Please bear with me. My thoughts are kind of all over the place on this one.  

I went shark fishing the other night. For those who know me, this is quite a feat to brag about. I hate fish – in fact, I am terrified of them. Even the tiny ones that swim around your feet in the ocean send me screaming. But I went shark fishing. And I survived.

Since I am not an avid fisher, I was taken by the whole procedure. First you have to touch a dead fish (or have someone else do it for you, which is obviously what I opted to do). Next you cast out your line. And then you wait. If you’re like me, you expect a bite immediately but it takes time. It’s a process. You hold on to the hope that something will catch your line. You stand there for what feels like forever and then it happens. A tug at first, then a pull. Next thing you know you’re screaming and throwing your pole at someone to reel it in for you (or maybe that’s just me…oops). All of this waiting and preparation has finally yielded way to something. 

But what about those nights when you don’t catch anything? You stand there full of hope and anticipation, but nothing comes. You have done everything right – the bait, the casting into the sea, the waiting and hoping. But your efforts are in vain. The sharks will live to see another day. Just like in life, you make a decision to make a change and you throw yourself out there and you feel like nothing is happening. You feel like the enemy has won.

Right now I feel like I am in limbo – that awkward stage between waiting and knowing. I feel something shaking beneath the surface, tugging on my line, but I am still unsure. It is this uncertainty, this fear of the unknown that keeps my feet planted on the ground. But my hope is clinging to the thought that someday soon, things will change.

I regret to inform you that I did not catch anything other than seaweed on my great shark fishing adventure. However, I am pleased to admit that I was content with the process. Standing knee deep in the ocean with the stars all around me, I knew deep down that I am right where I am supposed to be - and I am not just talking about fishing at Vero Beach.

Life is about facing your fears and casting out your line, even when you are afraid of what might be on the other end when it’s all said and done. Sometimes it is the very act of initiation that is your reward in the end. There is a magnet that hangs on my refrigerator that I pass by daily. It reads, “Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”

Maybe today is the day to take that advice to heart.