In trying to describe my life, I often say something like "I'm half on the schedule of college students and half the schedule of two toddlers". How else do you describe that fact that one night I have students over until 11 pm and then next morning I wake up to change a messy diaper... It's just a weird reality of my life!

It's never felt quite as dramatic as it does this week! I spent the last 10 days "all in" with campus stuff. Hosting students for our Reach Team meetings and meals for two days, hosting a LAUNCh prayer gathering for 60+ students, parents and community members, I went to Navs to meet new students, hosted a tailgate social for our students one night on campus (UWW won 73-3 in case you care ;-) and then an ice cream social for 30+ at our house the next night (Where Noah kicked them out just around midnight). I was ALL IN on campus as much as I could be...

And then comes this week.. I'm home with my two beautiful girls attempting to toilet train my youngest. Which means, mess, mess and more mess. It means house bound, and half the day in the bathroom, and singing songs about being proud of your daughter for putting her pee in the toilet. Like kind of the EXACT opposite of what college life is like... Having zero minutes for myself, doing 5+ loads of laundry a day and setting a timer to remember to take Josie to the toilet ALL. THE.TIME.

I LOVE my life, I'm So grateful to be in this crazy beautiful mess of campus ministry while mothering two little girls. I love that I can have students over, I love that I can serve by making an apple cake and hosting Bible Study in my basement while my kiddos are sound asleep upstairs. I love that I can invite students over for dinner and see my 3 year old ask them amazing questions about their day while they entertain my girls. I love teaching my girls about loving other people, opening up our home, and praying for students to know JESUS! I love seeing Noah lead Nav Night and then going home and tucking my girls in.

It can be INCREDIBLY hard sometimes, but it is so joyful and so rich. Yesterday Noah was watching the girls for the morning so I could get out and meet with the two ladies I'm blessed to disciple this year... and as I talked with a student who is struggling to be back on campus this year. After an AWESOME summer trip to Russia last year and a new relationship with a great guy at a different campus, she is struggling to be excited about being here as her heart is all over.

As we were talking it through, I got to thinking- I can relate. When I was in college discipling another woman, I could be ALL THERE! We could curl up on the futon in my room with our cup of hot chocolate and talk, and be in the Word, and pray, and I wouldn't have much trouble being all there. I didn't have to worry about dinner (I had a meal plan) nor cleaning ( a college student really isnt that messy compared to two toddlers!) Nor did I worry about laundry (like 2 loads every 2 weeks as opposed to 2 loads an hour)

But now, as much as I LOVE my job, I'm like an onion- I have so many layers. I can't go to campus and not wonder, "Did Ellie get to read that book with daddy that she has been asking me about? Did Josie make it to the toilet on time? Is Noah able to find something to feed them for lunch? etc. etc. I have more layers in my life- for that I am GRATEFUL . But it does make it harder to be "all there" sometimes... and I think that's okay! Just like it's okay for the student to want to be in Russia AND UW-RF AND UWW at the same time, I want to be on campus and home at the same time. And while that isn't possible,I am learning to appreciate the layers of your life, and ask The Lord to help me diiscern where and how to be fully present - even when it's hard!

So last week, I was up late and trying to live the college life, this week, I'm back to mom life- time for me to go take a nap :)

To see my dramatic contrast, let my pictures do the talking.

The first week of the year is always crazy on campus.

Students move in.

Tons of events.

Odd hours on campus.

Student Orgs Fairs.

Trying to meet as many new students as possible.

First Nav Night of the year.

Getting back into the routine of early mornings and late nights and students for dinner and events on the weekends. And trying to remember a billion new names and follow through on any interested students.

You get the gist.

Well, I must be feeling better as this year we decided to smoosh a whole lot more crazy into our week, so much so, that while Freshmen just moved in TODAY I feel like I've already conquered the world this fall :-)

On Wednesday night we did the very dumb or very wise thing of sending out our newsletters-- all 500 of them. On Thursday our 12-15 Student Leaders returned for two days of meetings (and two days of food... planned and prepped by me and thankfully Ms. Super Competant Leanne :-) And then Saturday we hosted LAUNCH 2014. It was an idea Noah had almost 2 years ago while still living in Champaign and last year we tried it and it was a huge success. So we decided to do it agian this year. We did it yesterday SO that all of our returning students could invite their parents to come on the SAME day they could move in their son or daughter (any returning student). So we had 60ish people for lunch and a program at our house AND prayer on campus yesterday. What an amazing way to start the year!!

Today right after church Noah went to campus to help with freshmen move in... Nothing like carrying futons up 10 flights of stairs for 4.5 hours to wear you out (and remind you that you aren't 18 anymore:-) As if suffering the late night Badgers loss wasn't tiring enough last night!! ha! And now Noah is on campus connecting with as many new freshman as possible.

It's been exhausting. It's been exhilarating. It's been amazing. I'm realizing how GRATEFUL I am for the incredible staff I had in college- both Ronni and Katie are INSANELY AMAZING at hosting and cooking and doing all it takes to make these sorts of weeks work. I have learned SOOOO much from them, I can't even imagine trying to do any of this without their example!

And I'm tremendously thankful for Nick and Leanne-our amazing staff! They know our house and our family so well that either of them could single handedly unload our dishwasher, find coffee extra plates, clean our house or play with our kids. They know how to jump in and help in any way at any time- AND THEY DO!

My parents were here by 9:15 am on Saturday morning and helped SO much, not to mention SO MANY OTHERS who helped in so many ways. It was amazing.

But of course, above all, I want to point out two amazing ways that God worked this weekend- as It is TRULY Him who is working. Our theme verse and mission for LAUNCH was Psalm 127:1. It's a verse Noah and I remind ourselves of often, " Unless The Lord builds the house, the builders labor in vain. Unless The Lord watches over the city, the watchmen stand guard in vain."

All we do and all the ways we host and love and serve and plan and reach out and invest etc would be TOTALLY in vain if it weren't for The Lord.

So Noah woke up Saturday morning to read his Bible- he has been reading and praying through the Psalms. And as much as it may be hard to believe, he turned to Psalm 127---- the Psalm for the day for him. How cool that MONTHS ago we planned LAUNCh and Noah's been reading Psalms for quite a while- and God blessed him with a sweet reminder of His presence.

Okay, that was a bonus story- I guess I have three stories. So here are the two I was planning to share.

1) We rented a tent form the hardware store as our garage was maxed out with 35 people last year and this year we had 60+ RSVPs... and after a few hours of Noah and three students setting it up Friday night, it gets dark and we are thrilled it worked, and Noah checks the weather- 40 MPH winds thru the night and thrunderstorms the next day. It had seemed like the weather was questionable for Saturday all week, but we just kept going with it. It was POURING as we set up at 11 am - but it was dry and beautiful at 11:30 when we started. The plan was to head to campus from 1-2 to pray- and at 12:50 it looked like a go. So they went. And it DID NOT RAIN! At 2ish, people returned and some stayed to clean up. The tent went down super fast and was just getting loaded into our van to return at 2:30 when it started to pour. It was pouring at 11 am, It was pouring at 2:30 pm but IT DID NOT RAIN FROM 11:30-2 during our event. Is that not amazing???

2) We had originally scheduled to have our student leaders at our house tonight for dinner after move in- to bless them, thank them, and make plans for how we would be reaching out to freshmen in the next weeks ( A year ago we only had 3 students in the ministry returning to help reach out- this year we have 15, so we have some new options!) But Leanne suggested we make plans to eat on campus instead and invite freshmen to join for their first meal in the dining hall. We thought this was a great idea, but we knew this would be $$ as students without meal plans are like $10+ for a meal. We were totally fine with paying it, BUT - Guess what each person who helped with move-in today got?? A FREE meal ticket good for tonight only. Thanks God! (See the picture of Noah on his way out the door ).

We stand amazed at how The Lord truly goes before us.... Please be praying for the many interactons we and our students will be having with new students this week (and in the weeks to come). This first week is so very imporatnt.

Oh, and if you're wondering. Yes- we're tired BUT I still nap every day and I miss out on a lot of campus stuff to keep up with my own health, the girls, our family, etc. Here's a classic picture of Ellie and Josie before bed- both in love with their blankies and "baby Ella" as Josie calls her.

While planning and praying today in Laurentide Hall, I noticed something:  campus is quiet!  Eerily quiet!  Like the calm before a storm.

Must mean there's a storm coming!

Indeed there is!
  
Two weeks from yesterday is freshmen move in here at UWW!  In the days leading up, campus will start to buzz with more and more activity....RAs, athletes (like one our students on the football team!), student orgs, etc.  Our student leaders return late next week for vision-casting and training leading into our Fall Kickoff, one of the most important times of our ministry year.

In the meantime during this calm, I'm praying.  Asking...begging the Lord to move mightily in the coming weeks.  There are freshmen coming to campus whose whole life trajectories will be altered (for better or for worse!) simply based on the people they meet in the first couple weeks of campus life.

Who will we bump into while we're walking and praying on campus?  Who will we carry boxes for on move in day?  Who will fill out one of our spiritual interest surveys?  I'm asking the Lord that the students He brings us into contact with will be like the good soil Jesus talked about in Matthew 13:8, 23.  

Oh that the Lord would bring us students like this...now or in time!

Please join in praying for us and the Whitewater students.  Use the above passages and watch your mail for a new prayer card from us.  (if you're not on our list, you can join it here.)

Thanks for sharing our heart for God's Kingdom!

For Jesus,
Noah

Our favorite restaurant in Whitewater does something awesome where they pack you up a meal in a picnic basket and you can bring it across street for a little picnic while enjoying the concert in the park. We finally got to do it last night and it was awesome. My parents were here so that made it extra fun. Ellie and Josie were so brave they even made it onstage!

Well the day after Mother's Day we started work on our basement and by Father's Day it was 95% done. Then the last month we have spent hosting and showing off our new place! It's an incredible blessing- a huge but well used investment!!! I forgot to get a picture with my college fiends last weekend but other than that, enjoy the pictures of our guests!

My blogging has decreased dramatically... Last fall when I was diagnosed with MS- Caringbridge became my means of expressing reality and I'm stuck in the middle of the two. Knowing that with my health being "stable" I don't HAVE to post on caringbridge- but I find that I need to as (1) People are reading and (2) Though I'm stable, by no means am I who I used to be- and I want to be able to articulate that the best I can. BUT we don't want to let this blog die as we love to use it as a way of communicating about life and ministry...

So here I am trying to express a million feelings in one short blog post... I emaield a friend tonight and I didn't even know how I was feeling until I started to write... but as I wrote, I realized it's totally how I feel.

So rewind to last year. I was joking that come November (when Josie turned 1) I would be done breastfeeding.. Which though sad, would mean I would get my body back. I would have been nursing,pregnant, or both at the same time for almost 3 1/2 years and I was excited to "have my body back" for a bit. When I got sick last October- it felt like a cruel joke - as rather than getting my body back, I completely lost all abilities to function as normal. It's hard to believe that there were days I didn't really get out of bed. I was sick. More sick than I realized at the time.

Well- now I'm at the long-awaited day where both my girls nap at the exact time every single day. They are awesome nappers and we have this neat little bunny clock in Ellie's room- so she knows she needs to stay in bed to sleep and /or rest until the bunny wakes up. So every afternoon there is over two hours of over-lapping naps. I remember in the midst of nursing throughout the night, short naps, putting one baby to bed to INSTANTLY have the other wake up, all the classic stories with young kids... how I longed for this day. I realized that someday I would finally get both girls to nap at the same time. I don't remember exactly but I know I had dreams for what I would do during the coveted nap time... Make a new meal, catch up on housework, scrub the floor, call a friend, meet with a student, and a million other things. I didn't know how I was going to spend the time, but I sure know I was looking forward to it...

And you know what - just like how I was "longing" for the day I would get my body back - and turns out I didn't really get my body back at all. My hope for this awesome "break" each day has not turned out at all how I planned. The reality is that I need to expect to get NOTHING done with the girls nap. When they nap, I really don't have much of a choice- I HAVE TO NAP. It's not that "Oh I'm a mom of young kids and am really tired all of the time" type of nap.. it's a "It feels like my body shuts down and I simply have no choice but to sleep" kind of nap.

So I spend those precious hours of quiet nap time- NAPPING. That may sound appealing to you, but it can DRIVE ME CRAZY!!! I'm a "do a million things in a minute" type of person and do NOT want to be stopped. But this season has slowed me down- in an incedible way.

So to be honest, it's simply amazing to me that I'm used to getting NOTHING done during nap time. It's incredible that in the Lord's patience and sovereignty He has made me okay with the fact that this is what the afternoon looks like for me. By no means am I saying I like it . (I mean seriously, if I'm going to nap every day- shouldn't I at least feel more rested than ever??) :-)

But as I was emailing my friend today, I realized that although I feel like I'm doing a lot of things not nearly as well as I'd want to be doing them... I truly feel like I'm doing one thing well-

I've cut out a ton. I say no to a lot. I get incredibly frusterated by my limitations and terribly annoyed that I have to plan my life around MY nap schedule. But I can truly say I feel like I'm doing one job well- and that is the job that I can over look or under value- the job of being a mom.

It brought tears to my eyes-to realize that The Lord in His sovereign love, mercy, and grace has brought about much pain and suffering. But the result is I rely on Him more, rely on my own strength FAR less, and each day am able to really focus on Noah and Ellie & Josie and the home and life we have here.

A year ago we were wrapping up life in Champaign and overwhelmed with sorrow as we tried to imagine how life would unfold. I can truly say I had ABSOLUTELY NO CLUE what was coming... but I see that God did, and in a way that only HE can do, "We know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them." (Romans 8:28 New Living Translation)

Smash!

Last Thursday we celebrated the end of this semester's PURE group.  PURE is an opportunity for men (there's a group for women as well!) to find encouragement and help to forsake sexual sin that has dominated them for years.  God's done a wondrous work in their lives, as they've forsaken internet pornography, masturbation, and sexual activity outside of God's good design.  Our world teaches that unbounded sexuality is the key to happiness.  These young men found freedom and joy in their hearts as they've embraced God's design.

As a part of our closing ceremony, we had men share "two-word testimonies."  Who they were before PURE and what they are now.  Here's what I heard from these men...

Deceitfulness.... Truthfulness 
Secretive..... Open 
Zombie... Light
Denial..... Acceptance 
Hell..... Hope

With these words come stories of struggle, hopelessness, and shame....followed up with light, truth, and healing.  They wrote their old identities on pieces of wood and burned them, symbolizing their death to sin through Christ's death on the cross.

These men are putting into practice Paul's words from Romans 6:12-14...

We ended our time by allowing them to take some genuine, somber anger out on the devices that have enslaved them for so long.  It was truly a solemn exercise...a joy to see them exercise their power as men, no longer as slaves but as masters.  We then held each other up (literally!) and prayed for one another.

Please pray that God would continue to deliver university students from bondage to sexual sin.  Pray that these six men would continue in purity, and would help others to find freedom as well.

Thanks for praying with us!

-Noah

I'm so behind on writing down the things ellie says... But she told me I couldn't take a picture of her braids because they didn't know how to say cheese :-) ha

I've decided I need someone else to answer that question for me as I don't know! I'm doing so well, but I'm still not used to life as it is now. So I can get frusterated that I'm not doing "better".

I met with a student today, it's finals weeks so it's our last meeting of the year! We did a little activity where we wrote out all the things that stand out from the year- what The Lord has taught us, verses that have impacted us, words, phrases, ideas, whatever... It's really helpful to summarize and look back on the year. Especially this year!

here are some things on my sheet :

GRATEFULl

live by faith not by sight 2 Corinthians 5:7

PATIENCE

Ask God to show you space for more rest in your life

Adk God to show you what you need to know about yourself

The goal is not to get back to who I was but to be who God wants me to be.

Psalm 86:11 Teach me your way Lord that I may rely on your faithfulness

Psalm 23:3 He guides me in paths of righteousness

Isaiah 40:29 He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak

TRUST GOD

Wisdom is not figuring out why

Be kind to your emotions

2 Corinthians 12:9 My grace is sufficient for you for my power is made perfect in WEAKNESS

That verse was the biggdest thing on the page, as I have learned a lot abou that, in fact, I was asked to share my story at a Women's thing at my church this summer, and that is the theme of my talk. So I look forward to sharing more on here someday...

I am incredibly GRATEUL as God has done a huge work in me, in our family, in our home, on this campus. A year ago we still lived in Illinois...What a year it has been.... my brothers graduation, my brothers wedding, a move, our first time training staff, new campus, bought our first house, at a new church, Noah's brother's wedding, Both Noah and my grandma died, I was diagnosed with MS, and the millions of small daily things that make life wonderful and crazy!

:-) I'm more grateful to be a mom than I've ever been. Thank you Lord for your presence each and every moment! Because of THAT I am doing well :)