Recently, God has been speaking to me about how my love for my children is just a mere taste of how God loves me.  All the intense feelings that I have toward my kids, God has toward us x a billion.  It seems then, only fitting, on the eve of Mother's Day to reflect on something I have been wanting to write about for one week.  

Just like a good mom, sometimes God loves you in silly, delightful, and simply fun ways.  Jeff and I recently had that experience.

On May 4, our daughter had the opportunity to play a part in a soon-to-be internet video by Wongfu Productions.  It took some bribing to convince her the experience would be worth it, and we were glad to bride her because it was not just an exciting experience for E to have, but, quite frankly, for us (and particularly for Jeff).  Jeff had been watching Wongfu videos since their videos first started hitting the internet about seven years ago.  A friend and former student is now writing for Wongfu and he had emailed to see if E would try taking the part of a seven-year-old girl.  

Lucky for us, May 4 came and E performed amazingly.  She was shy at first, but her true colors came out in the course of the three hour shoot and she was deemed a natural. Though he played it cool, for Jeff, it was all a little surreal--meeting these Youtube sensations, Asian American idols even.  We got to hang around at the shoot for the whole three hours and their email addresses are now on our contact list.  

The next day a friend and former student of our's was in town.  We had a mini reunion with other alums in LA at our house so everyone could see her.  One of these alums was the friend who got Emma the gig.  As we chatted and remembered the joy of watching these former college students grow in God, it was so fun to think about how this particular alum had grown from not even being a Christian when he entered college.  Our relationship started there and grew and now he still cared enough about us to invite E into his project, which was really quite a risk considering her lack of experience.  He'd known E since she was a fetus and now she was working with him.  It was touching.  

Then our friend fessed up.  It was not simply the case that E had been a convenient person to call for the part he was writing.  It seems Jeff had mentioned in passing a while back that it would be totally awesome if E could snatch a part in a Wongfu sketch.  With this in mind, our friend and former student then wrote a part for E and kept it a secret just in case it did not work out.  Now that's touching.  Our former student shared his opportunity with us so Jeff could enjoy his little dream.  It may sound like a small thing, but, to me, I just could never have imagined 5-8 years ago back in Ann Arbor, MI that the five of us (my family + our friend) would have had that day together on May 4.    

When you go into full-time ministry, you know you are giving up a lot of comforts and "normalcy" in life.  You hear and try to remember to believe that your rewards are the intangibles and that most of them won't come to fruition this side of heaven.  But, every once in a while God seems to give us these rewards that are just silly, just him smiling and saying, "Good job."  I feel like E's gig in Wongfu productions was just that.  God wanted to give Jeff a desire in his heart and he did it through a thankful former student who loved Jeff and our family and wanted to share his opportunity with us.  

Isn't that cool?  It's sort of like me allowing Jesse to stay up the night before his birthday party to topple his train cake while adding marshmallows just because I know he's so full of glee he may bounce right onto the cake.  God loves us like that, and he's glad when we have fun.    

It's April 20th and it's 84 degrees in the hot California sun.  

I have an almost three year old son (how the heck did that happen?).  He wears his pajamas 50% of the time and the other 50% of the time he overdresses himself for this hot weather.  

I am so very close to wrapping up (for now) two major areas of my life--class and campus work.

My abdomen is still sore from yoga class two nights ago.  

We're pretty busy.  I'm pretty tired, but not overly so.  

I can't believe Kindergarten will be over soon for my precious daughter.

We need to paint the walls of this house.  No plan to do it any time soon.  

My kids are practically professional flower girls and ring bearers now, and my procrastination skills are kicking in for my sister's wedding in June now that we are pros at it.

My sister chose to have her wedding less than 48 hours before my Greek final, the culmination of 9 months of language learning.  

I'm having a lot of dress drama for my sister's wedding.  I'm a bridesmaid and I've struck out about 100 times.  Need to find a feasible dress ASAP.

I wish March had more opportunities for relaxation and refreshment.  As we thought it would be, it has been an incredibly intense month.  Today, I'm concluding my spring break from classes at Fuller.  I wish there could be an opportunity for a real vacation this time of year, but with juggling so many things, I'm lucky to simply have had a break from class, which meant a break from learning new Greek material and taking more quizzes.  

Am I overwhelmed about the next quarter at Fuller?  Yes.  Unfortunately, it's going to be another busy 11 weeks.  It's not so much the studies.  It's the way the quarter system at Fuller overlaps inconveniently with work.  Last Spring, I took the quarter off for that reason, but since I am working on completing my 3 consecutive quarters of Greek, this is not an option this time.  In about 6 weeks, I'll be gone for a week with students at Catalina Island.  It's a highlight of the year and a great bonding time with the students, but it's also a bit overwhelming for me because it feels like a one-man show when it comes to me getting my students to camp, acting as registrar, and teaching all the material. This also means I'll get a bit behind in Greek class.  I'm hoping for the grace to get through this little hump.  I knew taking Greek with my life as the back drop would be like running a marathon.  Turns out that it might actually be harder since I ran a 1/2 marathon just a month ago.  

The nice thing about the quarter system is that the light at the end of the tunnel is always pretty near.  In a mere 11 weeks, I'll be done with Greek and done with class for 3 whole months.  Much needed vacation time can come into play.  My goal for now is just to take things one day at a time, and enjoy some good cups of coffee.  

Despite the lack of getting the full break that I would have liked this week, I did get a lot of personal life stuff done over spring break.  I'm proud to report that we got new front brakes on our minivan, submitted our tax documents to the accountant, planned ahead a bit for Jesse's 3rd birthday, planned and ordered all the necessary wedding attire for my sister's June nuptials, booked a hotel for the wedding, got haircuts for myself and the kids, bought Emma a guitar and found her a place to take lessons, and planted a few items in our spring garden.  Did I make the most of the hours gained away from the Greek books?  I would say so, and as a friend pointed out at church this morning, taking the time to get personal items squared away makes a big difference.  

So here we go, one more quarter of Koine Greek, concluding the semester at Oxy, and taking my family to Denver to stand up in my sister wedding.  What a spring it will be.