Apartment in Riverside

I never can remember who I have told what individually, so I'm telling you all corporately. I am the proud renter of an apartment about four blocks from the UC Riverside campus.

I emailed Patrick in late June, recent Biochem grad from Biola/Torrey now studying Genetics at UCR, and asked him if he or his wife knew anyone who needed a roommate. A few weeks later he forwarded an email to me from a girl in the Statistics department who I contacted right away and who allowed me to come see the apartment and meet her personally. Her two requirements for a roommate that she told me on the phone: 1, agree to set up a cleaning schedule so that one person isn't doing all the work and 2, call her if I'm going to be out late or go home on a weekend so that she doesn't worry about me. 

Since then it has been one surprise after another. The apartment is beautiful and fully renovated, in a small building and not a huge complex, in a quiet neighborhood, reasonable rent, and within walking distance from campus. My apartment-mate, Tatev, is finishing up her last year and is one of the sweetest people I have ever met. She's originally from Armenia and has been extremely warm and hospitable to me and my whole family.

My parents, as a housewarming gift to me and Tatev, decided they would landscape our yard, which was previously a four foot tall forest of trees surrounding a cement patio. About 88 man hours later, this is should give you an idea ofwhat the backyard looks like now:

From my bedroom window

I will not be moving into the apartment until early September and I feel extremely blessed with all of the opportunities God has given me. Also, you are all more than welcome to come hang out at my place some time!

Peace and Joy,
Lydia

Better yet...

Seriously.  Read the Night Angel Trilogy by Brent Weeks.  Individual titles:  The Way of Shadows, Shadow's Edge, and Beyond the Shadows.  Immediately.

It is imperative.

Emotional daze.

Joy.

Overwhelming love for the characters and the story they told and what it all means.

Yeah, I finished the trilogy about ten minutes ago.  And now I have not more words but fewer, for the moment...

Melanie out.

Wow, this book...

I won't say that much about it now because I'm in the throes of severe book-longing.  You see, I just finished the first book in a trilogy my brother has been saying for years is just amazing.

I have no words.  I will try to find them later.  For now... oh-my-goodness-it-blew-me-away-it's-so-very-very-good-superlative-extraordinary-wonderful-amazing-exhilarating-I-haven't-read-anything-this-good-in-years-except-maybe-some-old-favorites-I-was-re-reading-and-I'm-not-so-sure-about-them  *whew!*.

So all I'm really trying to say is, Wow, The Night Angel Trilogy by Brent Weeks.  So you should all go out, beg, borrow, or buy a copy of the first book, The Way of Shadows, and read it.  Fair warning:  It's very dark at first, pain without meaning, no hope in sight, a horrifying atmosphere, and everyone doing evil of one sort or another, including some serious sadism, murder, and rape, and at first I didn't really like it much.  But to quote the author in a Q&A in the back:  "There is darkness and grit in these books, but I think that's balanced and ultimately overcome with hope and redemption.  It's simply a matter of whether you think hope is wan and weak, or robust.  Is your idea of hope when a brilliant girl who does all her homework wants to ace a test?  Is your idea of redemption turning in a coupon at the grocery store?  Hope isn't vibrant unless it has to be chosen over despair.  Redemption is cheap unless there's a suffocating darkness in which even a hero is tempted to hide.  I see these books as a fight to escape from darkness to light, which is reflected in the titles."
In my opinion, he accomplishes exactly what he describes here.  It's beautiful.

Hm, guess I had more words than I thought.  But I'll have more still later.

That's my book recommendation to all of you.  ...Now if you'll excuse me, I've got two more books to read before I can next eat or sleep or e-mail you or generally do anything.  Um, yeah, I'll try to be a little more moderate than I just implied, but it'll be difficult.  So long.

The Beatles and Friendship

A not-so-random piece of trivia: yesterday was Ringo Starr's 70th birthday.  I know this because the radio station that's on all day as I work mentioned it.  The DJ also said that the Beatles song "I get by with a little help from my friends" was written by John and Paul specifically for Ringo to sing.  With these bits of information in my head, my thoughts then wandered down a lovely path that started with the title of a Beatles song.
I started thinking about how my friends influence my life, and how grateful and blessed I am.  And more specifically, how blessed I was to have you all as part of my Torrey group and as part of the Biola community.  How different my college experience would have been without the all-nighters, birthday parties, Apples-to-Apples, roommates, after session sessions, beach days, park afternoons, phone calls, and so on and on.  I've had much more than "a little help from my friends."  Sadly, the lyrics to the Beatles song are rather shallow and often distinctly inapplicable to our friendships ( "I get a little high with my friends"), and I really wish the song did a better job.  I'm not going to write my own song about friendship, but I thought that I just might put this post together to say "thank you" again to my wandering chums.
Over the last two days I've had a few phone conversations that were very thought-provoking.  The first conversation took place last night, and among many other things, my friend and I discussed things at Biola that helped shape us and make us into the individuals that we are today.  I remembered many things that I had semi-forgotten, and put pieces together about those events that I hadn't before.  Without going into specifics, I'm amazed at the timing of the events and the growth that I experienced at Biola.
When we're in Heaven, I believe that God will spend eternity showing us how He worked and the goodness He created and brought forth throughout the universe, in the world, and in each individual's life.  The intricacies upon intricacies will keep us praising Him for all eternity, because His works are infinite.  Yesterday I experienced a small portion of that eternal banquet, and I'm grateful for that.
The second conversation happened a few hours ago, and a different friend and I discussed events that had taken place since May.  It rapidly became clear to me that God was working just as diligently and beautifully in our lives over the last few months as He had at any time previously.  We say that we believe that God never changes, but seeing Him work is always a real thrill to me.
Thank you my friends for sharing so much Goodness, Truth, and Beauty with me.  You all have been His willing instruments in my life and I thank you for it.  May you all see God work in your lives, and may you all be blessed by Him.
A servant of El Elyon,
Sam

The Well Intentioned, But Ignorant, Dogmatist

This past week my parents, my brother and I helped out with my sister's youth group. Anna's youth pastor, Richard, dedicated a whole week to "Bible Boot Camp" in an effort to get this group of kids excited about learning the BIble. The first day was all about benefits of knowing what's in the Bible. The second day was on the Old Testament. The third day was on the New Testament. And the last day was on how to do a Bible Study on your own. So cool.
One of the speakers at Bible Boot Camp was a man who I will call Bob. The reason I bring up Bob is because in meeting Bob, I encountered what I will hitherto refer to as "the well intentioned, but ignorant, dogmatist." Allow me to illustrate. 
Bob taught the youth group kids that in order to go to heaven, you must believe in the Triune nature of God, the inerrancy of scripture, the ecclesial calling of the church and the redemptive power of Jesus' death and resurrection. While I think we can all agree, as Christians, that those things are important, I doubt that misunderstanding something as complicated as the Triune nature of God will keep people out of heaven. If this was the only thing Bob said that bothered me, I wouldn't have bothered mentioning him, but wait, there's more.
Bob also mentioned, when talking about other religions, that Muslim's worship a rock, that the Book of Mormon is nothing more than a plagiarized King James Bible, that no one in history ever claimed to be God besides Jesus, and that Satan is actively working through these other religions to lead Christians astray.
It gets better. Bob also said that you have to be wary of Darwinists because they'll lead you to believe that science proves the earth is billions of years old. Scientists just lie all the time anyway. There is no proof to believe the Big Bang theory, it's a fantasy. Stellar evolution has never been observed, we've never observed the formation of larger elements from hydrogen, and there is no archaelogical proof that the earth is older than 10,000 years. Perhaps my favorite comment that he made all week is that Stephen Hawking is just a nut and you don't have to listen to a word of his theory because he only does it in order to disprove God.
Needless to say, Bob is more than a little misinformed. I don't know where he got all his information, but he's wrong about 90% of the time.
His goal, of course, was a good one: to give confidence to these young kids that their religion is trustworthy and that there are answers out there no matter what opposition they encounter. However, what do we do, as educated young adults, with Christians like this? How do we approach people in the church who have wonderful intentions and who never waver in their faith, but who give inaccurate information and reasons for why we can be certain of our faith?
I admit I don't have an answer to my questions, which is why I'm writing to you. We all know that we will encounter, not just ignorant people who DISAGREE with our worldview, but ignorant people who AGREE with our worldview. How do you avoid "in-fighting" and how do you gently approach people who are just wrongly informed? I'm truly baffled by this man and would appreciate your help.

Lydia