this one's for you, hoss

Hi Friends,

I wanted to give you a little update and peek into my roadtrip from California to Illinois. My last few weeks in Fresno were precious albeit hard. I left on November 21 and arrived home on December 4—stretching out the driving (2800 miles) and fun (Disneyland, friends, and family) as long as possible. :) Disneyland was SO much fun! I went with 4 kids and 2 other adults, and I think I had much more fun than the kids.

A sad piece of news is that my grandma, my mom’s mom, died on Dec. 4. She was 86 and had been sick for awhile, but still this came sooner than I expected. Her visitation and funeral are the 16th and 17th respectively, and all my aunts and uncles are coming into town this week.

My sister Becca has spent her fall semester abroad in Ecuador and gets home on the 14th! We are very excited and it will be great to spend time with her while she has Christmas vacation.

I hope you are all having a lovely Christmas season!

Much love,
Sarah




















Me at the Disneyland Castle! The whole day was so magical...









Beautiful SoCal. How I will miss the colors of California!
















Red Rocks of Sedona, AZ















Jess and I in Dallas!

gypsy girl

Last week, I placed my toothbrush in a regular bathroom toothbrush holder--you know, the kind with multiple holes for all the family members to store their dental utensils. This was a significant action; I have reached a place in my life (albeit a planned temporary stage) where I am stable enough to actually take my toothbrush out of its traveling case. For the first time since May, all my possessions are in the same location that I sleep in. They're even in the house, not just the trunk of my car. This might not seem like a big deal to most people, even to many 20-somethings (who, by nature of our stage of life, are nomads--extended adolescence and the quarter-life crisis are a combination equal to that of sauerkraut-flavored spray cheese). But for me, having my books and winter coat in the same house as my pillow is a very big deal.

In the last 5 months, I have used 6 different addresses. I have lived in 4 different places ("lived" counting as at least a month) and slept in 7 different homes ("home" including a hotel suite). My possessions have been located in 9 different places, generally at least 3 places at any given time, one of them always being a car trunk. I have driven 4 different cars (for at least a week each), experienced the world-class Fresno bus system, and bummed rides from numerous people. I think I qualify for the term "gypsy."

While I'm talking terminology, I want to clarify that I am not a bum. According to the dictionary, a hobo is a migratory worker who likes to travel; a tramp travels without working; and a bum does not travel or work. Furthermore, just in case you were wondering, a vagabond is a person who leads a carefree, roaming existence, whereas a vagrant ekes out a living by begging and is often considered a nuisance. I claim the "gypsy" synonyms of itinerant, journeying, nomadic, perambulate (I particularly like this one), unsettled, pathfinder, sauntering. I reject the synonyms of aimless, errant, tourist, straggling, wayward, pioneer, and, sadly, fancy-free.

Something you should know if you become a gypsy is that it's very hard to perambulate with many belongings. I am by nature a pack-rat, and that has been a liability in my journeys. Every time I leave a place, I try to jettison some of my belongings, so I have less to travel with. Cast-offs go to the trash, recycling bin, others' pantries and closets, thrift stores. The other day, with all my things in one place, I looked at them and sized up the situation; and I believe that all of it just might fit in my car if I move to a different city. The hobos in the pictures were pretty smart to just take a bundle tied to a stick. Though I'm not sure why they wanted the stick.

That's all for this (up and running again) pilot post. More thoughts later on what I've discovered during this gypsy existence, including how to perambulate.

rainy day

Yesterday, in Fresno, it rained.

This is the first time in many many moons that it has rained in Fresno. Here, they have a thing called “first rain”, much like the Midwest’s “first snow”, where you have to be careful driving and many people get in accidents because they have forgotten how to drive in that weather. It was very bizarre to look out the window and see rain coming down and puddles in our yard. The last time I saw rain was in Colorado at the end of July, roadtripping out here with Jess.

I did not like the cloudiness. But everyone was quite excited: my host dad was happy and put on the special relaxing morning music, the kids had rainy day schedule at school and went out to play in the rain after school, we curled up with warm clothes and hot drinks, I made chili for dinner because rain requires soup. Their excitement rubbed off on me, and I did like the rain noise on the roof.

At work, everyone wore raincoats. I, in my Midwestern pride, decided that California rain could not be very bad and therefore I did not need a raincoat. I got very wet. I remembered my roommate who hated getting the hems of her pants wet in the rain. I remembered my polka-dotted rainboots, in the closet in Illinois.

At FoodMaxx, which is in the hood, I got out the umbrella from my car. Then a guy made fun of me for being a high-maintenance girl who now had rain gear: “Ooh, look at her getting out her umbrella. Wanna share with me?” At which a little extra moisture got in my eyes, because I was having a bad day, and that was just not the time to mess with me, buddy.

Last night, as I wore a long sleeved shirt for possibly the first time in Fresno, my host dad and mom and I talked about my bad day. My host dad said, “It will get better. Just like the paper says the sun will come out tomorrow, this will get better.” Then my host mom made fun of him for being cheesily profound.

But, it is true. It will get better. God keeps his promises. We think things getting better is like the sun coming out (and it is). But in the Bible, rain indicated things getting better. God promised as surely as the sun rises, he would come like the winter rains to water the earth (Hos. 6:1-3). Just like he promised: streams in the wasteland, water in the desert (Is. 43:18-21). And then it downpoured in Fresno. Rain in the Bible was a good thing, and it is a good thing here in the Valley, too. So even though yesterday’s rain was icky and made me wet, rain is God keeping his promise. So he will also keep his promise that the sun will come out. Things are gonna get better. And in the meantime, it smells like rain.

he will come like the rains...

Sometimes in life it seems like God is really providing, that he is letting all the good things come down from heaven like winning team-colored confetti after a championship game. God gives all sorts of good things from heaven, from up above.

One of the first unusual things to come from heaven was manna. Manna is pretty sweet. The Bible says it came in little wafers, white like coriander seed, and it tasted like honey. (I think manna was like Nilla Wafers, which are pretty much bomb.) The manna came every day except for Sabbaths, and there was enough for each day…for 40 years. For 40 years, God sent manna for the Israelites to eat in the desert. While I’m sure that got really old really fast, God’s faithfulness is seen in the manna raining down like dew every single morning for 40 years.

Another good thing that comes from heaven is rain. Where I went to college, rain is expected and normal and often annoying. Rain means having to pull out rain boots and rain jacket and umbrella and still getting soggy while I walk around campus. But where I grew up in a farm community, rain was important. Everyone talks about weather, even if they’re not farmers, and everyone knows whether it is too wet or too dry for the crops.

But I don’t think we even knew what too dry was. Now I live in the San Joaquin Valley, the breadbasket of America, producer of most of the country’s fruit and vegetables. But without irrigation, nothing would be growing here. Our yard is proof of that. We don’t water a lawn, so we have brown prickly weeds, and no grass. Lots of people are arguing about irrigating the Valley, because the fish farmers in the Sacramento Delta want to save their water for the fish, and the environmentalists in San Francisco (who get their water from a part of Yosemite National Park—Hetch Hetchy—that has been desecrated to make a dam) also want to save the fish and the delta. I wonder sometimes if the environmentalists and fish farmers do not like grapes and tomatoes and olives and nuts.

Emotions and opinions run high in the dry Valley. Much of the Valley’s economic system depends on agriculture. A nearby community has a 40% unemployment rate, largely due to the way the entire lifestyle is centered around farming. And farming just isn’t doing well, as farmers wrestle with a weak economy and little water; so they try to cut back on the number of farm laborers. No one here really expects to find manna in their yards or between the grape vines.

Israel also depended on agriculture for their needs, once they reached the Promised Land and could grow food instead of waiting for manna. If the crops grew well, Israel rejoiced in God’s favor. If there was a drought, Israel mourned God’s wrath and went hungry. Hosea 6:1-3 exhorts Israel to seek God, confident of his provision if his people repent.

“Come, let us return to the LORD…Let us acknowledge the LORD; let us press on to acknowledge him. As surely as the sun rises, he will appear; he will come to us like the winter rains, like the spring rains that water the earth.”

While we may be lacking water in the Valley, we’ve got plenty of sun. I never expect that the sun will not be shining when I get up in the morning—it’s always there. And just as the sun comes up every day, so will God come to us with rain.

All the good things come from heaven. Manna, rain, sun. Sometimes it seems so dry, and the manna so long ago. But they’re coming anyway, as surely as the sun rises every day. God will come to us to give manna in the desert and rains to water the earth.

piecing together peace

So much has been happening in my life lately. I want to write, but I find myself at a loss for words to describe the upheaval that is taking place. So I turn mostly to other people's words and thoughts to explain it for me.


Why did you bring us out in the desert to starve to death? It would have been better if we had stayed in Egypt! --the Israelites in the desert, repeatedly, in many different places

I know you didn't bring me out here to drown
so why am I 10 feet under and upside down
barely surviving has become my purpose
cause I'm so used to living underneath the surface

if I could just see you everything will be alright
if I see you the storminess will turn to light

and I will walk on water
and you will catch me if I fall
and I will get lost into your eyes
and everything will be all right
i know everything will be all right --Lifehouse, "Storm"

When peace like a river attendeth my way
When sorrows like sea billows roll
Whatever my lot
Thou hast taught me to say
It is well, it is well with my soul --Horatio Spafford, "It is Well With My Soul"

As surely as the sun will rise, you’ll come to us
As surely as the dawn appears
You’ll come --Hillsong, "You'll Come", taken from Hosea 6:1-3

Maybe Adam and Eve threw a party when the sun came up
After they had experienced the first night and darkness ever --my friend Jess' class

Our God is the one Constant in the tossing waves and darkness. --my friend Hannah


It's more important what I'm retreating to, not from. --Hannah again


If there’s something I’m learning since I graduated, something I’m experiencing since I’ve moved across the country to be a Cali girl, it’s this:

When something upsetting happens,
and I have nothing to do, to occupy myself with, to distract myself with
or I have no one to call because our family plan has run out of minutes
so I can only call on nights and weekends
and by the time I reach 9pm everyone else is asleep far away in a different time zone

If there’s something I’m learning,
It’s that when the waves and darkness come, I need to fall hard on God, instead of anywhere or anyone else.

If there’s something I’m experiencing,
It’s that I can and will fall hard on God. And he will surely catch me when I fall.