a busy time of year

it is only 6 days in to december but it has already been a busy month already! i'm preparing in many ways for the days i'll be traveling over the next month and am starting to get very excited about the people i'll see and the places i'll go!

thanksgiving was fun and we spent it with great friends here in frace. we did our best to recreate the traditional thanksgiving feast and celebrated far from family and friends at home.

marseille has transformed into a christmas wonderland over the past few weeks. there are christmas lights along the streets, markets specifically for holiday gifts and a little bit of christmas cheer in almost every window you pass.

this month we've said goodbye to some great friends from language school and have finished our formal study of the french language. this has started a new chapter to our time here...what i like to call p.s. post-school! while i expected to have a lot more 'free-time' on my hands, i've had the great opportunity to meet with more students and invest more in friendships i've been building!

i hope you'll enjoy this updated slideshow of pictures! i ask that you pray that i would remain ever so close to the Lord above and that my hearts desire would be to please and honor Him!

bonsoir mes amies!

-kate

woman of character

The last few weeks I've been really praying about what it looks like to be a woman of character. I've really come to a place where I am clearly seeing my sin and am overwhelmed by the grace our Father in heaven has given me through his Son. I'm pushing on in this journey and praying that God will mold me into the woman He desires for me to be.

I listened to a challenging sermon today. The sermon was on marriage and preached by Matt Chandler of the Village Church (the church where I'm a member back in DFW). I realize I'm not married, no need to point out the obvious, but the content spoke a lot about things that we as women and men should be concerned about and things that we just shouldn't be. He mostly referenced 1 Peter 3:1-7 and shared about women hoping in God above all else. He spoke of how our hearts, as women, should be adorned with the gifts of the Father above...with the words spoken in scripture and that our actions should be representative of this. We should speak with wisdom, gentleness and out of godly hearts. We are to encourage and lift up those around us. To speak Truth, to love. These are things God has been teaching me about lately and things I realized very quickly do not come naturally to me! I'm striving to let the Lord be the one to take hold of my heart, to push me towards holiness. That I would have patience, the heart of a servant and the confidence that comes only through His grace!

I challenge you to make time to hear this one...and let me know what you think! Click here to listen.

Please also pray for Matt Chandler and family. Matt had a seziure last week and a mass was found in his brain. To inform your prayers, please click here.

pictures as of late...

i thought i'd give you a few updated pictures! we had some friends over to celebrate halloween and here are a few pictures from the night! it was complete with candy corn sent from the States!

i've had a chance lately to develop one of my favorite hobbies - cooking! i've had a chance to make some of my favorites from my time in kenya: pizza, tortillas, granola, etc. and some new ones like cream pesto, cake and creme brulee! i included a picture of my salsa (a weekly thing in our house...who doesn't like salsa?!?!) and my newest adventure, chicken soup! i'm looking forward to practicing my "from scratch" recipes!!! let me know if you have any ideas!!! in the mean time, i'm considering taking a french cooking class!

from fall to winter

Things are beginning to slow down a little. Students are preparing for exams and everyone is beginning to discuss where they'll go for Christmas vacation. The weather is changing. It has been much cooler lately, the leaves have changed and now many of them are under my feet as I walk. We've had more cloudy days in the last month than my entire time here put together. The time changed a few weeks back and it is now dark around 5:30. If I walk home after dark I can smell fires in the fireplaces. It's moving from fall to winter and I'm very excited about it! The stores are beginning to put up their Christmas wrapping paper, trinkets and candy. Marseille is turning into a different city.

My roommates, Katie and Courtney, have gone home and Del is leaving for England on Monday (a huge answer to prayer). Our team is changing. We had a great training on team dynamics last weekend and I'm excited to see how the Father uses this for His glory!

I have a new roommate, Leah! It has been a joy to have her here and she'll stay until June.

Just two more weeks of language school! You can lift up the exams I'll be taking!

The last month has really been wonderful. God has been revealing Himself to me in various ways all month and has been giving me great opportunities here. You can pray with me that I'm able to stay very close to Him over the next few months!

I have some traveling coming up! I'm hoping to make it to Paris before the Christmas lights come down and visit some friends I met on the Camino! I'll be going to Lisbon, Portugal to spend Christmas with some of my closest friends from training. (I mean, if you can't spend the holidays with your biological family, you might as well spend them with families who treat you like you're a biological child/sister/aunt)! I have another trip planned in January and should have a chance to do some snowboarding. (please do pray for this!!! if you know me, you know that I have horrible balance and tend to get hurt...I'm going for a clean record with no injuries!!! - that's for you Mom!!!)

I'll have the chance to cook some holiday food in the next few weeks! I've never cooked most Thanksgiving food items as I have a fabulous family back home who makes the "best" of everything! This year I'll get the chance not only to make it, but to utilize French ingredients too! Luckily some amazing friends back in the States were ready and willing to send packages with things we just can't get here! Thank you, thank you, thank you to everyone who sent things! You've served as our provision and we are so grateful!

To those of you wondering if I'm keeping up with college football, the answer is yes! I haven't missed a Texas game yet and have even logged some hours watching other great games. Galen and Leah are both Alabama fans, so this has been quite a colorful football season! I'm looking forward to seeing how the teams pull it out in the end!

Off to watch French softball and French/American football! Should be a rich afternoon!

Thank you especially for your prayers and support! Miss you!

where is my hope

"He will wipe away every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away."

Revelation 21:4

Lately I've had the pleasure of talking with and praying with and for some people in my life who are walking through some very grave times. It has brought to my attention once again the undeniable fact that we live in a very broken world. We live in a world of pain, death, tears, hunger, sickness, broken promises and darkened hearts. We are faced with the consequences of sin all day and at times it seems hopeless. We are naive to think that we ourselves can fix the fractured reality of our being. At times it feels as if we are just spinning our wheels, utilizing everything we have inside us, every bit of strength or know-how, and yet we never accomplish what it is that we desire: peace, rest, hope.

What a powerful promise we find in Revelation 21:4 - God will wipe the tears from our eyes. He will stop death, and mourning and crying and pain...and hunger, and sickness and broken promises...He will bring us into a new order.

"He who was seated on the throne said, 'I am making everything new!' Then he said 'Write this down for these words are trustworthy and true.

He said to me: 'It is done.'

Revelation 21:5

As believers we find some of our greatest hope in these words: I am making everything NEW...it is DONE! Praise God for His great power to make things new: "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation: the old is gone, the new has come." 2 Corinthians 5:17 "Jesus said, 'It is finished.'" John 19:30 Our atonement for sin was completed on that day when Jesus died on the cross...in Him we are a new creation. I challenge you to reflect on this truth and ask the Father if you are in Him, have you been made new by trusting Christ...or are you trying to do things on your own?

I'm praying that you would have an intimate experience with God today, that whether you believe or not, that you would experience Him in a new way and that someday soon you would have a personal experience of being made new!

I'm excited about the day when He returns and the world is no longer fractured. I'm excited about a time when I'll be in heaven and there will no longer be pain or hunger or tears or broken promises or darkness of any kind.

My hope is in Him who saves.

october 2009

well, it has been quite a busy month! language learning is going pretty well and i'm feeling more confident in my french. courtney had her last concert, i visited a really neat cathedral in town, we've had dinners with friends, our friend alice came to visit and we made an afternoon trip to nearby casis. i taught myself how to make a slideshow...so if it ends up working it will be my new way of posting pictures! courtney and katie are moving back home tomorrow and it will be the beginning of a new chapter for me here in marseille...would love if you could lift up the transition for them and for me!

red bull flutag marseille style

it was a fabulous day here in marseille! the sun was shining, the breeze was blowing, and strange aircrafts were being pushed off of a large platform at la plage david! we met up with some friends and had a really great time!

today was red bull flutag. it isn't really possible to describe the randominity of this event in words, so i'll mostly let the pictures and video speak for themselves! each team (usually 5 or 6 people per team) is responsible for four things: a creative aircraft design, fun costumes, a coreographed dance, and of course the ability to make their aircraft fly. Seems easy enough!