Christmas has come and gone

Well, I havent posted in about 2 and a half weeks....school's been really busy.
My last few weeks of school kept me really busy and with not much time to relax or sleep, but I got through it, and with some good grades too. Despite the business, I still really enjoyed those last few weeks at school. I made time to hang out with some friends and get to know them better. Allt eh OC students who were gone on the Pacific Rim semester or the Vienna semester returned, so I got to see a lot of friends who hadnt seen in a few months. I had fun hanging out with them before the holidays.
Then, finals were over and everyone started going home for Christmas. On Monday the 18th, both of my brothers and I left for home...Antwerp, belgium. The flight went smoothly and we got to the Brusels airport about 5 minutes after uncle Mark (my dad's brother), aunt Jill and cousins Karina and Kristina arrived. Luk, my cousin living in belgium, and his wife HOlly just had a baby, Gideon. SO his parents and two of his sisters have come to Belgium to spend the holidays getting to know their new little family member. They've been staying at our house and weve really enjoyed havoing so much family around for Christmas!
The Friday before Christmas Listen Up, an Acapella singin group here in Blegium/the Netherlands, came to our church building and put on a little concert for us and other friends in the church so that we could have a good fellowship time. That was a lot of fun because I got to see a lot of people who I hadnt seen in a long time.
The next day our family had our traditional gourmet dinner...after our present opening ceremony. Yes we are one of those families that opens their presents on Christmas Eve. I cant remember when we started doing that...sometime after we all stopt believing in Santa. Now that we have Jesse we just have Santa bring one more present Christmas morning and fill the stockings...it works out really well.
Christmas day we went to church and had a good time there. It was nice to see church people again and have fellowship with my Belgian brothers and sisters in Christ. AFter church, the whole Brazle family and Holly's mom, Cheryl and a young couple from church, Johan and Katerina, came to our house for a nice Christmas dinner. It was great and I really enjoyed it!
Then today some of us joined my dad and the choir he sings with at the hospital in Brussels. EVery year, they go sing Christmas songs in the hallways and today I had the pleasure joining them for the third time. I really enjoy it a lot.

Life is good. God blesses me more than I deserve and shows me that He loves me all the time. I see him constantly in my family around me and a ton of other things and people. Praise the Lord, God Almighty! What a mighty and powerful and wonderful loving God we have!

Have a blessed holiday everyone! Remember the Lord, what He's done for us and continues to do.

Randa

sinterklaas!!! now less than two weeks and....

Does it sound like Im counting down? lol
Sinterklaas came on the 6th and I gave the cookies and chocolate that I got in the mail from the Sint (shhh, it was actually mom who sent it...dont tell the little ones though) to my brothers.That was fun cuz Adam was really excited to get some good Belgian chocolate in his mouth!
yesterday was a really busy day for me! Spent most of it finishing up a project for school. Then my club, Beta Beta Sigma, had a Christmas party at our regular meeting time.That was really fun. We had secret sisters to whom we wrote encouragemen letters throughout these past few weeks and yesterday gave a gift to, and we also did White Elephant with funny, little, big, stupid, etc gifts. It was a lot of fun! I got playdough!!
And after that I went out with 5 of my good girlfriends with whom I have a Girls Bible STudy every Tuesday. WE've been going through the book "Every Woman's Battle". Its really good and its been providing some good discussion for us.....as if girls dont find enough to talk about as it is ey. We went to an Italian restaurant called Portobellos and had a great time! We made friends with the waitress, Jill. She was our waitress last time a few of us went and she remembered us because we accidentally stayed past closing time without realizing it cuz we didnt know when they closed and they didn't kick us out. We gasped, apologized and gave her a card yesterday to show our appreciation.

So, i was looking up weather stuff, comparing the temperature here in OKC to the Belgian temp. I saw a link to get a free desktop weather program and an idea popped in my head.You know how in Harry Potter, in the dining room they can magically make it be any weather possible...I think it'd be cool to have either a screensaver, or a desktop background that changes along with the weather...and actually moves...like if its windy or rainy or something...Does something like that exist? Please tell me if it does, cuz i think it'd be cool to have!
SOrry if that was too random and childish for ya....but I think it would be really fun.

ok, I have to go to class soon...
have a great day!

Miranda

Oh, I have a prayer request real quick. A girl named Anne White, an OC alumn who has been living in Japan for a year or so, I'm not sure, has had to move back to the US because of her health and is now at Mercy hospital in Edmund. I believe she'll have to have surgery today and they're not sure of what the outcome will be, so its pretty serious. Please pray for her!

discussion question

Hey,
since Ive been reading Jane Austen a lot, its only natural that I would bring her novels and quotes up every now and then. Here's a quote by Mary in Pride & Prejudice:

"We may draw from [Lydia] this useful lesson; that loss of virtue in a female is irretrievable-that one false step involves her in endless ruin-that her reputation is no less brittle than it is beautiful, and that she cannot be too much guarded in her behavior towards the undeserving of the other sex." (p 219 in the Oxford version in case you want to know the context...thats Vol 3 ch. 5)

What do you think of this statement?

One more week!

This past week has been extremely busy and this next week will not be less busy, and probly even more! This last week of school is probably the busiest week of the semester. I'll be happy when finals come ha!But, I'm not complaining about the business! As many of you might hadve heard me say, I'd rather be extremely busy, than bored, so having stuff to do makes me happy. Its a very difficult challenge to get everything done that I need to do, still have a social life and not neglect my friends, and focus on God. But I'm enjoying the challenge and know that God is making me stronger through it.

This past Friday, my brother Matthew's club, Omega, had their fall banquet. SOme of the guys have made it a "rule" that I have to be at all of their banquets because I'm getting pretty close to the whole club and like them all a lot and love to hang out with them. I was actually an official date this time...not a third wheel like my freshman year and not a last minute back up date like last year :). (not that I minded that...it was fun!) A friend of mine in omega, Justin, was my date....or rather I was his. WE had a great time. We all went to Kent and Nancy Hartman's (the missionaries in residence here at OC...they lived in Australia) house and had hamburgers and hot dogs. We played games and wacthed Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, the movie, on a bog screen (well, a sheet) outside on the back porch. That was awesome. Then we all went to Braums, as omega tradition and after braums some of us still hung out for a while until it was time to go to bed....I got to play Sonic the Hedgehog on the Sega, which I hadnt done in a really long time! It was great!

Then on Saturday I tried to do as much homework as I could until it was time for our Third Culture Kid get together. I'll explain this concept. A third culture kid is a person who has a spent a significant amount of their developing years in a culture that is not that of their parents. They acquire two different cultures as they grow up and thus 'create' their own third culture....We have a group of this kind of weird people here at OC and we try to get together once or twice a month to have a good cultural meal. We meet at Kent and Nancy Hartman's house and usually Nancy provides an amazing meal for us! We talk, get to know each other better, discuss difference between the cultures we've grown up in. Its amazing how much we have in common despite the fact that we grew up in completely different countries and even continents. We notice that things we do or dont like about differences between America and our other culture are often the same. After we ate and talked for a while we told eachother what Christmas is like in our non-american culture and told Christmas memories. Then we played a singing game called encore. We divide into groups, the moderator gives a word and we go around from group to group who has to sing at least 8 words of a song with that word in it. Its a ton of fun! especially if you adopt the rule that you can use a song from any language you know!

Well, now i have to continue my tons of homework.....please pray for all those students who have a ton to do nowadays! And thank the Lord that we dont have to do all this work during CHristmas! All you American students...be very thankful you dont have to do all this work during Xmas....In belgium, students have really really tough final exams after the xmas holidays, so they have to spend their whole break studying....one main reason i'm glad i didnt stay there for school :).

In His love,
Randa

blessings all around!

Hello everyone!
Well, my life has been pretty crazy busy! Nowadays I always have something to do and always have two or three things on my mind at the same time, and about 10 other things that should be on my mind...or so it seems. There are times in these days that I am able to just relax for a minute and realize that I have the ability to get everything done that I need to do and there is no need for me to feel stressed about it, because that would just make it worse anyway. During those times I talk to God and He helps me get through it and He's the one who keeps me from being stressed out. Thanks to Him, I am able to enjoy all the little things in life (as well as the big). I notice the little blessings in my life so much...I cant think of a day in a long time (or even at all) that was an overall bad day....everytime something bad seems to happen, some euqally good has happened as well. Or God just helps me to pull the good out of situations.
I say all this as an introduction to my list of blessings that I think are worth telling you about. Some of these are just minor things that make me happy and some of them are really funny (well...to me) and really made my whole day....all of them are blessings from God which helped me to feel His love and let me know He cares and He wants me to be happy, even with the small things in life and even during rough times.

1. yey for breakfast and good coffee! (with cinnamon)...that always makes me happy! and chatting with friends in Belgium!

2. Greek is fun! (even at 8 o'clock in the morning)....my good 'sister in club' and Christ, Jeanette, and I often find something funny to laugh at. (something related to class...dont worry, we pay attention!) Often it's because our professor, Loren Gieger told a joke! Sure wakes up the class at least a little. Oh fun times in Greek!

3. I had a nice little conversation with Francess Sawyer, the secretary for the Language and Literature department here at OC. She's such a nice lady. I love her!

4. I got an A on my US History quiz!

5. Reading for my US History quiz I learned a lot! I'll tell you one thing: I used to tell people I'm an Okie, cuz I'm from Oklahoma. I learned that I am not an Okie...apparently, the term is for roughly 300 000 farmers from Texas, Oklahoma, Missouri and Arkansas who were forced off their land and migrated to California during the 1930's because of the Dust Bowl.

6. I got a package from momma in the mail with Sinterklaas goodies! For you those of you who dont know Sinterklaas, this is the European Catholic St. Nicolas who comes on the night of the 5th to the 6th of December.

7. Then, I ran into Ryan Miller, who is a friend of mine here at OC who lived in Nederland for about 6 years and speaks really good Dutch, so we had a nice long conversation in Dutch (it probly wasnt as long as it took because we both struggles a little and sometimes spent a minute searching for a word) and I shared some Sinterklaas chocolate with him.

8. Jane Austen class! Love it! We talked about Persuasion! Great book!

9. Spent some time having coffee with one my new sisters in club, Heather. That was a ton of fun! She's an awesome girl! She's from Washington and loves white coffee...to give you some random facts about her. Then we went to our club's weekly social service, singing at a nursing home. And after that she came to church with me (she usually goes to a different church). I had a ton of fun getting to know her.

10. After church I spent some time getting to know another friend of mine, Brian. We went to starbucks and had a really good talk.

11. I like the cold! Lets me bundle up outside and feels great to walk into a warm building!