My Sincere Apologies

Dear friends and family,

I am so sorry for neglecting this blog site. I started a new blog when Derrick and I got married, because at the time that seemed easier than changing this one. I tried to get the word out about our new site but I just completely forgot to try to post it on this blog.

Well, here it is, our new blog about life as a married couple and life in Japan: www.thelogwooddiaries.blogspot.com

I hope that you have not forgotten about me and that if you check this blog again, this will help us get back in touch.

in Him,

Miranda

catching up!

Well, once again its been a very long time since I've posted anything. I hope you understand that this is not due to my own choice to remain hidden from my friends and family. I have officially decided that this has been my busiet semester. I will not bore you with all of the activities, classes, programs, etc. that I have been involved with. Basically, I have had a whole lot on my mind lately and a whole lot of things to get done.

Beta Banquet:
This picture is from my club's banquet. It was a Western style....hence our lovely attire. We actually arrived as cows and changed later. I
made the dress from a cow pattern shower curtain I found at a thrift store (een tweedehands winkel). I had a lot of fun making it and was so excited to be able to sew an actual dress from a pattern. Yes, I did this even though I was pressed for time...it was just something I had to do. Look at flicker to see a better picture of the dress and more.

Omega Banquet: The next picture is from Matthew and Adam's club banquet: OMEGA. We were all three at the same banquet and we had a lot of fun. For those of you who dont know my brothers, Adam's on the right and Matthew is on the left. Adam's a sophomore here at OC, graphic design major. Matthew's graduated from OC, working for an intercity ministry down-town OKC and at a porsche parts-shop.









For thanksgiving, God gave me a wonderrful adventure...perhaps because He knew I would need to be able to have some good, relaxing time before the stressful weeks that were to follow. I spent all of thanksgiving break with Derrick's family in Columbia, Missouri. He has one younger brother and two younger sisters. His mother, Jennifer is a hairdresser and Tom is Derrick's stepdad. It was really fun to be able to get to know them and have fun with them. I just wish I didn't have to spend so much time working on my paper's so I could have gotten to know them better, but at least I got a good draft written.
Anyway, we had a great time getting to know each other. Now, while we were there, derrick's car decided to break down. We had to wait till monday to hear the prognosis...it blew a piston and it needed a new engine. It would have probably taken a few days to get it figured out. We decided that since we needed to be back at school asap (we had already missed monday), we would try to figure something else out. After doing a lot of calling around, we bought a scooter/moped (a yamaha razz) from Derrick's cousin, packed our bags, and rode the scooter/moped home.
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ok, so I lied. we didnt really get all our bags on the scooter/moped..we had to leave a few things at the house.
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Ok, I lied again. We DID buy the scooter/moped, but we also borrowed a truck from Derrick's uncle to transport it back to Oklahoma in, where we plan to use the moped whenever we can to save a ton of gass and spare the truck from being driven too much. so, we drove back monday night and arrived at OC at 4 am on Tuesday morning. Needless to say, I slept in that day.

Everything else:
Ok, the rest of my week has been a mess. I would love to tell, I think it helps me think through things when I write them down, but I really need to finish this homework and then go to bed.

I pray that God blesses all of you!
Please pray for a little boy from Kenya named Chodo. He lives in a community affected by the aids virus and his parents are not able to provide for him and all of his siblings.

Crazy Week!

Remember that night at IHOP? Working on a project for most of the night. That is what a lot of this week has felt like. No I have not stayed up that late each night this week. On the contrary, I've actually tried to go to bed at decent times each night. But thats mainly because I have had so much to do during the day that I am so tired by the end of the day and I really have no other choice. I really value my sleep, because I enjoy it and I like being healthy.
SO because this week Ive had a few projects that I needed to work on, I spent a lot of time at the library. Some of that time was with my roommate and some with my boyfriend. Things with Derrick are going really well. Since I'm extremely busy with school and everything else I'm involved in and Derrick also has school and work, we dont get to spend as much time together as we would like. But the time we do get to spend together is wonderful!
Mom and Jesse have been in the country.....mainly to be able to have some time with her parents in Lawton. We had an early thanksgiving dinner in Lawton on Saturday so the family could get together while mom was here. That was really nice to be able to spend time with family and take a break from all the school work I had. Derrick came along too and got to spend time with my family. We had a great time.
Then on Halloween mom and Jesse were in Oklahoma City and we went Trick or Treating with Jesse. That was a ton of fun...watching Jesse do something we (my other brothers and I) never got to do as children. I always wondered what Trick or Treating would be like. But I would not trade my experience in Belgium for anything else, so I dont mind not having the trick or treating experience as a child. I've got a ton of other wonderful experiences to make up for it.
Anyway, now I'm just rambling on, so I'll stop.
God bless!

What you can get done at IHOP

SO, tonight I am writing a paper at IHOP (a 24 hour restaurant with free internet) for my senior seminar class, as my roommate writes her paper for a philosophy class. Here are some conclusions I have drawn from this evening so far:
1. I should have started sooner...just because I'm just writing a draft (nl:klad) does not mean I have lost my perfectionist tendencies....It doesnt matter how good it actually needs to be, I still try to make it as good as I can.
2. Three muscle relaxers in one day is not a good idea...especially if you're used to taking one a month and need to write a paper on philosophy.
3. Unintelligent philosophers make people go crazy because none of what they say makes sense. (My parents taught me not to use the word 'stupid' so I tried to avoid that word in this sentence)
4. Taking three muscle relaxers might actually help to write a philosophy paper because it makes you sound like the philosophers in your book. It also helps you to understand these philosophers.
5. Sometimes I feel like the next Curt Niccum...depending on who I am around and the comments they make. (Curt Niccum is basically the smartest person on our campus, mainly in the areas of Bible and language)
6. Doing homework with my roommate makes me draw more conclusions on her homework than mine....especially when she's reading about human robots gone crazy. I think she might be turning into one. Is that possible?

As promised, here is a picture of Derrick and me. This was taken at World Mission Workshop (WMW) in Lubbock, Texas this past weekend. For those of you who do not know, WMW is a type of seminar for anyone interested in mission work in the whole world. Missionaries come and speak to those interested to let them know about their experiences and to show them what kind of mission opportunities are out there. It’s a great time for missionaries to kind of have a reunion...that’s usually how I see it! I like to go to see all the missionary people I know and to meet new ones and to hear what’s going on in the world. Well, I know that I said I would talk about my future this time....it’s going to have to wait. We had a poet laureate, Robert Pinsky, visit our campus last week for a lectureship and I was involved in most of that, so I feel that I need to report on that because it was such a wonderful experience. First of all, a poet laureate basically means that he's considered the king of poets in the States. Robert Pinksy seems to be a non-practicing secular Jewish person. So it was very interesting to have him speak on our campus. I thought it was a wonderful experience. He wrote a book about the story of David which many of us have been reading in our classes, so he gave a lecture on that book. I was able to speak with him a little before the lecture because I was in charge of the registration table at the VIP reception. It was a small enough reception to where I felt comfortable to mingle as well. He asked me about my future plans and I explained to him my aspirations to be a missionary in Belgium, because said Europe needs God. AT this point, I did not know his religious affiliation and he caught me off guard by asking "from a secular point of view, why does Europe need God?" That started our Pinsky-Brazle 'debate', lol. It was fun. After the lecture, during the question-answer section, I stood up and asked him "Earlier you asked me a question from a secular point of view, now let me do the same....From a secular point of view, how do you see David's spiritual life and his relationship with God?" I think it caught him off guard, lol, but he answered well and we’ve enjoyed our discussion. The next day I also got to bring a 2-3 minute presentation about what I had learned from the book and the lecture. If you are interested in reading this, I will type it up and attach it to my next post.
I think that's all for now. God bless you all!

Randa's got a boyfriend!

Yes, its true, I do have a boyfriend. His name is Derrick Logwood and he's from Missouri. Since I know you all probly want to hear the story, I will tell you how it happened. Well, it all started our freshman year, three years ago. We kind of knew each other, but not really. We started hanging out at the end of our first year, but that's mainly because I was getting to know his friend Nathan better and started dating him after a while. Derrick was still immature back then. Actually, so was Nathan and so was I. But I never saw myself dating Derrick. He was fun...but too immature for me.
Second year we were both in Greek 1 together. We got to know each other better as friends because we were in that class a lot and thus we saw each other a lot. But I always only saw him as a friend because he was still pretty immature. He was a fun friend though. I enjoyed hanging out with him, but still could not imagine dating him.
Third year we continued to be in Greek class together, and he continued to slowly mature. We became better friends and started hanging out more. I had the occasional thought of "hmmm, i wonder if i could ever date him", and then usually dismissed the thought. We were just friends. But he was growing up.
Then, over the summer I went to Rwanda and he went to South Africa on a mission trip. I didnt think much of it until school started up again and we started talking again. We didnt really keep in touch at all over the summer. Anyway, this semester we started hanging out a little more, going to the same devo and talking more. He's not in my Greek class anymore, but I could tell from our time together that he had grown up so much more this past summer than I had imagined possible. For most of September I was still holding on to that funny immature immage of Derrick that I had of him from previous years, but every time we talked I learned more about how mature he has become.
Now, we didnt really ever hang out alone. We never went out on an actual date alone. Last week was probably the first time we had ever spent real time alone. We went to starbucks to study....then on a whim decided studies were done and it was movie time. We had a pretty good idea we liked each other then, but we didnt want to jump into a relationship to quickly, so the movie was 'just as friends' and we didnt even bring it up that it was anything different. All week we hung out more than we ever have and then thursday night it happened....we actually verbally expressed what we pretty much knew was going through each other's minds. Then, we decided that since we both feel this way about each other, we would continue our relationship as a 'dating relationship'.
Wow, I dont think Iver ever written this much about just one person on my blog. I hope you all understand how important this relationship is to me and I ask you to pray for me and Derrick as we embark on a completely new, exciting and challenging part of our lives and that God remains at the center.

Let our Lord be praised for He is GREAT!

OH, and thanks for those last comments. I'm really glad to hear you all are interested to know my plans. I will dedicate my next post to telling you about my thoughts for the future (and perhaps a picture of Derrick).

Once again I have taken forever to update this blog. I will try to have more discipline to start updating it more often. Sorry to those of you who check out my blog in the hopes that I have written something!
Anyway, school! School is going great! Its keeping me really busy and I have a lot to think about, but I'm relaly enjoying my classes! I am taking Greek (i'm in my third year now), Technical Writing, Linguistics, Senior Seminar (English) and Church Growth/Church planting.
Greek is going quite well. I dont have enough time to really get to know it as much as I would like to at the moment, but I know that time will come. Technical Writing and Senior Seminar have kind of been overlapping for a while. They were both talking about looking for jobs and/or grad schools and setting up a resume and doing interviews and sending letters and all that stuff...so amazingly enough I have already gotten way ahead of a lot of people in my class in trying to figure out what i want to do after I graduate. Keep in mind that I probably will not graduate until December 2007.

If you are actually interested in my future plans and would like to know more about what my thoughts are or think you have some good advice for me, let me know!

I am still grading Greek for Curt Niccum. Its always a joy to be working in the Bible building! I get to see how the Bible profs really are! I'm not working in the security office anymore. I got a job with the english department as the senior student coordinator for our new Literacy Program that we are starting. We look for volunteers who would like to help our maintenace workers on campus and people at certain sites in Oklahoma City to learn better English. Its such an exciting project!! Lots of people are asking for applications and I'm excited to see it happen!

Praise the Lord for He is good! He loves you all! Remember that!