Happy Tuesday after Easter.

Today has no particular significance, depending on how you look at it. However, for whatever reason, it seems like there are words inside of me bursting to come out. I am currently curled up in a leather chair, sipping a white mocha. I'm at my favorite Caribou Coffee, one right next to Lake Superior. Out the window, I can see the wind off the lake whip the trees around. I'm not sure that conditions could be any more perfect for writing.

To backtrack a couple of days, I had a delightful Easter. My family is way too much fun when we're all together. We had dinner at my grandma's, and then she came back to our house to play boardgames. We're all pretty competitive, but we're always laughing the whole time.

In the evening, however, I was in a strange mood. I have an idea as to why, but that's not really important. I decided the best way to deal with it would be to take pictures. And that I did. I'd like to leave you with three of those photos.

 

Eggstreme Easter Eggstravaganza.

Something kind of crazy happened recently: 4,000 Easter eggs were hid all around campus. And by hid, I really just mean scattered, because they were pretty much right out in the open. Some of them had trinkets inside, and the rest had raffle tickets to be turned it.

That evening, there was an event outside of the SUB. The King’s Men performed, and tickets were drawn for prizes. There was free popcorn, cotton candy, and candy. Madeline, Christi, and I went down there for a little bit, especially to hear the King’s Men. They did an awesome job, in case you were wondering.

Toms Shoes video shoot.

I received an e-mail that TOMS Shoes was going to be coming to campus to shoot a promo video. It was going to be right after one of my classes, when I normally eat lunch, but I decided to skip lunch and go anyway.

Everyone who wanted to be in the video had to sign a release form. We were split into groups and spread out in a small area. Blake Mycoskie, the founder and CEO of Toms, was going to push a giant tube up the walkway, and we just had to walk up to him and listen to him. He was giving a preview about the next chapter of Toms, and we clapped and responded when appropriate.

We shot footage for about an hour. After we were done shooting, Eagle Vision interviewed him, as well as The Chimes. However, he had to leave pretty quickly, because he had a meeting to go to. But before we left, he announced that we would all be getting a free pair of Toms!

I even got a photo with Blake!

The video just came out last week, and only 15 seconds of it is the footage from Biola. You can see me for about one second. But hey! It was still a lot of fun. I’m still waiting to hear about my shoes, too.

Here’s the video:

FOLD Spring Retreat.

For my floor’s spring retreat, we spent the weekend in Hermosa Beach in a delightful beach house. Unfortunately, it was rather cool on Saturday and quite gray. As you can see, though, we still had a great time:

On Sunday morning, we spent quite time on the beach and then walked around the area. We walked down to the pier and got some Starbucks. I decided that beach communities aren’t real life. Just saying.

MOCK ROCK.

For the larger part of March, most of my free time was spent preparing for one thing: Mock Rock. Put on by AS every year, Mock Rock is a giant dancing and lip-syncing competition. SOS always enters, and there were seven other teams. Each team practiced for hours on end in order to prepare.

Our theme was Batman. We had four different scenes that carried the storyline, along with a finale. Monday through Thursday, we practice from 10 pm to 1 am. After practice was over, we would go get food and then have a dance party in the parking lot. It was absolutely exhausting but worth every minute of it.

Mock Rock was held on Friday, March 25th, and I have never seen the gym so packed. All of us performers got kicked out of our seats, and we had to sit in the aisles to watch.

I know it’s lengthy, but I would love for you to take the time to watch our performance:

 The video was put together by a fellow SOS leader, Greg. He also put together a documentary about the SOS Mock Rock experience, which can be watched here. He did a great job with it, and I really encourage you to view it.

Performing our dance was one of the most amazing feelings ever. After the night was over, we all went to In-N-Out. We ate and the moved all of our cars to the Staples parking lot. We then proceeded to have an epic two-hour dance party—one that I won’t soon forget.

Please enjoy some photos from the night:

SOS Retreat.

As I mentioned a few posts ago, I was selected to be part of the SOS (Student Orientation Services) staff. I was absolutely stoked about being selected, and I still love pretty much every minute of it.

The weekend following Missions Conference, all 70 or so of us packed us and headed on a retreat to an unknown location. I really can’t say too much about retreat, because SOS is all about secrecy (sort of), but I want to share a few of my favorite highlights.

We got to spend time with our crew groups, and I love my group. So much. My leader is Lexi, and she is such a beautiful person. Here is our group, Boy Meets World:

The nice one.

The one where the wave snug up on us.

The band photo.

I got to take all of the crew group photos (minus mine, of course), and I absolutely loved getting to do so. All of the groups had really fun ideas, so I just coordinated them in order to make it work for a photo. Here are all of the crew leaders; they are a truly amazing group of people:

I love when I tell people to fake laugh.

We also had a random lady take a group photo for us:

I never knew I could love such a large group of people so much.

That evening, none of the boys would let us touch our luggage. Richie even took my camera bag away from me, because I wasn’t allowed to carry it. The boys then delivered our luggage to our rooms.

Oh, those boys...

We just kind of hung out that evening. There was lots of conversation and laughter. We tried not to go to bed too late, because we knew that we had a full day ahead of us, starting early the next morning.

Well, that morning we woke up at a pounding on our door. We rubbed our sleepy eyes and headed to open it. When we did, this is what we found:

So precious.

The note read, “Morning Ladies, Please leave your luggage outside for us. Enjoy breakfast! Jesus loves you, and so do we. The Boys.”

We spent the morning doing different activities that bonded all of us. That was probably my favorite part of the retreat. The afternoon was spent at the beach, just hanging out and laughing together.

Fish faces for the fish eye.

Gorgeous.

I love Lexi. I stole this photo from her. It's one of only a few photos of me from the weekend.

As we were leaving, this was our view.

That evening, we drove back to campus and had one final activity together. It was amazing. Our retreat was officially over, but we decided to go get food. We just all love being together; it’s so great. We went to Boba Loca, but then they ran out of boba.

Photo stolen from Richie.

So we all got back in our cars and went to In-N-Out. We got some food, and then had a short dance party in the parking lot.

Our retreat was one of the highlights of my semester so far. Words cannot even convey how much I enjoyed it. 

Missions Conference.

Every spring, Biola holds Missions Conference, an event planned and run entirely by students. For three days, classes are canceled, and there are various events to attend all throughout the day. Speakers come from all over the globe to share at the large group sessions, as well breakout sessions. Representatives from over one hundred missions organizations had booths set up on Metzger lawn.

This year's theme was "Set Us Ablaze." It comes from Isaiah 64:1-2, "Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down, that the mountains would tremble before you! As when fire sets twigs ablaze and causes water to boil, come down to make your name known to your enemies and cause the nations to quake before you!"

One thing I do want to comment on specifically is an event called Global Awareness. Held in a couple of different buildings of classrooms, each room represents a different scenario that people in our world face. From homelessness in Russia to Islamic oppression, I realized how many global struggles there are to which I do not often give nearly enough thought or prayer. The students that set up the rooms did a phenomenal job, and so did the actors in each of the skits.

As I sit here trying to decide how to best recap the event, I realize that there is no way that I can summarize it and still do it justice. It was an amazing three days. The Spirit moved in unbelievable ways.

I think I will simply have to give snippets from my sessions notes, as well as a few photos that I took.

From Mark Parker’s sessions:

• You have been made for something more than you understand sometimes.
• You don’t have to change the whole world, just change the one you’re standing in now
• Our job is not to focus on sin but on Jesus—the Holy Spirit will convict us
• Whatever you think in your heart, you will be
• We’re not making Jesus Lord, He already is
• We are the product of the decisions we make, not just our desires
• Jesus isn’t about improving the old life—He’s about transforming us
• Jesus doesn’t just save us from our sins, He brings us back to the Father
• Passion for Jesus is the only passion that won’t enslave you
• We don’t invite Jesus into our lives, He invites us into His

From Kevin Humble’s sessions:

• We need to strip the Gospel of our Western culture and let it transform communities

From JFK Mensah’s sessions:

• It’s wrong to think that because of grace you don’t need to clean up your life
• Zeal for Jesus must be maintained and kept in check
• Discipleship of Jesus requires obedience
• Obedience affects character, attitude, behavior 

Shoes were scattered all over campus, each with a different country to pray for.

This part of global awareness represented homelessness in the U.S.