Hope

Welcome to the Compings

Let's all watch this just one more time...




oooo...it gives me chills and makes me cry.

- In other Compston news, we are officially becoming the Rushtons/Compings. Stephen and I signed a lease on a house last night with our friends Ray and Shauna Rushing. We are going to move in together in May and become swingers.

We have been talking a lot about living in Christian community and what that looks like. We don't really know what it means to live together in community but we're excited about figuring it out. We want to be able to give without expecting return, be hospitable, love and confront each other, and share our views of God so that each of us knows Him in a new way. It's like we all marrying each other...which is why we're swinging.

Any thoughts?

*Edit: Due to some negative feedback from our roommates and a friend, I'd like to clarify that we are not and will never be involved in any type of spouse swap.

Happy Friday, hope your's goes a little better

So each month at work I have to submit a record of purchases and the receipts from those purchases that clients have made so we are accountable that we aren't exploiting them or anything, and I had starting making the record and finished with one client and put all of his receipts and record in an envelope. Then I got really busy and left it on my desk for like two days, so it's due today and I started looking for the envelope and I couldn't find it anywhere, so I started to freak out since it had all the receipts in it, and we would be liable to have to pay back all the money for the lost receipts, so I looked all over my office, in my box, I moved everything, pulled desks and tables away from the wall trying to find it, no luck. I thought the only think that could have happened was that someone had thrown it away so I go to dig through the trash can, and I see that another client who is OCD with cleaning has emptied all the trash cans, off I go to the dumpster and there is all the trash from my office, so I do quite a bit of cursing and go back in and put some gloves on then climbed up into the dumpster and start to dig. And of course someone had gone through the field across from the house and picked up all the animal poop. So I find myself standing in a dumpster full of overflowing bags of shit; yes shit. As my hair falls into my face and I move it with my gloved shit hands and much profanity I dig and dig to no avail. No envelope.

That is really the best part of the story, I stormed back inside and pulled everything off my shelves and shook it, and somehow the envelope had slid under a notebook and gotten up inside it. Of course, why didn't I look there first.

Happy Friday!

Over my dead body

You know how you can read some little quote and it just sticks with you. I have been reading The Irresistible Revolution by Shane Claiborne and he quotes Dorthy Day saying,


"If they come for the innocent and do not pass over our bodies, then cursed be our religion."

I keep mulling this over in my mind and being amazed by the beauty and mystery of it. We have been given the gift of finishing the work that Jesus started in protecting the innocent. What a precious thing for Him to pass on to us to continue.

To enter in

What a weekend I've had...Origins (our church) has these things called "learning weekends" where a person comes in and hangs out with the Origins community all weekend.
For the last three weeks Stephen and I have been meeting with a group of about 15 people reading Christianity and the Social Crisis and discussing justice in preparation for the learning weekend. So on Friday Rob Morris, founder of Love 146 came and spent the weekend with Origins and we talked about and studied Biblical justice, and it was so good.

Let me back track a little bit and update on what's been going on in my life and heart the past few months. As some of you may remember a few days before we moved to Colorado I went to IHOP with my parents and had some prophetic things said to me. One of which was "the journey's long end". At the time I didn't know quiet what this meant, (honestly I still don't) but since we've been here God has been healing and restoring me, and it's been so sweet.

"Therefore I am now going to allure her;
I will lead her into the desert
and speak tenderly to her.
There I will give her back her vineyards,
and will make the Valley of Achor a door of hope.
There she will sing as in the days of her youth,
as in the day she came up out of Egypt.
"In that day," declares the LORD,
"you will call me 'my husband';
you will no longer call me 'my master.'
I will betroth you to me forever;
I will betroth you in righteousness and justice,
in love and compassion.
I will betroth you in faithfulness,
and you will acknowledge the LORD.
Hosea 2.14-16. 19-20

I know I'm taking this verse out of context a little but it describes so well what has been going on. For the last two and a half years I've been on a journey of searching and learning and lately God has been opening my eyes to what he's been teaching me. I was telling Stephen this the other day and trying to describe how I've been learning all this stuff, but I didn't know it. I have been searching and God has been revealing bits and pieces of truth about himself to me, and in the last few months I've been able to see the big picture of what he's been showing me.

This weekend wasn't what I expected, in that we didn't focus on the atrocities of the world, but on God's love; and how without continual intimacy with God justice isn't what God intended it to be. One of the things that the Father has been showing me was that when I went to India I had a inaccurate view of God's love, and since really the only two commandments are to love God and love people, not understanding God's love really messed me up. When I though of love I equated it with affection and sentiment, and I didn't understand justice, and God without justice isn't truth, and God who isn't true is a liar, and that's a big deal. So, when I came back I got rid of all things in the church and in spirituality that I had believed to be true and started over, searching for what really was true.

I feel like I'm not making sense, but I don't know how else to explain it. For example, Stephen really wants to have daughters one day, and I can see how he already loves them and thinks about our lives with them. So if we were to finally have little girls and Stephen was constantly telling them he loves them and providing for them; then one day they came home beaten and bleeding and Stephen cleaned them up and held them, but when they told him who had hurt them he didn't do anything, then by his action, or inaction, we see that he doesn't really love them the way he's claimed to. This was how I saw God's love when I was confronted the atrocities I experienced in India. And so I had to start over and learn what his love really was, because I did believe that He was good, because I'd seen his goodness in my life, but I couldn't reconcile my view of God with what I saw. So I questioned everything. I didn't know what things I'd been taught were true and what things were feel good answers to hard questions.

Last year at the women's retreat with the Grove I has wrestling with God and questioning his presence in the lives of girls I'd grown to love that were still in the sex trade. And as I cried out to him saying, "what about Asha, what about Lota, and Kovita,and Shamilee", God interrupted my complaints and said, "Kristen, I know their names, they are mine. I know my daughters, eta amar meye".

I look back and I can see that He'd been trying to show me that for a long time, but I was so full of questions, cynicism, doubt, and anger that I couldn't hear the still, small voice saying, they are mine, I know my daughters, and I love them with true love. The love that when they call out to me nothing can stop my from being with and rescuing them. The Lord continued to show me that this love that I have for these women isn't because I'm compassionate, but because they've been calling out to him and he will not be silent. And I had fallen in love with them because He's answering their cry, through me, through Kristen Keen and Sarah Lance at Sari Bari, through IJM and Love 146, through the Hiltons at Freeset Bags, and all of these people are working in the things that they do, not because they love the women and children they work with, but because God loves the women and children they are working with. I know this seems like a simple concept, but when my world had been ripped apart, I needed to know that this was true and since I'd never been taught about God's justice, I needed him to prove it's truth. So, this weekend when our focus was on the father love of God and that this is what justice stems from it was so sweet to be able to know that this is true.

I'll end with one last story. Brad, the pastor of Origins, was telling us a story of when he was in Cambodia and was in a sex district, posing as a John. He had been talking with a child who was being prostituted there, and as he walked away he watched a man walk up and hire the child; as they walked away the scene of the two of them began to play in Brad's mind. Even as he tried to stop it he saw the man walk with the child through the dark hallways of a brothel and go into a room. He saw the door close, and he saw the man begin to molest and rape the child. Brad began to cry out to God and say why are you showing me this? And God answered, "I always see. I can't look away when the door closes, I am there each time. I've only shown you what I see each day and night".
As I listened to Brad recount this experience, all I could think was how beautiful, how beautiful; that God's love is true. And when those he loves suffer he cannot turn away, and he doesn't give cheap, easy answers for what goes on in dark rooms as innocence is stripped. He is truth and he cannot look away. He cannot close the door. And although he already suffered unimaginable pain on the cross, he cannot let his children suffer alone, each time he suffers with them.
In the west we insulate ourselves so that we do not experience injustice; but when we chose to climb aboard the sinking ship of humanity, and know that in doing so we will join in suffering, that we will share in pain that we wouldn't otherwise experience, we begin to share the burden of suffering. We chose to enter in and this is when suffering and injustice begins to be redeemed. Not through political powers, but through the body of Christ entering in with him and sharing the burden of the fall.


Enter In, by Angela Heirendt, pg. 9

Things I learned this month...

• People aren't pulling jet skis behind there trucks, they are snow mobiles.

• Bob Dylan is white. Until this month I thought he was black and I couldn't figure out who that little white man was that's on all his album covers.

• Go ahead, laugh.
  
  

Homecoming

Is is unethical to be posting while I'm on the clock and have things I need to be doing?

I know it's been a while, as Liz so lovingly put it, I should have made me new year's resolution to post more. I appologize.

This weekend I'm coming to Arkansas! My friend Katy got married and this weekend is her reception. I'm flying in Fiday afternoon and I'd like to see as many people as possible. I can't wait to go to the Grove, but I'd love to have coffee with anyone who wants. I'll be in town Friday-Monday.

On a different note, one of my clients has the Dirty Dancing sound track and I borrowed it and I'm rocking out to "I had the Time of My Life" over and over, awesome.

Come Hell or High Water

In Dante's Inferno the further into hell Dante and Virgil go the colder it gets, and those suffering are trapped in a frozen lake; as of last night I find this totally accurate.

Stephen and I have been pretty busy so we planned to take a break on Saturday and go snowboarding at Copper Mountain. It usually takes us about an hour and a half to get there and the same to get home. Steve's finals start this week so he had decided to take his stuff to study and ride half the day and then go inside and study while I was riding in the afternoon. So, yesterday morning we got up early and left for the mountain expecting to get there at 9:30am; unfortunately we ran into traffic about half way there due to emergency work being done on a bridge on I-70 (although when we finally passed the bridge no one was working on it, ahhh, frustration). So we sat in the car and yelled at other drivers with our windows up and called Stu so we didn't go crazy, and finally got to the mountain at 11am. Steve, being the responsible guy he is, didn't even get his board he just went to a bar at the resort and studied all afternoon while I snowboarded. It had been snowing and the powder was freaking awesome, but we wanted to leave by 3:30 so we could get through the pass and off the mountain before it got late and dark and the roads got bad.

After I had one last run we headed back to the car, and were surprised by the amount of snow accumulated on it. We packed up and got on the road at 3:30. As we merged onto I-70 we were surprised at how much traffic there was, but then again this was the first good powder of the season and a lot of people were in the mountains. We were also surprised at how slow traffic was moving, we crawled along for about an hour and realized it was because all 18 wheelers were being required to have chains on and they were pulled over, slowing traffic. We continued to crawl up the mountain toward the Eisenhower Tunnel as it got dark and the roads went from bad to worse. Since Stephen's finals start this week there was no way we were pulling over and trying to stay the night in case it got really bad and they closed I-70 and he couldn't get back for finals, then we realized that wasn't an option there were no exits until we got through the tunnel to the other side of the mountain and at the rate we were going that was going to take all night.
Both of us had headaches, probably from sitting in traffic and breathing fumes, so Steve chugged a bottle of water, hoping that would help. Thirty minutes passed and he started mentioning he had to use the bathroom. The road continued to get worse; people were sliding all over the place and spinning out. The Subaru proved her worth and I'm so glad we got her before we moved; we never got out of control but we were going about 5 or 10mph and inching our way up, not even daring to try and switch lanes. We were in the far left lane of the divided highway so were were next to the divider and had no place to pull over, which was becoming a big deal as Steve's need to go to the bathroom became more urgent. Let me explain the significance of this; on road trips Steve NEVER has to stop for the bathroom, I think he only goes in the morning and at night, so for him to be complaining that he really needed to go was big. Unfortunately we were in the worse possible place for him to need to go the bathroom, on an icy highway, in the left lane, on top of a mountain, in a snowstorm.
Cars were stuck all over the place and we didn't want to try and risk anything, but it was becoming an emergency. I pulled out one of our empty water bottles and told him to go in it and we'd just throw it away when we got home, for a minute it seemed like this plan was going to work. Unfortunately that morning he'd decided to wear his old snowboarding pants since they are warmer, and those pants aren't exactly easy access, so to use the bottle while sitting down he's have to take them down to mid thigh. As Stephen was considering the dilemma we finally began to get close to the tunnel, which also means street lights. At this point Steve was wiggling and squirming, wishing he could cross his legs. I even told him that if he needed to pee his pants I wouldn't judge. About the same time we got to the tunnel which is very well lit and traffic picked up to about 25 or 30mph, so we made a plan. No water bottle, we'd switch lanes in the tunnel and be ready to pull over on the other side and he could get out and go. In his excitement Stephen had confused the tunnel, there are two we go through on the trip one is only a few hundred feet, the Eisenhower is a few miles, and very well lit. We made the lane switch and got behind a minivan going 25. Finally Steve couldn't stand it and got back in the left lane, trying to get around the van; we'd reached a pee or die situation. But as were coming round the van the end of the tunnel came into sight, we began to freak out, "we're not going to make it back into the right lane!" As we emerged from the tunnel there was a spot, in the median where there was no divider, we pulled in. It took only a split second for Steve to jump out and begin to relieve himself. Let me paint this picture for you, there are three lanes of traffic pouring out of the tunnel after trying to get up the mountain for 2 1/2 hours, my husband is standing in the snow with the tunnel back lighting him, and in his hurry hadn't closed the car door so our dome light was shining bright. I was laughing so hard I couldn't manage to reach up and turn it off and Steve is standing in the open door sighing great sighs of relief. Two separate cars rolled down their windows and cheered for him as they went by.

It took us another two and a half hours to get home. Which were complicated by running out of washer fluid and the wipers freezing over, so I leaned out and tried to spray them with a can of deicer which all came flying back, soaking my face, which can't be good for you. As we got near the bottom of the mountain the snow lightened up and we could talk instead of having to solely focus on the road, which made the rest of the trip a little better. We discussed what we want to name our kids and whether or not we'd move back to the south to raise them.

We finally got home, at 8:30pm and saw that 10-12 inches of snow had fallen in Broomfield throughout the day. I took a hot shower and scrubbed my face then made popcorn and watched Seinfeld. Our trip to Copper and back, which should have been 3 hours total, had taken all of 8 hours and on our way home we'd hit a top speed of 35mph.

Getting back to Dante, I think hell could be a frozen tundra of highway, with no bathroom.


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Now what?

I enjoy change, I look for a good adventure every now and then, I don't deny these things. I'm done with school, I got a "real job", and I don't know what to do with myself. Since the end of high school that I've had something on the horizon; going to college, transferring schools, going to India, being engaged, getting married, going back to India, moving to Colorado, graduating... now here I am. A married Colorado resident with my degree and I don't know what to do with myself. The next two and a half years we're going to be here while Stephen finishes school and I'm going to have to be stable, no quitting my job and leaving the country. It's like I'm an adult with responsibilities and everything. I've been feeling restless and I think this new discovery is part of the reason, I'm not on the verge of any big event, which is how most of life is, I think. So, what now?

Last night we hung out with our friends Asher and Halen and talked specifics about staring a community group, which I'm excited about. We've been telling people at Origins, our church, about our old community group and how wonderful is was and we're trying to model our new group around the idea of our old one. I think we're going to start up in January after all the holiday fuss is over.

So, here's to new friends and rest; and not having homework; cheers!

Chestnuts roasting on an open fire...I love Christmas music

Stephen's mom told me you can't judge a place until you've been there three months, it doesn't feel like home until three months. Well, Linda, time is up, and I'm judging.
That's right, we've been here three months and it is starting to feel like home. I love our church and I think we're going to start a community group with a few other couples and I'm so excited about having one again. Since I've been so infrequent with my posting I'll give a quick catch-up on life.

• finished my internship
• had bronchitis (which blows)
• caught three little boys "sword fighting" in the bathroom at work
• got a job a new job
• Thanksgiving
• Put up Christmas decorations
  

I think life is going to slow down a little now and I'm excited about it. I put my two weeks in at work and I'll be starting my new job on December 6. Finally, I'm an official social worker. I'm going to be working for Imagine as a counselor for five disabled adults, I'm pretty excited about it.

I've also been going through some really fun stuff with God. As I've continued on my journey's long end He's been showing me more of his freedom and justice in ways I couldn't see before. Maybe I'll write about it in more detail later, but for now, it's good to be coming out of a desert and into a new place that doesn't rip my world apart quite so often.

I miss Pint Night

• We went snowboarding yesterday; everything hurts today.
• I'm mad we didn't get to go to Brian and Gennie's Halloween party.
• We don't have a small group or anything like that and I'm feeling the effects of being out of community.
• I love the public library, it's my happy place.
• This Friday we're helping put on an event to raise awareness about sex trafficking, I'm excited.
  

2 days, 2 posts

This morning Stephen woke up and told me to come look out the window, and what did I behold? Yes, the first snow. Yesterday I wore a t-shirt and it was 80 degrees outside, but this morning it was falling hard. It made me really excited to go snowboarding, I ordered some boarding pants yesterday and we're buying our passes this week; which leads me to my second reason for posting.




If you (reader) are planning on coming to ride or ski this season, whether you are staying with us or not, the sooner you buy your passes the cheaper they will be. Stephen and I are getting passes for Copper Mountain and Winter Park/Mary Jane, and if you buy your pass before they open they're cheaper, check out PassWagon.com.

Yesterday I counted all the Subaru's I passed while driving around for work between 9:30am and 2:30 pm.

Grand Total of Subaru's passed: 138

Viva Boulder!

Our new dog

Ok, so we don't have a dog, I want to get one when we move to Boulder, but that won't be until like April or May, but I've been looking online and researching dogs and I've come across a few...interesting ones...

yes, this is the spawn of satan.

Shame

I truly am ashamed of how long it's been since I posted, my blog is like the Harkey's, Yikes! I do have a reason though, we don't have Internet and I'm now working two jobs and about 50 hours a week between them, so I'm tired and grumpy when I get home, and you don't want me to post when I'm in that mood.
I'm still chugging along at my internship, really enjoying it when I have stuff to do, and I'm also teaching Pre-K at La Petite day care. It is an adventure. I do my internship in the mornings and teach in the afternoons. Working at a day care has made me really glad I have a degree, it's entertaining and better than fast-food or something like that, but not what I want to do forever.

I applied for a job with social services and I got a call Friday afternoon that my application made it through HR and they'll call me next week about an interview, it would be great to get this job, I'd only work 40 hours a week and be on salary, I'll keep you posted. The only downer is that if I get this job with DSS I'd have to work full time at my internship so I could finish it faster and start this job in a few weeks, which means I'd have to quit at La Petite without giving them any notice. I need some advise here, I don't know whether to mention this job I applied for to my boss at La Petite so that she knows what's going on, or to wait and see if I get it, so that if I don't she doesn't know that I considered quitting. What do you think reader?

I wish I had more interesting things to write, but I just work a lot and drink beer when I get home. I still miss everyone so much and we're waiting for Stu to decide when he's coming to visit (hint).

I'll leave you with a few of my favorite quotes from my four year olds.
-TJ coming out of the bathroom after nap time and looking down at his pants, "aw man, I peed on myself".
-Ryan pulls down his pants to show me that he's wearing his first pain of boxers and sticks his little butt my way and shouts, "it's McQueen!" (the main character from the movie cars).

Deer Mountain

A few days ago Stephen, Erin, and I drove out to Rocky Mountain National Park and went hiking. It was beautiful, we even saw elk, it was so exciting. The last few weeks have been good and busy. Stephen had his first full week of regular classes last week and it went really well. We drive into Boulder in the morning and I drop him off at the law building with his lunch, it's like middle school all over again, and I head to my internship. I really like what I'm doing and the people I work with. I'm working in child protection, so I get to interact with families a lot and see them work toward building a healthier and more stable family and most really do seem to appreciate the help they receive through social services. We don't just steal people's babies, as the common stereotype depicts.

Stephen and I found a church we really like, it's called Origins and it's in Boulder. It's really small and even more laid back than the Grove. The first Sunday of each month is all worship and arts, lots of painting and dancing, and people talk or share scripture if they feel led to, it was really cool. But I find that I miss the Grove and our friends the most is when we're at church or when I spend time with the Lord, at first I though that was weird, but now I think it is beautiful in a way. My friends and church were family and the body of Christ in a way I'd never experienced before, and when I'm with the Lord I miss the body I've left behind the most. Tonight I'm going to a group that I heard about through Origins that is about ending Human Trafficking, it was really cool last week, so I'm excited to go again.

I still haven't found a part time job and I really need to start working a job that pays me. I know I really need to be seeking God in this and asking Him to lead me and let me have a good attitude about working where ever, even if it's not ideal. But I still get stuck thinking little things like a part time job are things I should be able to do on my own. Anyway, the search is on.

I'll end with a few pics from our hike.

Incredible!

At long last...

Last year, on September 26th, to be exact, Whitney, Erin, and I got to hear Paul Rusesabagina speak on Darfur and his experience in Rwanda. Our friend Kelsey Schmitt took this picture and we've wanted it for the last year so you can imagine my surprise when I opened my email this morning to find it, so now, finally, here we are.



Erin was totally star struck, she got all giggly and kept saying, "I touched Paul Rusesabagina!"

Random Me

I wasn't going to do this, but I enjoyed reading everyones else's random facts,so I decided to join in. Even though it it creepily similar to a chain letter.

Random Fact 1: I have had a crush on my husband since I was 14 years old.

Random Fact 2: From third grade through about seventh grade I had an imaginary horse/friend I played with named Apple Juice (creative I know).

Random Fact 3: I put Cavenders Seasoning on my popcorn and I love it!

Random Fact 4: I have had Giardia three times in my life and I've had the runs on and off since 2005 (sorry, I know that's TMI).

Random Fact 5: I make up weird songs about meaningless things and sing them while dancing around the living room. I do this fairly often, and Stephen still loves me.

Random Fact 6: I have broken 6-ish bones in my body, my knee, left wrist, left shoulder, pinky toe/foot, left thumb & hand, and a finger or two that went undiagnosed.

Random Fact 7: I learned to say "no" at age 3 and wouldn't doing anything my parents asked me to do until they spanked me; and I never really changed.

Random Fact 8: I climbed Long's Peak, a 14,257 ft. mountain, my junior year of high school and it was the hardest thing I've ever done.

two faced compston

So, I decided to join the fun outdoor community of Boulder and I went rock climbing with some new friends, when I was climbing a giant rock fell from above me and I had to swing out of the way at the last minute, but it grazed my face and now I have this weird scab in the middle of my face making me similar to a batman villain.

OK, that's a total lie, but it sounds cool right. I'll explain what really happened. I had this spot on my face that looked like I was about to break out so I did what I've done to my skin since I was in high school. I've found that the best way to get rid of zits is to treat them like any other scrape or cut, I clean it, this time I used hydrogen peroxide and then I put triple antibiotic on it, I know this weirds some people out, but I'm telling you it works. Anyway, last night I peroxided the place that was bumpy on my face and it exploded a two square inch section in bubbles, I thought "man, that's weird" and went to bed. This morning I woke up and I have this big scab-rash looking think on my face, this should make it even easier to make friends. Any ideas what this could be?

Other than my new two faced identity things have been good, I still really miss good ol' Fayetteville, but I love my internship here, I'll write more about it when I have more time. Still looking for a job. The weather is great, it's in the high 60's today, and this afternoon Stephen is playing in law student softball game with free beer, so it should be a good time. I miss you all!

The first long week

As of tomorrow morning we will have been gone for 1 week, but it feels so much longer. We don't have internet and all of our neighbors secured their connections so we have to drive to a coffee shop or to Erin's apartment and steal her neighbor's wireless. Anyway, here are a few highs and lows of the week.

LOWS
* Driving across Kansas in our Penske truck.
* Carrying all of our stuff to the third floor in higher altitude.
* Already missing friends and being lonely.
* Sunday's without the Grove.
* My first of many tearful breakdowns.
* Not having internet at home.
* Job hunting.
* Scary men trying to get Stephen to give him money in downtown Denver

HIGHS
* Seeing our nephew Malakai
* The view from our deck.
* Being 10 minutes from Boulder and 20 minutes form Denver.
* Being close to Erin.
* Having LOTS of help from our family.
* Thinking of Stu and Lafe burning down their dunpster, ahh (sad sigh).
* Having much cooler apartment that our old one.
* Waking Steve up by letting Malakai grab his beard.