Friday, October 29, 2010

Mountain top high....

Last weekend I went on my church’s college age retreat to Estes Park. And to be honest I didn’t want to go for many reasons one being that I just didn’t want to spend the money or time. But after being asked by the pastor if I was going the guilt set in. so I registered and paid and after my father told me to shut up and go I went. I drove up with two of the girls in my community group, which was such blast. I was in a room with 4 other girls, two of which I already knew. When the first session started I knew I was supposed to be there. The theme of the retreat was everything, based off of Romans 8:28-32. After the first session we met in “family” groups of 6 people, I was a “family” lead. My family group was awesome; it was so obvious that Gods hand was in on picking us. 3 of us were raised by fathers who were police officers. Almost immediately we all opened up and dove right into things. The first night was so much fun, talking, laughing and bonding. On Saturday we had 2 sessions, the first one was 2 hours to have alone time with God. And at first I wasn’t feeling it, but then out of no where God asked me “why are you so afraid of marriage?” so I journaled about it for a couple of pages before I had to stop and pray. I started to realize it was because I wasn’t willing to give God my future, because I wasn’t giving my past either. Then it was time for family discussions so we all talked about what our time with God was like, which was great being able to hear how the others in my family group did with their time.  Then lunch and the 3 session began and then finally free time. So I rested and hung out with some of my girlfriends. Later that night we had our fourth session, I was stoked because so far it was all going so well. Little did I know. The worship was amazing I really felt Gods presence. I was stoked for the talk. And so the talk began….it was like Jordan was talking to me. The talk was about giving God what you are holding on to. He gave us note cards and pens to write down what it was that we weren’t allowing God to have. I lost it, as the tears streamed down my face I realized I HAD to give God my future and my past because HE gave me everything, so in order to be obidient I had to give it to him. I sat for a minute after I had written on my card and prayed. I asked God to take this from me, to give me peace and I told Him I was done holding on to my future and my past, I was finally ready to let go and let Him take control of everything in my life. What I thought would be so simple was impossible, my fear of making the wrong choice, rushing things and not being good enough or too much was all I had left. It was the one thing I could “control”. I’m not saying now that I gave God my future all is well, no it’s not at all like that. I am still struggling with the fact that I am terrified of making the wrong choice and rushing things and not being good enough or too much, but I do have peace of mind knowing that God is the one in control and that He really does know best, and best of all that I am being obedient. I know that obedience isn’t the easiest of choices but I know it’s the right choice. This weekend not only opened my eyes and heart to what God desires for me but also confirmed what I was starting to believe and that’s I am supposed to be here in Colorado and that I need to just be still and wait for Gods call to go back to Africa weather that’s Swaziland or somewhere else, because He is in control of my future and He wants to use my past for His glory.

Thursday, September 9, 2010

and a creeper came a knockin.....

I have neglected my blog for a while but only because I’ve been so busy lately, it doesn’t seem like anything that exciting has happened since my last post though other then the usual, well maybe a few things have happened………


Last night while I was sleeping I was rudely awaken by loud knocking on my door around midnight. My roommate and I ran into our hallway looked at each other and did what all girls do when they are scared, whined and whimpered. We both had this sheer look of panic on our faces. But can you blame us? Its midnight, we are two young women and we are pretty defenseless at that moment. So after a seemed like 10 minutes of debating on what to do us finally go down stairs and look out the peep-hole mean while creeper is still knocking loudly. But because we didn’t have the porch light on we couldn’t see anything other then the dark outline of what looked like a man. So we stand by the door whispering to each other. And of course creeper is still knocking on the door. Finally he stops and we hear the screen door slam closed so I tell her to run to her room and look out her window to see if she could see anything, but once again it’s too dark to see anything. She and I come up with a plan if he comes back, and crawl back into bed. Needless to say neither of us really slept last night.

I have recently become obsessed with the game super Mario brothers for the WII. Sunday night I was at my friend’s mom’s house and we played it until 2:30 in the morning. We played it so much that I had dreams about it. It’s bad. But I love that game; it’s like the original game for the first Nintendo, but upgraded and even more awesome. I will play it so much that my thumb will get sore. I’m not a video game person by any means but this game is just so fun.

This week marks the one year anniversary of when I left for Africa so this week has been a little rough not to mention that I cried like a baby at airport on Monday when I dropped Justin off. Last night was really hard, as I was laying in bed thinking about what I was doing that night a year ago. I couldn’t help but remember what was going through my head and how excited I was for the journey I was just barely starting. Its so insane how much will change in a year or even three months. I am so thankful that God put every one of my teammates in my life and that He used me in the ways He did in Africa!

My thoughts and prayers are with the Sample family this week as they grieve the loss of their wife and mother Mary Sample. She is with our Lord and Savior Jesus dancing and rejoicing with Him and His angels. Rest in Peace Mary. i was blessed with the chance to serve in Africa with Marys daughter Sydney, I pray God is surrounding Sydney and her family in this hard time.

Monday, August 16, 2010

meeting Troy Tulowitzki

I have a slight obsession with Troy Tulowitski; he plays for the Colorado Rockies. He’s super hot. And I love him. Last summer I went to a game with some friends, and I decided to make a sign to help move things along with him. So I made a sign that said “hey Tulo….call me….303********” but instead of stars I put my actual number. So while he was warming up my friends and I went down to watch and I of course brought my sign. I was literally 5 feet from him, he and all his teammates saw it, laughed and continued on warming up. Mean while I get put on the jumbotron and on the local news stations. So as you can imagine the calls came flooding in, terrible idea. I got weird text messages, voicemails and pictures. One guy in the middle of the game called and claimed to be him, clearly not the real Troy.




A couple of weeks later I went to another game with some different friends. And chose not to bring the sign, a wise choice if I may say so my self. After the game we went down town for food and drinks. After eating we starting our 15 minute walk back to the car about 5 minutes into the walk we see this really cool old mustang start coming our way so we all stop and stair, mid stair I realize who is driving the car….so I scream “OH MY GOSH ITS TRULO!!!” yes I yelled trulo, I combined Tulo and Troy. So then I decide chasing his car seemed like a good idea, so I run for block or so in my flip flops with my giant purse beating the crap out of me. I catch up to him and we make eye contact, in my excitement/nervousness all I can say is “hi” in the most awkward voice, I sounded like a 14 year old boy going through puberty. He waves and laughs at me. then the light changes and he attempts to drive off but grind his gears, my theory is that he was either A. captivated by my beauty or B. scared I was going to dive into the car. I’m pretty sure it was the first one; he was captivated by my beauty. :)

While I was in Africa this fall he got married, I was crushed. Still am in fact. :)

Friday, August 13, 2010

my thank you letter to my supporters from my trip to swaziland.

i thought i should share what all i did while i was in Africa this past fall. this is the letter i sent out to my supporters....

Dear friends and family,




I want to start off by saying thank you. Thank you all for your support both financially and in prayer, I couldn’t have done with out both of those. Also thank you for supporting me when I felt like God was asking me to stay until December. I was so blessed by it all and being able to stay the extra 7 weeks was amazing. I want to share with you what I did while I was there but in order to do so I will need to give you some background knowledge. In Swaziland they speak SiSwati and English, but most people over the age of 40 don’t speak much if any English so we had translators everywhere we went which was such a blessing. We were able to learn some SiSwati but it is a very hard language to learn. In Swaziland out of respect any woman over the age of about 45 or so weather she is a grandmother or not you call her Gogo. In the Swazi culture and government adoption is very hard and almost impossible because they believe that the children should be with family, so kids who have been orphaned go to family members weather they want them or not. So for many kids they will wonder the streets doing whatever it takes to make it until they find a Gogo who will take them in. And in order to make ends meet with the Gogos they make mats and necklaces and timbalicrafts purses. The Timbali crafts purses are these great bags that Adventures in Missions helps get the supplies and sell for the Gogos. (which was one of our ministries)? The first town we were in was Nsoko; it is a small rural community in southern Swaziland. In that town alone over 90% of the people who volunteered to be test for HIV/AIDS tested positive. We were in Nsoko for over 7 weeks. We lived in the team house which had running water in the bath rooms and in the kitchen most of the time. The team house was located in the heart of it all, it was on the land that AIM owned and the local pastor –pastor Gift and his family, lived. It was also a care point. A care point is a small concrete building that has been set up by pastor Gift and AIM, where local kids are taught and watched by the Gogos who volunteer, they also cook a meal which most of the time is the only meal these kids get, and anyone can come get the food. The kids who attend these care points are mostly under the age of 8, and if they are older it’s because they can’t afford to go to school. (this was another of our ministries.) in Nsoko there were 9 care points set up throughout the area, since there were 19 girls on my team we split off into smaller teams and went to different care points throughout the week in the mornings for a couple of hours. After working at our care points we would come back to our house and eat lunch, play with the kids and then go on house visits. House visits were hard but much needed, we would go to the homes of those in the community who either didn’t know Christ or did and were sick and dying. We would pray with them, read some bible passages and love on them. there were two main house visits we did one was to a woman named Dudu, she was 27 dying from tuberculosis and AIDS. She had an 8 year old daughter and a one year old son. When I first met her I knew there was something special about her, she told us a little bit of her story, her mother is a Zionist ( which is a form of Christianity, they are right on with something’s and way off on others. They believe in ancestral worship.) and her father is a “medicine man”. But she told us she was a Christian; while we visited we would read her the bible pray and would bring her an orange fanta soft drink which was her favorite. We also were able to throw a birthday party for her son S’nethemba ( sin-ah-tim-bah, which means we have hope.) who was turning one! We spent almost 2 months getting to know her and loving her, we all were struggling with why God hadn’t taken her home, she was in so much pain, could hardly breath and couldn’t do anything for her self. One of our leaders explained it to us one night, she said “God isn’t done using her, she is still glorifying God.” When we heard that it clicked in me, although we feel like we are ministering to her she is really the one who is ministering to us. Her story has touched each and every one of us in some way, she was so grounded in her faith and although she was suffering she knew it was going to glorify God which is the end goal for all of us aren’t it? A few weeks after finally getting it her body started to fail her more and more each day. On October 28th, 2009 a few short hours after a team mate and I had gone to visit her she passed away, it broke our hearts but our comfort was know that she was with Jesus know and we knew she was no longer suffering.

The pastor we worked with, pastor Gift is such an incredible man of God, he is known for loving all those who need love and finding homes for the kids who had been orphaned or even just dropped off and left for dead. We worked with a Gogo who had taken in a boy years ago named Sabelo who was a double orphan meaning both his parents died and no living relatives, so this Gogo took him in and had been raising him for years. Sabelo is so very sweet and kind and is extremely obedient. He has a sponsor so he is able to attend school. One night a 14 year old pregnant girl came to our door looking for help. Her name is Abigail. She was raped by her uncle for weeks, infected with HIV and was 7 months pregnant and had been kicked out by her step mother while her father was in the hospital. And the same Gogo who is raising Sabelo was willing to take her in. not only was this Gogo willing to take in Abigail but she also took in three boys under the age of 11 who were dropped off by their mother who went to the hospital and never came back. We were able to help provide food and other stuff all these kids needed while we were there as well as step up some future finances. These four boys had never really felt true and yet showed it to us complete strangers.

After 7 weeks in Nsoko it was time to move, we would move to a larger city which was about minutes from the capital of Swaziland. We moved to Timbutini (tim-boo-tiny) where we would no longer have running water and would live in a hut. But this hut was made out of dirt but rather concrete and the roof was made out of straw. It was cooler but still hot during the day. We lived on a homestead with a Gogo and her 3 grandchildren. Her oldest grandchild works for Adventures in missions and we worked with him throughout the week. We still did home visits and care points but we also worked in the AIM offices planning and getting gift bags ready for the Christmas parties for the kids at the care points.

While preparing myself for this trip I thought that I was going to change the lives of these kids and then come home and go back to my “normal” life, but I was wrong not only did God use me to change their lives but He used them to change my life. I was constantly reminded of how God has redeemed me and although I have stumbled and make mistakes He still wants to use me and is going to use my life to glorify Him. My heart was broken time and time again for these kids and everyone else we came in contact with but God used them to put it back together. God is so good and I am forever changed because of those three months in Swaziland. My prayer is that I will go back one day and serve God and his people in Nsoko.

In Christ alone,

Mollie Owens

just a peek of my crazy childhood

When ever I think about my childhood I always seem to feel sorry for my parents, my mom in particular. I’m sure you are wondering why, well it’s because my brother and I both have very strong, outgoing and goofy personalities. So when I think back on the crazy things we did I can’t help but feel sorry for them. Take the time my mom went to trade in her car when I was about 4 or 5 years old, she left my brother and me in the car for literally five minutes or less. Well two hyper A.D.D kids in car alone for five minutes is a terrible idea, my brother decided to try and brush my hair with the ice scrapper brush and realizing that this would mess my hair up or hurt me I tried to defend my self and hit the brush away but by doing so I hit it into the ceiling and it ripped about two feet of the fabric. My mom turned around just in time to see this all unfold with the salesmen watching as well. Needless to say she was pissed.


Then there’s the time we went to North Carolina for a family wedding, I was 18 my brother 22. We were in this itty bitty town looking for somewhere to eat fast and cheap. We kept seeing these signs for “Bojangles”. My brother and I instantly think of the song Bojangles by the ying yang twins. The chorus goes “jigga jigga call the girl bojangles.” We start singing it over and over trying to convince our parents to take us there for lunch. Hungry and tired of hearing us they agree. We pull in the parking lot of this “bojangles” which looks a bit ghetto so I get out and start shaking my butt like I’m at club. So my dad says “stop it Mollie you’re going to get shot.” To which I respond with “its okay dad I will just run serpentine.” And as an example I run zigzag in the parking lot. Mean while my mom is getting mad, and yelling at me to stop. My brother is yelling keep going and my father is laughing so hard he falls out of the car. My mom FREAKS and starts yelling “Mollie stop it, oh my gosh, randy are you ok?” over and over mean while I’m stilling shaking my butt and running zigzag.

Family dinners are never serious at our house either. Many times we end up sitting around the table for hours making fun of each other. I like to remind my brother of how weird he was as a kid, like when he thought his hair could feel and for years he would say ouch the whole time he was getting his hair cut because it “hurt” his hairs. Or the fact that still to this day when he cuts his finger nails he must immediately put them in water because of the way it “feels” if he doesn’t. Or the time he had mom shave his name into the side of his head and it turned out to look more like a huge bald spot on the side of his head. Or my family likes to remind me of the time I peed my pants in wal-mart when I was 9 because I couldn’t find my brother to tell him where I was going. Or the days when I had a rat tail. Hot! We often remind my father of how grumpy he looks because he never smiles and he has a huge head. Or we remind my mom of how she mumbles and walks into other rooms while trying to tell us what to do. And how she always calls me brat, and uses it an excuse for things like the time she ran a red light. When I pointed it out to her-her response was “well if you weren’t such a brat.” Mother what does me being a brat have to do with your ability to drive? Mothers I tell you. Before my brother got married to his wife Andrea my mom decided she needed a nick name, so we sat and tried to give her one. My moms suggestion was Andi, my response:”that’s gay.” Mom’s response “Mollie don’t be rude.” Me:”how about Pandrea?” mom: “talk about gay!” me:”Pandrea it is.” And yes I do call her Pandrea

Tuesday, August 10, 2010

oh Boy!

I figured since I was writing about my residents I would have to write about Anita. I first met Anita in March of 2008. She is a tiny new yoker. She has a very pessimistic view of life, and yet a great sense of humor. As she would walk down the halls of our facility she would ask everyone how they were….a typical scene would go like so….shuffle shuffle “how are you?” fine how are you Anita? Then she would respond with one of five answers 1. Fine. 2. Fair. 3. Awful. 4. Miserable or 5. My back is killing me. Every time without fail. She loves to point out the obvious, often. Every time I would walk by she would say “boy that thing is huge” “she’s got a huge rump” “she’s so fat...on the bottom” “wow that’s huge”. Some days I would walk past her just to hear her say one of those.




She was very demanding as well. Every morning without fail at about 530 she would call us in to help her get dressed. As you would walk into her room she would simply say “buckle my bra.” Nothing more. Then after helping her she would say “coffee.” Or “orange juice.”

One of my favorite moments was about a year ago. She was sitting our on the couch slouching really badly, she honestly looked like she was going to fall off the seat. She was yelling help over and over. I was down the hall and all I could hear was “ HELP!! HELLO! HELP. OH MY GAWD.” So I ran down to see what was happening. As I turn the corner she says to me “I can’t find my keys.” So I ask if they are on her walker, or in her purse or on her wrist. She tells me “no I’ve looked everywhere, i can’t find them anywhere.” So I open her door and we search her apartment, even though I knew that they were on her wrist, I could hear them. So after a few minutes of “searching” finally she goes “oh my gawd I found them, they were on my wrist. You’re a doll.”



She honestly cracked me up. She would tell me how she kicked her husband out for having a girlfriend, but of course with no emotions. Loved it. She was always caring for others at her table. Always telling George (who is 102 and a half) to eat his food or drink his hot chocolate. She also made sure we were on our toes at all times. She would yell “coffee” at us until we brought it to her. Or better yet just say “cereal” until it was brought to her in the mornings.



I truly enjoyed her. She moved into a different facility in July and everyday I have missed her and her comments :)

Monday, August 9, 2010

first time around.

well this is my first blog ever!! (well besides a bio blog for a missions trip) im so excited, i feel like i should more to say but im drawing a blank....hmm.

im sitting here at work, i should be working but clearly im not. i work at an assisted living in lafayette. its lots of fun, between the people who live here, my fellow employees or the people who come in.

Today has been pretty slow and boring but not without its moments. today i am wearing a skirt with a nice top and heals, nothing too special. But larry, sweet larry seems to think that I look "sexy" (his words not mine). let me give you a a little back story on he and i. larry moved in about a month ago. hes not that old probably around my grandparents age. He's a big flirt which is a little weird with me because im only 21. He is always telling me how beautiful i am or how he would like to marry me. again weird. He has given me flowers food and tons of compliments. he even asked me out on a date once...i graciously declined. tempting oh so tempting. :)

i am super clumsy....its extreme. a couple of months ago i was walking down the stairs well i had started to walk down the stairs when i slipped and fell and broke my tail bone on the first, yes the first step. then continued to fall half way down until finally i caught my balance enough to stand up. well the other day while standing and talking to two of the girls i work with i just fall out of now where. one minute im standing and the nice stuffs flying and im on the ground. one of my residents asked if i was drunk...it was 10am.

my life is crazy. the weirdest things seem to happen to me. :) but i wouldnt have it any other way