suddenly-free saturdays

One great thing about graduating from youth pastoring is that the Hubby and I have our Friday evenings and Saturday evenings free! woot! woot! Instead of spending it at church like usual, we - for the first time in years - had no preachings, meetings or altar calls to worry about. We happily spent the afternoon looking for duds to wear to a beach wedding, and the evening watching an ultracute movie. The mall was crowded (it was a payday weekend) but I really didn't mind. Instead of hanging out with the church kids or their parents, the Hubby and I spent it with each other.

The suddenly-free Saturday p.m. schedule is a much-appreciated change that I could and would gladly fill with other things. We can date, we can come early to those family parties that are always held on Saturdays, we can meet up with old friends who are free only on Saturdays, we can stay home and read. We have Saturday p.m. now!

photoshoot

I can't believe I forgot to blog about this...


The other Thursday (the 15th), The Hubby and I had a shoot by our photographer friend Tracey. She and her family flew in from Canada to visit relatives here in the RP, and during their stay here she did some shoots and meets. We took advantage of course and had our pics taken; . Here's her blog entry about it and some stills of us she took that day.

It was a professional shoot of sorts, but Tracey isn't the studio type. We just walked around the village and spontaneously posed us in capture-worthy nooks and crannies. It was pretty fun. It was kinda pricey, but we didn't mind since proceeds went to Gentle Hands mission work.

sky

I look out and observe that the sky is a flat, pale, dirty blue. As I was about to remark that "The sky is a flat, pale dirty blue," I consider that there really is no sky. What we call "sky" is an imaginary field superimposed on the atmosphere as viewed from the earth's surface . It's an illusionary perception of color and form effected by reflected and refracted light, defined differently by observers from their respective perspectives.

So I might as well say "The sky is a vibrant pink with flaming orange stripes," or "The sky is scumbled with a neon lightshow," or "The sky is the blue-black of the deep sea, accentuated with crushed pearlescent shell," -- because I'm sure it is true, as viewed from some other latitude or longitude. It's still much more romantic than saying"The sky is a flat, pale, dirty blue," though that is what I perceive right now.

i can't get over cupcakes

I had another episode of cupcake craving.

I got over my loyalty to the usual cupcake shop that I go to and finally ventured to check out another one. Instead of snacking at Cupcakes by Sonja, I satisfied my craving for sweets at Marta's Cakes.

The first thing I noticed was the brightly-colored interior that slightly echoed Willy Wonka's chocolate factory, only without the Burtonesque edginess. I imagine that if you took out the greens and whites and replaced them with black, put in some carved pumpkins, it'd be a cute, twisted Halloween funhouse.

Marta's unique concept cakes were on display. It contributed to that overall cheery atmosphere good for cultivating happy thawts. The Hubby and I were actually tired and not-so-happy that day, but being in that shop cheered us up quite a bit.

I love those jelly-like lamps. It's like they're floating overhead, waiting to be caught.

Anyway, yeah, the cupcakes. They weren't as fluffy or as decorated as Sonja's, but that didn't bother me because they were nonetheless yummy and much less expensive. They weren't that spectacular so i forgot to photograph them, but they were good enough to satisfy. Two thumbs up.

Another cute feature of Marta's is that they sold cupcake decorating kits (and cookie decorating kits as well). For P105, you got two plain cupcakes, tubes of brightly-colored icing and candy sprinkles. It's something not only kids would enjoy but adults would too. The time we were there, a young couple was spending their date decorating cookies. I thought of bringing my discipleship group here for an outside-church session over a cookie-painting activity.

Next time, I'll be checking out the chocolatey goodies in Xocolat. Hope i like.

level up

As of last Saturday, our youth pastoring days are officially over. We turned it all over to our friend and ministry partner J, who gladly and readily accepted.

I'd have to admit that it's rather a sad thing to have to end that chapter, but I'd also have to admit that in the mix of sentiments, excitement is prominent. I'm not all "praise the Lord" in denial about the sadness that I feel, but on top of the sadness is a rich optimism that we're on our way to something bigger and better. I think of it as a level up, flipping to a new exciting chapter of our lives that brings us closer to the climax.

And of course it's not really goodbye - we are still after all in the same church, and our relationships with the kids will be forever, except no longer as youth pastors. We will always be a part of their lives and they ours. In a way it is also a level up for them; as i explained it to them two weeks ago, now that they will be under J's leadership, and now that they are grown-up and well-trained, they are no longer spiritually-starved kids who come to church to be fed but co-workers with J to feed the younger, hungry kids.

As for the Hubby and I - well, as of this point anything is a possibility. We still have no idea what to do next, so we'll be taking time the next two months to pray and think about it. We can't see ourselves anywhere in the new structure of the church - yet - but that isn't such a bad thing because it opens up our options. We know we (both and individually) are cut out for full-time ministry, that's for sure; but that doesn't necessarily mean full-time employed in our local church, and it doesn't necessarily mean now, after 5 years of youth ministry. I've been feeling like a big fish in a small pond already, and though it scares me to move to a bigger pond - maybe even the sea - I'm quite excited.