Eclectic

Well, mission accomplished. When you ask God for good stories, I think He really likes to answer that request. Let me share a few with you. The first being why I went to The Today Show. My grad school had a desire to get the word out about our school, being that we are small and all they do is train therapists. The school, Richmont Graduate University truly is a unique and incredible school where we get to be taught by the best in the field of integration - Phillip Coyle, Gary Moon, Marty Goehring, Jeff Eckert, Larry Crabb, Dr. Tan, Cara Cochran, and the list goes on and on.....Am I proud? Yes. Which is why I wanted to take part in the challenge given to any Richmont student who made a youtube video promoting the school. For every 5,000 hits on the video, Richmont will pay for a class. I need help. As you now, CCC staff members raise their own financial support and currently my support can't sustain grad school bills. So, here's the link on my visit to The Today Show http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fq3PObD6JQQ If I get 70,000 hits, I believe that will pay for my school.

Anyway, as you can see from the following picture, I was interviewed on camera for about 30 seconds and gave a big plug for Richmont. Some kind soul in Chicago had pity on me and donated $10 to my school "for the girl on The Today Show". Hilarious. A great story. By the way, Ann Curry is the nicest lady and very pretty. She told us she had on 12 cans of frosting on her face. Also, Stephanie Abrams is now my hero. She was the weather lady filling in for Al Roker that day. PTL for Stephanie, my new BFF. My dad said he'd be forever grateful for Stephanie Abrams. I'd say that's right. And in case you didn't notice, I'm wearing that ridiculous graduation cap for the whole world to see. It's amazing the levels you will stoop to to get tuition. I mean, every ex-boyfriend, mean girl in middle school, and past student had a good laugh over that one, myself included. Who does that? Well, I do and I did.

Probably the biggest highlight of my summer would be when my cousin Ami and her friend Anda came to visit and to spend some time with my staff mom friends on the project. Somehow Haley and myself wound up working and loving on the mom's this summer which I thought was hilarious and only a God-thing since I am unattached (sounds better than "single") and have no spawn. Just some really great shoes and fun friends. I digress... Anyway, Ami and Anda spent time not just praying for the mama's, but for several of us that are free and unattached. Being around them made me want more of Jesus.

In this picture we are eating Ethiopian food. Imagine if you will, large platters of colorful food that you eat communaly with your hands. A nightmare for some of us and a party for others. It tasted fine, but probably will pick Panera over Ethiopian food most days of the week. However, the goal was to "expand the borders" if you will, of our staff and students in regard to eating food of different cultures. We had Senegalese, Cuban, Ethiopian, and Haitian. The years Chad McGhee and I led the project our cultural food nights were soul food, Italian, Chinese, and Indian. hahaha!!

I shamelessly tried to do everything in my power to meet Tom. Brokaw, that is. I drug Haley with me to the NBC Studio Tour and pestered the tour guide with questions about Tommy B. He had never seen him and tried to talk to me about Brian Williams, but I wasn't having it. Sigh. One day I will interview him. If you watch the youtube video you will see my last ditch effort to connect with the elusive anchor.

Here Haley is reminding me of my need for lipstick before we start the tour and I run into people who will make my dreams come true - aka: Today Show producers who discover my raw and undiscovered anchorwoman talent or the casting director for SNL needing someone to impersonate Eddie Murphy doing Buckwheat. Unce, Tice, Fee tines a mady.

We didn't meet anyone. Maybe I should've stuck with my Berry Berry shade of Clinique instead of MAC. Next time.

So all of this brings me back to Knoxville with a desire to be part of a greater story than the one I was living. People can have all sorts of opinions on Donald Miller, but he wrote an incredible book called, "A Million Miles in a Thousand Years" that is a great read. It's all about our story being God's story......Anyway, that's a little fun roundup of some things that happened this summer. Maybe one day soon I'll write a more serious blog, but those aren't as fun to read, are they? Okay, off to click on youtube 66,000 more times.

Bdubs