A Pastor's Wife...

I have been involved in youth ministry for about 7 years now and the wife of a youth pastor for a little over 6 years. I never wanted to be a pastor's wife (or PW as some lady once told me), but never say never because it always happens anyway. I have no wisdom about youth ministry. I have no wisdom about being a pastor's wife. What I do have is 6 years of experience and this is my "advice":

A few months ago Mike was teaching a class on youth ministry and he had me come in and talk with his class about being a pastors wife. Below is my outline from this class:

Frustrations in ministry (being the wife):

· Always being watched

o How do I deal with it? I try living a life that pleases God and no one else.

o Example: “Inappropriate Clothing”

· Church members always wanting you to volunteer for everything

o I learned this early on. You need to know when to say “No”

o Example: People ask me a lot of times to do things that don’t fit in with my “sweet spot” (Girl Student Leaders, Video/Technology)

· People always assuming that you know everything that is going on in the youth ministry

o In a small church and youth ministry you probably will know what’s going on all the time, but any time you get over a ministry of thirty or more most likely you can’t know everything

o Example: Guys Game Night (not going to know what’s going on at this)

Positives in Ministry:

• My Involvement
• How lucky that God knew exactly where I would be in ministry 8 years ago when He told me I was going to work with students?
• Being married to a pastor helps me to be involved on a deeper level in youth ministry then a lot of other volunteers (I get to be in the know before a lot of other people)

Things to make sure to ask when interviewing at a church:

· What do you see as the responsibility of the youth pastor’s wife?

· What are your expectations?

· Am I required to be a volunteer in youth ministry? (The answer should be: No! You need to find the place God has in mind for you!)

Balancing Marriage and Ministry (What Do We Do?):

• Date Night
• Day Off
• Your day off is your day off, whether it’s Monday or Wednesday or any other day of the week. You need to take time to relax and NOT deal with anything at church, unless it’s absolutely necessary (ie. the church is on fire)
• Boundaries
• There have to be boundaries in ministry. You need to take the time to put God first and then your family. Your ministry is Important, but not so important that you neglect other areas of your life

Conclusion: Being the wife of a youth pastor (or a pastor) can be difficult, stressful and hard at times but doing ministry together is what counts and who better to do ministry with than someone you love and who gets you?

I don't know if any pastors wives read this, but if you do I hope this can be helpful to you, especially if you are just starting out in your marriage. If any pastors read this always encourage your wife in what they do in ministry whether it's with youth, children or singing in the praise band and show them this to let them know they aren't alone.

I love youth ministry!

Taking Time to Rest...

My life is constantly in the fast lane of the freeway! I am constantly on the run from one thing to the other. I tell people I have been super busy and then wonder if they think I'm making it up because they are usually the people I don't see all the time. I also sometimes wonder why I am so stressed when I don't work outside the home and I have no kids to take care of. This is why I have made the decision to cut back. I don't typically have a problem saying no to things, but sometimes I have trouble saying no to my husband. That is, until this morning. I have been talking about not volunteering with our Wednesday night program at church. I feel it's not the place for me right now and I'm not excited about it. This morning Mike told me I should just stop volunteering there starting now, so I said okay and he asked if I could at least go next Wednesday. That is when it happened I said no! Flat out no, I'm not going to. I think Mike was shocked by my response, but he is totally on board with my decision. SO as of 10am this morning I will no longer be volunteering on Wednesday nights.

I think so many times in our lives we get caught up in dong too many things. WE go from one task or activity to the next I know there are times that I "forget" to spend time with God because I've got to get to the next thing on my list. I forget to stop and listen to what God wants me to do. That is why I'm going to take the time to stop doing everything under the sun and just... rest.

You Stay Classy, San Diego!

On Friday Mike and I went down to San Diego for the night. Mike was teaching a conference down there at this thing called Leadership Training Institute. We made it down to San Diego at about 2pm and we shopped around, got some Baskin Robins and checked into our hotel. Our friend Josh picked us up to go have a meal with him at this place called Point Loma Seafood. He told us it would change our taste of fresh seafood and he was absolutely right. I had some of the most delicious shrimp I've ever had! Thanks for taking us Josh! The next day we went to the conference. Mike had two people at his conference and I read the whole day. It was awesome!! I had my camera, but I forgot to take any pictures. Sorry. You'll just have to imagine what it looked like.

The Office: Jim as Dwight vs Dwight as Jim

The Office... An Amazing Show!

I love to watch The Office. If you asked me about a year and a half ago if I liked this show I would have made a face and said, "No Way! It's horrible!" That was until I watched it again after having only seen about 3 minutes of the show the first time. I used to work in an office when I was in college and when we first moved to the O.C. I worked in another office. My experiences were nothing like those of the characters on TV, but I can always pull out a hint of a situation I had while working in that environment. So, to show you how much I love The Office and to share with you how excited I am for the fourth season I have a little video for you to watch above! This is my favorite scene from last season.

***I just added this video stuff to my blog so the video actually shows up as a different post. I'm working on figuring out how to get it into my actual post and not separate. So for now enjoy the video meant for this blog post in the post right above!

****And I am totally a blogging machine today! I have never posted this many times in a day, let alone in a week! Well, maybe a week.

The Computer Lab

I had time today to go to the lab for my class and catch up on my classwork and "homework". For the most part I was able to work in a classroom alone with just the humming of the computer modems. This was until about 40 minutes later when two guys walked into the room. Now I want you to know that there are probably a good 20 to 25 computers in this classroom. All which are not being used at the moment except the one I am on. But, of course, the two guys decided to choose the computer right next to me to work on. They were extremely loud and rude and talked the entire 15 minutes they were there and it took me about 1o of those minutes to read about two pages of work (out of about 25 pages). It was not good! I just don't understand. Why do I always find myself in these strange situations?

My College Professor...

This past friday CBU lost a wonderful professor, Melodie Yocum. She passed away from cancer. Melodie was the very first professor I ever had contact with at CBU and for the most part taught a lot of the classes I took for my degree. She gave me the opportunity of a theater scholarship without having ever seen my acting ability. She also gave me my first role at CBU by basically making up a part of a fairy not in the script. Melodie was my professor, director, actor and friend. In the last few years I did not talk with her much. Mainly because our paths didn't seem to cross as often. I had the privilege of being directed by Melodie in two plays at CBU and a multitude of scenes. I also had the opportunity to direct Melodie a few years ago in a play about the life of Ruth Bell Graham (wife of Billy Graham). I have also had the opportunity of acting alongside her teenage son. My heart goes out to him right now as I can not even imagine what the feelings must be like to lose a parent at such a young age.
Please keep the Yocum family in your prayers as I am sure this is a difficult time for Melodie's husband and children.

And the Diagnosis is...

I went to see the doctor at the Breast Clinic this morning and all is well in the life of Nicole. At least in that area. I do have two.. yes two... lumps in my left breast and the doctor I saw recommended that I have them removed. He said that they are fibrocysistic or something like that. So on October 5th at 8:30 in the morning I will be having a local shot in that region and they will remove the two cysts leaving only a small scar and I will be awake the entire time. I am not looking forward to the being awake part during the procedure, but I will deal with anything if it means not having the lumps anymore. The doctor said he likes to do this so if it happens again in say, ten years, I will be just as scared about it and get it checked out.

I am extremely relieved that the diagnosis was good and I thank everyone who reads this blog for your prayers. Please continue to pray that everything else in this process goes well.

Words, words, words...

I have a lot on my mind right now, but the thing that's driving me crazy the most is the fact that I have to come up with video ideas for about 8 videos that I know of plus a few more that I have yet to know the topic of.

Let me start at the beginning for those who may be confused:

Last year I began a ministry with students at church that makes videos for our high school ministry. Last year went fairly well, but it could have always been better. There aren't exactly a lot (none) of scripts out there to use with making videos. Therefore, I have had to write a lot of the scripts and adapt some other things. This year I have decided to hold auditions. Not to cut any students, but to place them in parts that suit them. I am ready for the auditions this weekend, but I am having some trouble coming up with scripts for announcement videos. I want to be able to give them some scripts to take home and memorize. I have A LOT of thoughts in my head, but I almost can't get them out of my head fast enough and sometimes when I do they don't come off as well on paper. I feel as though I am gong insane!!!

To quote Shakespeare in Hamlet: "Words, words, words."

I don't know what I'm gonna do!

I'm still in school and I'm still smilin'... barely...

Warning: Extremely lengthy post ahead!

Today was my second day of school and it was okay. I feel a bit lost in the class, but I assume it's normal for it only being the second day. I sat down at the same computer I had last Wednesday (we are sooo creatures of habit) and next to the same guy. I said "hi", he sort of nodded then we went back to our computer screens. Mine decided to freeze on me and I felt like an idiot when I raised my hand to have the professor help me. (To clarify I would usually just reboot the computer, but our syllabus tells us if there is a problem to leave it to the professor. I like to follow rules.) I asked if I should reboot, she said "No!" She pushed some keys and couldn't seem to fix it so she decided to reboot (go figure!) As soon as she walked away the computer came back on and was in the same freeze position as before. I again raised my hand for her only to tell me to share with the guy next to me. He did not look amused and neither did I. You see, I am a kinesthetic learner and therefore must do things as I am being taught. I rolled over about three inches to sit next to "random guy" (I was not paying attention when role was taken in order to hear his name) and as the professor showed us things about Adobe he was like 3 minutes behind everything she did. I again, was not amused. We were then given a 15 minute break. I called Mike, used the facilities and then went back to sit down at my still frozen computer. There was about 5 minutes left so I watched as "random guy" used his already (I believe) advanced photoshop skills to tweak a pretty amazing picture. Apparently he works as a photographer for some design company. After a little more of the professor showing us some basic work space stuff she told us to do Lesson 1 in our books. "Random guy" was very nice and told me I could take his computer since he didn't have the book yet. He then proceeded to reboot the computer and of course it actually turned off and came back on... unfrozen! He basically grunted to me to use my disk and share my book with me. I obliged even though I was thinking "I really don't want to share and he already knows more than half the class anyway." He then was obviously going faster than me and I kept apologizing to him for being slow. I think about it now and I'm really not sure why I was apologizing for my being slow when I was letting him use my book but, whatever! Overall, it was a pretty strange second class, but I'm still sticking it out!

Back to School...

Today I went back to school for the first time in 4 years!

In case you are lost and don't know me or talk with me personally I am going back to school to obtain a graphic design certificate so I can hopefully do some free lance design for churches and companies and whoever else will want to higher me. The following is my first day at Riverside City College:

I was a bit nervous because I didn't have a clue where my classroom was and I heard it was hard to park at RCC. My class began at 8am and I had no trouble finding it, which was a relief. I took a seat at a computer (which are Macs, by the way, so that was awesome) and the professor was a lady which I was not expecting, but still cool. Turns out the lady was only subbing for the real professor because she is at a conference. Our actual professor is also a lady, which is still cool with me. We were then given a syllabus that has the wrong class dates for everything so that's a bit frustrating. The final project is worth half my grade! As the sub was reading the syllabus she told us we need a 1GB USB drive and then asked if anyone had one to show. Of course being the nerd I am brought one with me so I had to be the one who showed the class what it looked like. That was bit goofy because by the looks of my class I'm pretty sure we all know what that is.We then began to watch videos on something call Bridge, which from the 4 videos we watched I can only decipher that it is a storage spot for all the other Adobe applications. That took about an hour and then we had a break. After the break we opened up Adobe Photoshop and took the next hour and fifteen minutes to make a flier about a lost animal using shapes and tools on the tool bar. I proceeded to make a very crudely drawn lost chicken. I can't wait until the actual professor comes back so I can learn things a little better. Overall today has been an interesting first day back to school.

I am not sure why I have such a goofy expression on my face becasue it was too early in the morning for me to look that excited!

What I did on Labor Day...

Today we decided to go to Disneyland to watch our friend Eric "Puddles" Putman run in the Disneyland Half Marathon. He finished in about 3 and a half hours and we were able to see him right after he crossed the finish line. Great Job Eric!! We went on four rides today (I went on 3). They were all inside rides because it was like 235 degrees outside, in Anaheim, at about 10am. We went on Space Mountain, Pirates, Soarin' Over California and Grizzly Rapids. On the last one I ended up getting the most wet (which usually happens on those types of rides) and my pants and half my shirt were soaked for about 2 hours. It was fun... can you hear the sarcasm. Overall the day was pretty fun, yet exhausting due to the heat. Below are some pics from the day.

Eric right after he finished

Mike and my brother, Eric, right before the rapids begin

Right after the rapids. My whole left and back side was soaked.

It actually rained in Riverside as we were driving home! Amazing!!!