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Stonebrook’s week of 24/7 prayer is just around the corner…It starts on September 11th and continues all day and all night for a week. This is the chance you have been waiting for to pray at 3am! Tony stayed up until about that time a couple nights ago to create a wonderful web-based sign up page. You can find that here. Now go sign up for a time before all those wonderful early morning spots are gone!

This may be the only Rock Fall kick-off so far in history where the second week of classes might actually be crazier than the first week. Not that last week was a breeze, by any means. With WelcomeFest, the first Rock tour date, two days of Counter Culture team survey tables in the Memorial Union, the Rock on Friday night, Our Block Party on Sunday night and getting ready for Lifegroup/Team leader training on Sunday night, we were plenty busy.

But with my Lifegroup meeting tonight, three Rock Tour dates and the Rock on the MU Terrace on Friday…plus hopefully some fun BBQs and other Labor Day action once the weekend hits…that sounds pretty busy as well. Not to mention administrative tasks and times to get together with various people.

I know its not all about the numbers, but we did have 175 people (by my count) at the Rock on Friday. That is 25 to 50 more than we were averaging at various points last year. The excited atmosphere at the Rock on Friday was proof to me that we are really heading in a great direction! I don’t know if anyone came because of our door hangers, but I would like to think that even if no one came this week because of them, there is still a chance they might check it out in a future week.

Our Block Party on Sunday night was definitely not all that I hoped it would be, but it was certainly fun. We inivited about 90 households in the blocks surrounding our house to come to a neighborhood party. This was not advertised as a “Rock event” or anything like that — just a time to get together and get to know one another. Obviously our intention was to build relationships that God might use in a spiritual way!

Maybe about two dozen people showed up — but we had a great time with those who came. It was a mix of students and permanent residents…from a few senior citizens to a family with several kids to a grad student couple with a baby to a handful of college students…to Matthew Goodman, Gyro guy and Ames city council member, who apparently lives about a block and half from us down West st. A good time was had by all, and I think we are building the basis for some great relationships that will carry on through the year and maybe beyond.

The schedule should slow down a bit after this week…but with another Daylights dealine, the prospect of a z37 newsletter and financial statement mailing, a bridal shower to throw for Eryn, and more…things could be pretty crazy for the rest of this month at least!

Since Autumn let me know last week that our near-by West Ames Hy-Vee does in fact sell Sushi, I couldn’t help but try it out. I almost went out the very day she informed me about it, but better judgment prevailed and I didn’t drop everything to go buy some (but if Madeline hadn’t been sleeping at the time, I really might have gone right then!).

Instead, on Saturday night after Tony and I were exhausted from lack of sleep and putting up door hangers on a hot afternoon, I decided to get some sushi as an appetizer for our “staying in” date night. The sushi can be found in the Chineese Express cooler. They have both rolls (maki) and hand-formed pieces (nigiri) in small packages ranging in price from $3 to $7, depending on the size and variety. Some packs contain a single variety, while others are a mix. I purchased two packages of rolls — one package of California rolls and one mixed variety package of crab rolls, cucumber rolls, and something else I couldn’t easily identify.

I couldn’t even wait to get home to try the sushi I bought. As soon as I got out to the car, I had to eat one. Yum! The taste of sushi conveniently located only 4 blocks from my house! Overall, the sushi was very passable. Obviously the quality and freshness was not as great as going to a real Japaneese sushi restaurant, but considering price and convenience it was a hit for me.

Thinking it would be nice to have a fun dessert to go along with our sushi and spaghetti “date night” meal (yes, I realize that is a very ethnically confused meal), I purchased a piece of $5 gourmet cheesecake from the Hy-Vee Bakery cooler case. I had really high expectations for this cheesecake. Hy-vee sells about three different price levels of individual cheesecake pieces, and this was the most expensive. Honestly, I should have gotten the $2 cheapie stuff! The label said raspberry sauce, but the small sauce container actually contained a bitter cherry sauce. The texture of the cheesecake was pitiful, and the taste was almost non-existant. This was a “Raves” brand cheesecake, and I assume that their cheesecakes from their dessert catering business are better…but I would personally reccomend again buying it from the Hy-Vee bakery case. It’s not worth anywhere close to five bucks.

Two thousand doorhangers distributed in neighborhoods with a median age of 25 and under. Survey table in the MU. “Rock Tour” to four locations in Ames at times other than Friday night — all within 8 days. Handing out invite cards on campus. Posters everywhere. Handing out bottle-opener key chains at Welcomefest. Team-level kick-off events in the dorms and elsewhere. It really seems like this adds up to more promotion and people-meeting opportunities than we have ever done to kick off a school year.

I am really eager to find out what will happen tonight at our first Friday night Rock of the semester in Curtiss, as well as next week on the MU Terrace. Will it make a noticable difference? I know that historically most people come to the Rock because of personal invitation…but we are sowing a lot here. It seems like that means we should reap at least something from our efforts. Will it help us bring more off-campus students and “20-something” non-students to Curtiss? I certainly hope so, since putting up door hangers is where a big chunk of the kick-off efforts of the Rock’s three off campus teams has gone so far.

Wow. I am really praying that God is using all this promotion we are doing to draw people to the Rock and Himself.

This afternoon while I was sitting in our bedroom looking at a few things on the laptop (okay, so it was the Panda Cams), I noticed Madeline kept walking back and forth past me and into the closet. She looked very determined and industrious, so it made me very curious what she was up to. I took a look in the closet and quickly saw what was up — Madeline was emptying the drawer of washclothes and bibs from the kitchen into a pile in the bedroom closet, one or two at a time!

I wondered to myself if she could be convinced to return them in an equally methodical fashion. So, I announced to her that I was going to show her a new, very fun game. I took a couple of the bibs, had her follow me to the kitchen, and demonstrated to her putting them in the drawer. She looked skeptical initially, but when I followed her back to the closet, encouraged her to grab one herself, and then again walked with her to the kitchen drawer, she was convinced. She put them in, and with a very satisfied look on her face, she returned to the closet to get more, and repeated the process until all the items were back in the drawer. Amazing!

It was really fun getting to praise her each time as she cleaned up her mess. It shouldn’t be long before she can get the hang of the “put the toys away” game!

This is really superficial, but one thing that has changed a lot for the better in the last ten years in Ames are the restaurants. Imagine Ames with only two or three places to get a latte, a Hickory Park that is about half the size it currently is now, no Bruger’s Bagels, significantly fewer mexican restaurants, no Flying Burrito (though we did have Pancheros), no Panera Bread, no Fazoli’s, and fewer Chineese places too. That was the Ames I came to ten years ago.

And in that same time, we’ve lost a few things that we didn’t really need anyway — like Hardees, a couple of sub places (who needs anything but Jimmy John’s?), Home Team Pizza (we only ate it because it was cheap!), and maybe a few other lesser-knowns.

There have been a few memorable losses — DaVinci’s pizza was nice, if a little on the expensive side. We have seen several coffee places come and go. Donutland is no longer with us. I miss the campustown McDonald’s, if only for the sentimental value.

Overall, the quality and variety of dining has definitely increased, making Ames a much nicer place to live. Now if we could only have a place to get Sushi in Ames, my life would be complete!

This week marks the ten year anniversary of me moving to Ames. I have now lived here just about twice as long as I have any other city in my life. I know there are many people in our church who have lived here longer, but it feels like a momentus personal occaision for me. I can say for certain that when I moved here as a college freshman ten years ago, I never thought I would still be living here ten years later.

Something about being ten years older than college freshmen really makes me feel my age. When I was a college freshman (waaaay back in ‘95), I would have thought that people who graduated 10 years prior to that, in 1985, were definitely old and would not understand what it was like to be a teenager or college student in the mid-90s. Now, today’s college freshman would probably think that about me. Good thing I am doing off campus/young professionals ministry now!

This feeling is probably felt more strongly by me as a woman than by a guy of a similar age. Tony tells me that guys never look for rings unless they have recently bought one, and are generally pretty oblivious to signs of age. He attended a dorm floor Bible study with some freshman last fall as a part of building a relationship with a guy he was getting to know, and the guys there just thought Tony was maybe a couple years older then them! They were shocked to learn he was a 4th year PhD student with a wife and baby. And all this, even despite the fact that Tony generally even looks older than his age! Women pick up on rings and signs of age much more quickly, so I doubt I could have pulled off the same trick.

So, that’s more a reflection on growing up and getting older than it is on ten years of living in Ames…but in the coming days (or maybe weeks!) I will post some other thoughts on my ten years living here.

You may remember a few weeks ago I pointed out the Panda Cam to see the baby Panda born at the National Zoo in Washington DC. This week, another rare giant panda cub was born in captivity in the United States, this time in San Diego. They have a Panda Cam too! The new cub in San Diego is still small and hard to see, but the cub in DC, now a month old, is much larger and easier to see (especially since it now has its black and white markings).

Speaking of cute animals, Tony and I went to see March of the Penguins on Saturday night. It was a great movie and well worth the $6.75 a piece to get in. This is a big-screen documentary (yes, it is playing at Movies 12 in Ames) about emperor penguins in Antarctica. They have an amazing mating and child-rearing cycle that involves several 70+ mile walks for both the mothers and the fathers. The emperor penguins have only one mate for the season, and they truly work together through the harrowing task of keeping an egg warm and raising a baby penguin the the extremely harsh, cold conditions. And, of course, the baby penguins are really cute! This is a great movie that I would highly recommend seeing!