Four Years Later

From baby blankets to toy soldiers to piano to basketball to computers to community college to high school graduate to physics and now...to college graduate! That's right, Pat IV has graduated from Rice University!!! Last Saturday, May 12, Pat received a B.S. in Physics and a B.A. in Math and turned 22 years old as well (it was his birthday).

Wow! Four years... so many things have changed. All three of us kids have grown so much during the past four years:

Physically
Me: 9 inches
Paul: 7 inches
Pat IV: from boy to man (not to mention the muscle)

Socially
Paul and I: In October 2004 we had a massive change in who we spent time with because we changed churches and joined our speech and debate club.
Pat 4: College brought a whole new group of friendships from Bible study, church, Campus Crusade, classes, cross-country, Right-to-Life, Rice Republicans, etc...

Mentally
Four years of studying, listening, reading, studying some more, applying, asking, researching, probing, investigating, observing, experimenting, etc...all to learn more about the world which God so marvelously created.

Spiritually
Where could I possibly begin? As each one of us goes through new trials and struggles, we stand firm upon the promise that "we are more than conquers through Him that loves us." We fight the battles knowing that Christ has already won the war. He has the ultimate victory and will pick us up every time we fall down. Personally, over the past four years God has shown me how important and how hard walking in obedience is, how sovereign my Creator is, that I am fearfully and wonderfully made, what true service is like, what a wonderful church I have, how much of a failure I am, and how forgiving and loving He is. I want to thirst after His presence and be filled by His goodness. To overflow with His love and outpour it onto a dying world. To have a relationship with a Friend who is "closer than a brother" not just for the next four years...but for all of eternity.

A different church, different friends, different priorities, different activities, different attitudes, a different perspective on life...but the same God. He stays the same no matter what. "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever." (Heb 13:8)

~Christy

Summit 2007

Can you touch the sky?

Downtown Denver.

My mom on the capitol steps. Behind her is a statue dedicated to those who died during the Civil War and the large building is the city hall.

Simply adorable.

Outside the Chocolate Factory with an "enlargened" customer.

Denver's main river.

On a hill in Common Park. It seemed so happy there. Kites flying, a young mother tossing a frisbee to her toddler, a young couple playing with their dog, so many kids taking walks with their cute doggies...

Eating out with the Grace Covenant team.

Josh, Paul, and Corey.

Playing an arrangement of "Great is Thy Faithfulness" with "How Great Thou Art."

In the lobby of the Adams Mark Hotel.

Bible Quizzing.

I think they had a bad hair day.

The mile-high marker on the Colorado capitol steps.

Paul with his family after receiving his Citation award. That's the highest award in Awana and it means that he's completed ten Awana books since third grade.

The five Citation recipients from Grace Covenant. In total there were over 250 Citation recipients from around the nation.

Presenting the gospel message.

Zoomed out.

AwanaGames.

Paul and Josh Boudin.

The entire Grace Covenant team.

With Mr. Rorheim, the founder of AWANA.

I have no idea who the two girls on the ends or the man who is kneeling are, but the other man is Greg Stier of Dare 2 Share ministries who was the speaker at the closing ceremony.

Paul and Kevin White, the speaker at the opening ceremony.

With Brian Rhodes, an AWANA missionary.

With Danny Oertli, the worship leader.

An extra day of sight-seeing:
The Denver Museum of Nature and Science. Fascinating to say the least.

Focus on the Family. I'm standing outside of the Imagination Station a.k.a. the elevator to the part of the building dedicated to Adventures in Odyssey.

Garden of the Gods. "The Three Graces"--one of the many unique and exquisite rock formations in the park.

Pike's Peak--God is a such a wonderful Creator and His mountains are marvelous... but not nearly as marvelous as Him.

~Christy

The Mile High City

Adams Mark Hotel, Denver, Colorado--It's beautiful here and it has been ever since we arrived on Saturday morning. We're not staying in the hotel, but we're here for the Awana national competition called Summit 2007. I'm not competing, but Paul is here with Grace Covenant Bible Church. During the times when he's not competing my mom, my dad, and I have been touring downtown Denver, including the Colorado state capital!

In some ways it reminds me a lot of Austin such as some of the strange characters you meet on the street. In other ways it's totally different like the 16th Street Mall that has a free shuttle bus running through it. And everywhere in Denver you can always see the Rockies to the West.

The Clock Is Ticking...

~One baby is aborted every 24 seconds
~147 babies are aborted every hour
~3,542 babies are aborted every day
~24,865 babies are aborted every week
~107,750 babies are aborted every month

Astonishing... Heart breaking... Mind boggling... Innocence shattering... in one word... Abortion. I can tell you right now that this won't be my last post on this horrifying, yet brutally true subject.

The following link is a page with few words written on it, but it makes you think, "We spend all of this time protesting wars, saving bugs, protecting grass, preserving air particles... yet children are dying everyday at the hands of their own mothers."

You can make a difference. Let them know who the Giver of life really is.

The simple truth in 30 seconds of your time

~Christy

Bedford Tournament

The Bedford Speech and Debate Tournament, February 22-24, was amazing...

There are no pictures from the first day and a half due to someone (ok, it was me :-) misplacing the camera, but here is what I do have.

Paul cross-examining Joel in Lincoln-Douglas debate. They happened to discover before this round that they were born on the exact same day in the same county (different hospitals, though).

They're still smiling later =D!

Alex and Lauren--two cheerful girls who I am honored to know.

Daniel and Paul. Daniel was in speech and debate until he graduated two years ago. Now, he's back on the other side of the table judging.

Austin Rhetoric Club (ARC). I love 'em all!

Chit-chatting with Jessie. You do enough talking when you're competing, but you do at least 50 times more talking when you're not competing. Jokes, theological discussions, small talk (why do they call it "small" when that amounts to the largest chunk of talking a person does?), getting-to-know-you talk, tons of "Hello's", and, of course, bushels of laughter.

Conversing with the world's greatest speech club coach (in my highly unbiased opinion:-)

Defending the faith through Apologetics.

Paul S. and Paul H.

Anxiously listening to the tournament director annouce "breaks" to find out who will advance to the next level.

Paul and Nick Elledge. I couldn't begin to name all of the awards he's received, but awards don't really matter anyway. What counts is what you've learned through earning those awards, and how you apply that in the world to make a difference.

Adam, Sarah, Christina, and Rachel. Adam, Sarah, and Rachel have all gone to the final round at the National tournament in various speech events. They are super talented, super humble, and super on fire for God. I've never heard any of them bragging on themselves, yet I've heard all of them talking about how good God is. And boy, is He ever!

My mom and Mrs. Hardy. The guy in the picture above (Adam) is Mrs. Hardy's son.

On Sunday, we visited our sister church in Dallas so my mom and I decided to kidnap this cute baby girl named Sophia. I've always wanted to have a sister! Don't you think she'd make a lovely addition to our family?

In a MacDonald's playscape. I haven't been in a fast food playground in ages. It brought back so many memories...

~Christy

Love

Valentine's Day--what a perfect day to talk about love. When you hear the word "love", what comes to mind? Is it some picture of fuzzy romance? Yet the truest love isn't a fuzzy romantic kind.

1 Corinthians 13 is often thought of as the love chapter, and it is a really amazing picture of love, but my favorite passage about love in the Bible would probably be 1 John 4:7-21. In both verses 8 and 16 it says, "God is love". It doesn't state, "God loves" or "God is loving" but that God is love. When you think about that it can really blow one's mind away. It is impossible for God to go against what He is and so it is impossible for God to stop loving me... the wretched sinner that I am. "For God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us."~Romans 5:8 (my favorite Bible verse).

I could talk on and on about God's wonderful love, but I now want to look at how that affects our own love. In verse 19, John says, "We love because He first loved us." Our first love is to God which we give with our entire heart, soul, mind, and strength. Love to God is one that calls for surrendering everything to Him. Even our own life. Whenever I hear a martyr story I'm always astounded by the commitment that person showed to God. Then the question usually passes through my head, "Do I have that much love for God? What would I do if I were in their shoes?"

From a love for God flows a love for others. Verses 20 and 21 state, "If anyone says, 'I love God,' yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen. And He has given us this command: Whoever loves God must also love his brother." That may seem harsh to some, but those words ring as true as the fact that I'm breathing. The longest lasting love for others is a love that comes from the outpouring of a heart filled to the brim with a love for God. That's the only kind of love that comes close to the 1 Corinthians 13 ideal.

No, I'm not anywhere near that point and I won't be for a long time yet, but I've seen it in other people's lives. Sometimes when I'm at the top of a spiritual mountain I feel like I've reached it, but then I go downhill again. It's as if my love is like a flower in the winter... sometimes blooming strong and sometimes closed up for long periods of time.

1 Cor. 13 says, "Love never fails." The only way to find out if something will fail or not is to test it. I guess that's where trials come into the picture. This past summer my family experienced trials that tested love and trust unlike any I have ever experienced before. Paul called it "The Summer of Betrayal". Four different instances that shook our lives and I doubt the way we look at others will ever be the same. Two of them were at the expense of someone's life. Could we still love those who had betrayed everything we had believed about them? Could we still trust that God had everything under control and that He knew what He was doing?

I believe that through every instance God brought everyone in my family closer to Him and to each other. We had to trust that "All things work together to them that love God and who are called according to His purpose." ~Romans 8:28. We were (and are) still working on the loving Him part, but we know that we must rely on Him as our refuge and strength, and we can believe His promises that He would encircle those affected with His all sufficient love.

Love. So are you still thinking about the fuzzy romance? Love is a picture of a Father turning His back on His only Son. Love is a picture of a Man hanging from a cross between two murderers. Love is what God the Father sent His Son to do for us. That is real love...

~Christy

Mexico Trip 2007

From January 4-13 my family was in Mexico on a mission trip with our church. We had four complete families and parts of four other families go. I loved every moment of the trip. We had a lot of excitement, a lot of work (the inside of the church building is now covered with stucco), a lot of fun (singing on the walkie-talkies), and we were given such a huge blessing.

Note: All pictures below are shown chronologically and all names are given left to right.

During the two day journey down to Morelia, Mexico, the Youngblood van got stuck on the curb of the parking lot. We weren't sure what to do since the tire was trapped in a one-foot deep ditch. In the right bottom corner of the picture, you can see the muddy water covering the ditch. The guys tried to push the car several times, but nothing ever happened. We stayed there for about an hour trying different things from logs to posterboard all to no avail. Pushing on the left side of the car, you can see two Mexican men who stopped to help us. One of the men could speak English and he called a large tow truck which pulled the van out.

The scenery in Mexico is beautiful. The mountains were breathtaking, the lakes were shimmering, and the sky was gorgeous.

Here are the guys putting stucco on the walls of the church. They must have had "fun" because every evening they'd come back to the camp covered in a boy's dream--dirt.

Church was very interesting to say the least. The man standing on the left (named Ivan) would say a couple of sentences in Spanish and then pause while Mr. Norris translated in English. The teaching was about being in a battle against Satan, how we need to be soldiers of Christ, and that we should not be lazy or sleeping as if we were on the Queen Mary.

Kyle, Daniel, Caleb, and Paul. Roommates of the "Guys Cabin".

Canon and Princey were the camp horses who were allowed free range across the camp so the soccer field was a bit... um... unclean :-).

Has Paul found a robot?

Here we are setting out food for the potluck after church. I loved working in the kitchen during the week with the other ladies... young and old... because there was so much wonderful fellowship. We chatted about everything under the sun, laughed about the little things in life, comforted others going through difficulties, told a million comical stories, prayed some of the most fervent prayers I have ever heard, and, most importantly, I grew so much in my walk with God as we talked about our faith.

Every night we played volleyball in the gym as well as on Sunday afternoon. I rarely play volleyball in Texas, but in Mexico I did every chance I got. It's so fun even if I do miss the ball whenever I try to hit it.

Sunday afternoon we went to downtown Morelia. Here's a picture as we walked through the market. Bright colors... soccer shirts... strong smells... every vegetable imaginable... words I can't understand floating around my ears... leather shops... staring faces... stuffy air in indoor markets... figurines... fresh air in outdoor markets... so much to describe that I can't explain it in words.

The massive Catholic cathedral of Morelia. It was humongous! When we went inside they were having mass so we didn't look around long.

Our group picture. I loved traveling with each and every one of them. Such lovely people!

This kind of joy makes me want to stay a little kid. They're filled with happiness just by chasing bubbles.

This restaurant has given me so many memories and it's definitely my favorite eating place in Mexico.

Caleb, Paul, Daniel, and Kyle. This is Paul's favorite picture because all of his roommates are standing together by coincidence.

Big Abby (5), Little Abby (2), Mrs. Latham, and Noah (4). This was the cutest picture ever! On Tuesday, we went to the location where all Monarch butterflies in North America to the east of the Rocky Mountains migrate to every winter. To read more about the Monarchs go here. This picture was taken at the Monarch butterfly refuge just before we took our 2 mile hike.

It was a beautiful hike. Huge pine and fir trees... green... dust... a large clearing... trees... more green... dead butterflies...
"How much longer before we get to the butterflies? We must be close."
"Let me ask the guide."
*talks in Spanish*
"He says 5 kilometers."
"But they said the hike was only 3 kilometers to begin with!"
"They must have tricked us so that we would take the hike."
*groans*
"Hold on."
*talks in Spanish again*
"Never mind, the guide said 5 minutes."
*long sigh*

Each one of those mossy looking clusters hanging from the trees are actually hundreds of Monarch butterflies. Can you imagine that in this one area there were millions of butterflies! It was unlike anything I had ever seen before. At the time of this picture the sun wasn't out (it was a cloudy day), but later the sun came out for a few minutes and thousands of butterflies started flying. What an amazing testimony of God's creation!

A butterfly crawled onto my shoe! Then it started crawling up my skirt and finally onto my hand! Did you know that butterflies tickle?

The friendly butterfly crawled from one hand to another...

Our missionary family. David, Abby, Mr. Norris, Josiah (in red), Daniel, Mrs. Norris, and John Mark. It's so exciting to see what God is doing in the lives of this family! If I had to describe them in one word it would probably be: enjoyable. You just love to be around them because they're fun and open. Open about answered prayers, how God has touched them, how God provided, how God is using them, or basically about anything God has done.

The one and only Hastings family. If I described my family in one word, I would choose either "Flexible", "Fun", or "Fantastic". I love my family and I'm glad God put me with them!

Abby's imitation of Christina. I interviewed lots of people about the trip and I enjoy listening to it at home. I have Abby's super cute interview of John Mark on tape too. Later they both sang, Away in a Manger in Spanish on tape.

I love this picture of my parents (even though my dad had purposely assumed the "your tax dollars at work" stance:-).

Here's a picture of most of the group on Thursday at the church building. I stayed at camp with a few others to watch the little kids and fix dinner.

Rosio, me, and Powlina. Talking to the Mexicans was probably my favorite part about the trip. The conversations were so funny because I only know a pocito (little) bit of Spanish. Basically I'd ask someone their name, age, whether they were from the city or the ranches, and if they liked volleyball (well, I think that's what I was saying). That was the extent of my knowledge of Spanish so then I'd move on to the next person to ask them their name, age, etc. I couldn't count how many confused looks I got when I tried to ask a question that I didn't know how to ask. Sometimes I could use hand motions, but normally I'd ask a Norris or someone in our group to translate.

The guys washing dishes after dinner which they voluntarily did every evening!

Saying goodbye to the missionaries and the camp on Friday. As they say: "Parting is such sweet sorrow."

One of many goodbye pictures.

On the way back to the States, we had seen this pillar of smoke in front of us for many miles. Some of the passengers needed a bathroom break so we stopped at a gas station about a mile short from the smoke. It was a blessing that we did because it turned out that a gasoline truck had exploded and was now burning on the side of the 4-lane highway. No traffic moved in any of the lanes. The vehicles just lined up for miles and miles. We stayed at the gas station for 2 hours! But without us stopping, Paul wouldn't have been able to do a wonderful thing. He witnessed to a bilingual boy named Jowani! And before we left Paul gave him his Bible. I wonder how God will water the seed that was sowed.

With all that said, if I had to name one thing that I learned it would be this: God uses ordinary people in extra-ordinary ways.

~Christy