what's your theme song?

i love music, but i no longer consider myself a music snob. gone are the days that i spend more money on music than anything else. while i am sure that i do spend more money on music than the average person, my music budget has diminished significantly. i guess that's what happens when you grow up.

my taste ranges from CCM (contemporary Christian) to top 40... basically, anything from amy grant to jason mraz. throw in some "good" country and r&b and i'm a happy girl. i like variety. i'm rarely without my ipod, so that i can listen to what i like... when i like... b/c the radio rarely satisfies my musical moods.

i associate songs to situations going on in my life. i can hear a song and be instantly transported back in time and remember where i was and what i was doing when that song began to mean something to me. here are some examples:

when i hear "all star" by smash mouth... my best friend and senior year of high school instantly comes to mind.

rob thomas and santana's "smooth"... reminds me of my freshmen year of college and one of my college roommates.

brandon heath's "i'm not who i was" ... a painful loss of a friend.

some of my theme songs of this past year would have to be:

• john mayer's "i'm in repair"
• hillsong's "hosanna" by brooke fraser
• natalie grant's "perfect people"
• "deciphering me" by brooke fraser
• "all the good things" by jill phillips
• "just as i am" by jourdan burks

what about you? what are some of your theme songs?

Packed up and heading to the airport.

Hiking

Currently, we are hiking through 3 feet of snow.

The students on our team

Breckenridge Update

Here is a picture of where we are staying while we are in Colorado.

At the airport

Our flight to breckenridge has been delayed about an hour. Here are pictures of my students waiting.

For updates from the trip, go to: http://missionmexicocity.tumblr.com.

breckenridge - update 1

We get on a plane to head to Breckenridge, CO tomorrow.

Please pray for safe travel. We're fly out of DFW at 3:20 pm and arrive in Denver at 4:25.

We will then drive the 1.5 hours to Breckenridge for orientation and dinner at the church. We will do our best to update often so that you can know what's going on and how you can be praying for us.

Thanks for your support.

Stephanie

i like steak. potatoes. shrimp. and pineapple.

a few weekends ago, i spent a saturday afternoon and evening with my friends the dewoodys. we started off our afternoon adventure by watching the wolverine movie. after that, we decided that we needed to find something for dinner. not just any random food would suffice that evening though. we hit up kroger to buy a plethora of red meat, potatoes, pineapple and shrimp.

everything was grilled on the dewoody's brand new cast iron grill pan (the billowing smoke was totally worth it!). susan wrote all about our meal on her blog as well, you can read it here. i took care of the steaks while susan totally owned the pineapple.

here are some pictures... (courtesy of susan's camera and blog).

brown sugar grilled pineapple. marvelous.

needless to say, we ate good. jealous?

a letter

since february, i have served as the interim youth minister for a church in denton. my last sunday is coming up, may 10th. here is the letter i sent to the parents today...

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Currently, I am reading through the book of Romans. I started over a week ago, and I’m still in the first chapter. It’s just that good. As I attempt to sift through Paul’s letter to the church in Rome, I find myself being constantly reminded of the sin in my life and my desperate need of grace. As Christians, we are good at forgetting who we really are and why we need Jesus in the first place. My heart rejoices that while I live in the midst of my brokenness, my God loves me.

In Romans chapter one, Paul spends a significant amount of time discussing sin and the fact that because we do not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, we find ourselves filled with wickedness (1:28). Paul is reminding them, and us, that if our own spiritual growth is not a priority, we cannot overcome the sin in our lives by ourselves. As I let the truth of that sink in, I continue to return to the opening verse of the chapter. He writes, “Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle and set apart for the gospel of God.” Paul describes himself as a servant; God has purchased him. As believers, we no longer have the right to decide what will become of our lives. The moment you say, “yes” to God, the calling in your life becomes evident. We are called to be set apart for the sake of the Gospel. The Gospel must become such a part of our lives that the saving power of God is spread wherever we go. You see, salvation doesn’t stop with being purchased by God and a calling being put on your life – there must be a response. That response is found in verse 5; because of Jesus we receive grace, and through that, our obedience to spiritual growth and evangelism comes from our faith in Him.

As I come up on my last Sunday with Highland, I praise God for the opportunity to come and walk alongside you as you invest in the lives of your students. I am continually amazed that God allows me, with the sin and struggles in my life, to play a part in reaching the world for Him. I’m grateful that your church was a part of His plan for my life.

I commit to praying for you, your family and your church as you seek the youth minister that God is calling to Highland. As you wait for God to reveal what’s next, I pray that you each remember the impact you have on the spiritual growth of your children. As I shared a few paragraphs earlier, because of our faith in Jesus, we are called and have the opportunity to invest in others for the sake of the Gospel. May your children and the world around us see Jesus and the power of the Gospel in us as we strive to become more like Christ each and every day.

mexico city to Breckenridge - may 14-21, 2009

Due to situations outside of our control… aka the swine flu… we have had to change the plans for our Mexico City mission trip. After many conversations, emails and prayer, God provided an amazing opportunity for us to go and serve in Breckenridge, CO.

The Baptist Student Ministries at the University of North Texas (Denton) and at Texas State University (San Marcos) will now be partnering with Agape Outpost Chapel to do evangelism within their community, as well as helping them prepare for incoming missions teams by doing some light construction projects. We will be going to Breckenridge as a Special Impact Team through Go Now Missions (www.gonowmissions.com).

Agape Outpost Chapel desires to see passionate disciples of Jesus Christ equipped to worship and to reach out to people through ministry. We look forward to partnering with them as they reach out to the Breckenridge community.

I am writing you to thank you again for your financial and prayer support. Because of your generosity, we have raised the funds needed for our trip, so I ask that you continue to pray for our team as we plan and prepare for this new opportunity.

The many phone calls and emails that we have received asking for trip updates has been extremely encouraging, and it has been phenomenal to watch as God has orchestrated the details for us as we have changed our plans. I am so excited to see how God provides as we prepare, and how He moves through the trip as we serve.

One of our students, Nataly, who was planning on participating on our trip will not be able to come because of a family health situation that has come up in the last few weeks. Her mom has been diagnosed with cancer and Nataly has become her mom’s main caretaker. Please keep Nataly and the Garcia family in your prayers as they persevere through this extremely difficult time.

We will keep the same blog address that we had for our Mexico City trip and we will update it daily so that you can see what God is doing and know how to pray for us while we take God’s mission to Breckenridge (http://missionmexicocity.tumblr.com/).

In Him,

Stephanie Gates

Associate Director

UNT Baptist Student Ministry

this ended up on facebook

this picture of me just ended up on facebook... you never know what's going to pop up.

brulee-ing the creme

if you know me... you know i like to cook. baking, that's another story. for some reason it intimidates me. while i was in corpus with my parents over spring break... they introduced me to the wonders of the "mini torch." my dad made creme brulee and we each got to torch our own dessert. of course, i instantly fell in love... not with the great dessert... but with the ability to play with fire. in the kitchen. with a torch. and burning things on purpose.

my mom thought about buying me my own torch to take home with me and then realized that taking it on the plane would have caused quite an ordeal, so i went to bed bath and beyond and bought one when i got home.

my friend susan and i decided to make some creme brulee and try the torch out. here's a picture of the torch in action.

susan wrote about our brulee-ing adventure on her blog, click here to check it out.

stay tuned for some more cooking adventures...

blog readers

i've noticed that i've received some heavy reader traffic from carrollton and garland, tx. i'm curious who you are. comment and let me know. =)