i've gone domestic.

well, i think that i can officially say that i've gone domestic. it's taken me 27 years to get here. i was extremely blessed this christmas (and birthday, since it is only 9 days before christmas), and the majority of the gifts that i asked for were things for my house. so i thought i'd share my blessed domesticity with you...

i always thought that i'd have to get married to get one of these!

i love this bedspread! i spent over 2 hours ironing it and trying to get the blanket inside the bedspread cover. it was quite interesting... but i conquered.

now i can make individual servings of mac-and-cheese.

a friend gave me this for one of my favorite snacks, chips and salsa!

out of the mouth of babes...

saw this on a friend of mine's blog, and i wanted to post it here as well.

this soundclip is of a 12 year old boy calling in to KSBJ, a Christian radio station in Houston, TX. you should listen.

survey says...

i have decided to do some surveys to see how people view aspects of religion. this survey specifically deals with the church and the studying the bible. there are only 5 questions, and i would really appreciate your help. i will put the results (no personal info will be included) on the blog so that you can see what others believe and think as well. all i ask is that you answer honestly.

Click Here to take survey

boston pictures

here are more pictures from boston.

boston, october 10-14th

this past summer, my dad told me that he and my mom would be coming to boston for a meeting he had to attend, and he asked me if i would like to come with them... of course, i quickly agreed to the trip! boston has always been a place that i've wanted to visit, so i jumped at the opportunity to come. here's an update on our trip:

day one, wednesday:
mom and i had to catch a flight at 6:20 am, which made for a very early day. mom woke up at 3:20... which meant, i woke up then as well. after sleeping for most of the plane ride, we arrived at our hotel, the marriott in copley park. since dad flew in from corpus christi, he didn't arrive until around 2:00 pm... so we took advantage of the time in the room to catch up on some more sleep. the first "touristy" thing that we did was grab dinner at cheers, which is the restaurant that inspired the television show, cheers. after dinner, my parents had to go to a reception for the convention dad was attending, so i opted to hang in the hotel room and be lazy.



day two, thursday:
our second day started with brunch at a local tearoom called, tealuxe. both of my parents love hot tea, so it was a necessity to make sure we visited this local favorite. after lunch, we jumped onto the subway to visit harvard, which is one place that i have always wanted to see. when i was looking into masters programs, i had considered applying to harvard's divinity (theology) school, but had opted for a more conservative program, as well as a school a little cheaper and closer to home. it was great being able to walk on a campus that has been around since 1636. after harvard... and heading back to the hotel for a nap, we ate a great seafood dinner at legal seafood, where the slogan is, "if it's not fresh, it's not legal."







day three, friday:
our day started with an early lunch at the pour house, where i had fish and chips and some amazing homemade mac-n-cheese. after the great meal, we toured fenway park, the home of the boston red sox. my dad raised me to be an avid sports fan, particularly baseball... so seeing such a historical ball field was quite exciting to me...we were able to stand on the green monster, see the original stadium chairs, and see where babe ruth and many other greats played. once again, we made time for afternoon naps and then we "fell into the gap" and went clothes shopping (i got a great deal on a coat... hopefully it will be cold enough for you'll see me wearing it soon). after shopping, we went and had an amazing italian dinner at papa razzi's (the last picture in this section is one of the dining room at the restaurant), and then settled into the hotel room to watch the red soxs play the cleveland indians for the first game of the american league champion series. go red sox (who won the game, by the way)!!









day four, saturday:
This was our last day, so we decided to make the most of it. my mom wanted to go and see some art galleries and shop, while dad and i decided to go and "see" boston by walking the freedom trail. the freedom trail is a "red-brick walking trail that leads you to 16 nationally significant historic sites, these sites include: a unique collection of museums, churches, meeting houses, burying grounds, parks, a ship, and historic markers that tell the story of the American Revolution and beyond." check out the website, www.thefreedomtrail.org, for a map of the trail and a virtual tour of the sites. while walking the trail, dad and i made a few "extra" stops along the way. the first stop was trani, which is an ice cream store that injects ice cream into cupcakes, brownies and other fantastic treats. i'm including a picture of my chocolate cupcake, with chocolate ice cream inside, that was then covered in chocolate syrup. YUM! then after eating my dessert first, we found a little (so little that we sat at a table with two other people, who turned out to be great company so we didn't mind) italian restaurant in little italy, g'vanni's. after a great meal, we met up with my mom at faneuil hall market place for some shopping and site seeing, then we made the long trek back to our hotel. my dad estimates that we walked over 20 miles today... but we were able to see a lot of boston on foot, which was a great experience. we then finished off the night with another great seafood dinner, and game 2 between the red sox and the indians. go red sox!







it was a great trip. i will try and put a link up to an online photo album so that you can check out all of the pictures from the trip.

what's been going on...

god is faithful. the past several months have provided some interesting times of frustration, learning and sadly have displayed my lack of trust. if you know me, you are probably well aware that i am not one who asks for help, instead i try and help everyone else, and yet i have found myself in countless situations in which i have had to rely on others just to accomplish the simple tasks of a normal day.

let me expand on the situation... in april the great denton floods happened (click here to read a previous blog about it). as i mentioned in the previous blog, my car experienced some damage... the damages were only partially paid for by insurance, and left me with quite a large balance on my credit card. (once again, if you know me... you know that i have always paid my credit card of each month, and now that was not a possibility). frustration, is a mild term to describe how i felt about my newly-claimed debt, especially as i attempted to budget how i was going to pay it off (and when you are in ministry, that can seem quite discouraging).

fast forward to a few months ago... even though i had been making substantial (on my budget, very substantial) payments on the credit card, i knew that i wasn't making a dent. so i started to pray. i had tried to figure out how to manipulate my monthly income so that i can not only live, eat and pay bills... but pay off this debt. (i was a business major in college, so i figured i should be able to figure this out) like i mentioned, i started to pray. why didn't i just start there in the first place? so often we try and fix our problems first and then "turn them over to God."

during the past few years, i have been blessed with some opportunities to lead worship for different ministry events... so i started to think that maybe i could try and book some more worship opportunities to provide the extra income needed, and with my previous music business background... i figured it would be relatively easy to find a few places to play each month. so i started to look into what i would need to do to "promote" myself (which was very odd... i was the promoter, not the promotee), but at least i had a good idea of where to start. so i've spent the past few months just trying to get myself prepared to contact people about worship leading opportunities. i haven't called anyone. i haven't emailed anyone. i've been so busy with work that i haven't really been able to do hardly anything to get things going, so i figured i'd set a goal of getting things booked in the spring.

then god took over.

the phone calls started to come in... and amazingly enough, i am booked for every sunday and almost every tuesday from october through december. i am also leading worship for a retreat in november. check out what God has done:

Date Venue
10.07.07 Crossroads Church
10.09.07 New River Fellowship - Relevant
10.16.07 New River Fellowship - Relevant
10.21.07 Crossroads Church
10.28.07 Parkway Hills Baptist Church
11.04.07 Parkway Hills Baptist Church
11.06.07 New River Fellowship - Relevant
11.09.07 University Baptist Church Youth Retreat
11.10.07 University Baptist Church Youth Retreat
11.11.07 Crossroads Church
11.13.07 New River Fellowship - Relevant
11.18.07 Crossroads Church
11.20.07 New River Fellowship - Relevant
11.25.07 Crossroads Church
11.27.07 New River Fellowship - Relevant
12.02.07 Crossroads Church
12.04.07 New River Fellowship - Relevant
12.09.07 Crossroads Church
12.11.07 New River Fellowship - Relevant
12.16.07 OFF
12.23.07 OFF
12.30.07 Crossroads Church

for more information with what has been going on with the music ministry God has given me, check out my myspace page: www.myspace.com/stephaniegatesmusic.

it's amazing what happens when you have nothing to do with it... and God takes over.

free burma

i read about this on my friend Jeremy's blog. if you haven't heard about this yet, you need to jump on board. tomorrow bloggers around the world will be uniting in support of the people of Burma as they rise up to oppose the militant dictatorship currently in control of the government in their country. go to Free-Burma.org and register to be a part of the day.

texas bsm stuff

most of you know that i work at the baptist student ministry at the university of north texas, and i thought i'd fill you in on some of the exciting things that have been going in across the state and the world with our texas BSMs.

Go Now Missions is the missions organization that is a part of Texas BSM, and through this organization students like you are changing the world for Christ. Here are the Go Now stats for 2006-2007:



* Students served in 24 countries and 20 states
* 52 semester missionaries (serving in 10 U.S. states and 19 in foreign countries)
* 91 summer missionaries - serving 10 weeks (35 in the U.S. and 38 in foreign countries)
* 76 impact missionaries - serving 2 to 4 weeks (2 in the U.S. and 17 in foreign countries)



Financial Giving - $550,414.98 raise to send these missionaries
* $158,841 given by Texas campus BSMs
* $297,365.91 given by Partners in Missions
* $72,393.24 given sacrificially by the students who served
* $21,815.11 other gifts and offerings



269 professions of faith

118 other decisions

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The Focus Conference on September 7-9, 2007 was amazing. Here is a quick recap of the weekend:

* Approximately 2000 in attendance

* 350 served at mission opportunities in Arlington

* 1500 students trained in such areas as leadership, leading small groups, community building, sharing their faith, prayer, world view, cross cultural relationship with Muslim students, etc.

* 130 students expressed interest in serving as Go Now missionaries

Student Responses to ACT NOW opportunities
* 1085 students signed the BWA Micah Challenge Petition to end human slave trafficking

* $300 given to world hunger causes

* 44 letters written to religious prisoners around the world through Voice of Martyrs

* 313 Bibles addressed and sent to China through Bibles Unbound

* 3 water wells sponsored through Water for All

* $960 given to translate 40 verses of scripture into the Walmi language through One Verse

* 519 jars of peanut butter and jelly given to Mission Arlington

Check out the Focus pictures!

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CHECK OUT our Texas BSM stats:

* 131 Baptist Student Ministers including Directors, Associates, Interns, Campus Missionaries and other volunteers
* 120 Campuses
* More than 80,000 students personally touched by BSM
* More than 16,000 students involved on a consistent basis in BSM
* 27,000 plus evangelistic contacts with students

kanye vs. 50 cent

so have you heard about the rivalry between kanye west and 50 cent? the skinny of the drama is: both 50 cent and kanye are putting out new albums on sept. 11, and 50 cent says he will retire if kanye sales more albums than he does (click here to read the story).

a friend of mine (andrew crosby) blogged about the rivalry, and since i liked his idea, i thought i'd plug his post, here it is:
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so, i was reading a little online about the feud between kanye west and 50 cent. normally i wouldn't care at all and would just kinda laugh and move on. but then i saw that 50 cent said he would retire if kanye's album outsold his in their first week. and this got me interested. i think it's the civic duty of all americans to bring about the retirement of 50 cent, and i think i know 2 ways that this can happen on the grassroots level.

1. buy the kanye album and tell all of your friends to do the same. and

2. more importantly. make a trip early tomorrow morning to your music retailers such as best buy, circuit city, target, and wal-mart. go ahead and grab your copy of kanye's album and then move on to wherever they are displaying all of the 50 cent albums. then, load your basket with ALL of the 50 cent albums and move out of the cd section of the store. for wal-mart and target slowly start to unload your basket of 50 cent's albums as you move throughout the store. a couple of discs with the milk, a stack behind men's underwear, 3 or 4 behind some cans of soup, a stack in the arts and crafts section, etc. you get the idea. for best buy and circuit city you'll want to "reorganize" the discs. i'd say aim for the adult pop sections. your billy joels, neil diamonds, elton johns, etc.

uncle sam needs you. we can do it.

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i might just give in and go along with his idea... so what do you think? if kanye wins, would 50 cent actually really retire? we can only hope.

the real jesus

here is a video by the band downhere for their song, the real jesus. great song. check it out.