Friend Deb.

Tonight I got to have dinner with my work BFF, Deb. She's great. I like her for a lot of reasons. Here are just a few:

1. I'm secretly obsessed with Deb. Tonight, I realized that she may be as or a little be more obsessed with me. She thinks I am the cat's pajamas.

2. Deb uses common phrases in the wrong context. I think it's so cute. Ex: "Kelli, were you ears burning last night? Because my son Alex went to the ER at 11:30p and was there until 4:00a!"

3. Deb never wears make-up. And she really doesn't need to.

4. Deb showed me the ropes at my job. She was always very helpful at telling me the secret information you don't really learn in training...like NEVER eat the school lunch because you'll get sick.

5. Deb has more patience than me, she never says anything negative, she readily admits when she's wrong and quickly apologizes, she runs from gossip, and she really loves the Lord.

6. Deb brings me bags of Dorritos because she thinks I need to eat more.

7. She's sneaky funny.

8. Deb is just like me in 20 years.....only shorter.

9. Deb texts.

10. Deb loves babies. Me too!


I wish everyone had a friend Deb at work. Life would be a lot more encouraging, a lot more fun, and I think we would all be pretty well fed.

Donna Martin graduates! Donna Martin graduates!

If you were a child of the 90's, you probably spent your tweenage years much like myself. Waking up late morning just in time to roll out of bed, hop down to the living room couch and settle yourself in with a big bowl of cereal and the remote control, just in time to hear that infamous theme song and see the faces of Beverly High's most notable students: Brandon and Brenda Walsh [fresh off the boat from the Midwest], Donna Martin [PTL the student body rallied together or she might STILL be in high school], Steve Sanders [Ew. and that's all I have to say about him], Kelly Taylor....and everyone's favorite Dylan McKay, as played by Luke Perry. Everyone loved Dylan because he was a little rough around the edges, sometimes drove a motorcycle and had a tragic homelife that just made you want to pat him on the head and tell him him that though his dad might be off in prison, his TV fans still loved him.

Well, Dylan fans....Luke Perry is in town filming a new movie called Sam Steele and the Junior Dective. Yesterday morning Sara, Karen and myself set off on a quest to find Luke Perry in the vast suburb of West Des Moines. We got our first lead that he was filming at one of the fire stations in WDSM, so we set off toward the only fire station we were aware off.

As luck would have it, there were serveral firemen out washing up the equipment. Karen flagged one young man down, who was kind enough to report that Luke Perry had already been and gone. He gave us a lead to our next location, which brought us to the big gated house by Valley Church. Alas, Luke Perry evaded us again.

We are girls with gumption, so we put on our Luke Perry thinking caps and ended up at West Glen. We combed the farmer's market, Caribou Coffee and Fuel Juice Bar. Apparently Luke doesn't like crowds because he was a no-show once again.

To make up for the disappointment of missing one of Hollywood's hottest C-list celebrities, we ate our weight in Hy-Vee pizza and called it a day. I'm kind of glad we didn't ever find him. I don't know what we would have said to him. Certainly, "Donna Martin Graduates" would not have passed muster.

Outreach.

This summer I am in a video outreach group. We have been working on a new video for the website and also doing some street interviews. Last night I went out to Court Ave with Karen and Tyler, armed with our official video camera [thanks Andrew Roger], a microphone and some headphones. Our question this week was "What are characteristics of spiritual maturity?" We got some pretty great answers. Some people were very honest. Some people just said what I assume they thought we wanted to hear. Some people were way off base. A lot of people though just laughed and walked away. It's heartbreaking that we live in a time where people can tell you which celebrity was spotted carrying the latest "it" handbag or their athletes performance stats, but we can't accurately describe what someone's life looks like when they are living for the Lord. I think this will be a very interesting summer for me. I am excited to see what comes of our work and all of the people we will meet and talk with along the way.