happy birthday!!

Happy, happy Birthday to the best mama a girl could ever ask for!!!!
I am so thankful for you and who you are in my life.
I look up to you in so many ways.
I miss you more then words could ever express, and love you even more.

thunderstorms

I love thunderstorms. There's just something about how powerful, raging, mysterious, and dangerous, but beautiful, soothing, inspiring and comforting they are. As I sat up on the steps of the church in the middle of a very loud one, under the arch, and looked out at the huge sky, I was reminded of the face of my Jesus. It occurred to me that Thunderstorms are a lot like Him. We have no control over storms. They can be extremely unpredictable at times. They are fierce, powerful, and dominating. So is our Jesus.
All too often I put Jesus in a box. I make Him what I want Him to be. I take all the things I like, all the things that feel good, comforting, safe, and then that's how I think of Him. That's not ok. Because when you think about it, that's not honoring Him anyway. That's being shortsighted and that's belittling Him. That's not loving Him in all ways. That's limiting Him to how I feel. That's like setting up boundaries in my heart, and only allowing myself to know the parts of Him that seem safe. That's restricting my love and adoration. When we limit and confine Him to what we want Him to be, we miss out on the chance to know Him completely. We hinder ourselves of learning more about Him. Our God as a whole.


My Jesus is loving, comforting, protecting, soothing, intimate, and a safe refuge. He is a peaceful God. He is personal and He is full of Grace. He is compassionate, and full of Mercy. He loves. He forgives. He is always here.

That's the Jesus that we all run to.

My Jesus is fierce, full of power, mighty, just, angry, jealous, condemning, authoritative, commanding, forceful. He is a warrior. He is supreme, He is sovereign, He is dominant. He is ruler of all.

That's the Jesus I choose to forget about sometimes.

Because it's not sweet and comforting. It doesn't always feel safe and soothing. Here's the thing though…sometimes He's not supposed to. Sometimes He chooses to be fierce and angry. Our god is a God of justice. He is not confined. We may choose that in our hearts, even without realizing it, but He is not.
He demands reverence. We are supposed to fear Him. He is a jealous God. He's not always feel good and comforting. We could never, ever find enough words to adequately display His character. He's indescribable. But we can't just make Him into what we want Him to be. Our hearts should not limit Him.

As I was surrounded by that thunderstorm, by the darkness and the coldness, watching the lightening strike and listening to the thunder roar, I was reminded that like our Jesus, they can be comforting and peaceful, but at the same time they are mysterious, dangerous, powerful, and demand respect. We are called to come to His feet with fear and reverence. To remember His power and control. To be in constant awe and amazement of the God we serve.
We are so little in His huge hands. And that's how it's supposed to be.

HaPpY valentines DaY

Happy Valentines Day!!
Spent the afternoon spreading some love around Rajpur, north India today. We baked and decorated dozens and dozens of heart shaped sugar cookies (even made our own cookie cutter out of sand paper and tin foil...actually quite resourceful) and then delivered them to all our friends, shop keepers, & employees around our little town. It was fun to share and celebrate an American holiday with all of our Indian and Tibetan friends. They all thought it was pretty special. It's cool when something so simple and little, like a plate of cookies, can bring so much joy and so many smiles. In a case like this, I think it really is the thought that counts.
Hope you all have a special day celebrating the ones you love the most!

wedding bells

Last Saturday we were happy to finally have a quiet evening without any company, when our neighbors stopped by. They came bearing an invitation to a wedding. Upon opening the invitation we learned that we've never actually met the bride or the groom, but it's our neighbors cousin.
Now 1st of all, let me just say that we love it when neighbors stop by…they are always welcome. But this particular night we were just looking forward to some peace and quiet without anyone extra…seems like our door has not been shut for the past two weeks. There are constantly people here.
2nd, we don't really know these neighbors very well, and so it seemed a little strange that we would be invited to her cousin's wedding. Guess it's just cultural though. I don't think I'd want a bunch of people I didn't know at my wedding, but in India it seems to just be the more the merrier. I think our whole street was invited.

So anyways, we were told we were invited, and told that we needed to wear saris. We were also told that the wedding started at 7:30, but we should arrive late, because everyone does, and that it ended "when the stars disappear and the sun comes up". An all night wedding…crazy.
So that being said, Mel and I had 3 days to come up with saris that neither of us owned. We went to Dehradun on Sunday to try and find some. Unfortunately, because it was a Sunday, the main sari shops were closed. Ravi told us that it was probably too late to buy them anyway, because there wasn't enough time for them to be made. So we resorted to finding really fancy kurtas instead. Long story short, I found one, Mel didn't. So she decided to just borrow a sari from our good friend Richa. She and I went to go pick it up the next night. After handing it to Mel, Richa said that the blouse had been taken in because Ravi had worn it last and so we might need to undo some of the stitching on the inside. Side note- for those of you who have never seen Ravi, she's tiny. In everyway.
Upon returning home, Mel tried on the blouse…let's just say it definitely needed to be taken back out. We had a good laugh. Not much breathing room.

The next day when our sweet helper Bimla was here, we had her show us how to put it on so that we could hopefully successfully get Mel dressed for the wedding later that night.
For starters, when Bimla walked in the room she started laughing so hard she was crying. I had helped Mel fasten the blouse, and apparently we did it backwards :) We had quite the bonding time with Bimla as she helped us learn how to wrap a Sari. It was pretty funny.

Apparently we didn't learn it very well, because as we were trying to put it back on her around 8:00, it didn't work nearly as well as we were hoping. After about 5 or 6 tries, she headed down our street to our other neighbors, who also happened to be invited to the wedding as well.

By the time the getting ready was dealt with, and Micah & Levi were settled in with Uncle Isaac and Aunt Ravi, we got to the wedding about 8:45. We walked into the venue and there were masses of people EVERYWHERE. It was craziness. When I had asked our neighbor how many people there would be, he told us that 3-4 thousand were invited. I thought that his English was just a little bit mixed up and he meant 3-4 hundred. Nope. Pretty sure he said what he meant. There were at least 2 thousand people milling about. I've never seen anything like it. It was extremely colorful, lively, lots of loud music, dancing, and there was more food then you can imagine. Everyone was dressed fancy, wandering around eating and having a good time. I'm sure we stuck out like a sore thumb, (people were most def staring) but we did fit in just fine as far as dress goes. After about 20 min we found our neighbor Massood, and his family and hung out with them. Aside from the family that initially invited us, they were some of the only people we knew in the entire place. We wandered around eating and meeting people for about an hour and then Masood suggested we go upstairs to the tent to eat dinner. We thought we'd just eaten dinner…he informed us that was just the refreshments. Haha. So we walked upstairs to many, many more people, and much, much more food. The eating was pretty funny, because even though were was tons, and tons of food, and by no means was it going to run out any time soon, you had to be extremely pushy to even get a plate. And then push your way through the food. People were pushing, shoving and elbowing. The males didn't care less that you were a female and much smaller then them, and the fact that you were in "line" went out the window. The older woman were the worst though, which I found pretty hysterical.
We stuck around till almost 11:00 and then decided since it didn't look like anything but eating was happening even remotely soon, we should head home to the boys. As we were driving back up our street, we saw our neighbor, the bride, and a bunch of other girls, just leaving the house. The wedding started at 7:30, it's now 11:00, and the bride is just leaving. Clearly we're living in another culture! It was fun to see/meet/congratulate the bride up close and personal though. Man alive, was she decked out. She looked beautiful.

So anyway, that was our first Hindu, Indian wedding experience. By the end of the night I was thankful I hadn't ended up wearing a Sari. Mel was worried the whole night that it was going to fall off, and it looked cold and hard to walk in. I'll buy and wear one eventually because you just can't live in India for a year and not wear a Sari at least once, but I'm glad it didn't happen to be on that very chilly night :)
It was neat to experience something so cultural like a wedding. Fun to try new traditional foods, and just watch people. Next time maybe we'll actually stay through the ceremony.

A drop in the bucket.

Sometimes I look at this crazy world that we live in and just feel overwhelmed. I feel like a drop in the bucket, and I wonder if anything I'm doing is really making a difference. Or if what I'm doing is making a big enough difference to even matter.

It's interesting though, because living in Rajpur India for 6 months, I've been exposed to a lot more poor, hurting, lost people then ever before, and I've experienced lots of new parts of the world over these last two months, but the thing that my Jesus keeps teaching me, and reminding me about, over and over again, is hope. His hope for His people. For this fallen world.

I see the devastation. I see the poverty. I see the need. I live among some of the poorest of the poor. I know it's world wide. I know the problem is not small.

But my Jesus just keeps reminding me of how big He is. And how great and hopeful His perfect plan for His world is.

It's easy to look around you and feel completely and utterly overwhelmed and helpless. Like nothing you could ever do will make a big enough difference. But what I've experienced over the last 8 months, is that if you choose to live with open eyes you will see it all…all of it. But you will also see God at work. He's all over the place. You just have to learn to recognize where He's working.

While I was gone these past two months, my Jesus spoke to my heart about a lot of things, but one thing that He reminded me of over and over again was that I'm not alone in this. We're not alone in this. He has His perfect plan and He willingly encourages each member of the body of Christ to be an intricate piece to His puzzle. He gives us the opportunity to be part of His plan. And there are people all over the world that have said yes to their savior and His plan.

While I was in Thailand I had the opportunity to meet and spend time with Stanley and Linda Cheng. They are missionaries from Singapore who followed Jesus to Bangkok, Thailand. They live on the AIT campus and do ministry with graduate students. It was a huge encouragement to spend the afternoon with them, getting to know them, learning about their work and ministry, and hearing amazing stories about what Jesus is doing. It really, really encouraged my heart, to see first hand some of what Jesus is doing through this amazing couple.

That night when I got back to my hotel I stood out on the back balcony listening to my ipod. My room was on the 14th floor, and I had an amazing view of the city of Bangkok. Lights as far as you could see…just city everywhere. My ipod shuffled to the song Invasion/Hero, and I actually listened to the lyrics closely for the 1st time.
The 3rd verse goes like this-

Yeah. God is not pleased, man it's clear that His standards missed, Cause the world is rampant with sin, it's an abandonment. Man is feeling stranded, feeling hopeless since his banishment. God is angry at the distortion and the mismanagement. Evil is at work, but don't be thinking He can't handle it, He promised He would do away with all of it, dismantle it. He's put up with this damage in His world, but He's promised us That He'll destroy all His enemies and then He'll walk with us. New Heaven, new Earth, that's where all His sheep dwell, Jesus succeeded in every part of life that we failed. Died the death we couldn't die, paid our price with 3 nails. Began the work He promised, in the end we all will be well. Already beat his enemies and when His Kingdom's realized, all those who oppose Him will see Jesus with through some real eyes. Deliverance is offered us, the hero He is urging us, salvation is exclusive to His people who have turned to trust.

This world is a mess. But God's got this. And somehow, we all get the amazing opportunity to play a small part in it all.



Bangkok felt huge that night. That's all I could see all around me. And Bangkok is just one city among the hundreds in Thailand, and Thailand is just one country among the hundreds in the world. But I was reminded that even when we feel so small, and we know we are just one Katie Sue Linn, in one small part of the world, who can only make such a small difference, there are so many, many, one Stanly and Linda Cheng's out there doing the same thing. All over the world. Jesus was whispering hope to my heart that night.

One drop in the bucket feels so small and insignificant, but when one drop joins with many, it eventually fills the bucket up. As believers, we are all called to different things, but those different things all fit together in the master plan that our creator is weaving together. And we all have one thing in common. Following Jesus with everything we have, and sharing His love with everyone we meet. It's pretty amazing and humbling to think that He allows us to be a part of things. He allows us to join Him where He’s working. And when everyone works together to play their specific role, eventually we get the job done.

friends are good for the heart

Katie Greenway got to Shanghai the day after we got back from Thailand. It was SO good to see her walk through that gate at the airport! Hugging a friend for the first time in 7 months, is just a wonderful thing.

We spent the next 9 days laughing, exploring Shanghai, catching up on life, watching countless office episodes, being stupid, eating lots of pocky, staying up way too late, encouraging eachother, and just making memories together. It was so much fun to all be in China together! Definitely 9 days that will not soon be forgotten. I'm so thankful for all the amazing friends that my Jesus has blessed me with. I've got some great ones.

Time with the Thielmans!

The Thielmans met us in Hua Hin on the 20th. It was so, so good to see them!! We had such a fun, full, eight days together at the beach.

Day two was filled with the beach and simply the joy of being together. Zach, Kelly, Megan, and I kayaked out to an island that looked pretty close. We discovered that Monkey Island was in fact, named appropriately. As soon as we jumped out of our kayaks a bunch of monkeys appeared from behind the trees to meet us/ eat our paddles and steal our water. A lot of people take boat tours out to the island to feed the monkeys, so I think they were expecting food from us…they weren’t too happy to find out we didn’t have any. We attempted to hike up to the top of the island-that was interesting. It was super steep and extremely overgrown. After a few scrapes too many we turned around and headed back. After a couple (very funny) falls on the way back down, and what seemed like a forever long kayak back to shore, we spent the rest of the day hanging out on the beach.

Day three was spent with our guide for the day, Nut. In the morning we drove about 2 hours to a national park where we hiked up to really pretty waterfall. On the way we stopped at a pineapple field for a look after a conversation in the back seat between Mr Andy and Zach that went something like this- A- “What do you think that this?” Pointing to one of the many, many fields we had passed. Z- “ I don’t know…it looks kind of like pineapple though.” A- “pineapple doesn’t grow in the ground, it grows from trees. Z- “no it doesn’t, it grows in the ground.” So, we then had to stop and learn about how pineapple grows. It was pretty funny.
After hiking up to the falls, Nut told us that whoever caught one of the HUNDREDS of fish by hand from one of the many pools beneath the waterfall, would get a free chocolate milk. Lets just say that looked MUCH easier then it really was. After about half an hour of trying, someone asked him if anyone had ever done it before. Nope. And we didn’t change that. We certainly tried to though. For a long time. It actually provided about at least an hour of entertainment.

We had lunch at a little local place, and then drove about an hour back towards Hua Hin, to the elephant village. We got to spend about 2 hours trekking around trails on elephants. That was so cool! Definitely a first.

Day four Zach and I introduced the scooters :) Zach, Mr Andy, Kelly, and I headed into town to make a grocery run. Who knew the grocery store could be such an adventure? That night we all headed into town to the local night market. That was a cool experience. We tried some of the local street food for dinner, and found some gifts for peeps back home. In Thailand you can find just about any type of food on a stick-they really seem to like the skewers. We tried chicken on a stick, pork on a stick, fruit on a stick…etc. It was all pretty good! We steered away from most of the weird stuff :)

Day five was Christmas Eve! It was the 1st year that it really didn’t feel like Christmas Eve to me. We had to keep reminding each other what day it was. It was a fun day though! Spent the morning playing frisbee at the beach and then took a boat tour out to Monkey Island. This time, armed with bananas. Monkeys are actually pretty nice when you have food for them…all except for the one male that stole all the other monkeys' bananas. Not cool. He wasn’t my favorite. Every once in a while one of the smaller ones would randomly jump on somebody looking for more food-that was always pretty funny. As long as it wasn't me. After they finished off the bananas, we got back in the boat and got a tour of the island from the water. It was a beautiful boat ride! God’s creation is amazing.

That night, we had Christmas dinner. Definitely not my mama’s cookin', but it was good. The best part of dinner though, was Santa. Apparently every year the resort has one of the guests volunteer to dress up as Santa and come during dinner, call all the kids names one at a time, and hand out gifts that their parents have pre-wrapped. This year no one signed up to be Santa. So guess who volunteered? Mr. Andy. It was pretty funny. Santa rode in on a rickshaw and delivered gifts to all the kiddos. Pictures below :)

Day six was Christmas! Definitely the most unique Christmas I’ve ever celebrated. I knew it was going to be a hard day. When think about Christmas I think about my Jesus and my family. I missed my family so much more during the holiday season. There are just so many traditions and memories that go along with that time of year and it was hard knowing that things were going to be so different this year. Knowing that the time of year when families are all together, mine was going to be so far away. It made my heart hurt. Jesus was so gracious to let me spend that time with people that I love so much and are so special to me, even though we were an ocean away from home. It was still really hard not to be with my whole family, but I was so incredibly thankful to be able to be with my brother and the Thielmans. That was such a huge blessing. We had so much fun, and made memories that will last forever.

Christmas morning we opened a few presents/stockings, made a quick grocery run, (nothing like Tesco on Christmas morning) and then Kelly, Megan, Zach, and I, packed a lunch and took the scooters to the national park for most of the day. We had so much fun! Kelly and I also learned that going over speed bumps too fast can result in a flat tire. That evening we all headed back the night market to find a Mexican restaurant that we remembered from a few nights before, for dinner. We had Mexican for our Christmas dinner, and it was delicious :)

Day seven we drove about 4 hours to the floating market. Took a while to get there, but it was a neat experience. You hop in a little paddle boat and shop from the water. All the little vendors are set up and when you go by, they grab a long stick with a hook on the end and pull your boat over to see if you want to buy anything. It was pretty crazy. After that, we drove about two more hours to the place where we ate, and then drove a little ways to a little village where we went bamboo rafting on the river Kwai. It was a little slower then any of us expected…we were pulled up the river by a long tail with a motor and then just drifted back down with hardly any current, but it was very peaceful and the river was really pretty. We also had a great sunshiny day for it, which was perfect. Towards the beginning of our four hour drive back home, we stopped to see the bridge over the river Kwai. That was cool. It was neat to see in person and learn more about the history behind it.

Day eight Zach and I went to Hua Hin and hung out together for the day. The Thielmans were really sweet to give us that chance to be together- I didn’t think I would care that much…we had just spent a week together, but it was really nice to have one more day with him before he went home. He’s a good bro:) That night Kelly, Megan, Zach and I played spades (trying to finish our ongoing tournament) until about 1:00am when his taxi was scheduled for the ride back to Bangkok. Bummer goodbyes, but they all seem to be. I always hate those. It was so, so fun to explore Thailand with him for almost 2 weeks though. I’m so thankful for that special time that we had together. Sweet memories were made for sure.

Day nine the rest of us headed back to Bangkok to catch our plane to China! We made it to Shanghai about 9:30pm. So much fun to see where the Thielmans have been living for the first time, and a glimpse of what their day to day life is like here.