It's your basic, all-purpose garment.

I have nothing exciting to share and the slow-pace of my summer schedule is to blame. The most exciting thing that happened to me this week was getting the chance to babysit the most awesome 5 year old in Oklahoma, maybe the world. He's not awesome because I am a good babysitter and pretend to be best buds with the kids I babysit-- he is legitimately awesome. He is 5 and a half going on 35, and in the two times we have hung out we have had a bevy of adult conversations. He is hilarious and knows it, and on Tuesday we had this conversation:

Sitting in the McDonald's play area at lunch time, a family he knows walks in.
Noah: "Hey! They go to our church!"
Cris: "Oh yeah? What are their names?" (just making conversation with a 5 year old)
Noah: "Uh...uh...hmm...well, the girl's name is Isabella... and I have no idea what the other kid's name is."
Cris: "Noah, you aren't particularly interested in learning people's names, are you?"
Noah: "Nah." (Keep in mind we have already been together for about 2 hours at this point.)
Cris: "Do you know my name?"
Noah: "Nope."
Cris: "Do you care to find out?"
Noah: "Not really."

Ok.

On a completely unrelated note, my mom and I attended a tea this afternoon for the women who are on a new mission team my church in Edmond is sending to Vienna, Austria. Usually I would avoid an event like this, but seizing the opportunity to a) leave the house, b) be in contact with more people than just my mom, sister, and brother-in-law, and c) being a soon-to-be-kind-of-missionary myself, I went, and was pleasantly surprised at how nice of a send-off it really was.

My mom read a blessing from Colossians over the women and I was reminded of how much I love that particular passage. When I was a camp counselor two summers ago, many of the nightly devotionals I led with my middle school campers week after week were over that passage, and I know that when I am in Natal it will serve as a source of strength, encouragement, and motivation for me. Just wanted to share it with you in case you're in the market for a new Favorite Verse. I'm willing to let you borrow it. :)

Colossians 3:12-17 (I'm partial to Eugene Peterson's translation, taken from The Message, but you are more than welcome to look it up in any translation you like. It's fantastic in all of them, I've checked.)

"So, chosen by God for this new life of love, dress in the wardrobe God picked out for you: compassion, kindness, humility, quiet strength, discipline. Be even-tempered, content with second place, quick to forgive an offense. Forgive as quickly and completely as the Master forgave you. And regardless of what else you put on, wear love. It's your basic, all-purpose garment. Never be without it."

"Let the peace of Christ keep you in tune with each other, in step with each other. None of this going off and doing your own thing. And cultivate thankfulness. Let the Word of Christ—the Message—have the run of the house. Give it plenty of room in your lives. Instruct and direct one another using good common sense. And sing, sing your hearts out to God! Let every detail in your lives—words, actions, whatever—be done in the name of the Master, Jesus, thanking God the Father every step of the way."