La Vie Rendue

Continuing on in: The Surrendered Life

  • 13th August
    2012
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  • 23rd July
    2012
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  • 1st July
    2012
  • 01
  • 21st May
    2012
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Spring in Boston

Well folks, spring has officially arrived in Boston! Finally! We are still having some rainy days, but slowly it is warming up… much to my delight!

I wanted to give you all a brief update of how things are going out here on the East coast! So much has happened in the 2 months I’ve been here, so I’ll try and touch on the main points.

I’ve been in two theatre productions since my arrival in March. I was the non-speaking, yet not silent bear in the world premiere of an opera! It was great. I had such a great time getting to know the cast and being in my first opera!

After the closing of that piece, the director asked me if I would like to be in her 10 min piece that was playing in the Boston Theatre Marathon. (An annual Boston fundraiser that shows 50 ten-minute plays from noon-10pm on the third Sunday in May.) The piece was entitled, “The Dinosaurs have a Request”, and was basically a brilliantly written open letter from Dinos to humans. Hysterical. I got to create my own dino character and was a Velociraptor named Princess. Yes… Princess. Again, it was an absolutely fabulous experience sharing the stage with other incredibly talented actors and from this experience may have booked another theatre gig for next month. I’ll keep you posted =)

In film land, I booked my first industrial job for mid-July, a week long shoot for a training video in New Hampshire. Again, I’ll keep you posted. I’m auditioning, auditioning and auditioning some more =)

When I’m not in the theatre, I’m working at Urban Adventours. What is Urban Adventours you ask? Well, let me tell you! We are a full service bike shop in the North End of Boston that specializes in tours and rentals… After working for them for a few weeks, I was asked to start doing PR for them along with giving bicycle tours around the city of Boston. So, basically, I get paid to ride a bike around Boston and get people excited about riding bicycles in Boston, usually while enjoying great food and libations. Its great.

So, I’m truckin’ along. It doesn’t feel like I’ve only been in the city for about 60 days… because I’m truly starting to feel settled and like the gears are starting to roll! Thank you for all the love everyone keeps sending my way! Know you are deeply loved and missed and I wish you a very happy Spring!!!!

  • 22nd March
    2012
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Today’s project. Find a bed. I guess I do have some pretty good incentive, there won’t be any sleeping if I don’t get on it!

Today’s project. Find a bed. I guess I do have some pretty good incentive, there won’t be any sleeping if I don’t get on it!

  • 20th March
    2012
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Let loose in Denver

This is what happens when Amanda Murrow and Kate Paulsen are let loose in Downtown Denver for the day. We did some damage. Not pictured here: an early morning run followed by sweet potato pancakes and Florentine Eggs Benedict. Epicly sweet day.

  • 16th March
    2012
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A bit of a face lift

Hello all!

So, I’m back to blogging… or at least, I hope to be back to blogging on a regular basis. =) Its been a long time since I’ve posted to this page, and I realize much has happened.

If you were not aware, I’m moving to Boston next week. Yes. Moving. If you are interested in all the kitty-gritty details of Who (Me), What (Moving), When (Next Week), Where (Boston), Why (Too much for here) and How (ummm), I’ve pasted a blog entry below that I wrote just after I made this decision of epic proportions.

You may notice that I’ve made some changes to the title and “who am I” section. As all good things do, even blogs must adapt to fit the changing seasons of life.

And so, with that, welcome back. Please enjoy the sights, sounds, quips, and scripts of La Vie Rendu, the surrendered life.

The Update You’ve Been Waiting For!
(August 2011)

Hello All!!! 

(*Note: I apologize. This post is long… but I promise you its worth the read!*)

I’m finally back in the wonderful country of France after having been gone for almost a solid 3 weeks.  First stop was Stafford, England for the Soul Survivor conference with 6 high school girls… then road tripping through Europe to get to Tapolca, Hungary for the annual Christians Associates “Connect” Conference.  I’m back safe and sound, rested and with new clarity about the next steps for me in ministry.

As many of you know, I have been interning with Christian Associates for the past 8 months in Aix en Provence, France.  I am now nearing the end of this internship and need to make a decision to stay on staff with this church or to return to the states.  I have been fasting and praying about this decision for quite some time now… since June… and hadn’t felt any clarity or peace until this past weekend.

Something in my spirit has been unsettled. I just couldn’t see clearly what the next step was.  I would pendulum swing between the choice of staying in France and the returning to the States, but I didn’t want to make a decision until I was at peace with either choice. I’ve been missing theatre a lot… so much so, I feel like I’ve had a hard time breathing at times and try as I might, I haven’t found a theatrical outlet in France. BUT, I have made some wonderful friends here in Provence.  I love not only my team and the people of this city, but the other church planters and staff of Christian Associates (CAI) as well. My heart has been pulled between two loves for a couple months now, and I’m exhausted.

At the conference on Thursday, August 11th, I had lunch with an amazing woman named Christine Osgood. She is the Training Team Leader for CAI and a wonderful listener.  At one point while we were talking, she looked at me and said, “Joy just oozes out of you when you talk about theatre.” And she’s right, it does. We talked some more and I headed off to my room to pray some more.  After the next day, I knew what my decision would be and met with my Team Leader, Dominic on Saturday, August 13th for breakfast. Here is my answer:

I’m moving back to the states. Not only that, but I know where I would like to move to.  My best friend Erin and I have been talking and dreaming about living together, incarnationally, within the theatrical community for quite some time. I feel a lot of peace in joining her and that dreamed about mission in… BOSTON. 

A couple crazy things happened after I verbalized this:

-I had so much peace about this decision… and clarity of vision.

-On the car ride home from the conference on Sunday August 14th, I plugged my ipod into the stereo, and the first song to come on at random was “Boston” By Augustana… and the lyrics go a little something like this:  I think I’ll go to Boston; I think I’ll start a new life; I think I’ll start it over where no one knows my name; Get out of California…” 

-THEN, I get home to Aix, and my friend Cassie let’s me know that Reality announced its newest church plant in… guess where??  BOSTON!

-I listen to the sermon from Sunday, August 14th, and guess who else had a confirmation moment with the afore mentioned song??  Al Abdulla, the pastor leading the plant in Boston. 

-Essentially, my confirmation of Boston as my next city came on the very same day that the Boston church plant was announced.  How cool is that?? Our God is a great God.  Our God is a specific God… one who just loves details.  And my heart overflows with adoration at the way He weaves together such a beautiful tapestry with so many lives, dreams, desires and gifts.

Here we go! Another new chapter. Another new adventure. Another time when God has totally surprised me… I’m reminded of James 4, verses 13-14, where it says, “Come now, you who say, ‘Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city and spend a year there and engage in business and make a profit.’ Yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow.

Its true. I have no idea what will happen tomorrow. Something could come along that changes my plans entirely. But for today, I am thankful to have a fresh wind of the Holy Spirit in my sails, friends at my side, and a heading that reads: Boston.

  • 15th November
    2011
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  • 14th November
    2011
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Art serves us best precisely at that point where it can shift our sense of what …is possible, when we know more than we knew before, when we feel we have - by some manner of a leap - encountered the truth. That, by the logic of art, is always worth the pain.
– T.S. Eliot
  • 10th November
    2011
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What a lovely thing a rose is!” exclaimed Sherlock Holmes as he walked past the couch to the open window, and held up the drooping stalk of a moss-rose, looking down at the dainty blend of crimson and green.
“There is nothing in which deduction is so necessary as in religion,” said he, leaning with his back against the shutters. “It can be built up as an exact science by the reasoner. Our highest assurance of the goodness of Providence seems to me to rest in the flowers. All other things, our powers, our desires, our food, are all really necessary for our existence in the first instance. But this rose is an extra. Its smell and its color are an embellishment of life, not a condition of it. It is only goodness which gives extras, and so I say again that we have much to hope from the flowers.

Memoirs of Sherlock Homes, The Navel Treaty

By Sir Arthur Conan Doyle