Starting with the basics!

Since having moved off campus and into a place of my own I have been cooking, and baking a lot more! Nothing out of the norm, but you have to start somewhere right?!

Here are some pics...

Fruit Tray...Clearly not much was called for, but presentation is fun too! :)

Mixed Salad inspired from Plutos in Roseville, CA...I literally had one of these almost every week while living in California this past summer! DELICIOUS!!

(Spinach, chicken, corn, red peppers, kidney beans, black beans, pecans, green peas, and walnut raspberry vinaigrette!)

Garlic Potatoes ...Yummy!!

And for the last picture (although it looks like I cheated) they were so very scrumptious!

Whole, Grain, Blueberry muffins!

...The beginning

Waiting...

So worth the wait...

Like I said, it's no gourmet meal, but i'll get there! One step at a time!

P.s. Check out this blog for some great recipes...

www.tastykitchen.com

With love,

Hannah

Auburn!

Samford Hall @ Auburn... What a beautiful campus!

For those of you wondering, although I am a Troy Trojan, and have absolutely loved my time at Troy, Auburn will always hold a very special place in my heart. Since I can remember Dad taught Rach and I to say War Eagle, and I would often switch between wearing my minnie mouse costume and Auburn cheerleader outfit to Preschool and Kindergarten. P.s. Just a side note, I have the most amazing mother, she never fought me on it, but would allow me to wear either as long as they were clean! My solution, rotate every other day! Thank you mom for your patience with me! Needless to say, I now love variety in my clothes :)

I'm noticing I blog most on what's been happening on the weekends, so that is where I will begin. This past weekend I went to Auburn to go stay with my friend Courtney. Courtney and I met in 7th grade when we cheered together, and have been best friends ever since. To top it off, one of my other best friends, Josie who I have known since Kindergarten also came and we cooked dinner and hung out! I am so blessed to have these two young ladies in my life! Thank you Lord for such great friendships!

As mentioned above...We made dinner...4 cheese pasta (Yummy!!)

To continue the cooking theme, we made homemade pizza on saturday night...

Before

After...

Needless to say...It was DELICOUS!

It was so good to go spend time with some of my best friends! Looking forward to more weekends spent together soon!

With love,

Han

Girls Night!

This past friday night was declared Girls night! Mom, Rach, and I went to dinner at Zoes Kitchen, then went back to the house where we painted, watched a movie, and just caught up! I am so blessed to have such Godly women in my life! They are such a blessing and I do not know where I would be without either of them. Your guidance, discernment, and unconditional love has meant so much and I cannot thank God enough for making me part of such a wonderful family!

Rach surprised me earlier that night and gave me this for my bathroom....She is so talented!

As you can see, it was the perfect finishing touch! :)

Although the goal was for us to all paint, we decided Rach was so good, we put her to work and entertained while we watched! here is the finishing product! She really has a gift for this and I am trying to talk her into doing this on the side (Encourage her!!) I really think she could do well!

And Finally, Thanks to my wonderful sister, my room is now complete! Love you!

P.s. And as promised, I took a picture just to prove how entertaining my music class is...

That's right, we got to play the xylophones! MawMaw, in case you are reading this, I immediately thought of you! I didn't realize this until recently, but my grandmother used to play the xylophone in her high school band! Pretty cool!

Hope you all are having a wonderful week, will be back soon!

Until then, I will leave you the cry of my heart...

"The law of the LORD is perfect, reviving the soul. The Statutes of the LORD are trustworthy, making wise the simple."

-Psalm 19:7 (NIV, bold emphasis, my own )

Recap of the week!

This past weekend/week has been full of many adventures...To begin, My best friend Janie and I got to go lead a group of girls for Disciple now at Summerville Baptist Church in Phenix City, Alabama. The weekend was so much fun, and as wonderful as it was to lead the girls, I found myself being refreshed and renewed in a whole new way! God is so good! I can't say it enough!!

Here are some pics from the weekend...

Some of my sweet Sr. High girls :)

Janie and her group of Jr. High Girls

Brandi, One of the biggest highlights to my whole weekend! Such a joy to be around!

Janie and I! So glad we were able to lead together!

It really was such a great weekend to get to know the youth at Summerville and encourage them as some began to investigate and others fall more and more in love with Jesus!

As the weekend came to a close, Janie and I headed back to Troy where we hit the ground running with school work. For those of you who don't know I am an Elementary Education major, and am beginning to feel it more this semester than ever!

These are the classes I am taking this semester:

Language and Literacy, Integrating Physical Education, Integrating Music, Integrating Art, and Children's Literature.

Wait...I know what you're thinking, they sound easy, and they are so much fun, but they all require a lot of effort and work. Of all my classes, Music is by far the most entertaining! So far we have made home made instruments, ( I made a guitar and tambourine) we are learning to play the recorder, and the most recent assignment...Making puppets! Not only did we have to bring our new friends to class, but we had to lead the class in song, using them! haha oh how i have really gone back to my childhood memories! Who could complain though?! I get to sing with puppets for a grade!

Meet Marvin the Monkey and Priscilla the Parrot...

I'll definitely be sure to keep you posted on my adventures to becoming an Elementary Ed teacher! I have a feeling, many more projects are ahead!

On another note, I have been cooking!! Sadly, I have been forgetting to take pictures, but I did manage to get a few tonight!

Simple but oh so Tasty!

Chicken and Pepper pasta, with Caesar Salad

Chocolate Chip Muffins for the leadership team :)

From a weekend of discipleship, fun classes, and great fellowship it has been a wonderful week! Looking forward to this weekend! Mom, Rachel, and I are having girls night! Can't wait!

Hope everyone has a fabulous weekend!

Blessings,

Han

It feels like home!

It has been such a long time since I have blogged, so I will try and make this post interesting to make up for the lack of posts! There has been several new changes that have happened since I last posted, but the most recent is that I have moved into an apartment with one of my friends who I met since being at Troy and absolutely LOVE it! It is so much fun having a place on my own and although I felt I was getting the full college experience in living in the dorms I have discovered the freedom of being able to have my own place. You can imagine this has definitely been an adjustment after living in the sorority house for 2 years. Although I loved living with 13 other girls, I have now come to the conclusion that I can go to bed before 2 am and wake up formy 8 o clock feeling wide awake and ready for the day! Imagine that!

Though there have been adjustments, my favorite has been being able to cook. Though there is a funny story to go along with this...I went to Wal*Mart the other day thinking, well I'm not sure what I was thinking, but had no particular meal in mind, nor a list to go off of, so needless to sat after about 10 minutes of wondering aimlessly around the food section, feeling a little overwhelmed I called my mother and admitted I felt like a kid in a candy store, but instead I was a college student in the grocery store. Kinda sad I didn't know what to buy, I know how to cook and know the basics, but when it comes to cooking dinner every night and what will go a long way, etc. I don't have a clue! Thanks to some great advice from mom I ended up with the basics, some good meal ideas and a delicious dinner by the end of the night!

It is so amazing how everything came together so smoothly and it truly was an act of God how even to the last minute how everything fell right into place. One of the coolest things happened on the way home from Passion 2011, (which I will have to post about next!) I was going to get some bedroom furniture from a friend of mine in mobile, but for whatever reason no U-haul, cargo van , or any other type of transportation was available so that ended up not working out.When many would have gotten discouraged, my amazing mother immediately hit her knees and began praying Lord, what are you trying to tell us? It wasn't much later that my dads secretary called and shared that another woman from our church's mother was moving into assisted living so she had several kitchen items and ( you guessed it!) bedroom furniture, that she wanted to give away! After hanging up the phone, mom immefiately called me almost to the point of tears, and wow is it more than we could have ever asked or imagined. It is the most beautiful furniture that I could have ever dreamed for. Once again I don't know why I allow myself to doubt that he won't come through or things will not work out.

Matthew 6:28-34 says it best... "And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own."

It is so true, no matter how much I try, and worry, when we let go and let God He does more than we could have ever thought possible, but we must be patient and wait on Him!

With all of that to say I am #1 excited to see all the Lord has in store for this upcoming year as I start another semester. I am praying for boldness with those who do not know him, but more than anything to bring glory to Him, through any and all circumstances. My joy must come from Him, and him alone! # 2, I want to learn and experiment in the kitchen over the next few months and will try my best to keep you updated on my progress! My new years "goals" were to become more diligent in my time with Jesus, and to journal more, the last (and I do mean it this time) is to learn to cook! So far I'm off to a pretty good start, but I will keep you posted! Until then...Let the adventure begin!

Here is some pictures of my new place!

In EVERY season!

"All of my life in every season, I have a reason to sing, I have a reason to worship!

Desert Song (Hillsong)

It's inevitable, we must all go through different seasons and times of transitions, but can I be honest for just a moment and say, it's hard sometimes! Lately I have not been able to explain it, but I have felt discontent and distant from the Lord. It's not that I wasn't in the word, I was, but I finally hit me when Dad preached on Attitude, this one specifically was "Hungry" It was then that I realized I am desiring more and am hungry, longing for God to take me from where I am to a new place. I am in transition and am ready for a new season, but must learn to embrace the season I am in right now, As Mordecai said to Esther, "You have been prepared for such a time as this, " we too must embrace and welcome the current moment we are in rather than longing to see the answers ahead even in the next month. I don't want to miss where God wants to use me now, because I am wishing ahead. I must trust him in any and all things! To worship with joy because I know through it all, He is with me! That can be so hard though right? Saying it and even meaning it is the easy part, but its the putting faith into action that is the test. As many of you know I was able to go to California this summer and do an amazing internship at Bayside Covenant. Before even returning home I didn't want to leave, I absolutely loved it out there and truly thought that was Gods will, to move me to California! I'm not saying one way or the other, because only He knows, but lately he has shown me , I know NOTHING! I can't help but think that is exactly where He wants us though. Its times like these I really see how much I try to do, when the one who desires to have it all knows all of the things I need before I even ask. So why is it hard for us, to be even more real, why do I continue to worry, and even panic thinking I need to take care of things. Its as if I am saying, "God, you've never forsaken me, but don't forget this one thing!" When put like that it seems so foolish, who would say that to God, the one who is the provider, and is for me?! But we all do it in some way or another. It's a constant battle to live in the spirit and trust, rather than die to the flesh and worry about everything.

Going back to feeling discontent, I could not grasp what was going, the only way I could explain it is that I was in a funk, and desperately needed to shake it off. Thankfully, nothing in my life is terrible, I am blessed, I have a wonderful and healthy family, and a God who loves me, but I was saying in my actions that wasn't enough! How SCARY! So what to do? What do you do when you just feel blah! Do we run to our girlfriends, a husband, a carton on ice cream and a spoon, or ill let you feel in the blank? Whatever it is, we may find a very SHORT temporary sense of relief but it won't last. The best and only thing you can do in this situation is to RUN to Jesus. Isaiah 26:20 says , "Go, my people, enter your rooms and shut the doors behind you; hide yourselves for a little while until his wrath has passed by."

Another version says ,"Let us keep close to the Lord, and separate from the world; and let us seek comfort in secret prayer."

That is the very thing we need and must do! Take some time, get away from the distractions and even the noise of the world, and just sit and wait until the peace of God comes and refreshes your heart.

Jeremiah 29:13 says, "You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart."

I'm not sure who, if anyone is in the midst of feeling this way, but if you are stay encouraged and push through this funk, and although it isn't easy embrace this season until he tells you to take the next step. Continue to draw near to God, He longs to draw near to you!

Praying for refreshed hearts!

-Han

Momentum Ministries

I have posted about Momentum before, but for those who do not know, Momentum Ministries is a student led Organization that takes place on Troy University's campus every sunday at 10:55 am. The purpose behind Momentum is to share the gospel with those who have not heard it before. To provide a time and place for worship that is welcoming to all types of people and we are all united under one name...JESUS!

This past sunday we introduced something new that I wanted to share...Dad (To be professional, Pastor Keith Waldrop) spoke on Prayer and we had an illustration of different forms of worship.

These were:

Prayer one on one: Students could go and pray with students at the cross for specific needs

Prayer on a poster: Students wrote things to pray for, both in our world, on our campus, etc.

Offering: Students gave freely of what that had

Cross: Students came and literally nailed to the cross things that had become idols in their lives

It was an incredible time of worship, not only in song but in all of these acts of worship. I am discovering more each day worship is a two way conversation, it is not limited to song, prayer, or even offering, but it is the very way we connect with our father. There is freedom in surrender and I am thankful for all of the things laid down at the cross this past week. God is at work in a big way on our campus and in this city! Stay focused, He is at work!

Check out our new website:

http://momentuministries.org/

To Him be the glory!