Missions Trip to Poland

Hello dear friends and family,

      I received a wonderful opportunity for the summer to accompany my friends Derek and Amy Chapman to Poland to be a part of  one of the largest Christian Arts

 Festivals in Europe, the Slot Festival.  The dates of the festival are July 4-9. We will be joining the rest of our team, comprised of the Jones family who have been missionaries to Eastern and Western Europe for almost twenty years, Sasha Flek, who has just finished a fifteen year project of translating the bible into the modern Czech language, and our friends Bryce and Sam who run a ministry in the youth club scene of Switzerland.  Slot festival is utilized as a time for Christians around the globe and predominantly Europe to gather together, fellowship, worship, teach, and mutually equip each other as the body of Christ.  Several members of our team have been asked to speak at the round table, a part of the Slot Festival in which global church leaders will teach and share church building strategies as well as represent what God is doing in their local communities and nations.  

     

     Derek has asked me to help him lead an artistic workshop at Slot, utilizing drama, dance, and visual art.  The purpose of the workshop is to break down barriers of cultures within the festival, offer a tool of ministry to the broader church and to impact the individuals attending the event. 

     

     After the festival ends our

 team will be traveling to Prague where we will assist Sasha Flek in the launch of his fifteen year Bible Project, in which he has translated the entire bible into the modern Czech language.  It is my strong desire to help serve, develop connections, and be a living light on this trip, offering whatever tools God has equipped me with thus far in my journey.  

      

     I've felt my heart tug at the mention of Poland for over a year and a half now. 

 After encountering parts of Poland's history in my Judaism class at UNCG, praying for the country throughout the year and learning more about its culture through the community I am a part of, my burden for the country and its people has only grown.  The youth I met last year in Europe revealed to me the desperate need for the gospel to be alive, present, and in front of them in their culture.  Due to the spiritual wounds of Europe's nations, its people have extremely harsh affronts towards Christianity.  The only form of religion that the youth of Europe has known in their generation is era of atheism.  I know from the individuals I've met personally that these same youth who live in extreme spiritual isolation are also experiencing an intense hunger to know their true God spoken identities and be connected to a higher calling of His kingdom.  

    

     My hope is to meet these youth where they are at and join a team who is equipped for sharing the gospel in a language their culture  can understand.  We also want to hold the hand of the existing church in Eastern Europe and help encourage them as they walk what might seem to be the lonely road of Christianity in their nations.  God is truly moving in big ways in Eastern Europe right now.  Our friend Sasha's release of the bible in the modern Czech language is a representation of how God is working.  It seems that the open avenues for the gospel are through the doors of artistic expression, personal relationship, and through cultural experiences.   

   

     I would love you to be a part of what God is doing by praying for Poland, the Czech Republic, and for what God is doing there now.  I would also be incredibly grateful if you feel God lay it on your heart to help sponsor my journey as a representative of the gospel from the American church.  If you would like to donate to my trip to Poland you can donate through the donate paypal button on my blog or send a check to my mailing address, which is below.  Thank you so much for your prayers, love, and support.  Be blessed!

Mailing Address:

Jenna White

11702 Aloe Vera Cove

Austin TX 78750

Relevant Links:

Official Site of the Slot Fest-  http://www.slot.art.pl/

Alaxendr Sasha Flek Bible Project-  http://www.nbk.cz/english/Team

Derek and Amy Chapman's website- http://thebearablelight.com/

Playing Around with Photography

So I took these photos on the Konica my Dad gave me while I was home in NC last visit.  I'm really enjoying figuring out how to use it via trial and error.  I had some awesome pictures turn out in the right lighting and then the ones that were maimed or double exposed turned out sorta interesting as well.  The top photo was double exposed, but I thought would make a nice painting.  The second picture was way underexposed for the lighting, but I kinda liked the old ambience it gave to my subject matter.  My third photo is from a collection I created for a line of hair pieces intended to be sold at a local vintage store. (If anyone is interested please check out my etsy shop, dancerofthenations.etsy.com.)  Then the fourth photo was one of the first pieces in a collection I'm developing of many historic church buildings in Austin.  Experimenting with new mediums is always fun, especially this one!  It's so educational and offers cool perspectives!  So keep playing in life!

Feathered Headbands

Visit my etsy shop and help me with my school and missions fund!  www.dancerofthenations.etsy.com 

Coffee Helps Female Memory!!! (I should be set for life!)

Considering what a bad rap coffee gets from the health world these days and being the fanatic that I am, this study is fantastic! A recent study by researchers at the French National Institute of Medical Research finds that coffee protects women from age-related memory loss. The study tracked more than 7,000 men and women living in three French cities. The researchers observed the subjects' physical conditionhealth and mental function and questioned them about their past and present eating habits, friends, and daily activities. The study found that the more coffee drank, the better the effects appeared to be for women's memory function, however men did not receive the same benefit. According to lead researcher, Karen Ritchie, the information gathered from the study was used to identify the specific impact of caffeine on certain aspects of women's lives. They found that women who drank more than three cups of coffee a day, or caffeine equivalent in tea, were able to retain more of their verbal and, to a lesser extent, visual memories over four years. The female subjects displayed a 33 percent lower risk of having verbal memory declines and 18 percent lower risk of having visual and spatial memory declines, in comparison to women who drank one cup of coffee or less per day. This effect also appeared to be related to age as women over 80 had more benefits from caffeine drinks compared to others 10 to 15 years younger. Some research done with mice suggests that caffeine might block the accumulation of proteins that lead to mental decline. Dr. Ritchie claims that caffeine is a psychostimulant that reduces cognitive decline in women even after adjusting for factors that could affect memory function such as age, education, disability, depression and medications. So women take note : that one extra cup of coffee a day just might keep your memory from going astray.

WORD

I've been reading some  Henri Nouwen, Thomas Merton, and Nahman Bialik recently.  The first two authors I was inspired to pick up due to my friend's birthday party.  My friend spoke about the importance of personal identity in Christ and referred to several of these author's works at his party.  I was incredibly refreshed and inspired by Henri Nouwen's writings, Beloved, and , Can you Drink this Cup?.  It seems that Nouwen's perspective on faith is tempered by down to earth experiences and personal life stories.  He tries to de-contextualize faith and view it primarily from a perspective of relationship, with God first and then others.  Nouwen's philosophies can be summed up in one word to me, and that is "relationship."

Thomas Merton's compilation, When the Trees Have Nothing to Say, is a stockpile of his journal entries on nature.  He had a very close relationship with nature and the entries within this journal reflect his abstract yet focussed way of encountering God through moments when he was surrounded by the earth.   His commentaries could also be labelled as aesthetic experiences with nature in my opinion.  Those moments when His person found a nexus between what he was beholding in the reflective, natural, within his body, in juxtaposition to what he viewed in the supernatural.  Moments when something spiritual poked its head through the holes of reality. Reading Merton is like taking a walk through the park, a very long, deep, and contemplative walk!

Lastly I'm still in the midst of reading Bialik, the Father of Zionism and man who single handedly revived the Hebrew language.  I was first captured by Bialik in my University Judaism class, in which I was required to read his poetry.  Picking up one of Bialik's poems was like reading the dripping, metaphorical, passages of Isaiah or the Psalms.  The only accessible work I could find by him was "The Random Harvest."  "The Random Harvest" like Merton's work, is  a compilation of short stories and poems Bialik never published, but which someone else found after his death and released to the public.  Bialik's personal writings are sandwiched between biographical accounts and a lifelong timeline in this piece.  Reading the author's unfinished stories and unreleased poems makes me feel like I have a peek into his living room, or into the inner corridors of his heart and mind. Having this inside perspective on Merton and Bialik is helpful, because it helps me feel like I am surrounded by other like minded mystics.  The fact that they each lived in previous centuries is even cooler, because it let's me know that this spiritual strain was not recently developed, but is something that people have tapped into, in similar fashions for decades.  

Does the Prov 31 Woman make her own perfume???

     I've recently gotten into making my own body sprays, lotions, etc.  That stuff is soooo expensive when you buy it in the stores and come to find out it's super easy to make and you can do a lot better job of it yourself and even make it personalized at home.  

BODY SPRAY

     Apparently there are several different recipes you can follow depending on the kind of spray that you want to make, but 'essentially' the most basic ingredients include distilled water and whatever scent you want to put in it.  Wow! Easy huh? You can get as complicated with your body spray as creating your own herbal extracts or floral tinctures, or as lazy as just adding food flavoring or essential oils.  

     From most of the reviews I read online from people who have experimented with this creation, essential oils tend to be the most popular route.  This is simply due to their variety, availability, natural benefits, and fragrant potency. You can add vodka, rubbing alcohol, witch hazel, or glycerin for varying effects on your spray as part of your base, for reasons of preserving the spray, softening your skin, or reducing sweat. 

      In my first trial run I just combined a few oz. of distilled water, a couple of oz. of witch hazel, a bit of cooking vanilla, lavender essential oil, and a drop or two of sandalwood.  I mixed it all in a used bath and body works spray bottle and just kept adding stuff until it smelled balanced and pleasant to wear.  

     I plan on having a lot of fun with this newly found alternative to throwing my money down the drain for girly products that enhance my femininity.  I think the most beautiful part about this idea, besides saving all of that money, is the fact that you can create scents that are uniquely individual and express your personality, which can be harder to accomplish when you buy these products already made.  So have fun!

Cool Commentary from RISD professor

     I don't actually know who this professor is, but I found this short video clip on RISD's website providing information on their liberal arts department.  As many people know I'm considering schools to transfer to and due to that stumbled upon this gem.  

     I think anyone who has ever been a part of a classroom setting can attest to the fact that some teachers are more than just conduits of information.  There are those unique gems that you discover, people within the system who relay life in their classrooms and inspire, not just a desire for education, but for living and exploration.  These are the kind of professors that make education worthwhile to me.  When I find these kind of teachers I really don't care what they teach I just want to learn from them.

     From this video you can tell that this professor has that sort of sparkle to him as I just described.  I not only liked this video due to the speaker's learning appeal, but especially for the middle section of the video where he describes his passion for film and the complexities and life within that art form.  Some friends of mine were recently considering cinematography and what that art form imparts and I think this man pins down an element of cinema that my friends and I have been searching to describe.  

I couldn't import the video so I included a link for you to follow :-)

http://www.risd.edu/liberalarts.cfm

Hymns!

Ancient Irish hymn, possibly from the 8th Century, tr. by Mary E. Byrne

1. Be Thou my vision, O Lord of my heart;
Naught be all else to me, save that Thou art.
Thou my best thought, by day or by night,
Waking or sleeping, Thy presence my light.

2. Be Thou my Wisdom, Thou my true Word;
I ever with Thee, Thou with me, Lord;
Thou my great Father, I thy true son;
Thou in me dwelling, and I with Thee one.

3. Be Thou my battle-shield, sword for my fight,
Be Thou my dignity, Thou my delight.
Thou my soul's shelter, Thou my high tower.
Raise Thou me heavenward, O Power of my power.

4. Riches I heed not, nor man's empty praise,
Thou mine inheritance, now and always:
Thou and Thou only, first in my heart,
High King of heaven, my Treasure Thou art.

5. High King of heaven, my victory won,
May I reach heaven's joys, O bright heav'ns Son!
Heart of my own heart, whatever befall,
Still be my vision, O ruler of all.

     This is probably one of my favorite hymns.  I get in the habit of singing while I'm at work washing dishes, which can prove to be quite embarrassing when someone walks in on me and I'm really into it, but it doesn't seem to stop me :-).  For some reason the lyrics seem to just stick in my head and express a lot of my heart and I've been wanting to find out all of the stanzas so that I can sing it in its entirety to my dishes.  

     The first verse seems to exude Psalm 139 describing the closeness of the Lord.  It almost comes across in this song as a love sickness, just wanting Him to be near in whatever way possible.  The Celts and the Irish definitely had a link with pertinent presence of God as well as the warrior spirit and the "big picture" plan He has including his final renewal.  I think it has to do with their personal identity as a people, but those attributes seem to come through quite strongly in this song.  

     If anyone knows the actual chords to this song let me know!  I've sorta picked out what worked with it on accident once on my guitar, but I think it sounds just a bit off.  I need to find a hymnal around here somewhere, because some of those old songs and their histories are so moving.

Here's a cool link to a great acoustic version of this song sung by a guy I found on Youtube.  He has a great voice and his guitar skills are more enjoyable than mine :-)

http:www.youtube.com?v=K3KgpvGOMc

Sewing and Lampshades...

  I'm at a crossroads of many paths I can take on a macro scale in my life and I can't really seem to sort through all of the options so it appears that I'm taking out all of my excess curiosities and frustrations on my sewing machine and random household objects.  

     

     SEW... my first real project on my old sewing machine this season... I made a dress??? From absolutely no patterns!  Don't ask.  Somehow it kinda worked so here it is.  I'm digging polka dots this year for some reason.  

     I kinda stole the dimensions of the skirt from my favorite H&M skirt that fits well and then stole the top dimensions from and Anne Taylor Loft shirt that is my favorite standby.

    

 Another interesting project from the evening is an awesome new light fixture.  I can't take full credit for this, because my friend Missy did most of the work and had the original idea.  I just altered it a bit along with a decent Goodwill find. Gotta love 'em.  So here it is...

     The shade was made by wrapping a punching balloon in crochet thread, covering it in fabric stiffener and then cutting a whole in the bottom.  It was initially intended as a hanging light fixture, but it turned out a bit lopsided due to a lack of enough fabric stiffener among other malfunctions.  Once I bought the blue lamp base at Goodwill for $5 I remembered my "faux-paux-matic" ball of yarn and adjusted the idea to a lamp shade, which I'm quite p

leased with.  Not to mention, this lamp casts awesome light patterns on the walls. 

William Blake

"Songs of Experience" Introduction

Hear the voice of the Bard!

Who Present, Past, & Future, sees;

Whose ears have heard

The Holy Word

That walk'd among the ancient trees,

 

Calling the lapsed Soul

And weeping in the evening dew;

That might controll

The starry pole,

And fallen, fallen light renew!

"O Earth, O Earth, return!

"Arise from out the dewy grass;

"Night is worn,

"And the morn

"Rises from the slumberous mass.

"Turn away no more;

"Why wilt thou turn away?

"The starry floor,

"The wat'ry shore,

"Is giv'n thee till the break of day."

     -William Blake

     I've always liked poetry.  My mother used to find me outside composing ballads when I was six.  I've run across countless journals from my childhood filled with poetry of the kingdom, nature, and other random things.  

     One of my good friends from my last job, among whose company I enjoyed debating philosophical ideas and art tried to put the works of T.S. Elliot in my hands declaring that I would be an avid follower due to his pastoral poetry.  I didn't think I was a fan of the cantering English style in prose.  I've always been more attracted to abstract, modern, poetry, which typically dwells on a single idea and expresses itself through minimal amounts of words and leaves you reaching for a meaning at the end.  One of my favorite older authors who seems to tackle topics in this manner was the Father of Zionism, Bialik.  The Hebrew language lends itself to this style of poetry beautifully, as it is a pictoral language, and paints a more abstract picture, while typically holding several layers of meaning.  Perhaps that's why I enjoy reading the Old Testament so much as well. 

     When that familiar hankering for poetry rose up within me several weeks ago, I went out hunting for more poets whom I had never read before.  Of course I encountered a small dose of the classic English poets in elementary school, but I never really paid much attention to them before.  After spending hours in the poetry section dissatisfied with the available options I ran across a book a few days later drastically discounted, an anthology of Romantic English Poetry.  I decided to give it a chance and I'm rather taken aback by some of the poems by William Blake.  He was quite the free thinker of his age, on matters, political, societal, and ethical.  Blake's prose is much like that of the King James Version of his day, but it always surprises me when Blake looks past the physical shell of items, which I feel most romantic English poetry dwells in, and reaches for a deeper message, such as in this poem, "Songs of Experience."  This poem sounds rather mystical, which is rather rare for the English way of his day.  

     Something else that fascinates me about Blake, was his creative process.  He was actually a visual artist first and foremost.  All of his poems were created in conjunction with a painting.  Cool huh?   

     Anyway, I'd love to hear your views, likes, or dislikes on poetry.  What is it that fascinates you about poetry?  Do you have any more information on William Blake or what do you like his works?  Lemme know!