becka lippy

Tomorrow I am heading off to New York to spend my last few days of 2007 with some friends in Jews for Jesus. We will be doing some outreach, bible studies, and having tons of fun. Please pray for us during this week. I'm not sure exactly what type of evangelism we will be doing, but I know that anytime I have done ay evanglism with JFJ, crazy and amazing things have happened. I'll be back on the 1st since the real world doesn't seem to rest. Have a great New Years. You Chileans, please don't stay out past 7 or 8 am. :) And you "not-so-Chileans" stay out at least till 1am. It's New Years! See you all next year!!!

I realized last night that the moments that are most romantic to me, the ones where I feel my singleness more than ever, are the mundane activities of life. Like putting on my pjs and brushing my teeth. There was this moment last night when I looked up from brushing my teeth and caught a glimpse in the mirror. I was standing there in my pjs, face freshly washed, eyes tired and longing for the pillow. And I almost expected to see someone behind me. Not like the scary movies where you shut the medicine cabinet and see that dark figure in the mirror, but more of a comfortable, Alison Krauss music in the background, soft yellow lights type of figure in the mirror. I know I am a hopeless romantic, and life is much bigger than these daydreams. But in all honesty, is life really bigger than a compilation of the mundane? What could be more real in life than the reality of falling asleep each night next to the person you love? These are my hopeless romantic rantings.

Every year, kids write hundreds of letters to an old man with a white beard who allegedly lives in the North. And every year kids get thousands of presents with big red bows on them. I'm not a big present person. Well, I am. But not a holiday gift person. I melt over roses and cry when I get care packages filled with my favorite chilean candies (thanks Ash and Dani). But gifts that are given on holidays like Christmas and birthdays seem to be given more out of obligation than the heart. Chubs and I give each other gifts for those holidays, but always extremely late. Our Christmas presents are often in May, sometimes in June. But the presents are less about that holiday and more about the chance to give the other person that gift that you had worked on for a few weeks. I appreciate those friendships in my life that run deeper than gifts, indeed even deeper than time or distance. Today is the 6th day I have spent in solitary confinement and it has been good. I have really just relaxe

Once upon a time... there was a God who created a world and placed a special creation of His as His very representative over the rest of the creation. This representative was called "man". Man enjoyed a very unique and intimate relationship with God. Man knew who he was and who God was, and he enjoyed his relationships with God, other men, and all of creation. Everything was in it's right place. But things went wrong. Man choose to leave that right relationship with God. Sadly, man's relationship with woman and all of creation was dependent on his relationship with God. Man no longer lived in joy and peace, but in pain and frustration. He wanted so badly to get back to that place where he once was. With God. With other men. With creation. All of his life, he tried to get back to that place. The problem was that man couldn't restore the relationship, only God could. But God is a just God and knew that the only way to restore the relationship was the right way, the

So... this is what you get when I have been stuck in the house for way too long. So... yeah... I have a new camera- thanks mom.

I have never had the stomach flu before. Thursday night I started to feel sick. Really sick. I spent most of Thursday night throwing up. Since then it has been a vicious cycle of nausea, fever, and aching. The amazing thing about being sick these last few days is the absolute change in the way I am handling being sick. I know, it sounds pathetic, but I am the BIGGEST baby when I am sick. I cry over nothing and sit in a perpetual pity party. I am such a baby. My friends and roommates can attest to this. One time I burst out crying in youth group because I had a fever. My emotions actually feel uncontrollable when I am sick and I spend a good amount of time crying. But this time was different. I got sick, and as usual called my mom. Even when I was in Chile, if I got sick I called my mom. I just need her to know that I am sick, even if she can do nothing about it. So I called her Thursday, let her know. I didn't cry, didn't sit in a pity party. I was miserable, don't get me w

I am not an east coast girl. I have no clue how to deal with snow. Real snow, the kind that fall from the sky and makes your life so much more conplicated. And the thing is, I was not really thinking all this through when I signed up for this east coast seminary thing. So now I am just waiting in dread for the white mess to begin. I know it is not that big of a deal, and yet it is more stressful to me than anything else I have had to deal with here. I am just not mentally prepared for living here. I actually start to panic when I think about it. When I think about the fact that I am living out here on the east coast. It's okay, I am going to learn to appreciate this whole "seasons" thing. We don't have them in California. I mean, sure it gets a little colder in December and in March it rains a little more than usual. And in the summer it warms up to 75 in wonderful San Francisco. But honestly, it is almost always a day when you wear at shirt and a sweatshirt. That way

When I was 12 I met a girl named Annalisa. She was tall, skinny, with long blonde hair, and one of the most innocent girls I had ever met. I was coming out of a harsh context where I had learned to wear harsh eyeliner and a thick shell of emotional protection from the cruelty around me. I started at this new school and when I met Annalisa, I thought I was too much for her. Too mature, too cool, too "bad" for her. After a year in my new school, I began to realize that all that I was before was a facade. And I found refuge in my friendship with Annalisa. We found laughter and joy in our time together and discovered that we worked well together. We went into high school together and ran for class president and secretary. We ran that class. Man oh man, we had more parties, more BBQ's, and more fundraisers than any other class in the history of that school. We were on fire. We came up with the name "chubs" for each other. It came from the idea of "chubbing out&q

So what does an absolute nerd think of before she goes to bed? I have always read before going to sleep. When I was yougner the books were usually short novels. I liked ones based around the Holocaust where a young heroine fights for survival. I felt somehow close to them, I understood them. The other books I read were Loraine McDaniel books. All teenage love stories about cancer ridden girls. Sick, I know. But I loved those books and I would imagine that someday I would get cancer, go to the camp that all the cancer kids get to go to, and meet my prince charming. And we would battle our cancer together. Anyways, I have noticed a definte change in my reading material. I still read every night before I go to sleep, but now I read theology. I don't even mean Christian living, I mean actual academic theology. Like last night I was reading on Radical Orthodoxy and it's interactions with Reformed THeology. And as I turned off the light to go to sleep, the thoughts in my head were wa

I know its been a while since I wrote here. I have thought a lot about this blog. I'm sure no one even reads it (except Sam and Rachel) and really, should anyone read these thoughts? This blog has become so confession for me. I have found myself time and time again turning to this medium for my therapy, working out the craziness that I find in my heart. It used to be a way of telling my family and friends about my time in South America. I had all my connections in one central area and I knew that through the blog I could inform those I loved of my wellbeing. But now my connections are more arbitrary. I don't have any centrality in my life. I am geographically in Philadelphia. I am mentally in California (James would argue that I never mentally left California!) I am academically in Jerusalem, Geneva, and Scotland. And my heart, my heart still resides in Chile. I still cry sometimes over mi pais. Not as much as I used to. But when I am honest with my situation, and I allow mysel