Apologies and Good-byes

I wish that I could have posted a blog for each are I've done, but sadly my life hasn't really been open enough lately to settle down and write.

It has been a crazy year. I have changed almost everything in my entire life...my friend group, the guys I spend time with, my relationship with the Lord, my ministry, my busy lifestyle, etc. With each dare, I have learned a little bit more about myself but now it is crunch time because I only have 7 days left on campus and I'm about to do some of my most risky dares yet.

Here is the thing, in the past three days I've learned how little I've actually stood up for myself this past year, and I'm ready to change that. It seems like I'm not only sad about leaving, but also sad with some of the negative changes I've seen in myself this year...my confidence being one of them.

If you've met me, you probably know that I love being outgoing, meeting new people, and loving life...and I've been confident in who I am for quite some time, based off of the fact that I am a daughter of the king. That doesn't change the fact that I still struggle with having a back bone occasionally when it comes to not letting people push me around. (If you ask any of my guy friends back home they will tell you this is super opposite of who I was back in the day).

I think that you should serve the Lord and treat others with respect, but you have to also be willing to find confidence in Christ and have respect for yourself. So BIOLA, be ready for a few personal challenges this week, especially in my own relationships. Let's start outward and work in towards the heart... For starters, tomorrow is a new day. I am daring myself to get this little cartilage part of my ear pierced.

Friday will also consist of going to Disneyland, where I will take some long awaited dares :) I need as many as I can get because this is the last time you'll be hearing from me for awhile. Alright friends 7 days, your dares, my own dares, and counting down to heading home! Let's go!

--Kendra

Weekly Preview:

Friday: Ear Piercing, Disneyland (Fireworks), etc.

Saturday: Buffalo Wild Wings Challenge, Surfing lessons (?)

Sunday: KEEP 'EM COMING!

Do It.

I wish it was that easy. That you could simply make a decision in full faith that what you were deciding was the will of the Lord.

Yesterday at church, the speaker stated that to find God’s will, look to where He is working and chase after it. For the past 4 summers I have served on camp staffs ranging from Discovery Outfitters (white water rafting, hiking, rock climbing) to Tadmor’s S.A.L.T. team, to being a guest counselor.

All in all, God has been shaping me from even before I left my mom’s tummy! The best part is that He has put me in some crazy situations to challenge me and mold me into the Kendra Wise you know to this day.

Roadside week was crazy. To think that the past two months of my life have been entirely dedicated to six days of service was honestly unthinkable! Let me show you a few dares that I did during the week:

1. Kiss a frog.

2. Eat dish soap.

3. Eat dirt.

4. Do the “Wave Rider” (and ultimately fail three out of four times)

5. Eat a live goldfish.

6. Demolish an old gazebo.

7. SO MUCH MORE!

Roadside brought about a new understanding of my confidence in the Lord as well. We worked on an Indian Reservation near Porterville, CA and met some awesome people who seriously challenged my faith in ways that I loved. They just seemed to have such a beautiful understanding of God’s ruling in their lives.

Now that it is over, I finally have some time to do a bit of debriefing of my own and finally get back to these dares. I fulfilled No-Makeup march with a few bumps along the way. All in all I had about five days without makeup so to make it up I’m going to start choosing one day a week where I don’t wear any makeup at all.

It actually drastically changed how I do my makeup now, and let me tell you I threw out the majority of it last month!

My mind is scatter-brained and so is this blog but I just wanted to remind you to leave me some dares and I’ll be right back on it soon!

Talk to you soon J

Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy

Dare of the day: Go Swing Dancing!

Top Ten Rules of Swing Dancing Learned tonight:

1. Always take a back up buddy (preferably a boy) to dance with when asked by creepy boys who are older than your father and not in the cute grandpa kind of way.

2.Never, I repeat, NEVER dance with a 27 year old from Chicago who is on the Blues Cruise (Blues=dirty sex dance move, no bueno). (No matter if it is the last song of the night or not)

3.If a boy states, "I'm easy". It is a red flag....RUN AWAY. (Even in the middle of a song)

4. Don't dare a Freshmen to pole dance for a dollar....they will.

5. Always look for a man (listen up ladies) who enjoys and isn't afraid to swing dance...super bonus points!

6. Always wear spandex shorts under your dress.

7. Never dance with a freshmen from APU who rubs last night's basketball game score in your face while doing spin moves and telling you you should work on your footwork.

8. Don't wear chucks (converse) dancing...it is a turn off for middle aged men (so sad I know). Nix that...do it!

9. Always keep an eye on your pearl necklace...mine was jacked.

10. ALWAYS HAVE A CODE WORD for your girlfriends of who to run away from...like "CHICAGO" and follow through with it :)

Oh and last but not least....always say yes when asked to go swing dancing :) I had a blast tonight and I learned some valuable lessons. For instance, although you may think BIOLA men lack initiative in dating...they are bomb at initiative in dancing. They guys literally would come up each song and grab a girl, maybe even more than one song in the night....so fun!

I also learned confidence is key. I used to swing dance last year but stopped and was super nervous going back tonight...so I gave a fair warning to any guy who asked me to dance...dumb. I usually try and hold confidence but tonight I ultimately lacked it, as if I wasn't already self conscious about the no makeup thing...I was struggling with the fact the majority of my girlfriends were out on the floor each song...while I stood with my friend looking available, but then I thought to myself something.

First of all, this whole confidence month has already been challenging, but I'm loving it at the same time. You see, it is pushing me to look beyond the whole getting ready in the morning thing. Today, I wore a dress with heels for the first time in MONTHS and people freaked out and asked what was the occasion. It made me realize that I've already been growing a ton in this area from last year. I used to think I had to get ready each day in order to look put together, but I missed a lot of the heart behind feeling put together...that which I'm trying to attain now.

I'm also learning to prioritize God time. As cheesy as it sounds, when that isn't at the point of my life...everything else, especially my confidence is out of wack. By the last song, I just let go completely and had a blast. I wish I would have learned to not give the prewarning each time and just done my thing. I miss doing my thing. I miss having time to "do my thing".

See, I work 40 hours a week with a full time schedule at school. I'm also in choir, a few campus ministries, and trying to maintain a community group and Bible study. I'm learning that for some reason I have allowed everything else to fade to the back burner of my life and put my job before everything. Now that would usually be a good thing...seeing as how my job is ministry, but instead it is already causing me to get burned out and I'm only 20.

After taking a solid look at life tonight, I'm starting to realize my schedule needs some quality tweaking. I can't remember the last time I went out like this on a night and wasn't in bed by eleven. I'm finally learning what it is like to be balanced and hopefully gain a new understanding for letting my hair down in work, just as I do in play.

Keep the dares coming... :)

Bare Naked.

Dare of the day: No Makeup March.

Aside from the one exception of Mock Rock, I, Kendra Wise will be embarking on a makeupless adventure for the next 30 days. Let me tell you, I thought giving up makeup was hard, but I've also paired it with giving up sugar as well. If I can't be a river guide this summer, I mine as well pretend I'm living as though I am!

If you had asked me a year ago to do this I would have laughed at you, peed a little, and ran away to buy more MAC eyeliner. (It's a good thing if you don't know what that is) But seriously, I used to hide behind it as a way to mask who I was. In high school, I was told that I needed more makeup to be pretty..and I used to believe that. The sad thing was that I held so much of my identity in who I could look like, not who I belonged to. (Cheesy..but you get the point)

So my gorgeous friend Katherine challenged me to go a month without makeup...and let me tell you, it is going to be awesome! I'm learning to find confidence in my own beauty (rather God's I should say) and I'm loving it. It is hard though, even when I'm just hanging in my room I'm tempted to throw on a few pounds of cover up to hide that nasty scar from sophomore year....lol okay it was a pimple and it was two weeks ago (just a bit dramatic) but the truth is that it is causing me to recheck where I'm laying my identity!

Also, today I went on a lovely BIOLA date to the cafeteria with Joey, an incoming student on my brother floor at school. I learned that dates can actually be fun (I guess it was more of a "frate" or "friend date") because out of it I gained a bomb new acquaintance and a new opportunity to hear someone's story. I also learned that I really enjoy just meeting new people, and love any opportunity to gain a friend!

So, back to life...today was seriously super hard. I woke up at 4, on a plane at 7, at school at 10, class at 10:30, lunch with Joey, class at 12:30, work at 2:30, work at 3:30, dinner w/Amanda, college group, feeling sick came home early, talk with the girls, in bed now :)

Oh not to mention a few trials here and there, some craziness mixed in with everything i have to get done this week for both my jobs, some added pressure of what i'm doing this summer (I hate that my "i's" won't all capitalize!) But I had an incredible weekend home with the family, loved seeing Rachel and Tom and the Hall family, enjoyed catching up with old friends, got a cute new haircut for spring, and even managed to get some homework done! All in all, life is good, God is great, and I'm going to bed because I don't even know if this whole blog makes a bit of sense! Sleep tight!

--Kendra

In the Glass House

Today's Dare: Vulnerability.

This morning started off beautiful. The weather reminded me of home, with the morning mist making the ends of my deep brunette locks curl. I was walking to the caf to meet with an old friend, whom I haven't actually spent time with until...well...today. As we caught up in the caf, I realized how much I enjoyed his company, and how much I wanted to pursue friendship this year in my own life.

It is crazy to me how much my friends have changed over the years. I have probably had the widest range of friends...starting with the nerdy re-enactment kids in kindergarten, to the popular clique in middle school, to the surfers, the boarders, the pot heads, the preps, the pretties, and the drama geeks up until junior year then it was the choir kids, the jocks, the asb students, and ending with the Kendra you know (and hopefully love) today.

What an incredible testimony to who God has created me to be. I can honestly say that I haven't been feeling truly used by the Lord in my life since my rafting ministry this summer. Roughly 6 months ago I started an internship at Yorba Linda Friends. It was well into the small group year, meaning that I would be stuck taking on a group of mismatched kids from high class suburbia and low class urban culture. The pairing that one would usually find a burden turned out to be one of the most beautiful arrangements that God could have chosen for me.

Tonight we were discussing "Salvation", the first lesson in our new series at church. Two of my Cypress Street girls (the urban area) were struggling with grasping the concept of a Savior. That is when the Lord began to speak, and thank God for His interruption. I told the girls to close their eyes and envision watching the Lord be whipped to near death in front of them. (I avoided being overly graphic, but still tried to make a point). I explained to them how the whips were made in those days, how Jesus was barely recognizable through His wounds and blood.

As I recalled the story, the girls expressions marked utter fear and pain for what He was going through. When I finished, I explained to them how Christ did it FOR them. (For me) I didn't want to do the tradition reciting of a prayer together, so instead I prayed a prayer over the girls and then went on to sharing that if they wanted to except Christ they could repeat after me in their own hearts, not having to say anything out loud.

My two girls, the ones whom I've been struggling with since day one accepted the Lord tonight.

As if that wasn't incredible enough, one of my students began sharing with me of the struggles she has been facing in her life, bringing me to tears by the end of her painful journey through the broken intimacy and love she has experienced.

Today's dare was simple: Vulnerability. Isn't it interesting how often we avoid being plainly open with one another? Instead we put so much pressure on playing these games. I often view this as relational flirting. No, I'm not just talking with someone of the opposite sex. I'm talking about flirting with the reality of who we are as individuals. We love to better our own appearance for the pleasures of others and even ourselves.

Wouldn't it be wonderful to live in a world where sarcasm was vanished, and vulnerability flourished? Where if you wanted to date someone you would merely ask them to dinner...not manipulate your way into their heart? Or where friendship was no longer a process of getting to know someone to the point where you constantly fight as a way of protection against going any deeper?

Tonight my girls showed me the power of vulnerability. It is incredible to me to see such strong witness from two girls who haven't even celebrated their 15th birthdays yet! So I challenge you...who are you? Who are you really? Are you living accordingly? Think about it.

Dare for tomorrow: Fly home to Oregon :) Pray me through!

Just Dance :)

Dare of the Day: Dance with the cutest boy at prom.

Today started out like any other Friday: 8:10 AM wake up. 8:30 AM coffee with Holly Dulaney. 9:30 AM Chapel. 10:30 AM Work Out. 11:30 AM Errands.

As the day progressed I got more and more amped about the fact that I was going to a prom tonight that supported one of the ministries on campus. I am not going to lie, my Orange and diamond dress was so nice, it cost me $899. (Whoops, forgot to add an ".", I'll let you figure it out :)

Here was the dare: Dance with the cutest boy there. You know, I was never a big fan of prom. I actually told the boys at school senior year I didn't want a date, but the day of I got asked by an incredible guy just hours before school ended. Good thing I was planning to go to another school's prom the next weekend :) Already had a dress and everything ready!

It is funny how things seem to turn out sometimes. Like tonight...the prom was so great, with a sexy live band from the 80's...or maybe they were 80....but they were amazing!

I got to dance and let loose with my girlfriends! I realized how much I missed those quality times!

Then, I did it...dare completed. I danced with one of the hottest boys I've ever seen. It was so great, I even learned a bit of salsa, thanks to you Mr. Dance Partner.

To a quality note...I came back from the dance and noticed the sprinklers were on, which by the way has always been one of my dreams to dance in a prom dress in the sprinklers. I ran around in the water and realized that I am truly blessed by the awesome life I have.

You know what else I learned tonight? I'm kind of over dares involving the opposite sex, they often turn out for the worse and I'm also on this new kick where I only go on dates with boys who ask for them...crazy I know! (You'd think I'd be nuts to go to a school where it is the opposite! Hehe :)

I hope you all had a blessed night and I can genuinely say that it was one of the best days ever!

Going to retreat tomorrow so dare me a good one!

Love,

Kendra

Friendly Reminder:

1. If you have no idea WHY I'm doing this...read post 1 :)

2.If you have a dare...write a comment on my facebook wall with it in it and I will do it.

3.The dares must be appropriate: a.k.a.: nothing that will risk my integrity.

4. Have fun!