Dear Friend

Dear friend,

I thank you for your honesty, vulnerability, and willingness to put pen to paper. I wish sometimes I had your bravery and your positivity to live life to it's fullest - to take risks, jump straight into the deep end, and laugh the whole way there. I am forever inspired by you and I don't tell you enough. I feel lame writing this in my blog rather than to you in person but it feels more raw to share this with whoever is listening. May I continued not to be stuck in my past but rejoice in my present.

I miss you and I love you.

Reasons Why I Love My Job

• My typical work attire is jeans, t-shirt, and converse. 
• I get to have late conversations in the middle of a parking lot outside of Boba Loca
• I get the opportunity to bake for my students without fear of allergies, health restrictions, and school policies 
• I am called Monte again. No more of this Ms. Montecuollo. 
• I get to see students stretched out of their comfort zones and take risks. 
• I get to see Jesus and the Holy Spirit move on campus. 
• I get to be at the forefront of change and transition (the good kind). 
• I wake up at 8 am. Believe me, this is a blessing when my previous job had me up at 5:30 am. 
• I get to ride a scooter onto campus. 
• Did I mention the part about the scooter, oh yes - it's awesome. 

Love

My love for Northridge, for CSUN, and even for ministry is growing exponentially. All the difficult things that can seem overwhelming just melt when I remember how much I actually love my job. I never thought I would say that. After a year of pain, struggle, frustration, and exhaustion I never thought I would come to a place where I actually love what I do. After a year of feeling unseen, unheard, forgotten, left out, alone, betrayed, a failure - now I feel that no matter what I feel, Jesus actually is in the hardship with me. Because let's face it, I still feel those things sometimes but they no longer over take me.

In short, I just love my job, my city, and my students.

I love that the people I work with have a passion for Jesus. 

I love that the students want to be bold and take risks, even when it makes them feel uncomfortable. 

I love that my students are no longer satisfied with a "cardboard Jesus" faith, and want more. 

I love that my students engage with the Holy Spirit. And even when they don't, they ask themselves "why not" and they sit in the tension of that. 

I love that my students care for the needs of their friends around, even putting others before themselves. 

I love that my students listen - not just to me, but to each other, to their friends, to the Holy Spirit. 

I love that my students speak out against injustice and it breaks their hearts to see others in pain. 

I must be eating my words when I said I would never do InterVarsity Staff. I won't say I will never do stuff again, because it can be just the thing that is the most life giving. 

Separate

One of the disadvantages of our globalized community is that your best friend may life almost 300 miles away.

Why Jesus would you draw us so closely to cities that are so far apart?

Thoughts

"According to Madam Pomfrey, thoughts could leave deeper scaring than than almost anything else..."

- J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

Asking for More

"I think the fear of God failing us leads us to 'cover for God.' This means we ask for less, expect less, and are satisfied with less because we are afraid to ask for or expect more." - Francis Chan

I decided to read the book Forgotten God by Francis Chan. I am always a small bit hesitant to read Francis Chan because he writes particularly to an audience who needs to be challenged out of their upper/middle class luxury faith bubble, one I've already been broken out of (mostly) from InterVarsity. In a nutshell he writes a lot of stuff I already know.

But this book held a lot of surprises. Including the quote above. I've been thinking about it for a while, especially since the InterVarsity Fellowship at CSUN decided to create the goals of tripling our fellowship by the end of the year. When I told people about this I got mixed feedback. Many suggested I was reaching too high, shouldn't I set a lower goal, what if it didn't happen, we can't be thinking about just numbers, this isn't Cal Poly anymore... etc. etc. 

Our original goals were make small steps - going from a 50 person average fellowship to 75. That gives God very, very little room to work. In fact I bet anyone I can get 25 more people to come to our fellowship on our own without much help from the Holy Spirit. I don't really need to pray a lot, and I don't need to expect a lot from God. And that was the problem with our goal. It didn't have any expectation God would come through, so I decided to settle for less.

And now I'm challenged to expect more. It's tough because ringing my mind are the questions: What if God doesn't come through with this? What if we never get to 150 people in our fellowship? It is ultimately scary to ask for more. It is terrifying because I have no control now if this works or not. I can be faithful, step up and pray. Invite people. Help make our large group more welcoming. Train our leaders. But at the end of the day that won't give us 100 more committed members. Only the Holy Spirit can do that.

I'm getting tired of "covering for God." He is a pretty bad ass dude so why did I ever think I needed to cover for him the first place. I'm a pretty weak person as it is and I feel like my life has been a lot of settling for less because I'm too scared to ask God for more. My prayer is as we step up in faith for the big dreams and big goals, the Holy Spirit will meet them. We will be transformed because we pray a lot and learn to listen to the Holy Spirit. And if our numbers aren't what we expected at the end of the year, we will praise the Lord for the people he brought into our lives and the transformation in our own selves through this experience. 

And Jesus please remind me of this when I groan and complain this is too hard, I'm not seeing enough growth, and I'm when I'm generally just being a pain in the ass and willing to settle for less. 

25 in 25: Draft 2

So when I turn 25 in - what is it - 3 months or so, I will have one year to do 25 different challenges. Here is the sort of final list.

1. Read 30 new books (I did 25 this year, or well I'm working on it, so I'm upping the goal) 
2. Visit 25 new places (Need new ideas for road trips)
3. Meet 25 new people that are not work related (I need to know their name, where they are from and where they are going. Bonus if I get a picture with them. Double bonus if I stay in contact with them) 
4. Lose 25 lbs (or more, but we'll start with that)
5. Get rid of 25 things that I don't need (yeah like the 25 lbs... ok 25 other things)
6. Actually try 25 things on pintrest (seriously, I still haven't done one yet?) 
7. Write 25 handwritten letters (not cursive though - still printed) 
8. Learn to cook 25 new dishes 
9. Give 25 gifts that are each under $1 
10. Physically record 25 family stories (we will see if I can get some truthful ones out of may family)
11. Give up 4 bad habits  
12. Blog once a week (and not like a sentence, a good decent blog post here)
13. Learn to drive a stick shift (So I can participate in a future Fast and the Furious movie)
14. Get coffee/tea/ice cream with 25 old friends 
15. Make 5 things from scratch (clothing, furniture, a cake, etc.)  
16. Create a piece of art to frame (not writing or photography) 
17. Learn a new skill (maybe more than one)
18. Begin to learn another language 
19. Write something to be published
20. Spend 25 hours volunteering (InterVarsity does not count)
21. Write a song (like Shannon is a Hip Trendy Ninja... ok maybe a serious song?)
22. Watch 10 classic movies I can't believe I haven't seen yet
23. Go out dancing at least once (I may need company on that one) 
24. Memorize 25 passages of scripture (how long? well more than "Jesus wept")
25. Go hiking once a month (or at least really long walking) 

Thoughts? I'm still thinking through them but by the time December rolls around, I will have a pretty good list created.