Christmas time is Here

Christmas has come and gone and heckticly as always. In the Borba house, we celebrate 5 time (Just the two of us, Kat's Dad, Kat's Mom, Steve's Mom, and Steve's Dad), and that doesn't even include all the work, and church parties. 

After a week of celebrating it feels nice to finally be home and resting up from our vacation. 

It was great to see family. 

My sister flew home from Boston where she is attending law school. And Steve's sister drove up from Newport Beach, followed by her Fiance, who flew in two days later. 

So, I wanted to leave you with some pictures and videos of our week-o-celebration. Perhaps our last one in the states for a while. 

Kathryn's Mom's house:

Steve's Mom's house:

After opening these new hats, we started wondering if it was a sign we were going to be placed in Hokaido. :)

At Steve's cousin's house, Steve and his sister, Jen duked it out with foam bats. Ahh, siblings.

Then Kendall, challenged Jen to a battle. Don't you just love the helmet. 

The day after Christmas we headed off to the city (San Francisco) to pick Jeff up from the airport. Since, my mom lives near the city, I got to be the tour guide. 

Union square:

We walked through China Town to North Beach (think little Italy) to have lunch at the Stinking rose, a garlic restaurant. Just be thankful smell-o-vision has yet to be invented. 

feeling more real all the time

Our staff profile was recently added to the Asian Access web page.

I know it's silly, but it made my day when I saw it.  It makes this whole crazy thing seem so real. 

check it out, and while you're there, check out the profiles of the other amazing people on staff.

http://www.asianaccess.org/people/staff/borba.html

What a week!

What an eventful few days it has been! Filled with joy, panic, crying, and the realization that God is in control no matter what.

First, Joy:

This Sunday Stephen and I decided to get our house into the Christmas spirit. We stopped by the tree lot on the way home from church to get our traditional "Charlie Brown" tree. At this point in our lives, we have so few ornaments, and so little space, a tiny tree is just perfect. We also decided to get a wreath for the first time. (wow, we sure felt grown up! :) )

I was so proud of our tiny tree, and Christmas decorations that I wanted to sit down and blog. After pouring myself a glass of water, I sat down to my computer and proceeded to knock the FULL glass of water onto my laptop keyboard!

Panic! :

Immediately, I flipped my lappy over and screamed for a towel. water was dripping from it as I tried to wipe down the keys. In the confusion, I am pretty sure I hit the power button one or two times (something in hindsight, I should have avoided).

Stephen was sent to research my predicament on his computer, while I tended to mine. sure enough, DON'T TURN IT ON while it's wet! was the number on piece of advice on the internet.

I ended up flipping mine on a towel with paper towels shoved under the keys to wick out the water for 48 hours, to avoid shorting anything any further.

Check out my lovely paper-towel-strip work under the keys. Nice huh!?

Crying:

I'm not sure if you have ever lost, crashed, or shorted a computer, but it is a stressful thing to do. In this modern age my life is on my laptop: my files, my music, my photos, everything. So I did what any one would do ( or at least anyone who cries as much as I do). I cried for 2 hours.

God is in control no matter what! :

Over the last two days, God has been working on my heart that computer or no computer He is my sustenance, and my portion. Though His Spirit, and a loving husband, I came to remember that "life does not consist in the abundance of our possessions."

Well, 48 hours of drying on the desk was up tonight. After prayer and a reminder that if it is dead, it's ok, I put the battery back in, and pressed the power button.

I am glad to say, my computer is alive. There is no damage to be seen, except the light is out on my keyboard, but I can deal with not typing in the dark. :)

The LORD is good.

Does God have a sense of Humor ?

I believe yes.

Kathryn and I had taken some friends of ours out for a support appointment at a thai food restaurant. We asked them if they would like to partner with us in our ministry by financially supporting us. They very graciously decided to support us and then to our surprise opened their fortune cookie and got this fortune.









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hahaha, God placed that fortune cookie in that cookie that would be served to us on that day. wow :) .

Wrath Mercy Grace: Episode 2

Stephen and Conner (the High Schooler he tutors) have made the next installment of Wrath Mercy Grace. Hope you enjoy it!

My Husband the Film maker.

I've been begging Stephen to post the videos he made for our High School group to youtube, so I could share them on here. 

Stephen made this with a student he tutors. He wanted to make sure everyone knew that it was just Henry Weinhards rootbeer.

Physical Change Vs. Chemical Change

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!

2 Corinthians 5:16-18 

Recently at school I have been teaching a cooking class for 5th and 6th graders. It has been a great chance for me to pretend like I can cook. :P 

In these first few weeks we have been discussing the definitions of Physical changes and Chemical changes as it relates to cooking. We have made Vinaigrette and fruit salad to show a physical change; and mayonnaise, veggie chips and soon chocolate chip cookies to show a Chemical change. Each week I reinforce the concept from their science standards by asking "Is this recipe a physical or chemical change?" And each week, they let me know. 

For those not in the science vocabulary loop, in a physical change nothing new is made. The parts are mixed together, or rearranged, but all the parts remain the same. This type of change is able to be changed back to it's original state (like Vinaigrette dressing, or fruit salad)

A chemical change on the other hand is a change of the very substance. In this reaction, something new is made. It no longer resembles it's old self (like mayonnaise, or cookies). This type of change is not reversible. 

Even more recently, I was reminded of a "chemical change" that took place in Stephen's best friend. Within the last year, this friend dedicated his life to Christ. Since then, everything about this man is different: his attitude, his priorities, his speech, and his actions. To paraphrase another friend, "All he does is talk about Christ." His transformation has been just that, he has been transformed into a new creation. And as with science and cooking, this type of transformational change can not be changed back. 

"The old has gone, and the new has come."

I sometimes forget that Christ has this transforming power over those who put their trust in Him. I confess, I sometimes am looking just for the outward, Physical change of new actions, or appearance. 

Praise God for the work He is doing within each of us. May we each seek to be transformed in our entirety.