Five Ways to Break the Ice

We all have those times when we're in new places, meeting new people, and we have no clue what to say or do. Maybe you're starting in a new school this year (I'm starting at my local community college next month) going to a new church, starting a new activity with people you don't know, or just want to step out of your usual "group". Here are five tips on how to break the ice.

1. Be Comfortable with Yourself.
When you can be comfortable with yourself, it makes it easier for others to be comfortable with you. Don't be afraid to look like a fool and be quick to laugh off mistakes. People are drawn to those who are confident in their own skin.

2. Use Complements.
Complementing is one of the most effective ways to break the ice, especially when complementing something that invites further conversation. By simply commenting that you like the new person's shoes, for example, you can discover that both of you are thrift store shoppers or that you both have grandmas with good shoe taste. Even silly things in common can go a long way in being comfortable with each other. Complementing also sends a confident message that says, "I'm confident enough not to be threatened by you and your cute shoes and I don't want you to feel threatened by me."

3. Ask Questions.
When the conversation starts to drag, asking questions like "what do you do for fun?" or "where did you move from?" can pave the way for other things you have in common or learning about something new. Just be sure to stay clear of questions like "where do you live?" which can unintentionally sound a little stalkerish.

4. Be Open.
It is hard to get to know very personal people. By opening yourself up, other people will naturally open up to you. Talking about your family, your plans for the future, and the things you have experienced is inviting to others. There is a happy medium here, however. Don't burst out your entire life story the first time you meet someone, make sure there is plenty of room for the other person to talk. And getting into really personal stuff about yourself like your insecurities can get messy.

5. Speak Well of Others.
Gossiping and showing dislike of certain people by your words proves to the person you're talking to that you're not trustworthy. No one wants to be friends with someone who will complement them one minute then talk bad about them behind their back the next. People who gossip aren't fun to be around.

Long Time No See:Sara

     Malea said it pretty well last time she posted - it's been a really long time since our last post.  This is MY catching up post.  
     6 months ago, in February, I had been in South Africa for 6 months.  Now, I've been here for a year.   And that year has gone SO fast, it's unbelievable when I look back on it.  On the year-to-the-date anniversary, I posted on my Facebook page that "It's been a year full of settling in and some frustration, a year including a new school, a new church, and new friends, and a year in which we've grown as a family and as individuals."  There have been a lot of changes over the last year, and, as I indicated above, some of it's been frustrating.  It took us 9 months to find a church, but we're happy.  It's a very small church with less than 200 people, and less than 10 teenagers, only 1 my age, but we're forming close friendships.  Dad and I sing in the worship band, and I help out with children's church.  
     All of my life, up until a year ago, I was homeschooled.  Now, I and my 5 siblings attend a small (600 kids, K-12) private school called the King's College.  My best friend and brother, Matthew, whom I've known since 3rd grade, also lives with us and attends school at King's while his family is serves God as missionaries in Swaziland.  To find out more about the Taylor family and see how you can support them, visit robandjennifer.wordpress.com.  The motto of this school is "Audience of One".  The teachers are wonderful people, dedicated to the kids and their teaching.  I struggle with the fact that, in South Africa, the pass grade is 45%, but I raise the standard for myself, and achieve mostly 80s.  God calls us to work as if we're working for Him, and not for men - that means doing our best in everything, no matter how low the requirements are.  I've formed several deep relationships with people at school, with people who will push me towards God and inspire me to do my best.  
     My relationship with God has grown as I've had to deal with homesickness, family struggles, and lack of  "belonging".  I've had to lean on God through all of it.  Moving halfway around the world hasn't been easy, but I'm convinced this is where God has called us, so I'm glad we came.  
     On the upside, there are some distinctively different things about South Africa.  They call their traffic lights "robots", and the trunk of the car is the "boot".  They don't have Reese's Peanut Butter cups or Jelly Bellies, Bath and Body Works, or Ben and Jerry's, but they have Bar One and Jelly Tots, and their fruit and veggies are SOO good.  There is no insulation in there houses because it's only cold for a relatively short amount of the year, but we still managed to be here for the first time it has snowed in 5 years.  It was the day before school let out, but no one was in class when it was snowing.  The girls were having a screaming jumping fest out on the field, and the boys were playing soccer.  
     I guess if you take anything away from this post, take away that even if God's call is hard to follow through, it's the best path to follow.  A year ago, I couldn't imagine living anywhere but my hometown, I struggled to make new friends, and my relationship with God wasn't as strong as it is now.  Now, I'm living half way around the world with tons of new friends and I'm cradled in the arms of my Creator through everything.  And I've been told I've picked up a slight South African accent :D

Long Time No See:Malea

Wow. It has been a really long time since our last post. 
I think some catching up is in order. Sara has been very busy adjusting to her new life in South Africa (she's been living there for over six months now! Craziness!) and school has been taking up much of her time. I'll let her do a catching up post of her own soon, though.
It seems as if the crazy business never stops for me. I had this thought that after I had finished driver's ed (yep, I went through that while I was away) life would slow down some but I've been done since November and it really hasn't. At the moment, my life consists of school, church, music, and occasionally friends. I have started leading worship for my church youth group (singing) with my friend Craig (who plays and arranges awesome stuff on the keyboard) and that's probably been the most life-changing thing that's happened lately. At first, I was very reluctant to doing it...I'm not a fan of singing in front of people...but we both really feel like this is the direction God is taking us right now. Both for us as individuals and for the whole youth group. Before Craig and I started leading, a few people have attempted starting praise and worship but nothing ever worked for very long. The time is definitely now.
I have also been attending a bible study that I very much enjoy. Right now we're going through a book together called Becoming a Woman of Prayer by Cynthia Heald. I highly recommend it.

 


Whelp, I should probably go now. But I will leave with a promise of more blog posts in the near future. 

Giving Everything

Isn’t it amazing how much God loves us? I mean, he  sent his son to die for us - and no matter what we do, no matter how ugly we can be sometimes, he loves us despite everything. Not only that, but he gives us small reminders of his love every single day. I was given a huge reminder just recently and I would like to tell this story.

I love music - a lot, I practically live and breathe it. I take piano and voice lessons and I’m constantly either singing, playing, or listening to music. I’m home schooled but the reason I have been able to take both piano and voice lessons is because my family is enrolled in this program where we get publicly funded for some school. This year, however, they cut it down so that they only pay for one fine arts per student. When I found out about this, I was pretty shook up. I knew that meant I would have to quit either piano or voice lessons. And as spoiled as this sounds; I didn’t want to give up either one. So I practically got on my knees and begged Mom to some how, some way, even if it meant not eating, come up with money to pay for my voice lessons. Unfortunately, she decided that eating is more important than my voice lessons (we agree to disagree on this subject) and sat me down to talk. My parents decided to pay for a certain amount monthly for my lessons, leaving me a big chunk to come up with. I have a job working at a kitchen store and if I worked regular hours, having enough money wouldn’t be a problem. But since the Christmas rush ended, I only get asked to come in when whoever was supposed to work then can’t. I haven’t been called in since April and most of the money I have is going to be used to pay for driver’s ed. next month.

I needed another solution.

Mom’s ideas:

1) Ask the grandparents to pledge some money each month.

Pros: If they each only gave $20 a month I would have enough.

Cons: I hate asking for money, I’m not sure how much I could count on that money coming in, and I would feel bad to ask them for money...coming back to hating asking for money.

2) See if I could work one day a week at the kitchen store.

Pros: I would get to work and get more than enough money to pay for my lessons.

Cons: I would hate asking for that, it probably wouldn’t work well for them, and I might not get paid when I need to.

After this talk, I was pretty discouraged. That night I felt like it wasn’t possible and I would have to give up something I love to do. I cried and prayed for about an hour before I went to bed. I told God that I had given up finding a solution on my own and that it probably was not possible doing it my way but through him, all things are possible. I let go of everything and I gave it to Jesus and let him fill me with his peace. I stopped worrying about it, knowing that it wouldn’t be the end of the world if I had to stop taking voice lessons. I still wanted it and hoped for it, but I thanked God that he knows what he’s doing.

A few days later, Mom got an email from my voice teacher saying that she needed to hire someone to clean up after a class she taught to little kids and asked if I would do it. This solved everything! I just kinda stood there in shock. A realization came over me, I wrote it down in my journal that night: “Jesus loves me so much that not only did he die for me, he gave me something so small in comparison by letting me continue to do something I love, to remind me of how big he is and how big his love is for me.”

The moral of the story is: Jesus loves us so much and we should give everything, all of ourselves to him, and thank him for everything, even the bad things, because he knows what he’s doing. We might not like some of his plans at first, but they always turn out for our good.

Summer wear

                 Swimsuits. It's summer, and they are all over the place. Or not. They hardly cover anything at all, just the sparest amounts of skin, and even girls who are conscious of modesty can fall into this trap. The swimsuits being sold just aren't modest - so even if we go for the most modest out there, they just don't meet our standards. Our standards shouldn't be any lower just because we're getting in the water. Beyond that, the "modest" swimsuits that are sold just aren't cute.  But I needed a new swimsuit recently, and I won't settle for immodest suits. So I figured I might as well share my findings. For me, swimsuits have to be just modest as street clothes.  That means my fingertips can't touch skin when they are hanging at my sides, and when I fix my thumb between my collar bones, the neckline can't go below my pinky finger if my hand is flat.  To find this, I actually went to a site Malea suggested: limericki.com. Limericki is a site that prides itself on the modesty of their swimsuits, and the suits are cute, too. They have one pieces as well as tankinis, and they sell bottoms as well, boy shorts, hipsters, and skirts. However, I prefer board shorts, I went to Amazon.com for these. Board shorts come in many lengths, so you can wear them to your comfort level. This summer, let's start a new trend and bring modest swimsuits back in style; for good. Don't go with the crowd; get the crowd to follow you.

Why Not?

    The other day I mentioned to someone how I disapprove of teenagers dating. The reply to this was: “You’re just saying that because you’re jealous.” Even though it was said in jest, I was a little taken aback by this answer because the person who said it isn’t in a relationship (that I know of) and should know me well enough to know my views on this matter. Anyway, the conversation ended there and I didn’t get the opportunity to give my opinion. But it really got me to think about why I don’t approve of teenage dating. If you’re a teenager in a relationship right now, it would be very easy to get back on facebook and not take another look at this blog. Before you do that, however, I encourage you to keep reading (I encourage you to keep reading even if you’re not in a relationship) I’m not writing this post to accuse you of doing wrong or convince you not to date, I’m just trying to express my views and hopefully give another side to think about. Now, back to my reasons why. When I first started pondering this, I thought of how it would be super easy for me to be jealous if I wanted to. I mean, most of my friends either have boyfriends or won’t call it that but pretty much have a boyfriend. It would make sense for me to feel left out.
         That thought then, gave way to what I would reply if the subject ever came up again. One of the first reasons that I have is that it’s just a waste of time. How many couples that start dating when they’re fifteen actually get married when they grow up? Not that many. Most teen relationships end within a couple of weeks. The argument to this would be that the point of dating is not to find a spouse. If that is the case, then what is the point? To have fun? Well in my opinion, teen relationships aren’t fun. Sure, there are a few moments of fun and the idea of having a boyfriend (or girlfriend) can be exciting. But since teen relationships are almost destined to end, it’ll only end in heartbreak. The last few days of the relationship will be spent wondering if you should break up or whether or not your boyfriend/girlfriend will break up with you and then when the end finally happens, the result is tragic. Why is this the case? Because with each romantic relationship you’re giving part of your heart away. I don’t know about you, but I want to save my whole heart for one person; the person God wants me to marry. I don’t want to get married and live with any regrets about what I did during the time that I could have been single and waiting for my Prince Charming. I love the way Heather from becomingahopefulromantic.blogspot.com puts it in her blog post “My Fall Will be for You”. Basically, what she says is that if we don’t protect our hearts, we’re going to “fall in love” with so many boys that won’t bother to catch us when we fall. Besides Jesus, there is only one person who will catch me when I fall and never let me go. I want my fall to be for him and only him.

“Well,” you say, “what if my sixteen-year-old boyfriend is the person God wants me to marry and we stay together for the rest of our lives?” Personally, I only want to fall for my “one” when the time is right. Even if I was dating someone now who was the “one”, it’s not like we could get married now. Sure, we could be together for years, but by doing that, we could miss out on opportunities that could have changed our lives if only we had taken them and not been so focused on being together. I only plan on entering a relationship when I know that it’s God’s timing... Not just when I want it so much that I’ve convinced myself that it is his timing but when I know. If what my future husband and l will have is meant to be, then I can wait  for it to become.

What good can come out of dating so young? I was honestly trying to come up with something good that could come out of it but failed. Just something to think about.

Read Heather’s blog post “My Fall Will be for You” at: http://becomingahopefulromantic.blogspot.com/2011/01/my-fall-will-be-for-you.html

It is well worth the read.

Dealing with Change

Change. This is a word I don’t think anyone wants to hear unless it involves clothes. Why does this seem to be the case? Because change is scary. Deathly frightening. Change usually includes doing something outside of one’s comfort zone, leaving something that is familiar and comfortable. Sara and I are going to have change thrown in our faces at the end of this week. The kind of change that is really, really hard; Sara will be moving.

When I was little, moving was something new and exciting. But now that I’m older, it is something I dread. One of my biggest fears is that I’ll have to move somewhere far away; so far that I will have to give up everything that I Iove to do, say goodbye to all of my friends and never see them again. Sara will be moving to South Africa for over three years. By the time she gets back, we’ll be all grown up and very different. Though knowing that she’s coming back makes things easier, it is still so hard. Dealing with change is probably one of the hardest things to do. It would be so much easier to shut my mind to it an pretend like I don’t care. I do care, however, and ignoring emotions rather than dealing with them is very unhealthy. One thing that I do to deal with change is to talk to God about what’s bothering me, why I am not embracing the change. I even try to thank God for the change... because I know that somehow, someday I will look back on it and see that whatever I didn’t want to happen at the time ended up being the best thing that happened to me. Or it ended up making me a better person anyway.

Another thing I do is talk to other people about it. It is very important to have people in your life who you can talk to about almost anything. I have a few such people in my life like my mom and two really close friends. I am so thankful for these people.

A couple of my favorite verses in the Bible are my favorites because they helped me through some change or other. Whenever I’m having a rough time, I reread those verses or think about them if I have them memorized. One of my favorites in Joshua 1:9 which says: “This is my command: be strong and courageous! Do not be afraid or discouraged, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.” This applies to just about everything in life. No matter what happens, remember to be strong and courageous - God didn’t just “highly recommend” it he commanded it. In whatever you do, wherever you go, remember that he is with you. Jesus is all we need.