10-19

Now...to most people who are reading this...it would appear that my title is a date of some sort marking some sort of epic event of my life...This however, is un true. Although this does mark an epic event of my life the term "10-19" is not a date. It's a code. Read on and you will find out the story behind this.

My amazing and beautiful friend Cassandra DeAnne Diacogiannis just happens to be about hte coolest person in the world. She loves the Lord and wants to serve His more than anything else in life. When Cassie came to Bend last April and started working at the Bird I had no idea that we would soon become good friends with such a cool bond. Cassie and I also go to church together at Westside church. She just rocks, basically. Cassie has a HUGE family that lives up in Lynden, Washington, whom she loves adn cares for. She frequently makes visits up there to visit the small town and the large family and this time I was honored to be her guest as we made the 500+ mile treck that would take 9 hours. Cassies family has become my "adopted" family as I will be attending college not 2 hours from their house this coming fall...but thats a different story.
This trip, for me, was more than just a trip. This was my first time going on an overnight road trip without my parents...or any of my family, for that matter, and it was a VERY big deal for me to go. So. After making the trip up to Lynden, surviving on White Chocolate Mochas, Judah Smith and laughing...we dove head first into completely organized chaos. Cassie is extremely well known in her town and church and so it was amazing to see people just run up to hug her and just say "hello". It was overwhelming at times but I loved it all the same. I met over 100 people, easily. I got the chance to sit in the middle of a miracle as it was the very first service of Cassies old churches NEW Worship CENTER!!! Woo Hoo! It was very cool to see be apart of the result of God's work in a different state. I was quite the whirl wind adventure to say the very least...and that was just saturday night. Sunday morning we got up and went and had Woods coffee. (Heads up for all Oregonians who love coffee....They have 24 hour coffee stands inWashington. They take their Lattes and Americanos very seriously.) There were more people to meet and see and I got to watch as Cassie talked passionatly about youth ministry in Bend and what God was doing there. She was very happy and was basically like the ball of a pin-ball machine, bouncing from one place to another to see people and all of their children. Wow! what a crazy morning already. God did something super cool in my heart that morning, however. Being in worship I just began to feel God's confirmation for going to Pacific Life Bible College. This is something that has been on my heart for a while now and I was hoping to get some confirmation from the Lord. A feeling...a scripture...something that would give me the assurance that I was indeed follwing the plan and will of God for my life. I got an overwhelming feeling on Sunday morning during one of the worship songs that I was in the right place, at the right time, following the dream that God wanted me to follow. I didn't know what emotion to feel or what to do and when Cassie asked me if everything was ok...I began to weap. We got in her car, turned on worship music and I cried before the Lord, simply overtaken by His love for me. His love that had wrapped itself around me and had comforted me through the whole thing. His love. It is so precious. I began to pour out my thoughts about being overwhelmed and being afraid of the comformation that I had gotten and being afraid that in 9 months I would be embarking on a journey to college that only 5 people in my family have gone on yet and being the only one so far in my entire family who was being called to take a leap of faith and go to Bible college. This, my friends, is a scary thought. CAssie took me somewhere very special to cheer me up. She took me to the ditch that divides the United States from Canada and I jumped over it as she watched from behind the lense of her camera. I took my very first hop in this huge leap of faith. We took pics of me in Canada and then CASSIE took the leap. I took pictures of her as she goofed around and she strutted her stuff as I took some pics. :) it was rad. I'm assuming that the boarder partol thought it was rad too. especially when they sent a guy to tell us to please stop country hopping. :) This cheered me up. As we were speaking to the man we heward a voice from his radio, "Did you locate them?" "10-4 (this means yes) don't worry, it's just a 10-19." (Hence the title of my blog) This was a rad experience for me. So. We went home and we had some lunch (waffles) and then we went to the mall and shopped (Praise the lord) After this shopping, we went home and got dressed for the Christmas play in which Cassies beautiful little sister, Hosanna, starred. It was wonderful. After the christmas play, we met more people and then went home for dinner and a Diacogiannis family christmas. Cassie got a TON of kitchen stuff that she is not putting in her kitchen and trying to find out how to use. :) I got these amazing PJ pants and a beautiful ornament from the Diacogiannis family. We all prayed together, which was amazing, as you can imagine, and then we slowly teetered off to bed and slept. Monday was not as hectic as the rest of the days. On Monday, we got to wake up late and go to coffee at Woods again. It was awesome. We sat and talked about what the Lord was doing in our lives and things of that nature. Cassie had a meeting at 12 with a friend so I decided to take this as prime "Paige and Jesus" time and I walked to downtown and walked around the shops and such. Lynden Washington is SUCH a beautiful town, FYI, and it is worth the drive to experience all it has to offer. I got home and we made hot cocoa using this wonderful electric wisking amazing hot cocoa making thing that Mrs. Diacogiannis picked up because she heard from Cassie how much I loved cocoa and she figured we could try it out this weekend then her kids could use it for the winter. I got the honor of using it first and, not even kidding, it changed my hot cocoa perspective, which, previous to this trip was narrowed down to powder in water (still good) and the Starbuckery which isn't as hot or chocolatey as I would like it to be...It was amazing! (Thanks Mrs. D! You ROCK!) After this, Cassie and I packed up and headed for home. We drove all the way from Lynden to Portland making 3 stops. One for one last Woods coffee, one for gas and one in Olympia for Olive garden. We got to take somepictures of the beautiful Seattle Skyline at night. and it was SO rad gotin 62 mph with my head out a window looking back on one of the most beautiful sights I have ever seen. Wow. We got to Portland and my parents had been kind enough to get us a hotel room so that we didn't have to drive the pass at midnight. We went to bed in this amazing room and woke up bright and early to hit the road. We got on the mountain and did NOT put chains on, thinking we would be just fin if we went slow and chilled behind a semi. Bad choice. We spun out and hit a snow bank. We had to dig it out and a guy came up to us with a shovel, shoeveled us out, informed us that we shouldn't out chains on because in 3 miles, we'd have to take them off anyway...he went on his was to Maupin or the Tyge Valley as we headed home listening to Podcasts from Bo Stern. This was an amazing weekend of amazing things and Gods hand guiding us. I would do it all over again in a heart beat. Thanks for reading. Pictures are coming soon. :)