Send Carlin to Malawi!

This spring I have the opportunity to go to Malawi with Market Colors and Summit Church. I love Market Colors and what they do. They collaborate with African craftsmen to create incredible products that they sell online and in stores throughout the world. You can find more information about them at www.marketcolors.org. The trip I will be taking will be from March 7, 2015 to March 17, 2015.

While the team and I are in Malawi we will be working with a group of craftsmen involved with the Widows Program with Children of the Nations. The group we are going to visit, is about thirty women, their skill sets aren't as strong as some of the other Market Colors groups, so Market Colors isn't able to order from them as frequently. We will focus our ten days overseas on increasing their skill set and developing concept pieces for the 2015 items from Malawi. By teaching them these skills, we will be fulfilling a very real need for Market Colors and equipping these women!

I can not wait to meet these wonderful women and spend time with them teaching them how to make new products. I would be honored to first and foremost have your support through prayer. I would also love your financial support if you are able. My personal expenses will include my passport, vaccinations, and other travel preparations. Before our departure, I need to raise $2,600 toward travel expenses for the trip.

The picture below shows you how to give online.

Thank you so much for your willingness to be a part of this trip and the larger mission of Market Colors, I can't wait to share stories of this incredible adventure with you!

A Year Ago

With the end of the year approaching I typically look back and reflect on the past year. 

It's hard for me to even think about what I felt last Christmas. In many ways I'm so removed from the way I was feeling and the incredible weight I carried around with me at that time. Last Christmas, my sweet friend Kaliegh had died only six months ago. Those six months seemed like an eternity. It was dark and hard and sad. Last Christmas felt so wrong. I couldn't see the celebration, I just wanted to be with my friends who knew and loved Kaliegh as much as I did. I wanted to sit in the heartache and pain I was experiencing. It was a holiday without her, and I only wanted to be with people that knew and loved her. 

When I think back to that time and those feelings it still feels very real. I still miss Kaliegh. I still think of memories we shared and every once in a while a song will come on the radio that reminds me of her, and I cry and miss my friend. I know that most of that will never change, I'm lucky to have had something that made saying goodbye so hard. But goodness, this past year Jesus has brought so much life and joy into my life. I have experienced just the beginning of how he is going to redeem this part of my story. 

There's a quote from Shauna Nequist that I was reading a few days ago that really struck me. I completely identified with the way she talked about the pain of tragedy, but the beginning of seeing beauty through it. 

"But what I know is that we're discovering that lots of times, not every time, maybe, but more often than not, there is something just past the heartbreak, just past the curse, just past the despair, and that thing is beautiful. You don't want it to be beautiful, at first. You want to stay in the pain and the blackness because it feels familiar, and because you're not done feeling victimized and smashed up. But one day you'll wake up surprised and humbled, staring at something you thought for sure was a curse and has revealed itself to be a blessing - a beautiful, delicate blessing."

That's exactly it. A year ago life was dark and hard and that's okay. But it's also okay that it's not that way anymore. It's okay that I have a new job, a great community of friends and that school is going well. It's okay that I see and experience Jesus in a way I never have before. It's a new season of life I've stepped into. I want to prepare myself to be amazed by God. Prepare to be astounded by him when he does more than I could infinitely ask for or even imagine. 

I'm grateful for where I've been and I will miss my sweet friend forever, but I'm so blessed to see the beginning of beauty in that brokenness now. Jesus is so real and He is abundantly good.

Stripes & Seasons

Fall Capsule Wardrobe Outfit #1

So, we're really doing this, I'm posting photos of myself posing in front of a tripod on my blog. Ha! Life is funny. 

I think this was the perfect outfit to start this capsule wardrobe adventure with. I recently got this dress from Madewell…it's on sale! I love the stripes with the red lip and gold accessories, very Taylor Swift I was told. 

Enough about clothes...

In the past few days I have been feeling stuck. I was realizing that I am "stuck" locationally for the next few years of my life while I finish school. For some reason in my mind this translated to me feeling stuck emotionally and spiritually. I felt myself searching for what taking risks and living an abundant life looks like in a season so confined locationally. I had a wonderful conversation with a very wise friend this past weekend about this tension I was feeling. He gave me some wonderful truth about seasons. He reminded me that there really is a season for everything (do you ever feel like you already know something, but then someone says it in a new way and it opens your eyes all over again?) He said that I will go through seasons in life where God calls me to do big and crazy things, but now I am blessed with the gift of a stable, contestant environment. And potentially, this environment might be just the thing preparing me for the big risks God will call me to take in the next years. 

This gave me such peace. I'm so looking forward to what abundant life will look like in my future life. But for now I am so grateful for what Jesus is doing in my life and the people around me in the routine of my current life. 

Fall Capsule Wardrobe

So, life is crazy. We all know that. To do lists get way to long and our calendar is scheduled for the next three months. With so much going on, I have found that I crave simplicity, specifically with things I own. I want the items I use and love the most, easily accessible. All that being said, I started following this blog a while back and I instantly knew this was it. This level of simplicity was what I was craving! It's crazy to think that changing something so small, like the clothes I wear could potentially bring so much simplicity to my over all life.

Doing this capsule wardrobe is exciting to me, I'm excited for what these 3 months will look like. Here's what it is, it is: 3 months of no shopping and wearing the roughly 30 items I picked out from my wardrobe. I will give myself unlimited accessories and shoes.  I was so excited when I was picking out these items. So many of these pieces are some of my favorite in my wardrobe. I'm looking forward to this little journey. Read more on this blog, if you want to see where my inspiration came from and what the "rules" are. I am going to try to post quite a few of my outfits I put together from these 30 pieces on here, I think it will keep me accountable!

So here are the clothes I picked. I photographed them in sections, because let's be honest no one has time to scroll through 35 pictures. Here's to the simplicity! I'm really looking forward to this.

The Golden State

I've been wanting to write about my trip to Northern California for a while now. But with the craziness of school starting it appears that blogging gets put on the back burner very quickly. That being said, here we are, better late than never, right?!

Instead of giving you a day by day synopsis, I wanted to write about what I learned on this trip. I went with my parents and my brother, it was such sweet family time. It is a funny thing though, going on a family vacation as an adult. It made me feel like a kid again, which is a feeling I think we should all visit once and a while.

This vacation taught me about adventure again, whether it was new conversations with old family friends, or wandering the sketchy streets of San Francisco in search of the perfect ice cream place, I learned what it was like to not have a plan. Each day held an adventure, but no agenda. I think that is such a wonderful part of vacation that I would love to find ways to implement in my life. But how does that work? How do you squeeze the life out of each day in your "regular life" with a job to go to, tests to take, and miles to drive? I don't know the answer but this trip began my longing to find it. There has got to be a way to live adventurously in the norm of life.

That being said, here are some photos from our wonderful adventure.

Dreaming Big

Taken in Cape Town, South Africa

"Anything that was ultimately worthwhile initially scared me to death." -- Allister Ann

I've been thinking a lot about dreaming recently. This past Sunday at church a section of the sermon was about living the dream and believing in the here & now. That tension is incredibly difficult. The strange thing is that I think the hardest part for me is finding the dream. I know I have to have grace with myself and as I grow older my life will shift and I will dream different things. But for now I need to dream. I feel like that is something I've gotten away from. I want to think of places I want to go, things I want to do, and the person I want to become. I want that burning desire to do something, regardless of the risk and challenges. In high school I did some things that really scared me. They pushed me way out of my comfort zone, and looking back, those are some of the times where I feel like I grew the most. 

I just want to feel free to dream. To begin to see things on a big scale and where I could fit into them. That is why I really like that above quote. The things that are worthwhile are really hard. They push us and most of them scare us to death when we start to really think about them. I think another part to this is me finding someone to talk about this with. To dream out loud of. Someone who will push me to think way, way outside the box. 

What do you think? Do you dream and do things outside your comfort zone or are you like me, yearning to do something daring?

What I'm Learning

Occasionally, I want to have this feature post. I want this post series to contain the things I am learning. Whether that be books I'm reading and how they are stretching me or an event that has caused me to think. This space will be one where I can share how I am growing.

That being said…here is what I am learning this week!

I am almost finished reading the book Love Does by Bob Goff. It took me way to long to read this book, mostly because of all the hype around it, but I really get it now. I understand the hype! It is incredible and filled with so much truth, I really just wanna give Bob Goff a big hug.

The quote in the picture above has really stirred something inside of me and caused me to think. What is that thing for me? And once I figure out that thing out, how do I go about fully surrendering that? What freedom it brings when we surrender things fully to our Lord. It took me a long time to learn that. To learn that ultimate freedom comes in complete surrender. It doesn't make sense at first, but it does once you experience it. The giving up of "what causes us to believe we matter,"is going to make all the difference, it has rocked my world and will continue to do so as I find the things that fill my pride and surrender them to Him. It is in no way easy but it is such an adventure!