My second home is Shimonoseki, Japan.  It’s the only place that I’ve lived longer than a month or so, other than my own home back in Ohio.  I’ve lived here, taught English, worked in a church, for a year and I’m going to miss it so much.  If you want more info, just look through more of my blog. 🙂  I don’t know what else to say about it.

   

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That’s just the thing.  I don’t think that any true Christian would be able to separate themselves from their “religion.”  That’s the difference between a religion and Christianity…true, real, it seeps out of your pores and invades your every thought, kind of Christianity.  That’s because it’s not a religion at all…it’s a life, a full and complete life…and everything else is just an action, process, or a past-time.  Anyone who has the Holy Spirit in their hearts knows that they have been made a completely new creature, and you cannot separate that away from yourself again.  It’s permanent.  People may try (although, I really question whether they were genuinely saved in the first place if they try to leave) but once it’s there, it’s there…and you can’t change that.  For those of you who may read this just because it’s an answer to a Featured Question…you might not understand.  The world would like us to believe that we can shimmy ourselves down to just a human being with any prejudices or tendencies…but that’s ridiculous.  We might be able to step way from our race, from our family, from our education, and job…but religion…no, not just religion.  Some people might be able to separate themselves from their religion…but Christians…I urge you to examine what you call your faith, because if you could see yourself without it, there’s a problem.  Being a child of God makes you a citizen of a new kingdom, the kingdom of heaven, and nothing on earth really matters anymore.  It doesn’t matter what your family is like, your education, race, and job is…only your relationship with the Creator God through His precious Son…and sharing that with as many people as you can in your short, short life on erth.
   

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Three of my girlfriends from school and I decided we would start a band/singing group.  We were amazing.  We called ourselves “Hearts on Fire”, or HoF, for short, even though it made us sound like a german rabbit.  We had killer harmonies.  We mostly revamped old hymns, or did popular praise and worship songs, but we wrote one song original.  It was great.  One member couldn’t make it, but my best friend was with us and together we all met up at the school, at almost the middle of the night, to write and practice this song.  What was amazing was that we were in the midst of a horrendous thunderstorm, with funnel clouds all over the region…the tornado sirens were going off, it was lightning-ing (heh) outside, the wind was howling.  But we were praising Jesus through it.  It was so much fun.

Another great memory with these gals was the time that we got together at my house to practice and then we didn’t want to go to our respective homes.  So, we grabbed some blankets and went into my backyard.  We put the blankets down and laid down watching the stars.  And we told funny stories and laughed really loud.  And then one girl was randomly throwing pennies in the air and trying to see who they would land on.  It was fun.  We played Hide N Go Seek too.  Hehe.  Great memories!!  Thanks for bringing these back to my mind!  Oh, and our band only lasted for a season…seriously, it started at the beginning of Spring and was over by the time we got into summer.   

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1.  Cinnaburst gum

2.  The good cartoons and tv shows on Nickelodeon (1980-1990’s)

3.  My childlike faith

   

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I answered this question on my revelife blog:  http://revelife.com/xapatotheworld

but here’s the copy:

My first crush was a boy in my Sunday School class.  We were no more than 4 years old…probably 3.  Of course, I was the pastor’s youngest daughter…so everything was totally in my favor of him liking me back.  I couldn’t pronounce his name.  His last name was Schmidt.  So Mom told me to say, “Shhhh Mitt”.  After that I thought his middle name was Shhh…  Now you might say that 4 yrs old, that’s silly to think you had a crush at that young of an age.  But I still remember him…not just because mom and the fam talk about it…but I really have memories.  His family moved up to Canton, Ohio and that ended our relationship.  He had a party for all his friends before they left and I remember standing in a circle playing hot potato.  We would save each other seats in Sunday School and hold hands when we walked through the church.  We were precious…if I do say so myself. 🙂  Oh, I also remember the shock when I told a friend that my first boyfriend had moved to Canton and they said, “Well, Sarah…Canton’s in China!”  I ran to tell my mom crying and no matter how much she assured me that they had moved to another city in Ohio, I was certain that they were now living in China.  This probably explains why I was so reluctant to go to China in the first place when the opportunity came up.  I think that I convinced myself for several years that I had lost my first love to China.  So funny!  🙂

   

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