Risk Taker

Risk Taker- Someone who risks loss or injury in the hope of gain or excitement.

I was recently asked in an interview the following question: “What would you change about yourself?”  Normally, I would have many answers for that question, but for whatever reason, I had one answer this time and it came close to immediately. I wish I was more of a risk taker.

I am going to want your input at the end, so pay attention. Living safely is fine, it is good, but to be honest…it is also boring, and right now I am bored. Now don’t get me wrong, I am EXTREMELY busy every day, for instance yesterday. I went to work, then to band practice and then to hang out with a couple of my high school girls, I left the house at 7:15am and I didn’t get home until after 9:30pm. I am not bored due to a lack of having things to do. I think that I am bored because I have done the same types of things for so long. I like the stuff I do, but I need some change.

As I started to think through this surprising desire or need for “risk” (for those not paying attention until now, I am NOT referring to the game Risk…though I do enjoy taking over the world), I started wondering if my recent life style of playing it safe is directly related to how I view God? I used to take risks. The last time was when I felt God tell me to go to Australia. I quit my job and left with only a plane ticket and ended up not only going to Australia, but also to Indonesia, and it changed my life. Here are a couple of pictures:

The Youth Leaders were creamed in a massive 100+ person food fight, I had no idea what was coming, but it was some sort of oatmeal, honey, food coloring mixture mess (AUS)

 

 We volunteered in the café for the high school kid's events (AUS)

In Indonesia we hung out with the street kids, played games and tried to learn the language! (Indo)

We also got to play with the kids in the orphanage and help prepare a new building that was much larger! (Indo)

Side note: I cannot wait to adopt kids

But if this turned out so successfully, why don’t I take risks more often?  I have come up with two possibilities:

1. I don’t love something enough to take the risk to make it happen
2. I am too afraid of failure

Now I will respond to myself, excuse me while I expose you to some inner dialogue, self-diagnosis.

Both number 1 and number 2 have ultimately to do with fear. Fear to have passion or interests to pursue, or fear that things will not work out and that I’ll be stuck. But God doesn’t give or promote fear:

“But God has not given us a spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.” 2 Timothy 2:7

In fact, I would venture to guess that when fear exists, it is because there is something missing in my belief system about God’s character, when I fear it means I do not trust him, nor do I believe Him or hear Him. So if I believe that fear is not of God, can I then walk in the opposite spirit and attempt to do the thing that causes timidity? I think so. Obviously, there are lines that need to be drawn here, I mean, it is ridiculous to do stupid things, so no, do not jump off your roof in hopes that you will fly. That is stupid. I am talking more about things like trying new hobbies, moving to a new country, going back to school, having “THAT conversation” with someone, those types of things.

Ok, I don’t have a great way to end this because this is subject matter that I am still processing through. This is the part I where I want your input, what do you think about risk? Maybe the ultimate question isn't about risk, but about loving something enough to risk loss or injury? What do you find valuable enough to take a risk? I am depending on you… as are many others reading this! So comment away!

Here is this week's video that I don't own!

 

 

 

How to do laundry

I have decided to give this whole blogging thing a try. If this doesn’t work out, I will have only devoted hours of time to my online “diary.”

I feel I must first create the atmosphere of a writer, though for myself, I use the term loosely. Wine, check; Triple-cream Cambozola cheese and crackers, check; Fragrant candle burning, check; Singing in the Rain (musical) playing in the background, check. Apparently, I think “writing atmosphere” embodies a Frenchwoman from the 50’s who likes romance…ok, I can deal with that. Warning, you all know how my mind works from my Facebook statuses and tweets (shameless plug for Twitter, @adrienneyerzy), random and short. Let’s begin, 1^st blog, take 1!

A few years ago I had the opportunity to go to Indonesia with a small group consisting of 9 people, 3 ladies and 6 guys. The 9 of us willingly crammed into a very small apartment on the twenty-something floor. I do not know the square footage of the place, but to give you some sort of reference point, I will tell you that the 3 of us ladies shared a queen sized bed for 2 months…something reminiscent of the 3 Stooges, I think. Now you sort of get the picture.

While there are MANY stories to tell from this trip, I want to focus on just one. Like a first date, some mystery must be left for later.

When our team arrived at the apartment, we realized right away that we would need to purchase a water tank, which uses bottles similar to the large bottles that the Alhambra man might bring to your office or home. We tried purchasing normal liter sized bottles for a while (as we couldn’t drink water from the tap), but they were used up too quickly and after collecting a full set of empty, plastic bottles, we decided our collection, though impressive, was too large for our cabinets and that the water cooler was a better idea.

We also notice right away that our apartment didn’t have a washer or dryer, though this was expected and really not an issue as most of us had taken many international trips where we had to wash laundry by hand, no big deal.

 

We, the ladies of the group, took turns washing our clothes in the sink or tub. Whites, by themselves, dark colors by themselves, in small “loads” because there just wasn’t room to do everything at once, I will not bore you with the rest. One of the guys, however, had a different plan. One day I turned the corner to find him vigorously shaking a large water jug (I will add that a fellow teammate had procured a harmonica from a cereal box and repeatedly played random chords over and over…this was going on in the background). Of course, I had to figure out what was going on and to my surprise (followed by doubled over laughter) he had decided to put his laundry into the water jug so that he could do all his dark laundry at one time, to “save time”.

 

I am hoping you are picture someone using the “Shake Weight” only this is about 30 times bigger and heavier! I laughed with tears in my eyes for quite a few minutes, then sensing that the “show” was almost over, I looked again to see him pull everything out of the water jug…and then put them right back in again! I couldn’t figure out what he was doing, so I asked and his reply? “Rinse-cycle!”

 

I don’t know how else to end this other than to mention we only bought 2 water jugs to refill with water for the 2 months we were there…So we all experienced one man’s laundry, one way or another.