It's Not Over. Barbarian for Life.

Right now I am sitting in the LAX airport waiting for my flight as I write my final blog from my Barbarian Internship with Mosaic. I am one of the last interns to leave. Most everybody left on Monday. Sunday night was our last night all together at the Mayan Club gathering in downtown LA. I really cannot remember the last time I had cried that hard leaving from somewhere, even when I moved away from home this summer when I came out here. I had to say goodbye to what felt like a real family in my heart, so many people and relationships. My boss Sueann was the hardest. She has been one of the most instrumental people in my life, along with my mentor Mandy, in shaping who I have changed to become this summer. She just stared me straight in the eyes never looking away and spoke to my soul about the changes she saw in me. It is funny because when I first got here she said that the staff was like, “Who is this southern Hollywood obsessed girl? What is her deal and why do she care so much about Hollywood?” She told me all about how she has seen me grow so much in not only for a passion for the hearts of Hollywood, but all of LA. She said she has seen such a huge change in my heart for the way I can love and serve people and the endless possibilities for my heart out in LA. Sueann also said a lot more things and I was seriously balling the whole dang time! She was so excited for me because she said I am going back a totally different person. She is right. I feel like a completely different person from the inside out.



I truly feel like I am walking around knowing what my soul feels like and in tune with it. It is so hard to explain the things I have learned and the person I have become. I love that I have just a few people from literally all over the world that I can always share this experience with. I wish you all reading my blog could understand what I have gone through and seen in this season of my life. I have been awakened to the possibilities of what God can do with just one person! I have been given real permission, opportunity, and ability from the church to do what God asks and they actually meant it. How often does that happen to you? The people of God are so much more able and equipped than you might ever realize. I have been apart of a movement that has enabled me and for the rest of my life. I cannot imagine not being apart of Mosaic for the rest of my life when I graduate school. I need LA in my life. I feel like I have finally found what my heart has been searching for. I knew there was more to the church and Christians than going to church on a weekly basis and then going about our lives achieving the American Dream. I just knew deep down the New Testament had a different picture in mind of what it meant to follow Jesus and I have found it. I have been taught and so torn apart to become a better follower of Jesus. I pray I can never go back to comfortable “Christianity” because you will never find that in scriptures. Un-radical followers are not in the Bible, it was never God’s intention. We are meant to be radical by living in the talents and passions God has fashioned in our hearts. The beautiful thing about that is that it can look like anything!






Mosaic called this internship the Barbarian Experience because that is how they see Jesus calling us to live. As Barbarians, as radical followers. I will take this experience with me for the rest of my life and I am truly forever changed. I hope that any of you that kept up with my stories and experiences this summer can be encouraged by that. So from the bottom of my heart THANK YOU for supporting me through your prayers and money. You were apart of me becoming a Barbarian. May you come to see our journey with God in the say way. Peace and grace.










PS. Read Erwin McManus’s book “The Barbarian Way”. This is what the internship was based upon.


For greater things have yet to come and greater things are still to be done in this city.

My Heart's Home

I have one week left of my internship here. I cannot even express how fast this has just gone by. This has easily been the fastest season of my life. Where did my summer go??!! I love Hollywood. I am moving back when I graduate in May, or at least this is the big plan for now. I have always wanted to be here for good since I really was a little girl. If you are in the family, this you know already! I feel like for the first time in my life I am living out the passions that God has rooted in my heart since I was a child. Do you have any idea what that really feels like? To live FULLY alive and feeling like you are doing what you are created to do? It really is a constant high for the soul. Its so much deeper than just an internship or helping out others. It is living out the purpose for why I was made. It is so hard thinking that I have to leave to finish school for a year. I know I have to finish school and that is the smart decision. But I just hate having to leave this life behind for a bit. I want to be back here with every beat of my heart when I graduate. Pray with me through the next year that this will all be made possible through the grace of our Savior Jesus.




So I am still TOTALLY addicted to my Pinkberry frozen yogurt out here! Why can't the south pick up on this??!!! You just don't understand how amazing it is! I have it at least 3 times a week =) If I had more money out here you could guarantee I would be having it everyday haha.

Catch Up

Ok lets catch up. Lots has been going on these past couple weeks. First off, one of our interns had to leave this past Monday. Something back home happened and she had to leave within a days notice. It was so sad! Her name is Sara Tindall from Michigan and she is such a wonderful soul to be around! It was so awesome because all the interns just dropped everything they had planned for the night and we all got together for her and had a farewell dinner for her. It was so great for all of us to be together for once! We never have been altogether to hang out since week 1 back at the beginning of June. We all went to BJ's Steakhouse and Brewery and had such a wonderful time bonding. And we only have like a week and a half left...



So last week half of the interns went to the Scientology Center and the other half of us went to the poorest part of LA called Skid Row. Its a couple streets here in downtown LA that you DO NOT go to alone. Hundreds of homeless people fill the streets. It is so bad with the homeless generation here that the government has actually marked off these couple of blocks to the homeless. At night you could drive down Skid Row and tons of tents and sleeping bags just line the streets. It was really hard to see. When we arrived we met up with Adrian from the church who heads up SERVE LA at Mosaic which involves the church with tons of humanitarian organizations from around the city. He split us up into pairs, guys with girls, and our goal was to befriend a homeless person and buy someone a cup of coffee, a burger, or a candy bar and meet up at the end of the street. So I was with one of the guys from Germany, Fabian. He has such a big heart and is so brave. Yet we had a very rough learning experience among the homeless. We actually didn't accomplish our goal. The first 3 people we talked to were not hungry. They refused food, coffee, or anything from us. It wasn't pride or anything, they just were not hungry for food. The last guy we talked to didn't want anything but company from us. His name is Henry Lewis. Fabian and I talked with him for a good while about Life and God and the people around him. We found out these people are not hungry. They get food for free right down the road at the Rescue Mission every meal of every day. Some people actually even have paying jobs but come right back to the streets because Skid Row is their community. Just like Mosaic is my community, the streets are theirs. This was really hard for me. The only thing anyone wants is money from you...not food so that they can go and get their next fix on drugs. The rest of the people are crazy. They couldn't pay their bills from the nut house and were forced to live out on the streets. This is Skid Row. They don't welcome outsiders like me.



The Interns threw a hotel party for the college age folks for the Mosaic community last week as well. It was so much fun! This hotel lounge was incredible to say the least! Tons of crazy decorated rooms, poker tables, lounges, pool table, pool, hot tub, video game room like u have never seen, and awesome hangout spots. Very chic and retro. I was able to meet a lot of new people and really bonded with the one girl Lauren. She is actually from Marietta Georgia and is wonderful. We are trying to hang out as much as possible while here. She is brand new to Mosaic and I am trying really hard to helping her get connected to Mosaic because she just doesn't know where to start or who to meet. And that's what the interns are here for!



Just a picture of the mounds of office work that sometimes come with the job...not too bad actually when we all just goof off together while stuffing envelopes and folding paper. Work yet we actually love doing it.









Some lovely pictures of me helping clean up the Pasadena campus for Mosaic. This place needed some SERIOUS work to be done on it and we helped out for a few weeks. Really dirty work, but all the people that do it regularly is volunteer staff which means they don't get paid to clean it either. So we just joined in to help them. We do what we can as interns to make it as fun as possible! haha