i got a thing today

it's beautiful.

best thing is, by buying this watch, i'm helping this great organization do what it does: free the victims of human trafficking, one by one. the makers of the watch itself are part of sak saum, an organization geared towards giving purpose and means of employment to the men and women who come out of the situations the exodus road saves them from. and this month only, when you buy one of their freedom wrap watches

which are adorable

by the way

not gonna lie

i mean

just look at them

the proceeds will go to the exodus road.

so yes. join me in the land of awesome watchiness and help an awesome organization while you're at it.

- Kyla Denae

sometimes i do things and they turn out abnosome

occasionally, they add new words to my vocabulary. like abnosome.

it's a word that means

in equal parts

'abnormal'

and 'awesome'

this past week, not only did i cut off all my hair (and i'm still very happy about it yoooo), but i also participated in a great program called gishwhes.

greatest

international

scavenger

hunt

the

world

has

ever

seen

it's abnosome. thoroughly. so abnosome, that they actually had to come up with that word just to explain it. over the last week, i've made up anagrams

 (yes, yes i know the team name is interesting i was in no way responsible for that moving on), hugging roosters with tank tops on,

trying to explain concepts of theoretical mathematics,

shooting real-life comic book panels,

 and taking ridiculous amounts of pictures featuring hugs.

srsly.

there was an insane amount of hugging involved.

but you know what? i really enjoyed myself. and i'm tolerably certain my team didn't win--probably didn't even come close to winning (i'm mentally preparing myself now, ahead of time, so that when we inevitably do not win, i'm not disappointed)--but that's okay. because it was amazing, and normalcy is overrated.

go and be abnosome dear people.

- Kyla Denae

but there's just too much

sometimes, i look at all the things that are going on in the world, and it makes me a little sick. there are so many things that are so fundamentally, horribly wrong, that there's no help for, things that go beyond anything i've ever experienced or seen first-hand.

and it's too much.

i'm just one person, one american woman who rakes in a thousand dollars a month (oh yeah, i'm living high on the hog), can barely afford a car, and is too nervous to talk on the phone. what is that, against a world where 80% of children have never heard the gospel, where 27 million people are held in slavery, where the worldwide infant mortality rate stands at 49.4%.

but the great thing is that, truly, i'm not really alone. not so long as there are people like you, who are willing to step up and join me to help, in some small way.

combating modern-day slavery is something that is greatly needed, and the exodus road is an organization working to do just that. through their search and rescue program, you and i can have a part in helping, one person at a time.

seriously

check it out

it's majorly rad

not even gonna try to exaggerate

another way you can help, if you (like me), are not quite able to give $35 a month, is through buying some of these totally amazing wrap watches. they're adorable. also, during the month of august, they're donating the profit to exodus road. so. it's totally worth it.

- Kyla Denae

i did a thing

so, for a long while, i've quite wanted to cut all my hair off. i find long hair to be hot, and annoying, and i'm rubbish at fixing it up, so having short hair that would actually have to be fixed up in order to look nice will be a good thing for me.

so.

i cut all my hair off.

well, i didn't personally.

the nice lady at the salon did.

but it's the same thing, really.

i went from this

 to this

and it's actually really incredibly awesome. my head has never felt this...light.

as a side-note, i'm not going to just waste all that hair. i'm going to be donating it to children with hair loss, so that some (un)lucky little lad or lass will get my incredibly heavy ginger hair to wear on their head. so yes.

- Kyla Denae

all the little things

i miss the little things about far off places

i miss the oranges in the african sunset

i miss the clack of chopsticks

i miss the smell of rain against a backdrop of cooking rice

i miss the lilt of words i can't understand

i miss different foods

i miss conversations that are missing half the words but nobody cares

i miss singing in gypsy

i miss getting to meet new missionaries

i miss learning about other cultures from the people that are in them

i miss that swing in the johnson's backyard

i miss exciting children's parks

i miss strange grocery stores

i miss not knowing anyone

i miss stumbling over words and having toddlers giggle at me

i miss walking everywhere i go

i miss simplicity

i miss dusky little faces and white teeth

i miss sitting across a room from a bunch of people and just grinning

i miss getting up early and reading my bible to an african sunrise

i miss the mysterious red moving guy from the xi'an expo

i miss dancing with three hundred chinese students

i miss eleven o'clock roommate sessions

i miss so many little, tiny things that don't seem like much, but that hurt me when i think of them.

and i want them back.

i want to stop missing them.

i want to go places, to see people and things i've never dreamed of before.

but i'm going to stay here anyway.

because for right now, this is where i need to be.

and i know i keep bugging you people with this same thing

but it hasn't ceased to be true.

and i'm happy here

and i love the people here

and i love the ministry i have here.

god is blessing it greatly, more and more everyday.

but god.

so i'll keep on missing it

and eventually it'll happen.

and i'll be even happier than i am.

- Kyla Denae