Its October at the Schardts! And TCU Homecoming! The Oliviers are on their way here and we are super excited about the weekend!

The Innocence Project

In class last night, we watched a video on the Innocence Project. This project is focused on exonerating wrongfully convicted people through DNA testing and justifying the unjustified litigation system. The video is incredibly humbling, somewhat depressing, moving and urges me to act.

I had never heard of it. Honestly, I never really thought about it. Why would I? Wrongfully accused? It triggered a lot of emotions. Both good and bad, from anger to deep empathy. The video shared the perspective of the family, the wrongfully convicted, from start to finish. I think it's very important to be educated on this topic. Sadly, I just started last night.

I feel very uneducated/disinterested in politics, government .... but have this far off understanding that I need to grow, learn and spend time in what's going on. Everyone says that you must have a voice in the political system, of what you believe in how the government runs... Anyways, this is one area that hits home. Maybe because this video helped me see how this bigger system is crushing lives.

I am going to an exoneration conference tomorrow with those who have been exonerated. I am terrified of the emotions I will feel in hearing their personal testimonies...

Last week I got to be apart of this. These types of days remind me why I'm a good fit for my job [for now].

Largest US sting on drug cartel arrests 300-plus

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) - In the largest single strike at Mexican drug operations in the U.S., authorities arrested more than 300 people in a sting that demonstrates an upstart cartel's vast reach north of the border.

The tentacles of "La Familia" extend coast to coast and deep into America's heartland, with arrests announced Thursday in 38 cities from Boston to Seattle and from St. Paul, Minn., to Raleigh, N.C.

Drug deals went down in Oklahoma parking lots, suppliers were advised to weld drugs into tire rims for transport, and in the Dallas and Seattle areas, dozens of children were removed from houses where authorities found drugs, guns or cash derived from drug sales.

Perhaps more than any other cartel, La Familia projects a Robin Hood image. The Drug Enforcement Administration said the group is "philosophically opposed to the sale of methamphetamine to Mexicans, and instead supports its export to the United States for consumption by Americans."

Mexican police say the gang uses religion and family morals to recruit. The gang has hung banners in towns saying they do not tolerate drug use, or attacks on women or children.

One of the gang's alleged recruiters, detained last spring, ran drug rehabilitation centers, helping addicts to recover and then forcing them to work for the drug gang or be killed, according to Mexico Public Safety Secretary Genaro Garcia Luna.

La Familia is rarely mentioned in the same breath as the handful of other Mexican gangs that control the flow of drugs into the United States, fueled by Colombian cocaine suppliers. The Sinaloa, Juarez, Gulf and Tijuana cartels have roots that go back many years, even decades.

But in its short history, La Familia is believed to have emerged as the biggest supplier of methamphetamine to the United States and, increasingly, a peddler of cocaine, marijuana and other drugs.

Complaints that were unsealed across the country portray an organization that spread deep into Middle America, down to small-time sales.

In Colorado, authorities seized 8 kilograms of cocaine, 3 pounds of methamphetamine and $313,785.

A federal grand jury has indicted 11 members or associates of La Familia from the Western Slope in Colorado, and six of them have been arrested so far, prosecutors said.

In Oklahoma, authorities seized about 20 pounds of methamphetamine, two pounds of cocaine, six weapons and several thousand dollars. They identified Ruben Garcia, 29, as a major supplier in the northeast part of the state.

Agents spotted Garcia and his partners dealing drugs over several months at restaurants, grocery stores and Wal-Mart parking lots in the Tulsa area, according to court documents. In one tapped phone call Oct. 9, Garcia counseled a supplier in Mexico who helped arrange a shipment in McAllen, Texas, that the easiest way to smuggle drugs is welded inside tire rims of vehicles.

Court records do not list an attorney for Garcia.

In North Carolina, targeted cells operated from the Raleigh area to the eastern cities of Rocky Mount and Greenville, a region with a large Hispanic population to help the targets blend in and quick access to three interstate highways. They made four arrests Wednesday but totaled 49 arrests over the past year.

In Nashville, after more than a year of surveillance, agents converged on a home when two people arrived in a Toyota Camry from Atlanta Aug. 14, according to a complaint. A search of the vehicle discovered hidden compartments that "contained nine similarly wrapped packages, each of which were the size of a kilogram of cocaine." One package tested positive for cocaine.

Inside the home, agents found drug ledgers, a money counter and a loaded pistol. At another home, they found about 50 pounds of marijuana, several loaded handguns and two bulletproof vests.

Texas Child Protective Services removed 20 children from houses in the Dallas area when authorities executed 44 search warrants, said James Capra, the DEA's special agent in charge in Dallas. All the homes where children were found had drugs, guns or cash derived from drug sales.

The sting reached into small towns hundreds of miles from Mexico.

Nine arrests were made in Monroe, Wash., with a population of about 16,000 and home to the state's largest prison about 25 miles northeast of Seattle. None seemed to be doing any retail drug dealing, Monroe police Cmdr. Steve Clopp said.

"I would say that they were well-integrated members of the community," Clopp said. "A lot of them keep up the everyday appearance of work and family."

In the Inland Empire, a cluster of east Los Angeles suburbs where 25 people were arrested and 156 pounds of methamphetamine seized, most suspects are illegal immigrants from Mexico who came to the United States to work for La Familia, said Stephen Azzam, DEA assistant special agent in charge in Riverside, Calif.

Methamphetamine was shipped from the Inland Empire, an area with three interstate highways, to cities including Atlanta and Chicago, Azzam said.

La Familia is known as unusually violent, even by Mexico's standards.

After the arrest of one of its leaders in July in Mexico, the cartel launched an offensive against federal forces, killing 18 police officers and two soldiers over a weekend. In the worst attack, 12 federal agents were slain and their tortured bodies piled along a roadside as a warning for all to see.

"They are one of the most violent, if not the most violent, cartel in Mexico right now," said Michael Braun, who retired as the DEA's chief of operations last year.

La Familia operates methamphetamine "superlabs" in Mexico that produce up to 100 pounds of the drug in eight hours, a sharp contrast to small-time labs in the United States that have supplied American addicts, said Braun.

The organization was founded around 2004 and really took off in 2006, Braun said.

The arrests in places such as Atlanta, Dallas and Los Angeles suggest that its U.S. distribution network is sophisticated, said Scott Stewart, an analyst at the Stratfor consultancy in Austin, Texas, who follows the Mexican drug trade.

"Those are beautiful interstate (highway) hubs," Stewart said. "It's looking they have ramped up very quickly."

the Office

Michael Scott:	What topics, can you use for small talk?
Andy:	Golf, stock market, Dave Matthews--
Michael Scott:	Yes, what else?
Creed:	Small things. Peas, ball bearings, dimes.
Michael Scott:	No.
Meredith:	The weekend.
Michael Scott:	Yeah! That's good! Come on up, Meredith. Come up here. Let's do a little something. [Meredith gets to the front] So Meredith and I just started conversing, and I will say, "so Meredith, how was your weekend? What did you do?"
Meredith:	Well I caught my son taking a dump on the upper-part of the toilet... he calls it an "upper decker."

...."he said to me I was a tree in a story about a forest, and that it was arrogant of me to believe any differently. And he told me the story of the forest is better than the story of the tree..."

-says Donald Miller of Victor Frankl

Discernment

Some things may legitimately be alleviated, others necessarily endured. May we be wise enough to know the difference. - E. Elliot

happy birthday cam-cam!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY to my niece Campbell!!!!!

::: Donald Miller :::

Donald Miller just came out with a new book, What I Learned While Editing my Life : A Million Miles in a Thousand Years. Scott read it in less than 2 days and asked that I read it next. He says I will love it. Page 6 and I've already taken away an interesting thought/idea.

"You got a feeling when you look back on life that that's all God really wants from us, to live inside a body he made and enjoy the story and bond with us through the experience."

I really like the way he says this. It's so simple...and to me, is so true. I appreciate the simplicity of this because life is so full of complexity and questions and misunderstandings; but this sentence makes life seem so simple. "bad" things can and have happened to me, but it is all apart of my story. He knows my entire story, beginning to end, and there is good and bad. But what good story doesn't have both?

When looking at my life as a "story" I know that there are more chapters to come, and that it is important to look at all of the chapters as a whole, instead of focusing on one that might not be so pleasant. I am most definitely bonding with him through my experiences. I am thankful.

the towering separation

I'm in this strange, uncharted place, where I feel like I am sitting in a chair, watching the world go fast by me. I wouldn't say I feel lost, as I'm confident of the path I've taken to understand what lights me on fire in work, with whom I want to share and do life with, and knowing through experience what life is not about. I don't want to say I know what life is about in entirety, because I think that unfolds as the journey continues.

I wouldn't say my life has slowed down in terms of the nature of my job or the hours of school I'm taking [in which they have increased], but I guess the rhythm of my life is steady and narrow. I can't stray from the path. My flesh fights this. I want to plan, like I previously posted, take control, or deviate from the path I've chosen. I love change, adventure. So in this narrow path, I'm trying to be intentional on deepening my understanding of neglected thoughts/emotions/compartments of my life.

The sermon last night was on merging the towering separation of spirit filled thoughts and life's thoughts. Surprisingly, I had embarked on this thought process this past month or so, how we must, to experience the fullness of Christ, give him all of ourselves [thoughts, desires, emotions, activities, chores]. I still do not know how to fully do this.

Woods and I walked around White Rock on Saturday and a conversation of how clear joy is compared to happiness came up. As of late, I've witnessed her surrender her life to a place of joy. Clearly, for both she and Lindsay, life is not as they would choose, with such hardships, being only 25. They are explicit examples of how His joy disables fear, despair, and grief.

Anyways, all that to say, E.E. writes "Let us remember, however, that the Shepherd Himself sometimes makes us lie down. Some of the "delays" are His own choice for us, so we must not always chide ourselves when the pace is not what we thought it should be. We must learn to move according to the timetable of the Timeless One, and be at peace".

I can't even say I'm lying down. I'm just where I've always wanted to be. Obviously, I'm feeling deep conviction or contemplative thoughts upon the control God has over our lives, but I see His workings in those around me [and myself, of course]. I see the unexpected turns, the tumultuous times, that provide deep, abiding relationships [if chosen], and it makes me so very, very grateful.