Shootin' Straight with the Boys

I'm glad Kaela recently started adding her "name/logo" to the bottom of her images so I don't feel so guilty putting them on my blog - it's pretty obvious who's responsible for the fine photography!

These good-looking gentlemen are this year's residents of the AO House - the house owned by First Baptist church that houses guys on campus at the UO. The second picture shows the leadership group - I know most of the names of those guys....and that's about it.


Despite that fact, Walt (the house manager - at the top of the stairs), asked myself and three other ladies (including my pal, Christy) to sit on a panel for their Monday night meeting (occurring from 10-11pm....yawn!!!) to explain all these guys needed to know in life about women. Ha ha! Well, we did our best.

Mr. Organized (aka Walt), put together an agenda for us to follow - identifying what Christian girls are looking for in Christian men, the differences between men and women, what are the roles of a Christian man in dating vs. marriage, and then imparting wisdom on what we really would want them to know. It was a great thing to be a part of - based on some scenarios of things I witnessed last year, I've been chomping at the bit to give these guys a piece of my mind about making sure they are acting in integrity with the Trinity (or other) women. But, based on last night, I left almost feeling sorry for them - women are so complicated! We challenged those guys to take a risk, be intentional, ask a girl out - but, not to lead her on, etc. But, part of me knows that if a guy were to ask a girl out who lives in a house of 46, word will spread, and before they even go out on that date, folks will have them "married off"......

Ultimately, I got the pieces of "experiential wisdom" imparted on them as I'd hoped to for a while, so I felt like I did what I needed to. Treat these women as sisters in Christ, hold each other accountable for all of the nitty gritty details when dating, listen to others who see "red flags" in the relationship, make your intentions clear, and recognize that with each relationship you have you are setting a standard that should only go up with the next relationship....and finally, DON'T SETTLE!

I fear those guys went to bed more confused than before we came, but hey, that's women!