My Nate is home : )

And the last few days have been so wonderful. We're taking engagement pictures today with my dear friend Andie Tucker. I think she's the only person who could make standing around having someone take my picture fun and not awkward. I love her and I am incredibly excited. I'll post some of the pictures ones we have them.

Have a lovely day my dears!

I just found out that I'm only going to get to spend 12 days with my fiance before he goes to Japan for two years.

There's really nothing I can say about that.

Work

Tonight I must:

Write one short story. It must be finished tonight so that I can edit it tomorrow to turn in on Wednesday
Study for my Spanish test tomorrow. A lot
Design engagement party invitations so that Julie has time to make them and get them mailed out. Also must create the facebook event for that so I can get everyone's addresses. The facebook event doesn't necessarily have to be done tonight, but soon.
Mop the stairwells in my dorm. Since I'm on the dorm cleaning crew I can get work hours for this, and if I'm trying to get ahead on my hours so I can go home Thursday instead of Friday.
Clean my own room. It's disgusting.

Also, must make coffee. Ready, set, GO!

My Dear Teameffort

This week I made a very tough decision. Next summer I will not be going back to Teameffort. Those of you who read my blog during the summer (which was probably most of you, seeing as I'm not that popular) got a small glimpse of how much I love it. It makes me so happy. I love the chaos, getting my hands dirty serving the Lord, watching campers grow throughout the week, and all other little things like how much Sweet T loved her flowers. It makes me sad to think that I won't be doing all that again next summer, that my car will not be getting more paint splashed on it and that I will not be spending most of my days grimy and soaked in my own sweat. But I think it may be time for a new season in my life. Way back in September we got an email asking if we wanted to sign up for next summer, and even though I immediately thought "YES!" I've been procrastinating sending that email for months. I couldn't put my finger on it, but I just felt like something was holding me back. Earlier this week it occurred to me that if I didn't sign up soon it could end up being too late, so I sat down to send the email and realized that deep down I didn't want to do it. That didn't make any sense to me. I enjoy every second of it, so why wouldn't I want to go back? I prayed about it for a very long time, and I know God has other plans for me next summer. He often speaks to me through my feelings, and I know the very settled feeling I have against it means something. I'm probably going to spend the summer at home, get a job and actually have free time to rest with my family and friends. When I think about that it feels like something deep in my soul begins to relax. For the last two years the longest period of rest I've had has been winter break last year, and even that was still and in between time before the next semester started. I'm often wrong, but at the moment I think that God's plan for me next summer is to for me to learn to just be, not to be doing all the time. Action is necessary, but so is not acting sometimes, and that is definitely a lesson I need to learn. I will miss Teameffort dearly, but for now it's time for me to move on.

I found out today that my dad and his girlfriend broke up. At first I couldn't believe it. Linda has been living with my dad for almost 3 years. When I first met her I decided that I wasn't going to get to know her; she was the third woman to live with my dad in six years. She would leave eventually, so I just wasn't going to try this time. But after a while I got to know her, and I liked her, and I didn't realize how big a part of my life she'd become until I suddenly realized that she's not going to be a part of it anymore. She gave me someone to talk to about my dad and about his family at grandma's memorial. When my dad didn't say anything about my engagement, she showed me some wedding planning websites and looked at wedding dresses with me online. She always cooked vegetarian dinners for me when I came over, and her art was always all over the house. I loved looking at her art. I wanted her to be a part of my wedding planning. I was looking forward to her coming to the engagement party and just getting to talk about the whole process with her and get her advice, since her daughter got married a few years ago. I knew she could do better than my dad and that he didn't treat her right, but it still didn't seem like she would ever leave. But now she has, and I want to keep her around. I want to still hang out with her, to talk to her and hear about her life, but I don't know if that will be possible. I'll probably call her sometime soon and see about that. I'd still like her to come to the engagement party, but that would probably be too awkward for both her and Dad.
It makes me sad to think that my dad is alone now. That he's going to have two rooms in his house what were Linda's art studio and office that he's going to have to do something with now, that he's going to be spending so much time in his house alone. I'm even more sad because this proves that he hasn't changed, that his cycle is still going to continue. Soon he'll have another girlfriend, and my bet is that within a year there will be someone else living with him. Maybe I really won't bother to get to know her this time.

Airports and October

I am currently sitting in the waiting area of the Asheville Regional Airport, where I have been since 6:30 this morning. My flight from here to Charlotte was cancelled, so I'm not leaving Asheville until 11:30, then I have a connection in Charlotte that doesn't leave for Little Rock until 2:30, so I won't land in Little Rock until around 4. This is both a good thing and a bad thing, because it means I will be traveling for almost twelve hours (I left my dorm at 6 o'clock this morning), but it's a good thing, because I discovered last night that Nate had gotten mixed up on my arrival time; I was originally going to arrive in Little Rock at 10:30, but he thought I wouldn't be getting there until close to 3, and he wouldn't have been able to get off base to come pick me up until almost 4, so I would have been hanging out in the Little Rock airport for almost six hours. So I guess things are really just better this way. I'm glad I never travel without at least two books.

So I am taking this opportunity to finally update on my crazy life. So let's rewind about a month and start with my Grandma's memorial:

It was awkward. That's the best way I can describe it. As I've already said, my dad's family doesn't express emotion, but all the tension was running close to the surface. The family burial was on Friday, so I missed it because I didn't arrive in New Haven until midnight, but Linda (my dad's girlfriend) told me that was where the disfunction was most apparent. She said Sally just seemed exhausted and hardly spoke and Ann was also very quiet, and both were very dry-eyed, which my dad interpreted as not caring. My uncle David didn't come. Saturday was the memorial, where more family friends came, as well as some of grandma's step children (by the time she remarried they were all very much grown ups, so they weren't really close). Everyone who wanted to took turns coming up and sharing their stories about Grandma, and it was very strange because they could have been describing a woman I had never met. Everyone spoke of her great strength and endurance, how she always made the best out of everything and ran such a wonderful home. I never noticed any of these things about my grandmother, but that could be because by the time I was born she was already very old and in a retirement home, so she was hardly enduring or running anything. The part about her being such a great homemaker struck me as very odd though, because of the attitudes her children seem to have towards her: Ann blatantly resents her and didn't speak during the service. She just sat there looking stiff. Sally doted on her, but has said in the past that Grandma clearly favored Ann and loved her more than Sally. During the service she didn't speak about her relationship with my grandmother or anything about her as a person; she talked about family history. David didn't even bother to come. He used to visit Grandma at Christmas sometimes, but he hasn't spoken to anyone in the family for a few years now, but we are pretty sure he got the message about Grandma's death and the date of the memorial. Dad was the only one who seemed openly upset at Grandma's death, but he didn't talk about his relationship with her either; he talked about Grandma as a person and her commitment to tradition and civilization. My dad seems to be the most emotionally healthy one of his siblings, which is both sad and surprising. I think it's because left home at age 15, so whatever it was that screwed them all up he got less of it. What struck me the most about the whole thing was that I'll never know what happened to my family. I'll never know what my grandma was really like, or what exactly it was that hurt all her children so badly. I'll never know why my dad is the way he is, why he can't reach out to me, and why I am left trying to guess at something that was obviously so pivotal for my family.

{This is the part where I had to go get on the plane. The rest was written after I got back, obviously.}

So that was about it for the memorial. It was just generally thoroughly exhausting. After that came fall break. It was nice being home for a week, but at the same time it was an overwhelmingly busy week. I had more homework than anyone else I know of, plus a multitude of friends to see who were home for their breaks as well. It was fun, but tiring. Consequently I spent Halloween weekend, which turns out to be one of the biggest party weekends at my school, in my room by myself reading, watching tv, and catching up on some well needed rest. It was awesome, though of course this is my life we're talking about here so after that things to busy again. After fall break I started getting ready to leave to go to Arkansas for the marine corps bday ball. The ball was on a Wednesday night, so I missed three days of class and work to go, and I spent the weeks after fall break working extra hours and getting ahead on my homework so I could leave for such a long time and not be behind when I got back. I worked nonstop, but it was totally worth it. I'll update about all that after I continue studying for my Spanish test. Blog posts make such good study breaks.

Time

This past month has been and incredibly busy and at times overwhelming month for me. Lot's of good things have happened, but I'm afraid I don't have time to share those now because I am now caught up in the middle of doing something else. I'm leaving Wednesday morning to go to Arkansas to go with my dear Nate to the marine corps birthday ball and then spend four days hanging out with him, and I AM SO EXCITED!! But before I can leave, I have to do all of my homework for this week, so I won't be behind when I get back, which I've spent all weekend doing, and I've been working by butt of for the last two weeks trying to get ahead on my work hours so I won't be behind on that when I get back either. I haven't really had any free time since fall break, but it's so worth it. I hope to wrap up my homework for the week tonight in time to update you all on all the craziness that have been the past few weeks. We'll see how that goes.

Last Weekend

This past Friday was my dad's 64th birthday - quite cool. His girlfriend, Elsie, emailed me a couple weeks ago asking if I could come home for the weekend for the party, and we decided to make it a surprise! I was very excited, I love surprises! And then my car broke down two Thursdays ago. I was on the way to Autozone to buy new windshield wipers when suddenly my car began to overheat. Fortunately I made it to Autozone, where I stressfully asked them if they could take a look at it and tell my why it was doing that (overheating car=REALLY BAD!!). The guy looked at it, scratched his head, and called his boss, who proceeded to pour a bucket of cold water over my engine block and tell me that they had no idea why it was overheating, but they'd cooled it down enough that I would probably be able to get back to school ok. I was pretty stressed at this point. They had just ruled out all the easy solutions, and therefore all the cheap ones, so all I knew was that there was something seriously wrong with with my car, that it was probably going to be expensive to fix, and that I may or may not be able to make it home for my dad's birthday. I definitely very stressed, but hadn't even approached full freak-out mode like I usually do when I have car trouble. So anyway, I made it all the way to the Shell station about 2 miles from my school when my car got way too hot and just shut down. I managed to pull it into the parking lot of the gas station, where I walked in and rather absurdly explained to the man at the register that my car had overheated and asked him if he had a bucket I could use to pour some water over my engine. He gave me a coffee pot. I couldn't help but start laughing; the whole thing was just too absurd. So I walked back and forth from the bathroom through the parking lot, pouring about ten coffee pots full of cold water over my steaming engine block until I finally got it cooled down enough to make it back to school. I took it to the mechanic last Monday, where they discovered I had a worn out hose and replaced it for $97. I got my car back on Thursday without even freaking out once. I'm quite happy at how I've grown when it comes to my car : ).

Best of all, I still got to have an awesome weekend! I love road trips, and I drove home Friday afternoon and got to spend some real quality time with my dear Onelia for the first time since May, which is way too long. We went to the Loganville High School football game, which would have been quite boring if we hadn't gone to see my sister at work instructing her colorguard, which was quite impressive. I couldn't do it; my tolerance for stupid teenage crap has dwindled over the last few years. But she was really good. And then, Saturday! My dad's birthday party! Julie and I drove over to his house, and Elsie left the front door open for us so we could sneak and wait on the living room couch for Dad to come down the hallway and see us. It was so much fun! He'll never say it, but I know it meant a lot to him that I drove down for his birthday. My dad and I are actually starting to have a real relationship now; after dinner we spent the hours talking and listening to his stories about life. It was great, and well worth the drive and all the homework I did Sunday night. I thank God for granting me some healing in my relationship with my dad, and I'm looking forward to more in the future.

"See, Me and God Have a Deal"

I have heard these words far too often, people justifying doing whatever they want and basically ignoring God while claiming to have faith in Him. It makes me sad to hear people say things like this, because it represents a fundamental misunderstanding of who God is and what He wants from us. To say you and God have a deal is to act under the assumption that He wants someTHING from you, that He wanted you to do something particular, like go to church or read your Bible every day, and you talked with Him and worked out a deal that allowed you to do something else, like skip church and just be nice to people instead, that would still satisfy His requirement of you and allow you to remain in good standing with Him and go to Heaven.

That is messed up, and it makes me very, very sad to hear, because it is dropping God once again into that box of legalistic scorekeeper, who doesn't really care about your heart and just wants you to do something for Him to satisfy Him. This is tragic, and I'm so tired of hearing this view of God and other manifestations of it. This is so wrong, and so opposite of our beautiful, free, wild, loving God! I feel like once people know God for how free and loving He really is, no one can possibly not want Him! I want the lies to stop! It breaks my heart to see how so many people don't understand that what God really wants is not for them to do something for Him, He just wants them, exactly as they are. I want the lies to stop.

Perfect Timing

After I wrote the blog below, I turned to my homework. I was reading the biography of Dorothy Day (she's awesome; look her up) for my Lifestyles of Nonviolence class and the second page I read, about two minutes after having wrote that last post contained this quote of her, speaking of the young students that came to volunteer with her ministry:

"Many left the work because they could see no use in this gesture of feeding the poor, and because of their own shame." The biographer continues, "The shame to which she refers is an angry shame that such misery continues to exist."

That is exactly what I have been feeling: shame. I am ashamed that millions of people die for lack of the things that I take for granted. I am ashamed that I trow away food I don't want to eat when people are starving to death, and I am ashamed that I live in a culture of such disgusting affluence when people are suffering and dying for lack of even the minimal requirements for survival. But most of all I am ashamed that I am doing nothing about it.

Struggling

I feel like I'm not doing anything. I am definitely doing plenty of things; classes, work, and homework keep me pretty busy, but I am not doing anything for others, and I hate that. I feel like I am living a selfish and unproductive life. I know I'm supposed to be in school right now and that God wants me here at Warren Wilson, but I am growing restless with my life and frustrated that I am not serving others enough. I am extremely blessed to be here, and in my short time here I've already learned way more about the inequalities in this world than I would have at any other school, but the more I learn the more I want to go now and do something, and the more I am impressed with how little I can actually do, that no matter what I do millions of people are still going to die from starvation, lack of clean water, and inexcusably preventable diseases, and I am really struggling with all of this. I feel like I am a part of the problem.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

"There is a power in love that our world has not discovered yet. Jesus discovered it centuries ago. Mahatma Gandhi of India discovered it a few years ago, but most men and most women never discover it. For they believe in hitting for hitting; they believe in an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth; they believe in hating for hating; but Jesus comes to us and says, "This isn’t the way.""


"There is a little tree planted on a little hill and on that tree hangs the most influential character that ever came in this world. But never feel that that tree is a meaningless drama that took place on the stages of history. Oh no, it is a telescope through which we look out into the long vista of eternity, and see the love of God breaking forth into time. It is an eternal reminder to a power-drunk generation that love is the only way. It is an eternal reminder to a generation depending on nuclear and atomic energy, a generation depending on physical violence, that love is the only creative, redemptive, transforming power in the universe."


"I say to you, "I love you. I would rather die than hate you." And I’m foolish enough to believe that through the power of this love somewhere, men of the most recalcitrant bent will be transformed. And then we will be in God’s kingdom."



Read this. It's long, but oh so worth it:

http://www.mlkonline.net/enemies.html

Just because you don't know where you're going doesn't mean you're not going anywhere

Growing up

I feel like I'm stuck in this awkward place being teenager and adult, like I want to be done with this learning phase and go experience and live out in the real world, but I'm not quite ready yet. It's like I'm stretching out between two points in life, reaching and growing towards one but still tied to the other.

School, etc.

It's been a while since I updated this. Sorry about that. The past few weeks have flown by with a rather scary speed. I can't believe we're already 4 weeks into the school year! I hope the next 3 years don't speed by at this rate.

Anyway, school is going quite well. My classes are good. They're interesting and challenging enough that I have to work but I don't feel like by brain is going to explode. All the professors here go by their first names, which is odd. It took me a week or so to get used to that. I do like how informal and laid back everyone and everything here is though. It's quite nice.
One of the most unique things about Warren Wilson is that everyone gets assigned to a work crew and works 15 hours a week on campus as a form of financial aid. It's cool because every student is really engaged in the school as a whole and not just living here and taking classes. We help this place run. I got assigned to (drumroll please)....RESIDENCE HALL MAINTENANCE! Which means I clean dorms. Bathrooms and common rooms and such. It's not as bad as it sounds though. I kind of enjoy it. Plus our boss, Tom, is really cool, and I really enjoy his perspective on what we do. He says that at most schools the students are privileged members of the upper middle class being cleaned up after by members of the lower class who will likely never have the same opportunity for education as the kids they're cleaning up after, which is very true and makes me glad that the system at our school is more equitable.

On another note, I finally got a roommate! Her name is Kat, and she's a sophomore too. She was living in another building here, but they had a serious mold problem and she couldn't breathe so now she's with me. She's fun and I like her, and I look forward to getting to know her better.

For the last few weeks I've been feeling a little lonely and disconnected, just because I don't really have any close friends here and have really been craving community. Then yesterday I went to a barbecue for all the college kids and my church and met some really great people here, then had a movie night with some friends here, so now I'm starting to feel more connected and rooted here. I'm looking forward to watching my community here develop.

Lately I've been feeling my calling to leave and serve the poor and forgotten in this world much more strongly. I've been aware of my calling to missions for about two years now, but in the last few weeks it's grown into this constant, passionate burning in my heart. I like it. It gives me a very strong sense of purpose and does not allow me to forget why I'm here. It also makes me a little sad though, because I am growing more aware of the fact that one day I will leave behind all the communities I've ever been a part of, and I won't be able to keep in touch with everyone then. I am sad that I know that day will come, but I am not afraid of it, and I am looking forward to being able to live out this passion in my heart.

God revealed and important truth to me today. We were talking in my Lifestyles of Nonviolence Class about the fear and hatred of Muslims that has grown in our country in the last decade, and suddenly it hit me how hypocritical I am and how bad I am at loving those who are intolerant. Those of you who know me (which is probably everyone reading this blog, because I'm not really a big deal at all) know that I am really liberal, and nothing makes me more mad than "Christians" preaching intolerance and hatred in the name of God. But today God told me that I need to check my attitude towards these people, because while they may be misrepresenting Christ in a very tragic way, they are still God's precious creations, my brothers and sisters, and just because I disagree with them STRONGLY doesn't mean I am released from the call to love them as Jesus loves me. I don't get to play favorites, and it is extremely hypocritical of me to feel intolerant and unloving towards those people for being intolerant and unloving towards others.

That is all. Thanks for reading!

Registered for classes today : )

I'm taking Intro to Creative Writing, Spanish, and Lifestyles of Nonviolence. That's all, because the Spanish class is intense and counts for 8 hours. I'm pumped.

Still waiting on my roomie to get here : /

Recap

So once again time has gotten away from me, and I now find myself at school and still with so much goodness to share from the summer, so I'm just going to try to do a brief recap of the main events of the last few weeks of camp.

Remember my last entry was titled Week 5, Part 1? Well Part 2 was going to be titled Adventures With the Code Inspector. Oh yeah. Here's the story in a nutshell: One day the code inspector just drove up to my worksite, and I saw his car and immediately started freaking out in the inside. Fortunately it took him a minute to get out of the car, which gave me a minute to send one of my campers down the street to Emily's worksite to have her call Joe and tell him to get his butt over there, because I realized too late that I had given Antavius my phone to play with and he hadn't given it back yet. So dear, sweet Brennan ran down the street to find Emily while I went and talked to the code man, whose name turned out to be Garret. He was ok for having such a jerk job, but he gave us tickets for working without permits (Permits cost over a hundred bucks each. We try to slip by without them whenever possible). Fortunately Joe showed up about halfway through the discussion so I didn't have to deal with that part. Garret the Code Inspector then proceeded to get back in his car and roll through all 5 of the worksites we had in that community, writing tickets at each of them. Lucky for us Joe is a beast, so by lunch the next day we had all of the permits we needed to continue working as normal, and that was the end of that.

The only other major event I can think of is the middle of Week 7, when my grandma died that Tuesday night. We knew she probably wouldn't make it through the summer and went up to Connecticut in May to say goodbye, but being at Teameffort I had sort of forgotten, so it still hit me really hard when she did die. The roughest part was still having to get up Wednesday morning and be a camp counselor and having to pretend I was fine and to be happy for the campers when all I really wanted was to be alone. It was very hard, and I'm grateful that Joe and Caitlin were very supportive and allowed me to occasionally slip away when we were back and camp and just sit by myself and be sad. The craziest part of the whole thing though was that my campers still thought I was freakin awesome. They called themselves Team Megan, and at the end of the week my two groups from that week collaborated to buy me a little angel figurine, which is now sitting on the desk in front of me. I was completely blown away by God's goodness in that situation, that even though I felt so disengaged from my campers that week they still had an amazing week, and that God doesn't need me to even be paying attention to work through me in their lives, that He needs me so little and yet still blesses me to have this relationship with them. God is so good.

So that was the end of camp. It was very hard to say goodbye, both to Sweet T and the rest of the staff. I didn't have much time to be sad though, because as soon as I got home I turned around and left again to go to Puerto Rico with the rest of the Teameffort staff from all the different camps. It was an amazing experience. Puerto Rico is the most beautiful place I've ever been in my life. I took almost 300 pictures, most of which I hope to get up on Facebook very soon. We did some food distribution in down town Ponce, went cliff diving in the jungle, and generally just rested. It was fantastic, and got me caught up enough on sleep that I could stay up till 2:30 the night I got back and finish packing for school with the help of my wonderful friends Kate and Lydia. I moved in yesterday, orientation week began today, and my roommate should be here in about an hour. This place is so beautiful, and I'm incredibly excited for all the adventures to come!

Week 5, Part 1

Week 5 was kind of intense, and by kind of I mean a lot. Instead of being at Sweet T's house I was working on a cluster of 4 houses down the street from her. I was by myself there with 23 campers and at least 6 different jobs going on at once, so I was constantly being pulled in different directions and it felt like people were constantly calling my name and asking me questions. It was quite stressful at first but by Tuesday I had adjusted to the pace. Also, Mondays are the hardest day of the week wherever you are because no one has really figured out their job yet at everyone has questions. But it got better, and I was also blessed enough to have a very hard working group that week, which I appreciated more than I could tell them, because with 4 houses on the site and everyone around a different corner I could only ever see one group working at a time, meaning that it would have been really easy for the kids to just stop working as soon as I wasn't looking at them, but they didn't. They worked really hard and had fantastic attitudes. I wish that there had been less going on that week, that I'd had less jobs going on to keep track of, so that I could have had more time to just hang out and talk with them while they worked, because they were all wonderful and I wish I had been able to get to know them more. There was one girl named Brennan who was about my age, maybe a little older, I think she was a chaperone, who was always smiling and happy and never failed to make me feel better when I was stressed. It was clear that she loved being there and was there because she wanted to serve, and I wish I'd had more time to talk to her because I think we could've been friends. There was also Kyle, a high schooler who allowed me to film him doing something super goofy he called “the peace dance” for the weekly video. He always wanted to play with Niema, a three year old girl whose grandma lived in one of the houses we were working on, but Niema said she couldn't play with boys because there was a boy who was digging her and he wouldn't like it. By the end of the week he got her to play with him though : ) They made a sand castle in the dirt. Niema herself was really fun, and always made things interesting. She may only be three, but that girl knows how to get her way. When she was around she always had someone playing with her, and once you started playing it was impossible to stop without getting someone else to come up and distract her long enough that you could slip around a corner before she noticed you leaving. But playing with Niema isn't so much playing as just doing what you're told, because she's already decided how the game is going to go. She decided that she was our mommy and we were all her babies, and one sunny day when she decided it was raining she chased everyone who walked past her with sticks saying “Here baby, take your umbrella!”. She was so adorably persuasive that I learned to carry lumber with one hand a hold an umbrella with the other. One of the worst things about that week was always having to tell Niema that I couldn't play with her because I had to work, but one day I managed to mix work and play by playing horsey, so I would run around and check on all the campers while carrying Niema on my back and neighing every minute or so. It's way more fun that it sounds. She named me Princess Horsey, and her name is Princess Pink. I love having children on my worksites : )

The End

Today is Sunday, Day 1 of the last week. It's hard to believe it's the end. This summer has flown by, and I'm not ready to say goodbye yet. I've spent all summer with my staff here, and I don't know what I'm going to do without the little things like Matt sticking his finger in the air and going “Pew pew!” every time I say “Shoot!”, or Gus filming everything, or Miranda's general skittishness and hilarity. Everyone here is full of little quirks that I love so much, and I'm going to miss them all dearly. On the other hand, I miss my friends at home quite dearly as well, and I am ready to see them. I'm listening to a mix cd right now that was made for me by my friend Kat before I left, and I got a letter Friday from my dear Andie that made my day but also made me miss her even more that I already did. I'm ready to be home, but at the same time I'm not looking forward to it. Even though we haven't left the country, going home from Teameffort is always accompanied by a major culture shock that I am not looking forward to. I don't remember how to move in a world where I'm not a camp counselor, where I am not serving others 24/7 and am not constantly being barraged by requests for toilet paper and questions about when and where to buy t-shirts. However, now that I think about it, just because I leave Teameffort doesn't mean I should stop serving 24/7, I just won't constantly be getting toilet paper for people. It really is awkward going home now. I am so far removed here from the world of consumerism and materialism that just eating at a packed and swanky P.F. Changs last night was a little uncomfortable for me. I'm not looking forward to the shock of going home.

I won't be home for long though. We're leaving Myrtle Beach on Saturday (6 days!), but we're making some surprise overnight stop somewhere, which I'm quite excited about but it means we won't be getting back to TE headquarters in Gainesville until Sunday. We'll be getting there early in the afternoon and I'll have to stick around there for a little while to help unload everything, so I won't actually be getting home until late afternoon Sunday, only to turn around and leave again the same time the next day. About 70 Teameffort staff members are going on a mission trip to Puerto Rico, and we're leaving so early on Tuesday that they won't tell us how early we're leaving yet, so I'm going to spend the night with everybody else in Gainesville on Monday so I don't have to worry about meeting them in the morning. I also want to get there in time for dinner, because Monday night the staff has a big dinner where everyone else their craziest summer stories, and I want to be there to spend a little time with my Teameffort family from other camps, which means I'll only be home for about 24 hours before turning around and leaving again. We'll be spending 4 days in Puerto Rico, then returning home late Saturday night. Our flight gets in around 10 I think, which gives me about 12 hours to unpack and do laundry, because I move into my dorm Sunday afternoon. Oh yeah. I'll be home for about a day and a half total, and with so much to do in so little time I won't have time to see many people before I leave, which is sad but I'm already coming to terms with it. It is what it is, and my life is a whirlwind. I'm excited though. It's going to be very fun. It's hard to believe that 2 weeks from now I'll be in my dorm and my new school! Wow. Life is crazy.

Week 4!

I've decided that I'm going to break this all up and give each week it's own entry. It seems a little silly since all these weeks are long past, but it help me keep my thoughts straight and is doubtless easier for you all to read. So, Week 4. Week 4 was special, because that week I had Joe's home youth group, including his parents. Joe is our camp director, and his parents are amazing. His dad, Mark, works for Teameffort and had just returned from working at our camp in Puerto Rico. He's a total beast, knew exactly how to do everything perfectly, how to explain it to the kids, and how to have fun doing it. Plus, this guy is absolutely hilarious. Seriously. So much fun. He was just a chaperone and not the actual youth leader, but all their adults were like him, and the kids were great too. It was so refreshing to have a group that understood exactly what we're about and whose attitudes were so perfectly balanced between focused work and fun with the kids. They practically worked on autopilot. I was still at Sweet T's house with Matt that week, and I'm glad I wasn't alone there because they were so good that they didn't really need us so it was nice to have some company. When I was bored though, there were always the kids. Their chaperones included a married couple who brought their children, a girl named Amelia who was about three and a boy whose name I am sad to admit I can't remember, who was about 4. They were precious and always kept things interesting. Emily was at a worksite across the street, and one day we spent most of the afternoon running back and forth across the street pretending we were spies, looking for I don't know what or why, but it was fun. It was nice to be a kid again, and to remember how to use my imagination, pretending it was a dark and stormy night and we were deep into a terrifying enemy territory. We should all use our imaginations more. We really don't give them enough credit.

I also want to talk about Joe's mom, Carla, because I want to be her when I grow up. She is absolutely the sweetest woman I have ever met in my entire life. To begin with, she brought homemade blondies for Joe and Caitlin and a box of Sundrop soda, because it's Joe's favorite. Every morning at breakfast she came and found me, said good morning and gave me a hug. She did the same thing every night. She was always so sweet and kind and motherly to everyone. I wonder what it would have been like to grow up with her. I refer to her as Mommy Carla in my head. I want to be her when I grow up.

Where Do I Even Begin?

Seriously. So much has happened this summer! I don't know where to begin, or where to end, or what to put in the middle for that matter. Prepare yourself for a very eclectic and poorly organized post.

I guess I'll start with Week 3, seeing as that's where I left off. Week 3 I had the great joy of working with my dear Matthew Thomas at Theresa and Tyrone's house. They're a married couple about the same age as my mom, with children all grown up and a young grandson who hung out with us that week and wrote messy love letters to one of the high school girls who was there that week. They are such a precious family. Theresa is universally known as Sweet T, a name which she more than lives up to. She calls us all her children, and has been very sad to say goodbye to each group as they leave every week. She kept inviting us in just to sit in the air conditioning and was so kindly insistent that sometimes she actually made it hard to keep the campers outside working. I LOVE being at Sweet T's house, or just around it, because she is so appreciative of what we've done for her that she never fails to remind me why I'm doing this. The homeowners are another face of why I'm here, but unlike the campers, who are always around, it's easy for me to forget how much our presence here means to them, and I am grateful to Sweet T for always reminding me of what a blessing it is to be able to plant flowers for someone who loves them. Also, that Wednesday was Tyrone's birthday and we had a party! Well, Sweet T had a party, and invited all of us! But she told Tyrone that the lunch was just for all of us as a thank you for all of the work we were doing, so we got to watch him run around all day setting up his own birthday lunch! It was quite funny, and led to my favorite part of that week, which was watching Casey, my 17 year old camper, literally pull a table out of Tyrone's hands because she didn't think he should have to do any work on his birthday. He gave up because she threatened to fight him. Casey's younger brother George was there too. I say younger because he was certainly not little. Though two years younger than her, he was over a foot taller, coming in at about 6'5'' and close to 200 pounds. I liked him though, because he was one of those gentle giants. He was big and strong and kinda scary looking, but he was all sweetness and fun, and got a huge kick out of jumping on the low end of a piece of plywood balanced on a bag of quickcrete and bouncing me into the air. On Thursday night Casey came up to me and told me that George had called their mom that day and asked her to start taking them to church. I admire that so much, because seriously asking my mom to take me to church is something I never had the courage to do. It's the little things like that that make the summer for me.

Salut Mes Cheries

I'm sorry it has been so long since I've updated about my summer. God is teaching me so many wonderful things. I know I'm already a different person than I was going into this summer, and I hope that feeling will last long after I leave Myrtle Beach. A post is coming soon, I promise.

An Entry from My Journal on the 4th of July

I feel like it is necessary for me to evaluate my attitude towards America. I appreciate my freedom, but at the same time I feel like I take it for granted simply because I've never lived in an oppressive country. However, there is nothing I can really do about that at the moment. It is more my attitude towards the culture and politics of America that I feel I need to check, because it is largely one of disgust. I am disgusted with the promiscuity, ignorance, arrogance, greed, materialism, consumerism, and self absorbtion, all accompanied by intolerance and a gross superiority complex. We are like ignorant children who think they are grown. These are all legitimate complaints, but I feel that my attitude is completely lacking in love. With people my attitude is "love the sinner, hate the sin", and my attitude towards America needs more of that, more love and mercy and even pity for all the people who don't see where it's all going wrong.

Flags on an alter

I must work through my feelings about America and the 4th of July. We went to church yesterday and the front of the church was covered with banners and American flags. We only sang two songs that had nothing to do with America or freedom, and one of them pictured a flowing American flag in the background of words all about "carrying the light", making me wonder if we were talking about Jesus or democracy. The rest of the songs were old hymnals about freedom and the beauty of America. In situations like that I have to wonder what it is exactly that we're worshipping.
Patriotism has its place, but it's not in the church. I think extreme patriotism in the church is dangerous, because it can trick us into thinking that the answer to our problems lies in the political system. It is important to appreciate the freedom we have to worship out in the open and do things like chapel services on the beach, but it is also necessary to remember that freedom is not the answer to the world's problems and that Christ grants us the ultimate freedom no matter what country you're living in (which is of course so easy for me to say as I write this from the Christian camp I work at in America, but it's the only perspective I've got). When this is forgotten we hear things like sermons quoting Abraham Lincoln's "Freedom is the final and lasting hope of the world," or something to that affect. This attitude scares me, because our hope is not in political freedom, it is in Jesus, and we must ask ourselves in which of these we are putting our hope, and which of these we are worshipping every Fourth of July when we drape flags over the alters of our churches.
Another thing I take issue with is the sentiment that God has "chosen" America and/or the American church and ordained them to make the world a better place. It comes from the idea that the founding fathers were Christians who depended on God for guidance in creating our government and country, which they were not, and the idea that God gave us victory, which may or may not be true and is an entirely different matter, but I am disinclined to believe that God would take sides in his children slaughtering each other over economic differences. I disagree with the "God bless America" attitude politically because that's what gives us the arrogance to think that we have the best ways of doing things and it is our duty to share our blessed ways with other countries, but I'm just going to stop that tirade there. Again, that's a whole other matter. However, I find this attitude even more reprehensible when it's within the church, because the church is held to a higher standard and should just know better. Jesus did not create two churches, the American church and everybody else, and while Israel was a chosen people I do not believe that God has favorites, and I feel that asking God to bless America comes with the silent implication that God would bless us over everybody else, that we are somehow superior to all His other children in His sight so that He would chose to bless America specifically. We are all equal in God's sight. Both nationally and individually, we have all turned from Him. There is no "Christian nation", including America, but we are all equally beloved by Him despite our uniform unfaithfulness. We are all dear creations of God, and we are unified as His children. God created Americans, Afghanis, Chinese, Rwandans, Germans, French, Mexicans, and everyone from the many countries I can't fit here, so God bless everybody.

We went to a shopping center the other day that reminded me of Atlantic Station

And then we went to a park that reminded me of Atlanta. Homesickness is starting to hit me. I miss the faces of my friends, of hearing all their voices at once, with a million conversations going on at once like we always do. I miss hugs and late night froyo runs and driving home at 1 am. I even miss my family. Kinda. I miss the familiar places, and I'm kind of sad that I won't even have time to enjoy them when I am home, because I'll just be getting ready to leave again.

Camp! Weeks 1 and 2

The last three weeks have been so fantastic, but of course not without their share of rough moments. I'm going to try to give a brief recap of the last three weeks without making this entry too too long, with the hopes of making time to write about each week as they happen in the future.

So, Week 1 I was at Tomasina's house by myself with a group of 11, 8 high school girls, one brave high school boy, and two chaperones, Buddy and Jill. That week we were scrubbing, priming, and painting her house, which seemed like a relatively futile place to start seeing as her house is in such serious disrepair, but it was an easy place to start and since I have such limited construction experience and there were everyone else's worksites to plan as well we just started there. I was nervous about being in charge of a worksite by myself, but I quickly realized that, while making sure everyone is doing what they need to do, doing it right, has what they need, are drinking water, not miserable, and figuring out what to get them working on after that is not always an easy task, it's nothing to be scared of and not as hard as I thought after I developed the confidence to make decisions without a second opinion. The girls were a little quiet but very sweet, and they opened up more as the week went on. They were a little shy with me, but I had a great time watching them laugh and bond as a group throughout the week, especially after Caitlin (one of my camp directors) told me that Buddy, their youth pastor, had only taken up the position the previous week, when their original youth paster was deployed to Iraq. It was their first anything together, and by the end of the week they are laughing and joking together. One of my chief joys of that week was watching the relationships strengthen and bonds from within that small group.
As I said though, no week is without its share of trials, and in this case it was the house itself. Tomasina's house is a very frustrating case, because it's in terrible condition, but there are a lot of things we just can't fix. For example: the aluminum siding on her trailer is torn up and peeling back around many of the edges, but as a rule Teameffort doesn't work with metal like that because the edges are so sharp they'll cut you at the slightest slip up, and when middle schoolers and high schoolers are doing most of the work slip ups are inevitable, so all we could do was put a new coat of paint around the holes. Also, we are still at a loss for a solution for the roof (if you have no idea what I'm talking about, go back an entry or two and read about Tomasina's roof). Joe mentioned to me last week that he had some harebrained idea, but it was too complicated to explain to me so he we going to try to explain it to Glenn, our contractor, and see what he thought. That was the last I heard of it, but Joe did tell me the other day that he has another concern. Tomasina's house is located along a popular shortcut to city hall, so if we do anything too crazy it will be noticed and we'll run the risk of being shut down. Dwarfing this, however, is the fact that if any city officials do come out to inspect what we're doing, even if our work meets all their requirements and codes, her house is in such a state that it's likely to be condemned if anyone looks to closely, so in trying to repair her house we could actually get her kicked out of it. This is quite a conundrum, and we still have not even a shadow of a solution, but there are still 5 weeks left in the summer so the fight is not over yet!

On to Week 2! I hope you're not tired of reading yet. Last week I was working with Natalia at the Waccamaw Youth Center, a home for boys who have been abused and abandoned. It can house up to about 15 boys age 8-21, though I'm not sure how many are currently living there. I only met three of them Robert, an extremely sweet teenager who I joked with about his failure to water the plants, Nico, who was quieter than Robert but still friendly, and was often on the computer in the rec room where we went to cool off, and C.J., who brought us all tootsie pops on Thursday and worked alongside the group that was there this past week. It's run by this fantastic man named Mike, who provided us all with apple juice and ice cream and reminded me to wear sunscreen when my face was looking pink. I loved talking to Mike. He is such a sweet man and was so overwhelmingly excited and grateful that we were there that it was impossible to leave a conversation with him without a warm fuzzy feeling in my heart. There is a lot of work to do at Waccamaw, because it's a big place and in a house full on teenage boys things get broken regularly, and we started by repairing, scraping, scrubbing, and priming the four decks attached to the main house. I seem to be doing a lot of painting. But as much as I love Waccamaw and the people there, what made that week so memorable was the kids. Believe it or not, I started out the week feeling bored and a little fidgety. As much as Myrtle Beach is different from Tampa, the structure of the day and the way we do things are so much the same that I found myself tired already of hearing the same nightly talks, the same messages, answering the same questions. I don't know exactly why, but I could see the summer panning out before me with each week looking exactly like the one that had just passed, and exactly like last summer as well. I got so caught up in the work aspects of the week that I forgot about what made it interesting and why I'm here. And boy did these kids remind me! Natalia and I had two groups, one of all middle schoolers from Massanutten Presbyterian Church in Virginia and one of mostly high schoolers from Central UMC in North Carolina, totaling 28 people on our worksite, and man were these kids awesome! I don't really know how to begin to describe them. When I was told we would have a group of all middle schoolers, I groaned in anticipation of a bunch of kids with bad attitudes, too worried about being cool to have any fun with (that's what my middle school group was like last summer), but the kids from Massanutten were the exact opposites. They had great attitudes. They spent the first day and a half on the worksite scraping paint off the porches with hardly any complaint. They were goofy and fun, and we just clicked. It was so hot on Tuesday that three of the girls did a rain dance in hope of summoning some rain to cool us down, and twenty minutes later we had to leave the worksite because there was a storm coming! I learned from their leaders (who were also incredibly sweet and great with the kids) that almost all of them had gone to preschool together and been friends their entire lives, and their relationships made for lots of silliness among themselves that I had the pleasure of witnessing, because they weren't afraid of being goofy around each other. And speaking of relationships, so many new ones formed that week! I wasn't sure what it would be like having two different groups on a worksite. I expected that they would get along well enough, but that everyone would spend most of their time with the people they already knew, but in hopes of encouraging some integration, Monday morning I had everyone go around and say their names, not expecting that everyone would even remember half of them, and expecting even less that by the end of the week they would know all of them and that these two groups would be so close they would all have each other's phone numbers and would be planning to meet up for a group ski trip, which is what actually happened. I can't describe to you how amazing it was to watch those relationships form. One of my favorite moments of the week, and undoubtedly a favorite memory of the summer, was sitting on the beach during our closing program and being able to watch Tim, a chaperone from Virginia, told Dylan, a high schooler from North Carolina, what a great man he was growing into and how proud he was of him. Another of these memories is when Jonny, an eighth grader with the Massanutten group, plopped down next to me on the beach, smiled at me and just said, "Thanks", to which I responded with a simple "You're welcome". We sat there in silence for a few minutes, just looking at the ocean, but after a few minutes I noticed that he was crying. I asked him what was wrong and if he wanted to talk about it, to which he just shook his head and said,"I'm just happy". Bam. I think that is perhaps my favorite memory of all, including last summer. People often cry during the closing program, but I know that for a lot of them whatever made them cry that night will be forgotten as soon as they go home and nothing will change in their lives, but the happiness that comes from encountering God is not something anyone forgets, because why would you want to forget joy like that? I feel like I'm not doing a good job of portraying the strength of these moments or the effect these crazy kids had on me. They reminded me what it is I'm doing here, made me laugh like nothing else and smile till my face hurt and forget how tired I already am of eating the same stupid meals every week. I missed them the minute they pulled out of the parking lot at 7am, which would have been a much longer goodbye had we not all been so tired from getting up at 5:30 to watch the sunrise on the beach together. Beautiful. Really it was just Massanutten that left that early, but Central got up two hours before their scheduled breakfast time to watch the sunrise with them and see them off. All of these kids touched my heart, and I regret my inability to capture them in words, and that lack of space I have (I'm trying not to make this too too long. I try!) to tell you about Big Mama, Heather and Devan, twins with personalities as opposite as their fire red and dark brown hair, Bossman Tim and the lovely Alana, who I always referred to as Mother Alana in my head because she really is mother to everyone around her. I wish I had time and space to tell you about all of these things, but I've already decided that Week 3 will have to wait for another post out of sympathy for your attention span, and I think Week 2 will end hear. If you would like to hear more, comment, call, or whatnot. I look forward to more memories to tell you <3

So little time!!!

I'm so busy, but so much has happened! I'm loving camp and the last three weeks have been AMAZING!! I am frustrated that I don't have time to tell you all about it right now, but I promise I'll get a blog up either tomorrow or Saturday. I look forward to telling you all about everything!

THEY'RE COMING!

Campers are coming tomorrow! Campers campers campers campers CAMPERS!!!!!

We're going to have so much fun! : )

I got my first worksite today

I'll be working at the home of a woman named Thomasina Robinson and her family. And I'll be all by myself with the campers, no other staff around to help me. This freaks me out a little bit, but I'm feeling much more confident about it than I thought I would. I thank God for that. It's much more responsibility than I had last summer, when I had no worksite of my own and just bounced around from site to site throughout the summer, aiding whoever needed the most help that week. Since I was usually only on a worksite temporarily, I was never a part of any of the planning, so my only real function was to make sure the camper stayed happy, hydrated, and unharmed and to know where to locate the staff member who had all the answers. Since this was all the experience I had, I initially felt really intimidated at the thought of managing a worksite alone, but Joe (one of our camp directors) is really great about helping us plan and making sure we have a very good understanding of what we're doing, and that made me feel better. Also, I know that God will be helping me manage this site, so I won't be alone, and that's the best comfort of all.

Today we went around to each person's job site, meeting the home owners and looking at the homes to see what jobs needed to be done. I don't think it would be unsafe to say that the Robinson's home is the worst. The live in a trailer onto which someone added another room a few years ago, but whoever built it made a serious mistake, because the roof of this extension slants inwards towards the rest of the house, meaning that when it rains water cannot run off the roof and instead pools in the middle of their roof and stays there until it evaporates, resulting in a rapidly rotting roof so leaky there's no point trying to patch any of them, because more will just spring up to replace them. I was on their roof today, and from the look of it I'm surprised it even functions as well as it does. I'll try to post a picture at some point. The thing is, Joe and Glenn (a local contractor who will be helping us out this summer) aren't sure there's anything we can do about it. First of all, we certainly cannot put campers on this roof. It's just too weak; we can't take the risk, so any work on it we'd have to do ourselves on the weekends or something. Also, the rest of the house is so weak that if we put much more weight onto the roof it might not be able to hold it, and the city codes restricting roofing work like this are very limiting. They're going to keep thinking about it, but at the moment they say it's likely there's nothing we can do about their roof and that we should just do what we can for them, because there are some things we just can't do anything about. I refuse to accept this. I absolutely refuse to accept that there is not a single thing we can do for this family to help the fact that their roof is about to cave in. God is smarter than all of us, and he is creative, and he is the authority over the authorities and is bigger than all the city ordinances and the people that make them, and I believe whole heartedly that he can give us a solution to this problem and a way to help this poor family. Please pray with me that he will provide us with an answer.

Oh, and I forgot to mention that they have pitbulls. Oh yeah. Two of them, and puppies, which are cute, but the big ones like to bark. A lot. Those of you who know me well know my fear of big dogs, and while these ones are in cages they still really freak me out. But I will be working at the Robinson home for three weeks at least. This is a good opportunity for me. I will be brave by the end of my time there.

I Enjoy People's Different Stories

On Saturday I walked to the Starbucks near our hotel with Emily and Natalia (they're on my staff). We got our drinks, and we were heading for the door when suddenly Natalia turned around and started asking the barista about her tattoos. I'm thinking, "Yeah, she has tattoos, so do a whole ton of other people. Why are you just randomly talking to this girl?", but once I stopped to look at the tatoos that covered her arms I was glad I did. Across her forearms she had written "I am fearfully" (left) "and wonderfully made" (right). That made me happy, and I inferred from the fact that she had Scripture tattooed on her body that she was a Christian, which also made me happy. I would have been content to stop the conversation there at tattoos and walk away pleased to have seen her lovely arms and smile, but then Natalia asked the question I never would have asked. She looked at the girls arms and said "Cool, so are you a Christian?" I was shocked at her boldness. I am not so outgoing that I would ever even think of asking a complete stranger such a personal question, which my be a little bit silly, I don't know. But anyway, Natalia's outgoing nature led to this girl (who we learned was named Savannah) inviting us to her church, where she leads worship. We should go some time soon though, she told us, because in a few weeks she's leaving to go to Australia for a year, where she will be attending Hillsong Leadership College. She's really excited about going, though nervous about leaving everyone and everything she knows.

I would never even have started a conversation with this girl. This experience has taught me that I need to be more outgoing and not afraid to strike up conversations with random people. You never know how they'll turn out. The worst they can do is walk away right? I also just enjoy the situation as a whole, that this random girl who made my coffee for me has this great story. My barista is also a worship leader, who God has called to leave her life and spend a year in Australia, where she'll learn to be a better leader so that she can use those skills to do something amazing for God's glory. We only get glimpses of people, like that cliche about the iceburgs, but everyone has their own unique and amazing life story, and I enjoy getting to hear them.

Myrtle Beach!

Not gonna lie y'all, I'm so tired I don't really want to write this and would much rather take a nap, but I don't know when I'll have enough free time later and I promised I'd keep you all informed.

So today is Sunday, and I'm having a really hard time believing that I just met my staff on Tuesday. We're already really close. I was afraid that since I was showing up a week late that I would feel left out or just not as close to everyone, but they welcomed me in with open arms and easy explanations of all their inside jokes. It's hard to believe that with 11 people we would all get along and have no cliques of subgroups within our staff, but that's the way it's happening, and it's amazing. I was really worried about there being division among my staff this summer, but this, this is fantastic. Everyone here is wonderful and very sweet, and we all just love spending time together. I really think we have one of the best Teameffort staff this summer. It's truly exceptional how close we all are, and to say I'm excited about it seems like a major understatement. They make my heart feel warm and fuzzy. We're going to have a great summer together.

I think we were here about ten minutes before I solidified my reputation as the happy and excited one on the staff. I couldn't help it! I was so excited to be here (and I still am!) that I just couldn't stop expressing my joy. I'm normally a very joyful person, but it was just overflowing out of me like never before. Me being excited about something isn't exactly noteworthy, but I'm telling you about this because when we stopped and prayed for the summer before we began to unpack, oh man, it was the coolest thing, I could literally feel God SMILING at me. He was excited because I was so excited, and He was pleased to see the gift of joy that He gave me spilling out of me like that. It was like He was saying, "Look at her! Look at my daughter, she's so excited! I made her to be like that! Isn't it great?". I could literally feel my creator taking delight in me, and it was so revealing of how God loves us and enjoys it when we use the gifts He gave us. So wonderful : )

No campers until next week : / Apparently only one group signed up for the first week of camp, which would have been beginning today, so they called them an asked them to come the following week. I wish we were getting campers now, but I've been waiting since July so I guess another week won't hurt. Besides, that means the last few days and this next week will be very relaxed, because we have so much extra time to set up camp. It's nice.

So far, an excellent beginning to what I hope will be an even more excellent summer.

And So It Begins

It's 1:30 in the morning. We went to Walmart around 10:30 for the summer-opening-walmart-run and got back about 45 minutes ago. We're just finishing up settling into our room, because we have 5 girls in a room with 3 bunk beds and absolutely no storage space, so we had to buy some of those plastic drawer sets at Walmart before we could really finish unpacking. I just finished. Got up at 9 and spent the day building bunk beds for the campers before going from there to dinner and to Walmart after that. I meant to write today about how awesome my staff is and how beautiful a summer it's going to be, but that will have to wait until tomorrow, well, technically later today.

As crazy, jam-packed, and exhausting a day as that might sound, it's actually been a pretty typical Teameffort day, right up to bed much after midnight, and I have to say, I love every exhausting second of it.

Teameffort summer has begun.

Never Be Afraid To Speak

I have never heard my dad say the words "I love you". Not to anyone. Not even me. The same goes for the entire rest of his family, my aunts, my uncle, my grandparents, for some reason none of them ever say those words. I think this is terribly sad, and it goes against all my ideas of how life should be lived. So I decided to break the cycle. When we left my grandmother's hospital room for what we all knew would be the last time, I have her a hug and said, "I love you grandma". She looked up at me and smiled broadly, obviously quite pleased, patted my hand and said, "Thank you for saying that to people". To some that may seem like a horribly disappointing response to telling someone you love them, but it works for me. I hardly expected that after an entire lifetime to not telling people she loves them my grandmother would suddenly, at age 91, say it to me just because I said it to her. Her obvious happiness in that moment was quite enough for me.

The reason I'm writing about this is because of my grandma's words, "Thank you for saying that to people". I find it tragic that in her life being told that she is loved is exceptional enough that she thanked me just for saying it to "people", that the general concept of verbal expression of love, not just to her, but to anybody, has been so foreign to her life. True, it is likely that my dad doesn't tell me he loves me because she never said she loves him, but somebody never told her they loved her as well. It's such an awful cycle, but it's so easily broken. Telling somebody that you care about them and that they are special to you is never something we should hesitate to do, not because of the cheesy adage "You never know what will happen" (though that is true, my best friend may get in a car wreck tomorrow and I'd be happy to know I told her how much she meant to me), but simply because it's important that they know. It says something about how much you care about someone that you want to make sure they know it, that you refuse to leave it up to chance that they understand the implication of your actions or assume it because of the nature of your relationship. How much can you care about someone if you don't care that they know how you feel? Never hesitate to tell somebody that you love them. Love is a good thing. Very rarely does anyone dislike being told that they are loved, and you're more likely to regret not saying it than saying it. Don't hold back.

"Never apologize for showing feeling. When you do so, you apologize for truth." - Benjamin Disraeli

Last Day. Brace yourself, it's a long one

There is noise everywhere. I've escaped to the bathroom of our hotel room because I just want some quiet. I need to process.

We're leaving Connecticut tomorrow morning, which means that today was our last visit to Grandma. Getting to spend so much time with her the last two days has been great. I guess the first day we were here must have just been an especially bad day, because she has had no trouble remembering us since then. We've spent a lot of time reminiscing. I've loved being able to hear about her life and all the places she's been. She was very diligent about collecting old family pictures (we have many dated pre-1900), which my dad has been working on scanning into the computer, so he brought his computer and we have spent many hours going through the pictures with her. She has great difficulty seeing the pictures because her eyesight is so bad, but for most of them she was able to recognize at least the people in the pictures, and we would discuss those people, where they were, what was going on in the picture. She really enjoyed that. When you start discussing present happenings or things just start happening in the room,however, she just kind of fades out. The dementia makes it difficult for her to process what's going on around her. A few weeks ago my dad called and she only answered the phone because her roommate told her that it was ringing and she should answer it. She forgets things like that now, but there have been a few good moments over these last few days when her old spirit has shone through. At one point I told her that the footrests have been left off her wheelchair so she could kick people who were in her way, and she said "That's a good idea!". Another time she was telling a story and just sort of drifted off, as if she had been trying to remember some detail but then forgot what story she was telling, and my dad tried to help her back to it, saying, "You were talking about the camp.." and she cut him off, saying with the most gusto I've seen from her this whole visit, "Now wait a minute! Now wait a minute! Let me say something!" and then she drifted off again. She had no idea what she was saying, but she was not about to let herself be interrupted!

We also went to the cemetery today to see my dad's father's grave. The man I knew as grandpa was actually my dad's stepfather. His real dad died in 1975 and my grandma remarried before I was born. It was a little odd, visiting the grave of a man I've never known, but at the same time it was very emotional. I just stood there, meeting Edward Joseph Gordon of the first time, while my dad silently remembered. I saw the sweetest thing I've ever seen my dad do there, and that was watching as he lovingly scraped the bird poop off of his dad's gravestone with a knife. I have never seen my dad display sentiment like that before, and it made me regret the massive distance between us. This trip has both shortened and widened the gap between me and my father, because in reminiscing with Grandma I have heard so many new stories and learned so much about my father and his life that I didn't know before, but at the same time it's revealed to me how much of that gap he creates and will never close, which will be discussed later.
Oddly enough, the defining part of that graveyard visit was my grandpa's middle name, Joseph, because it is also my brothers name. I never knew it before today, but my brother, Joseph Donald Gordon, was named for both my parents' fathers, who died before my mom and dad met. My revelation led to the first real conversation I've had about my parents with either of my parents about my brother, who died when I was 4. I asked my dad where Joey is buried, which apparently he is not. They had Joey cremated but my mother could never bear to actually bury him, so the ashes are most likely somewhere in the attic at my mom's house. I need to discuss this when we get back. I think it's time my brother was buried.
I also asked my dad what happened the night Joey died, and for the first time ever I finally got to hear it. It's sad that I never knew the details of an event that has shaped my life so drastically, but now I do. Fifteen years later, and I don't think it was any easier to hear.

This visit has been the first time I've seen Grandma in about two years, and I'm so happy we made the trip. All the previous times we've been up here I was too young and immature to appreciate the value of her age and to enjoy just hearing about her life. She never was one for games or play, she's much more of an intellectual, so as a child I didn't like her much. I am so grateful that I had this chance to listen to her and not be bored, to appreciate the value of what she has to say. She truly is a remarkable woman, and I'm proud to call her my family.

Of course, not all of this visit has been easy. Yesterday when we got to the hospital she was extremely worn out. Her breathing was short and labored, and she couldn't stay with us mentally long enough to comprehend that we were there. The extreme frailty of her condition became fully evident at that moment, and it was all I could do not to cry. The worst part of that moment was seeing my dad and the extreme pain and helplessness he felt. It has been so difficult to watch his grief over this visit. To say my dad is not one for emotional expression is an understatement. He does not show emotion, does not speak it, but a few times over these days I have seen the extreme pain and grief wash over his face in especial moments of my grandma's weakness. Bearing witness to his grief has been the hardest thing about this trip, because there is nothing I can do to relieve it. Like I said, my father does not show his emotions, and he will accept no comfort, at least not from me, and watching him deal alone with the pain of watching his mother deteriorate has not yet failed to make me cry.

This emotional distance has characterized this trip for me. It has meant that now, sitting alone in the bathroom, is the first time I've been able to cry. Despite everything we are going through, I have had to hold my tears back around my family because I know they are not welcome. It's one thing to have to hold them back around my grandmother, but families are supposed to grieve together, and that I can be surrounded by people and still feel like I'm going through this alone adds a whole new dimension to the tragedy.

My Heart Is Heavy

I'm writing this from a Days Inn in Foxon, Connecticut. Yesterday was the first days of Teameffort staff training, but instead I spent it in the car with my dad and sister on the way up here to see my grandmother. She'll be 92 last month and suffers from alzheimers and dementia, as well as the general frailty that comes with being nearly a century old. She was born in 1919, and even though her short term memory has been steadily worsening over the years her long term memory has always been excellent. She could tell us all sorts of different stories, full of details and descriptions of layouts of all the different houses she's lived in. Of course it was still obvious that she was sick though. Sometimes she would tell us the same story twice, and she always had a hard time remembering how old Julie and I are. But still, it seemed like she would always be there. Then on Sunday my sister informed me that Dad was going to Connecticut to see Grandma, and he was leaving on Wednesday. They said she'd been getting worse faster. It's not certain whether she'll make it through the end of the summer, so we all came up to say goodbye. It's weird. When we saw her today I was shocked by how small she is. You can almost see all the bones in her hand. She didn't recognize us when we first got there. She was in her wheelchair sitting in the door of her room facing out into the hallway, and when we approached she asked if she was in our path. And her long term memory, which has always been so reliable, is so much worse. She'd often space out and lose her train of thought, leaving off in the middle of the story. At one point, while she was trying to remember her younger sister's birthday, she went quiet for a while, then just said,"Oh hell, I can't remember". She just kept losing her train of thought, kept forgetting what she was saying. Then, as we went to leave, she forgot me. I moved to hug her and suddenly she looked very lost and confused, like she was wondering who this strange girl was and why I was touching her. My dad had to introduce us to her again. I really can't describe how painful that was.

I wish none of this has happening. I was supposed to be at staff training today learning first aid and writing skits. I'm upset that I have to miss this opportunity to get to know my staff, but I'm also exceedingly grateful that I work in a place that allows me to be able to be with my family right now.

Life and Love

Tonight I went and saw Letters to Juliet with my friends Randi and Danielle. It was an ok movie. Cute, with lots of funny moments, but a little too cheesy for my taste. Not bad if you're looking for a chick flick, but it was our conversation after the movie that really struck a chord with me. The movie is set in Italy, which started us talking about Italian guys (my friend dated one), then the emotional walls the keep us from starting relationships or continuing in them, which led me to share my story about how my many walls built up and then the extraordinary way that God broke them down. It took from the upstairs movie theater in the Mall or Georgia to standing by my car out in the parking lot for me to tell them simply the barest bones version of my story. It has been a long time since I've talked to anyone about the cumulative story of my life and how each event effected the next and made me who I am today, and it's been even longer since I've told anyone about the crazy events of my life that didn't already know some of it. The point is that all of this got me thinking about how much I have loved and lost in my life and how extraordinary it is that I have experienced so much at such a young age. It is both mind boggling and tragic to think that I have loved more in my life at 19 than some people do in their entire lives, and it amazes me how God has put people in my life and how those relationships have shaped me as a person. My life has been very full of love, but with an almost equal amount of loss and pain. I have suffered much. I have been hurt and put up great stony walls around my heart, but I am so grateful to God that I am now to appreciate the pain of loss as a mark of having had something to loose. I no longer fear getting hurt, what I fear is never getting hurt. I fear missing out on the fullness of life by trading love and all the risks and hurts that come with it for the security of sitting on the sidelines and knowing I'll always be safe. When you run away from pain, you run away from life.

Do not be afraid to approach life with an open heart. The greatest riches come with the greatest risks, and I am happy to say that I regret none of the risks I have taken.

The Living Room

It started with staring at the fireplace. Sitting on the couch with my cup of coffee in the solitude of an empty house, it suddenly dawned on my how central that fireplace is to this room, how so many days and events have passed before it without us even paying attention. That fireplace used to be brown, an ugly, rough, unfinished wood around the stone which my mom worked so hard to sand and paint over. This room is now so beautiful, complete, and well cared for after years of my mom's post-divorce freedom to decorate it's hard to believe how much has happened here. In the place of that picture on the wall there hung for twenty years a very ugly, large, and oddly shaped brown clock, a wedding gift to my parents that I used to imagine was a map of the landscape of the movie Pocahontas. My aunt forced my mom to get rid of it when she came down to help my mom paint and decorate the house, saying it was too hideous to be allowed to stay. Instead of the coffee table we used to have a small, round table that my dad had made, the top of which was very smooth and Julie and I were always getting in trouble for sliding in circles across it. So many people have walked through this room, many of whom I don't remember. This place used to be bustling daily with nurses, cleaning ladies, or just friends come to help their friend with the handicapped son in any way they could. And there, right there, on the floor, is where I rolled around and played with my brother and sister back when I was one of three. There used to be a couch where the tv is there where my mom would sit with Joey while Julie and I played on the floor, her watching and Joey laughing whenever we got in trouble. Just around the corner there is the spot under the kitchen bar where I used to hide when my parents were fighting. I always felt like I was safe there in the corner, with walls on either side of me and the top of the bar close over my head. No one could see me unless they were walking towards me from the back of the house, which didn't happen often. It was a good spot. And there, right in front of me, so close, is where my mom and dad would stand yelling at each other after Julie and I had gone to bed, and just to my left is where I stood in my disney princess nightgown asking them to please keep it down so I could sleep. Fast forward a few years and I'm only a foot away from the spot where my sister stood and yelled those infamous preteen words "I hate you! You're ruining my life!", marking the beginning of years of shouting matches. This room has been the battleground of so many fights. It's hard to see that now, as if all of those old days were painted over with the burgundy paint that now covers one wall. This room here is not a battlefield. This room is beautiful, quiet, too elegant for bombs to explode here. That chair in the middle of the room, with its new upholstery, is now Greg's chair, from which he got up to greet me when I returned the other night. The big squishy green chair in the corner is my mom's chair, where she sits quietly every night, watching tv before she goes to bed. It's too new to have seen most of the fighting. The same with most of this furniture, actually. My dad never let my mom decorate or have nice things, so after he moved out and we had a little extra money my mom did a complete overhaul of the house, replacing everything my dad had picked out with things new and beautiful and painting the walls new colors. And there, in the midst of all the tarp covered furniture and paint cans still stood the fireplace, the silent and steady witness to all our battles and wars and to the new peace that is still settling in.

Home

It's 1:30 am, I just got off the phone after a 2 hour conversation with my friend, and I have to be up at 9 for a 10 am orthodontist appointment, so what am I doing? I'm writing a blog!

I moved back in with my mom on Saturday, and even though my room is very full with many slowly depleting stacks of boxes, it's good to be home. I was surprised by how good it felt to be back to living someplace so familiar, living in a house with my mom and Greg instead of unfamiliar roommates that I barely know. It's so good to be done with that ridiculous overly-polite dance and back with people I actually talk to, who ask where I'm going and care when I'll be home, or even if I'll be home. As much as I loved my apartment, there's nothing like the well-worn and written on walls of the bedroom of my childhood, who have long held the secrets of my tears, anger, 2 am conversations and those many nights as a child when I stayed up well after bedtime with a book and a flashlight. There's something reassuring about being able to look at the walls and read a little reflection of your self off of them, and of knowing that after you're gone that place will remember you and the fact that I was here will only be forgotten after at least two coats of paint. My mom was so mad when I started writing on the walls, but it's a rage that I gladly weathered and would not take back.

My mom and I aren't really close, and I was so excited to get out and get away from my family that I would never have imagined I would so enjoy being back. As much as adventure and new things help us grow, there's something to be said for familiarity, for walking out the door and flipping on the same porch light that I've been flipping on for years, for being able to predict how long a mess will last in the kitchen, and even for the sound of my mom going out in the garage late at night to smoke. It sounds so odd, but I was always able to guess approximately what time it was by my mom's nicotine cravings. It's things like that that make home home, and a year away has given me a new appreciation for that blessed familiarity.

On a less sentimental note, I am so busy!! I leave in two weeks, and while I'm sad that I have to little time left with my friends and that I'm going to miss so much this summer, I'm so excited. I'm really for another excellent Teameffort summer, and all the joys and challenges and sweat that comes with it, but I have to get there first. I have to unpack, sort through all of my stuff and get rid of some of it because I have so much stuff that I don't need, pack for school and for the summer, some shopping I have to do before then, as well as send in all of my school forms and a few other things. Then I found out yesterday that I have to get my wisdom teeth taken out, and since I'm leaving for school immediately after I get back from Puerto Rico if I don't get it done now I'll have to wait until December, and waiting that long would be a really bad idea. Aaahh!! Really I'm not worried about my work getting done, because I know I can get it all done, I'm worried about being so busy with all this work that I don't get to spend much time with my friends before I leave. My friends are amazing and I love them so much I'm trying to soak up as much of them as possible in the next few weeks, and it would break my heart to get less than the little time I already have. My plan is to crack down this week and get all or most of my work done so that I can spend most of next week with my loves. I hope that works.

Friendship

I'm sitting here in my pjs, tired after a busy week and only having returned home 20 minutes ago from a night of yoga and frozen pizza with a few of my friends, and I'm thinking about the value of friendship. While I was driving home tonight I was thinking about how blessed I am to have such great friends when I realized that I have those same thoughts every time I'm with these girls, and that got me thinking about the true significance of friendship. There is nothing like people you can laugh with, cry with, and fart in front of with no fear of being judged. Before God created Eve he said that man is not meant to live alone, and the friends that I've made here have shown me that he was not just talking about romantic relationships and husbands and wives. God made us to be in fellowship with him and with one another, and that fellowship is such a beautiful thing. Human beings are all so unique, and I love watching that reality in the interactions of my friends. Everybody brings something different to the table, but it is all accepted and appreciated without question. I have never seen any judgement among these girls, no unkind words, only overflowing love. This is the way it was meant to be, enjoying each other's company, laughter over frozen pizza in a dirty kitchen and loving one another for the unique people God made us all to be. The simple things like that are so beautiful, and it's when I sit back and just watch during moments like that that I see more of God's wonderful heart for us and the simple yet extravagant beauty he has created for us to live in.

Writing

Writing as been coming at me from all directions lately. Not paper writing or school writing, the kind that makes your heart groan to think about, but "being a writer" writing, the kind that flows easily (or sometimes not so easily) from brain to hands to keyboard and makes the writer feel like a little part of their soul is represented on the screen. I read two blog posts today that really made me think, one by a writer I follow on twitter John Acuff and another by my friend Annie Morgan, who is an amazing writer. John wrote that someone recently asked him what his secret is to being a writer and to making a life of following his passion. His answer was simply that he writes. He makes the decision every day that he is going to write. He doesn't contemplate whether he feels like it or ask himself if he has more productive things to do, he just writes, for better or worse. Annie's thoughts were a little more philosophical. Today is her 20th birthday, and it has prompted her to start a 365 day project she calls "The 20th Year". Her goal is to write every day for the next year about her life, with the goal of capturing some more of the fullness of life and of exploring what it means to her to be a writer. Both of these entries really struck me because both of these people are taking their passion and their gift and doing something with it, where I feel like I am not doing anything with mine. I've always been too busy in the past (that's part truth, part excuse), but this year I've had plenty of free time and I have done nothing. I don't need to write a book, I can start small. Annie is keeping a blog with the intention of making it a channel for her writing rather than just a method for keeping up with friends. I want to do something like that, to really own my gift and stop just thinking about it. I suppose I will start here. I know myself well enough not to set a goal of posting every day like Annie is, but more often, and with more care to what I write? I can do that, and I think I will. But I'm done just thinking. I will.

Some good things

Just some good thoughts from last night I wanted to share.

If you want to be a Christian, prepare to die.
So intense!! So true though. We have to die to ourselves and our desires, which hurts and is uncomfortable but totally makes me want to die.

"God turns us into totally new creatures. It's not like we're flowers and he comes along and makes us bigger, brighter, flowers. It's like we're flowers and he says I'm going to turn you into a kitten!"
I thought this was the funniest thing ever. I busted into a huge fit of giggles after Chris said it, and then everyone else started laughing too, only they were laughing at how funny I thought it was. Am I the only one that thinks this is absolutely hilarious?


I'm super tired today. The end of the semester sucks. It's hard to believe it's almost over.

Crazy Day

So today's been pretty eventful

I started the morning with a phone call from a woman from the financial aid office at Warren Wilson telling me that I've been awarded a $4,000 transfer honors scholarship, which is awesome, but it's not even close to the $18,000 I was hoping for, so while I managed to sound very excited on the phone my first thought was "Oh crap". I immediately jumped into thinking "What am I going to do? What should I do?" Because I now have no money to pay for my super expensive dream school and no plan b, because I couldn't afford the application fees to anywhere else. After a few minutes of this I remembered that God had control of the situation, but I didn't really feel it and still spent all day trying to have faith but still on the brink of mentally hyperventilating. I'm very disappointed in myself, because a year ago God completely pulled the rug out from under me and when I found out I couldn't go to the school I'd already committed to go to I didn't even blink, I just said "What are you doing to me God? Where am I going?" and this time it took me most of the day to calm down. Perhaps part of that is due to the fact that I had to work today, so I didn't have time in the morning to sit down and pray, but when I got home in the afternoon it only took a few minutes of prayer for God to really calm my heart and remind me that he's got it under control. After that I was just annoyed with myself for my lack of faith. How did i end up going backwards in a year? How does that happen?

Which brings me to the second event, where God was cool enough to explain the whole thing to me at an awesome bible study I went to tonight. A few weeks ago, my friend Kat told me about "the hippie bible study", which is what she calls it but we're not supposed to call it that when we're there cause that's not actually the name of it. I've been trying to go since she told me about it but things kept coming up, but I guess that's the way it was supposed to happen because tonight was the perfect night for it. I met a few girls from my small group at Starbucks and then we all carpooled to the strip center that the church is in. I could see why Kat called it the hippie bible study as soon as I got it, because the floor of the small room was covered in rugs and there were couches in a semi circle around the room. There were two guys leading worship, one with an acoustic guitar and one with an electric bass. Both of them had dreads and the bassist had gages and a crazy mountain man beard like I have never seen before. The worship was great. I've never seen worship in a setting like that, so laid back with just the guitars, nobody standing, so much more quiet and intimate than a big crowd standing and singing. It was wonderful. I haven't been able to focus like that during worship in a while. I think I've gotten so used to the way worship is usually done with the band and everyone standing and acting excited that I've started to tune out and just get really easily distracted, which is frustrating but God's been helping me work through it by doing different things like stop singing or sit down during worship, which makes it easier to focus cause it's like dropping down beneath the layer or noise to a more intimate place. Anyway, after the wonderful quiet worship the guitarist (who I later found out is named Chris) began to teach. I've never seen anyone teach like that before. He just took a passage from Colossians 2 and read through it, then read it again unpacking it as he went, which isn't too crazy, it was a bible study after all, but he was so energetic and funny. His teaching was so serious and true but at the same time he wasn't serious about it at all. He kept cracking jokes and coming up with all these crazy metaphors. It was all very striking and I learned a lot, but all I'm going to write out here is God's answer to my question of how I managed to go backwards in a year so that I couldn't immediately and unquestioningly trust God in a crisis like I did a year ago. What Chris said was this: we tend to treat Christian knowledge like academic knowledge, like ok I've got the basics now on to deeper and more complicated stuff. The thing is, if you're not constantly savoring and contemplating the basics of Christianity, you're more complicated stuff becomes empty and you end up turning into a faker without even realizing it. I'm afraid this is what I did. In the last few months I got to this point where I was thinking "Ok, I've been a Christian for a while now, I need to be growing more now" I felt that it was time for me to focus on developing better Christian disciplines, like reading my bible more and asking God to break me of my pride and help me focus more (there are moments when I seriously wonder if I have ADD), and while those things are all very well and good, my relationship with God should come first, and the desired discipline and focus will be a byproduct of that. I don't have to worry about growing, because God will grow me. I never thought I would find this truth to be so tough, but as I'm writing this my human nature is protesting that I don't want so much to be out of my control. Did I always have a problem with surrendering to God? I don't think so. I guess over time he asks us to surrender more, and it gets harder to do so. It's ironic that my desire for growth caused me to not grow. Fail. Haha but I guess that's all part of the journey, right? We learn how to do things, and God tells us where we go wrong and gives us another chance to get it right, and another, and another.

So that's my day. I have been both majorly discouraged and majorly refreshed and reawakened in that very uncomfortable sort of way that only God can manage. So, I think I'm still going to Warren Wilson, I'm probably going to just end up taking out loans to pay for it. We'll see. On the bright side, in order to get the merit scholarship I wanted I could only get one B this semester, so I was seriously stressing out about my grades. Now, it doesn't matter so much : ) I don't have go get A's in everything, I just have to pass them all. I've been stressing about keeping my grades up for so long that this doesn't seem real yet. I hope the reality of this relief sinks in soon so finals will be a little easier.

Long Overdue

Ok, so it's been a while since I updated this thing. I got my car back right when I stopped posting about not having my car. It's great to have it back but I wish I had been able to find a way to work walking into my schedule voluntarily, but so far I haven't.

School has been sooo busy!!!!! The end of the semester totally snuck up on me, and along with it all those end-of-the-semester papers and projects that I thought I had a ton of time to do and therefore haven't started yet. They're all due next week. And in 2 weeks, I move out of my apartment. 4 days after that, freshman year of college is over. That's weird! At the end of every school year I'm surprised by how quickly the school year flew by, but it seems as if this year has gone faster than the speed of light. Seriously. Usually there's a stage that sets in around November-February where that new-year-of-school charm has long worn off but the-end-is-in-sight excitement has not set in. I didn't get anywhere close to that this year. It's just gone from "cool I'm in college" to "hey sweet I'm on winter break" to "ok cool new classes. lots of work" to "holy crap it's almost over!". It kinda freaks me out. I really hope that every year of college doesn't go by this fast, because at this rate I'll be done and out in "the real world" in no time, and I don't feel anywhere even close to approaching prepared for that.

Realizing its the end of the school year has caused me to look back and think about how I've grown and changed since this time last year. A lot has happened: I've moved out of my mom's house, I've grown to love God more and learned the importance of having a community of fellow Christians for support, and I get along better with my family now. I feel like there should be more though, like the change from year to year should be drastic and easily noticeable. It certainly was this time last year, but maybe we only get a few years like that.

The bright side of time getting a jetpack this year: only 40 days until my second Teameffort summer : ) I am glad the wait went by so quickly. I'm excited!

On another note, learning more specific things that are wrong in this world has gotten me feeling like there are a million places I'd like to go and so many different people I'd like to help. For example:

1. In the slums of Brazil, there are so many orphans begging in the streets that shopkeepers will actually have them killed because having children begging outside their shops is bad for business. This is horrifiying. It makes me want to move to Brazil and open and orphanage in the slums so all those children can have a safe home to go to.

2. The female infanticide in India that Meagan has been writing about lately. Again, I want to go open an orphanage for baby girls in India now and just say "If you don't want them, give them to me!!!"

3. Africa. I don't know if I need to say more. Most of the diseases causing such damage there are completely preventable. Hundreds of thousands of children are orphaned every year because their parents die of AIDS. Then there are the child soldiers and the many refugees who have now found themselves with no homes. Or the villages that simply don't have access to good food and clean water. You see where I'm going with this.

4. The homeless in our own country. NO ONE SHOULD BE STARVING IN AMERICA!!!

Every time I learn about another group of people that is hurting I want to go to them and do whatever I can to help, but I know I can't do it all, and it's frustrating because I know it's not even my decision. Where I go with my life is God's decision, and I want it to be that way because I know that wherever He sends me is where I'll be able to do the most for Him and that it will be beautiful, I just want to know! This is bothering me more and more as I write this. I need to start praying about this.