driving... driving... and more driving...

i drove a lot last week.

i decided it must have been over 30 hours in 8 days. probably more...

i also listened to a lot of music. that was happy.

it was good to catch up with people last week. i got to see emmy & jenna

and we played with my new computer. :)

i also got to see my dad & stepmom, lunch with my sis, an afternoon with the heires', two nights out with elisabeth, and tittyung time. i was a busy kid.

friday i drove out to battle creek to drop off my stuff in my new room, then i headed over to chicago for the weekend. jess, heather, gregory and i had a wonderful time hanging out.

gpa musical.... ?? :)

us vs. the bean.

our usual photo shoot...

last night i drove back here and settled into my room. i met a few people last night and learned a new card game (and kind of dominated at it...)

today was our first day of work and it went really well. we did some get-to-know-you type stuff (of course. we're outdoor educators.) and high ropes training this afternoon. i like the people on my team and i'm looking forward to getting to know them over the next 6 weeks while i'm here. del (the director here) was already talking about how he wants to help me and anyone else who comes through here find jobs after our experience here, which was good to hear. i'm still torn in a lot of was as to exactly what i want to be doing next, but it's always good to have someone looking out for you.

"... i never told you what i should have said, no i never told you, i just held it in, and now i miss everything about you." - Colbie Caillat I Never Told You

hello michigan. :)

my time at honeyrock has come to an end. and i'm back in my beloved mitten state.

we had a good GPA celebration dinner on friday night. it was a good way to wrap up our time. i drove all day yesterday and made it back around dinnertime.

i spent the evening trying to unpack and playing with my new computer. :)

life is good right now. i'm excited about moving and starting my new job over the next week. i've got a few days to spend with friends/family and a lot of random things to do before i move on friday.

:)

"I know you stay true when my world is false, everything around's breaking down to chaos. I always see you when my sight is lost." - mutemath, chaos

winding down

a lot's happened lately

a week ago i led 'cowgirl camp' for 6 amazing adventure camp (10-12th grade) girls. we had SO much fun in those 2 days of hanging around the barn! we baked horse treats, groomed/bathed horses, went on rides, made LOTS of fires, and slept out at the wagon circle. andreea and i slept underneath the stars... well, until it started to rain at 4:02am... that went something like this

(3 droplets of rain on my face...)
me: andreea... andreea... ANDREEA!!!! wake up! it's raining! get in the wagon!
andreea: (unintelligible sounds)
me: come on!
andreea: (standing) i'm dizzy...
me: that's because you went from sleeping to standing in 3 seconds.

and all was well.
we all laughed a lot and truly enjoyed one another during our 2 days together. good times at cowgirl camp. :-)

i turned 24 this week.
it was a pretty good birthday, as far as birthdays go. mom sent the usual package from the popcorn factory (thank you mom!) and i got a few other random cards as well. it was fun to be with my kids on my birthday, i think they were more excited than i was!

our last kid session ended on friday. well, the service team kids are still here until tomorrow... but they're special, so they're not included on that. :-)

i got the honeyrock influenza virus.
yick. at least it waited until the end of the last session. seriously, illness couldnt have come at a better time, as obnoxious as it is to be sick on my few precious days off, it's better now than when i had a thousand things to do.
friday i was only kind of sick and jess had told me she'd drive to wausau with me because all i wanted in the world was qdoba for weeeeks and i promised myself i'd get it once session ended as a birthday/celebration treat for myself. well, jess ended up being busy and no one else could/wanted to go... so i went by myself for a 2 hour drive to wausau. it was glorious to have some time alone. and my burrito was fantastic. i also was planning on going to starbucks... but i couldnt find it. so i settled for driving back to three lakes and having coffee at deja brew. which was delightful. and far more inexpensive. i sat and read from the donald miller anthology i'm borrowing from heather (i think i'm on "searching for God knows what"...) and i desperately want to finish reading it before i head home in 2 weeks.

yesterday i was too sick to join the rest of the staff on the staff trip to superior, which bummed me out, but what's a girl to do? well, i slept in, and, upon discovering that trying to read made me want to vomit, i borrowed season 6 of gilmore girls from becky. yes, yes, i know i was breaking honeyrock's "place apart" mentality... but i felt as though i had extremely limited options. i got a lot of rest and feel somewhat better today. i still can't stand for long periods of time, but i am on the mend.

lots of crazy going on here today... nothing i can expound upon at this moment.

passage training starts tomorrow morning.
yippee!

a new adventure

so usually when people ask the "what's next?" question i cringe somewhere inside because i don't have a solid answer for them. i like to have answers for people. "i don't know" seems like a lame thing to say.

well, it's amazing what can happen in the course of a week.
because last weekend when i was in evart i had to admit to not knowing what i was doing when i'm done with honeyrock (less than a month from now) but this weekend i can say with joy that i will be moving to the battle creek area (southwestern michigan) around august 28 to start as and outdoor educator for battle creek public schools.
now, if you're one of the people i know who will undoubtably scratch your head and think to yourself, "what the heck does that mean?" then this link is for you: clearlakecamp.org
if you click on the "employment" section you can read the job description for what i'll be doing.
right now i'm hired as "seasonal" for the fall, with a very good chance of staying on as long as i'd like.
i'm looking forward to the job itself and the added perk that it's much closer to home than i am now! i will also have to work less hours and have weekends off which means lots of road trips to see friends!

i still have 4 more weeks here at honeyrock- 2 more for summer campers and 2 for wheaton passage. it's going to fly by i'm sure!

something else

i went for a run tonight. actually, i just got done.
i hadn't run in a long time.
it felt good.
i forgot how much stress it relieves in me.
note to self: run more.

today was really stressful. sometimes work just seems to come out of nowhere.
so the run was good. the nooma video we watched with advance camp was good too. it was one i'd never seen before.

and, as often happens after the right combination of things in a day: reading for a little while before worship tonight (... i WILL finish this book dangit.), truly enjoying hanging out with the kids before they leave on friday, time spent singing, a nooma video, music, and a run at dusk, i had some really good thoughts as i ran down the infamously windy highway x.

i feel like people commonly talk bout wishing life was more of a straight path- it's the turns and hills that throw off predicitability. i guess i often find myself with that same wish. "just make it easy, God. show me a straight path to follow and i will"

i am a goal oriented person. it keeps me motivated. and as i ran down highway x i kept saying to myself "ok, you can run just to that next curve" or "alright, you're almost up this hill" and it kept me going. each curve and hill along the way was some sort of mini milestone in my run. i NEED those milestones, because i'm not really a very good runner. each tiny victory made the daunting task ahead of me seem somehow easier.

this parallels my life.
sure it'd be easier if there weren't so many twists and turns.
i feel like i've had a lot of unexpected curves over the past year or so. but i can't help but think that if my life was a straight road i would have missed something. a flat road lined with dull scenery isn't very fun to run on. it's the curves, the hills, the variences in surroundings that make it exciting for me. these small things tangibly mark the distance i've come. once again, this is true in my life.

the highs and lows, frustrations and joy, fears and hope that have overcome my heart in the past few years have made definitive marks on my life that i wouldn't give up for anything. they mark the path that God has brought me down, no matter how windy and curvy it's been and will continue to be.



"i believe in a faith that grows and the four right chords could make me cry, when i'm with you i feel like i could die and that would be alright... i want something else to get me through this life" third eye blind, semi-charmed life

kayak trips, sunny days, and heat lighting.

summer is here.

ok so technically it's not here until tomorrow, but we had a group from grand rapids (hollah!) come in this week so it feels like it's officially begun. that and the fact that it's eighty bagillion degrees outside.

john, rachel and i got to hang out with the kids from grace episcopal church all week on a kayak trip.

look how excited we are as we anxiously await their arrival. :-)

sunday night we did kayak training with them and tried our best to prepare them for the days to come. monday morning we headed out on our trip!

classic awesome group shot of us being... well, awesome.

we had fun as a group, lots of good times paddling, camping, and playing mafia.
oh and also BIFfing... yep, that was fun too. rachel and i were BIF buddies.

i'm soooooo glad rachel joined our team for this trip. i couldn't have done it without her.

our second night was spent at voyageur point. i liked that site a lot. it's surrounded by lilly pads.
here's a lilly pad flower.

our last night was at miller's cove. i think a lot of people liked that site best, despite the early morning rain shower. here's me and maddie with our angry faces on after playing a rousing game of mafia. she was totally mafia... :-)

kids come on monday for some of the programs (advance camp, some trips, res camp, service team) and more the next week. once things get going around here it will all be over before we know it! that's how camp goes.

3 weeks from today tim and frances are getting married! i'm excited for that.
4 weeks from today kevin and courtney are getting married! i'm excited for that too.

last night i sat outside in loberg parking lot watching the heat lightning in the distance with stars overhead. it was breathtaking. i can only remember watching a storm just like that one other time in my life...
it was beautiful.


"everything i knew of love, i was a long, long way off.... thank you for opening the window, the sky is clear as my mind is now... and i think i like how the day sounds" Greg Laswell- How The Day Sounds

wait for it...

every time i say "i'm done looking for jobs" i get that same urge to start searching again.

i don't even know what i want to do anymore, so how is looking for a job going to be helpful right now?

i like working in ministry. i like working at camp. i like working in camp ministry. i could probably like a lot of other jobs too.

the "where?" question is still there too.

last week at HRC church the speaker brought up the story of jacob and esau- jacob tried to manipulate God to make sure he got all of his promises fulfilled. i think i do that sometimes too. or at least try to. i know God will provide- i trust that. but i also like to do everything i can to make sure it all happens. is that really trusting? i'm not convinced it is.

but then where is the line between being responsible and having faith?
it seems pretty blurry to me...
because i don't believe God calls us to be apathetic and lazy either. if i pray "Lord give me a job" i don't think one will just fall into my lap. i have to be proactive in some way at least... but what does that even look like?

i have no idea.
i just watch the incredible friends i have who continue to step out in faith and watch as God continually provides for them in the most amazing ways.

i say i'm done job hunting for the summer.
i say i'm done worrying about what happens when i leave here in 10 weeks.
but maybe another fall sabbatical i just what the Lord has in mind for me again. i have to be ok with that if it's the case.

i want to be patient
and wait on the Lord.

"sing with your hands up, with your eyes closed, not because you love the song, but you love to sing..." copeland, you love to sing