Summer '08

Well I keep saying that I don't have time to write on here and now I have all the time in the world. I once again throw out my back and am constricted to the house. Sometimes I hate how delicate our bodies can be. So anyhow I thought I would share with everyone what I have been doing since I've been home... looking up vacation spot to go to this summer!

My roommates and i decided that with the $600 rebates we will be getting back from the government we will do exactly what they want us to do with it... Spend it! We're gonna put money back into the economy. We have decided to make Summer '08 the summer of travel. So here are some of the things we plan on doing...

Roadtrip on Route 66 (The Mother Road)... We will be starting in Vintia Oklahoma to visit the worlds largest Micky D's . From there we will be heading west here are some of the things I am most excited to see along the way...

The Foyil Totem Pole park. The Catoosa Blue Whale (I think I am most excited about this!!), The Blue Whale is an 80 foot long grinning blue Whale built by a man for his wife as an aniversary gift. I'm excited to get a $.99 breakfast at Norma's Diamond cafe in Salulpa.

Then supper at Hillbillies B-B-Q in Arcadia after we visit the red round barn. Our next stop will be in the "Big City" Oklahoma City. There are a number of fun things to see here and we will have to use our best discernment as to where to visit. On our way through El Reno we will keep our eyes peeled for the Ghost of Route 66 an elderly hunched back man. Maybe we will see him at the Lake El Reno where we plan on relaxing by the lake, hopefully making friends with some people with a boat. While in Clinton we will have to stop at the offical Route 66 museum and maybe pick up some goodies for those who couldn't make the trip.

We will then enter into Texas where we will see Texas' version of the leaning tower of piza, the leaning water tower of Britten! And then in Amarillo the attraction I am most looking forward to the Cadallic Ranch where we can bring a can of spray paint and leave our mark on an old Caddy. The on our way to Caynon we will stop for a photo op at the Legs Sculpture.

Were not really sure how much further west we are gonna go than this but I am so excited to go!! We are planning on taking pictures of all the old signs and buildings so that is something you can all look forward to.

Our second trip is going to be on a cruise ship. We have decided to go on a cruise to finish off the summer with a bang! We have a few other short trips planned within there also. One to Florida to camp on the beach and I will be spending a few weeks in Minnesota. I'm getting so excited for the summer and for a job that will allow us all to travel and have sun this summer. (I will be donig week long trips with Education in Action and will only be working 4-6 weeks this summer. The rest of the time is for F-U-N!!! I look forward to sharing the excitment with ya'll!!

Weddings & Reunions...

I feel as though the topic in my world lately has been love. Not my love but the love of those around me. It just seems to be that time of the year. Two of my good friends got engaged a few weeks back. I attended a wedding of a good friend of mine last weekend and it once again seems to be a summer of weddings for me. One of the things that I love about weddings is that they bring people together that have been seperated by life. As I think about the people closest to my heart I realize that we are spread out by thousands of miles. Weddings are the times of the year when we can come together and reunite to celebrate what God is doing in the lives of our friends.

At church a few weeks ago the pastor at a church I was at gave a very intresting sermon. He was talking about sex and relationships. Basically through it all he didn't leave any room for being single. He talked about how our goal should be to married and have lots of sex. This of course didn't leave much room for the almost 27 year old single girl. My roommates and I (4 single 20 something women) talked about how it truely is our desire to be married and yet how sweet this time of singleness is. I can not imagine my life had I have married my college sweetheart at 21. And yet I sit her 6 years wondering if that was infact my only chance at marriage. And if it was am I ok with that?!?! And you know what I think I am. For the first time in my life I am able to say that I am O.K. with being single possibly forever.

And so for now I will rejoice with my friends as they get married. I will enjoy the sweet times that my friends travel miles to be together and we have one night to catch up and rejoice with each other. At least we will get some fun pictures out of the times together. I do love to put on a pretty dress and dance the night away!!

To love well...

Well I've been back in Texas for a few weeks now, getting back to normal life. I've finished my first week of school and am getting back in the swing of things. As I step into a new year I'm excited about the things that lay ahead. One of those things being my trip to Thailand. As you may or may not know I will be going to Thailand for 10 days in March. I will be spending my spring break traveling over there. I wanted to share a little about about what is going on over there with ya'll...

During my time over there we will be spending five days working at the Huay Nam Khao refugee camp in Phetchabun, Thailand. This camp is a place where Hmong (pronounced "mung") people are being held. This people group have been fleeing Lao since the 70's. They are being persecuted in Lao and are fleeing to the jungles of Lao and to Thailand. The government of Thailand have declared that the Hmong people can not be citizens of Thailand and therefore it is illegal for them to be there. There is a lot of history behind all of this. The Thai government has been putting the Hmong people in refugee camps in the northern part of Thailand. The conditions of these camps is not good, many reports have been filed before the government banned all media from the camp. Although conditions are not, the Hmong people would choose to live here rather then be sent back to Lao. Once they are sent back to Lao they are almost always killed within days. The government has been sending back 160 refugees monthly.

While over there we will be joining a team that has an excellent relationship with the guards of this camp. They have opened up the doors to this team and allow them to do as they please in the camp. We will be joining them to go in and do what we can in five short days to love these people. One of the men going with us is a pediatric dentist, so we will be doing some dentistry work. We will doing some ESL stuff, the details are kind of vague at this point. We will do what is needed and just love on these people. I feel as though the past 26 years of my life I have been learning about what it looks like to love well. I'm excited to go and be able to love these people who may have no idea what love is.

The other part of our time in Thailand will be spent in Chiang Mai. We will be working and staying at Care Corner Orphanage. Care Corner is an orphanage that holds 80 children. These children are either orphaned, living with a disability, or their parents could not take care of them any longer. These children are not waiting to be adopted but rather grown up in the orphanage and develop the skills to survive in the real world. On their website are stories of a few of the children that are there, I am so excited to meet children like Amima.

My heart longs to be help these people and I am so excited to go and love well!

Home Sweet Home...

Well it has been awhile and I thought it was time to update ya'll on the happenings on my life over the past month or so. My goal is to better about writing on here so we will see how that goes in 2008!

Well I finished classes on December 6. That last week was very hectic and stressful. I had about 45 pages worth of papers to write along with 3 finals (all due on the same day!!!) I was able to get all my stuff done, the papers were some of the best I had written all semester and I did well on my finals. I only had one final during finals week so I rejoiced in the fact that I was done on the 6th. I was looking forward to a long awaited break.

That long awaited break was taken away when I found out I had to take a College Algebra class during the wintermester! I was not happy!! So I was to spend 12 days of my break in a classroom for 4 hours. The class has turned out to be a bit of a joke. I am currently in that class which tells you how much I need to pay attention.

Anyhow the week between classes was spent relaxing! I finished my Christmas shopping and spent a lot of time in bed due to being sick. I think the stress took it out of me physically. On the 21st I left to drive to Little Rock to meet up with Les and Jonathon. We went to bed earlier and headed out about 6:30 the next morning to head to Minnesota for Christmas. At this point I was

very sick and not feeling well, ready to just get to Minnesota. It is normally a 13 hour drive, I was excited to be out of the car. But then we hit a Blizzard outside of Kansas City. We couldn't drive faster then 30 mph. We ended up having to stop and get a hotel. We ordered Pizza and watch tv, all feeling bitter we were not in Minnesota. The next morning we left hoping the roads would be better... they were not. It took us another 8 hours. All in all it was a 32 hour trip!!! The whole way we were saying how much more me appreciate living in the south.

When we finally got to Minnesota we rested and showered and then went to the Vikings game. It was a BAD game but it was fun to be with everyone. I was still very sick though, and I continued to get worse. I spent the next week trying to get better. I went to the Doctor's office on Christmas Eve and got some medicine. So it was a week of rest. I got to spend some time with Em which was great! I also got to spend a night at the Hilton with some women I joined staff with a year and half ago! It was SO good to spend time with these women!!! I then went to Mankato and spent some time with people dear to my heart. On New Years day Melissa was taking me back to Westbrook to meet up with Les and Jonathon so that we could head back south. On our way we spun out and ended up in the ditch. Thank the Lord for a trucker who stopped and pushed us out. I'm not going to lie it was really good to be back in the warm no snow south!!!

So I've been back for about a week now... It has been good to be back in a routine of things. I think I made the decision that I am made for the south and will more than likely not move back to the freezing cold midwest. There are so other exciting things going on but I will save that for another post! So here I am in my math class, ready to home and go on a bike ride (oh yeah I got a new bike!) and enjoy the 75 degree weather!

Christmas...

Christmas is two weeks away... and yet I continue to pretend like it is not the holiday season, because then I don't have to relive the pain of Christmas past. The two hardest days of the year, every year, are Christmas and April 5th, my birthday. Here I am, less than 2 weeks away from this day that I know will be a hard one. Today was the first day I allowed myself to cry and mourn over it. I sit here on my couch with tear stained cheecks and with a pain in my heart. How I long to forget the past, to forget the things that were said to me and about me on this once precious day in my life. There has not been a Christmas in over 7 years that I have not cried myself to sleep longing for something different. Longing to be loved by my family, longing to forget the pain.

With that said I do LOVE Christmas! I get to spend it each year with amazing people, we laugh and have a good time and they are the people in my life who truely love me. I look forward to spending this time with them each year, it's just afterwards when I'm all alone that my minds wanders back to the pain. I always think that this year is going to be different. But I know deep down that it will not be, and now as the tears have already begun to fall I know that it will not be. I will laugh, and I will cry but I will remember to rejoice for the things that I do have.

The dream...

Well here I sit in the Kansas City airport waiting to board my plane to head back to Texas. It has been an amazing weekend filled with fun times with old friends. I went back to Minnesota this weekend to attend a wedding of a good friend of mine.

So last Thursday I got on a plane and flew into Kansas City. Bob and Nat picked me up and we headed towards Des Moines to stay with Melissa. It was a fun reunion with people that I love dearly. I felt the cold air on my skin and enjoyed the sweet conservations with these friends. We got to Melissa's, ate ice cream and went to bed. Friday morning we headed toward the great state of Minnesota. Once there we went to Perkins and then to Caribu Coffee. For those of you who don't know Caribu is a coffee shop up in that neck of the woods. We spent the next few hours there doing homework (I know it was suspose to be a vacation but school is still in session!) Then Mandi picked Melissa and I up and Bob and Nat went to the Groom's supper. We went shopping to get wedding presents (I know, I know waiting till the last minute! I did much better than I am doing with Em's present though which is ALMOST done! I'll get it to them soon, only a few *6* months late!)

After that we met up with Lindsey and went back to Mandi's where we played an amazing game of Girl Talk. It is so funny how I, as a 26 year old woman can revert back to 11 when playing this game! Oh how I LOVE it! We went to bed way to late and woke up way to early. We went to Macy's to get makeovers before the wedding. Since the wedding was at 11:00 am we had to be a Macy's by 8:45 am! We got our makeovers and headed to the church. As we got outside we realized it had begun to snow. It was beautiful!

Well we got to the church, said Hi to Joshua and sat down. What a blessing it was to be able to witness Joshua marry his bride Rose. It was a beautiful wedding (except when Joshua's sister passed out... that was a little crazy!) The Barta wedding was VERY different from the wedding I have been dreaming about for 26 years but yet beautiful and perfect for them! It was so fun to be surrounded by people so dear to my heart! I do love how weddings bring us all back together! We were released from the wedding at 2:45 and from there braved the snow to go to Joel's for the day.

It was such a sweet time to spend with friends I haven't seen in such a long time! It was a good time. It was hard for me at times, just as it is always hard for me to be in a large group of people but I made it though and am thankful for the time I had with these people. What a fun time!

It's crazy to think that I am all grown up! All my friends are getting married, my other friends are showing up pregnant I'm going to be 27 this year. It so crazy! This is not what I thought my life would look like at 27 but yet I am blessed by so many things! I do dream of the day when it's going to be my turn!

It really IS a small world...

Walt Disney was correct when he said it is a small world after all! I am continually amazed by how many connections there are with people. I would not be surprised if it is true that everyone is separated by 7 degrees. This weekend I had another small world experience and I'm very excited about it.

So I was on Facebook on Friday going to leave my friend Kai a message. Kai is a sweet friend that I met at new staff training in the summer of '06. We bonded over the 6 weeks we spent in Orlando and realized that we were both from Minnesota. During support raising we were able to spend some time together and encourage one another. I was leaving her a message to see if she was going to be home at Christmas time. I was hoping that we would be able to find some time to get together. Well as I was leaving her a message I noticed that the person that left a message below me was from someone in the Dallas/Fort Worth network. It said something about Kai coming to visit her. As I looked closer I realized that this was the wife of Chris the missions pastor at my church, the pastor that I had just met, the pastor that I'm going to Thailand with in March! It was crazy! I saw Chris at church yesterday and had some questions about Thailand. I then told him about our connection. He said that Kai was infact coming to visit and that he and his wife would love to have me over for supper one night. What a fun connection!

I am constantly amazed at how small the world is after all. It seems that we always have a fun story of meeting so and so who knows so and so. I do love the moment of Ah-ha I know that person too! I'm excited to spend time with a sweet friend this week, someone who will be in town due to this fun connection.

On a similar note within the next two weeks I will be seeing so many of my dear friends from back home and I am EXCITED! I'm flying out next Thursday to Kansas City, from there I will drive with Bob and Natalie to Des Monies to pick up Melissa and then on our way Minneapolis. I'm excited to see so many of the people so dear to my heart! It's crazy how much a person can miss people!