The Back...

So I thought I would write a little update about the whole back situation. It's been about 6 weeks now since I injured my back at work. They had first said that it was a sprain and would heal in a few weeks. Well now six weeks later they have determined that is not true. I had an MRI earlier this week and it showed that I have a bulging disc in my lower back that is pressing on the nerve... Something someone my age should not have. They have referred me to a Orthopedist to see what he can do to help me. My doctor does not think they will have to do surgery but is not sure what they will do. I'm hoping to get in to see the Orthopedist early next week. From the research I have done (which is not much) there is not a whole lot they can do for me...

It has been a roller coaster ride. Some days are better than others but mostly I'm just in pain. They have me on some pain killers but I pray that my life won't be lived on pain killers. I was talking to someone the other day about all of my ailments I've had over the past few years... when can a girl get a break?!?! For the most part I am doing really ok with this one though. I have not allowed my heart to go places it has been before with past things. One thing I am totally thankful for is a diagnosis! No more of this mystery sickness, where we're not sure what is wrong, you are having a 1 in a million reaction and you are a freak of nature stuff! So anyhow that is the story... life is getting back to normal for me. It's just more of a painful normal. I'm having a trial run a work on Monday to see if I am able to go back to work finally. Year 26 has been a rough year for me! Maybe now that it is almost over 27 will treat me better...

Thailand...

So I just returned from 10 days in a country I have come to love! It was an amazing trip that I will never be able to fully put into words. I will try to give you a glimpse into my time there...

We arrived in Chaing Mai at 12:30 am after being on planes and in airports for over 26 hours. We loaded into a truck and headed to Care Corner Orphanage (CCO), our home for the week. In the morning we had our first Thai breakfast then headed over to met the children. I didn't realize that day how much I would fall in love with these sweet faces! That day we were able to do some dentist work on the children and did a lesson on creation with the rest of the children. It was fun to be able to meet and interact with the 70ish kids at the orphanage.

I would love to introduce you to three people who will forever be inprinted on my heart. Net, Nung and Ladee.

Net is a 13 year old boy who is HIV+. He has been at CCO for 3 years. Net lost both of his parents to AIDS. After his parents passed away he was sent to go live with his grandmother. His grnadmother did not have the resources to take care of him and sent him to live at CCO. Net was very sick when he got to CCO. He was in the last stage of HIV and was not expected to live very long. Becasue of a new drug that they are using at CCO Net is completely healthy today. Net and I connected very quickly. He is such a sweet boy. During the chapel services he would come and sit with me and hold my hand and snuggle up to me. Throughout the week I realized that Net could speak pretty good english. I completely fell in love with this sweet boy!

Nung is a 10 year old girl who is HIV+. She has been at CCO since she was very young. She was found at a hospital with nowhere to go. She is very healthy and has such a sweet spirit! She is a girl who is full of love. She loves hugs and holding hands. She is a girl who is in love with the Lord and has a love for the scripture. She went with us to a Buddhist temple and prayed with us.

Ladee is an amazing women. She is 22 years old and has lived at the orphangae since she was in 2nd grade. Her family lives in a tribal area of Thailand. She has 7 brothers and sisters and her family could not take care of her and sent her to live at CCO. She has one of the most amazing stories I have ever heard! You will have to ask me about it and I will share it with you... Ladee is studying English at the Univeristy and wants to become a teacher. She spent the week translating for us. I was able to spend some time getting to know her and she is AMAZING!

Now as far as some of the things we got to do...

At the orphanage we taught 3 lessons and did some dentist stuff. We basically just spent a lot of time hanging out with the children. Spending time loving these sweet children. The orphanage was an amazing place. There is a boys dorm, a girls dorm and The Rainbow Home which houses this the HIV+ children. Ricky Tan (who runs the orphanage) and his wife Laywa are amazing!

We got to do and see many things... We went and taught english to a group of Thai police. That was a fun experience. We taught them different sayings in order to give directions in english. That day we also went to a local school to teach english. We were able to teach them how to introduce themselves in english. We then got to present the gospel using the Good News bracelet. It was so much fun! It was amazing to see how the kids responded to the Gospel!

One of the experiences that will forever be imprinted in my mind and heart was our trip to the Buddhist Temple. Before we left Ricky prepared us by leading us in worship. He then encouraged us to go into the temple with a quite heart and listen for the Lord's leading. He said that we should go into the temple rejoicing the Lord Jesus Christ. As we went to the temple you could feel the oppression in the place. We went in and sang hymns, read scripture and praised the Lord! It was such a sweet and powerful time. We then met two nuns who we were able to share the Gospel with. Then we got to meet Madam Duang Kum, what an amazing woman! She is 72 years old and has been a Buddhist nun for over 20 years. Within the past year she has accepted the Lord Jesus as her Savior. We were able to talk and pray with her and encourage her in her walk with the Lord. It was a very sweet time!

We drove 5 hours to Petchabun refugee camp. What an experience. We were only allowed to go in for about an hour but we were able to pass out some supplies we brought and were able to encourage the people there. They only let out about 1000 of the 8000 people of the camp. It was such a powerful experience. As we left we were all in tears. These people were suffering so bad and there was not much we could do. I pray that I will not forget what I saw there and I would work to give these people a voice.

Our fun day consisted of riding elephants and bamboo river rafting! It was so much fun to do these things! What an experience!!! We also got to go to some street markets and finished our time at the night bazzar. It was so good to do some of the typical Thai things.

So there really is so many stories I would love to share with you and maybe one day I will be able to share even more. What an amazing experince!

Derek, Beth, Starbucks and tears....

I had a very sweet weekend and wanted to share a bit of my heart with you...

I was sitting in Starbucks Saturday morning armed with my book, my Bible, my journal, my caramel white mocha and my ipod. I didn't even see it coming but by the time I left my face was tear streaked and my heart was rejoicing. I had one of those sweet moments with the Lord where I just knew life would be ok.

It has been a hard couple of weeks for me. I have not been to work in over 3 weeks due to a back injury. I couldn't even get out of the house for about 2 of those. I have been struggling through some hard stuff not know what was the point of it all. I found out that someone very dear to me tried to take his life in December. I was frustrated at how much pain there is in the world. How Satan is so powerful and can take a hold of people lives. I was tired of feeling unworthy of being loved. I was believing lies and believing that I would always be a victim. That my victimization would haunt me for the rest of my life. I have hurt people in my life because I didn't think I could be loved and therefore pulled away from people.

As I sat at the table Saturday reading a book by Beth Moore called Jesus The One and Only I was reading about how big my God is and how much He truly loves me and wants me to live a life outside of the captivity of lies. I know that the enemy wants me to believe that I'm not worthy and he does a good job at it. I know that I have been being attacked, but on Saturday all I could hear was how I was worth fighting for. How much I am worth to this God that He will fight for my heart. At that point I was listening to Derek Webb and He was singing a song called I will repent. I began to weep as I repented my unbelief. I don't know how long I sat there weeping but I know that it was so good to lay my unbelief down. I felt such a joy come over me.

I love those sweet moments the Lord gives me where I can sit with Him and know that He is good!

The rest of the day was so very sweet to my heart. I was able to spend time with friends and felt as though I was able to truly love them well. I felt as though I was overflowing with love and wanted to love all those around me. We actually went to see Derek Webb in concert that night. It was so good. He did not sing I will repent (which is a good thing because I feel as though I may have lost it again... Crying in Starbucks is one thing, but at a concert is totally different!) It was a fun time to spend with people I love! I felt loved by these people in such a sweet way that night.

I do pray that the Lord will continue to give me an overflowing love that I can love those around me well. I pray that I can love those who are struggling and I pray that I can live in truth. I leave in 3 days for Thailand and I'm excited to see how the Lord uses this love over there. I'm excited to be out of my pit and able to be loved again and able to love others.

As a side note I just got new glasses... here is a picture!

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!