Of a Good Idea

I wish I had one. I wish I had a genius plan to take on the world and impact the culture, but I don't. I could just be the modern, female version of Jack Kerouac. I've got the road trip part accomplished, now I just need to write a few books. I think I might be finally ready to blog about this trip. Although keep in mind that I'm still processing through a lot of it.

I didn't realize it at the time, but over the course of my Axis journey the Lord was doing something big in my heart. Most of it's not shareable unless I really love you, but here's part of it, so feel privileged.

I've come to a disgusting realization. I live my life for me. Dang it. I live from adventure to adventure and I get bored fast. Once I'm bored, I move on, regardless of the relationships I'm leaving behind. Is it a problem that I don't miss people? That I'm so focused on the here and now and the people in direct contact with me that I drop the former ones? I think maybe it is. "Here, I'll bless you and love you today. But don't get too attached cause I'll be gone soon." Subconsciously, this is my thought process.

For two weeks I challenged kids to think about what breaks their hearts and baffles their minds. But I wasn't asking myself that question. I was thinking about what would make life the most fun for me. I was thinking that YWAM sounded awesome cause I could see a foreign country. I was thinking that I wanted to live in Colorado Springs because I'm free and I can. Why else was I so upset about those nine units that didn't transfer?

There are things that break my heart and baffle my mind, but what am I gonna do about them? I have no idea. But I do know this...I will no longer live from adventure to adventure, enduring the boring times in-between. It's basically a question of selfishness...I can't pretend that I'm not, or that I'll ever be truly selfless. But I'm determined to try.

I think I've said before that when you're in the center of the Lord's will you start to see your flaws in an uncomfortably clear light. But you also get to change. Now I just need a good idea.

P.S. I realize that I didn't give any details about the actual trip in this post. But that can maybe happen next post.

Here's a cool barn for you to look at.

Of Joining the Circus

It's always been one of my dreams to pack up a red Volkswagen Bus with a team of people and live. I never really specified or cared about the "how" of living. I just like the idea of a nomadic life. Well that's pretty much how I've been living for the past two weeks.

Two weeks ago tomorrow, four Axis team members and two interns squished into a van full of equipment, luggage, and one bongo drum. Then drove a total of 20 hours and spoke at 4 different schools.

I'm frustrated right now that I didn't update this blog sooner because there's so much that happened that I'm not remembering or that won't seem to flow...

I guess first off I should tell you about the barn. I slept in a huge Amish barn, in a horse stall. On hay. Ok, just kidding about the hay. It was a fully furnished barn, with a kitchen. But it was still a barn. Here's kinda what that looked like.

This is the loft...

A cozy fire..

An aerial view of the cozy fire...

An aerial view of the kitchen from the loft...

It kinda smelled funny, but our host lady made the best food I ever eaten in my life, and the bed was comfortable. They owned two Buffalo just for the heck of it. That night, they took us to see the school play, Heidi. Being from California, and thus, a theatre snob...I will not talk about the play except to say that the kids were quite talented and entertaining.

Now I'm lying on a bed in a house owned by the principal of a boarding school in the middle of South Dakota. I expected that a boarding school would be awful, but the kids are actually really awesome. I had lunch with a 7th grader named Jayden who was the happiest child I have ever seen. He cleared my plate for me and could carry on an adult conversation. Ok, well it was more like a "what's your favorite movie" kind of conversation, but still, if I ever have a child I hope it's just like that kid.

Here are some highlights:

1. A four year old girl named Rebekka singing "I like to move it move it" to Jared...

2. Running with a host named Tom...

3. Mary's lasagna...

4. Seeing a buffalo up close...

5. Eating dinner with German speaking Hutterites while our German (Kristina) wasn't even there...

6. Pillow talk with Hope...

7. Playing basketball with students...

8. Living from town to town, talking about God, and Truth, and pouring into kid's lives.

9. Being a nomad and impacting my culture.

10. Learning to trust God when it was really hard.

Of a Beautiful Memory...

Sioux Falls is the town in which we are speaking this week. Tonight we went bowling with our host family. I'm rather inconsistent when it comes to bowling. I never know what to tell people when they ask if I'm good at it. It truly depends on the day. Today I was horrible. On the way home from the alley tonight I noticed the "Sioux Falls" sign on the freeway and it made my mind soar back to my childhood in the best way. "Sioux" is a word that is very special to me and I shall tell you why.

When I was a kid, for some reason I was into American Indians in a big way. I wanted to be one. I devoured every book ever written on the subject and I could tell you every detail about every tribe. "Sioux" is significant in my life because for the longest time I pronounced it "Swix." Until the day my mom made me read one of my Indian books out loud and corrected my pronunciation, that tribe to me was "Swix." Jared suggested that I share that story when introducing myself in our presentation, but then decided that it might sound racist. I don't know, if someone got up and spoke in front of a group with me in the audience and confessed that when they were a child they had a burning desire to be a little Finnish kid who braided their hair in circles and ate lutefisk, I'd take it as a compliment. But that's just me.

Let me tell you more about this Indian obsession. I had legit buckskin pants with tassels. Ok actually they were probably polyester, but in my head they were buckskin. And I would either wear moccasins or be barefoot. So actually, I didn't own moccasins, thus I was mostly barefoot. In my mind it was also not appropriate for Indians to wear shirts. So I didn't. On a good day, my mom would also let me wear war paint. She would braid my hair into two braids and I had three different feathers to choose from to stick in the back of my braids.

I was really depressed for the longest time that I had blonde hair and blue eyes, unlike my best friend, Lauren, who was everything an Indian should look like. It made my little heart heavy that I couldn't accurately portray the appearance of an American Indian. However, as long as I wasn't looking at myself in all my paleness, I WAS an American Indian, and I was fierce. I killed deer and cooked the meat over the fires that I started by rubbing two sticks together really hard. I had a legit teepee with a hole in the top so the smoke from my fire could get out. I lived on a prairie with rolling hills, or in a deep forest with lots of trees. My favorite tribe of all time was, and probably still is, Hopi. I just liked their houses. And if I remember correctly they were pretty friendly.

That one word seriously sent me so deeply into Indian land that I stayed there for about two hours, living happily in the vivid memory of a very real alternate reality. Those times were so fun. I really wish I was eight again so I could get dressed up in my pants and war paint and disappear into my other world. I remember the day my mom told me I had to start wearing shirts. I cried. But then she made me a "buckskin" dress which I found to be rather girly and not at all fierce. But I did love that she beaded the tassels. It just changed my game a little. I became an Indian princess who was wild and brave and went hunting with the boys.

I don't really have a point to this post. I just thought that perhaps you all would find my world as fascinating as I did.

OF Thoughts of a Small Town

I'm in that cute little coffee shop I told you about, again. This cute little coffee shop in this tiny little town. While we were here, the local Christian school girl's basketball team went to State Championships. The whole town was impacted by this, it seems. There are signs and posters everywhere. Everyone knows everyone else and their mom here. I feel as though I've stepped out of real life and been able to take a deep breath. A breath I didn't know I needed.

I have never spent a significant amount of time in a small town before and let me tell you what I found in this one. Impeccable hospitality; the school we spoke for housed us in a vacant home stocked with snacks and blow up mattresses for everyone. In the morning we awoke to find a Dutch woman cooking breakfast for us in the kitchen. Awesome. When we stayed at this coffee shop for hours the owner made us cookies and let us stay after closing. She just hollered from behind the counter to us, "If you want anything, help yourself! And if you leave just go out the back and lock up." Every meal was provided for us. Either it appeared in our refrigerator magically, or we were told to put it on the school's tab at whatever restaurant we happened to go to.

I met a woman from Sacramento and she told me why she loves living in Egerton rather than Sacramento. She knows everyone, and she can let her kids run around the whole town knowing they'll be okay. "It's not that there aren't bad ones here, but you know who they are, and so do your kids and you just know to avoid them." We were informed upon arriving that no one bothered to lock their doors. It just simply isn't necessary. When we rented movies at two different places, neither of the people renting to us bothered to put our names in the computer. They knew we weren't from here and so it would be pointless to do so. They also trusted us to bring the movies back.

Quite frankly, I'm touched by how beautiful a picture of community this is. It has to be what Heaven is going to be like someday. I'm sure there are things about small towns that aren't desirable, gossip for example. But I get the feeling that this community would do anything for one of it's own, the basketball team being evidence of this. The socialist in me loves this (don't take that as a political standing, cause it's not). I'm simply stating that community is a beautiful thing, and when a community is small enough that everyone has a friend on the basketball team and thus half the town disappears for away games, it fills my heart with satisfaction, maybe even joy.

The thing to note about this community is that it is based around Christ. It almost makes me tear up seeing this. This is what it's supposed to look like, people.

We had a conversation around the table last night. Christina asked what people find to do here. David responded that they probably do what we did, sit around the table and laugh till our stomachs' hurt, tease and analyze one another. In short, they build relationships.

My thoughts on driving in here were cynical, "How boring this simple life must be." My thoughts on leaving are that after I've gone everywhere and seen everything, I'd like to live somewhere just like this. Where my future kids can run around town free of fear. Where everyone has everyone else's back. Where relationships are more important than our computers and cell phones.

Of a Legit Road Trip

I'm currently sitting in an adorable local coffee shop in Edgerton Minnesota where the coffee is amazing, the wifi is free and the atmosphere is quaint. I was a loser and didn't bring my camera cord so I can't show you any pictures till I get back. Which is a bummer, but you'll all have to live with it.

Pretty much I'm super tired. I don't really perform well when I'm super tired and when I don't perform well I tend to think that I'm not very cool cause my jokes get really lame and my thoughts prefer to stay in my head instead of coming out my mouth. It's quite aggravating.

I've discovered that when you walk in the center of the Lord's will you start seeing all the stuff about yourself that you aren't proud of. In this case, I realized that I'm a huge people pleaser and easily intimidated. When intimidated I get paralyzed. This is unfortunate and God needs to kick it.

On top of all this, I'm having super weird dreams. About an hour ago, I dreamed that I was in trouble with someone, so I dove into a canal of skittles to escape them. While in there I found out my house was on fire, and I also found a sick baby who was writhing in pain. I was on the phone with 911 when David woke me up. OK. OK. I have no. Idea. What that's about. It was a profoundly ugly baby for the record.

However, sitting here in this coffee shop, laughing at David making fun of us for our bad public speaking habits, being online, drinking coffee, and thinking deeply has been rather therapeutic. I know that the Lord is working on me, and I know that a breakthrough will come. I also know that He clearly has a reason for me being here, otherwise He would not have orchestrated it the way He did. I also know that it's my job to surrender to Him and trust that even though I'm not the most amazing public speaker right now, He'll help me grow, He'll help me do the best I can.

P.S. I further realize that I have a problem. It's not ok that in order to relax I have to get on facebook. It's so bad. I went with two days without internet and I was so stressed out. This is so not cool with me. I'm not sure how to remedy this...feel free to leave ideas.

Of Nasty School.

So guess what world? I love to learn stuff...mostly so I can sound smart. Here's what I don't love. School. The endless sitting, the homework with deadlines and the group projects and the stress. Ugh. So you can imagine my joy when I was done and I didn't ever have to go back unless I wanted to.

I had glorious dreams of my school free future. I was gonna work at Starbucks and drink endless amounts of coffee and write music and perform and do a play. Then today my world ended. My school (Chico State) decided that I didn't actually graduate. My gorious dreams came crashing down upon my head, and when your world crashes down on your head you get a horrific headache which makes it hard to listen to the president of all of Focus on the Family speak. Even when he says the word "testicles."

So, fortuanately, I bounce back quickly and I fight for myself. I made a billion calls to my school and got transfered a trillion times until finally I got ahold of one my teachers. This particular teacher happens to love me, (It always makes me wonder when teachers love me, if I was a teacher I'd hate me) so that's good. She seems to think I graduated. I seem to think so too. So this is encouraging.

Then God came over and we had a little talk, and He reminded me that it's all cool cause He's sovereign and stuff and I don't need to worry. He's taken care of me in such big ways before, and He took care of me and was faithful in little stuff THAT DAY, so why was I freaking out? Worst case senario, I go back to school for a semester and take three really fun music classes. I don't even know why that upset me as much as I did, you'd think I'd be excited to learn more music stuff. And upper division music classes aren't even boring...and plus they're hands on, which is how I learn anyway. Best case senario, Chico State screwed up and will send me my diploma soon.

Thus, I'm ok now, the Lord is good, and I don't need to worry about my life cause I'm not actually in control. Lesson learned.

Oh, here's a picture to add spice to this depressing post.

This is Gwendolyn. My deer friend.

Of Needing to be Kicked Out of the Broadmoor...

I made this. :)
Retreeeeat! This past friday the lovely female staff at FLI organized a woman's retreat for us. During break we walked over to the Broadmoor hotel and probably should have gotten kicked out for our shenanigans...observe.
Scrubby yet proper.

I kid you not, the cute little old woman taking our picture goes "One, two, three...saaaay SEX!"
Artsyness.

This is our friend Jeeves the Bellhop, and his...Bell...thing.
Possibly the coolest picture I have ever taken.Uhoh! Alchol!

Flag of Colorado, I salute you.
Retreat may have been a little TOO fun.
LT had a lil' problem with her nose and needed Caitlin's sunglasses to use as a mirror.
All in all, it was a good day. We worshiped, we prayed, we ate Panera (which is my fav in case you were wondering) and God did good things in my heart. I got vision numero 2 since I've been here. That was super exciting I must say. Thus, I left refreshed. See?

Of Peter

If I was a Bible person I'd be Peter. Passionate, impulsive, kinda feisty...and very distracted. I'm always checkin' out those waves. And then I drown! And I oscillate between freaking out and dwelling in God's presence, and I'm getting queazy. I'm not really ready to get back in the boat though, cause walking on water is freaking rad.

Before I left Chico, one of the words my mentors gave me was that I'd be teaching almost as much as I was learning. This week I prayed with three different people and God used my story to help free them from fear of man. I'm not saying I'm amazing or anything, I've just been there. I mean, I've been so afraid of what people think that it becomes paralyzing. Literally. God used George and Lori to help free me from that, and now he's using me to lead others to that freedom as well. It's so awesome!! I just did a little happy dance thing cause God is faithful and rad and renewing! I love this!

OH! And I spent pretty much all day Friday being a crowd control person for Dr. Dobson's photo shoot thingy.

Here's my cute roommates and me being all cute for Dr. Dobson's last day.

We were so. Tired.

Oh look my cute roommates again.

Michael and Austin pretty much took 700 hundred pictures of the Dobsons.

The end of the line. Finally. It took three and a half hours.
Lizzie was a legit security guard with her lil' radio.
The Dobsons saying hi to someone I don't know.

Annnd...then we got our turn. Woot!

Tha-tha-tha-that's all for now folks!