So many things to do and so little time

Well, I think that this will be a post full of a whole bunch of things. Fun things, happy things, and sad things.

Communication with Technology
First of all I must say when I get home I feel so useless, it doesn't really matter what it is that I am coming home from, as long as I have been gone for any amount of time I feel like I spend my life catching up on everything... but it seems as though I catch up with technology not with life. I spend so much time on my computer, checking emails, looking at the pictures my friends have put up, reading through blogs, checking the news, looking at webpages, downloading pictures, charging my ipod. It all just throws itself on top of me, especially when I am coming back from someplace where I am completely away from technology, and then... I sit here and soak myself in it again. It makes me feel very empty sometimes, and yet here I am writing on more technology, my blog.

Outpost 007
Next I guess would be camp, I'm home and extremely tired, but re-couping. We got home Saturday around noon and then Joy, Dad and I went sailing the rest of the day. Then on Sunday I was gone pretty much all day so, consequently I didn't wake up until around 10:30 today. Camp was amazing though. Outpost in my opinion is the best camp at Calvin Crest, as long as you can brave the dirt, hiking and mosquitos. It was an awesome week. A little challenging being as we had some boys that were a bit rough and did a lot of fighting, but that changed a lot by the end of the week. There was a lot of growth for the kids I think, it was beautiful to watch them change in such a short amount of time, and I pray that when they go home that they won't change back. We did lots of hiking, swimming, hanging out, playing cards, singing, getting bit by mosquitos, sleeping in the dirt, and just having fun. We had a great trip up to Iron lakes on thursday, a great hike in and some lunch then swimming, diving, swimming, diving. It was beautifully clear as usual and just a little bit of snow still up at the top of the mountain. Gorgeous. Pictures will be up later today methinks. I was a little bit worried about our group being as they basically all came with Trinity (only 6 weren't) but it was pretty good. Everyone became great friends and not everyone that came with Trinity actually go to to church there so they still got to hang out with new friends. I was surprised by the group too, there wasn't much complaining, or at least not as much as I thought there would be (there is quite a bit of hiking). I would definately put this week as my best experience being a counselor at Calvin Crest so far. Yup, yup, all in all a great week.

Gymnastics
Well, apparently my toe is doing better. It got a little bit sore on some of the hikes at Calvin Crest but it didn't really hurt so I think it's doing good. I did my first round-off yesterday that I have done in almost 5 weeks I think it is now. That made me incredibly excited because I have completely missed gymnastics even though I've been doing it a lot I haven't been able to tumble at all. Hmmm... yes, makes me very happy. I have 12 days until my first gymnastics competition. Well, it's not really a meet, it's only the practice meet, but I'm still really nervous about it because I have been gone for a week, and haven't done my floor routine for five weeks, and I still can't vault, but all shall be well. Hopefully.

A philosophy on photography
Well, recently as I was looking at some pictures it struck me that I think of some people who take pictures as just that, people who take pictures, and others as photographers. I haven't quite decided what the difference is yet though. I think part of it has to do with taking pictures because it looks cool, or taking pictures to capture beauty. The other part of it is how many pictures they take. But, I must say that its hard for me to enjoy some places without my camera. THat's why I made it a point not to carry my camera around at Ashram, I needed to just get the imaginary picture frame out of my head and enjoy life without thinking about how my life would look in a picture. Yeah, I don't know if that made sense to anyone, but that's ok if it doesn't.

The Blessings of Life
I have been struggling a lot in the past year and a half or so with the concept of death. I don’t know if there really is a way to completely understand death, even if you have seen it first hand, because we can never know what it is to die… cuz then we’d be dead. There are very few people who have ever been dead and come back to life, and I am not one of them, so I really don’t know what it’s like. It seems as though the degenerate nature of our bodies has only in recent years become something real. I know that my mind cannot grasp the reasons, though there are many, that there cannot be an eternity here on earth, or even that there cannot be a few more years, a few more months… a few more minutes. Yet the pain lingers on, forever as it seems. Maybe that’s how it supposed to be, I don’t know. But my heart still breaks when I look at those I love and see that they are slowly slipping, becoming older, forgetting.

Well... I think that's it for now. I love you all and miss you lots and lots too.

Well, if that's how it goes

Bethany: I'm going to walk you to your car tonight for once
Laralyn: but... but your the girl...

Followed of course by some, wow, that isn't quite how that was supposed to sound, etc. Yeah, that one produced a few laughs

Extra Crispy

Well, a beautiful day of sailing and hanging out with some awesome people. I have come back just a little bit red-er than when I left... Somehow I managed to forget to put sunscreen on my shoulders and the upper part of my back, I don't know how it happened. Other than that it was pretty non-eventfully. Some sailing, some rowdy Jr. Highers, some rowdy (is that how you spell that?) adults, lots of water, some wind, and lots of nectarines. Yum! And then lots of little kids that I hung out with at the gymnastics fun night after our sailing trip was done. All in all, a good day.

(Outpost is next week, and I am so stoked!)

On the Nature of Stuff

I really don’t like stuff, I really don’t like things, but what I really don’t like is that we have so many things that we put them away in boxes and forget that they exist, when so many other people could hold all of their belongings in one hand. Stuff really bugs me and yet, I don’t bother to get rid of any of it. So, today I am starting with clothes, and if I never get further than that, at least I got that far.

Gah!

I hate calling people, this is because I have phone-o-phobia, for those of you who don't know what that is, it's an irrational fear of talking on the phone. (note this is different from phonophobia which would be the irrational fear of sound) Though it's not as much talking on the phone, though it is a bit of that as well, but more of calling people. It makes me ridiculously nervous and also makes me shake. Which is why I am the wrong person to have the job of calling lots of Jr. Highers to tell them we are going sailing on Friday. Anyway, just thought I'd share that. (and if you are a Jr. Higher, you should come sailing with us)

Happy Happy Happy!!!

Kelsey is home!!! This is all very exciting, hmmm, I am just generally really happy right now, well, and tired, but that's normal. Yay that Kelsey is home!!!!

I miss thee my friends

I didn't realize how much I miss hanging out with all of the awesome debate people until I was on google talk for a while and talked to Chris for a bit, and I was totally just like "why does there even have to be a summer?" because then you don't get to hang out with your friends as much... well, I guess in one sense you do, because you can hang out with them for extended periods of time (for instance a whole day, or even week) but you don't see them as often. I guess that must be it. So, this is just to say, I miss everyone!

Funny Conversation

Background: Mom and I are at the kitchen table playing Magic the Gathering

TV Commercial: some advertisement about chronic constipation

Bethany: "Mom do you have chronic constipation?"
Mom: ::looking hard at her cards:: ::pause:: I thought that was a card!

Well, maybe you just had to have been there.

Ashram, Freedom, and Injuries

Well, as usual, Ashram was simply amazing, and as usual I am also injured. We shall start and end with the injuries (i.e. we shall go chronologically).

So, it all started 13 days ago (wednesday) when I was at gymnastics and rather forcefully exerted the muscles in my leg in order to propel my body into the air in a graceful split leap... unfortunately instead I very ungracefully propelled my leg foot straight into the ground causing my big toe on my right foot to move up into the joint as well as pulling several little ligamints, etc. which just happen to be important if you want to be able to walk without pain. So we went to the doctor Saturday morning and he said it probably wasn't broken but we should get x-rays, which wasn't quite possibly being as we were leaving for camp the next day. So Sunday afternoon we left for Ashram not knowing weather or not I had a broken foot, but heck, all they can do is buddy tape your toes right?

Well, I must say that Ashram was amazing. It was such a different year, but it was full of Joy (yes, Joy was there, which made me very happy, for you see we are both so busy that even though we live in the same house we never really get to hang out) Amy, Rachael, and Eric weren't there which was a big bummer, but there were a ton of Youth people that hadn't been there before which was pretty cool... although for the first day or two it was kinda weird simply because they didn't quite get how things usually go, but they caught on quick. It was such a blessing just to be able to hang out with everyone, especially Bill. He is the most awesomest guy I know... yes, I think that's a true statement. He is such a blessing in my life, and I love him a lot. So I hung out with him during work hour, and not during work hour, and we exchanged lots of hugs, lots and lots of hugs, for you see he was having back problems before he came to camp, and then once he got there he was stung by yellow jackets five times, and then got multiple spider bites, so he needed lots of hugs (as of course I did as well, even though none of that happened to me) So lots of hanging out with really awesome people, and I got to hang out with Jim!!!! Which was especially exciting because I haven't seen him since last year.

It amazes me how you can see people for so little time and yet be bonded so close to them. For instance miss Sarah, I have not spent even 6 months of my life with her, but we are such good friends even though we see eachother only one week of the whole year. Or take Jim for instance, I have seen him two weeks out of my entire life, and yet we are still great friends. Ok, back to where we were now.

So I got to hang out with good friends, and make lots of new friends. Our group was a whole lot bigger than we thought it was going to be which presented some problems, so it ended up that we split in half for our prayer groups so Sarah and I ended up leading one while Lindsay led the other, which was really cool. Even though we really didn't do anything it was really cool to know that Lindsay trusted Sarah and I to do that. It's always such a blessing to be able to pray over people and to be prayed over. I wish that our church was more like Ashram, not in the laying hands on, etc. but in the just being trustworthy and being real. We don't always feel safe to share, but at Ashram, I know that it is safe, I can share whatever I want to, and I know that I won't be laughed at and I also know that it won't be passed around to everyone's friends.

It was kinda a hard week because I couldn't do everything that I normally do: No diving board, no volleyball game, no running, but it was cool anyway. I gave my foot a rest, iced it during the evangelist hour, and tried not to do too much to it (being as I still didn't know if it was broken... well, and it hurt too) It was really nice to just spend time talking to people, I hang out with people a lot, but not very much of that hanging out includes talking. It's because you see people more often so you don't have as much to catch up on, yet I talked about many things this week that most people don't even think of/bother to ask about. Anyway, I hung out with Tim a lot, who was the son of the music leader. He had been playing guitar for about two months so I played guitar with him a little bit and we ended up writing a song and playing it in the talent show. It was really cool to see him start to open up. When we first got there he was definately the loud obnoxious kid, who really didn't want to be there, but that changed, and at the end of God really touched his heart, and he is now a child of the King... and what a fire he has to go and change his world.

Overall it was just an awesome week. God really moved through everyone to open my life up to the power of God's incredible power to heal. Ashram is my family, and as my family they look out for me, pray for me, keep me accountable, hang out with me, and just love me. I am so thankful to Lindsay for staying up with me and talking to me and letting me cry and praying for me. I'm sure she didn't get very much sleep because of me, but I really believe that through her and Bert the power of Christ has set me free. I can't go it alone, I know that, but I've been shown that the past no longer applies. I have been forgiven, and there is no temptation that is to big for Christ to help me through. So, everything ended as usual at pizza Friday afternoon with me crying because I didn't want to leave, but there is such a reason for that. I don't want to step away from the people that mean so much to me (and here I go crying again) My life has been so impacted by the people at the Ashram and by the times that God has so clearly made himself known to me there, that I don't want to leave it... but hopefully I will see them all again next year, and some of them I will see before that. So until then, I will miss them all every day of the year.

Now back to my injuries ;-) Well, we got x-rays of my foot friday after we got home and just got the verdict tonight that it's not broken, which is good because that means no cast, but is bad because that also means that it's a really bad sprain (which can be worse than a break) I also had the greatest adventure ever on monday, well, the second one is, but the first one was preaty awesome too. So I was doing a kip on bars and my hand slipped off and I ended up fall on the bar on my side really hard (it left a pretty cool mark) and then here comes the adventure. I am doing tap swings on the high bar (if you don't know what that is, basically your swinging on a bar six and a half-ish feet off the ground where the whole point is to swing and get your body basically horizontal and then swing back and do it again) so what happened was I didn't stay hollow so my hands weren't on the bar far enough and I ripped off, flying into the low bar (have some nice bruises on my legs from that) and than proceeded to have a nice hug with the floor. Yeah, it didn't really hurt that bad, although it was kinda hard to sit down cuz of my legs, but it freaked everyone out. So, that was my injuries, Ashram, and my adventure... I think that's all for now :-)

We've eaten here life giving bread

I have been truly blessed and freed... more to come when I'm not half asleep from exhaustion.