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 :-)