Prayers for those in Ike's Path

Those of you who have kept up with the blog for a while know about the two mission trips I have made to southwestern Louisiana. The first was almost a year ago, which is hard to believe. We were helping to build new houses with Habitat for Humanity. We met a nice man named Chester who was a great man to lead the project: good-humored, willing to teach, and excited about what he does.

The second time I went (in February of this year), we were disappointed to not get to work with CHester, but we had the privilege of working to repair damaged houses. We worked in Nick's house in Lake Charles and we worked on a trailer not too far off the coast in Cameron.

Ike was ad. The eye hit near Galveston/Houston, Texas, but the effects were felt even up here in St. Charles (many areas in the metro area are still flooded). It was total devestation to those not only in Texas, but also our friends in Louisiana. Chester's house -- his beautiful, expensive, "hurricane-proof" house was flooded. The original plan was for this current group (only four from our church this time, and not me sadly as I have student teaching) to go and help our friend clean his house, but authorities aren't even letting him to his house. So the four down there are helping out where needed. On monday and Tuesday, they worked in a church with no power. They also took a drive to examine the effects of Ike in the area. And... well... read for yourself...

We worked in a church for the 2nd day that did not have any power. It was like working in a oven!! The temps are in the low 90's today with high humidity! The church was not damaged too bad, just some sea water about 8 - 10 inches up the walls. We are working about 40 miles from the Gulf. After we where done working today we drove down to the Gulf and we can not describe the scene. Everything was gone!! We saw grass on the power lines that was on the top line of a 8 wire power line pole. Long ways up. We saw a house upside down in a canal that was about 30 miles from the coast. We saw thousands of dead fish from the salt water. We found what was left of a trailer house our church worked on last year. The only thing left was the steel frame that was bent like an s shape. Nothing else was left. We had a shrimp fishing boat sitting partly on the road and had to drive around it. It is soo hard to imagine the damage. Cameron LA is basically gone. We saw oil tanks that where pushed off their foundation by the wind. We saw oil tanks in the middle of fields with nothing within sight. After I get back I will post pictures, but the damage is unbelievable. The scary thing is we are sitting about 2-3 hours drive from Houston, and that is all we saw in the news about damage. This is suppose to be far enough away from the eye of the storm they are not suppose to have all this damage.

Please pray for those all of the Gulf region who were hit hard by Ike. To lose all of that is unfathomable to me, only because I have never experienced something of this magnitude personally. But the few people I have met down there are fighters, and as long as there is a home left, they will keep rebuilding. Pray some prayers of thanks for lives that were spared, but also pray some prayers of intercession for those who are now homeless, for the family who lived in the trailer we worked so hard on.

It's heartbreaking to hear about all of this damage. I know that it is all only "stuff" and our real treasure is not here, where rust and moth can claim, but in Heaven, but you can't help but have your heart ache for these people who have lost everything.

May God be with them. May God be with US.

What is Your Cardboard Testimony?

Was shown this video by my fellow high school youth leaders and I felt the urge to share it with you (whomever "you" are). It is a video from a sermon from Hillside Church. I don't know here Hillside is, or what the sermon was about, but it's emotional.



Remember that whoever you are now, wherever you've been, whatever you've done, God never fails to forgive. He can turn your life around.

My card would read "In abusive relationship for three years." "With God's help, I'm working through those issues and getting married to an amazing guy."

What would yours read? I'd love to know... leave a comment.

What a Summer.

I've finally found some time to just sit and write about my summer. Let me start by saying that this was the best. summer. ever. I loved everyone I worked with at camp; everyone became such a great team. I love working with a staff like that. And my kids!!! I miss every single one of them. My favorite part of working with my kids is that they're old enough to care about me, like, as a person, you know?? Like, the younger campers fall in lvoe with you 'cause you're fun and have a good personality, but the CITs can appreciate you for who you are. As a graduation present for me, the CIT 2s made a scrapbook for me of their 2 years as CITs and pictures of my other CIT groups as well as letters from each of them, basically talking about the impact I made on them over the past 2 years. It really meant a lot to me. Talk about an emotional good bye, LOL.

My new group of kids I tried to sort of detatch myself from camp and them since I was trying to set up leaving, but it didn't work, LOL. I got attached to those kids too and while I know they're in GREAT hands (love ya, Bunny!) it makes me so depressed to know that I won't get to watch them finish the program. There were some rocky moments in their bonding time, but in the end, I think they all have realized the beauty of this program -- the sisterhood that develops between the girls in the program.

The last couple of nights were emotional train wrecks for me. luckily, I had my friend Bluegrass right by my side int he same boat as me -- leaving after 6 years as staff and just as many as a camper. It's incredibly difficult to leave a place which means as much to you as camp meant to her and to me. Pre camp and banquet were amazing. Can you say karaoke? ha ha. The food was amazing, we had Bread Co. for breakfast, and we were done around 12. Yes, you read it right: 12. Last year we were finished around 2. But then the tears started all over again 'cause it was really good bye once we had our pay checks. If you're on Facebook, check out my camp albums for pictures.

After camp, we went to Chicago. God, i love that city. It was me, Jerome, and 3 friends from camp. We found a decently priced hotel north of the city and we did a lot of stuff while we were there: Second City, a boat tour, John Hancock, shopping on the Magnificent Mile, Navy Pier, Chinatown... Had a blast! I'll add pictures from that later, I promise.

American Idol auditions were on August 8 in Kansas City -- close enough for me to go. But I didn't. Why? 'Cause I had to start student teaching on the 11th and I had to meet my teacher before then. Yes, I chickened out AGAIN. Why do I keep doing that? Ha ha.

Student teaching, though, is going WONDERFUL. Like, better than I ever could have hoped or imagined. My host teacher is 100% willing to let me jump in and teach when I'm comfortable. I've already taken over Calendar, afternoon read-aloud, and most paper work. I'll take over spelling next week and content (social studies and science) soon after that. Everyone has said that student teaching is time consuming, and I have no dodubt that it is, but with the proper time management skills, I have no doubt that I'll do fine.

As far as wedding plans go, we have bridesmaids dresses!! We picked them out last weekend and we'll be buying them in about a month. One of my maids wants to lose quite a bit of wight before March, so we're waiting as long as we can before we order them. We're meeting with a photographer tomorrow afternoon to talk about possibly negotiating her prices. Our photographer is pregnant and due on March 6 (nice timing, right?? LOL), so we're back at square one. And, perhaps the best news ever: our reception is paid for!! out of the generosity of my mother and stepfather. Aren't they great??

Best. Race. Ever.

Short message 'cause it's late, but I just had to post on this swimming race because it was A-Mazing!!!

The 4x100 men's freestyle relay not only just barely won gold, but they OBLITERATED the world record. New WR is 3:08.24. France came in at 3:08.33. please note that that is .08 of a second. EIGHT ONE-HUNDREDTHS!!!! AND Lezak, the anchor, swam the fastest anchor split EVER. OMG. It was the best race I have ever watched.

Ever.

Rave over.

Don't Worry...

...I haven't forgotten about any of you. I got home from camp this past Saturday, then headed to Chicago Sun-Tues, met up with some girlfriends on Wed, registered at BBB with J on Thurs, and today I'm off to meet my host teacher and move in at school in addition to pricing stuff for tomorrow's garage sale with Jen tonight. HOPEFULLY I will get a breather soon to update you all (with pics!) about my summer.

Hopefully.

It's Been a Long Time...

I've been gone 7 weeks. I have 2 more weeks left. And that's it. I'm going to be a nervous wreck on the last night. But as much as I'm dreading the end, let me recap the beginning.

Precamp started May 31 -- a week earlier than normal, which was weird. I could tell right off that we mostly had a great staff. I knew a few would quit -- they always do and I can always tell who it's going to be -- but for the most part, everyone got along GREAT really quickly.

First session, my kids arrived just as if they'd never been gone. (Let me explaint he Counselor-in-Training program: they come for 4 weeks one summer and then return the following summer the first 4 weeks for the second part of the program.) They were loud and obnoxious, just like always, LOL. Those kids were NUTS!!! Let's see, what did we do first session... one of my girls showed up a week late, to the surprise of everyone there. She had made nationals in rowing and was originally told that she couldn't come a week late, but me and the assistant camp director worked it out and she was able to come -- but we didn't tell any of the other CITs except one who found out and everyone eas way surprised. It was pretty cool. Hmm... Some first session memories... Well, there's the game our sports specialist made up called TIOTT -- Ting it Off the Table -- which is basically like Washers only you try and hit a table about 15 feet away with rocks. He kept making up phrases to describe shot that missed or made it (Like: That's a Mater meant that it totally missed, after my camper Mater who apparently Superman liked to tease).

Second Session was the beginning of the end for my kids. They were one their way to becoming former CITs and that's always a hard experience. but before they did that, they did their internship at another camp in the Council. This was interesting because two camper from our camp showed up there. And, let's just say that they weren't the kind of campers you wanted showing up randomly -- again. ha ha. Bunny, my counselor who shaved her ehad in March for St. Baldric's, was mistaken for a man at Walmart. We made 2 urgent care runs -- one for a "hole" in a leg, one for excessive bug bites. And that was all in the 3 days that we were at the other camp!! Then came graduation night, which is always bittersweet. I love watching my kids grow and take off to become their own people, but I hate saying goodbye, too, which is what happens at 2nd session closing. :-( The next day, they gave me a scrapbook that they had made for me, which brought me to tears 'cause there was a lot of, "Speckles, I love you so much. You've changed my life," blah blah blah. It sounds like I didn't like it, but I loved it. I've looked at it quite a few times since I got it.

Third session brought in a new group of CITs. And it's an interesting group, I'm not gonna lie. It's a verry eclectic group, to say the least. We have private, public, and home schooled girls, girls who like theatre, girls who like to dance, girls who like the Ham Radio, girls who are just plain weird, LOL. They're a great group of kids, and that's the coolest thing about the CIT program: you can throw girls of all different backgrounds and they'll start out as strangers, but come out on the other side in 8 weeks as sisters. Oh, how I love CIT-hood. Anyway, These kids have given me some laughs, too, like when one of the campers knocked our shower curtain rod for our door onto another camper. And one fo the girls is terrified of wasps: "Code Six!" And, of course, I still have Bunny, who will take my place next year as CIT Director.

Ready for some pictures of my first 7 weeks at camp? Here are some, minus pictures of my new girls because that's against personnel policy:

We had to build a building out of cups. This is my team building group's building.
Mater and Rhythm dressed the part on Superhero Wednesday
On our bike ride to the barn
Disney Wednesday!!


As for wedding plans, those have kind of taken a break while I've been gone, but I can successfully report on 3 things: 1. My dress is all MINE. It's hanging in my closet and everything. Woo hoo!! 2. My mom's friend is doing our flowers, so it's gonna cost less than $200. Cha-Ching! And 3. We booked our DJ this afternoon. It's only about $150 for the whole night for him. Sa-weet!

Post Camp plans include: A three-day trip to Chicago with J, Ariel, Bunny, and Sunny. I meet with my ST host teacher on August 6, then start student teaching on August 11 (eek!!), BM dress shopping at some point, plus helping Jen gett the house ready for me to move in. Whew!! I can't believe it's almost August. WHere has the year gone? I get married in 7 months and 25 days! (Not that I'm counting...)