Lady Gaga Remix...Cana Girl Style

This past week was Intermediate Week of bible camp! I was a Junior Councelor of these cute things pictured left. It was me, Karen Day, Darci Roberts, Rebecca Burris, and Riley Day in Cana with ten girls ranging from 6-11.

There are a lot of things that naturally just come with a group of ten little girls:
-Lots of high pitched screaming
-Pillow fights
-Cotton candy scented perfume
-Lots of hugs and high fives
-A little lack of hygiene....
-A big interest in bugs, especially moths (lunar moth in the photo, see it?)

It's such a great, and exhausting time to councel little girls. To be honest, I thought I was getting the oldest girls and when I learned I had completely switched and got the little girls I was slightly upset. I didn't know how to relate with little girls....but God had something in store for me.

These girls captured my heart! They are so loving and honest and albeit a little crazy...but I think that's why I love them. One of the best things was how they relate to each other. Even the girls who didn't know each other at first were close by the end of the week. Everyone of them cared for each other and loved each other.

They were such a cute, cotton candy scented, high pitched, and flip-flop wearing picture of Jesus.

And I'm so glad that I got the little girls.

Make it fierce!

This morning we had mini photoshoot, here's some of the photos!

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Yesterday I went with the youth groups girls (Caroline, Rebecca, Jocelyn, Lindsay, Bethany, Abby, Ashley, Riley, and Laura) and Gary Spear to the Circle Center Mall in Indianapolis.

Yes, it was great times.

Anyway, I'm a nerd and of course I observed people amidst my shopping experience. Which was hard, mind you. When Caroline, Jocelyn, and I really get shopping we have one track minds....especially Jocelyn and I with all the awesome stripes that are "in" lately.

Onward! Okay, so I observed yaddah yaddah and I decided to write a list of unwritten rules for mall behavior! So here we go:
1. Walk at a leisurely pace as not to disturb everyone else who is walking at a leisurely pace.

2. Do not make eye contact with people you pass, and especially do not smile. This makes you a creeper.....which means I'm a creeper.

3. When in the restroom let the older ladies go first, it's just polite.

4. You should not use Bluetooth's because everyone around you thinks you are either talking to yourself or talking to them. Then there is chaos....chaos in a mall is bad.

5. Make sure your conversations are appropriate and okay to hear, because everyone around you can hear your conversations.

6. Make sure to wear clothes that are easy on and off so as to cut down time in the fitting room. Jeans, tee-shirts, and flip-flops are awesome. Even a sundress and sandals are fine if you want to look cute. No one likes "that girl" that takes a million years in the fitting room......but really.

7. Touch every article of clothing you pass. I don't know the reason for this...I do it and I see everyone else do it too. So, it must be legit.

8. Keep your cellphone in an appropriate place, no one wants to see you have yours appear like magic out of your cleavage.

9. The louder and clickier your shoes, the more attention you get. That's why I wear sandals.

10. The final and most important rule: Always take samples from the people in front of the pretzel place. Duh.

Okay, I've got a lot of laundry to do and a lot of coffee to drink.
Over and out.

Well Done Bird!

You know what I love?

Naps!

Yesterday Caroline, Lindsay, and I turned on the sixth Harry Potter and napped in Rita's living room. I had super hardcore dreams! Oh, ahhh I'm laughing thinking about it---

I had a dream that I woke up because someone was snoring soooo loudly. It sounded like it was coming from Lindsay so I sat up on the couch and looked toward where Lindsay was laying. She looked back at me and put her finger to her lips to shush me and pointed to the end of the couch where a fluffy white dog was sleeping and snoring LOUDLY. We silently laughed and fell back asleep.

When I woke up for real I thought the dream was real.....I walked to the bathroom and started cracking up when I remembered that Rita doesn't have a dog....bahhhh it was hilarious.

I napped today too, and by today I mean, I just woke up.

You know what else I love? Knitting! I finally started a new project because I've laid out sick all last week, so I had plenty of time on my hands. I am doing the Starburst stitch and I love it. Caroline and I both got superthick, nautical looking yarn--her's is cream and mine is heathered light blue. Love. Love. Love.

Starbucks.

Coffee, Knitting, and Movies with Caroline.
Just Saying.

Cookie Dough Icecream and John Travolta.

Today has been a really crazy, but awesome day.

I had to drag myself out of bed...it should have been at 8 but it didn't happen until 10.

My entire family came today, including my Aunt April, Uncle Greg, and Cousin Angel are here from Ohio. They are wonderful! And I'm so happy they are here!

Yesterday, a small group of us loaded up into the church van and headed to Ferdinand to go to the Abbey and to the Monastery Castle. They were lovely.

We got to go into the large chapel in the Abbey. The marble floors, ornate woodwork and stonework, angel carvings, stain glass windows, and statues of Christ were a little overwhelming compared to my normal setting of a gymnasium and simple stage. It was like stepping into another world. One where to show your love for God, you spent and spent and decorated and spent.

I don't think that God in anyway calls us to build ornate buildings like that to worship in, rather I believe the opposite.

But, at the same time I can appreciate the beauty of the building and the imagination and creativity and heart of the people that spent their lives on it.

My favorite part of the Abbey and the Castle were the windows.

You should have seen the detail and precision and the colors...ohhh...
They were otherworldly. They were like nothing I've ever seen.

I was afraid the pictures were going to step out of their frames at any moment. That I would be joined by the angel Gabriel, or Jesus falling beneath the weight of the cross.

I studied each one and wondered how I could take the beauty of the windows and apply to my life; to my religion. Then I thought of what the most important part of stained glass windows is....sunlight.

Without light the picture isn't visible! It's just a dark picture outlined by iron....sooo how does that apply to my life?

The windows are beautiful and painstakingly worked on. We are painstakingly created beautiful.

No one can see the beauty of the windows without light shining through them.
As Christians true beauty isn't visible without the light and love of God our Father shining through us!

Does that make sense? Or did I totally force that thought just for the sake of making windows applicable?

Mehh....who knows. I'm running with it.

His Mercies Never Come to an End.

Okay, my friends this is the continuation of the first Honduras post!

I'm sure you were just pacing and waiting for it.....
That was a little bit of sarcasm....

Anyway, onto business!

This post is specifically going to be about Choluteca, Honduras. The last time TORCH Missions visited Choluteca was five years ago! And, I think that we are the only missions team that visits them specifically.

Wednesday at 6:45 A.M. we dragged our groggy bottoms out of bed and plopped into the seats of a bus for a 5 hour drive to the insanely hot town of Choluteca.

People on the team that have gone before joked that Choluteca is where the devil goes to get coffee....

Okay, well describir the first photo: TOMS shoes (Wooohoooo REPRESENT!) had a shoe drop near-by Choluteca tons of children and women and some men were rockin the TOMS when we got there. It was an awesome sight to see my money and many other loving people's money at work on Choluteca.

The shoes seemed comfortable and reliable, they are built a little more sturdy than the for show one's we buy.
These were all business and all love.

We spent two days in Choluteca, and stayed at a hotel nearby.

In those two days we painted a church that the team had built five years prior at their last visit, built and painted 27 pews, screamed about one tarantula, had 301 people go through the medical clinic, played one big soccer game, lost one soccer game, washed many people's hair, and treated a lot of little girls like princesses.

My heart really goes out to the people of Choluteca.

They are so joyful and greatful.

Rather than run at you and ask you for things, they stand by you and smile with you and are patient and kind. They don't expect anything but love and attention. They just want to hold your hand and be with you. The children want to sit on your lap and laugh with you. They want to clap your hands and play games you can't win...and they know it.

Ugh, it was so wonderful. See the guy in the red in the photo? The one standing up?

He's wearing my shoes right now. What an awesome thought. We sat down and compared shoe sizes. I told him to wait until we were about to leave, because I can't walk around barefoot...that's a big no-no. We walked together silently the last minute I was there. I leaned against the bus and pulled one shoe off. Put it in his outstretched hand. Pulled the other off. Put it in his hand. I looked down at his feet waiting for him to put them on.

He had no socks.

Pulled off one sock. Put it in his hand. Pulled off the other sock. Put it in his hand.

I pulled off my pink hat and plopped it on his head, it seemed to belong there.

He looked me in the eyes with a huge smile on his face. "Gracias."

How do I even begin to explain the gratitude in his eyes? All over ten dollar Wal-Mart special black shoes with sparkles on the sides? From one strange white girl in a pink hat and oversized tee-shirt with sweatstains and hathead? Did I look like Jesus to him? I hope that's who he saw when he looked in my eyes, because that's who handed him those things.

And when I looked in those eyes that's who I saw. I saw Jesus.

It might not seem like much...a girl gave a person shoes. Big deal. But in that moment I gained a friend, saw my Lord, gave someone a blessing from God, and hoped that he saw the Lord too. It's hard to write about little moments like that. Those special moments when you know it's all about GOD and nothing or no one else.

It's hard to explain what you see and feel in Honduras. It's just God working, my friends.

And it's an awesome thing.

The Steadfast Love of the Lord Never Ceases!

Well, I got back from eleven days in Honduras yesterday.

There are a lot of things I can say to describe the trip, yet none of them really cover how wonderful and new and touching and overwhelming and ugh just everything that Honduras is.

This trip was completely different than last years trip. Last year we had to leave early and while we were there we could not leave the mountains because of rioting and things like that.

This year we got to go all over--Didasco orphanage, Mololoa to take the kids to play soccer and do a "Princess Day", to the hospital to visit the kids, to a small village in Choluteca, to the famous Jesus statue, to Santa Lucia, and to many other places.

In every single way it was a completely different trip and experience, it doesn't even compare to last year.

The first full day of our trip I joined a group and we were dubbed The Patch Adams Crew. We went to the hospital dressed in clowns noses, leis, oversized glasses, and wigs with one mission: to bring laughter and hope to the people of the hospital.
First, we visited the day treatment cancerward where I held some of the sweetest kids ever. We tried to go to the other cancer ward were the prognosis is pretty much terminal, but they had a really bad off patient and we weren't allowed in.
We visited the broken bones unit, and next we went to the Hydrocephalic (I hope that's right) ward, which is what my photo is of. The babies retain water in their heads. It's a really scary and sad thing. The mothers have uncomfortable chairs to sit on and that's it. They wait day and night with their poor babies.

It was so hard to see the condition of the hospital: the mold along the floor, the lack of airconditioning, and the IV's were primitave. It made me realize how lucky we are to have the health care that we do. We are blessed with the hospitals and doctors and medicines that we have.

One of my very favorite days was a day when we went to a little orphanage named Didasco. Not all of the kids that live there are orpans, some come from abusive homes.
I was in a van with seven people, and the rest of the people were on a bus...which broke down. So, I got there about two hours earlier....but, I got more time with the kids and so I was happy about the fact I got in the van.
Two girls that I met first were Ada and Maria (pictured left). These two sisters immediatly came up to me and grabbed my hands. They showed me their bunks, and told me about their favorite foods and colors and about how they didn't have their dad anymore.
Ada had burn marks all up and down her right arm...I was tempted to ask how she got them but I couldn't bring myself to do it.
These girls are so full of joy and happiness and laughter, even though they have seen so much and been through so much. I had to choke back tears when I hugged them good-bye. What I wpuld give to have them with me everyday. To have them holding my hand everyday and have them chattering away about everything to me everyday.....I saw Jesus in the smiles of these beautiful girls.

Sunday night we went to the Jesus statue.

When you are up that high you can look down and see the lights of Honduras. Someone said that when you look down at Honduras at night you don't really see Honduras because you don't see the poverty and hurt and dirt and sadness.

I want so much for Honduras to constantly be the night Honduras, full of life and light.

I know that the statue is just cement, but I know that the real wonderful Savior has His hand outstretched over Honduras.

I heard a lot of people saying that Honduras is changing, and I don't think that they just mean the politics.

One of my other favorite days was when we all loaded up in a bus and went down to Mololoa. The guys filled up a bus of local boys and took them to go play soccer at a nice field. The women and a few gentle and kind hearted men stayed and had Princess Day.

We washed, combed, and braided hair. We washed feet and painted nails. The cutest part was when we dressed up the little girls in princess costumes and took their photo. Jake Lovell brought a portable printer so we could print off the photos of them. For most of the families, I would guess that it was the only photo they had ever owned.

One little girl that latched onto me was Madolin or Melanie (she told me Melanie and Brandon Madolin....so I never really figured out which was right). She gave me a Zanyband of a shoe. I couldn't believe that she wanted to give it away, so I said no. She told me she had a lot more and held out her little wrist. There were three more. I know that out of the very little she had, that it meant a lot to her to reach out to me and give me something. How could I say no?

I wore it on my wrist for the rest of the week, then passed the little shoe onto someone else.

The second to last night of the trip we went to Santa Lucia. Santa Lucia is the oldest cathedral in the Western Hemisphere! How cool is that?

I was standing down at the bottom for worship when Justin motioned for me to follow him. So Rebecca, Darci, and I followed him to this doorway that led to a pitch black rock staircase.

Creepy? Yes. I think I yelled up at him, "Are you sure we should be doing this?" Well, we didn't die. We ended up in the loft above. It was amazing. All the singing rose up to us during worship, it was one of the most astounding thing.

There is so much more that I could write about my trip...but I don't have much more time.

So, tomorrow I will write more. I still have to write about Choluteca! That was a really big part of my trip.

Well...I guess hold out for more my friends!

To be continued.....