Mom Jeans and Dirty Knees.

Last you heard of me I was sleeping in cars and playing in snow. This week I've been laughing in laundry rooms and groveling in the grass. It's been a long week and my body is tired, but yet the Living Water is quenching my parched remains.

On the way back to camp from Sisters Krista and I just had to do it. We had to stop at the plethora of thrift stores in Madras on the way home. Little background on Madras. It's small, decrepit, and full of unhealthiness. Let's just say a lot of poor decisions are made there. But the poorest of all involves their decisions to throw away some of the most phenomenal treasures known to man. Krista and I went to four of the most phenomenal thrift stores I have ever been to. All in the same square mile. I came home with three old lady sweaters, one of them actually has grandma knitted on the front. I found some red and orange and black spandies that make me feel really

fast when I run in them. I bought a florescent purple Pepsi hat with neon green stitching for 35 cents. And what was the most amazing and somewhat life-changing purchase I made, you ask? I found not one, not two, not three, not

even four, but five, count em five porcelain unicorns all in one store. I nearly cried in amazement. I was on the phone with my friend Brent when I discovered them and I completely and accidentally lost all interest in the conversation purely because of this life-changing find. I know I'm weird. But one man's junk is another man's treasure and I will forever be indebted to the people that found it in their

hearts to discard those lovely unicorns. They all now live comfortably on our DVD player down in the living room. I had to enclose a picture. I just had to.

We stopped by the Madras library to get library cards but they wouldn't let us so we had to settle for the free books out in the lobby. We took a tattered children's book entitled God, I've Gotta Talk To You! and we intend on putting pages of the book in all the staff's boxes. So thoughtful we are :)

Tuesday night we skipped our run and went to bed at about 8 o'clock because we obviously had plenty of rejuvenating rest in the coffee shop parking lot in the back seat of my car while it was snowing outside. Wednesday we learned how to operate the magnificent and altogether baffling washing machines and dryers. We could probably fit about 17 of me in each machine quite comfortably. Thursday we spent the entire day in the washboard. Krista and I folded approximately 900 flat sheets. Not exaggerating even a little. We folded so many sheets that eventually broke the counter that they were all resting on. The bracket literally pulled out of the wall. I felt terrible but at the same time, just a little proud. Some very funny comments were made throughout the day, none of them appropriate. Sonia has this thing where she pulls up her pants so that she has a mom butt. It's gut jiggling. I seriously laugh so hard everytime she does it. So in the washboard we were planning on how we are going to go to the thrift stores in Madras and try to find a pair of mom jeans that will fit us all so we can recreate the sisterhood of the traveling pants. We also blasted the Newsies soundtrack. Epic. I got work drunk again and then we had core group after work. I was exhausted but super excited for our first small group/bible study.

We arrived at Jen's house at 6pm sharp. Jen Milsten is our intern coordinator in case you didn't remember. We had hot beverages and Jen shared her life story and it was beautiful. We had intern worship after that and Rich Ellered is the camp manager and he talked at our meeting. He's wise and stoic and quite possibly going to be one of my favorite people while I'm here. He has a unique sense of humor and his wisdom just emanates out of him. I wrote down some little "nuggets" as people out here like to call them...and I would like to share some quick snippets with you...

1. God call us to step out of line.

I hate the idea of lines in the first place. I love that when Jami and I would sometimes go scouting around at local preschools when she was just starting her own, she would be able to tell everything she needed to know about the school based on whether or not the children were made to stand in lines when they were going anywhere. So needless to say, I'm more than happy to step out of line and be different.

2. Nothing matters if your heart's not right. You get out of it what you put into it.

This past year my heart hasn't been right. And nothing mattered. I lost sight of my morals, my love for the Lord, and my purpose in life. This year is my effort to get my heart right again.

3. This year will be the crossroads of my life, where I will learn to live sacrificially.

And I desire this with my whole heart and my whole mind and my whole body and my whole soul.

4. Focus on what is good and honorable and pure.

I get caught up. All the time. And to hear this was like a breath of fresh air. What is good. What is honorable. And what is pure. That's all we need.

5. Allow God to be sovereign in your life. Only in that place, is life how God intended it to be.

Sovereign. Such a great word.

6. Simply cease.

Cease. Another good word. A quote I've heard and never learned to heed, "If Satan can't make you bad, He will make you busy." Sometimes we seriously just need to chill the heck out. Simply cease. And listen to the still small voice.

7. We have to live a life consistent with the life God has called us to in order for unbelievers to notice that we are different.

Otherwise we are just the same. So many times we are caught up in the world and we become just as cold and miserable as those who have not tasted the living water. Gandhi said, "I will become a Christian when Christians live the life that Christ has for them."

8. God's rest goes on forever. It's a surrendering. The sabbath rest is a noun, not a verb.

We don't rest enough. Plain and simple.

Another new perspective that I fully intend to take on for the rest of my life is truly one of a sacred romance with the Lord. Rich suggested that we seriously consider our quiet times as legitimate dates with Jesus. And I fully intend to do that this year.

Alright so Friday. Friday we deep cleaned the Orchard Inn. Deep clean. Two words that will probably haunt me the whole year but yet I love them at the same time. We have to deep clean each building at the ranch once a year. That means completely stripping every room and cleaning every nook and cranny. Every spot, every blemish, every drool stain, and dead skin cell. All of it. Sonia and I had to Pac Vac for the first half of the day. Basically means we were synonymous with the Ghostbusters. We had giant vacuum backpacks and at first she had the one with the super long hose and I had the one with the extremely short hose. We had a laugh or rather a guffaw, and then switched vacs. Remember Sonia is barely pushing 5 feet tall. We bumped the tunes and busted it out. The second half of the day Krista and I made beds and talked about evolution and creation and dinosaurs and the like. Twas grand.

Friday night, which would be last night, the single ladies got invited over to the Ellered's for dinner. We had this amazing chili soup that had sweet potatoes and hominy and pork and lots of other yumminess in it. Today at work Darren, who has already done the internship, made a comment about how we could probably go the whole year just popping over to all the other staff's houses for meals and never have to buy our own food. Seriously considering. Oh I forgot to mention that Krista and I ran 6 miles at 6 in the morning yesterday and I got to break in my brand new headlamp. It was a very scary run though because we were running in the wilderness in the dark in the unknown and there were strange noises and I'm reading a book right now about hiking in the woods and bear attacks and the like so I was a bit paranoid. But there was a fog and the moon was still out and almost touchable and the sunrise was glorious and again, God is just too good. We escaped the run unscathed.

Last night Krista and Ashley and I had quite the scare though. The three of us went over to Deanna's house for craft night and Sonia had said that she would be right over after she made some quick calls. She never came over and when we got home her car was gone and there was no note. We didn't get too worried at first, but then it was 11 o'clock and she still wasn't home. We called her cell phone to see if maybe she had gone to town and it was ringing so we assumed that she had gone to town but she wouldn't call us back. We called some other staff people and no one knew where she was. We thought maybe she just left because she needed some alone time because her auntie just passed away not too long ago. But the roads out here at camp are a little wild. There are elk, deer, and cattle running rampant all over the place and I could not get the image of Sonia in her little Saturn hanging upside down in a ditch after hitting a cow. So Krista and Ashley drove out to try and find her. I had already fallen asleep after an hour of tossing and turning and worrying about her. This morning I wake up to find out that she had taken Daniel to the emergency room because he had fallen on his longboard and needed stitches. And basically his fall was Krista and I's fault because he had seen us skating home from work so he took his board out and totally bailed. Bad news bears. Serves to confirm that worrying is no good. We worried about Sonia for no reason at all.

Today was all intern landscape day. We literally spent the entire day digging out grass around the fence line so that we could lay bark chips. It looks incredible but it was insanely draining and I don't think I've ever been so dirty in my whole life. But I loved every minute of it. My favorite part was when Sonia came up to me and told me that Josh told her she looks like "the girl that's never invited but always shows up" from back in his hometown. Epic. The arch of my right foot is throbbing because of how many times I pushed the shovel into the ground and I know I will be sore without a doubt tomorrow. But I love it. I love the unity. The strenuous way we serve our God. I love being stretched to the point where there is potential for me to snap back but it all comes back to the fact that we have a choice in every situation. You could snap or you could continue to improve your elasticity. I choose to be elastic, like Mrs. Incredible.

We leave on our intern retreat tomorrow. We're all heading out to Breakaway which is a YoungLife property out on the coast. I plan on taking plenty of pictures and getting you some better bios of the interns so get ready.

That's all for now.

Eat your vegetables and smile at a stranger.