Ice

Ok, so I know I've mentioned there is no air conditioning but let me describe a little the affects of this. Imagine you're laying in bed. A bunk bed. With a blanket that sheds little hairy things all over you. And it's as hot as hell. I lay down in bed with my arms and legs spread out hoping that somehow a cool breeze will hit my face. Luckily, by the time I get in bed every night I'm so completely exhausted that the falling asleep part isn't to bad. The waking up in the middle of the night part is the worst. Last night I woke up with my hair and back wet with sweat. Even my new fan with a bowl of ice underneath didn't do to much. I wake up and stick my feet in the ice water. This helped but I think it was so cold it felt hot. Many nights are like this. I think I may be getting used to it. Sad, huh?


Ok I'm not a complainer, I just thought I'd give a little humorous account of the lack of cold air. Wish I had more time to elaborate but I must go.

This weekend has had it's ups and downs

Ups
-Kitchen Duties with my two best friends (this entails the making and cleaning up of breakfast,lunch and dinner for 50 people) Ok, it doesn't sound good but we had fun for the most part.

-I did one of my favorite things in the world... I took a nap.

-Went to Krista's movie nigh ( my friend Krista puts on movies and makes popcorn on Saturday nights)

- Baked 2 double batches of cookies.... YUM

- Talked to family and friends a lot.

- I found a deserted room and stacked 5 mattresses on top of each other and had the greatest night's sleep.

Downs
-Kitchen duties haha It was just a lot of work when you're washing that many dishes.

- It was sooooo hot inside and outside.... I treasure air conditioning.

-I had a "talking to" from my friend.... that sucked more than anything


Ok, I have to go do devos. love you all

I wish every single person I know could have been in our classes this week. God did AMAZING things! Jeff Pratt was our speaker. His topic was the Father Heart of God and he is passionate about getting us to believe how in love with us God is.

Let your religion be less theory and more of a love affair. -Chesterton

He drilled into our heads
- God is mad about us
- We were a dream in God's heart even before we were born
- He's been pursuing us since the moment we were born.
- How can we say He doesn't love us? He laid down His own life and he would have done it even if you were the only person on earth.
- Christ died of ALL of our hearts not just a little
- Christ died for ALL of our sins so we neglect his love when we lug around our past.

I wouldn't say that everyone cried the past 3 days but I will say 80% did. 100% cried at least once. God just did a lot of healing in peoples lives. I feel so blessed to have the family that I do. The theme of my life so far has been grace. I have been saved from so much.

On a lighter note, I have kitchen duties this weekend. : ( I don't know why I said I'd do it but my 2 friends are so maybe thats why.

Update

I really don't feel like writing anything now but some have stated that I should. I'll tell you my schedule for the day.


6 or 6:30 wake up - the sun shines right in my face in the mornings so I can't sleep to much past sunrise
run or go to the YMCA
7:30 breakfast- cereal, toast, and usually eggs or pancakes
8 am quiet time
9 am worship (mon, wed, fri) the worship is great here... So freeing and awesome
11 am class- we have different teachers come in every week and they have different topics... this past week was Blake Maddocks and he taught on the character of God.... It's been an OK teaching, not much meat to it. This week we're learning about the Father Heart of God.... Supposed to cry every class
1pm Lunch- The food here is great.... I'm always ready for lunch. We're all usually starving by 1
2pm More classes- my butt falls asleep sitting in those chairs for so long
3:45 Work duties- this means I make dinner everynight. It kind of sucks because there isn't any AC and we're in a hot kitchen
5:35 Dinner- Again good food
7-9 On mon & tues we do stuff after dinner. Monday is outreach (ex. skate park ministry, chilling with the homeless) Tuesday is India outreach prep.

On Wed, Thur, and Fri we have the nights off. Usually we sit around and talk or read all night. I love free nights. We just started watching "lawn movies". We set up someones laptop and put some blankets on the ground and watch a movie under the stars. Last night the sprinklers rained us out. : (

The weekends are random. Last week we went to downtown Boulder and walked around. This week we went to get pizza and listen to Jazz. We also went to these hippie's house who live in this used to be insane isylum. That was weird. Tanya, you would have loved it.

Well sorry it took so long but I feel like you're all adequately filled in.

Love you all!

weekend

Life is pretty good here. I'm having a hard time being homesick knowing my parents will be coming in a little over a month! At first I was thinking I would be the only one with family coming and I'd feel like a baby. Now who cares?! I want to see my parents! haha And a lot of other people have visitors.
I'm excited for this weekend. I love to relax these days. I've got a head start with finishing my book and the rough draft for my book report. What a relief to get that off my chest. I have to make what is called a creative presentation on Tuesday. It is where you get a character trait such as obedience vs disobedience, creativity vs. underachievment, or hate vs. love and then make a skit, painting, song, dance, story, or sermon to represent it. At first I was really nervous but I think I have a pretty goood idea of what I'll do. My traits are creativity vs. underachievment. I'll let you know how it goes and what I do. But first just picture in your mind me representing the traits in a dance........ :) ha

Busy-ness

Hi all.

Ok so on Sunday I got to meet up with my cousins best friend who lives here. We got to escape the base for a night and eat at Hacienda Colorado! Awesome night!

We started classes on monday. Yesterday was non-stop. We had like 30 min of free time the entire day. I'm beginning to enjoy moments of rest where as when I was home I hated it. Our afternoon classes consisted of team building games which were, believe it or not, really fun and ,for me, wet. Then I had my work duties which are dinner prep. Scream-o music and unorganized baking/cooking was a challenge but I still had a good-ish time. It's just so freaking hot with no air conditioning anywhere but much worse in the kitchen. So I scarfed down dinner so I could have a few minutes by myself before leaving for outreach.

We have outreach every Monday night. There are a few groups that go meet homeless people, 2 "open" group (open groups pray to recieve pictures from God about where they're supposed to go..... I try to be open and not just think they're insane haha sorry any YWAMer's who read this) I went to the skate park. It was amazing. I just talked to a whole bunch of skaters and built some relationships. God really was with me, I was just so comfortable. Hopefully we'll be a permanent team so I can go back again. There are some pretty hardcore kids there. So that was done and I crashed..... and it started again today. Oh how I miss my dear dear friend named sleep!

Recap of the Weekend

Thursday- Session in the morning then we ate and packed up for camping. We all just hung out and played games. We sat around the fire for hours. With the fire going I didn't realize how flipping cold it was getting. I realize this fact in the middle of the night in my rinky-dink thin sleeping bag. Sooo cold.

Friday- First up out of like 35. Breakfast and then we piled in the van for white water rafting. It was incredibly fun and ,again, cold. The water was snow run off. We got back and most took naps so we had a nice chill relaxed night. We bonded for a couple hours. Bonding is fancy for sharing our testimonies.

Saturday- More bonding, drove home, hung out around the base. Starbucks for a couple of hours. Great talk with the girls.

Sunday- Church...... Um I'm starving and they just started to serve lunch so I"m going to go eat! Love you all!!