The posting resumes

So here I am again, back home and writing. No longer am I extremely busy and i have time to write again. It's bittersweet to be back. The past 5 months of life have taught me so much and I feel so blessed to have had the opportunity to do a DTS. I was thinking about it the other day and it's incredible how I ended up in Denver. God orchestrated the whole thing. Gosh, it's just so insane to think about how much God was directing everything without me even realizing it at the time. I suppose you could say the same for everyone who ended up there in Denver.

I remember in India I never thought that normal life could be going on anywhere in the world. Those moments there were just so consuming that thinking about my family and friends sitting at home, or working, or sleeping in their beds seemed unreal. Now i sit here in the living room with my brother playing video games and my sister and Jen studying and it's unbelievable how fast life goes back to normal. No culture shock, no realization that I've been in an insanely different world. Sometimes I feel like I just closed my eyes in June and woke up in November and had the most real dream where I grew and had the most incredible experience. Although I wouldn't trust my imagination to come up with a dream that could even come close to the reality of these past few months. My expectations were blown out of the water and i couldn't have asked for anything better. One thing I came out of DTS that I didn't go in with is a boyfriend. Shawn is his name and what an journey we've had, a long/hard/horrible/wonderful journey. God taught me so much through this boy. I learned to trust the Lord with my future and with my present. I had to learn to surrender every week, every day, and sometimes every minute to Him. I learned to fear God only and care only what He thinks about me. I'm thankful for this boy but even more thankful for these 5 months that I got to set aside to spend time with the Lord.

I leave for India 2 weeks from tomorrow. Please be praying!!!

Eagle Rock

I'm pretty sure I don't deserve a day like today. Actually I know I don't but I'm glad I serve a good God who loves to bless His children!

We're up at Eagle Rock the mountain campus of YWAM Denver. It is one of the most beautiful places I've been. Maybe it's just everything together that makes it so beautiful... being in the mountains, being able to relax, and just doing life together with my closest friends. We're one large family and I love it here.

From about 11 to 3 this afternoon we hiked up Eagle Rock mountain. It was breathtaking. I went with my 3 friends Matt, Shawn, and Krista. It was somewhat strenuous but the view was worth it. I'm telling you, sitting up at the top of that mountain with my friends talking about how great God is was one of the finer moments of life. Yah, I miss home but God has given me such immense grace to be able to handle this time that I can't even believe it. It's so much easier to praise God among awesome beauty. After dinner there was a full rainbow across the mountains. It was amazing.

This is going to be a great week. Chill class times, running in the mountains, and my parents coming will ensure the greatness of this week.

Again I love and miss all of you!!!

Week 7

Ok, so I said that last week was the fastest, well I stand corrected. I seriously don't know where the days went. This has been my favorite week of classes by far. We were super blessed to have Dean Sherman come in and speak on Spiritual Warfare. I learned immense amounts of knowledge, a lot of practical knowledge.

God has blessed me a ton this week. I got a backpack and a sleeping bag.... for free!! The johnsons went above and beyond and bought me that stuff and more. I don't even know how to be thankful enough! I just really really feel very blessed.

My parents come in 6 days!! Hallelujah! I can't wait to see them. I've actually be homesick the past couple days. It'll be incredible to be refreshed by them.... and have my mom help me pack. : )

We leave for India in 17 days! Can't elaborate more because I'm speechless for now.

I love you all and miss you guys!

Week 6

Sorry i have been such a bad blogger recently.

This week has been interesting. Our topic was the Holy Spirit and our teacher was a man on staff. I learned a lot, but not necessarily in the classroom. A lot of the learning was done on my own as I really sought God on what I believed. I have been putting God in a box and I now realize that I couldn't possibly try to limit God in any way. He is so big and so good. Everything he does for us is the most loving thing possible and that is the most amazing fact to know!

It has been one of the fastest weeks yet! We leave for India in 22 days!! I'm so not ready. At least in the "what to bring" sense. I need a good backpack...not too big...not too small and it's driving me crazy!

Last night we went camping.... in a lodge, at the mountain campus of YWAM. This place was amazing!! It is so beautiful there. I slept under the stars with the chilly colorado mountain air blowing against my face. This morning after one of the best nights sleep and breakfast, we had a mini silent retreat. Basically you just go out into the beauty of nature for a couple hours and just talk with God. It was pretty cool. After packing up our stuff, we headed home for lunch. A nap later and here I sit. I hope this was a sufficient update for now. Love you all!

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!!

Day 2/3

Yesterday was great. Except for 3 hours of going over our manual. I've met all the other students and they are great. I wish I could write a detailed description of what it's like here but it's difficult to convey. They say that these 5 months are a pressure cooker/greenhouse environment, which means that it is an intense time for fast growth. If you add all the hours of our sessions, quiet time, small time, and worship then it's the equivalent to 4 years of going to church on wednesday night and sunday. Crazy! haha Everything is intense here. For example our DTS leader, John Murphy, told his testimony and I'm pretty sure most people were crying or tearing up. I love it here.

God is so amazing!!! Yesterday afternoon I kept thinking there is no way that I can be here for 5 months! I wanted to come home really badly. I felt like I was thrown in the huge mess and I was overwhelmed. So I recruited everyone to pray for me and things took a complete 180. So many confirmed that my fears and feeling of being overwhelmed were normal. He brought people to encourage me and to tell me exactly what I needed to here. I couldn't be more happy about it! And even now I just talked to two people in my school. Praise God, seriously. I know I'm going to have my rough days but He is all I need. I think I'm going to learn that the hard way. Thank you all so much for praying!!

Ok, Day one... could be better. I know it'll take time to get in the swing of things. I'm just trying to be this friendly outgoing person and I think I'm trying to hard. I don't know. I'll write more later, friends.