Oh hey world

So here I am 2 months into this crazy thing called Captive Free (aka, travel doing ministry, living in other people's homes, eating other people's food, borrowing other people sanity. haha, I jokes. maybe). This adventure has been just that. 12 states, 8 thousand miles, thousands of people, and even more memories. That sounded precious. Go me.
My life on the road has been a whole lot of many things. Traveling has affirmed me that this is what I am built to do. I have not been to a place yet that I did not love. Iowa: small town awesome where everyone knows everyone (in a good way) and noone locks their doors. Nebraska: prairie awesome. For cereals, I love it here maybe more than anywhere else. Flat is the coolest thing ever. Staying in a grain mill town make my weekend. Colorado: kinna goes without saying, but just in case you live in a shell, rockie awesome mountains. New Mexico: we entered an entirely different environment the moment we crossed into it. it was crazy awesome. Very beautiful, mixing the awesome of flat with some random mountains. Arizona: surprised me with its beauty. Beautiful mountains, crazy cool desert, and a shot of adrenaline every time you check your shoes, backpack, bed, undies for scorpions and spiders. I walked down an ally one night petrified a rattler was gonna jump out and get me. I wanna do it again. ps, did you know that London Bridge is in Arizona? Someone didn't think that through. Its evident in that they set it up and then dug a trench underneath it for that full bridge effect. Nevada: 15 minutes crossed it as we went into California. It seemed cool though. California: ok, of all the places to not be all that impresses, Cali took this hat. it had cool rolling mountains that were a blast to drive through and the ocean was super awesome of course, but other than that I didn't really have the awe effect that Nebraska gave (seriously, loved that place. the T-storms were beyond awesome). Oregon: beautiful ,our time there was too short. It also got bonus points for not being 100* all the time. Arizona was killer for that and Cali didn't let up much). We also saw our first cloud in 3 weeks in Oregon. Awesome. Seattle (I would say Washington, but we really didn't much of it other than the greater Seattle area) was cool. Take the random lakes of St. Paul MN, turn them into ocean inlets, add rockie mountains, and stand under a shower for 3 weeks and you have my time in Seattle. Beautiful place. I returned to randomly shouting "MOUNTAINS" when we arrived here, something I did all too often in Colorado. We left Seattle after 3 weeks, it rained 1 1/4" the day we left. I got to sit in that while putting on the chains on our van tires for the mountain pass where that 1 1/4" of rain was 1.5 feet of snow.  funny how that converts. That drive was 3 hours of 15 miles of mountains in the dark. I was sad to miss the scenery, but enjoyed the return to winter driving. My teammates weren't as joyful as I was for that part. Idaho: did not have the honour of my feet, we drove right through. Should have stopped. You know, just to make sure gravity felt the same there or something. It was another beautiful mountain drive. And finally, Montana: honky toots, I don't know if you could create a more stunning place than northwest Montana. Mountains, rolling hills in plains, beautiful lakes, rivers, and legit Big Sky (its a state catch phrase). The sky has some kind of awesome going on in it. Donno why it sparkled so much. People are really nice here too, small town feel. But never too far from their guns :) One of our contact described a local business man as 'One of those guys who threatened to shoot everyone'. Apparently that described his conflict resolution skills, not his sanity. In Indiana they have signs that say 'Food Gas Fireworks', in Wisconsin 'Food Gas Cheese', and in Montana 'Food Gas Guns'. I like it. maybe. Every time you blink here, you are avoiding another head on collision with dear, so I guess those guns have some purpose.
That was supposed to a brief bit about my travels. I guess 8 thousand miles cannot be described so briefly. I have much more I want to talk about, but I think this is good for now.

tah tah for now.

Ask, and you shall recieve. Recieve, and you shall not complain about it.

hey friends.
So, as many of you know, I am back in the US about to embark on my 3rd Youth Encounter ministry team. Crazy eh? I am stoked because this is truly the thing that I love to do, but coming to this point was not a straight forward process. I'm sure you have all heard the quote from the Bible "ask and you shall recieve". I don't think I realized this full extent of this however until this point.
So the fact that I am doing this again probably doesn't surprise a lot of you. By personality, I am built for this, and I have often reminisced of it and fantasized about doing it again. Despite all this however, my ending up here once again was not a result of any of these factors. A few weeks ago, I was sitting in the Youth Encounter office working on graphic stuff for this upcoming year's programs, and I was very suddenly moved by God. I spent a while trying to discern what it was that He was trying to tell me and I finally realized that He wanted me to do YE again. It was very shocking, and I was actually really opposed to it. I tried to push it off and forget about it with 'it has to mean something else, something more logical' reasoning. I was scared at the idea of doing team again simply because of what it meant. Being away from home, living as a full time volunteer, being away from my church community and youth group, having to reorganize finances, living in the US once again, and mostly feeling like this was an irresponsible idea all overwhelmed my thoughts and really bought me to the point where I thought it wasn't at all what God wanted for me. God however, doesn't settle for my reasoning and pursued me on this regardless of my attempts to shove it aside. After a lot of pray, advice from others, and processing, I accepted this call back to YE and now here I am again.
Its kinna weird to be back in someways. Team is a very public life with very little private time and its hard to make the transition back again from having more time to myself to not. In other ways, it feels like I am picking up exactly where I left off. I love everything about this ministry and the work that I get to do and I know that I am very gifted for this line of work. We had our first booking this past weekend and it went really well. One of the hardest things however has been letting go of what I was hoping to do this fall. It amazes me that I always want the opposite of what God hands me. During my past 2 YE teams I struggled with wanting to be back at EBC and with everyone I knew there. Last when I returned there, I missed life on the road and resented being back in school. And now? Well, excitement for what is coming has welled up in my leaving me ready to take this on, but I really struggled with not wanting to do this for a while. During my discernment process God told me this. 'Following and obeying me is really worth much if I'm going to kick and scream about it, then grumble constantly when i finally give in. He wants me to be excited for what He has in store for me, to give with a joyful heart (quote: the Bible somewhere) and be excited for this mission He has given me' Its not like God is asking me to scrub sewers for Him, He has given me a mission in an area that I am 1. gifted in 1. passionate about 3. LOVE doing. When I realized this, and let my previous hopes and idea go, I came to a great peace for what God wanted for me, and I am happy to be here now.
We hit the road for reals this saturday, and its gonna be quite the adventure ahead. I shall be on the west coast and am looking forward for what comes my way. I will try to keep you all update on my adventure and on the ministry that I am embarking on. For now, I shall enjoy a few more days in the awesome Minnesota nature up here outside the small town of Remer.
Peace friends

Last Thoughts From the Summer

Heya friends,
So I definitely fell of the blog train this summer, sorry about that. But I made you all a little something to kind of get a feel as to how my summer in the wilderness went. I hope you enjoy!

Return to breathing

Trip 2 = complete. unfortunately. Its funny cause after my first trip I wasn't sure how ready i was to take out another group. I was on the water less than 3 days after my emotionally/physically exhausting first trip and had the thought 'can i do this again?' I don't think i realized just how much that trip had taken out of me until i tried to do it again. The good news? Sun, a fun group that could paddle more than 0.5mph, and some good time with God revitalized me. We only had 1 day of rain this week, very little wind which led to some awesome wave surfing in our canoes (it was such a blast), and the group was such a blast. I had an awesome adult adviser once again (always a wild card), a phenomenal jr staffer (known as a swamper), and 6 fun having, loud kids. One of which who's love language was rough-housing. As the week progressed, we discovered that screaming was our best means of communication (i had to seriously readjust myself after this when I returned to camp). These guys loved to explore, adventure, and give me a hard time (i returned the favour).

Some highlights include: all kinds of wildlife sightings (no moose or bears unfortunately), a monster dinosaur turtle stalking my campers on the shore of one campsite (it was 3 feet long), battling 3-4 foot waves when there was no wind (epic fun), me farting one morning (it was cold and i wanted to heat up my sleeping bag) which caused my adult adviser to wake up and ask me if we were breaking camp to which i explained to him that i farted and he returned to sleeping, my one wild camper wrestling my adult adviser and getting his braces stuck in my advisers sweater, and finally returning to camp covered in war paint (camp fire ash drawn on our faces) screaming like savages.
This really was a great week. I hope to have more like it. Today I'm chilling in town. It was 32*C at camp today with 100% humidity, but here in town it is 20 or so. welcome to the wonder of lake superior.

Enjoy Canada Day friends.

Livin the Life

So as many of you know, I am working once again for the summer as a canoe guide at Wilderness Canoe Base in Grand Marais, Minnesota. The basics of my job include taking a group of 8 into the wilderness on a 5 night canoe trip. I teach them how to canoe, portage, and set up camp, as well as lead bible studies and group programing. Its pretty great. My daily schedule on trail includes waking up, making breakfast, breaking camp, canoeing, canoeing more, lunch, canoeing, setting up camp, dinner, hanging out with kids, bible study/group time, sleep. Its simple, and happens as it happens. I also get to live in the wilderness of all places and interact with some super awesome kids (mostly) as well as some great adult leaders.
That is my 'job description', which for the most part is accurate. This week however, I experienced the 'real'. Now the 'real' includes all of the above description, but had a marvelous series of additions. This group was four 11 year olds, one 12 year old and two 13 year olds. I quickly found out that they were not at a place in life where they had developed the ability to take care of themselves (surprising huh?) This meant that when it came to dressing correctly for the weather, setting up camp, canoeing, and keeping their stuff dry, I had to make sure that they were all on the ball. Unfortunately, I did not realize this until we were already on trail, after we had left camp. This knowledge came about when the cold rain came upon us, and despite my detailed description of what they needed to bring with them, many did not have rain gear or a dry change of clothes. By day 3 I had a fairly near hypothermic kid, and a couple more that were canoeing in the rain wearing cotton clothes (if you know anything about the outdoors, you know that cotton steals body heat and is a no no on trail). We didn't go that far that day, arrived at camp and got them all warmed up with the fire (btw, i made a fire in the rain with wet wood. 2 points). our day ended with a cool nature sighting of 2 loons swimming (underwater) between our canoes, and then with a duck being chased by a bald eagle which was being chased by 2 ravens. We left the next day with no rain and what we thought was our rough day of the trip behind us. The one thing i learned this trip is how happy i am that i cannot see the future. If so, my moral this trip would have not existed. That day turned into a slow, long day of paddling to a camp site that wasn't that far off, but was crazy far away when traveling with middle school aged paddlers that aren't so hot in the speed department. We pulled in at 5:30pm (my usually daily target is 2 at the latest), with a camper that was very sick. Sick enough that i was very close to taking him back to camp right away while leaving the rest of my group at the camp site until i returned. It turned out that he just needed to get off the water however, and recovered remarkably quickly. Phew. The next day we set out again with no rain, win, but it was a little blustery, manageable. Within the first hour i had a camper emotionally explode, dealt with it, but then came the wind. It wasn't terrible, but for the 3rd canoe that did not have either me or my adult adviser sterning it, it wasn't passable. I was in a tight spot where I needed to get them off the water, but also needed to get to a place where we could get back to camp the next day, or risk running out of food. I decided to take a long route that included hiding behind islands and slow making our way to a camp site near home base for our final night on trail. we make it for the first leg, but got stopped at a point where there was a thin piece of land, that on the map looked like water entirely passable through water. we managed to portage over it to the over side (yay 10 foot portage). when we reloaded on the other side, the wind had gotten way stronger and my campers could no longer handle it. I needed to get them to a camp site to wait out the storm over night, and the closest campsite was not far, but against the wind. We continued to try and hide behind island and peninsulas to try and make it to the site, but the 3rd canoe was no longer able to fight the wind. My solution became to canoe with the first 2 canoes to a sheltered place on the water, then hike the shore back to the 3rd canoe and stern them back to the rest of the group. Slow, but worked. I only had to do this twice to get where we needed to go, but on the second jaunt, the wind became gale force and I couldn't battle it either. This led to us being stranded from the group for 2 hours, which is a nightmare on trail. we had an eventual break in the wind, long enough to get to the rest of the group. We set up camp and had a rest time, where i realized that I had been in 'survival guide' mode for the last 4 hours and was spent. i napped for an hour. i don't remember my head hitting the pillow (aka life jacket with a sweater on top). That recharged me and i made dinner for the group and then went to sleep for the night. The next morning (yesterday) i was up at 4:45am (not unusual) and could hear the wind and rain coming down. I was worried we wouldn't get back to camp. We didn't have far to go to get to a channel that would shade us from the wind, but the little piece could prove impossible with my inexperienced campers. I watched it for the 2 hours that it took us to have breakfast and pack up camp, and made the call that the wind was passable. we island hopped again and make it to the channel without trouble. We then returned to camp just in time to watch our search party head out to try and find us. home safe.
As I look back on this crazy adventure, I see a week of adventure. My campers required me and my adult adviser to hold their hands the whole time, which included telling them that leaving their stuff outside in the rain meant that it would get wet (i kid not). I had to keep my kids alive and try to also help them have a fun time while doing it. But I had a great week. The kids were mostly awesome. They were always excited about everything (the one girl that was stranded with me in the wind storm jumped up and down with excitement the whole time). The fact that it was crazy intense was just part of the job. I looked at what I had to do to get my campers safe, and did it. They all appeared to have a great week, both during and after, and some talked about coming back next year. To them, this was fun adventure too.
I love my job. I didn't feel stress all week as much as I was just tired from the days events and wanted a short break from the kids to hear my own thoughts again. I have another group coming tomorrow already and aside from my equipment still being wet because the weather forbids it from drying right now, I am entirely ready to go out again. I might sleep 12 hours tonight in prep, but that's fine by me. I drove into town today (which is an hour away, another great feature about that place) and was overwhelmed with how much i loved doing what i do. To me, this is the life.

thanks for reading, i hope my future posts wont be a chronicle.
catch you all in another week!