LTSP Altitude vs. Attitude

I want to preface this story by sharing with you the fact that I started writing this post when I was all done for the day on sunday, but was so tired, my body just shut down and I fell asleep mid-sentance. So I'm finishing it and posting it now…. You'll understand why as you read on….

On sunday I and 23 other kids on project voluntarily woke up at 2 am, and drove to a trailhead with our packs on our backs and headlamps on our head to hike up a mountain with the goal of catching the sunrise over the lake. A simple sunrise hike was what I anticipated. To be honest, I only got 2 hours of sleep before embarking on such a hike, but was in such good spirits going into the hike my tiredness just naturally dissipated! We all set out up the trail and the "hike" quickly became more of a "climb". We were gaining altitude very rapidly, and climbing up this steep trail for hours, my body did not agree with what I was doing. About an hour into it I got incredibly altitude sick, with every step my body threatened to up-chuck my breakfast. Which it eventually did on multiple occasions. Because of that I fell behind the pack a little and some other people fell back with me. We simply had to go slower cause I was sick and some kids were having breathing problems. We tried to keep our spirits up as the hike got harder and steeper… Many jokes were made about our sickness. Which helped, but it still was a hard hike. Multiple times as I looked up at the practically vertical sheet of rock and rubble in front of me I wanted to just stop, stay where I was, and convince myself that wherever that was had to "do" cause I wasn't going to make it. I thought that so many times in the 3 hours we climbed, reduced myself to tears at one point. But a bigger part of me wanted to defeat this monster I was climbing, and would not accept defeat. I had supportive friends as well who kept encouraging me and telling me to keep coming. Even the last half hour of shaky boulder climbing on our hands and feet while I was throwing up was not enough to deter me from making it to the top. Against my body's natural will I climbed the mountain in time to see the sunrise with the rest of the group. And I can say it was one of the most breath taking sites I've ever seen. I could have sat up there all day and marveled at God's amazing creation. Except my stomach couldn't hold itself down so I was among the first to start the treck down…. Which was equally challenging, for different reasons. We were now climbing down a mountain face on our hands and knees, battering our feet, ankle joints, and knee joints, while sometimes even taking on a new form of surfing by sliding down the rubble on our sides! Spending a few solid hours in the early morning light hiking back down what we hiked up was cool because we could actually see our surroundings! It was no longer a pitch black world we were mindlessly stumbling through, it was a forest fresh with new sun light of the day and gorgeous views of the lake and wildlife.
Overall this hike was one of the hardest things I've ever done. I'm beyond proud I made it through, despite my sickness. I bonded with the people I hiked with, as you naturally do with the people you experience something extraordinary with, or something hard with. But I probably won't do it again :) It was definitely a sweet misery. And it EXHAUSTED me!

After we got back from the hike we had to go to church and try our hardest to keep our eyes open and our heads up… and after that we had to go out in groups a share our faith on the beaches for hours. Needless to say I was one of many walking zombies, I couldn't tell you what my pastor said at church to save my life…. And sharing was hard to focus on. I was just drained, which is understandable. I laid down when my day was all over and don't even remember my head hitting the pillow.

I think God showed me how much strength he gave me, strength I didn't even know I had, and that when I draw closer to him I gain more strength. There is no way I could have hiked a mountain before 9 am and completed all my daily tasks without lean in on him and resting in him.
Here is a picture of the view I worked so hard to see:

LTSP God Is At Work People!

Hi friends,
I am happy to report to you all that I am feeling much better, and even though my appetite is about as existent as Amelia Earhart and her plane... I'm able to be up and about for the most part. I went back to work and was able to do the normal nightly activities. A lot of it was dressing to the occasion and getting up for it, hoping my body would rise to the occasion. I am also fortunate enough to have a sweet as can be boyfriend and very caring best friend here to care for me and make sure I felt better.

We have been embedding ourselves here in the community pretty well now. Been able to give people directions to places, and finally know my way around about half of K-Mart! I'm getting to know the members of the church I am attending. Getting to know the girls in my life group even better, they have been such a blessing to me and it's crazy how close we have been able to get in such a short amount of time. We have also had multiple opportunities to volunteer within the community, where we can not only fill a need here in Tahoe, but while we are doing that we can have really cool and easy spiritual conversations with people. Like yesterday we got to volunteer at the countries largest paddle board competition down at the lake. It was absolute chaos, but in the best way. There were tons of beach goers and boarders there to compete and have a good time. God used us in so many ways and brought about such positivity to the whole event. I'm continuously amazed how present God is in all this. He really does lead us to talk to people who we can just tell he's put in our path for a reason, whether it's just to make them think or whether it's to really rock their world with the good news. Though not every conversation is a success, and not everyone gets into a conversation, sometimes we just end up serving and showing God's message through our actions, every experience brings us closer to God and teaches us something.

Also looking forward to having the Taste of Tahoe kids joining us for the holiday weekend. These are kids like us who wanted to come on project but for one reason or another couldn't commit, so they just are coming for a small "taste."

Would love continued prayer for patience at work (especially with the 4th of July coming up), and for the other kids on this project that are starting to get sick, that they would have a quick turn around, and for the taste of Tahoe kids coming in on wednesday.

LTSP Problem Child

Sometimes it's hard for me to be appreciative of all that God is doing for me in my life. I have this amazing opportunity to be in awesome christian community in a beautiful place in the world that has such a need for Jesus. Who wouldn't be excited right!?
Well, today I full on got the flu, it came in like a crashing wave at 4 am. in all of it's wrath . And continued throughout out the day. I have been held up in my cabin ever since and been told not to come to the group activities. I don't want to expose all the other kids to my illness. I finally just had to leave work early for fear of throwing up at the cash register… which I feel especially bad about because I was honestly kind of glad to get off the cash register. I'm not really enjoying working at Kmart, there are more problems than there are people who know how to solve them, leaving angry and impatient customers storming up to the register where little old me has no idea how to help them being so new. There is just a lot of confusion and unorganized leadership, which is hard to deal with sometimes. I'm learning you have to have tough skin to work in customer service, and sometimes even that isn't enough. Finding it hard to appreciate where I am and all these great people I'm with at the moment. Cause honestly, all I want is my own bed and my mom.
It's becoming a running joke that I am the "problem child" at work cause things seem to go wrong and my cash register can't work for longer than three transactions. And now I'm the sicky of the camp and am staying away from group activities.
Really trying to lean on the Lord and find the good in my days. I know this wave of sickness and frustration at work will pass.
Prayers for healing and patience is greatly appreciated.

LTSP Just Me, Jesus, and Kmart….

About all I have time for these days is all the devotionals and sharing stuff I am doing with my bible study group in the mornings, my 8 hour shift at K-mart,  and leaving just enough time for me to scrape up some personal time to you know… eat, sleep, and clean myself… All very important details that can be easily lost in a packed schedule. Don't even ask the last time I've done laundry… It's worse than college here as far as that goes!

We are finally settling into a routine here, Waking up at 5:30 am to go to devotionals before reporting to work at 7 am. Work has been chaotic to say the least, and I'm learning so much about the ins-and-outs of a department store! Definitely earning an appreciation for department store employees around the country. Didn't know how much of an army it took to run a store! I've been specializing in the "personal care" section of the store. And would now consider shelving deodorants a personal skill that I would be proud to put on a resume! :) It's much harder than it looks people!
Anyways, there are about 8 of us Cru kids working there and we are all being trained to do everything from cash register to storage room stuff. Keeps me busy all day, thats for sure. I'm looking forward to getting to know my co-workers better and gain some good relationships while I am here!

I have had some amazing adventures out to Emerald Bay, and to Heavenly shopping village, with my new friends here. There are tons of good places to get authentic ice cream here. So I have made it a personal goal to try each place once! Though this is kind of a vacation, obviously a beautiful place to be, it is also work. I have a purpose to my day, and that is ultimately to share the love of Jesus in any way I can with those around me. And that is such an honor, that is what keeps me from going insane at 5:30 when my alarm goes off, or at 3:30 in the afternoon when my legs are aching and I just want to go home and lay down. It is hard work here, but it's nothing I can't handle through Him, and I am gladly doing it for Him.

LTSP Is there a mouse heaven?

I have a funny story for you all.

We live in very basic cabins here in a camp ground called Tallac Village. We have running water and a tiny heater in the corner of our room, both of which make our cabins nicer than some I've stayed in before. But there are admittedly lots of ways God's creatures could find their way into our humble little cabin. And last night we had a tiny mouse find its way in. Of course a room full of girls, this caused quite the scene. We fled for high ground on the top bunks, squealing all the way up. And after coming to our senses, we were able to corral it back out of the hole where it came. We then plugged the hole. Keep in mind this is about 11:30 pm when this all happens. I wish the story ended there, but a few minutes later my cabin mate looks up from her bed and just calmly says "oh hi mousy" as he had come back!  After finding it again, with the help of our leader who had by now come to help us having heard our screams, we got it out the front door, but discovered it could come underneath the door! So we plug up each door crack, and get back in bed… Only to discover the mouse again. To be honest we aren't sure if it was just one extremely persistent mouse or multiple mice. Either way it was unsettling.
We decided that the mouse won… we were not going to fight it anymore, but the two of us on the bottom bunk (they are 3 bed bunks) didn't feel comfortable so close to the ground. So we hauled all our stuff to the top bunk, and got very personal with the ceiling that was about 6 inches from our faces, but we preferred that over a mouse potentially being 6 inches from our face.
By 1 am. we were all settled, and I presume the mouse was comfortable and warm somewhere in there with us.

God sure had a sense of humor last night, praying this mouse finds a new home, cause our cabin CONNOT be his permanent place of residence, or hope he finds his way to mouse heaven cause we are for sure having the guys set traps for us!
One with nature here in Lake Tahoe!

LTSP The Tahoe Routine

Good morning friends,

I've had a couple solid days now where we have had orientation, kind of learning what to expect and what is expected from us, and have had the opportunity to hang out and get to know a lot more people. We spent Sunday going to various churches in the community, I chose to attend a local Presbyterian church. It was very different than the Presbyterian church I attend at home... I can assure you that! But it will be an interesting change of pace to go there for the next 9 weeks. After church we got the opportunity to go sharing all throughout the community. Just going out in pairs to listen to what people had to say about spiritual things and see if we could help them along in their spiritual journey. I got paired with my friend Jake and we went to the local shopping center, and had multiple conversations with people from all walks of life. Going up to a complete stranger and asking to talk about spiritual things will never be comfortable, but will hopefuy get more natural. Though we never got as far as outright explaining the gospel to anyone like we are trained to do. It was just nice to know we planted some seeds and that's all God needs to take it from there. So I trust and know The Lord has a plan for each and every person we talked to. 

We are still trying to get in a routine here, establish set times for morning devotionals, and get our work hours set. I'm a person who very much likes routine and likes to know what's happening when. Which is why Sunday was so good, cause that is what every Sunday will look like the entire time I'm here. I hope we get a routine down soon. All this guessing is starting to tire me out. I know it will all come together in good time! 

Prayers for my patients and for the continued work here from this project here in South Lake Tahoe! 

LTSP Check in and Orientation

Good afternoon friends,
I finally have a break to sit and write a little bit about my experience in the first two days here.
The trip down went without a hitch! We made it 11 hours to Reno, Nevada and spent a very comfortable night in a hotel before heading out to Lake Tahoe around noon yesterday.

We got to Tahoe and got registered, and from the get-go was swarmed by all these new people to meet. I'm so thankful everyone had name tags on, because the verbal introductions seemed to go in one ear and out the other in the chaos of it all. The afternoon yesterday was spent meeting all the kids from around the country that came to be on project with us. All of the staff seemed to already know me due to the fact that my lovely boyfriend, who is on staff here, may have mentioned me once or twice :) so that made introductions easy! We met our "life groups" that we will be spending time with doing bible studies and sharing life with every day over the next nine weeks. My group is very unique, we have me from Washington state, a girl from the state of Michigan, a girl from the state of Colorado, and a girl who came all the way from Sweden! I'm so excited to gain new perspective from all our different lives and grow closer in the word together with our life group leader who is from Montana.

After a night in the…. rustic and cozy (cramped and bare) cabins, we had a very informative orientation before heading out to job hunt around town. I already got hired by K-Mart before coming. So I and all the other 8 kids that got employed there had it easy this afternoon. Just had to go take a quick drug test.

We are soaking up the sun for the afternoon, kids are filling out job applications, and awaiting a spaghetti feast for dinner! God is so good and I can't help but be optimistic about the days to come!