Everyone else is going home this week for Thanksgiving and will be meeting up again before heading back here to Helena on Tuesday.
The 4 of us will be having Thanksgiving with the Bartleson's, the Doiron's, and "the illustrious" Sean Courtney - at the Bartleson's house. And we are so excited.
Please continue to pray for the teams, for all of those traveling and all of those who don't have a warm place to stay in these cold days and nights.
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
"I was thinking, over thinking"
The drive to Helena seemed to drag on - for me anyway. I knew in my heart that something was about to happen, and I was pretty sure I wasn't going to like it. I kept playing different scenarios through my head. I spent most of the drive in the back seat trying to sleep (avoiding nausea). And when I wasn't asleep, I was thinking and worrying. When I think and start to worry or get anxious, I bite my nails or I find something on me to focus on and start trying to "fix" it. Let's just say that by the time we got into Helena, I had chewed off 5 nails that were now "nubs" and working on the 6th. I kind of made the team hold off on lunch because I knew that something important was about to happen and we needed to get to the house asap.
So we finally get to the house. We decided we were going to wait to unpack, we walk inside and say "Hi" to Dan and Jonny. They told us they were going to wait about an hour or so to talk to us so that we could get our stuff inside, etc. After mentioning that we just wanted to get here and talk with them, they sat us down and told us what was going on. Two people from the St. Martin team were sent home. No longer on team.
Crap.
So we finally get to the house. We decided we were going to wait to unpack, we walk inside and say "Hi" to Dan and Jonny. They told us they were going to wait about an hour or so to talk to us so that we could get our stuff inside, etc. After mentioning that we just wanted to get here and talk with them, they sat us down and told us what was going on. Two people from the St. Martin team were sent home. No longer on team.
Crap.
Friday, November 19, 2010
On the road again..
So after spending a couple of weeks in Helena, we were ready to get back on the road. We spent a couple of days in Butte America helping Sean Courtney with his middle school youth group. That's where we experienced our first snow fall - before Halloween. Blech. It was a nice adjustment, however. Remembering I'm not in the Yakima Valley and it really does snow in October in Montana sometimes. So after coming back to Helena, we hung out with the St. Martin team and had some fun times. The Andersons came for Giana Claire's baptism, so we got to see them which was so great. Jesse vs. Jonny at a game of ultimate frisbee....totally awesome!
Halloween. Fun times were had that night. Everyone in the house dressed up - even the ones that were opposed to dressing up. We were all so many different things. Nic was a redneck/hillbilly (it was rather disturbing), Janae was a fairy, Bethany was a hippie, Adam was some sort of missionary I think, and I was "Mamaw" - country grandma that wore a tinfoil hat to keep the voices out. We only had 3 trick-or-treaters that night. Two of them were when Bethany chased them down, and the third when I was sitting outside and asked if he wanted candy. We were a crazy group that night. We ended the night watching Jurassic Park.
We drove back to Spokane for a retreat at Assumption Catholic Church with a hilarious group of middle schoolers. After the retreat, Nic and I had a week of "surprises" planned out. We spent a couple of days in Yakima, going to the Lifeteen Mass that I use to sing at in the worship band, youth group, Shari's with some of the "old gang" :). Spent some time at the Haven with Fred Lopez and Jake Robillard, as well as some other people and the St. Bernadette team from Sunnyside. It was great to see them again - they're kind of off in their own little world over there.
After those couple of days in Yakima, we drove over to Mossyrock and met Bethany's family. I drove through my first "blizzard" of the year heading over White Pass... it was beautiful! We spent that day and part of the next in Mossyrock, and then back on the road.
The next stop on our trip was going to be Pike St. in Seattle, but while we were Mossyrock, Adam fell and hurt his foot so we couldn't really go anywhere that required a lot of walking. So we went to St. James Cathedral and had our personal prayer time there. I always forget how amazing that church is! That rest of the day was spent in the van driving to Hayden Lake and stay with one of our previous host homes.
We woke up the next morning and discovered that Sheila was broken. Yup...broken. Only cosmetically though. The dad was leaving for work and backed into Shelia's door. When I woke up that morning and I was told to go look outside because there was a surprise on the van, I didn't know what to expect. So then while I'm staring at the giant dent in our driverside door, all I could think was that it was a moose or something that ran into the side of Sheila...yeah, that's it. A moose!
Now it's another weekend, and we have another retreat. Christ the King church from Richland - a familiar area for me and Janae! Half of the chaperones were people we knew, so it was nice to see them again. We know that will probably never happen again so we're glad it happened at least once. This was a high school confirmation retreat at Lutherhaven Ministries Camp in Coeur d'Alene. This retreat was such an experience for us - it was so good. We got a call that weekend saying that we needed to get back to Helena as soon as we could after the retreat. So we stayed Sunday night at Hayden Lake and then Monday morning drove back to Helena.
to be continued...
Halloween. Fun times were had that night. Everyone in the house dressed up - even the ones that were opposed to dressing up. We were all so many different things. Nic was a redneck/hillbilly (it was rather disturbing), Janae was a fairy, Bethany was a hippie, Adam was some sort of missionary I think, and I was "Mamaw" - country grandma that wore a tinfoil hat to keep the voices out. We only had 3 trick-or-treaters that night. Two of them were when Bethany chased them down, and the third when I was sitting outside and asked if he wanted candy. We were a crazy group that night. We ended the night watching Jurassic Park.
We drove back to Spokane for a retreat at Assumption Catholic Church with a hilarious group of middle schoolers. After the retreat, Nic and I had a week of "surprises" planned out. We spent a couple of days in Yakima, going to the Lifeteen Mass that I use to sing at in the worship band, youth group, Shari's with some of the "old gang" :). Spent some time at the Haven with Fred Lopez and Jake Robillard, as well as some other people and the St. Bernadette team from Sunnyside. It was great to see them again - they're kind of off in their own little world over there.
After those couple of days in Yakima, we drove over to Mossyrock and met Bethany's family. I drove through my first "blizzard" of the year heading over White Pass... it was beautiful! We spent that day and part of the next in Mossyrock, and then back on the road.
The next stop on our trip was going to be Pike St. in Seattle, but while we were Mossyrock, Adam fell and hurt his foot so we couldn't really go anywhere that required a lot of walking. So we went to St. James Cathedral and had our personal prayer time there. I always forget how amazing that church is! That rest of the day was spent in the van driving to Hayden Lake and stay with one of our previous host homes.
We woke up the next morning and discovered that Sheila was broken. Yup...broken. Only cosmetically though. The dad was leaving for work and backed into Shelia's door. When I woke up that morning and I was told to go look outside because there was a surprise on the van, I didn't know what to expect. So then while I'm staring at the giant dent in our driverside door, all I could think was that it was a moose or something that ran into the side of Sheila...yeah, that's it. A moose!
Now it's another weekend, and we have another retreat. Christ the King church from Richland - a familiar area for me and Janae! Half of the chaperones were people we knew, so it was nice to see them again. We know that will probably never happen again so we're glad it happened at least once. This was a high school confirmation retreat at Lutherhaven Ministries Camp in Coeur d'Alene. This retreat was such an experience for us - it was so good. We got a call that weekend saying that we needed to get back to Helena as soon as we could after the retreat. So we stayed Sunday night at Hayden Lake and then Monday morning drove back to Helena.
to be continued...
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