2) A few pictures from week the second...

Me, Taylor, and Rachel went for a trail walk in the woods.

On Thursday, we set forth in the bus for a weekend conference called "Awakening Cry" in Spokane. I got my geography a little mixed up and thought it was in Idaho for a little bit, haha. But no, it's just on this side of the Washington Idaho border. This isn't all the luggage we brought, I took this picture before all the students and youth had arrived.

It's so cool how the sides of the bus go up to reveal a secret compartment for luggage underneath!

Annnnnd unloading the bus Thursday night after the first conference session! Then we were driven off to host homes where we stayed for the weekend. I was housed with Kristi, one of the staff, and Abbie, one of the Yuba City students. And our host home was a Homeschool family! With a cool basement! With epic bookshelves! Including Narnia! And they used Apologia science! I lovvvve that science curriculum. =D

For lunches and dinners, Kristi gave each of us an envelope with our name on it and $7 inside. There were plenty of restaurants and fast foods within walking distance, so we had our options. When done, we would return the envelope to her with the receipt inside. This is a picture of several of us at Denny's for lunch.

Did I mention how much I LOVE the bus? Just... road trip!!! =D The bus screams road trip. It's so much fun, it's so... free. I just love traveling. I love not knowing exactly what the day holds, not knowing what I'm going to eat or where I'm going to sleep, just knowing that I certainly will eat something and I certainly will sleep somewhere, but... I'm out on an adventure. With awesome friends, too. Think Bilbo Baggins. "I'm going on an adventure!"

...And when we returned Rachel's car had gone into a deep slumber and needed jumper cables. xD Hers is the white one, not the banana yellow one. That one belongs to Caleb, one of the interns, who is on the top of my mental "crazy drivers" list. I've got four names put down so far.

And this last picture is from today. My house parents, Gene and Barbara. And my house nephew, TJ.

This was another extremely full week! As will next week be. A guest speaker named Carry Abbott will be coming. And in my host home there will be three girls from Canada who are going through a similar discipleship program. Fun fun. And then next week my dad is flying up on Monday! ^_^ He has some work in the morning/early afternoon, and then we'll be hanging out in the late afternoon/evening before he has to fly back home. I'm looking forward to it! =D

1) The First "Official" Week of Class

That was this week! Today is Saturday. And on Monday, we'll begin week 2 of class.

This last week... it may have consisted of seven 24-hour intervals... but believe me, sometimes a single day lasted for three weeks. It was a BUSY WEEK!

Week one usually isn't this full. But there was a guest speaker for several evenings, so we spent the day at class, then the evening at the service. And we didn't go home in between each time. And class isn't just sitting in class. This week we cleaned the facilities and set them up for a funeral. There's worship in the mornings. There's the different possible activities of lunch time. There's quiet study time, which never lasts long enough. There's... a lot of stuff. ;)

The week was also an internal roller coaster. In a million different ways, with elements from a dozen different sources. I loved the seminar we watched in class this week... the things Malcolm Smith spoke of in "A Search for Self-Worth" were by no means foreign to me, but still... It's always lovely to gain a richer and fuller understanding of a concept. To think about things in ways you hadn't before. To focus on things you'd all but forgotten. To come to realizations that had never fully sunk in before. To see healing for wounds you'd forgotten were even there. It really is a beautiful thing.

Yes. Overall, this has been an excellent week! =]

And it has now been one month! As of the day after tomorrow, it has been one solid month.

... O_O

Have I really already been here a MONTH? The unit of time I've been here... feels like years, while at the same time feeling like only a week. It feels like a long time, but more than that it feels like a short time. A VERY short time. This unit of time I've been here... do I really only have ten more units before this is over? Only ten? So few?

Wow. I will never understand time.

Oh, and by the way! GL paid for us to have our hair done professionally. ;D You remember Jude, the baby who swallowed the sleeping pills? His mom is a professional hair-cutter. Tammie (the awesome assistant director) picked me and Sarah up yesterday and brought us to the salon.

Well, there we go. I've brought my blog up to the present! Hopefully I can easily fall into the habit of posting once a week. That would be neat. :)

3) Beginning of the Year Retreat

This was a really fun week. Some of it was hard, just because I'm not used to being around so many people. Socializing is... not one of my skills. But that's okay, even my classmates told me, "It's okay to be socially clumsy... This is a safe place for that! ;)" So it's cool to learn how to be comfortable around people! Socializing is a good skill to acquire.

So each day we'd get up, go do something fun all day, then gather at Brie's house in the evening. And at Brie's house we all shared our stories with each other. I loved that. It was my favorite part of the week.

My second favorite part of the week was definitely the team building activities! I don't have any pictures on hand, but we all went out into the woods to have a little adventure with a giant spiderweb. >:) Cords were tied between two trees, and every member of our class had to go through the holes in the web... without touching the strands. Not an easy task. It required strategy and leaning on each other. To add to that, several students were handicapped. Three had blindfolds, three had their hands tied together, and three were mute. I had no handicap, and spent most of my time around those blindfolded. I felt kind of like Laura from the Little House series, the way she would always describe what was going on to her blind sister. And... yeah. This activity was definitely my absolute highlight of the week, other than the evenings. I'll have to get a picture from one of the interns later! It was just so amazing, the way we were all working towards a goal together... we weren't socializing and making small talk, we were... accomplishing something! We were interacting with each other for a PURPOSE!!! It was just... so... ahhh! I loved that. x)

One morning the girls made breakfast for everyone, and another morning the guys made breakfast for everyone.

We spent one day in Seattle, just wandering around in groups. There were five others in my group. Megan, Rachel, Clara, Matthew, and Isaac.

The next day we went to a waterfall. When we all go somewhere, we either use our bus or we pile into two 15-seater vans. Or, rather, one 15-seater and one 11-seater. The bus is like... a 40 seater? I'm not sure. But there aren't any seat belts in it! And that's not okay! @_@ Haha.

After the waterfall, we went to a park. Here's the view from the top of the swing set.

On the last day when it was over, six of us girls came over to my host house for a hair cutting party! I hadn't planned on cutting my hair just yet, for Dawnmarie's sake... but considering the circumstances, I went ahead with it. It was a lot of fun!

Here's Sarah, Clara, and me. Sarah was a student last year, but she's repeating her student year again this year. Just because it's an awesome year and she wanted more of it... while not feeling quite ready to be an intern. And she loves Lord of the Rings and Narnia!

On Sunday I spent the afternoon with Megan, Clara, and Isaac. We went to a park and took pictures and fed ducks and played on the playground and such.

Then went back to Megan's host house, and she taught me how to crochet. ^_^ Megan is the one I was messaging the most several weeks before class started.

2) And the second week rolled around!

The second week... yes, a fundraiser. I wasn't involved, though, because we have such a large class this year and they didn't need everyone. I was thinking about it the other day... We have 21 students. 14 are girls, 7 are boys. That's exactly two thirds and one third! 

The tuition costs only cover about 1/3 the cost of the year per student, so to make up the difference we'll work through a temp agency when there are Microsoft shows. About 8 of us weren't needed, though. So we 8 were assigned to helping out some of the church families. 

On the first day, we were helping one of the host families move. Packing up their old house and such. I was playing with their 3-year-old son, keeping him occupied... and then their 20-month-old son got into some sleeping pills and swallowed 15-20 of them! He was rushed off to the hospital, and fought for his life over the next couple of days. 

On the second day, we went to Jim and Tammie's house to clean it. They're the assistant directors, so that when Tom (the old sanguine fellow with the cool office) retires after this school year they'll take over. Tammie is really awesome.

On the third day, we went back to continue helping the family move. We went to their new house, which has a bomb shelter in the back yard. Most of the day we spent painting the walls inside. (Inside the house, not inside the bomb shelter.) Then when we were just getting done in the late afternoon, we got to see baby Jude! They released him from the hospital... and my, did that little guy look beat up! He had black circles under his little eyes and was fussy and... generally looked like he was catching his breath. The doctors said that it was a complete miracle that he's alive... and what's more, there's absolutely no permanent damage. No damage to his brain, no damage to his heart, and any damage to his liver or kidneys would wear off in a week or two. Woohoo!

And a few pictures from the week...

My mailbox is the one on the far left.

I have such fun friends. Rachel, Clara, and Megan.

And my host home has an ammmazing garden in the backyard! =D I spent about an hour picking raspberries one evening.

1) A few pictures from the first week...

So, here's a picture of our whole class in the classroom on Orientation night. It's strange looking at this picture, because when I took the picture it was a picture of a bunch of almost strangers... but now looking back at it here is my whole class.

Me, Rachel, and her little sister Lavinia.

My bedroom.

The long driveway  to the main road, with the neighbor's dog.

Tom's super cool office.

Really, really cool office.

My little frog I caught on my first day off.

Rachel and Clara playing a duet at Brie's house.

1) Four Keys to a Great Year

The first week was orientation week, beginning on September 16th. And it seems like everything the leaders have been doing for the past three weeks is handing keys to the students. They've handed us more keys than I could list off the top of my head! I should go through all my notes and compile all the keys onto one page... that would be cool. ^_^

But during orientation week, Tom gave a talk about four of said keys. Four keys to having a great year. Tom is the director of the program, an old fellow who's quite cool and very Sanguine.

I... LOVE these keys! Well, I tend to just love keys in general... but really. These ones are extra special. I"ll just go over them quickly, though, because otherwise I might end up writing pages.

1) Judge other people based on their value, not based on their behavior!!!

Isn't that so epic? It's a good thing to be aware of (probably had never even crossed some of the students' minds before...) and a good thing to ever keep at the forefront of one's mind! Over the past 3 weeks, we students have often brought it up amongst ourselves. Especially when someone's behavior comes into question. ;) Because each and every person is made in the image of God and is therefore inherently valuable. EXTREMELY valuable! Their value never changes, never wavers. But behavior, on the other hand... >_> People's behavior can sure be awful sometimes. So, it's good to always think about people as they are created to be, not as they're acting at this particular moment. ^_^

2) Have confidence in Jesus. Put your confidence in Him and nowhere else!

...Because, really. Everyone and everything else will let you down. If you have a false perception of Jesus, that is an idol which will let you down. If you put your confidence in a "pastor" or any other human being, they will let you down. If you put your confidence in yourself, you'll let you down too. And it's so cool to NOT BE LET DOWN!!! =D 

3) Stop looking for donkeys!

This key is based on a story of when Saul went searching for his lost donkeys. He couldn't find them anywhere, and decided he'd go ask the prophet Samuel if he knew where the donkeys were. It was a divine appointment when he entered the city and asked a random fellow, "Do you know where the prophet is?" That random fellow was actually Samuel. And he said, "Saul, it's time for you to stop looking for donkeys. God wants to anoint you to be king."

Saul was concerned with his donkeys, while God had a much bigger plan than simply giving him the donkeys. Saul was annointed king, and then Samuel said... "By the way, your donkeys are tied up over there." 

Donkeys can represent a husband, wife, career... etc. This is the metaphor of the story. Just don't worry about those things this year! This year is a time to let God anoint you, to let Him give you divine appointments, to let Him prepare you for your future. And next year, next year you can think about your donkeys. God wants to give them to you. And He knows exactly where they are. So don't worry.

4) Your destiny is over your enemies' dead bodies.

Because we all have enemies, you know. Some more serious than others. Students in my class have struggled with addictions. Those are enemies. Sinful habits. Those are enemies. Fear, anxiety, doubt. Those are enemies. These things are the Goliaths that stand in our lives and mock God. These are the Goliaths that hold us back from our destinies. 

"Find something that you want to defeat this year!" said Tom, "Find something you want to defeat!"

Because throughout the year, we students will be handed tools. Truths. Weapons with which we can chop off the heads of our enemies! Mwuahahaha! And over their dead bodies lie our destinies. 

... I love being here at GL. I've been overwhelmed at times and I'm still finding my footing, but really... I LOVE it here! I miss my family, but I know I'll see them soon. And I know I'm meant to be here at this time.

Welcome

On September 14, I moved to Washington to do a small discipleship program called Generational Leadership. For short, it's called GL. Which, by now, no longer makes me think of General Liability. That's good. Especially since they refer to students as "GLes" instead of taking the vocal effort of saying, "GL students" every time. So, it's good that I don't have General Liability in my head every time I hear GL. Though there is a GL policy here, I'm sure. There's a "No Skateboarding" sign in the parking lot. Big GL hazard right there.

So, anyway. I'm starting this blog for my friends and family. I think it's a cool plan to put up a post once a week. Who knows if that will actually happen, with the extremely rigorous schedule I'm on here. But it's a nice thought. Maybe I'll just post a few thoughts, or a highlight from my week, or something random that isn't necessarily a highlight, or even just a picture with a caption underneath.

I've been here for three weeks so far. The first week was orientation. The second week there was a fundraiser. The third week was the beginning of the year retreat. The fourth week... the fourth week started today, on Monday. The fourth week brings the official start of the school year. Today was the first day of the official Week One. 

So perhaps I will put up three short posts now, one for each week. If only I can do it swiftly enough. There's an event going on tonight and in an hour I must depart. And it would be a poor idea to spend the entire hour writing. There are other things which are good to think about. Like food. Having something to eat would be good. And I'll get home late, so making my lunch for tomorrow would be good. And making sure I have laundry ready, so I have clean non-wrinkly clothes to wear in the morning. And- well, yeah. Plus homework, of course. There's SO MUCH to do when you only have two hours in which to do it. But I'm taking time to get this blog up, because I know I'll be happier that way.

Things should calm down soon. Actually spending my day off at home resting and getting stuff done would sure help. And when the schedule goes back to normal, most evenings will be free. So that's good.

Love you all, farewell!