the great reverse

there is just TOO much i want to share today!
i hate "hodgepodge" posts that are all over the place, but I also want to say all of this today.
SO:
Lauren Glova: YOU CAN DO IT! i know you can.
i love having you as a friend, and girlfriend to my brother.
i know everything falls down at the same time on us and its discouraging but hang in there!!! in such a short time i'll be home and we can talk about movies and books and watch the office again, ok?
i believe in you and believe you're gonna make such a difference in this world!
love you and happy birthday one day early! :)

i found PHILADELPHIA cream cheese at the store yesterday! JOY OF JOY!!!!! i am LOVING it :)

my dad is coming soo soon i can't almost believe it....

and now for a bit of seriousness and history 101 with rebekah:

*ahem,* pull up a chair and grab some coffee!

6 years ago i set out on what i thought would be a 3 month journey. 

things are never what they seem, are they?

i had no idea the people i would be embarking on this great adventure with would become some of my dearest friends; that they would become my family.
i had no clue the extent of poverty we would see and interact with daily.
i didn't realize the depth of human suffering and how those who have lost everything
can still smile and
dance.
i didn't think it was possible to eat such spicy food, to sleep in such broken-down places and go days without a shower;
but it is.

i didn't know i was so insecure, so dependent on my families belief in Jesus, so immature
 till i was away from everything and everyone that was familiar to me.

Jesus became my savior, my friend, my sustainer on that trip. He was mine. I fell in love and grew leaps and bounds in trust during those three months in West Africa.

this post is so bittersweet to me...

sweet because it was one of the best experiences of my life. bitter because it was one of the hardest things i've ever done...and i miss my teammates almost daily...

i have a thousand and ten thousand more memories tied to my team and time in west africa. 

i am blessed because in the very beginning of our time together a documentary film crew followed us around. 

the goal was to create a sorta mini-series off of our time, or a full length movie of our time 

for churches to show their youth/young adult groups.

within a few months they had finished short trailers and shared clips of what was edited together to us.

it was phenomenal. spectacular. 

i was so proud that i was part of something that i knew God would

use to help bridge the gap between 

"i can't do anything for Him,"

 to 

"wow, this is feasible, i'm just a normal person...if they did it, so can i."

but that was 6 years ago.

and though i've never for a moment forgotten the fact that this crew of 5 people lived with us those first few weeks overseas, i had almost stopped believing it would ever be released. 

what can i say, i'm practically a pessimist. 

living most of my life on that fine line between 

realism and pessimism.

but this past September it was released! 

i've been receiving emails from my teammates that its wonderful and all sorts of other 

sappy "teammate" things.

but seeing as i live in Africa it would be a bit till i saw it. 

or so i thought!

i just got it in the mail yesterday! and of course the instant work was over, i watched it!!

and as i watched it, 

i wept...

tears of joy remembering the silly moments.

tears of sadness remembering some of the things we saw and encountered. 

i just was so emotionally overwhelmed seeing what we prayed for and experienced be brought to life in such a real, vivid, beautiful way.

i remember at first finding it very awkward that a little microphone was attached to my shirt and knowing that about 30 feet away there were men filming my every move. but after a day or two it was such a comfort knowing i was never alone. even when surrounded by hundreds of kids and no other white person in sight, i knew that if i spoke a simple "help," the guys would put down their cameras and come get me, or at least show their face so i was reassured of their presence.

it taught me a beautiful lesson in the nearness of God. 

almost every night we'd have special "one-on-one" moments with the camera digesting the day. as i'm not the most vocally comfortable person it was very difficult sharing what my heart and mind were processing. so much of that time sadly didn't make it on the film for any of us (i mean, with 8 teammates and only a little bit over an hour much has to be cut...), but i know the level of trust and openness me and that camera developed. 

and i LOVE what they pulled from us along with the work we did...i couldn't be prouder to have a small part in this documentary.

Chip and the rest of the guys at Fearless Films did such an amazing job. the film is being released on INO records (love them...) and you can buy it NOW! 

AND it ships internationally (hence how i received it...).

if you aren't convinced you want to get it, just watch the trailer and let it work its 

magic on ya!

or read this (one of many) reviews of the film. 

you can go here and buy it yourself!!

GO buy or watch "NOMAD: the great reverse"

you won't regret it...

formal parties

Saturday Lo and I threw what was supposed to be a "Fall Party" at her house. Only, we realized very fast we had nothing we needed for a typical fall party. No pumpkin to carve, no costumes to wear, no store to find/make costumes from, no apple pies, no pumpkin pies, pretty much everything we wanted we couldn't' find...

So we improvised.

We decided to still use the recipes we love that are sorta "fallish/creepy," and have everyone dress up in nice clothes.

I'll say it over and over a thousand times but EVERY party is a 100 times better if it is a dress-up party. Find a theme and go with it. Trust me....

Since we were supposed to sky dive (again!) in the morning but it was canceled Shawn was around all day to help bake and cook and clean. There is no way Lo, Nathan and I could have done it without him helping.

Lauren and Shawn were in charge or making our "moldy biscuits" only they deleted the recipe and improvised while I was out making some phone calls on the only part of the farm that had reception. hahaha, i return and this is what I see.

somehow they managed to add ALL the buttermilk and they dyed all the mixture green instead of random "moldy" spots. hahahhaa LOVE them...somehow the biscuits weren't that bad, either...amazing.

watched a glorious rugby final on tv together. got to love being a Blue Bull...yeah baby!!!!

fritz and richard started off the "formal" part of the evening by dancing. 

 i love that our boys were all wearing black...they crack me up.

all the ladies...

plus richard who just "had" to be in the shot.

the fellas looking super macho with their arms crossed..

i'm sorry fritz and nathan....but i HAD to include this..its just to wonderful....

 

i have a very sappy, happy post for tomorrow...i almost wanted to switch everything for today but i had already uploaded these photos...leah, i hope you know you are missed and loved.

no internet..

we've had no internet or phones since thursday. i really love all the rain and watching the thunder and lightening through the farm so i don't mind. rain is just wonderful here. cooling everything down and nothing smells better than rain.
here are all the updates i wanted to write if we had internet this weekend. what a great weekend! Lauren and I wanted to throw a Fall Party since it is Halloween and fall back home. We had everyone dress up fancy too. It was SUCH a fun time...

it seems that as soon as the rain starts, joy begins to erupt in my heart.
ahhhh i love rain storms!
Thursday:

• went to change my wash at HopeHouse, slipped and fell and got drenched in the process.
• realized there are many holes in the ceiling at the house. watched and laughed as lo, nathan and i tired to find buckets and towels to catch the water.
  
• walked home after dark. gate wouldn't open. had to climb up the side, shimmy over two feet to avoid the electric fence then jump down off the other side. very proud of my climbing abilities here.

Friday:

• spent the better part of the day running errends in town for the school and myself.
• got the motherload of all packages from home. french vanilla creamer, goldfish, wild bill's jerky, ahhhh wonderfulness!
• taught about 5 stranger how to use the photo kiosk at cna.
• finished the day with the boys. they just wanted to sit with me on my lap and read books. love them.
• helped Lo cook dinner. got burnt in the process fairly bad. have a very nice bubble and mark on my arm.

Saturday:

• woke up at 5:23am ON MY OWN! drove to my house to call the skydive place to see if our jump was on or off. it was off...
• second time we tried to jump and the weather was not happy so we couldn't.
  
• watched babymama and west side story with lo, nathan and shawn since we were up so early to jump and weren't tired enough to go back to bed.
  
• introduced the boys to french vanilla creamer and Colombian coffee (thanks, mom!!)
• danced and sang as we cleaned the HopeHouse for our "Fall Formal Party" that evening.
• watched the Bulls win the ABSA Currie Cup!!! till someone convinces me otherwise, i LOVE being a blue bull!
• such fun to dress up nice and eat with friends from church. still can't believe how many people made it out!
  
• played mafia with everyone....so much fun to watch how everyone plays that game. ahhhhhhh i love it!
• drove everyone out to the gate, came back and realized it was only 40 minutes till my phillies played LIVE. Had to stay awake to watch it. I felt so pampered! Lo made me coffee, had a LONG backrub, snuggled under the blankets, blissful...only the game was delayed and seeing as it was 2am i couldn't stay awake anymore...
• sunday played a very competitive game of spoons at the house. lots of screaming and fighting ensured....it was amazing....

internet is back on....school has begun...this time next week my dad will be here!
also we have 8 days till the Christmas program in school....
YIKES!
the boys are ready. i'm just not sure if i am.....

Casey Marie its your birthday!

yeah buddy! today is your birthday beautiful sister!!

 i'm so glad that 10 of your last birthdays have been celebrated as part of our family! i wish the first nine were as well, but i'll take what i can get and i'm so glad you chose us and we chose you!!

i love going on our favorite rides at disney world together. i love the heart you have for your friends. the compassion and care you put into your relationships is staggering. i love how every single time i'm feeling down or discouraged you seem to have "radar" and send me a quick email or text message and brighten my day.

seeing you love on orphans in Guatemala will forever be one of my favorite memories of you. in a way i'll never ever be able to love and understand and pray; you can. casey, you more than me or abi or any of us are able to relate and share the freedom and love and true "adoption" as God's beloved children with others. never forget you have such a calling and responsibility on your life to share that hope with others!! not only did we choose you, but He did first.

(both of my birthday sisters)

i love that we're the most similar sisters. you understand me. abi and nattie can be the goof balls and we can just sit contentedly on the sofa with our books watching them. peas in a pod, we are.

love that you enjoy having me share your bedroom and bed when i come visit home. love that we stay up most of the night talking and laughing (quietly of course...), and reading books in bed. ahhhhhh i love that i can share whats on my heart and you listen and care and keep my secrets. that's what sisters are for; they are secret keepers.

love your sense of jewelry style and all your boots!

girl, you rock the boots! *huge grin*

(felt like tasha was getting left out...love all my pretty sisters...oooo and just noticed i love all of our hair color in this too. since you girls change it up so much. this is how i prefer it, no matter what mom says....*smiles*)

casey, i'm so glad that you are part of this family. i love you. i love the freckles on your nose, your long lovely eyelashes, i love your car (hahhahaha), your music (well, not miley and the jonas boys)...

for all the years i was silly and missed out on you, i'm sorry. i'll take a hundred more birthdays to celebrate you as i wish i did the first few years you lived with us...o how gracious God has been to move in both our hearts and cause real sisterly love to grow!!!

YOU'RE SUCH A GIFT!

(for good measure i had to include this...why did i ever dye my hair brown?!?! what is up with both of us, we look like freaks?!?! *smiles*)

casey girl. i love you. this is your last teenage year of life. next year you're gonna be a big girl.

may this be your sweetest year yet!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!

my only big sister is 25 today.

today is my big sisters birthday. i can't believe she is a quarter century today!

that means i'm getting older too.

isn't she lovely too? i took this shot literally hours before she had sadie baby this past June. i'm praying the hot gene is flowing in me too when i get pregnant and have kids someday.

In so many ways I feel like we're closer to twins then sisters. we're so close in age its crazy...but we're so different in almost every way. we look nothing alike unless i straighten my hair. and even then, you abi, are all dad, and i am all mom....

for once i'm the one with the silly face in  a photo. such a rare occasion i had to share...

i love my brother-in-law too. i always wanted an older brother. someone to pick on me. someone to give me a hug when i'm down. someone to help me understand abi when she is crazy (hahhaha). basically, sean is the best thing ever. i'm so glad my sister picked a good man. after 5 years, they are still hot, huh?

my sister is probably the craziest person i know. nobody loves laughter and zannyness more then she does. i can't tell you how often abi got me to put on a ridiculous outfit and parade around town in it. or dress up in some crazy get-up for the millionth home video. we have some AMAZING home videos, thanks, sister...

i learned to write music form watching and listening to you pour out your heart on the piano. my ear for a melody and catchy hook is from all the songs you've written. i love your songs and your poems too. you're so incredibly gifted. you taught me how to apply make-up and do my hair. and i've dressed you and made you cool. *smile*

you've given me three of the biggest little balls of sunshine i know. having a niece named after me is something so marvelous and humbling i don't even know where to begin. someone (my sister!) named her baby after me and grandma....i can't wrap my mind around that. holding seana and sadie and seeing them giggle brightens my day like nothing else. and sweet joeli grace makes me long for heaven and to finally hold her in my arms. i love all your little girls and can't believe you're a mom. it seems like you're still pretending you are my mom and dressing me and our pretend babies...

you're one of the strongest women i know. i know few people who've had such physical and emotional pain to process through and take to Jesus. but time and time again i see you run to him and because of that, i can't give up either. thank you for chasing Jesus so hard.

i love you, abi.

i hope today is wonderful for you.

know you are cherished and i'm so glad you are mine!

happy happy birthday!

 

nightmare

today one of my nightmares happened.

one of the boys was brought to me with blood dripping down his head and coating his face.
poor calvin was crying so hard and frantic it was difficult at first to figure out where he was bleeding to even get it stopped.
eventually after just holding him tight for a few seconds he calmed down enough to let me start cleaning him off.
i found the cut.
just about his brow bone, where his hairline meets his forehead.
poor thing.
it wasn't super deep or super big,
but it was the perfect spot to cause lots of blood.

doesn't matter the color of your skin,
we all bleed red.

when the pressure finally allowed the wound to stop bleeding for a bit, i cleaned it up.
this involved the cleaning of his entire head and face as well as most of his arms and hands.
poor little guy.
he was so brave.
i know that antiseptic stuff burns like a mother.
he barely flinched and didn't cry at all after a few moments of being in my arms when i first saw him.
so brave.

the rest of the morning was sorta shot for him, and therefore the rest of us.
i was pre-occupied worrying over him. watching for swelling, making sure it wasn't a concussion, and wouldn't you know i had a headache within a few moments of seeing him hurt.
my empathy levels are WAY too high and always kick in rather quickly.

i tired him with a blanket to my back and excused him from all activites for the rest of the day.
he stuck to my side for a long time. after lunch he finally started playing but was never up to his normal level of activity and energy.
he's normally my most (to be politically correct) "active" child.

i had to change his bandage 3 times he kept bleeding through them all....
let me tell you...i need a lot more practice till i can be a mom.
if i feel so bad over one of my little students being hurt, i don't know how i'll manage if i ever have a child that is injured.

isn't he so cute when he's mid laugh?

say a prayer for my sweet calvin boy. and for this teacher.
we both need it today.

good times, indeed

it all started with a car ride. like a lot of transport here, we rode in the back. Lo and I put our hoodies up because we hadn't sprayed sunblock yet; also, it was sorta chilly with all the wind; and, our hair drove us crazy.

hahaha i love these next two photos, but especially this first one when we weren't posing.

we felt like we were gangsters and kept dropping gang signs. (we had just the day before watched a discovery channel thing on the crips and blood gangs, which was crazy...and carried over)

we drove up the mountain, then parked and walked a bit till we saw this.

we found the spot we were looking for *big
smile!*

the water was chilly (nothing like paradise though,) but it felt so refreshing from the heat...

the boys had fun jumping off this cliff. i, for once, didn't feel the need to do it too. i had just as good a time diving in from a little ways up.

lauren and i swam to the waterfall. we were quite proud of ourselves.

if you look close in the above photo you can see fritzy's legs to lo's left. he gave us a hand up (the rocks were slippy). we told him to get in a photo with us, he then obliged us

this place was so lovely and relaxing i can't even begin to describe how nice it was. i could have just sat and taken photos all day long...

after the boys had their fill of jumping and they got lauren and i to finally get in after about 40 minutes of coaxing (it was cold, and we just enjoyed the beauty of the place, ok?), we walked further downstream to a big king swing. we saw this on the way....

you can see the dark clouds in the distance. it was thundering like crazy and i was a little worried we'd get stuck where we were bc the road was so poor. ok, for about 20 minutes i was very panicky, but then i started to have to much fun and relaxed.

i love how small, fran, lo, and fritzy look next to the cliff. ahhh it was so lovely.

the boys would pull the swing up much higher on the waterfall to swing from, but i didn't trust my arms to hold me that long, and figured this was high enough to go from :)

letting go....

and from there on, the fun began. only i don't have the photos. yet.....

franna, shawn, nathan and i tore away to go explore the caves even further down river. lauren and fritz didn't want to walk barefoot and weren't keen on bat infested caves, so they stayed to guard the bags.

we had to swim across this swimming hole with the swing. we then walked through the shallow river water, or up on the rocks for the next two hours exploring... the first cave we came to was the scariest.

let me describe it for you.

imagine:

the smell of rotten eggs and a boys locker room,

combined with

bat pooh coating every available surface of the ground,

throw in a little darkness for good measure.

don't forget sharp rocks jutting out from the water.

also, at the very end of the tunnel an unpassable problem.

the problem was a 20 foot swim to the exit through dark murky water. i'm not even kidding.

we tried to spider climb along the walls to get out.

not possible.

the only way out was to jump in the murkiness and swim for all your might.

nathan went first. so proud of him.

i literally started to get teary eyed though watching him knowing i had to do it too.

but just before the tears really started to flow i pulled myself together. i figured none of the boys would appreciate nor sympathzie with my fear. 

so for their sake (and also, so they wouldn't tease me), i stopped the silent tears.

sometimes the only way to go is forward, no matter how scary and gross it seems.

i couldn't stay in that cave. not with all the bats, and the smell; no, no, not alone either.

i had to go forward into the water.

swimming out of that cave was terrible. but knowing i'd have to swim

into it later on to get home was worse. *shudders...*

we all managed to do it though. could've been the fastest i have ever swam.

the second cave was very terrifying for a bit, but then ended up being my favorite.

it was more like a giant tube. the water's bottom was sand here and it felt SO GOOD on my little feet.

about half way through, we spotted foot prints on the bottom.

cat prints.

leopard prints.

leopard footprints, fresh leopard foot prints.

after what seemed like eternity, but was more likely

1 minute, the panic that a leopard was close by passed.

it was so cool to see tracks like that. live. that we stumbled on.

crazy wonderful....

the third cave was fun because we had to climb down a waterfall (and back up later) to get to it.

i felt like jane (you know, tarzan and jane) so much.

of course, just when i thought i was all clear i took a step and slipped and slide down the water a bit.

i just can't make any trek without falling on my bum.

what a relaxing weekend. so needed and lovely.

hopefully soon, the boys will email photos to me and i'll post them from our caving expeditions.

i just didn't want to deal with my camera.

i simply knew i would fall and it would get wet and ruined.

better to trust the boys to email me their photos then take my own *smile*

also, there is a hilarious video from the second cave that hopefully at some point i'll share.

hahhahaahaa...

o i love being in the mountains!!