So…i posted pictures on Facebook of our trip, and forgot to post on here as well.

Day 1: Peoria:)

Day 2 and 3: Sioux Falls

L to R: Becky and David, Johnny, Jaden, Elijah, and Faith (Johnny and Faith are with me)

Day 4: Devil’s Tower

Day 5: Montana

Day 6 and 7: Glacier National Park

Day 8: Canada

This is the picture of the Grizzly. See him?

Day 9: Yellowstone

Day 10: Grand Tetons

Day 11: Cheyenne

Day 12: Lincoln, Nebraska

Day 13: Home

Or something like that. I think there were 14 days, and I lost one somewhere.

If you want the real info: www.Supercamp.com

Over Christmas break I read this book that got me pumped about life. A random library book from the many I put on hold in random moments (just ask the librarians. They know me). This book, “Backdoor guide to short-term adventure” (By Michael Landes), had page after page of cool things. My top pick: working on a National Geographic cruise line.

I marked and re-marked many pages, went on many websites, signed up to get sent information, and filled out 10 online applications. Wilderness adventure tours, Bike teams, camps…

Supercamp called me back. They called me back on a day where I didn’t want anything to do with children. Bad day at the youth center. I told them thank you, but I didn’t want to be a counselor. I was called by someone else who thought I wanted to go to supercamp as a kid. Somehow in all of this, I was referred by someone to be a facilitator.

One day before the deadline, I received an invitation for facilitator tryouts. They only have tryouts two places: Oceanside, CA, and Chicago,IL. I read the information, still not understanding what supercamp was, and e-mailed back a polite “thank you, but no thanks.”

As soon as the e-mail was sent, I thought again. Well…it wouldn’t hurt to try. I could stay with my friend in Chicago…and I sent another e-mail saying I would be there.

February 5th was the worst blizzard Indiana had all year. But that Friday night I was determined to get to Chicago. I left after work, 9pm, and promptly slid off the road twice in the slick snow. Still wearing my skirt from the youth center, I pulled the car out of the snowbank with one hand on the gas pedal, and two frozen feet hanging out the door. I landed in Chicago around midnight.

The interview, from 8am-5pm, was intense. My 3 minute bio flopped. All day was “camp-like” stuff and I was in another world. These were professional people. About 35 young twenty-somethings from all over the US, most everyone more qualified than I was. These were good people, successful people…the kind of people I wanted to work with. I came to the interview just to give it a shot. I left, really wanting to be hired.

Only 10 would be chosen. I was rather sure it wouldn’t be me. Amazing how new elements can throw you off. Give me inner city kids, give me Brazilians, give me a sunday school class–I can pull off just about anything. But young professionals scare me. My confidence hit sudden blows. But I received a call, asking me if I would like the job. And by now…I really did.

Training so far included flying me out to Oceanside, CA for four days of training and getting to know my coworkers (they also let me extend my stay to get spring break in San Diego). These people know their stuff. They really care about the kids, and making a difference. They make me want to sit and take notes–because that is how I want to be.

I learned how important the teacher is. How I can make the difference. They have everything organized, because everything speaks. Everything is on purpose, because they have a goal and will reach it. They let the student experience things before label, so they are a part of the learning process and they acknowledge every effort because if it is worth learning, it is worth celebrating.

So not only did I get this summer job that connects me with great curriculum, great people, and is training me to be a better teacher, but that flies me to where I need to be, pays for room and board, and gives money for my bank account.

For the next ten days, I will be receiving more training and observing a camp at Wake Forest, North Carolina. Then I will be a facilitator for a Junior camp (7 days) and a Senior camp (10 days). It is intense, hands on, go-go-go. I am looking forward to it because I know it will be great. Lasting rewards are becoming a better teacher and gaining great experience–but present anxieties are not feeling prepared and overall nervousness. This requires me to step up and fill a lot of responsibility. And…I want to do great.

Please keep me in your prayers…I am definitely out of my element. Outside the box is good–it is where I want to be. But a little scary.

I talked to God about it. About how I wanted to make Him and everyone happy by doing a good job. About how I was worried about messing things up. About how my self-confidence wasn’t so brave. He said I made Him happy by being not doing. And not to worry, but I wasn’t big enough to mess up His plans. He has it covered.

Tudo        Nada

Esta         Eper

Dito         Feito

Tudo        Eis O

Esta         Impre

Visto       Visto

Nada        Tudo

Eper         E Infi

Dido         Nito

Everything          Nothing

Was                     Is Per

Said                      Fect

Everything          Here is the

Was                     Unfore

Seen                     Seen

Nothing               Everything

Is lo                     Is infi

St                          Nite

–Augusto De Campos 

(I copied this from: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100624/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/lt_brazil_flooding )

RIO DE JANEIRO – Torrential waters flattened a small town as floods raged through two states in northeastern Brazil and the death toll was expected to surpass 44 as rescuers searched Wednesday for hundreds of people reported missing.

Mayor Ana Lopes said the entire town of Branquinha, population 12,000, will have to be rebuilt in a different location. Television footage showed a train station washed away, its tracks ripped from the earth. Cars lay overturned and strewn along a riverbank. Dazed people wandered about streets littered with couches, chairs and mountains of mud.

A humble Roman Catholic Church with a rose-colored facade was one of the few buildings to survive — but it was surrounded by the rubble of nearby homes.

Storms last week dumped a month’s worth of rain on parts of neighboring Alagoas and Pernambuco states, near the point where Brazil juts farthest east into the Atlantic.

The Civil Defense Department said in a statement that 29 deaths had been reported so far in Alagoas, while 15 were reported dead in Pernambuco.

At least 120,000 people were driven from their homes by the rains, but many found shelter in schools, churches or with family members.

In May 2009, flooding in the same areas killed at least 44 people and displaced 380,000.

On Tuesday, Civil Defense officials said they believed most of the missing were safe — just unable to notify relatives of their status because there was no electricity and phones were knocked out.

Roads were erased by flooding and bridges torn in pieces, hampering search and rescue efforts and making aid delivery more difficult. The federal Transportation Ministry announced emergency funds of $40 million to begin immediate repairs.

The administration of President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva announced it was sending $56 million in food, medicine and other aid, and air force planes had already delivered about 10 tons of supplies to some of the worst-hit areas, officials said.

In the city of Palmares, in Pernambuco, residents complained of no support.

“I lost everything. I and my four sons don’t have a home. The little one, 4 years old, broke his arm in a current when he was thrown against a wall,” Ana Claudia da Silva, washing mud from her clothes in a public plaza, was quoted as telling the newspaper O Globo newspaper. “All I have today is this umbrella, a bucket and dirty clothes.”

Mechanic Ronaldo Claudino, who took six families into his home, told the newspaper that the only effort at support he saw in Palmares were two tanker trucks carrying fresh water, but they did not stop for thirsty citizens in his neighborhood.

“We don’t have anything to eat, to drink. We don’t even have money,” he said. “And, if we had it, there would not be anything to buy.”

At times during our trip the beauty was so great I wanted to stop the car, get out and yell “STOP! STOP! Stop being so beautiful, so perfect. I can’t handle it anymore.”

Something deep inside felt that it would burst if I saw anymore, and it would hurt so much I would never recover.

…The creek with its steep banks and trees who didn’t listen to their mothers and grew too close to the side, toppling over…

I loved adjusting to the beauty. Not being shocked, breathless, and pained by it. The first days of Glacier National Park were overwhelming. I was not physically, mentally, or emotionally prepared. But then slowly…you accept the beauty. You quit trying to grab your camera, and you whisper a prayer instead. You open your eyes each moring to the beauty and agree with it: yes, it is beautiful; it is good.  

I own the open road.

Not the closed road. The road next to the home. The familiar road. The comfortable road. No, the open road. With the feeling of not knowing. A little bit of dizzy heights, a little bit of insecurity with determination of courage, a lot of anticipation, and even more assurance that at the end of the day…it has been a good one.

I own the open road.

The road that stretches to the place you must reach or die. West. Always west, into the sun after a sweaty morning. The open road that leads you to places that choke your breath when you turn to the right or the left. The road that makes you put away your camera–not take it out. Because capturing it in a small box is beyond impossible. The open road is some place familiar touching unfamiliar, calling you deeper and telling you that one day it will be even better. Even truer. Even realer.

The open road is the place you travel to reach rather than use to travel.

May the gift of the open road reach you today.

I woke up this morning to a phone call, asking me if the basement was wet: places were flooding.  Yes, it was. And all my projects and papers laid out carefully on the floor? a mess.

It is flooding in Northeast Brazil as well. Paudalho, the town with Living Stones, has a river running through it which has risen to cover the bridge that connects the town, as well as flooding out fifty homes. Most of these people are poorer, some are the families of the children in the Living Stones program.

The families are living and sleeping on the floor of a public school, with no resources to rebuild or repair. If you would like to give to these families, please send checks to

World Renewal Intl.
P.O. Box 399
Greenfield, IN 46140

with a note to “Living Stones: Flood victims in Paudalho”

or online at http://wribrazil.com/livingstones.html

As you see the rain today, say a prayer for those who do not have.

PS: Go Brazil in the World Cup! and please pray as they celebrate Sao Joao tomorrow (and through the weekend). Celebrations can be wonderful in Brazil, but not for everyone, especially those who use the time in drinking, drugs, and prostitution.

1. Never say that going south will be warmer. Canada and Montana: shorts and T-shirts. Wyoming: snow three days before summer.

2. Know that there are five “countries” in Yellowstone, and they are all very different. Yellowstone is sorta show-offish and tourist-y, especially after Glacier. But it does have some fantastic moments. And you can say you saw “Old Faithful.”

3. Stay at the foot of Devil’s tower. It is a simple place, with cheap camping. Wave back to the prarie dogs that greet you.

4. Watch the sunrise at Grand Tetons. Pink glowy stuff happens.

5. Go to the park in Cheyenne. They have a lake with ducks and an old lady that feeds the ducks bread. she shares.

1. The problem with showers. When you finally take them, you find out you are not as tan as you thought you were.

2. After driving over 4,000 miles, I am sure: I like driving better barefoot.

3. It is hard to believe in overpopulation after going west. It is where the green lumpy places are hidden.

4. By the end, it is just that: the end. It is nice to go home. Until the open road calls again.

5, It is all about about the company and music. Pick the good ones. Like I did:).

1.Find out the truth about Saskatoon berries. Are they just huckleberries in Canadian?

2. Notorize permission slips before trying to enter another country. Don’t look offended when they ask you “where are your parents.” Smile sweetly and say “I am 27.”

3. Find moose and foxes, and see if you can count more deer than Canadians. We did.

4. Men in kilts. lovely. There is something very elegant about Canada. At least the Canada we saw.

5. Drink Canadian water. from the falls. We chose Bertha falls.