Last year I had the amazing opportunity to fly around the world (literally) and go to Hong Kong with Supercamp (check it out: www.supercamp.com).

Well, they asked me to come back (Score, I win!) for a month an half this year. Supercamp is amazing people, amazing curriculum, and amazing kids. It is a brain-friendly accelerated learning camp with social skills and principles to help you succeed and enjoy life and (gasp) learning. It is not religiously affiliated, so please pray for those divine opportunities to be a light and share God’s love in ways that transcend earthly limitations. This is an awesome time of training, learning, and sharing for me. Plus there is a nice paycheck that means (Lord willing) I will get to come home for Christmas.

Dates to know:

I leave July 7th.

Staff training: July 10-13

Sr. Camp: July 14-23

Jr. Camp: July 26-Aug.1

Day program 1: Aug.5-10

Day program 2: Aug-13-18

Arrive home August 20th.

I’ll say hi to the pandas somewhere on break:).

…my eyesight and how quick time is passing. First, my amazing family:

My mom, John and I took a trip to Cleveland and Chicago, visiting some churches and sharing about Living Stones.

And scaring the birds at lake Erie

Visiting where my mom grew up (I remember it being much bigger)

And making lots of new friends. Special thanks to Wayne and Lillian for housing us and feeding us yummy food!

In Chicago, I was able to get my student visa–not only that, but it was processed in TWO days (normally a minimal of ten). Big sigh of relief and thank you Jesus.

I got to hang out with some of my favorite people:

as we had our youth center “old school” reunion: 10 years since I started working there. Wow!

And I’ve had more adventures with my little men:

Last weekend I was able to have a dream come true that I’ve had for 15 years: Lasic eye corrective surgery. Still healing, blurry, and having to avoid “strenuous activity,” but happy:). John and I are headed off to Canada and Michigan with friends, so more pictures to come.

Have you ever had that conversation, listened to someone talking or preaching, where it was real? What about  when someone reads the Word of God and it becomes alive? It doesn’t happen as often as it should.

God’s word is alive and powerful. I believe that—I know that. But I can pick it up and read it, or hear someone else reading it, and my mind is all over the place. And they are just words made up of letters. Because I am not ready to receive it. Even if the person sharing is completely sincere, it becomes “blah blah” to me.

But sometimes, every once in awhile, there is a person so surrendered to the Lord that when they share and read the Word it is like one thing—it is God working. God moving. And it is like those words from the Bible were written just then, by the Holy Spirit, through that person instead of through Moses or Paul or John. The whole power of God shown through a life is something you can’t help but stop and listen to. Stop and say, “Wow, so that is what it looks like.” And you know, you know for sure—that is what you want. What you were looking for to fill that hole that is in you.

Scripture takes on the shape of the person talking in front of you and it does not leave you the same. Because you can’t close it. You can’t deny it. You can’t say it doesn’t work for you—because you’ve seen it work. You have had a personal encounter. No more excuses.

That happened last night at the Good News Ministries Youth Center. 10 years ago I first walked through those purple doors. We’ve been having “old school” reunions the past couple of years to get all the old kids and staff together and remember and laugh and play basketball.

And they come—these kids who are not kids anymore, with their own kids. And I see faces and give hugs and hear stories and meet babies whose parents haven’t figured out what it means to be a parent yet. And I am happy. And I am sad. And some things never change—like all the pop bottles laying under the picnic tables and the kids who leave before Bible study starts.

But Bible study does start, and the mumbling and shuffling stops when it is time to get serious. When they remember why they keep coming back to the center—because God touched them in some way through some person who was there. And this is one way of saying thank you to something real that was/is in their life.

One of those kids stood in front of the pulpit to talk. He didn’t talk for long, and he didn’t say a lot. Everyone had already heard his story—having serious health problems, leaving everything to seek after God and be there for his children—to be a man of God, a father. They had facebooked about it, called, texted, and whispered good and bad things about him. But no one could deny it—Greg Day had changed.

And after his few words, he opened up a Bible and read a few words. They were God’s words spoken through Greg Day in a powerful way, because they were Greg Day’s story. They were Greg Day’s life. And I stopped taking pictures and cleaning up and making sure people listened and kids were quiet and I watched Scripture come alive through one of my kids—now grown—now a man. All I can say is “Wow, so that is what it looks like.”

Family vacation to Madison, Indiana. Pretty amazing view. Even better to jog

Made funny faces with Caid

Got a bycicle baby seat for Rowan and went to have adventures

Rowan talks to the birdies

They had funny things to say

And had an amazing Trek for Transportation–you can see pictures at www.buildinglivingstones.blogspot.com

Art fair (Indy is a cool place, peeps!)

More adventures to come:)

A coat in June? And sandals. Because I can’t find any socks in the mess called my room. I am home. I am sleeping in the little area I’ve called mine since I was 13. When I crawl under the covers I wonder if I have returned to then, and all the rest was just a dream. I fight an inner war to hold on to who I am instead of returning to what always was.

I’ve grown, I’ve learned, I’ve experienced: but that is the me in Brazil. It is like it doesn’t count here. No one saw it, I am the only witness. And minutes, days pass over me like water, washing it all away. I am drowning in the old me, struggling to find my feet and be the person I know I am: to bring all that happened, here. I am fighting to bring the pieces of myself into a whole.

Life divides: Brazil, Indiana, rich, poor…irreconcilable circles moving in opposite directions. I pull together, bringing in all the disagreements and making them mine–making them me. I shouldn’t expect this to be easy. It is good to be home.

I’m in love with this idea. The whole idea of six words. And i forgot who started it. But six words just keep coming…

• Made a mess. Cleaned it up. –Amy Anderson
• Boy, if I had a hammer. –Tim Barkow
• She walked barefoot in wet cement. –Michelle Pinchev
• Brought it to a boil, often. –Mari Batali
• It was worth it, I think. –Annette Laitinen
• Never really finished anything, except cake. –Carletta Perkins
• Came, saw, conquered, had second thoughts. –Harold Ramis
• Abcs, mtv, sats, thc, ira, npr. –Jancee Dunn
• Ran away with circus; never returned. –Ellia Bisker
• Always working on the next chapter. –Milan Pham
• If there’s more, I want it. –Alex Hart
• It’s like forever, only much shorter. –Pete Devito
• Born lucky, striving to die worthy. –Julia Carpenter
• I told you I was crazy. –Michaline Babich
• Slightly flabby, slightly fabulous, trying hard. –Amy Friedman
• She danced, and did little else. –Sarah Cost
• Saw the sky and started walking. –Mark Sundeen
• Became more like myself every year. –Eddie Sulimirski
• Tell your story. That’s my story. –Andy Goodman 
• Living my dream; please send money. –Brittney l.
• Gave up one addiction for another. –Marissa l.
• Note to all boys: I quit. –Lauren a.
• I have blisters on my fingers. –Geoff b.
• Can’t find home. Won’t stop looking. –Kelsey g.
• Fell down, got up, kept dreaming. –Megan k.
• I won’t need photographs to remember. –Paige m.
• Views on life, love, universe: tba. —Charlotte t.
• Some days sucked. Sun still rose. –Mary h.
• My life story: to be continued. –Cassie h.
• Never had time to look back. –Jordan Hudyma
• Not always perfect. But so worthwhile. –Lauren Anderson
• My mother warned me about you. –Angie Brown
• In the beginning I showered daily. –Deena Drewis
• Kissed many frogs. Finally found prince. –Lacie Cannon
• Loved. Lost. Loved again. Worth it. –Erika Jakubassa
• I put the seat down now. –Marcus Eder
• I just hope there is a sequel. –Lila Nawrocki
• Born with big nose. Pursued comedy. –Andy Borowitz
• Nice to many, available to few. –Amelie Gagnon
• I turned eleven. No Hogwarts letter. –Laura Murray
• Looked up. Saw sky. Bird pooped. –Robert Johnson
• So I only get six words? –Lalah Hathaway
• I came, I saw, I worried. –David Hirshey
• Author of so many unwritten books. –Kirstin Meeachern
• I aspire to capture the essence. –Rose Jaffe
• My six words haven’t happened yet. –Erica Ray

Mine:

• Jesus loves me: I love Jesus
• I wish you’d have picked me
• Horrible speller. Became an English teacher
• Childhood: good girl or just lazy?
• Cut my hair. It grew back
• Said goodbye to say hello again
• Let go to begin to live
• (Living Stones) Love, educate, nourish impoverished Brazilian children
• Touch one more that wasn’t before
• Make a choice: it ends tonight
• Divided in half to become more
• Want to change: but not enough

In “The Magician’s Nephew,” the world between the worlds is a cool woods of growing things and puddles. Each puddle leads to a new place. And this place sounded even more magical when cuddled up together with my mom as she read aloud to Anna and I when we were little. Kudos to an amazing childhood.

I have discovered another world between the worlds, and it is a cold place with gleaming floors and doors. Each door leads to a new place. Everything looks sanitized, even the people, staring up at informational screens with their mouths half-open.

I’ve been to airports all over the world, and they all look the same. Even out the window is the same pavement with lines to guide the planes. I always enter this world with a faraway look and feel—it is not home, and it will never let me forget the air is artificial and 10 degrees too cold. But it takes me places. Daily life shrinks my world down to where my eyes can see—travel explodes the possibilities once more. And sometimes, I get to escape into reality. The reality of somewhere else. Of someone else.

Layovers. No one knows me and I know no one. No pressures or immediate tuggings for there is nothing I can do but wait. Who do I desire to be? That is all those around me will ever know. I raise my eyebrow with a wicked grin to imagine what I could do if I wanted, for I will leave to never return. But the lazy haze envelopes me, and I think airports only stay clean because people are too melancholy to create any great disturbance.

Melancholy. Like Wuthering Heights. I’ve never gotten through a whole Bronte sister book before. I still haven’t, for I am only on page 191. But so far I have found 3 paragraphs of beautiful expressions of love, and the whole rest of the book is selfish brats of people who ruin their kids and waste their lives. Not much of a love story, for I haven’t been able to summon up one iota of pity for Heathcliff or Catherine. Everyone told me to read it and raved about the beautiful love story…but I’ve seen too much of this kind of selfish, consuming, manipulative love to ever want it that close to me. Well, the book has 54 more pages to improve on me.

Sao Paulo supposedly has free internet. When I asked the woman why I couldn’t connect, I gathered, after a 10 minute conversation that “Honey, this is Brazil. It isn’t working.” This is how most things that don’t work are explained. “This is Brazil.” Like it makes everything ok. Like I shouldn’t expect anything to work. Pretty degrading to the country, if you ask me. Sometimes. I just get so sick of not DOING something about it. Whatever “it” happens to be at the particular moment. There are just so many “its” and it is impossible to take them all on. But some—some you can make a difference. Just not in the airport.

*

“It would degrate me to marry Heathcliff now; so he shall never know how i love him; and that, not because he’s handsome, but because he’s more myself than i am. Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same…my great miseries in this world have been Heathcliff’s miseries, and i watched and felt each from the beginning: my great thought in living is himself. if all else perished, and he remained, i should still continue to be; and if all else remained, and he were annihilated, the universe would turn to a mighty stranger: i should not seem a part of it. my love for Heathcliff resembles the eternal rocks beneath: a source of little visible delight, but necessary. I am Heathcliff! he’s always, always in my mind: not as a pleasure, but as my own being.” –Emily Bronte

Don’t read it. She marries the other guy and everyone is mean and ends up dying over it. Depressing.