Have you ever noticed how places can stay with you? How images and smells and just the feel of a place can embed itself in your mind and heart so that it comes back to you with the slightest provocation? I had forgotten about big water; the smell of it and the sharp, clean feel of a cool breeze that comes only off of one of the great lakes. Yet, it all returned with the first sight of Lake Superior. The tiredness of the past week melted away and a smile came unbidden to my lips as we drove along. I must admit, I’m glad that there weren’t many cars on the road because I didn’t know what to look at. I just wanted to take it all in.

I have the phrase, “Awake my soul and sing.” on my refrigerator. And that is what happened today as I got out and about; explored and remembered. My soul sang.

Our last stop along the lake; Split Rock Lighthouse.

Looking over a bay from Split Rock Lighthouse

And so, I’ve been thinking.  One of the first things that came to mind was community.  As I learned this summer, community is vital to my being able to thrive in a place, I am not as totally independent as I once thought, nor do I want to be.  I also quickly realized that I would need some more silliness; something that was kind of lacking in my life here at the time.  I realized that I really do need some goofiness in my life and some people who are willing to be strange and silly with me.  Other ideas have been slow in coming.  One of the most recent ones is that I need something to scheme about.

While walking around the mall after Christmas with my friend Teresa I remembered just how much we used to scheme, how good we were at it, and just how much I enjoyed it.  We did have some awesome schemes in our time, like kidnapping our youth leader and taking her to the new coffee shop in town or creating random scrapbook projects for people.  But more than these random surprises, I really like planning things whether it’s an 80s luau party, a way to surprise someone, or a trip I like scheming.

I haven’t exactly been successful this winter in doing these things this winter.  Quite frankly, I’ve kind of failed so far.  But putting them down in words helps.  It’s motivating to see it in writing (it helps me start scheming).  So, my question for you is this; what will it take for you to thrive this winter, this year?

Mostly, I love what camping does and the fact that although all camps are very similar in many ways, they all have similar missions, they go about doing things differently.  I’ll be spending the next seven months up here working as a ministry staff person.  Basically, an intern with the guest services department.  I help host groups, make sure the place is ready for the weekend, move tables, etc.  But I also get to do a lot of other things like run the coffee shop, help at the climbing tower, and even help with a little program planning.

Anyway, I’m looking forward to what this coming year will bring stay tuned for more details!  Now for a few photos…

Sunset over Round Lake

My house... No, not really, but I do get to go sight-seeing. This is the Congdon Mansion.

The view from my house lately

Anyway, the sermon from a few weeks ago has been sticking with me, never quite leaving my mind. The passage is from Genesis 21:6&7, right after the birth of Issac. Anyway here’s what they say:

Sarah said, “God has brought me laughter, and everyone who hears about this will laugh with me.” and she added, “Who would have said to Abraham that Sarah would nurse children? Yet I have borne him a son in his old age.”

Now, why is Sarah laughing? Well, at the age of NINETY she gave birth to her first kid, something that she never thought would ever happen. In fact, she laughed at God when he told her that she would have a child. Now, she’s laughing with joy and thanksgiving, God kept his promise, He did what he said he would do even though no one thought it was possible. Sarah is laughing at what God has done in her life and she knows that the rest of the world will laugh with her when they hear about what God has done.

First of all, can you picture this situation? A ninety year old woman and her century old husband with their first child? Think about it, at a century old, they have to deal with the everything that a new baby brings, the midnight feedings, the diapers (or swaddling cloths), baby proofing the tent, etc.

And I guess, more than anything I simply have a question for you and for myself.

Who is going to laugh with you about what God has done in your life?

Strange, it’s 11:30pm and what thoughts are passing through my mind?  No, not thoughts of tomorrow or this rapidly approaching summer, not thoughts of peace and comfort.
No, I have been spurned into writing by thoughts of well, garbage.  In my mind all I can see is a vast garbage dump, bordered on one side by beautiful blue water, but all that you can see for miles is garbage.
There is all sorts of garbage here, plastics, glass, and metals all vieing for space among the animal bones and sludge that the dump trucks splash through to dump, that’s right, more garbage onto the mounding heaps.
But that’s not all.  There are animals here, roaming on the heaps looking for scraps of something edible.  What’s more there are people here to.  Not just the workers, there are what appear to be houses on the horizon,
tiny plumes of smoke wafting into the sky above their roofs.  Children pick around the garbage as well and I am reminded of Elmer’s words, his Spanish mixing with the English of the translator, making the poetry of his
words shock like bolts of electricity as he told us about growing up in such a place in El Salvador.  He once ate a can of sardines that was expired by six months and enjoyed it, because it was food.  However, thinking
of Elmer also reminds me of his early thoughts about the US. As a boy in a dump in El Salvador he once had a post card of a mountain in the states.  He thought then that us estadounidenses must have it really good,
if we ever got hungry all we had to do was go outside and eat some snow, we never had to worry about food.  But then, one day, after cheering on a US military helicopter flying over the dump he was told that, that one
helicopter could kill them all, not too long after that bodies started showing up at the dump; warnings to the poor not to rise up, not to ask why they were poor, not to ask for a better life.

I am always struck by the power of certain things to take me back to a place or time.  Lately, I’ve been reading a book by Rick Steves.  It’s kind of funny.  This guy who, quite frankly, I always saw as this slightly prudish,
travel writer, expounding ways to see the beauty of Europe, has writen a throughly thought provoking book, “Travel as a Political Act.”  I guess I never really expected Rick Steves to make me think about politics and my
worldview.  Tonight, I read most of the chapter about his travels in Central America, specifically, in El Salvador.  Now, I’ve never been to El Salvador, I’ve only heard a bit about it in my Spanish classes and from Elmer who
grew up there.  Yet, as I read I could not help thinking of all that I learned in LASP about the politics of Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Panama.  How can such a similar story be told so many times?  I was instantly transported
back to Central America.  As he explained a bit about Liberation Theology I was instantly back in the classroom in San Jose, drinking coffee and disscussing it with my classmates.  I can remember vividly one of the profs asking,
“So, you can be free to do whatever you want, be whoever you want, but you would consign us to poverty because of where we were born?”

And then I was moved almost to tears, for I also remember Atton Solis telling us that if we did not let our experiences shape how we thought and acted we were being egotistical.  Yet, that is what I have done.  This whole winter,
has been an exercise in keeping quiet.  I have sat through more Sunday School classes that have espoused ideals I find more than problematic and wrong and I have been, angry, upset, chagrined, and……….silent.  I haven’t said
nary a word.  Most of the time I have felt most like a fly on the wall, not really a member of the group and therefore just a traveler passing through.  I mean, I haven’t always agreed with everything taught in every church I’ve
attended, but it doesn’t matter since it’s not MY church.  Then, I am the youngest, usually by far, in the class, maybe I haven’t earned the right to speak anyway, and besides, these people haven’t known me since I was a little girl,
this isn’t my community, this isn’t MY church, why should I bother with what they think about life, war, politics, taxes, etc.

But then again, although my home community is not as small nor as secluded as the one in which I am currently living, these views are still held by many of the people there.  This worldview is not so different than the one held
by the people back home, and well, in every sense that truly matters, these people ARE my people.  I have chosen to live with them, for however brief a period of time that may be.  This is my home culture, my home nation, my
home ethnicity, my home ideological system, and if not my home denomination at least my home religious background; they ARE  MY people.  And I have discovered that I can no longer remain silent.  They may not ever agree
with me, they may not respect my opinion, they may reject me completely, but if nothing else they will know that there are people who see the world diffenently than they do.  And perhaps my saying something will get them to
think a bit more about their position.  How can I be silent when I know of the blood on my banana?  That is to say, how can I remain silent when I know, in part, of the struggles and suffering of those below the border?

I suppose that LASP really doesn’t end when you leave Latin America.  Just because you are no longer enrolled in the program doesn’t mean that you are no longer a student.  The alternate acronym still holds true, Living Ackward
Situations Permanantly.  Learning about the world in which we live will always present you with more ackward situations than you can imagine.  And just as Learning Alternate Sanitary Procedures can be eye opening in more ways
than one, learning about different worldviews can be just as, sometimes, disturbing.  Knowing, truly knowing, that the majority of the people on the planet do not live the way we live or see the world the way we do can be, well,
intimidating and terrifying.  That is, until you realize that their way of seeing and living isn’t wrong, just different.  I almost started crying tonight as I read Steves book and I can’t quite place why.  Perhaps it was just all of my own
memories flooding back, maybe it was me realizing that other thought similarly, and perhaps I was remembering my host brothers, sisters, mothers, and fathers and all that they had been through in their lives.

Maya Angelou once said that travel cannot prevent bigotry; but perhaps by teaching us what we have in common with others, by seeing that all peoples feel, laugh, and love, we won’t see eye to eye, but we may become friends.

Well, yesterday was amazing.  I got to work only to have my boss say, “The ice is breaking up enough so that we can kayak around it.  You want to go?”  I of course said yes and we proceded to organize a small group to go out with us.  By the time we got everyone together the wind had blown one side closed so, we couldn’t kayak all the way around the giant iceberg filling the bay, but we were close and we had a blast exploring the ice. 

Along the edges of the bay was this thin layer of ice that would break as your boat and paddle went through it making this great almost glass-breaking type sound so clear and beautiful that you just want the ice to go on forever so that you can keep breaking through it.  Ice makes all sorts of sounds, did you know that?  It can moan and sing and ping and chime and groan and creak and crack and pop.  Yesterday, it groaned and ground as the giant berg floated into the rest of the ice clinging to the dock and shoreline.  Not quite as exquisitely beautiful as when it sings on really cold winter days but still very cool.

Yesterday, it felt like spring was here in full force.  The ice was melting and moving out, the birds were singing, the sky was crazy blue and the sun was warm (in the high 40s!).  Today, there is wind.  The harshness of winter that never seemed to truly come this year is here.  I woke at 6 this morning to the crash of something outside and the howling of the wind.  The ice we kayaked around yesterday is completely gone, replaced by foaming whitecaps crashing to shore.  Yet, the birds still sing, the sun still shines (although the temp didn’t break 30 today), and I even got to see a bald eagle diving for fish today. 

Crazy how things change, crazy how they stay the same…

For most of the week I kind of felt like I was in an old novel.  You know the ones, like Anne of Green Gables, where they go and stay with friends of the family for weeks at a time.  Becky’s Aunt and Uncle live on an old farm in an absolutely beautiful old farm house.  Wood floors, amazing views over the snow covered fields, a fluffly orange cat, and an old english sheep dog, not too mention the vast amounts of yummy food.  It really did feel slightly like stepping back in time.  I remember sitting on the bed of my room reading a good book and looking up every once in a while to see snow soflty falling outside my window and covering the trees, hills, and fields in a fresh white blanket. 

Strangely enough.  Becky and I had to drive eight hours south to get any good snow.  We arrived in Ohio just as snowmageddon, as they started calling it, was winding up for round two.  All the snow made getting around a little interesting.  It wasn’t terrible, it just took longer than normal to get anywhere.  But, all the snow ment that there were fewer camps to compete against at the camp fairs and, even better, we got to go snowshoeing one day all over the farm. 

That is how I discovered that camo snowpants that look a little too much like a field of corn are a bad thing to wear if you’re going to go visit cows.  Once we finally got the scardy cows to come see us they wanted to eat my pant!  One even almost pulled me over as it tried to pull some “corn” off my pants.  I was laughing so hard I could barely take pictures as they tried to eat Becky’s coat and pants as well.

Oops!  Running out of time to write!

Well, tomorrow I take off to Indiana to do more recruiting, I hope it is as much fun as Ohio!

~Donald Miller, Through Painted Deserts

I don’t know if I’ve ever experienced a better Thanksgiving in my life.  I think that I’ve also gained a new appreciation for family get-togethers.  This past Thanksgiving was like many others, my family got together with my mom’s side of the family one day and my dad’s side another day. (It’s great to space out the meals.  I have no idea how it works when you have to do multiple meals on the same day like they always show in the movies.)  The meals were predictable fare, just what you would expect from a Thanksgiving meal.  Maybe it’s because I was in Costa Rica last year for Thanksgiving and have missed many of the family get-togethers recently, but this year I was defiantly more thoughtful this year than in the past.  It was really cool for me to see both sides of my family, to remember where I come from, and the different characteristics that I get from both sides.

It was, and is, also slightly strange to think about where I was and what I was doing a year ago.  I was celebrating Thanksgiving in a different country with a family, who had never celebrated it before and were astounded by the amount of food involved.  I was getting ready to go to Panama to live on an island with an indigenous tribe who don’t speak English and who speak very little Spanish.  It seems a little crazy now, almost as if I never actually did it.  But I did.  Sometimes I wonder if I remember all that I learned during that semester, if it has affected who I am today or if I’ve simply returned to who I was before I left.  I must admit that it can feel at times like it was a completely different person who went and did all those things, flew to a different country, lived with different families, talked to so many different people in a different language.

It’s good to go home, to remember where you came from, to be surrounded by the people who care about you and are a part of who you’ve become.  It’s good to see where you get your traits and your quirks, the good and the bad, and to see what you’d like to keep and what you’d like to change about yourself.  Like one trait I’d like to develop is being more hospitable.  On Thanksgiving my Aunt went to a local race and she and her sister met two servicemen there who had nowhere to go for dinner so, they brought them home.  They hung out with our family and became, for that brief evening, a part of the family.  It was a great Thanksgiving.

Other things that I’m thankful for are a beautiful place to live and plenty of snow to enjoy.  This past weekend brought with it about two feet of snow.  It started snowing on Thursday and didn’t let up until Sunday afternoon.  It was so much fun to go out and play and then to come back in and be able to curl up with a good book and watch the snow come down in huge fluffly flakes.