Mountain Woman!

So this last weekend our SOE group went up into the wilderness and had to live for three days or so hiking, building forts and making rafts to float on. It really was an amazing experience. I was challenged physically spiritually and emotionally.

The first day we were split up in our teams and had to hike to a lake and find our camping gear, which included our tents and axes. Well our team couldn't find ours, we returned back to camp and our leaders were not impressed by any means but thank God we had some machines for guys on our team that hiked all the way back and searched for our stuff until they found it. We set up camp and went on our way.

The second day was by far the best only because my team got lost on our hike..are you catching a pattern here? We ran into another team that also was lost so we hiked and found the lake...only it wasn't the right lake, infact it was the lake toward the bottom of the map. So we had to hike to the actual lake and we ended up hiking for SIX hours. yes six hours. We hiked around the base of the mountain, up the mountain and down the mountain and finally found the third team who was done with their task and about to hike back to the camp ground. So we parked it and built our fort and waited for a leader to come dump water on our fort to see how water proof it was. Bekah, the only other girl on the team got soaked...it was pretty funny. We all returned to our camping grounds and prayed thanking God for safety. That was by far a good way to build your trust and faith in God. Good thing He loves us.

That same day was the day we had to kill chickens in order to eat dinner...as you can see in one of the pictures I took the liberty of cutting off one of the chickens heads. I wasn't the only girl to take pride in this action. I was pretty proud of myself even though it took three chops to actually get it. Apparently I have bad aim :)

On the third day we hiked together as a whole group. There were about 30 to 35 of us if I am correct. Hiking with that many people can be challenging, you have to take quite a few breaks depending on injuries and what not. It built patience tho and unified the ground even more. When we got to the lake each group began the process of building a raft...our ground dominated. We sat down, decided which design was best for our raft and began hackin away! It was one of the most fun experiences I've had to do. We built our raft in no time. We all got on our raft and had to paddle to a desitination...while keeping a pillow dry. Guess who kept the pillow completely dry?? that's right, me. I happily drew faces on the pillow as I waited for us to reach our destination. On one side there was Farmer Ted, yes I took it from the movie Sixteen Candles (one of my favs) and on the other side was Miss Star. We reached our destination and the pillow was completely dry. We won the task for sure.

The middle picture is just a fun little one of Trina and I when we were driving back to civilization. She was sleeping and I was driving the truck for her. convinced? Should be! haha. Kudos to Trina by the way for being one of the leaders and the medic (she dealt with lots of blisters...yucky) Trina you're awesome!

It was quite an experience and next year I will be in second year SOE and leading my own group. Eek, it is going to be hard work but I'm excited for it! These next 8 months are going to be awesome. I can't wait to see what God is going to do within this young group of people.

Memories and Thoughts

I was standing in my parents kitchen this morning cooking breakfast and remembering growing up that my dad ALWAYS made the best breakfast. He's from the south so he really knows what he's doin, and I loved it! Still love it when we have family breakfast, which doesn't happen often but when it does I'm always excited because I know what I will be eating...dad's cooking.

As I was standing there making eggs, I was thinking, wow. I'm not very good at this! the yoke would break or I just would be dumb and forget to put oil down first so the eggs don't stick, even after my dad has shown how to do it..several times. :) And I began to think I need practice on this! and doing so takes time. With that thought sometimes cooking things takes time to learn or doing it several times over before you get it right.

I had a thought on with my relationship with God and where I'm at. Do I want to keep having to do things over and over or do I want to get it right the first time He tells me to do something? To me it is so much better walking in His path and listening to him the first time. I'm not saying I do that every single time. I think with every christian we have our flaws and we've been at that point where we think really God? are you sure? Oh He's sure all right! But with listening to him the first time comes with faith and understanding that He knows the situation and He knows
where you will be down the road.

Even with where I am at I have to remember that God is in control. He knows my thoughts and my desires and He knows what He has for me. I seem to be continually reminding myself of this whether it be "shelfing" things to come back and find it in a more valuable state than before or trusting God that He will provide! I guess what I'm trying to say is that obeying Him the first time is much easier than cracking your yoke and having to start all over again. And His blessing will be so much more than you ever imagined :)