Friday, August 22, 2008

As I sit here clacking away on the key board, my mind races to so many more opportunities that have met me for this Fall:
* Helping Mrs. Tamera Wies with her campaign
* Start a Mary Kay Business
* Help teach Science for little kids
* Plan a Tea Party for Kindergardeners- 1st grade
* Finish up my own high school (laughs)
* Go to Washington DC
* Visit my Grandpa whom I have not seen in four years

And the list goes on.

This weekend I will be visiting friends from around the Columbia area. I am also planning on visiting my Grandpa next weekend.

Work is starting so time for me to sign out.

Blessings.

Fall 2008

Well, seems like it's been forever and a day since I last posted anything on here :)

Since my last post, a little over a week or so ago, the Olympics has started. I'm not exactly sure why people rave about the Olympics the way they do. I find the attire that the compete chose to wear highly distasteful showing that though they may be athletic they have no fashion sense (okay, so maybe that is a bit harsh, and perhaps they do, but their fashion sense falls apart once they meet the cameras). But apparently, watching the Olympics in Australia and New Zealand is like the super bowl in America. The Campbell's absolutely must watch the Olympics in the evening, even if it means eating dinner at 5:30pm. We wash the dinner dishes, and the Rubies Girls finish the kitchen while the entire Campbell clan (usually consisting of at least Pearls family if not Serene's too) whooping, shouting, and jumping up and down when someone wins. The living room is alive with bets on who will win next. The best bet I've heard all week was that the losers would serve the winners breakfast in bed, whatever the winner desired for breakfast. I thought that was pretty funny!

I'm going to visit some friends in the area, the Chinander's, over the weekend. That will be very fun!

I also need a Photo ID since I'll no longer be "under age" when flying to DC, so if y'all would please be praying that God provides money and a way to get that, I would thoroughly appreciate it.

Well I must go now as work is starting, but I'll will post more later.

August 9

Only twenty days until my birthday! Aaah! I'm getting old!

I've been here for only nine days. The first three days Karlee, Abigail and I all commented on how it seemed like we had known each other for much longer. Oh such kindred spirited people!

This morning we decided it would be a good idea to wash our hair before church tomorrow (since we haven't for you don't want to know how long). Evangeline mentioned a river we could swim in about a mile from Serene's home. Abigail really wanted to go, and Karlee and I needed something to do, so we tracked down Isaiah (now Serene's oldest boy) and asked him to guide us to the notorious river. Isaiah warned us that it would take an hour or so walking, but us girls, obviously knowing better, announced that we would be walking because it "would be good exercise."

Well... the track to Serene's is, what I thought, literally in the sticks. The track down to the river was amidst the sticks. Pushing through thorny wild roses, climbing over fallen rotten logs, swatting at mosquito's, brushing sweat from our foreheads, we thought of nothing but the cool river we could (finally) submerge ourselves into. Unfortunately, this is not exactly what happened when we (finally) got to the ummm... dare I say "river?" A creek, fairly wide, but only chin deep at one lone spot on the opposite side of the.. stream... greeted us. The water was very clear, and cool. I never thought I would hear the day when I testified to washing my hair amidst crawdads, fish, water spider, sand, and bugs.... But I did. We were desperate!

It was very relaxing even sitting in the cool water, as it washed over our tired, hot selves... but the sensation of little mouths biting your legs wasn't a comforting feeling. Fish, apparently, aren't shy creatures at all, but are very social animals that like nibbling on people!

After our relaxing hour or two in the gurgling stream we decided it would probably be good to eat lunch sometime today, and walk on home. To our utter shock, dismay, and surprise, we found not one but three kinds of ticks that had infested our jeans we wore over swimming shorts. YUCK!
There were "seed ticks" which are about the size of the ball of a pen; deer tick which is about the size of a large ; and your regular 'ol wood tick who is monstrous to squish, and is about a centimeter or more long. I'm sorry, I despise, hate and abhor ticks, so my immediate reaction is to flick, pull, kill and destroy as many as possible!!
So we walked home in our tick infested jeans... quite quickly, as none of us girls wanted to find ticks all over our selves when we got home...

Now Karlee and I have to wash our pants, socks, shirts and sneakers in dish soap water. I would much rather use bleach, or Clorox... or even ammonia would be nice and simply annihilate the vile little population on our clothing.. but I doubt we will :(

Well thanks for listening to our quite adventuresome day! It's getting late now, and we have to go to church tomorrow and run some errands... I don't want it to be Sunday! That means only one day left off from work :-P

Blessings!

"On word, Ma'am," he said, coming back from he fire; limping, because of the pain. "One word. All you've been saying is quite true, I shouldn't wonder. I'm a chap who always liked to know the worse and then put the best face I can on it. So I won't deny any of what you said. But there's one thing more to be said, even so. Suppose we Have only dreamed, or made up, all those things - trees and grass and sun and moon and stars and Aslan himself. Suppose we have. Then all I can say is that, in that case, the made-up things seem a good deal more important than the real ones. Suppose this lack pit of a kingdom of yours is the only world. Well, it strikes me as a pretty poor one. And that's a funny thing, when you come to think of it. We're just babies making up a game, if you're right. But four babies playing a game can make a play-world which licks your real world hollow. That's why I'm going to stand by the play world. I'm on Aslan's side even if there isn't any Aslan to lead it. I'm going to live as like a Narnian as I can even if there isn't any Narnia. So thanking you kindly for our supper, if these two gentlemen and the young lady are ready, we're leaving your court at once and setting out in the dark to spend our livers looking for Overland. Not that our lived will be very long, I should think; but that's small loss if the world's as dull a place as you say."

~ Puddleglum

The Silver Chair by C.S Lewis

Week two

Day 8
The water is still low, and we have to make sure we drink the filtered water because it might be bad, we don't know.
There are some friends close by that I'm going to visit one weekend while I'm here. That will be a lot of fun.

I would write more, but there isn't much to write about. Work was slow and monotonous, which is usually how office work is;)

Karlee had mentioned something about having a funky evening where we go "goth" or something. I don't think this crowed can pull that off though - we all laugh or smile WAY too much! But it'll be fun just to be weirdos:)

I have a possible opportunity to work for National Right to Work this Fall, but we'll see how well that goes over. I don't want to be away from home through November without seeing family - I don't even have any pictures of them with me :( which is really sad!

The Back to DC trip is only in a month!! I'm so excited!
Invited speakers include: Chuck Colson, Gary Bauer, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Dr. Bill Bennett, Jeb Bush, Lou Dobbs, Rev. Jonathan Falwell, Newt Gingrich, Gov. Bobby Jindal, Sean Hannity, Sen. John McCain, Ken Starr, Sen. Barack Obama, Chuck Norris, Oliver North, Tony Perkins, Phyllis Schlafly, Gov. Mitt Romney and Michael Steele. :-)

The students will be staying at the Leadership Institute (www.leadershipinstitute.org). The WASHINGTON BRIEFING website is http://www.frcaction.org/get.cfm?i=PG08B01&load=WX08B03.
And of course, if you want to check out the Back to DC trip (schedule what we'll be doing etc.) just go onto http://www.teenpact.com/alumni/program.php?p=11.

I'll be driving back to ohio September 7th, hopefully visit R on our way there, recover and pack the 8th-9th and then take of September 10th.

I'm having my 18th while I'm here. No family around for miles! Sad day!! But I think it'll be good - maybe.

Well sorry this is so sparatic, I wasn't sure what else to post today! Not much has happened.. at all :-

Blessings!

Hearing God

"We'll be learning about hearing the Voice of God. And I know a lot of people get all freaked out about that, that they go, "Well how do I know it's not my imagination?"You know what? There's only one way you're gonna find out. By obeying what you're hearing, and watching what God does. Because we are disciples of the Kingdom of God, and the essence of discipleship is training, and the essence of training is making mistakes.
The problem with you and I and the Spirit of Religion, in the Abberant Religion of Christianity, is that nobody is allowed to make mistakes! We have to have 'perfect services'! (I'm gonna step on some sacred cows now. Moo! Pull that tail!)
Listen, we have all been infected with certain Spirits that have just run rife in the Church. And what has happened in the Abberant Religion of Christianity is that it's all about Sunday Morning, and having services that we go to. That is not what the Bible teaches us. The Bible teaches us about having a relationship with God.
So what happened historically is that instead of being in a community that gives everyone permission to make mistakes so that we can learn and grow in the gifts and callings on our lives, we're moved away from that and had everyone come to a building on a certain hour where a certain service is preformed by selected elected people who, depending on the kind of cohersion that's going on wears certain costumes....
So we have services that are well defined and well scripted, so that the Church becomes a Theater. It's not a place where discipleship is made, it's a place where people are entertained! Because "We've got to keep the people happy!"So they'll keep coming and keep putting their money in.Authentic Biblical Religion is not about entertaining you and I.It's not about keeping you and I happy.It's not about taking our money.What it is about is this:What is the word of the Lord to you,what are you doing about it,and how can we help each other grow in that word?"
~Howard Morgan~

"Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it."
~Rumi~

Wednesday~Day 6

Another day working. It's not too bad, actually. Just tiring and boring, especialy since it's hot:)

I still think I'll be ready to leave when the internship is over. Not that I'm not learning a lot here, and not that it's horrible or anything, it's just monotonous.

Because the well water is so low, we have to wash our hair in the creek, when we go wading. I guess I'll be brining along any dirty clothes to wash tomorrow! Karlee and I went to the creek today, but Abigail wants to go tomorrow.

TeenPact DC is only a few weeks away. It looks like a whole lot of fun and a lot of learning!

We sorted out magazines by zip code, today, only to find that we need to recount them because the post office won't take them if their weight doesn't match up with the amount of magazines. We also sorted out mail - change of address, delete, and "temporarily away." Probably the most fun thing to do is enter in and edit information into the computer.

So, as you can see, not a whole lot going on. Let me refrase that, things are going on it's just that one become used to washing their hair in the creek, and having sparatic phone conversations on the phone (because reception is so bad here), and taking five minutes to load a page on the internet even with high speed and wireless. I'm actually excited about the weekends because it's a chance to get away from the house! :)

I hope y'all are having a wonderful August!!
Blessings!