Whaddya 'Merican?

Hey Ya'll.

(Try to imagine me telling you this with an American accent)

It only takes a week of Americans to go from saying "God" to saying "Gad".
Heh.

I just got off from hosting a youth group of 50 from Colorado. They were here for a week. Most groups only stay for like 2-3 days, so it was nice to actually be able to get to know the kids. I am SO tired though. Hosting a group is pretty hard, cause you have to get up when they get up, and go to bed when they go to bed, plus hang out with them during the day. It drains ya pretty good.... but is so much fun.
This group was such an encouragement to me. They were all so open and honest about their faith. Every night they would have a "fireside" where 4-5 people would share testimonies, we would sing worhsip, and do a devo... it was intense. God was present and really moved in our lives. The kids had such a heart for Him... their passion and longing to know God better was a challenge to me to get my act together.

This week taught me a bit about flexability as well. We had to play every day by ear. It rained just about everyday... it was ridiculous. The first day we had some regular activities (biking, rockclimbing, rappeling, traversing). The next day the weather sucked so we had a work day. (to save money, every year this group does a day of camp work... it's a cool idea.) I was in charge of "brushing" - forest clean up basically. It was a pretty boring job, but I found out that with a bit of competition and a prize, you can get anything done. It turned out really fun. Day three was rainy again, so we went on a hike with the whole group. It was cold, foggy, and wet... but I think everyone had fun. The weather was a bit nicer on day four so we did our regular activities. I was on moutain biking. Because of the rain, the trail we were on was almost half in the water. It was great. There was a few of us in the back of the group that fell off our bikes more then we stayed on. At one point I just about peed my pants I was laughing so hard. :) Yesturday was their last day of programming and I was on canoeing. The day started out beautiful, so our hopes were high.... then one of the canoes tipped before we even left the put in spot, then we had to get out of the water 2 extra times because of lightening, then it started hailing (!! the second time I've gone canoeing and it has hailed. Stupid.), so we were like an hour late. But whatever, we had some good laughs. Then today they had to leave early, so on my day off I had to get up at 5 to help make breakfast. Last night we (Phil, Leah, and I) had the brilliant idea to do a polar bear swim to wake ourselves up... well, this morning when we woke up I'm pretty sure there was frost and when I looked at the temp later it wasn't even 0c . So, we met down at the lake. It was beautiful... there was a thin layer of fog and the sky was starting to turn a purpleish blue. But all we were thinking at the time was that this was the worst decision we had ever made. I was perfectly awake, and had no need to do this. But we had come this far... so we just went for it. It was cold. Period. After that we made breakfast and said our goodbyes. And now I have 2 days off. (!!)

Last weekend 4 of the guys and I went in to town (that was supposed to sound really exciting... but somehow I don't think you will think it does...) Anyways, we don't get into town much. Got some serious stuff done, got some silly stuff done, acted like kids, and just had a good time... then one of the guys (Tim) told us about this long cable across the North Sask River he had seen and we decided to traverse across it. So we grabbed our climbing harnesses and some other gear and headed over. [For those of you who don't know much about traversing, there's a few different ways of doing it: Traversing is basically getting from one side of something to the other. Traversing with a rope involves either hanging hand over hand (like monkey bars) across, "crawling" upside down across (Holding on with your hands and feet), or else trying to slack line across (which is basically tightroping it) ] We did a combo of slack lining and "crawling". It was so much fun.... but SO tiring. My fear of heights was a bit hard to get over, but when 4 guys are there pressuring and watching you... you just pretend everythings great. :P Actually, I was a big baby in front of them... whatever...

Well, the sun is actually out today, so I'm gonna go get some rays.

LOVE YOU ALL!!!



Grace and Peace,

Liz