The summer in review

Now that I'm officially back at Liberty, I feel like I ought to try to do at least some sort of photo review of the summer. Granted, most of the truly life-changing moments that happened during the past three months didn't look like anything special, and there's no pictures to express all that they meant...but some of my teammates were amazing at capturing the Kodak moments that occurred when the team was together on the weekends. A special thanks to Fish Hsu and Jared Yax for sharing these shots!

This is me and Hannah, who was my cheerleader, my pal, my partner in crime, my sister in Christ, and one of my best friends this summer...only at this point, we were newbies who didn't know each other and had no clue what we were going to find out there in Bedford county...

As the summer went on, the people that I had known nothing of in the beginning began to become my friends...

Sharing a moment with Bethany Lake...

I began to realize that I really, really liked the people on my team. They were stinkin' funny.

I don't remember what I was laughing at in this shot...I just remember that there were lots of laughs any time the team got together.


Several individuals were unfortunate enough to have birthdays while out on the field...so yeah, of COURSE we made them do embarrassing things in front of the whole team.



"Lisa! Over heeeeeerreeee!" Glenn's lucky he still has his nose. Lisa was pretty quick with that stick...and clearly didn't have a real good idea of where that pinata was...


And finally, the last week of our time together, we all took two days to go to Fort Bluff Camp and do some recreational stuff as a team...which was incredible.
Lisa and Adriane discussing something important moments before being launched off the Blob...

Yeah, I'd never done a water slide before...but good grief, I'm from Wisconsin, and it's not hot enough there that you need water slides...up there, we settle for spraying each other with the garden hose.

To be perfectly honest, all of the kids on the team became almost like family to me this summer...we knew each other well enough that sometimes we got on each other's nerves...we knew each other's weaknesses, and we could admire each other's strengths...

...and I think that's why I came to love each one of them almost like siblings.

I'm gonna miss each and every one of them in a different way, but I'm so grateful that God gives us incredible things even when we don't know exactly what we want...that He uses others to fill the needs of our hearts even before we're aware of what those needs really are.

The relationships that I've formed this summer with my teammates are some of the best friendships that I've ever had, and I've been incredibly blessed to be able to serve out there on the field with each one of them. :-)

Today the words from Aaron Shust's song, "Give Me Words to Speak," kept running through my mind as a prayer...

Lord, give me words to speak...

...to the woman whose father raped her when she was ten, and destroyed her faith in humanity, her belief in God, and her sense of personal worth...

Give me words of comfort to speak to the dad whose wife just left him for another man...

Give me words of wisdom for the woman who doesn't realize that her yelling, screaming, and cursing at her kids is hurting them deeply in ways she can't begin to fathom...

Give me gentle and loving words for the woman whose son was killed in a car crash...who doesn't know how she's gonna be able to go on.

Give me gracious words...and O God, give me Your words...because I have nothing left to give of myself.

Crazy how much can change in a mere four weeks! This is now the middle of week twelve on the book field...where on earth does the time go?!

Two of the memorable moments from the past four weeks:

I sat down with a man who had lost his wife to leukemia…she had died two weeks before I knocked on his door that morning. When he showed me her picture, and started to cry, I lost it…sometimes all you can do is put your arms around somebody and cry with them. He’d lost two of his three children within the recent past…a daughter to cancer, and five months later, his other daughter had been murdered in her home…and then leukemia took his wife. He was one of the most broken-hearted men I’ve ever met, but in the midst of the tears, of the suffering, of his anguish, there was a quiet gentleness about his grief that bore testimony to the fact that our God is a comforter of the broken-hearted. We talked for a long time...he let me read the eulogy that his surviving daughter had written for her mother’s funeral…and then we talked about his wife, who she was, how much he missed her…and as we talked, we cried. He told me I reminded him of his wife, that I looked like she had when they’d first met. He insisted upon giving me a jacket that his wife had loved…and made me promise that when I wore it, I’d think of her and pray for him. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to wear the coat, in all honesty, because I can’t even look at it without tearing up…

On a completely different note, my baby sister, who also happens to be my best friend, my hero, and one of the most amazingly Godly young women I’ve ever met, became rather suddenly engaged to one of the coolest young men I’ve ever known…which I’m pretty excited about, although her cute little text message (“Just wanted to let you know that I’m engaged!”) rather shocked me in the beginning (just being honest, sis!).



My hearty congratulations to Joel Flage, one of the few guys to whom I’d be willing to relinquish someone as amazing as my little sister. If he wasn’t a pretty awesome guy in his own right, he never would have had a shot, so all I can really do is tell him well done. *laugh* And Michelle, just wanted to let you know that I love you, and I’ll miss you like crazy, but I’m awfully happy for you, and I’m really, really blessed to have been given such an incredible little sister. Not lying when I say you’re my hero. *grin*