Praiseee Ye The Lord!!

I have a huge praise item that I want to share with you guys! This past year has definitely stretched and pulled me and my family in ways I definitely didn't expect or desire, but it definitely brought me closer to the Lord as I relied on Him in ways I never have before, and likely couldn't have if I was not faced with the trials that our family encountered. In the fall my mom was speculated to have had a brain tumor, and then tests shortly after Thanksgiving found no brain tumor, yet she continued to get sicker in every way you can think of, memory loss, nausea, pain, weakness, numbness, dizziness with no identifiable cause. I decided to come home this summer to be with my mom in this difficult time for her, and to be honest I was not looking forward to the heart ache I was sure was waiting for me... at Ambrose I could pray for her, talk to her and encourage her but I was thankful to not have to see her go through so much pain. As it has turned out since I have been home she has made incredible improvements!! I am talking amazing improvements! She has been to church with me every Sunday, one day I came home from work and she was outside on the deck washing the windows! Thursday she kept asking me to do things with her and I started laughing how good it felt to have her have more energy than me! I can't say for sure how long this will last, but for today, for these past few weeks the hope of recovery, the renewed energy she has had I am so thankful for and amazed by God's answer to prayer! Thank each of you who prayed for her and our family this past year, I appreciate it so much!
A quick note about my summer job: I am working at the Scott Experimental Farm, which is ran by the government of Canada. It's actually my favorite job I have ever had! I love being outside all day, except for a few days that were freezing. Each day we're doing something different, I've picked rocks, spent hours identifying different weeds in a field. Friday we were doing a "Residue Trial" on some grass, so my crew spent hours cutting grass into 3 cm slices, microwaving it, measuring it to see if there was too much residue left on it from the spray that it would kill cows. It's actually super interesting (to me, I admit it likely wouldn't thrill everyone :) Some days when we're spraying I wear a huge marshmallow like suit with a mask that resembles an alien, ohh the life of an experimental farmer :D
Praise God, for we serve an incredible God!!!

OHH ME ME ME PICK ME!!!!!

So i have tried to blog some may time before .. But ever time i have... I have written out the hole thing and then unplugged my computer ... and then it died because there was no battery in it because i just do that some times.. and another time it just did't up load.. due to the fact that my computer sucks!...

AnyWHO.. nuff O' dat. I'm at camp right now and i'm in the computer room.. I don't really feel like sleeping at the moment and no one alts is awake really. So i decided to up date you all.

Leaving Lake Cow,
Well that was kind of a crazy time. for my heart and also the fact that i need to move all my sutff out of our beautiful little place. Some to camp and Most to my rents house in good ol' PoMo. It was kind of hard because my little car can only hold so much... Only because its SO smart! and there isn't much room for mindless clutter in it... I spent a week at home before coming to camp and that was good. It was necessary for my heart to kind of let go before trying diving in to camp.

My heart.'..
Being back here is wonderful. My heart was so tired and longing for a community of believers Back in L.C...so being here is Rad... It usual does not take me long to feel apart of a group, But here i still feel like i am kind of on the out side. But maybe that is because i have kind of placed my self there with out even noticing it. My heart has Gone through ALOT in this past month!.. God has shown me through a Rad Friendship that my heart is not fully healed from the scares of my past. This pain that i feel is necessary though, I feel there are things that God has allowed to come in to my life to test my faith. Knowing this brings me a lot of joy Because i can feel my self walking on my own. In my mind I am like a little girl learning to walk and her daddy has just let go of her hand only to see her take her first steps on her own and there is so much joy on both of there faces! She may fall a few times but she is ok because her daddy is right there. I am learning How to go about center relationships, and what a better place to relearn about relationships then at camp! lol

Camp...
Camp is going good and the summer is coming fast! and there is much work to do here. The new boys bath room is coming along great and the New stairs have kind of been started.
I love my position (Events assistant) Its lots of fun! and i love the work that i get to do!... a lot of it right now is painting things for our carnival and some other random thing... and also the Van.. witch will soon say Good to be Alive on it. Steve and Jordan and I have made a puppet blog!..check it! www.acrewpuppets.blogspot.com .. Its how we roll in the all star office!.. Steve and I have done lots of planning in the past 2 months and to see Lots of it coming together feels great! after leading such a small group of kids in L.C and going to leading like 494 more should be crazy! I'm excited to see the ways God will teach me through out the summer and how i will grow from it.

PoMo..
So if the lord willing i will be moving back home at the end of the summer. Please pray... if the lord puts in on your heart randomly for My friend there. Its hard for me to explain lots of thing but Keep My small beautiful town in your prayers, May there eyes be opened to the Truth! Pray that My heart is willing be to used in that place no matter how much it may hurt.
But i am excited to (lord will) live at home, I love my parents a lot! and i think i realize that more and more every day. They went on a hike the other day!.. My dad is Rad and was able to get my moms electric chair(and also her lol) through some ruff train(I'm not sure if that is the correct way of spelling that but w.e!lol) They went to San Joe...( a few of you have been there with me) and there were some trees that had fallen across the path.. the first one my dad chopped up and the other one was to big but he was like..' I have not come this far to let a tree get in my way'... God send 4 random hikers to help them get over the last fallen tree and they got to spend the day on the beach!.. my mom has not been out there for years so it brought her much joy! she was sad that she could not walk on the sand though.. so when they got home my dad started looking up 4X4 wheel chairs!.. i love him:)

So there you have it ... My heart and my Life over the past month in one blog!
I love and miss All of you!
Much love!
your K5 sister,
Michelle

p.s i think for the 310 shirts we should just say... 310 .. because we have no need for other words because its so awesome already and every one knows it! lol

Coming soon...

If all goes well... these shirts may be available this fall!

Who would actually buy one? Just curious. Because I actually might print them.

Famous Cover Girl in Latin America

Hey, my book in Spanish has gone to the printers in Colombia, and look who is on the front cover!

Sorry!

First of all, I must apologize for my horrible job of updating my happenings on this blog!

So... what's new... well I am still trying to make some sort of sense out of all the things that I have learned/experienced over the past 7 months (as I say that I realize that I have only one more month left here! - so crazy for me to imagine).

To start with let me say that my time here has been really good for me in many ways (some ways I was NOT expecting). God has push, pulled, stretched and strung my mind in so many different directions that I often feel exhausted by it (a strange refreshing kind of exhausted).

In some ways I am VERY ready to go home. I am tired physically as work here is very constant and often very stressful. In many other ways I am so sad to leave; sad to leave the children and to not be in constant connection with the innocent love they project.

I feel like God has shaped and changed my character, but it's hard for me (being in still in this environment) to see any thing specific. I am excited to be back within my familiar environment and to see how (if at all) my perspectives have changed.

Saying all this, I must express that I have learned so much here! Through the kids, the experiences, the other volunteers, the trials, the hard times, the missing home, and even the temptations.

As a preface to the next paragraph - Although TLC is a Christian based organization, it is still somewhat of a secular work environment.

It was really really good for me to live in an, at least, semi-secular world for an extended period of time. Since birth I have grown up in a Christian environment, this is really the first time for me to be without huge amounts of spiritual support. God was able to teach me so much about my areas of weakness and how I need to build up defenses in certain areas.

I won't bore you with ALL the details of the work I did here, mostly I just cared for children all day, which is very patience testing but rewarding work! If you ever want to know more about TLC and the work they do just ask, I'll be glad to tell.

I pray you all had a very stretching and growing year! I missed you all so much! And sometimes have dreams that we were all back together on the swift on a beautiful windy day!

Have a great Spring! I am not sure when I will see any of you next (Oh - FYI - I'm back at my camp this summer again, in the same position as before) but I can't wait!

Love!
Frew.

Update on my Grandpa

Hey Everyone,
I haven't updated on my grandpa for awhile, so I figured I should get you all up to speed. He has cancer. There are two tumors on his spine and one is his brain. They have done some radiation treatments and now they have to wait for a bit to see if it helped. My grandpa is still in the hospital because he isn't strong enough to leave. He has alot of weight since he has been in the hospital. They also said that he has to get stronger so that they can give him chemotherapy which I think they want to do but can't.
I'm really worried about him. Me and my family have been getting updates on him from his wife as we have all had colds for the past week or two and we can't visit him when we are sick. We were told on saturday that he wasn't really eating and he was looking like he is giving up. Today, we were told that he isn't eating and has stopped talking to anyone. I think he has just given up because he hasn't been given a prognosis yet because they need to see if the radiation helped or not and they can't tell right away. It seems like he thinks that there is no hope. He doesn't believe that he will get better because he hasn't been told if he can get better.
Please pray for him. He doesn't know Jesus so pray that somehow through this he will come to know him. Pray for my family too, especially my mom, she is very upset and worried about him and it is stressing her out and affecting her the most which is understandable considering it is her father.
Thank-you guys so much,
-Aimee

en-gage-ed

This is all that I am going to say...