Impossibler

What was your impossible dream growing up? Did you have any? You know, those possible yet impossible things kids in books had, or got to do, that were just out of your reach realistically, yet were entirely possible, you just needed the correct materials? And sadly, because you lacked those materials, you have now grown up, the fulfillment of these impossible dreams has only become impossibler? (um, yeah, I know “impossibler” is not a word, but this is all for a reason. I want to transport you back in time, however many years it takes to put you at the age of 8, where everything was possible. For me, this was 12 years ago, for you it may be more, may be less. But I want you to put yourself back into the mind of an 8 year old, back when the world was yours, your imagination was your reality, and when no one corrected you for using words like “impossibler”)

There I am, in my back yard, my head full of more stories and imaginings than anyone will ever know. I keep most of them to myself, as I am quickly approaching the advanced age of 10, in uh, two years. But my imagination is teaming with possibilities. Even at that young age my Ideation strength runs untamed. You’re here too! You’ve come to play. Isn’t that nice? We don’t have to worry about being all formal, or standing on ceremony by calling to set up an appointed time to make sure we are free for a play date? No, at this age, all we have to do is just walk down the street and ask if the other can come out to play. So simple.

What will we play? All right, house it is! But only if I get to be the oldest sister! Being the oldest grants me the right to have a job, and a car. Who do you want to be, the mother? No? Ok, we can just say the mom and dad are out of town, which means I'm in charge! You can be the baby; I’ll take care of you! Or you can be my best friend; we can do all kinds of fun things, like work together, and go out to eat! Lets go get the dress up box, as working teenagers we have to dress in the highest fashions! I’ll wear the blue dress, if I tie this sash around the waist like this you’ll never know it was torn. Do you like this hat? Ok, now we’re ready. Yeah, your right, I’m bored with this. What should we do now? We could go outside and play on the swing set! We can pretend the platform above the slide is the Dawn Treader, from Narnia, and that we’re sailing across the seas! Hi-ho! A storm is upon us! Oh good, it’s past, all is well.

What should we do now? Do you want to be spies? I can go get my walki-talkies. Ok, your code name is “Alfa Charlie”. If you need me, use the button to send two short beeps and one long. If you get in trouble make the beeps send S.O.S. got it? And don’t get caught! I’ll take the front yard, you take the back. Lets go.

Ok, well, I guess your right, there's really not anyone to spy on. What should we play now? A fort? Yeah, that’s a great idea! Lets go get some sheets and blankets from inside. And guess what! I saw a cardboard box out on the curb down the street, someone must have bought a refrigerator! That’ll be perfect for our fort! We’ll also need markers, we can draw a space ship control panel on the inside of the box, and some scissors, to because out a door. Hey! Lets make one side a space ship, and the other a castle! We can cut out the door to work like a drawbridge.

Well, it’s getting dark out; I think it’s time for dinner. Thanks for coming over though! Maybe tomorrow I can come over to your house and we can play in your imagination.

Oook, welcome back to present day. I hope you had fun playing! I know I did :-) those were some of my favorite things to play growing up. The reason I took you along on that little adventure of adventures, was to remind you of how much fun being a kid can be, and how many good things we get to do at that age that we forget about when we “grow up”. All of a sudden we have to be level headed, and doing impractical things like building forts and playing spies is nothing but silliness and we must be more refined then that. Yes, there comes a point when we just have to grow up…or do we?

Ok, get ready, our adventures aren’t over yet! Now, if you’re not in your twenty something’s, you’ll have to imagine you are (this is where you already twenty something’s have it easy) this time, instead of a back yard, we’re at an apartment complex, with 44 students living in four of the surrounding buildings. Between the buildings there's a nice open lawn, directly in the sunshine all day. You and I are in one of the apartments over looking the lawn, below we can see several students gathering with study material, the laughter and conversation drifts up through our window. Before you know it, we hear a knock at the door, (not just any knock! It’s the secret knock, the person on the outside has knocked five times fast, and they are waiting for us to knock the two times back and let them in). After answering the knock we find a fellow student standing on our doorstep “reading party outside, wanna come?” (do you hear the whispers of years past come back, remember when we were 8, and you came to ask if I could play outside?)

We gather on the lawn, someone brings a guitar. We throw things at the apartments above us, calling for people to come join. We stay out in the sunshine till it falls behind the mountains. Playing the day away.

Now it’s a new day, Alise has posted on Facebook that her apartment is hosting a fort party! “Bring your sheets and blankets”. I, along with Briana, visit each apartment, gathering everyone's extra sheets. Katelyn kindly offers the use of Alyssa’s sheets, since she’s out of town this weekend anyways. Bri and I help Alise and Jenny tack the sheets to the ceiling and walls to build a canopy around their living room. We even put the kitchen table in the hallway, so that you have to crawl under it to enter the fort.

Soon many more students arrive and we put in a movie. Later, after the movie is done, some of us linger and decide we might as well stay the night. Jenny serenades us on her guitar as we slumber.

Now again, a few days later. My life long, impossible childhood dream is about to come true! And you get to witness it! Come with me and look out my balcony window, you see that apartment right across the lawn? Well, also on the third story are some wonderful girls, and all semester I have been wanting to try out a tin can telephone strung from my balcony to theirs, and tonight, by golly, we’re gonna do it! Ok, first I’m going to set up my line, I’ll pop the hole in the cans, string my yarn through one of them and tie the knot. All right, now, just secure the can to the balcony rail like this, good. Now I’m going to drop my ball of yarn and we’ll go out and get it and bring it over to under their apartment. Ok, Ciera’s up there with some yarn of her own, just tell her to let it down and we’ll tie my ball of yarn to her string and she can hoist it up! Now, just to secure the other can, and, perfect! Ok, wait here while I run back and we’ll test it!

"Hello?”

“HI!”

“It works!”

“Haha, this is wonderful!”

“I’m so glad!”

“Me too!”

“Ok, goodbye now!”

“Bye, love you!”

Yes! It works perfectly! My childhood dreams have become a little less impossibler.

Well, you may not believe it, but we did have “play dates” under the guise of studying out on the lawn, and we did actually make a fort in an apartment and sleep in it. And oooh yes indeed! We did make a tin can telephone spanning from their apartment to mine, and yes siree, it worked just fine (except we had to call each other on our cell phones in order to let each other know we wanted to talk on the tin can, eh, minor details). And, the guys below us may or may not have threatened to tap our line, and in fact Chris and Andrew may or may not have succeeded in tapping said line (turns out, tin can phones can work three ways!). So, despite popular demand, child’s play is not just for children.

My time at FLI encouraged me to be who I am, and so much of the time who I am is nothing more than a child’s imagination in a young woman's body. It was wonderful to be free to express that inner child during my time in Colorado, and to be surrounded by people who not only accepted and encouraged that imagination, but used their own childlike imaginations as well.

I'm sorry if this is a random post, right now as I'm writing this it's actually after three in the morning, and it really just started out as a bumbling to fulfill a late night writing craving. But as I went, I kept finding more and more parallels between the free and easy play of a child, and the refreshing and accepting community of FLI, where I was able to do the impossibler.

They Don’t Call It “Life Group” For Nothin’!

So basically, I love my Life Group, and when I say “love”, you had better believe it! I cant imagine the semester without them, the memories I shared with them are among my favorites. As I told Anne Marie on one of our last nights “the ‘Life’ in Life Group stands for ‘Life’, and I plan on having you guys in my life for life!”


Introducing My Life Group 3:

Anne Marie was the first of my Life Group that I met. We sat at the same table on our first night at Focus, eating pizza together. But our real bonding began when she was stranded with me on our hike up the mountain at Horn Creek. We were that group caught in the middle of the fast hikers and the slower ones. The two of us ended up spending the hours together, learning about each others lives, that is until we could no longer breath due to the altitude. We wanted so bad to make it to the top, however, we knew it was time to turn back when we found ourselves walking for two minutes, then stopping to breathe for ten. :-) We came to a fork in the road and decided not to take it…then we got lost coming down and were late for dinner…what adventures!

Next I met Cody. What a guy! I also met him that first night, but just quickly in passing “oh hey! Your in my Life Group!” basically this guys a lot of fun, there's always a party going on around him. My favorite memories of Cody include: Sour Milk Man, the Rapping Preacher, always, always finding a reason to “trot out the two year old”... Etc. Cody was also one of the music leaders for our class, and he did a wonderful job at bringing us together to praise our Lord.

I also met Kensi that first night, and also in passing. Kensi is so classy and wonderful! She kept us on track when we would stray from the topic at hand during class discussions (and, uh, ahem, when Sarah and Chris were paying less than attention during exams…never heard our table so quiet in that one moment!) My favorite memory of Kensi was one night when a bunch of us were hanging out in Jenny’s apartment. I randomly asked Kensi if I could try teasing her hair. She thought about it for a minute then said “sure girl.” I excitedly got a brush but, um, I don’t exactly know how to tease, but I pretended to…sadly I was not able to get a picture, and the ones that were captured Kensi tackled the culprit and deleted them :-( haha.

The next one I remember meeting was Chris. At Horn Creek one of the games we played required us to line up according to our hometown, stretching from west to east, then we folded the line in half and the person we came face to face with was our partner. Well, Aberdeen MD came face to face with Shiner TX. At this point we had to name our two-some and then we were blindfolded and told to find our partner by yelling our own name (I was Jackal and Chris was Hyde). It was mass confusion as the 44 of us yelled and tried to find our partners. FINALLY I hear “Hyde! Hyde!” I excitedly reached out to tag him and we took off our blindfolds to discover…we were the last two on the court. Yay!I have many more great memories with Chris, and this was only a hint to the ones that would follow.

Sarah. Um, I actually don’t remember my first meeting of Sarah. But my first memory of her is when she ran to the front of the bus on the way to Horn Creek and declared “ok! We’re settling this once and for all! How many of you, at some point of your life, were home schooled!?” that was the day we figured out that exactly half of the 44 were of the proud and home schooled! Sarah is just wonderful, she's exuberant and full of life, and her laughter makes you want to fall over and laugh your head off, no matter what it is that's funny! She's a fearless leader, and loves to dress like Ke$ha :-) i have too many memories with this girl to count, she's just wonderful!

Here we are on Stop Light day, at this point so early in the semester we are all green and single...but somewhere around the end we had two reds and a rumored yellow :-)

This was at the koinonia dinner we planned, Super Hero Night!

This is us, " true-to-fact dynamics of the group discussion." as Sarah says it. Oh so different, yet oh so good.

Life Group 3 will forever be in my heart

The Rainy Kid Show

One of our assignments in our Gender & Leadership class was to, as a Life Group, plan and execute a service project. Part of the assignment was to have four meetings led or co-led by each of the group members, and to write a journal entry for each meeting, and then a final reflection paper after the finishing of the project. So, this post is a collection of those journals and the reflection paper.

It was truly a blessed time, one I will cherish always.

This is our poster designed and created by Chris

Journal 1:

Our first meeting was led by Sarah and it took several meetings to actually decide what to do. we had many ideas but none that really grabbed us, so we had a few meetings and thought about our different options, but nothing was standing out, and when we would try to put together one of our ideas, it didn’t go to far. Then, as we were working on our Leadership skit, Sarah mentioned that Joy Messier and her had practicum with Rising Voice, and they were starting a campaign to help raise money for an organization called Children's Hope Chest. So, if we were interested, we could join with Life Group 7 and have a fund raiser through a local coffee shop. So it was there, as we sprawled on the floor of the computer lab that we decided on our experience.

Journal 2:

The second meeting was led by Anne Marie and Chris. It was good to come together as a group and just make sure we were all on the same page. This wasn’t a long meeting by any means, basically we were given a list of the positions that needed to be taken, and a few were filled. Later that week the rest of us were filled into the positions and given our responsibilities. We also had a meeting where we joined Life Group 7, since many of our jobs were shared with others in that group. My job, along with Kendra, was to put together a PowerPoint to be playing throughout the show, and make sure the video was ready to be shown halfway through. The other half of the job, which Kendra took on, was to prepare several sound bites, just a minute speech to give between performances.

Journal 3:

Our third meeting was led by Kensi and Janae. The two groups met together in Janae’s apartment the night before the show and made sure we all knew where, what, and when we were supposed to be doing. The best part of this meeting had little to do with the meeting itself, as much as it was wonderful to just be together. It was the day after break so most of us were just getting back from their home visits (with Chris and Kendra coming straight from the airport, luggage and all!) it was so refreshing to be together again, and to see the dynamics playing out in that room between our groups as we reunited as a family was a foreshadowing to how the show would play out the next night. This was a special, special night.

Journal 4:

We again joined Groups 3 and 7 for the final rundown meeting. This was led by Cody and I on behalf of Group 3, and Kendra and Scott for Group 7. We pushed a couple tables together at lunch the day after the show and discussed the event. First we encouraged each other by talking about the things that went right and smooth, ways we saw each other working to make the show better, and how much we enjoyed the shared experience. Then we talked about some of the things that could have gone better, or things that disappointed us. Even though we made just about $200 through the sales of the art show and coffee sales, most of that was our fellow Focus students, we didn’t really see anything come out of our efforts to advertise the event to the community, the marketing could have been looked after better.

Cody, Jenny and Kensi Performing

Reflections Of A Coffee Shop Full Of Friends And Life Lessons

I walked into the little coffee shop and took in my surroundings. Over on the corner stage was Cody, setting up the microphones and instruments. Across from him in the other corner was Chris, working out the kinks in the sound board. Sarah and Anne Marie were behind the art show table, organizing all the donations and Rising Voice promotions. Kensi dashed back and forth between the three, making sure everyone knew their jobs and that things were running smoothly. I smiled, proud of my Life Group and the project we were about to pull together, along with Life Group 7, and I went to figure out how to plug in my laptop for the slide show promoting Children's Hope Chest.

That night was only the final product of a plan we had been working on developing for several weeks. Joining up with Group 7 might have been a risky choice, I've noticed that all the groups have different ways of operating, and I wasn’t sure how mixing two groups would work out. But it turned out so wonderfully. Because we joined up with the other group we were able to accomplish so much more and run so much more smoothly.

We had decided to put on a show at Jives Coffee Shop to raise money for Children's Hope Chest through Sarah and Joy’s practicum site, Rising Voice. With the creativity in our two combined groups, we were able to come up with the idea of a music and art show, and this coffee shop was willing to give us a percentage of the sales from the night as well. We were able to enlist our fellow classmates to support us by donating their time and provide the music, as well as their talent and donate art items to be sold. We were also blessed by our classmates support on the night of the show by the way they all showed up and hung out in the shop, cheering for the music and purchasing the art items.

Since marketing the show was our weakest area, we didn’t get any traffic other than the coffee shop regulars and our classmates, but the support from our classmates was outstanding and made the night a success! Through the art sales, coffee sales and donations we were able to make over two hundred dollars for our cause, and learn a lot about leadership and make some great memories in the process!

I really did learn so much through this project. Mainly through watching my friends in my group lead and creating a desire in me to lead like them. Through Sarah I learned to take initiative, when she sees a job that needs to be done, she does it, or she finds the best person to do it and encourages them to do it.

I learned from Anne Marie to look at all the details, there's so much more to a project like this than initially meets they eye, and Anne Marie will find those little things and make sure they’re seen to.

Chris taught me to think outside the box. When he is faced with a situation he is able to take it and turn it around and around in his head and come up with the best strategy to implement the different things that need to be done, and to think of other aspects that none of the rest of us would have put together that make the process smoother and more efficient.

Kensi taught me the importance of being organized and making sure everyone has a job, knows their job, and is doing their job. She was so wonderful about the little details and making sure someone was in charge of everything and delegating the jobs to people who had the strengths and talents to get the job done.

And Cody taught me the importance of the relational aspect; he made sure everyone was in his or her area of expertise and happy doing it. He always brings a party with him, but that doesn’t mean he works any less hard.

I also learned similar lessons of dedication and solid leadership from Life Group 7 and it was such a blessing for our groups to be able to work with that group and learn double!

This experience is one I will remember my whole life, and I cant wait to have another opportunity to implement the lessons I learned through it.

Here are Life Groups 3 & 7, a job well done!

Mountains + Snow + Colorado = SKI TRIP!! (of course ya silly!)

Once again, we were dragging ourselves out of bed in the early morning (you know, that part of the morning that doesn’t even qualify as morning since the sun is still hours from rising…that part of morning!).
I grabbed my skies and boots from the porch, said good morning to Orion as we finiggled (real word, I made it up) our gear into the trunk of Christine’s car and headed out, joining the caravan of students heading to Focus to meet the bus.
After the belated arrival of the bus, we piled in and got situated, Katelyn sat next to me, which brought me much joy, however it was not long into the trip that I fell away to sleep, and I did not revive until we were turning into Copper Mountain.
Right away we geared up and headed out. Since it had been so long since I’d skied, I decided to join a group of mostly newbies. So I waddled over to Jenny, Kenzi, Daniel, Ciera and Joy M. Since most of that group had never skied (I think only two or three of us had before) we decided to look for the Bunny Hill, but we were told that it was closed, but the hill to our right would be an easy start. So, the six of us learned how to put our skies on, and made our way over to the lift. Jenny and Kensi got on one chair, and the rest of us squeezed on to the chair behind them and were whisked up and away, the hill below us crisp and white, the unbroken snow gleaming.
All was fun and happiness upon our chair, we laughed and chatted as the whirring of the lift did it’s job. But alas, it was only to last a few short minutes. Before we were even a fourth of the way up the hill, our ride came to a jolting stop. We sat there, rocking in the light breeze. We could still see the beginning of the lift at the bottom, as we watched, they started sending people away, we assumed they were telling them it was going to be a long wait and suggesting they choose a different hill.
The time flew by atop the lift. We asked questions, told stories, yelled insults back and forth between our two chairs, listened to the “cats” in the trees (um, Daniel) and just had a good time as friends. After awhile, we saw a man in a red Ski Patrol coat slowly making his way down the hill, the fluffy, uncut snow covering his skies. He was stopping under each chair and saying something to the occupants. When he finally made his way to us we gave him an exuberant “hello!” he told us that it should only be a few more minutes and if we were all doing alright. We told him we were fine, and how long had we been up here? “About 30 minutes” he replied, and continued his way down the mountain.
We sat there for a while longer, every few minutes a Ski Patrol would come make sure everyone was okay. After awhile, several Ski Patrol came and positioned themselves below every couple chairs, next thing we knew, we were MOVING!! We progressed up the hill, waving and calling hello and thank you to every Ski Patrol we passed. When we go to the top, a woman was passing out free ski passes ($90 value) because of our inconvenience. We asked he how long we’d been stuck, she said about 45 minutes to an hour! Sure didn’t feel like it was that long.
Finally, we began our trek down the hill. Come to find out it was pretty steep at the top, so we showed the beginners the basics and tried to make it to shallower ground. Um, whoever told us this hill was “basically a bunny hill” needs to get his hills straight. The girls all did all right, pretty soon we’d split into two groups, the faster group went ahead, and Daniel and I hung behind. Daniel was having a harder time getting his skies under him, he could turn to the left just fine, but when it came time to turn right he’d loose his balance.
After awhile Matt B. and A.K. skied past. They gave us some pointers then headed down. We saw them twice more in the next few minutes (I couldn’t believe they were getting down and back up that fast! Haha, but I guess my perception of how long the lift ride took was a bit skewed)
Anyways, Daniel was finally starting to get the hang of things when we ran out of hill, by that time it was lunch time so we headed into the lodge. Just as I was pulling out my sack lunch another group was going out again to hit some bigger hills, so I brought my pizza with me and went right back out. By that time I was itching for speed, and that’s what I got the rest of the day. I learned that skiing is that it’s just like riding a bike, once you’ve learned you never forget.
When I was about five my dad started bringing me with him when he went on Friday nights with a high school ski club. Dad was one of the supervisors, and being such he got free season passes for him and his family. So, from the time I was five, till the time I was about sixteen when Dad quit the club, I skied pretty much every winter Friday night of my life. When Dad stopped going, I didn’t think I’d miss it, actually I didn’t miss it really, and when they told us at Focus that we’d be going, I was excited, but more like a “oh, yeah, that could be fun” kind of excitement. It wasn’t till I was reintroduced to that thrill of speed, the feeling of almost losing control, that skidding sound of stopping and waiting for your breath to catch up with you, having left it halfway up the hill that I began to become reacquainted with my love for skiing. Actually, I don’t know if our relationship ever advanced farther than the “like” stage when I was a child, it was necessary for the long absents for me to fully realize that we were meant to be together. (ok, sorry, it’s late as I’m writing this, these things happen :-)
Anyways, in short, I stayed out the rest of the day. It was lovely out, blue skies and sunshine, no wind. Perfect. I joined a few different groups as I found them, but the interesting part of the trip was that we didn’t run into many other students. I guess it’s such a hit a miss thing. But it was nice, because then I got to know the people I was with very well :-)
Anyways, it was a lovely, enjoyable day. Just as it was nearing 4:00 (our rendezvous time with the bus) I was skiing with Sarah. We decided we had time for one last run, so we went to a hill we hadn’t gone down yet. When we got to the top, we strapped on our poles and said “see ya at the bottom” and took off.
I was quite proud of myself, up to that point, the whole day, I had not fallen once, despite gravities many attempts. And I am proud to say this ride was no exception, (even though I really should have fallen, and fallen HARD!) right from the top of the hill I lost control. Sarah barely had time to say, “see ya” before I was gone! I don’t know if I’ve ever gone so fast in my life!! I was sure I was gonna fall, and I knew if I did it was gonna hurt like no other! At one point my ski went funny and my pole shot out in front of me at the same time and I thought to myself, “this is it! I. Am. Going. To. Die!” but somehow, I didn’t, and I stayed up!! I was able to stop halfway down, I pulled off to the side and bent over my poles, gasping for air and laughing my head off. I had been going so fast that my face was streaked with tears (well, maybe a few of them weren’t from speed). I wiped them away and slowly made my way down the rest of the hill. Giddy to be alive!
The bus ride home did not lack its excitement either, I sat next to Sarah, with Chris and Ciera in the seats in front of us. Lets just say that the laughter didn’t stop, for the whole two-hour trip. As the rest of the bus quietly read or slept, our conversation only got louder and crazier. I don’t know if I've ever laughed so hard or loud or happily. Topic of choice? Plungers. Get yours at CustomPlunger.Com, coming to a bathroom near you.

Snow Upon Mt. Olympus (AKA, Greek Koinonia And The First Snow)

“Ashley!! It’s snowing! I’m NOT driving in this!” my roommate Christine proclaimed as she entered our apartment. All day people had been talking bout the coming snow, the southerners all sure we would be snowed in forever and never survive (um, ok, I’m exaggerating, but as a hardened northerner, Michigander no less, seeing people freak out about the chance of snow is comical). But I was sure it wouldn't snow, it was too warm, and all day not a cloud in the sky. My roommate Emily and I had been texting all day as she was at her practicum and I was at the apartment, betting whether it would snow or not. When a small dusting appeared Emily texted me to announce it, to which I replied “that’s not REAL snow!” however, by the time Christine came home from picking Emily up at the end of the day, it had become very much real and thick.
That night was the Greek Koinonia dinner at the Leland’s. Our apartment had decided to dress up as the myth about the golden apple (then the gods were all gathered for a party, but failed to invite Eris, but she showed up anyways, and, since she was a bit of a troublemaker, she held a contest of sorts, a golden apple was offered to the most beautiful goddess. Well, Hara, the wife of Zeus, Aphrodite, goddess of love, and Athena, goddess of war, all thought the apple should go to them, so they all went to ask Paris, a mortal man, who he chose. Well, we the girls of room 1037 all chose one of the four goddesses to recreate, I was Eris and I carried a golden apple, Emily was Hera, with a pomegranate (since we found somewhere online that said she carried one in a lot of art) Christine was Athena with a Nerf gun, and Joy Aphrodite with a red rose.
So, we got all dressed up and I drove us to the Leland’s, excited to be able to drive in snow once again! (snow driving is my favorite!)
The night was a lot of fun, everyone in mismatched togas made of bed sheets, and lots of GREAT Greek food, and “My Big Fat Greek Wedding” playing on the TV downstairs.
Halfway through the night I was talking with Ciera, when Chris came up to as and said “lets go make snow angels!”
“in our togas!?” we asked,
“sure, why not?”
so out we went, we made toga snow angels (yes, barefooted too) and ran around and threw snow at each other until we were forced by the cold to retreat laughingly back into the warm house.
After some more hanging out, a short photo shoot with Hannah as she reenacted the story of the Fall with the golden apple, and the help of Chris and Patrick, I drove Hannah and Patrick home, with so much laughter that I’m surprised we stayed on the road! What started as Patrick being a GPS with about fifty different accents and voices, ended with him and Hannah pretending to be an old married Italian couple, fighting all the way back.
Later that night, as I was “reading” my phone buzzed with a text from Cierra. “SNOWBALL FIGHT! 15 mins” it read. I jumped up excitedly and raced to find my gloves and hat. My roommates watched me skeptically as I dashed around.
I raced over to Ciera’s apartment to wait for her, Meg, Hannah, and Kendra to be ready, we all went down together, only to be attacked as we rounded the corner by Andrew, Dusten and Daniel! What followed was a long, and happy fight, with most of the students showing up at one point or another. Even Kjersten, our RA made an appearance (after we pelted her windows that is) and she offered rounds of hot chocolate at her place whenever we were done, an invitation we of course we happily accepted.

Carless Drive In

One of the traditions at FLI is the Carless drive in, when we transform the classroom into a genuine, outdoor on the inside movie theater! I got to help set up for this event, and it was so much fun. First we cranked up the country tunes, then we moved all the desks and chairs out into one of the hallway rooms, then we laid out astro turf with popcorn ground into it from who knows how long! Then we decked the walls with black tarps, moved in some lawn furniture, about a dozen bean bags and pillows, several sleeping bags, and about one hundred and fifty plastic balls strewn around…end result, and normal classroom met morphed into a beautiful outdoor theater!

The next night we arrived for the double feature of Toy Story 3 and The Princess Bride. Outside the classroom was Jessa, one of the staff’s eleven-year-old daughter, stationed behind the plywood booth boldly declaring “Tickets! Tickets!” we were given tickets, which she took back and ripped in half, warning us not to loose the other half before the raffle.
We walked into the classroom where a ball fight had already commenced; colorful plastic balls darted everywhere as we chucked them back and forth. Soon it was one side against another, we all had our hoards and our allies.
After while the first movie started, but even as Woody and Buzz tried to escape the daycare the plastic ball war continued, with a random ball arching across the room, creating shadows as they passed the projector.
After Andy gave Woody a teary goodbye, we popped in The Princess Bride, and quote pretty much the whole thing. After which Kjersten called out the raffle, giving away both movies and two theater passes (I won Toy Story and my roommate Emily won Princess Bride :-) finally, together we all disassembled the drive in, and rebuilt our classroom, returning it once again to it’s full glory, leaving behind nothing but the scent of popcorn, and the echo’s of laughter.

The Classroom Before:



And After (Click on the link to see a youtube of us setting it up :-)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H1aCkNZl43c

FCA Lock In

Briana and Cody’s practicum (or, internship) was with a school youth group, one of the requirements for practicum was that we had to get a certain amount of hours by the end of the semester, well, with the youth group Bri and Cody were only able to get a couple hours a week, so to make up for it and gain more hours they decided to host a lock in at a local church. (fun fact! The church they ended up booking was the church I had been going to while out there, Grace Bible Church). Bri and Cody weren’t sure at all how many kids to expect, so a bunch of us students went along to help out.
Turns out only four showed up, so there was about two FLI students to every FCA student, but it was ok. We played a few rounds of dodge ball, then the churches youth group, which was having a game night upstairs came down and joined us for a rousing game of Ghost in the Graveyard. As it got later the church youth group left, as well as three of the FCA kids, leaving one boy with eight FLI students, the boy wanted to watch a movie, so he and a few of the FLI-ers hung out downstairs. I wasn’t too interested in a movie just then, so I followed the sound of piano music upstairs to find Chris playing away as Meg and Ciera listened. We hung out up there for the rest of the night till we went to bed, playing around, we may or may not have gotten just a slight bit goofy :-)

List Of Rather Random Things To Do In An Abandoned Church Sanctuary On A Lock In:
1) Make up a story with music and play it on the piano (Chris asked us to give him some words and he’d make up a story about it, we gave him butterfly, boy, net, thunderstorm, and jar. He played a song and we could tell exactly when everything was happening, though we couldn’t quite understand how it ended…the butterfly was flying around, happy and free, when suddenly the boy showed up with a butterfly net! The chase was on and the butterfly desperately tried to out run the boy, but alas, he was caught, and placed in a jar. The music got sad there, as the butterfly sadly sat in the jar, every once in awhile with a desperate attempt of escape, with now luck. Then, suddenly, the storm came, and played the same game of chase with the boy as he had played with the butterfly! Finally the boy was chased inside, in the meantime knocking over the jar, setting the butterfly free. The storm calmed and the butterfly gladly and joyfully reentered the world once again a free soul! But (as Chris explained) the song ended with a sudden and unexpected dun dun duuun! Which was a stray bolt of lightning striking the butterfly…he died.)
2) Explore the baptismal tank
3) Give a sermon in tongues (however, since it’s not biblical to speak in tongues without an interpreter, have someone (like Ciera) give an interpretive dance behind you.
4) Have an army crawl race under the pews from the back to the front (phew, it’s a lot harder then you'd think! What a work out!)
5) Lie in the pews and talk for hours.

Photo Adventure

I know my adventures are over as a student at FLI, but the last several weeks I fell hopelessly behind in documenting them for memories sake, so now I’m going to try to catch up in several posts. However, I can’t promise they will be in order, or the most detailed. Oh well, I know what I mean, and as I’ve said before, I see this blog as a personal journal that you get a peek into :-) now aren’t you privileged?

Photo Adventure:
For months a sign up sheet had been posted in the communications room (a room where we can post info of events, we have boxes where the professors return our papers, give us handouts, etc.) asking who would be interested in a photo adventure. I was excited to do something like that, especially with so many talented photographers in our class. About halfway through the semester Chris let everyone know that he’d found a place a few hours away called Bishops Castle. Turns out it’s a castle some guy (who may or may not be insane) is building with his own two hands, and he opens to the public. So, six of us piled into Meg’s car and headed out for our adventure.
It’s hard to explain what the castle was like, imagine a middle age castle, tall, narrow, and cold. Rickety and unstable are to words that come to mind as well, forbearing, full of mystery, and of course, adventure. The whole thing was made of rock the man had taken from the land, and it wore many skirts of wrought iron balcony, which encircled it on many levels. We climbed the tall, narrow stone stairs, which led up to the main part of the castle, where you could just imagine a ball of knights and ladies being held. Today we were the knights and the ladies, and instead of dancing, we would be posing, and instead of candlelight, it would be our flashing cameras that lighted the grand hall.
We took several pictures there, the sunlight danced in rainbows through the wall and ceiling of mishmash stained glass. Soon our adventurous thirst drew us to attempt the wrought iron balcony just outside. It was a rush to navigate around the building as the mesh of iron beneath our feet swayed and creaked with each step. There were signs all over the castle proclaiming the visitors own risk, the owner warned that he was not responsible for anything, thus should the floor fall out from under us (as it certainly felt capable of doing at any given moment) the responsibility would be all our own.
We posed for many more pictures out there, stepping in and out of broken windows, glass strewn at random.
Next we endeavored to explore higher. We climbed through narrow and twisted stone and iron steps, leading to the tops of unfinished towers. It was windy, but the whoosh of it was sweet and thrilling.
Finally, Chris, Ciera and I chose to climb to the ultimate top. The giant iron globe balancing at the highest point of the castle. We discovered upon entering the globe that the mesh iron floor was only connected at the center, where the stairs descended, and not to the outer cage, allowing the floor to rock and wiggle precariously, especially in the wind. And I loved it. If I had a hammock, I would have hung it in that cage and slept right there, on top of the world.
We took many photos up there, one with all of us defying gravity and jumping (yes, I do believe the insanity of the castle and her builder was rubbing off on us) and we played tricks with the sun, creating an E.T. esque shot as the sun shown through Ciera and Chris’s touching fingers.
Finally we climbed down to solid ground, but the fun wasn’t over yet! Before we piled back in for the long ride home, we played in the street for a bit.
Finally, weary and all photoed out, we drove home, as knights and ladies traveling home after a long and memorable quest.