A two week combination

So this post is going to be kinda huge... lots of things I write in WIR's is for my memory and recallection. All of our WIR's are going in a book for us at the end of the year so I am trying to be really detailed since my time here is going by so fast it is hard to soak it all in. For this post I am going to bold some of the more important/spiritual things going on in my life so if you don't have time to read about the last two weeks of my life you can get the highlights. I can't wait to come home in just one week!

Sarah Wennersten

November 29- December 5 , 2010

Week in Review 11

This first week back in the building from Thanksgiving break has been a good one. Tuesday we started our new Moody class which is study of Isaiah. I am really excited and have enjoyed the author and book a lot better than the last one.

Wednesday began the new season of broom hockey for Hume Lake. All of Joshua went down to the ice rink, geared up with helmets and knee/shin pads, grabbed miniature brooms, and got sliding. It was a blast. Broom hockey is very much like regular hockey mixed with soccer rules. You have a little broom that you use to hit and scoop and slide the puck. Also you wear cool-lookin’ hockey helmets (face shield and all) and big plastic knee pads that slide great on the ice. I played in the goal most the game and actually did pretty good.  I was really surprised that I could still throw my body around like that, just being out of physical, competitive sports for so long. It felt great to compete again. Only one shot got past me the whole night, but all of us were still learning so that’s not a great accomplishment. Especially considering on Saturday night I played broom hockey again, except this time with some staff. Broom hockey is all the staff does during the winter (which is forever long) and so they are amazing at the game. I got dropped kicked that night. And oh my was I sore after 3 hours of that. I played goal for one 8 minute period and then I was done. I let three goals get by me and was a little frustrated because one of the female staff came up after two had gone in and said “you know after you get two goals on you you can ask for a replacement”. Most of the time that statement wouldn’t have bothered me a lot but it was the tone in which it was said that hit home. I felt a little bad a few minutes later because the same girl said something like “if you are getting tired you can switch out”, to which I responded “well I can because you seem to want me to”. That whole scenario and a few others helped me realize another area of pride in my life: I’m not used to really stinking at sports. So on this subject one more thing that hit home was that I was having trouble hitting the puck because it was nerve racking playing against all the staff.  I was playing right defender and so I was up against Rich Baker who was playing left forward for the other team almost the whole night. Also right there was Jordan S and other great players. So there was a few times I had trouble hitting the puck and Rich would slide it toward me and tell me to hit it again. He gave me a few pointers but it was just embarrassing to have the game slow down so much because he was trying to help me hit the puck. And the last frustrating thing for me that game (just so I can look back and see how kinda dumb it was to be upset about this) was that it was all Joshua students and Jordan for the first 30 minutes or so of our playing time. I was having so much fun playing. Then the staff starting showing up. The said comments were made and then they started taking over. I just remember standing in my position and actually the said female staff person came and stood right in front of me. A few staffers actually took the right defense position and just made it hard to have fun after that. I guess the thing that made me sad was that I was having fun and then people came and took over. But anyway all that said I really did have a good time. Mostly because it was painful... which sounds weird. My favorite moment of the night was Rich Baker and I had a big collision. I think the puck had just gone by me and I was on my knees. Suddenly in front of me is Rich. And he was coming in hot right at me sliding on his knees. A few feet away I hear him say “oh boy” and then, boom! We hit so hard. We slid back and hit the ice. Our helmets hit really hard and I was a little dazed. We were both laying there and he asked if I was ok and I said yes. Then he asked again and we started to get up. Right as I said yes he tapped my helmet making my head hit the ice again, but softly this time. The whole thing was just funny. Why is it that in sports where people wear helmets everyone feels the need to hit other people in the helmet? So I really did have a good night of momentous collisions and many painful bruises. I hurt my back a little in one pile up but it is feeling better today. My chiropractor is going to have a fit when I finally get home to see him... but hey, it’s people like me who keep people like him in business right?

Friday night was an interesting night for me. We were done with work around 5 but then a few of us volunteered to work the mechanical bull that night. So we had to wait around until 9. I spent a long time in the dining hall hanging out with a couple of girls but then they needed to leave so I decided I would wait at the OK Chalet till 9. The girls walked me over but when I got inside there were only a couple families in there. So I sat down on a couch and started reading. Then the lights started going out cause they were on a timer or something. The families in there turned them back on a couple times but then they left. It was so awkward. They just left me in there. I asked if it was ok for me to stay and all one guy said was that he didn’t care as long as I didn’t reek havak on anything. They moved into the outside entry way and then the lights went off again. I was just thinking “ok...” so I decided to leave and had to walk by the families which again was awkward. It was dark when I walked back to Ponderosa to find somewhere to be for a few hours. The chapel was empty which was sad because I would have loved to be in a service. So I went back to the dining hall but all the workers were just getting ready to leave. So I stayed there for awhile with them while they prayed and closed the night. So then I was alone again and desicded to walk back to the ok Chalet to check the other chapel. I heard noises and was excited until I opened the door and to my discouragement found that it was just a bunch of men watching a fishing video. So I went outside again and didn’t know where to go. The thing about all of this was that I felt so alone. The feeling of loneliness is not one I feel very often because I usually love having time to myself. The only times I can remember feeling that alone was when I was with other people, sometimes you feel most lonely when you are surrounded by people. But, that night, walking in the dark and in the snow I felt alone. I guess it was almost a sense of abandonment. So I went to only place that was warm and had a light on which was the bathroom. I went in one of the stalls and had a great moment with God. It sounds weird but it was really neat. I am thankful for that night because it forced me to find my peace in God. I sang a song from my childhood called “God is so good” and it calmed my heart. I wrote the lyrics on a piece of paper I had found outside and I prayed. I love how God uses times like that to bring you closer to Him. Around 8:30 I decided to check the Ok Chalet again but it was still empty. So I sat down on the cement steps and read my book. About 15 minutes later the others showed up and we trained on how to run the mechanical bull. We got to practice on each other for a while and then we waited for the men to come. I had a good time running the bull and throwing people off... especially when the men started getting really cocky and it only took a slight twist of a knob to send them flying off.  Over all it was a good night of finding comfort in God and then having a little fun.

Saturday was a fun day at work. All of us who were trained in High Adventure learned how to run a paintball session. It took a couple hours to go over all the rules and instructions. Then Sarah G, Nathan B, David, and I ran a session. I was actually becoming really aggravated by the group of men we were leading. They were like junior high boys stuck in grown mens bodies with major pride issues. They did not listen at all which made it very difficult. There are a lot of safety issues when it comes to guns and men and the fact that they were so stubborn was frustrating. I practically yelled at one older man because he was dry firing his gun after the session was over which was clearly not supposed to happen. The same older man had come up and shot one of my brothers in the back five times from 10 feet away! I was not happy. The men were clearly instructed to not shoot from less than 25 feet away. I just couldn’t believe how out of control they were. I mean they were throwing snow balls at each other during the rules at the beginning and then broke out in a snow ball fight. I just think men should be men, or at least act like a man when you are representing your church. Ugh. Besides that, working paintball was fun. I have never done paintball before so it was good to be around it. I still have never been shot though. The guns are so easy to shoot. There is absolutely no kick back.

The biggest highlight for my weekend happened on Sunday. I was working program this weekend but ended up doing a lot of high adventure stuff because the two were combined. We had 21 people working HA and Program so we got a lot of stuff accomplished. But on Sunday I got to do the coolest thing... I got to help build a platform over 40 feet up in a tree. Jordan had put me in charge of the project an hour or two before lunch without a whole lot of instruction. He laid out the general idea of what he needed, told me to use 4x6 wood and big bolts, told me I was the brains of the operation, and left me to it. It took all the time we had before lunch just to get all the supplies together because Derek, Joe, and I had to walk back and forth so much between the snow board run where the tree was, maintenance, HA shed, and wherever Jordan was to ask questions. Right before we went to lunch Jordan asked if he could have 4 people come back to work more after lunch on the platform. I volunteered and so did Derek and Andrew M. So after a good hour long lunch I drove up to HA with Jordan because the boys had already left. Jordan had to stop at the infirmary and while there I found the book “You are Special”. It’s a book I remember from my childhood about wooden people/Wemmicks/us and Eli/God and one Wemmick learning that he was special in Eli’s eyes. It was actually a really encouraging book for me to read again, so I thoroughly enjoyed that. Once at HA the four of us stood and talked for a while about bat bombs, training crows, and curving bullets. Then we proceeded to try and curve a paintball by placing your thumb slightly over the barrel but it didn’t work. After that we got down to business. We went down to the tree, after searching in the snow with a metal detector for a tool that had dropped, and Andrew went up the rope he had installed the day before. He put another rope around the tree for me. So I downed the special harness and all the accompany gear and got climbing. Which was actually a little difficult at first and it took me a while to get the hang of climbing up the rope. So what you have is just the rope that is attached by your waste to a locking... can’t remember the name of the thing.... and then a gold...don’t remember that either... that is above your head, both of which can go up but not down. The gold thing was attached to the harness and also two straps hanging below me with footholds. So what you do is you bring your knees up to your chest and then slide the gold thing up the rope. Then you stand up on the straps, and with the tail of the rope in your right hand pull the rope up and tight. Then you repeat and inch worm your way up the tree. Legs up, slide, stand, pull. Oh the glory. After making it up to where we were working Jordan and Derek stared sending up supplies. It was really hard working up there because you are hanging by your waist and trying to get in a good position. The hardest thing was bolting the lumber into the tree. You had no leverage and had to push really hard on the impact drive to get it to penetrate the tree. Also we had all the tools attached by caribeaners and ropes to ourselves so we didn’t drop anything. Over all it was a very challenging but great experience. We got the four main pieces of wood in place but didn’t quite finish. As we were making our way down I got stuck and realized one of my straps had got caught in the wood. So I had to climb up again a few feet to unhook it. The gold thing was really hard to get on and off so that took extra time. To get down you hold the tail of the rope in your right hand and the lever of the locking...something... in your left. By releasing the lever you take away the ‘locking part’ allowing yourself to belay down the rope. It was a little bumpy but I did alright. After that adventure we all went to Jordan’s house for dinner and had shrimp and pasta with a creamy Alfredo sauce. I got to deep fry the coconut shrimp which was fun. Had a great relaxing evening after all that work up in the tree. We went “midnight shopping” at the G-store, sat and talked and ate, played a game that electrocutes you if you are the slowest player, and then did dishes. I had a great weekend!

This week I want to be praying for Africa. I believe at some point in my life I will go down there to spend time with a missionary. The country is still struggling with hunger, drought, and child warriors. The country over all just needs a ton of prayer.

Sarah Wennersten

December 6-12, 2010

Week in Review

Can I just say right now I am so excited for this next week?! It is going to be a fun week of parties and work and then I get to go home! My heart is definitely ready to go home for awhile.

But this last was another good week here at Joshua. I still can’t believe how fast the weeks go bye. Every weekend I am shocked that it is the weekend already. I was thinking about it and I guess it makes sense. Monday through Thursday is filled with classes and then Friday through Sunday is a little class and then hard work. So the week is almost split in half with class and work. This year has been flying by and it is only going to speed up. I need to hold on tight.

Wednesday for dinner Lacy, Cheryl, Caitlyn and I dressed up in the Indian (dot Indian that is, not feather) fashion. Caitlyn has been to India a few times and had 4 actual outfits. The pants part were huge, two and a half of me could have fit in them. Basically what they wear down there is just giant pants (which are very airy and comfy) and a long shirt thing. It was a fun night.

Thursday we had a theme dinner and this time it was “50 year reunion of Joshua class 2010-2011”. So we all got to dress up like 70 year olds for the night. I got to where one of my favorite wigs and draw wrinkles on my face (thank you drama class). Jerrod actually shaved a cul-de-sac hair cut on his head and looked great. Everybody had fun looking and acting old. We joked about our inside jokes and tried to pull off our Joshua dance moves. Josh Yee had a “heart attack” during dinner to which his roommate Tyler came to the rescue. Our dinner consisted of “old people food”... pudding, apple sauce, mashed potatoes, fruit salad, and chicken noodle soup. And we could only use spoons. After dinner we played 3 rounds of a rousing game of Banco, a game of dice. It will be interesting to see what all of us look like at 70 is the Lord tarries that long.

Friday started another weekend of work which I spent in the Ponderosa Dish Room. I worked with Richie, Jon Dail, and Nessa. I really enjoyed working there because there was almost always something to do. I have loved basically everywhere I have worked on the weekends because the is plenty of work to be done. We were very busy but had fun at the same time. Friday we got off a little early at 8:30 and once up the hill I went to sleep. I was up again at 5am to be at work by 6. I got to work “the cannon” all day on Saturday! From 6-2:30 I was spraying stuff with a high powered hose and pushing stuff into the dish washer. Within a few minutes I was soaked. All day I super wet but in the dish room it’s not bad because it is so warm and steamy, once outside though oh man it was cold. It was so disgusting too because I would be spraying something and all of a sudden water would be bathing my face. There were almost a thousand people here this weekend.... so I had almost a thousand peoples germs on me. Gross. So after a few face-fulls of water and being soaked in water we were done. And done means done for the weekend. We walked back up to the building and around 4 I sat down to look at what the rest of my weekend would look like. I wrote out a list of all  needed to do, which wasn’t very much just some reading and my WIR, and then I added up my time. I figured between that night and Sunday I had about 15 hours of free time. 5 hours Saturday night and then about 10 Sunday. I felt yet another emotion not common to me... I was lost as to what I was going to with myself for that length of time. I could finish all I needed to do in a few hours that first night. But then as I was coming in my room after putting in some laundry two of the boys invited me to go snowshoeing!! Jordan was taking a group out and had more space so I got to go. So I got ready super quick and walked down to Ponderosa around 5. I had just eaten a whole bag of popcorn so I wasn’t very hungry for dinner. Then Jordan, Eric, and I went to the Ok Chalet and picked up the snow shoes. While there Jordan showed us the refrigerator full of dead things. It stunk so bad. We drove up to his house and 4-5 of my Joshua brothers were there. So we sat around for a while and talked while Jordan got ready and then we loaded up. It was Jordan, Eric, John True, Rusty, Andrew Morey and me who went. It took over 30 minutes to get to the spot where we would hike in and once there I really had to go. So I asked if by chance there were any restrooms around. To which the response was “there’s a bathroom everywhere here”. Yeah for the first time doin’ it all- natural in the California forest. Then we were off; crossing the road, stepping up onto the few feet of snow, and strapping on our snow shoes. I didn’t know snow shoes pivoted at the ball of your foot. The shoes were pretty easy to walk in and made steep slopes a lot easier to climb because there were spikes in the toe. It was well after dark by the time we got started so we did everything by headlamp. It was a lot of hard work hiking in but well worth it when we reached the top. When we finally made it to the top of Vista Point my legs were beat. We took off our snow shoes and climbed around on the rocks for awhile. While on top of the tallest rock Eric used his laser to point out different constellations. The stars were beautiful. I was finally able to see Orion! We took a few really cool pictures which was an adventure with Eric trying to make it up the rocks in 10 seconds.  On the hike back down you could almost ski in some spots if you lifted up your toe and slid down on your heal. I ate it one time when I was sliding down and at the bottom my toe caught the snow. There was one really cool moment when Eric had gotten caught on something and I looked back and in the sky behind him something large and bright fell down. I freaked out a little but no one else saw it! I was bummed. But it was crazy! A giant light ball just fell from the sky! I probably sounded like I was crazy, oh well. Besides that the walk down was pretty uneventful, except for Rusty leaping off a rock and almost taking some of us out and then the boys wrestling a little. Once back in the building there was a group of people singing and playing some music. I stood around for a while, drew with sharpie on Jerrod’s head, and then went to bed. My body was so drained and so tired.

I got up this morning a little after 8, ate some breakfast, finished my book, did laundry, updated last week’s WIR, and am now finishing up this WIR. So far a good relaxing day. Now to study a little for Israel and then chill before church. Good weekend.

Somalia is being called “the world’s worst humanitarian disaster”. The country is in a state of deep turmoil being torn apart by violent attacks from within. Those in power have self interests in keeping the country in such a state of disarray. I want to be praying for Somalia that those in power and those innocent civilians who are being killed daily would hear and receive the Gospel.

Week #9,10,11

Sarah Wennersten

November 8-13, 2010

Week in Review 9

This week the speaker has been really good. I missed Monday night but I plan to listen to the audio soon. I have always felt a pull toward travel and toward missions. The pull for missions has become stronger and stronger the last few years to the point that I am becoming convinced that I need to take action. God has put a longing in my heart to help people reaching back to when I was little and wanted to be a veterinarian and a police officer. I think He has been growing in me this desire to help the under dog for the purpose of missions. One thing I have never felt drawn to was going through a missions organization and doing all the training, I have never felt drawn to full time missions like that. But I still wanted to do missions so I wasn’t sure what God had in mind. Last night I think He made it clear to me how I can do missions without doing the whole schooling scene. We were in the Grill and the speaker was mentioning how he had spent a few years traveling around spending time with different missionaries all around the world. I was baffled how he could that because I always understood that you couldn’t go unless trained by a missionary school. So I asked and he said that he just wrote letter to a bunch of missionaries and asked if they needed help and if he come spend time with them. So he saved up money, got on a plane, and went. I am so pumped! I haven’t been this excited about something in a long time. It just felt right. I can do that! I would still like to do college maybe but I think at this point I may pursue spending some time in foreign countries with missionaries. I can’t explain this feeling inside of me. I am so excited for the Dominican Republic I can hardly contain it. I just feel myself bubbling over and it feels so right. I have been feeling this pull to do something for so long and now I feel that a game plan is starting to form. I need to stay in prayer and seek God’s will but right now I really feel this is what He may have for me. One fear I have is letting go. Some things won’t be hard but what will be hard and what I feel like I still haven’t given up all the way is my desire to get married and settle down. I want that so bad but if I am going to be traveling around then that probably won’t work for a few years. But, I know and want to give all of my life to God and His service so I need to be willing to give everything up. It’s the story we hear over and over: person gives hands over their dream to God, God uses them for amazing things, and then often God gives them their dream in a way that was unexpected. So many speakers have said that we need to go do stuff while we are young and strong and have energy. “Now is the time”. I am so excited to see what God is going to do with me. I want Him to use me. I have said “here I am send me” and if He keeps answering my prayers like he has been the last few months then I know He will. That is my next subject. Answered prayers. God has been showing Himself to me in ways that I have never experienced before and it has been amazing. He has shown Himself faithful to answer my prayers and then make it clear to me that He has answered them. The first time I experienced this was in the first few weeks when I gave up the baggage I was carrying from my high school years. I so badly wanted to give all that junk to God and so I cried out. A week or so later something happened that normally would have bothered me and made me start freaking out about what people thought. But I didn’t really care. It has been so freeing to finally live without a great fear of man. Second was when I realized God was answering my prayer concerning pride in my life. Once again this is something I noticed in high school and even prayed that God would take out of my life and help me change. But it wasn’t until coming here and giving up it all up on that first morning that change  really started happening. God  made it apparent to me that He was working on my pride because people started arguing and discussing calvinism, predestination, and all that. In high school I would often argue theological points because I wanted to people to know what was right and true, which is what I had to say. I had to prove my point and make sure people knew exactly what I thought to be right. But this time I wanted nothing to do with it. I hated even just listening to the argument. Later on I realized that that dislike for the kind of discussion that was going on was from God. Talking about stuff like that is so important but all too often people take to a level that I believe is not edifying at all. There is just a certain tone of voice and tenseness of muscles that happens in those talks between already decided Christians and I hate it. So there was a moment when I realized I wanted nothing to do with that and that that was a from God breaking me of my pride of always having to be right. Of course I will still talk about those subjects because I do feel strongly about it but I will not do it a group setting that shows me off instead of God like it should. Finally, a week or so ago I was really struggling with something and again cried out to God. I told HIm this year was all for Him that I specifically devoted all of myself these 9months to be used by Him and to grow. I begged Him to take away the distractions from my mind and prevent the devil from distracting me if he was. My heart was pouring out to express my deep desire for my focus this year. And God again proved faithful to answer my hearts desire and He totally did an awesome work changing my desire. It has just been so cool to be able to see answered prayers.

I am going to be praying for the Dominican Republic because I am so stoked to be going there. I can’t get it out of my head. I am going to pray for some of the different job sites especially the Physical Therapy site where I will be working. Pray that I can be a blessing and that our whole group can be a blessing.

Sarah Wennersten

November 14-28, 2010

Week in Review 10

Wow. The last two weeks have been so eventful. I wrote so much in my journal about Mexico. But the first big thing that happened was on Monday morning at San Diego Christian College. We had the opportunity to tour the college and then go to chapel. Laila and I were talking before chapel about how we both have been feeling called to do mission work. Then we went to chapel which was an all worship chapel. At first I wasn’t really keen on it because it felt a little more like a rock concert than a worship service. But then God, in His way of doing stuff, had a series of songs that moved my heart like none other. I was a bucket of tears right there in the middle of the service.

From the Inside Out

A thousand times I've failed

Still your mercy remains

And should I stumble again

Still I'm caught in your grace

Everlasting, Your light will shine when all else fades

Never ending, Your glory goes beyond all fame

My heart and my soul, I give You control

Consume me from the inside out Lord

Let justice and praise, become my embrace

To love You from the inside out

Your will above all else, my purpose remains

The art of losing myself in bringing you praise

Everlasting, Your light will shine when all else fades

Never ending, Your glory goes beyond all fame

My heart, my soul, Lord I give you control

Consume me from the inside out Lord

Let justice and praise become my embrace

To love You from the inside out

The song that made it all come out:

I Will Go

To the desperate eyes and reaching hands

To the suffering and the lean

To the ones the world has cast aside

Where you want me I will be

[Chorus:]

I will go, I will go

I will go, Lord send me

To the world, To the lost

To the poor and hungry

Take everything I am

I'm clay within your hands

I will go, I will go, send me

Let me not be blind with privilege

Give me eyes to see the pain

Let the blessing You've poured out on me

Not be spent on me in vain

Let this life be used for change

[Chorus]

I wanna live for you

Go where you lead me

I wanna follow you

[Repeat 3x]

[Chorus]

Send me! [4x]

Reading these lyrics is still amazing to me. The song was perfect, perfect timing, perfect lyrics, and perfect everything. I’m not sure I have ever heard God speak to me so loudly as He did in that series of songs. I am ready to take action, to do something. No longer hear about the unreached and unsaved, feel bad, and then do nothing. What I felt and am feeling is far beyond just feeling bad about not doing enough. I am ready to do God’s work whatever that may mean. If it means giving up or postponing my dream of getting married and having kids then I (by God’s grace and continued work in this area of my life) will be ok with that. I am really excited to see where God is going to take me in these next years of my life... be it college, Africa, or somewhere completely unexpected.

I have just been so encouraged lately at how God has been answering my prayers and really speaking to me. I have never had such a clear line of communication with Him and now that I have experienced this I never want to lose it. When people would  talk about stuff like this I always thought they were just making it up and just talking “Christianese”. It used to bug me. But now that I have experienced such closeness with God I know it is possible and is real. I used to doubt if such clear communication was possible but now I know. I’m sure some people do just blow smoke when they talk about various religious experiences but now I feel like those stories have more weight with me since I have experienced something so cool. God is just so good. He has been so good to me, especially these last few months. But He has really blessed me so much my whole life. And like the song said I don’t want to waste all those blessings on myself, I want to use that blessing to do God’s work. I think that is how it is supposed to be. It is seen in tithing even, we give back. I feel that God has given me so many unique life experiences, and that He did it for a very specific reason. I’m excited to see what else He is going to do this year and how He is going to use the next trips to influence me.

This week I want to pray for Mexico. Spending the week there was great for me to see that way of life. I see how fallen the country as a whole is. Pray for real solutions to the problems of drug and human trafficking.

Week #8

Sarah Wennersten

November 1-7, 2010

Week in Review 8

This week was another good week. So far I am really enjoying my time here. I am growing a lot and getting to experience so many new things.

Monday started a good week of teaching from Matt Lance of the Forge in Texas. The Forge is kinda like Joshua but with less people most of whom have done college already. He spoke on faith and obedience. Then during the Grill he did a great talk about relationships and the right way to date. He spoke mostly to the guys and how they should approach a girl: be up- front, stick your neck out and just ask. He talked about coming to the front door, not to the back door, just like you would any person’s home. He said that most guys now days just come in through the back door, grab a drink, and plop down on the couch, as it were. He said “Girls, you are all worth the pursuit”. A lot of what he spoke about had to do with showing the other person value. One thing that was kinda cool was that he said it was totally ok for a girl to date more than one guy because they don’t own you. A girl is her father’s before marriage, not anyone else's. Relationships now days are very possessive and they shouldn’t be. He said any time you let a guy in through the back door you are letting someone in who won’t treasure you. He also advised to invite as many godly couples who’s marriages you admire into your relationship. Give them the keys. If they say break up then do it. One last thing that I thought was really neat was one more phrase to add at a marriage. At his marriage, when the preacher would usually say “who gives this woman to this man” at the beginning, the preacher said the woman’s father “ Do you see this man as fitting to accept your role as protector of and provider for your daughter?” Overall he just said a lot of things that gave the guys tons of tips and helped the girls value themselves more when it comes to relationships.

Tuesday I did my SWEEP in program. One eventful thing that happened was that I was almost stabbed in the back by a rake. I was riding in the back of a truck with two kyaks on either side of me and some rakes on the bed of the truck. We were cruising along and all of sudden we braked really hard and I proceeded to fall backwards almost landing on the rake, but I was able to catch myself. Turns out this big semi-truck sized truck thing didn’t obey the stop sign like it was supposed to. I have fallen backwards enough this year already, two times is too many. Though at least it wasn’t down a hill this time.

Wednesday the Joshua Bell Choir started. Oh man, it was sooooo funny! I thought it was funny from the beginning, the whole idea of a bell choir. But then to top off the funniness of it Jordan S is the director, which I was not expecting. He came wearing a suit and hiking boots which was super funny. The choir actually sounds pretty good, they were well on their way to a good rendition of “Carol of Bells” just from one practice.

Thursday we went to Fresno! First we toured Fresno State University which was ok. Then we had a couple hours of free time to do some shopping. I was able to get some snacks, a new jacket, and some more yarn. Then we all changed into our 80’s attire and met at the vans. Everyone looked so good! We drove for quite a while to a mystery location which turned out to be bowling! We were split up into groups and had a blast. I got a couple strikes which was cool but mostly just chilled. It was a really good day off the mountain

Friday began another weekend of work of which I spent being a Pondy server. It was the father- daughter conference this weekend. It was such a blessing to see all the dad’s walk in to the dining room with their girls. Really did my heart good. Made me miss my dad a lot though. One of my favorite things to see was when a dad would cut his daughter’s food for her, so cute. Work went really well concidering the normal hostess was gone. But Lacy was in charge and did a great job. I have a lot of respect for her being able to do it because I know it’s tough to be “in charge” of peirs. She did great. And the servers did great in following.

Saturday was a long day of split shifts. It was nice to have time off between shifts but at the same time I would rather just get all the work done at once and have a big chunk of time rather than a bunch of little nuggets. But that is impossible when you are a server. Between lunch and dinner we had a few hours which we spent in the Pondy lodge reading, using the internet, and hanging out. The lodge used to be a brothel back in the day and is super creepy up stairs. Skinny hallway with a dim window at the end. Coming up the stairs and turning and looking down the hall is super sketch. One time Calen was doing a creepy crouch thing in the hallway so all you saw was his siloette and Lacy I were a little freaked out. Then he jumped forward and we both screamed. It was great.

I finished my second beanie!! It’s purple and I really like it.  Though my muli-colored pink one is pretty cool too. I started a new black one but the yarn is different. I bought this new yarn which was a little more spendy but really soft. It is a little difficult to crochet but I really like how it feels.

Today was pretty good, another good day of work. Toward the end of our shift I was helping in the dish room scrubbing tons of sheet pans, grates, and muffin pans. The water looked like coffee it was so black with junk from the pans. It got so hot. After work at 3 I sat in Pondy lodge again till dinner then went to church. Brad Bell spoke on Galations 5. I really enjoy his teaching. He can really speak the truth. Reminds me a little of my youth pastor in his ability to speak the truth clearly with no fear of “losing numbers”.

This week I want to be praying for Mexico since we are going there next week. There are a lot of obvious issues that need prayer but I want to focus on the ranch where we are going and for all the kids we get to be with. Pray for all those families of the deaf children and that people will be touched by our presence. I pray that God will use us to reach someone for Him.

Week #7

Hey all, sorry this is coming out so late. So this post is on the week before this one. I will hopefully post about this week sooner, maybe Monday.

Sarah Wennersten

October 25-31 , 2010

Week in Review 7

Coming to the end of another long week my body is very sore and tired. This weekend was great. It was our first weekend off so most of the Joshua students were gone but some of us stayed here to work and make some money. I worked HA and it was super fun and hard as usual. So Friday we got to work at 3 and only worked till 4:30 when Jordan,  Jessy, Brendan, Seth, Josh, and I went rock climbing. It was soooo much fun! It was actual legit rock climbing! We were climbing on a rock face that was slightly slanted and very smooth. The hand and foot holds we had were tiny. You had to use climbing shoes and  use your legs for most all of the climb. Most of the time my hands were just flat on the rock because there was nothing to hold on to. So you had to put the tip of your toe on a near invisible divot or bump and keep your weight over your foot and push up. It was so hard, yet so rewarding at the top. I thought it would hurt if I fell because I thought I would swing and hit the rock but when I fell I more just slid down a few inches. For sure cannot do that kind of climbing without harnesses and ropes. I was the first one to climb so as I went up the easier of the two routes I had to unclip the safety rope that Jordan had used to attach the belay ropes. So as I climbed I would come to the next carabiniere and unclip it from the bolt in the rock then from the rope and clip it onto my harness. It just felt super cool to be climbing like that. It was starting to get dark when we got there so a little while in it was very dark. We were climbing by headlamp which was so cool! On the face of this giant rock/cliff, in the dark, with just a little head lamp. Toward the top I felt totally alone. It was dark and the stars were out. I couldn’t see anyone. It was very hard to hear because of the wind. I can’t explain how cool it was. When we got back to the building I cracked a box of hot cocoa and we all sat around drinking hot cocoa and talking for a long time. It was so much fun. We were telling jokes and riddles and the boys were eating tons of pixie sticks. Overall it turned out to be a great night.

Saturday I woke up to look at my alarm clock blinking. The power goes out here all the time so I usually set my phone alarm as a back up. Of course my phone had run out of battery that night. So I woke up at 7:20, by the grace of God, even though I had gone to bed at midnight the night before. I had to be at work at 8:15 so I my alarm was set for 7:00 but that didn’t turn out so great. As I was in the shower all of a sudden my roommate was pounding on the door like crazy yelling “It snowed!!”. She was running around the room stomping her feet yelling “it’s snowing!”. It was very funny. But what was really funny was that my first thought was, “we left the ropes up last night.” Which meant they would be wet and harder to work with. I just thought it was funny how that was my first thought. Turns out Meghan thought the same thing when she saw the snow. We are deff turning in to real HAGs. After getting ready I went downstairs to meet with the girls I was walking down with. But they were no where to be found so I went to their doors and was knocking trying to wake them up in case their alarms didn’t work because of the power outage. There was no answer and finally I decided I just needed to leave so I wouldn’t be late. By the time I left it was already 8:00. I had less than 15 minutes to make it down the hill in the snow. I decided to take the short cut which I soon realized was maybe not the best idea seeing as I had to make it down the steep, muddy, and snowy hill. But I made it down the hard part and then started to run, jog, and shuffle down the hill through the woods. I made it to Wagon Train in about 3 minutes which I was very happy about. I got to the main road in 5 minutes and arrived at Cedar Hall by 8:10. It was awesome. My new hiking boots and I rocked that snowy, muddy hill. The snow melted by mid-day and the rest of the day was sunny and beautiful. My favorite thing about that day was I got to dig out a drainage ditch thing. There was a good 5 inches of silt built up in a 4 ft x 4ft hole. The hole was about a foot deep. So I got to shovel that out which was very fun but very hard too. Brendan and I moved a bunch of 2x4’s from on top of a water path way and shoveled that. Then I shoveled out another hole but this one was probably a good 4 ft deep. So I had to squat down, get a shovel load, do a squat press back up, and then throw the stuff away. My legs got a great workout. Between rock climbing and digging I am one sore puppy. Also on Saturday Jordan had given us about an hour and half off before lunch and so Meghan, Jessy, and I decided to go to the Plouffe’s house and crash for awhile. To get there we decided to take the road behind High Adventure because it seemed to be in the general direction and none of us had been there before. We explored for about 30 minutes walking on a muddy dirt road. We saw lots of drainage ponds, scrap yards, and water towers. There were so many cool things to look at and it was really good to see more of where we live. We did end up getting to the Plouffe’s and took about a 30 minute nap and the floor. They are such a generous family. After that we returned to HA for a session at 3:00. This weekend was a high school girls conference. David and I led a group of 5. We started on the Screamer and I was on top. The first girl was freaking out because she didn’t want to go first but finally did. It was the fourth girl who was hard. The girl was crying and shaking and just would not jump. She asked if I could just push her but I told her I couldn’t (I found out today you can if they ask, would have been nice to know that). We were on top of the Screamer with me holding onto her tether for a  good 10 minutes. Finally she went off. It was tough but good. 

Sunday, today, was such a great day. Last night Jordan had come to the table where all of us HAGs were sitting and said that they were having cinnamon roles at Kroker’s (a house where a few bachelors live) in the morning and that we were invited. Earlier that day he has said we were going to start work at 9 so we asked what time to be a Krokers. He stood there thinking for a few seconds, shook his head, and then said “you know, how about 9 o’clock”. So this morning David, Eric, Brendan, Josh, Meghan, and I all went to Jordan’s house and had cinnamon roles, milk, and hot cocoa with some other guys there. It was lots of fun. At 10:00 we went to work. I got to sharpen three chain saws which was cool. It is really neat how you learn so many different skills here. I can do so many random useful things and it’s only been a little over a month; we all get to do so much cool stuff. We got off work at 3:00 but hung out around HA till 4:00. Jordan taught me how to splice rope (which I kinda failed at but got eventually) and we all looked at a bunch of cool climbing stuff online. I just love working HA because it is hard work a lot of the time but there is also time to chill. It’s a great balance. I think it is perfect for me because I do love to work hard but also have fun. I feel like I really thrive in that environment. 

Wednesday night we had a pumpkin carving contest, boys versus girls. I carved a Justin Bieber pumpkin, which is weird because I have never listened to him and think he is a little strange. But I went to work on that pumpkin. There was a thermometer and the words “Bieber fever” on it. We had different categories we had to do and really did have good pumpkins. Thursday night was Pause night and we had chili and carved more pumpkins. I carved a nice looking buck. I need to show dad. It was a good week, but a little rushed for time also. On Friday we had a big paper due and had to have Philippians 1 memorized. But God gave me time on Tuesday by making it so I didn’t have to do my SWEEP and then I had all of Thursday afternoon to work on my paper. Despite all we had going on God gave me lots of time to get done what I needed to get done. I passed Philippians on my second try and found out that I got a 100% on my first paper for Moody which was very encouraging. 

Levi leaves for Turkey on Wednesday. I miss him so much. My desktop right now is a slide show of pictures of him. There are a lot of people praying for him. I know God answers prayers because He has been doing some awesome work on me lately and I have been really encouraged to pray more. God does give us the desires of our heart, especially when He hears a heart felt cry for change. I just love my big bro so much. I am really excited for him to get to experience all he is going to experience these next three years as he is overseas. 

This week I want to be praying for Afghanistan. They are in the news so much with all the stuff with the war. I can pray for their political, economical, and spiritual stability. They are a hard people to reach for the Lord because of their religion but it is not impossible as nothing is impossible for God. I will pray for the missionaries down there as they have a very difficult job.

Week #6

This post is super long, 6 pages on my comp. Oh well, a lot has been going on. One thing that would be a huge encouragement to me, I feel kinda weird asking this, but if you are reading my blog would mind posting a comment? It would just do my heart good to know that people are reading. I miss home.
I could use some prayer right now. We have a big paper due Friday, a test on the memorization of Philippians 1 Friday, and various reading and other things happening this week. The Lord just unexpectedly blessed me with a few hours this afternoon so I am very thankful for that. I was supposed to work, but the lady I was working for didn't need me, so it works great for me. Just pray for all of us as busyness sets in and we all start to be pulled emotionally in many directions. It's tough, but not too tough for God. Pray for my singular focus to be on Him and Him alone this year so I can grow into the woman He wants me to be. Thank you all for your prayers and letters and encouragement, it means a lot. I can't wait to come home and see everyone!!!

Sarah Wennersten

October 18-24, 2010

Week in Review 6

Wow. This week was so much fun! I got to work super hard all week and then during the weekend also. Monday we left in the morning for Hartland Christian Camps. I was Kelsey’s co-pilot so I sat up front and was the DJ. It was a really good ride, very curvy and twisty, but overall good. Once we got to the camp we were split up into different rooms and got unpacked. The girls had three rooms with about 10 girls in each. I got to be with girls I hadn’t spent a lot of time with yet so it was fun to get to know them better. After we were unpacked we ate lunch (which was amazing, all their food was great) and then were off to work. I had heard something about us making a fire line but I didn’t know what all that would entail. I was soon to find out that we would be clearing forest 50 ft in from the road (we ended up clearing a quarter million square feet of woods). Most everyone was working the forest detail but some were put in kitchen and cleaning. I was really thankful to be working in the woods clearing because it was such hard work. So we were set up with gloves, ear plugs, and safety glasses and went to work destroying the woods. The boys were up on the hillside with chain saws and clippers clearing anything less than about 6 inches in diameter. Then there were lots of people taking all the clippings off of the hill and transferring them to the other side of the road. At the other side of the road were giant chippers which would then be fed the trees and shrubs which were then spit out into the woods and stream. At first I was working on pulling stuff off the hill with the north crew but then people started to run into bees nests and since I am allergic I couldn’t be climbing around up there. So I worked the chipper the rest of the weekend... which rocked. There was Andrew, Jesse, Julie, Marissa, and me most of the time working together. We would drag trees and lift them into the chipper which would grab the trees and slap them down while sucking it in. Branches were always wiping around so you learned really quickly to keep your arms guarding your face when you were near that. We had a great time. On Tuesday when we were working Andrew ended up dropping a log on my left thigh which pushed me to the ground pretty hard. I was really scared for a second because I thought it had hit my knee. Thankfully the tree fell on more meat than bone so I was ok. But that tree dropping incident was on top of me dropping a tree on my right thigh on Monday. I have a pretty sweet looking cut and bruise on that leg and a great variety of other bruises and cuts. But that was definitely not my best story from the week. Wednesday we were working the chipper like normal but were in a hurry because we had just a little to finish. The road we were clearing was built into a hillside and I was standing with my back to the downward slope helping load the chipper. I was handing the boys stuff to put in the chipper then and would turn away and grab something else, it was a good system. But one time as I was just turning and facing the chipper again something large and heavy smacked me in the face and the next thing I know I am falling backwards down the hill. As I fell and my back hit the ground my feet proceeded over my head and threw me into a series of two or three backflip summersaults down the hill. It was legit. They were full on, not to the side or anything, backflip summersaults. I remember as I was falling thinking, “I haven’t down a summersault since I was a little kid”. It was weird, but funny. When I finally stopped I was on my stomach facing the road. My mind was in a daze and I was mentally checking my body to make sure everything was ok. Well, I am perfectly fine. I was a little dizzy from the branch hitting me and from flipping but besides that and a few scratches on my back I was doing great. It was a pretty scary experience and I got a good adrenaline rush which made my heart beat pretty fast for quite awhile. So some guys helped pull me back up onto the road and then I kept right on working. I am so thankful that God kept me safe. That whole thing could have turned out really bad. But my face doesn’t have a scratch on it (weird right?), my back is ok, and my neck hardly even hurt. God is so good. So that is what our days from after breakfast to before dinner looked like... trees... and more trees... and then a few more trees. It just plain ol’ classic, good, hard, and painful work. I loved it. After dinner we had meetings at 7:00 which included Bob (the head guy) speaking, us doing skits from our Moody class( Tuesday), and book discussion on Wednesday. After our meetings we had free time in which we could go to the gym and play volleyball, basketball, football, soccer, dodgeball, or climb the climbing wall. I did all that except volleyball. It was fun after working hard all day to then go and play hard. I haven’t played ball in a long time so it felt good to handle a basketball again. And one thing that kinda surprised me, and that really surprised the boys I was playing with, was that I was rockin’ the football. It was so much fun. The football was smaller than a real leather one but still good sized and for some reason my inner football player kicked in and I was throwin’ spirals and catching crazy throws. It was amazing, I have no idea where it came from, suddenly I just had tons of energy. So that night especially was really fun because after running around throwing the football a group of us played dodgeball. The balls were small and didn’t hurt much and there were only 4 or 5 on each team so we had a great time. When the game fizzled out we just ran around nailing each other with the balls. I think we did all of that on the last night. The first night I climbed the climbing wall a few times and played some ball. The second night I went down the zip line and played a couple games of bump.  Thursday morning we got to sleep in!!!! Actually, all week we got to sleep in because we didn’t have to be to breakfast until 7:30, it was great! But Thursday we had a late breakfast at 9:30. Being able to sleep in till 8:30 or later is unheard of! So after that gift of sleep was given to us we had to help turn over the camp which for me and two other girls meant cleaning girls public restroom. We got it done fairly quick but there was so much more we wanted to do. That thing needed/ needs to be deep cleaned so bad and it was hard to leave it not sparkling clean. We were the last ones done and we missed some of the instructions for when we got home. On the ride back I didn’t do so great. I felt so sick, car sick. I wasn’t co-pilot so I was sitting in the third row of the van and my sea sickness bands were not working. But, it wasn’t super terrible, just made me dizzy and nauseous. Once we got back to Joshua we cleaned the vans inside and out then  had the rest of the day off to get stuff done.

Friday morning we had 5 am’s. The last couple weeks we haven’t been keeping up on our chores as a class so Monday before we left we were informed that we would have 5 am’s. So all 56 of us met down in the great room at 5 am ready to clean. 5 am’s are basically chores on steroids. Breakfast is not until 7:00 so during 5 am’s you have two hours to do your chore. This means that you get really creative on how to keep yourself occupied and busy for 2 hours. My chore for the day was vacuuming the dining hall, man hall, and men’s stairs. So my roomy and the boys room we were teamed with got to work. We moved all of the chairs and tables in the dining room and vacuumed super well including edging and all the small stuff. Girls can’t go in man hall so the boys did that. I found a dead mouse in the closet, first by smell then by sight. So we Febreezed the whole room trying to get the dead mouse smell out. We dusted all the chairs, light switches, walls, and every other surface we could possible wipe down. We even took q-tips to the chairs to get them super clean. I actually kinda enjoyed the 5 am’s because that is how I clean. I like the little details. So that really wasn’t too bad. Hopefully we won’t have to do them  on Monday. We may get off with only having to do them one day which I think is pretty rare.

--- side note: right now I am sitting on my bed and just discovered a huge knot in my left calf. I am going to go foam roll it which will hurt like crazy.---

--- oh man...ouch... that one is going to take a few days to work out...---

Anyway, the rest of Friday was kind of a weird day. We had class 30 minutes early at 9:30 because a lot of people had to start work at 11:00. One of those people was me because I got to work high adventure this weekend!!! Our weekend at HA started at a run. Friday we had full activities which usually only happens on Saturday, but because it was a mens conference we had two HA sessions and paintball session. At 1:15 Andrew M and I led a HA session. It was an encouraging experience because Jordan put us on the Screamer first. He told us that our position was the super important because depending on how fast we got the men through the Screamer would set the pace for the whole session because the Screamer is where a backup usually happens. But, then he included that he put us there because “we were good” and he knew we could do it. So that put tons of pressure on. Thankfully we had a small group of 5 men so we moved fairly quickly. Apparently we got the first guy off the Screamer in record time according to Jordan. But there was one really awkward moment. I was working the top of the Screamer so I was harnessing the men and dropping them off. The last guy was one big dude. So it’s just me and him on top of the platform and I can’t get the belly strap on his harness hooked. Talk about awkward. Here I am fumbling with the strap because the dude is so big and there is no one else around. Thankfully the guy was really good natured and was trying to “suck it in”. Finally I got the strap connected and dropped him off. When he reached the bottom and Andrew was unharnessing him I heard him say he felt really bad because of the whole harness issue we had. Apparently that kind of thing is not as big a deal for men as it is for women. I got to work the balance beam again and was again surprised at how hard it is for most people. It is a total mental game because we have a board the exact same size to practice on the ground and people do great. But once they get up in the trees some people start flipping out. It was funny to me how many of the men had a hard time with the beam. One guy ended up clinging to my hand the whole way instead of just letting me stabilize him like we usually do. But then there was another guy who made me go practically to the other side of the beam and he pretty much ran across. I thought was cool. But it was another awkward moment when he says “you need to back up”, “no more”, “keep going”, “ you can’t be that close”, I was just thinking that I wouldn’t be able to catch the guy if he fell. But he made it just fine. Friday night I went to listen to the message that the men were getting at their seminar. There is a balcony where staff can sit to listen in. It was really neat to see such a huge group of men praising God in unison. It really touched my heart to see them worship. The message was really good and I got some good evangelistic thoughts from it. Then at 8:30 there was an illusionist. He was actually really good and not too corny. I enjoyed it. Jordan had told all of us working that day about the illusionist and was really excited about it. I thought it was funny until I realized that tons of the men were super excited, then it was hilarious. I never expected grown men to get excited about an illusionist... but apparently they do. The guy had a spiritual message to go along with his performance and ended the night with an underwater escape which was pretty good. Over all it was a good night.

Saturday we started work at 9:00. Jordan started off the day in his usual way with a song, Saturday it was the “zamboni” song. The subject had come up on Friday night when Jordan told us how he had sung this song in his interview to work here. It was a ridiculous song about the big zamboni’s used on ice rinks. It’s really funny and cool how he can just belt out a song without a care of who is around.  So with that as our kick off we went to work. I didn’t lead any sessions on Saturday but I worked with cleaning the paintball guns and hauling (wouldn’t you know it) more trees and brush out of the woods to clear the snowboard hill. I also got to help pull nails and screws out of some lumber and then I moved it up to a lumber pile. So I would set up a couple boards, get under them with my shoulder, and then lift up. After carrying them up a slight hill I would set them propped up on a steep embankment, scramble up the dirt, reach down pull up the boards, and then carry them to the pile. Then I would slide down and do it again. I was a major core workout. So Saturday I got some more good hard work in. Then Saturday night after dinner I sat around talking with some of the guys from HA till dark. I ended up walking the hill in the dark by myself. It was actually pretty scary. I was walking really fast and trying not to think too much about wild animals. But when I was nearing the building I heard snapping in the woods to my right about 50 feet behind me. I was already scared and so I put it off to my imagination until I knew it was real. I started walking so fast. I just pointed my flashlight straight ahead and pushed forward. My lungs started to hurt really bad but I kept moving. I didn’t want to turn around and look because you know as soon as you look behind you something is right there when you turn around. Ugh, it was scary. But I made it to the building and to my dismay I found that the car that had driven by me was the guys I was at dinner with. Eric was with Seth and Jordan and felt really bad for not picking me up. Oh well. We couldn’t walk together because we would be even and there weren’t any more seats. But I must say that my heart did sink a little when I realized that it was people I knew who drove past me. Not that I expect a ride or anything but that walk is a little creepy by yourself in the cold and dark. At the building Andrew Lapp, Josh, and Jordan were working on a song. They actually sounded really good.

Sunday work started again 9:00. We started off the day by all going down the zip line which was really fun. I want to do it a bunch more times. I got to work a table saw and drill a hole through a metal pipe which was cool. Caleb and I worked together on a few projects fixing the teeter-toter (which involved drilling holes in a very heavy metal pipe and drilling more holes in the support beams and then connecting them) and hanging a sign. Then I worked on cleaning the HAG shed. It was so dusty. Saturday I had worked on it a little but today I got down to business. It is quite obvious that bachelors work there because you could have easily measured the thickness of the dust on some stuff. Me and anther gal re-stacked the boxes of paintballs and made a hallway to the back and made it all look good. We cleaned up the desk which won’t last long, but at least it will look good in there for a while. That place needs a woman’s touch badly.

We were planning on trying to go to “Pirates cave” this weekend but it didn’t work out. You have to swim a river to get the cave, which is an underwater cave, so being in a cave like in the rain isn’t really a great idea. So we might go during the summer. Tonight after dinner I walked up with Andrew and Eric and had a good talk. Then I started writing this very long week in review and doing a boat load of laundry. Even after washing my work clothes from Hartland twice they still smell like trees a little bit. I washed my sheets and for the life of me I cannot figure out how to fold the fitted sheet all nice like mom does. I guess there are some things I just won’t be able to do till I’m a mom :). Well, laundry is done, I’m all clean, my half of the room is clean, I have most of Philippians chapter 1 memorized, and it’s a little after 11. Think I will call it a week.

Alright so this week I want to be praying for Uganda. I’m not really sure why I thought of that country but it popped in my head. I am pretty positive it is in Africa or around there so there is lots I can pray for. I think I remember hearing about a war or civil war going on down there recently. I can pray for relief from poverty but most of all for the gospel to reach the people. I can pray for missionaries who try to minister down there and support groups also.