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.