ESOAL

My face was drenched, whether it was with tears or the falling rain, I could not tell. All around me I could hear girls crying and maybe even some guys fighting not to. How I had gotten this far, I was unsure. Why I did not just ring out right then and there, I could not have told you. All I could do was just cry out to God to get me through, just to the end of this next thing, just to the end of this, and when that comes, we'll go from there.

ESOAL (Emotionally Stretching Opportunity of A Lifetime) is an optional LTE [Life Transforming Event] designed to stretch interns physically and emotionally. Interns routinely select ESOAL as the most popular and productive LTE. Being stretched through simple repetition allows interns to confront potential problem areas in their lives that often go undetected. The Honour Academy staff works intensely with the interns during this LTE to ensure that the interns take full advantage of this unique learning opportunity.

Somehow, I think that statement does not quit cover it for me anymore. Yet, other than telling you some of the things we did, it seems hard to really tell you what it was like. I am sure that as I talk to more people about it who have not been though it, I will get better about it. However, for now you are just going to have to bear with me if I don't seem to make any since.

Esoal started last Friday, with only the people in charge of it knowing around when it would end. When you sstepped onto the football field to line up in your platoons, you were then no longer the one in control of what you would be doing for possibly the next several days. If you could no longer go on, you could go ring the Freedom Bell and get out of ESOAL. However, they encourage you not to unless you feel God clearly telling you to, you have gone beyond yourself and what you could do and learned to depend on God to take you farther, or for medical reasons (which if they felt you needed to ring out for medical reasons, they would make you do so. They had to make several people do so). If you are not doing it for any of those, you are quitting, ytou are giving up.

When I woke from the little sleep I did get on the SAC floor (we started out in the football field, but then it started to rain), I wanted to quit. I did not want to be in ESOAL at all any more. My leg hurt, I was tierd of doing push-ups, little man in the woods, over head arm claps, standing at attention, marching, and the stupid Survivor theam song that played all night long as I tried to sleep. However, after talking to the girls in my platoon and a Facilitator talking to me, I decided to press on. I remembered the chant Jimn taught us for ESOAL while we were in Mississippi, "I caanot quit! I will not quit! Quitting is not an option!"

I rang out Saturday-night, hating the fact that I had to, but I knew I could not go on anymore. My leg was no longer moving like it should (I think I have muscle damage in it from the car accident) and it was hurting so bad I could not even stay standing at attention. Yet, I think God taught me more through my ringing out when I did, than He could have through my staying in until Sunday-night and going to the end of ESOAL. I finished my Esoal, even if part of me still wanted to go on.

Mississippi

Now, I know I been back from Mississippi for over a week and I am just now blogging abou it, But you have lived thus far. Even now I am still working on processing it all. It went by so fast. Anyway, now to get into my trip.

The trip was so last minutte, it was funny. They told us abput the trip the 6th, I had to have my application in by the 7th, that same day they told us which 15 out of the 65 interns that Applied would be going, and we left the 8th as most of the campus still slept soundly in their beds. See very last minute.

Most of what we did we handing out food and clothse, sorting food and clothse, moving food and clothse, and then we also went to some peoples houses and helped them clean up however they needed us to. I washed a lot of plates and tried to salvage clothing and slo tried to save books and papers. Oh, and I moved more boxes and bottled water than I could ever even try to keep track of.

There are a ffew stories that stick out to me more than others, so I will tell you a couple of them. Sorry, I think it would take forever to blog about all of them, and I am in deep need of more sleep in my life.

One thing Jennifer told me I must blog about, was getting lost with a trail of military hummers and convoys behind us. See some of us went out with some interns from Twenty-Four-Seven (not 24/7 bprayer) an internship that also sent down some of their interns to Mississippi from Colorado (yep, that awesome state). Some of us were in Twenty-Four-Seven's white church van and then some of us were riding with the national guard. We were going all over these little back roads and then ended up at a POD (point of distribution) that we were not even supposed to be at, so we had to turn around and try again. The looks we got were so great. At least no one in the Natioanl Guard was mad at us for it.

I also got to ride in a convoy at one point, not while we were lost, but it was still cool.

One thing that really sticks out to me was goin on the other side of the tracks. There was razor wire on the one side and the National guard had someone at each road crossing over the track. We went back when people were just getting to go back there and see their homes, or where their houses were. There were alot of houses that just got picked up and set somewhere else, or there were still more that were just a pile of wood.

While we were back there, we got the chance to give some people food and water and just to pray with them. One woman we prayed for, her eyes started to water as soon as we asked if she wanted us to pray for her. Where we prayed was once her front yard. The house was in her family for five generations and now it was a level pile of debri.

Also, it was very odd to stair out at the calm seea as it washed up in little waves on the shore and knowing that from this beautiful gentle water before me, destroyed so much behind me. Yet, I could stair out into the endless bllue, and find beauty in it.

Sorry

I know I have said I will blog about my trip, but my life has had little time to sleep much less post. Also, I did ESOAL this weekend and sleep is suddenly more important than it ever has been before. Hopefully I can get a post up on both of them in a couple days.

More fun in a buss

I got back from going on a trip to Mississippi to help out down there, and I find that my family core has dish duty. What is up with that? :P
(really I did not mind, I found it rather funny)

I got back around eight this morning and we drove through the night so I got very little sleep. This means I will not have much of a post about my trip for you to read now, but I hope to get one up soon (maybe not supper long, but telling you about my trip none the less).

The poor buss went from the horse shoe (the little road to the dorms) to the shop. It made it to Teen Mania, but it has something wrong with it. Busses have been dropping here right and left. I hear one broke down while we were in Mississippi as well. It is rather sad.

Halite peak

I looked around my new found room one last time before closing the locked door. It had only been my room, or partly mine, for a week, yet it almost seemed longer and at the same time shorter. There has been little time to just sit down and do much of anything that you would do while sitting down (other than sitting in classes). So much had gone into my head so fast, I was not sure what to make of it all. However, knowing we would have a rather long buss ride to Colorado and back (supposedly thirty-four to forty hour drive round trip), it only seemed wise to get some of it sorted out during that time. Little did I know just how much time I would spend on a buss.

A smile crept over my face, as the buss began to move forward. It had taken us longer to leave than planned, but I knew this trip was worth a little bit of a wait. The excitement was not yet overwhelming me, but I was sure it would be as the mountains began to grow on the horizon. However, with leaving at eight in the evening, we would not see them until the next day.

Since there was no place to go, and we would be driving through the night as well, we took the time we could to get to know the other people who were with us on the buss. With multiple games of Mafia played, probably a hundred or more different conversations gone by, and perhaps some other games that I was unaware of, we were told it was ten and the quiet hours had started. So an attempt at getting some sleep was made, but rather unsuccessfully.

As the sun was just beginning to rise, we got a call from one of the other busses. They were on the side of the road not too far a head of us. Once we were there, most of the interns, or soon to be interns, had breakfast as they tried to fix the buss. It was taking quite a while, so they took people in groups in the buss that was working, buss 404 the one I was in, to Wall-mart. At first we were told it would not take very long, so we could not go shopping. However, an hour latter, we were told it would take a while longer and that we could go in and look around. I mainly just read, and helped Adrea buy a coat.

After spending several hours at this Wall-mart, buss 404 pulled out leaving the group that was in the broken-down buss to wait for their ride. TM had to rent a charter buss for them because the buss was not going to be easy to fix on the side of the road. It would be there to pick them up an hour after we left. However, this was by no means the end of our buss trouble.

As the day went on, and the other busses began to show up in CO, buss 404 started to complain of the weight it was bearing. It did so by going only 35 up every little (let me stress little) hill we came upon. Luckily, the charter buss had caught up with us, so we were able to put all the guys, except Jacob, Randy, and Jason (drivers and a mechanic), on the buss with them. We also sent most of the lugged and camping gear with them as well. Eventually some of the girls were sent off too. Almost everyone got their own seat.

Even with the lighter load, the buss continued to go slow. However, the other buss had already gone too far to be of any help anymore, so we just had to keep going. With the hope that the buss would make it.

Trust me, by the time we rolled into the camp grounds at one in the morning, knowing we would have to get up in an hour in a half to start hiking, I had gotten some thinking time in. Spending approximately thirty hours in a buss will do that to you.

It was so nice to come to our tents already put up for us. We were just going to sleep on the ground if they were not. However, our brother and sister core set them up for us (whom we had only briefly met before leaving Texas and did not ride on the same buss with. They are cool).

Having about a half an hour of sleep in a tent and maybe three or four in the buss since leaving Teen Mania, we got up at two thirty and get ready for the hike (a mere blink in the riders of buss 404’s trip). After another buss ride, but much shorter, and some break fast, an apple and I saved the rest for the hike, we started our hike up Halite Peak in Estes park. Shannon (my CA (core advisor)) was the leader of the hiking group I was in. Other than Shannon and myself, we had Andrea from my room and there were three guys from our brother core, Zack, Bradley, and Jeremy, and two girls from our sister core, Anna and Jennifer.

It was cool watching the sun rise as we hiked. I loved seeing it climb over the mountains once again. The stars were cool too. There seem to be so many more on the side of that mountain than in TX. Also, the cool of the morning is truly cool. :D

The hike up seemed so much quicker than the hike down. However, the last stretch up was hard. It was pretty steep and rocky. I found myself continually using my hands to help me along. That was the only part of it that I got in any way out-of-breath. I felt bad for the people who were having a hard time breathing up there at twelve thousand feet ( a little over really), but at times I too quickly overlooked it (I sadly admit). I think I could have done better with looking out for them more, and not just always wanting to be moving. No, it is not that I never wanted a break or did not look around me at all, but I did not need as many breaks because I could breath.

Anyway, once we got down and found we were not lost (we thought we might have taken a wrong turn on the way down) and did not need Jeremy to kill something to eat for us (though he gladly offered), we had to eat, pack up, and leave (those of us on the slow buss (buss 404)).

It broke down and we had to sit in the ditch as Jason worked on it, more times than I could keep count of. Finely, we left it for dead on the side of the road and piled into another buss that was following us to try and help along the way. Packed so tight you could hardly move at times, we drove on for the next six hours of our trip. As we were driving, Randy started us off in a time of worship and prayer. He asked us to pray for a lot of different things and also gave us time to pray for each other and things we thought of.

Getting to TM around one in the morning and getting off the buss, was very nice. So was sleeping in that next morning. Then getting up eating breakfast, and going right back to bed. :D

Spam

I think I need to find a way to block some people from commenting on my blog. Sorry about this guys. Hopefully it has not scared anyone away. I know I got tired of even seeing the comments.

At least some people love me and don't just use my net space for junk.
**sniff...sniff...

Anyway, I will blog more soon. For now I will just type it up on my computer and put it online when I go to my Aunt and Uncle's (if I go this weekend).