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I am in a mosquito free zone!!! I came into town last night with Becca and some of the boys. She dropped me at the Claus’ in time for Dave and Krista to be finished dinner. I ate just after them as the table hadn’t been cleared yet and we sat even longer and talked and just sat around. We took Jacob for a nice long walk to the DQ and around the neighbourhood where I got some of the tour from Dave. It’s an interesting area, full of settlement houses of the 20’s and 30’s and post-war bungalows. On one block there can be a whole row of houses from the same era but one will be perfectly kept up with a lovely garden and fence, and right next to it will be one covered in dandelion fluffs and a vicious dog on a sketchy leash where there’s no gate or fence to stop said dog if it were to get free. Mostly the houses that are the extremes from each other are often more like a block over from each other, but it still does happen and it is odd. The rest of town seems like its housing developments from the 80’s and 90’s up to the current time. Most of those are further up the hills and not down in the bowl, and are surrounded by complexes of big box stores and you have to drive to get anywhere from your home. Lots of pickups and lots of jacked up rides around here. Today I got to baby-sit Jacob for much of the day while the Claus’ were at the memorial for Peggy, the woman who was killed hitting a moose last week. Very tragic. We had a great old time of sleeping and eating, or at least Jacob did, I just ate. They came home and we had a BBQ chicken dinner and then I went to First Baptist for an Art Night that BJ and Kyle were playing at. It was nice to see practically all of Spring Crew there, relating to each other outside of the property. I think Beej and Kyle are super fab and they did great, really good stuff and very real. It was an odd night though. One of the other guys that I saw that was doing most of the playing was really not very good at all. Sounds like he used to be “the music guy” around who was the cool kid at camp. It was an odd time of wanting to appreciate people’s expression of their art, and yet so much of it seemed meaningless to me in that it seemed like it was done for his own idea of what is acceptable for others, like they’re creating a society of their own, with their own rules and conformities in a way to make themselves apart from the forms around them, but in the essential being exactly like that which they are trying to stand out from. It wasn’t as bleak as I make it all sound and I guess that the easier way of describing it would be that it seemed like they were all doing it just so they could pat each other on the back and be patted by each other. I guess that’s why it seemed meaningless. I don’t doubt the sincerity of all involved, I guess that I was just in a weird space. And I don't think that Kyle and Beej fit into that catagory at all, they were real to me. As I was walking home tonight I had to admit how fallen I am and how rebellious I am. How can I presume to be able to last all my life if I’m unable to do so even for this short period of time without falling into sin and temptation? I think of what my life is to look like, and it feels like I should get really attached to my backpack and to feeling dirty and without a home. That He will continue to provide for my sustenance of life in each place that comes up every few months. But then what of the relationships? I still don’t understand how leadership actually works and looks like, well. How can the balance of relational and servant go with the amount of tasks and responsibilities put on those in leadership? Makes me realize that I really don’t want it, and maybe that’s why I keep ending up there. I would love to not be asked questions, I would love to be responsible for only myself, but within that it becomes an acting out of less than who I actually am, so maybe I wouldn’t end up loving it at all, maybe I would just self-destruct. up |
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It’s stinking hot. I’ve lost all my ability from Japan to handle the heat and I’m back to my Canadian ways. We had a lovely picnic out on the grass today under their giant beech tree. It was perfectly lovely, until about 4 o’clock when the sun came back around the tree and it was just hot. I was trying to call Heidi when she was writing me an email, and after talking to “Jeff” a few time (his number is one digit off Chris and Heid's) I actually got her email and got to talk to her on the phone. It was so great to talk and laugh and joke around. They’re hoping to go to Montana for a few days the end of June and they’re looking to have me house, cat, and plant sit for the few days after I leave here. I get to stay at #4 again! I’m so stoked for it. And maybe during that time I can find a little something in the area for a few months. I lost all of my schedule on my USB stick tonight. I almost cried. Dave Claus helped me retrieve the data with an Open and Restore option that I never knew existed. It was a late night in the end, what with all the “no letter sized paper” saga that forced me to do the 11 X 17 paper art with the photocopier until about midnight. up |
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I had a really crappy day today. I have been feeling like I can’t get my head above water and couldn’t figure it out. I think that I finally did while I was in the shower tonight. I’ve been taken out of the game again and I’ve been trying to do everything here on my own wits and strength. So everything was all over the place and I couldn’t get anything right in my brain, and now I feel like the day has ended well. I did these mid-session evaluations with the Spring Crew and one of the girls gave hers back to me already. The first question made my day. I asked what was a surprise in a good way, and she put “Michelle”. That’s me!!! I’m her good thing that she wasn’t expecting!! I’ve loved her well!! She’s my barometer here of whether I’m loving people around me well and giving and sharing enough of myself. I know I can do more, but it’s the Lord that is loving her well through me and that just gets me so stoked. She wanted to hang out tonight and we’ve been talking about watching Heroes, so we watched the storm roll in and ate peanut butter and honey on corn crisps out on the deck and then came in and watched Heroes together. She’s been smiling more I think. Waterfront Lodge is now getting really full. The girls are having to keep bags out in the hallways and open spaces because there’s just no more room anywhere. I had a good quick talk with Mum on the phone tonight, before I thought it was a good day, and got to share some stuff about not feeling empowered to do the job well that I’ve been asked to do. Along the lines of disappointing people while trying to do the exact thing that they asked me to do...the expectation of what a human can accomplish within this dimension and lacking the ability to bend the space and time continuum is seriously flawed. Mum doesn’t think that I should stay in Vic and that something happens to me when I’m there that I get all up in my own head and confused while there, but, as I shared with her, I think that it might be a matter of thinking that I’ve taken back all control in choosing to be there and that He would never send me back there and that it’s all selfish by me being there and so it’s the tension between those two great desires that are, in my head, incongruent. It’s a matter of me getting all up in my own grill because there is where I see the worldly and the heavenly desires of my heart come so close together that they mash up against each other in a very violent way. I’m more aware of my worldly desires there than anywhere else, I think, and so comes the tension. Maybe it’s not a bad thing? No, it probably always has been. Maybe not in the future, but to think that it hasn’t been in the past would be to lie to myself, a thinking that an event wasn’t as bad as it was, a glossing over of your past experiences to make them rosier. Like my time in Japan. It’s not like it really was that horrible in circumstances, but emotionally speaking it really was that horrible. up |
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I had a much better day today. It wasn’t without its perils, but still a good day. I woke up from a really vivid dream where I was riding my bike and I was with someone(?) and we were walking around the Arlington Cemetery and there was this big museum thing for the Unknown Soldier. It was odd. But it was still a good dream, I woke from it with good feelings and not disturbed by it at all. It was mostly a day in the office and it’s not like I was even all that productive, but I put out a few “fires” and felt good about where things were in my brain for the coming few days so I think it was good. I am very aware that I’m ready to be done with the constant need for my attention. Maybe that means I should never be a parent! Maybe I’ll just take others’ kids for a bit and then send them on. After work we all headed to Theresa’s for dinner. She used to work here as Guest Services. Very nice lady who cooks a lot of food. She’s Italian and her grandfather was in the mob in Toronto and had ties to Chicago. I guess that’s why she’s out here, trying to stay away from it all. She actually has an Uncle Guido. For reals. I’m so tired right now that I really can’t think any further of what to say. I have all these thoughts and randomness up in my brain that aren’t really taking hold but that don’t seem pressing at all. Sometimes it’s like that but there’s an urgency and a confusion to it and I can’t tell which way is up. This time round it’s like it really doesn’t matter which way is up, and not in an apathetic I’ve been beaten down kind of a way, but just a Seriously, it doesn’t matter in the grand scope of life kind of a way. Not an exhausted kind of peopled out, but very much interaction-ed out and need time to be quiet. I think that’s why I’m really looking forward to being around here this weekend. Although I could really use some stuff from in town, it doesn’t really matter and I can get someone else to pick me up some Rice Dream, so it will be nice to just BE here. I just don’t have it in me anymore to do the kind of job that you live. I used to think that there was no fulfillment in anything else. Now I just see how entrenched I would get in it all and not able to see that life existed out of it. up |
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Man! What a week! Wednesday to today were totally insane, crazy. Each night I got into bed and was like, “I wish I had had time to write things down because there’s just no way that I’m going to capture all this again”. And here I am, Friday night, and I can’t capture it all. We had one school group come and stay for 3 days. They were good, but a couple of them I was kind of glad to see go, but then you also see the progress made in them even in the few days we have with them. I find that I do bond with the groups that stay longer, whereas most of the day trip groups I just don’t even put the effort into. Yesterday’s day group was nuts!! I was supposed to go and do a half our of canoeing and kayaking to teach Cara how to teach it, but it very quickly turned into 3 hours worth throughout the day. In the afternoon I was there with BJ, who I love and adore. One of the kayaks tipped and I ran to get the rescue boat, but then it wouldn’t start, so she just went out in a kayak and did the rescue that way. I grabbed a lifejacket off a kid who was swimming so I put on a fully soaking jacket and then got into a boat full of water so my pants, socks and shirts were completely soaked. She did the rescue without a spray skirt in a single river kayak for a double kayak, she was soaked right through. We were both walking around grumbling about feeling like we had just peed our pants. The staff has been great and by the end of yesterday we were all just stupid and not able to even form words for the most part. At the end of today, everyone was done like dinner and were so glad to have the weekend off. I’m really glad that I get to be here for the weekend. I feel like I’m going to be able to rest better here than I would in town. We may still make a town run for some food for the banquet sometime this weekend, but other than that, me, Amy and Doug are going to kick it out here.
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Last night I had these crazy dreams. One was of a dishwashing area that was all pimped out like some kind of carnival ride or something. There was also something about a river and trying to get logs with some people like the DC girls and at the end of it was a man who like things proper and showed us pictures of his girls doing dancing around these sticks. It was an odd night to wake up from. I had a good day of belaying some kids and some adults who are here for a family reunion. It’s only immediate family, there’s a hundred and ten of them. It’s a large family. Then Doug, Amy and I went in to town to hit the grocery store and Doug wanted to buy some shoes. We had a good time in the blue Ford. I like driving it. It has a light on top of it and an attachment for a plow. It’s great. You can’t lock the doors or they won’t open again. You don’t need a key to start the engine. The ignition will just go if you turn the key thingy with no key in it. It’s a good time. I’ve been hanging out with Amy a lot the past week. It’s been great to get to know her. It’s so funny how there’s some people that you just connect with, like BJ and Rebecca, where you just can’t tell the age difference in our interactions. up |
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Man, I am tired. I barely slept a wink last night, but then neither did three quarters of the girls anyway. I had to keep getting up to leave the room, or the building. It just felt crappy. We had three schools here today and I think I did a good job of being out there with them and talking to some people and to the kids. I was wanting to take snacks around to everyone in the afternoon cause it was a long haul on the program stuff, but I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. I was also hoping to get out of there at 4 because I worked so late yesterday. It ended up being more like just after 6. Everyone is heading over to WilderNess to help put up tents and I would love to go do it and show some sort of leadership, but I’m just a fried egg and I get exhausted thinking about trying to go there and having to interact. I wonder if that’s most of what’s going on right now, that I haven’t had much down time and away time from people and it’s sucking all my energy out of me. It’s the same sort of feeling that I had (only just a portion of the amount) when I was leaving Malibu in 03. Maybe that’s what finally did me in was the constant barrage of interaction and demands that completely killed my brain. I can’t believe it’s only Tuesday. It feels like Friday. I’m the only one around here who is excited for Friday to come, because for everyone else it means a ramping up of energy and everything, whereas for me, it’s time to bring it down a notch. I’m looking forward to going in for the weekend and to have time to concentrate on writing my talk for next Tuesday.
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I had a really good day today. It was long and hard and random, but really good. There were pissy adults that then affected their whole trip’s attitude. What a lesson in attitude today! Attitude is such a choice and to see these 12 year olds glom onto the victimized attitudes of the adults on the trip was very eye opening. They had a great day. They had waterfront and blobbing, I did a scavenger hunt with them that no other day trips get to do, the got kayaking and rock climbing and at the end of the day we squeezed them into Zipline and Jungle Swing even though they weren’t supposed to have them. They had a great day. And at the end of the day there was a bunch of them sitting around the Jungle Swing, talking about how much “this sucks”. And “the other schools got to do more than us”, which happens to be a complete lie, they got 2 more activities than the other schools. It was unbelievable, and it all stemmed from the bad attitudes of the teachers and parents who were supervising the trip. I felt like I did a good job at keeping them as positive and as happy as I possibly could. I showed them that I was not pleased with them when they spoke badly, but I hope that I did it with love. Staying silent wouldn’t have been loving them. Showing them all the cool stuff that they did and the extra bonuses for their day that they had was loving them. We had a great bible study tonight. Looking at Daniel and the story of the three in the furnace. Paul tied it in with Romans 8 and 12 with pulling from the confidence that we have in Christ (neither depths nor heights...will keep us from God) and giving our lives as a living sacrifice (holy and pleasing to God). It was good stuff. Rachelle really hit it on the nail when she said that it was fear that would keep people from standing, or from bowing but not “worshipping” the golden image of the day which is essentially going through the motions but not supposedly buying in to the whole thing, it’s a cop out, and she’s right, it’s completely driven by fear. It made me joyful at the depths that the Lord has brought me through in submission, in being able to give over rights and loves and comforts and expectations and relationships. I have thousands of miles to cross, but it was good to be joyful about the 5 kilometers I’ve come. I also had such a quick picture of the world being rocked by the people in that room if we all spurred each other on to really live it all out. The depths and the quality of the people here, their hearts and their talents, I truly believe that if we really were to continue to encourage each other on that this world would be changed is some very radical ways. I don’t know how to communicate that to them or how to show that in my own actions. I guess that I have to take some of that home with me and hope that the Lord will open doors for it all to be revealed there and here by His Spirit. I felt good today. Tired, at a loss sometimes, but like I had Joy through the stupid conditions of the day, that my Joy was not affected by the situation. It was a good feeling. up |
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What a day. It was long and hard and good. Much like yesterday, only the circumstances actually weren’t bad like they were yesterday. Notable moments were finding out that no arrangements had been made for the nightly camper snack and so Jason, Danni and I cranked out 105 cookies in 20 minutes. It was a bonding moment. There was ginger snap dough flying all over the place as we scooped a tray each, and then stood at the oven door staring at them going, “Cook, cook”. Good people. I could never have done it without them. I had a wonderful, although bug ridden few moments out on the point. The lake was calm. The sun was just going down and the clouds were all pink and orange. There was one out in the distance that looked like a giant pink nuclear cloud that was pretty cool looking. There was a loon out in the middle of the lake and the odd bird singing up behind me. And then the squirrel decided to be all pissy and chatter away at me angrily on the tree behind the bench I was sitting on. I tried to ignore it, that and the largest mosquitoes I’ve seen in my life as they were trying to suck the life out of me. I’m not sure, but I either saw the Lake Ness monster, a beaver, or the largest river otter known to man swim right past me just off shore. It was wet and brown and very matted looking, like it needed a good hair dryer. It was a lovely moment. We cleaned up the Waterfront today. It was hilarious. It got done, but in about 3 times the amount of time that it needed to be. At one point the boys decided to surround and jump into any girl who came up to their level. I got attacked first. And then almost second until I ran into one of their rooms. Then they locked me in and wouldn’t let me out. The girls were all yelling and singing and the doors were open and craziness and chaos ruled the building. It was pretty great. I hope no one was frustrated by it cause I loved it. Then the fashion show on the girls level started. BJ decided to go into our rooms and take random clothes and were them around, walking and singing like those Reitman’s commercials of average women in average places in average Reitman’s clothes walking into rooms and the kitchen and whatever to this bumping catwalk music like a super model. It was hilarious. She had some very, very small clothing on in great layers. Tomorrow is the last official day of Spring Crew and I’m excited to no longer be in charge of everything. I will be glad to just be one of the folks very soon and to not have to be the one that Paul expects to hold the fort together or to rally the troops. I especially don’t like being the one who has to keep people in line with the rules and expectations. It’s funny how much that has changed in me as I used to really be bothered by people not following the protocol. Now, I really would like people to just choose well for themselves so that I don’t have to be the heavy. Maybe there is more of my mother in me than I ever saw before! up |
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I’m finished being in charge. I had some crazy dreams last night, sort of awake visions after getting up at 3 am to go to the bathroom. Then I was struck by this fear and panic with these visions and feelings of being vulnerable. Things like seeing the Waterfront Lodge being set on fire from the garage and the doors are all barred from the outside, then as we’re trying to get out the window that I smashed open with my laptop, someone is trying to shoot as us from outside. Another had many variations but the same part was a dark figure who was coming in our floor and into our room to assault one of the other girls. It was irrational fear, and I’m quite convinced it was spiritual. As I’m telling the girls some of this this morning, BJ starts staring at me and she’s like, “That sounds so familiar. I think I dreamed that last one too.” It made for a very random morning meeting. The kiddies all left happy and the teachers were all good, so then came camp clean up and a fury of movement in the Waterfront Lodge as everyone started to move housing assignments. I had to leave before the waterskiing started, which made me sad, but I was so thankful for the opportunity to leave the property and come to the Claus’ that I had no problem missing the waterski time. Jacob and I had a date tonight while his mum and dad went on a real date to a movie. He’s just a great little bundle.
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I must have fallen asleep immediately last night as I remember hearing half of one song, and then when I woke up at 7 this morning, I was in the same position I remember being in last, and the comp was still on the playlist I had set it to. It was a good day of doing very little. I did laundry and had a bath. And then I cleaned the bath because it was filthy when I got out. I felt like Cat in the Hat with a giant ring around the tub. I went for a run and made some postcards on the computer which I just ordered. I talked to many people on the phone and just generally sat around. It was great. It sounds like it was a lot, but it really wasn’t. Now it’s 11:22 at night and the sun is just finishing going down. It’s not quite completely dark yet, it’ll be there in about 10 minutes though. 11:00 was still pretty light out. The great North is wild, even though I’m not all that north. Thoughts for the day are on life and just how odd it is. Maybe it’s because I’ve taken such a step back from so much of everything that I have a different perspective on things? Or maybe I’m just fooling myself. But it all seems so odd, our time and what we do with it. The things we accomplish. Being tired. Sleep and rest. Work and play. They’re all such oddities in my brain today and it all seems so very meaningless. I am drawn to go back to Victoria, but I don’t know where I’d stay or what I’d do. I tried to look some stuff up on the internet this afternoon, but then it all felt meaningless as well. So I’ve come to a conclusion. If I am meant to go back to Victoria, it will look different than anyone else and than anything that I can plan out. It can’t be for meaningless reasons, like comfort and ease, that I go there. I have to do it trusting completely. I was in a space of feeling like I had to balance this desire to go there with what the Lord would want form me, and I’m coming to the point today where I see that it needs to be Him at every step, and not me going, “Oh, this is what you want, okay then, I’ll go and make that happen now and figure it all out”. If it were somewhere else, like Ness Lake, that I felt the Lord saying, “Be there” then I wouldn’t be trying to carve it all out on my own. Maybe just because it’s what is supposed to be my “normal life” is supposed to be Victoria because I’m from there, that there’s this idea in my head that it’s supposed to look different, in that it’s supposed to be the same and normal as everyone else. I need to approach it in the same way I would moving to Japan or Russia. That the Lord will look after me, He will guide me, He will put things in my way and on my path and in all of it I need to be submitting to Him and laying everything at His feet. He will provide and He will move. When it all comes down to it, it was a matter of Michelle taking back control again. Maybe that’s the key to me surviving in Victoria, that I love so much, that I need to approach it like I would anywhere else, and to submit daily to Him as to whether I’m supposed to be there and what I’m to do. up |
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I feel really good about where things are at with going back to Victoria. I have no place to live and no job and I’m really stoked to see what the Lord reveals as I trust Him. I finally kind of get it, at least for a brief moment, and I’m not going to plan and I’m not going to scheme and most of all I’m not going to fret or worry. I’ll still look around and keep my eyes open so that I’m not just walking around blind, but I’m not looking around in order to make sense of it all and to make back up plans “for when He doesn’t provide”. Bah! As if that’s going to happen! If nothing else, then I have a few good days to hang with friends and then He’ll make something come up. He always does.
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Last night I spoke at chapel. The life of David, his anointing call, who it is that God said he was even when the reality of his surroundings and situation seemed to be contrary to what had been said. That as believers there are promises that God has given us that we can find and cling to in the bible. And that as individuals, we can hear through prayer, right from God’s own words who it is that He says we are, how He made us, how He designed us. So the talk was going well and all and then...Rice Krispie fell off the stand that it was on and came to a crash on the floor below. It now has a fatal error. I am so thankful that I had just backed up this Journal and my accounting stuff to my USB stick, otherwise I think I might have cried last night. I am still in a bit of a state of shock that I can’t get at any of my stuff and that I might have lost all my pictures that I haven’t had a chance to burn yet. That’s a little worrisome. But it has also been eye opening as to how much I had depended on that hunk of metal and plastic. I would like to be less dependent on it, but it makes things so easy to carry around with me, but it still is a point of sin in my world. We’ll see what Marc can salvage when I get back to Victoria. Until then, everything is on this little stick. The talk really did go well. I thought I was a bit scattered, but there have been many to come up to me since last night to let me know that it meant a lot to them. Tonight at dinner I sat with two of the girls. It turned into a 2 hour conversation. It was so cool. One was sharing about her world and her life and then we got into what it looks like know and as I’m praying that the Lord would give me a word or two to speak truth into her life and I’m totally at a loss, then He gives me a few quick sentences that I’m not even sure what they were anymore (all the more Glory to Him) that spun us off onto her thinking about how much her life is controlled by fear. And as we’re talking I can see the cogs grinding in her brain, realizing just how deep this hurt and this splinter goes in her life. Simple things that mirrored themselves in her life and in her father's life and I was able to point that out and then I could see the a-ha in her face as it was sinking in. So good. I really feel like the Lord is taking her through some really cool stuff and she’s claiming things as fear already and walking in the other direction from it. It’s so encouraging because I really feel like I had very little to do with it. I love that right now, I see the work of the Holy Spirit so clearly in her and that I get to have the privilege of being the one that He gave two or three little sentences to that started it all off. He used me and now He’s doing this really cool work. That’s darn cool. up |
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Today is the longest day of the year. It’s past 10 at night and it’s just barely dusk. Everything is bright out still and the sky is really rich with colour through the trees. It’s pretty cool. I was talking to Dad last night and we were talking about being North, not like I’m all that north right now. I realized that two nights ago, when I was having my first night battle with the mosquitoes, that it got dark at just after 11, and then when I was woken by the mosquito at just after 3, it was getting light out again. I hadn’t thought of it before, but it was like just under 4 hours of darkness. It was a busy day today with the campers coming. The morning was running all over putting out fires, like making sure there was staff for the Zipline, pulling the canoeing and kayaking out of the water due to high winds and then finding those two groups something new to do for an hour each, stuff like that. The afternoon I spent in the new store area with Krista to get the clothing out and ready for Family Camp. It’s a little random cause they don’t have any shelving made, but it will be fine and people will buy clothes. I was in there till 10 tonight trying to get more done so that it will be ready by tomorrow. up |