Ya'at'eeh!

So today was amazing. We went to church at Twin Pines, which is one of the sites we will be staying and working in July. Josh had informed us that the service starts at 10:30 but if you get there at 10:30 or even at 11 there may possibly be one or two people there at best. Sure enough, we got there at about 10:45 and there was one car at the church. Josh said that people would probably show up later, so we took a walk past the outhouses...and through the brush to the nearest mesa. There is no running water at Twin Pines, just like Toko'i (the other New Mexico site). We will have to build temporary showers with a hose and PVC and carry our water over to the "kitchen" for meals. Anyway, back to the service, there only ended up being about 10 people at church, 8 of which were related to Harry, the pastor. Harry's wife, Blanche, lead worship and it was very cool. Half English, half Navajo, and so beautiful. Navajo isn't like any other language I've heard. Maybe like tongues, haha. Actually, a lot like that. After worship, Harry asked Josh to come up and testify for a minute, and much to our surprise, he went down the line and called on us too. After that, Harry informed Josh that he would be giving the message for the morning after Sunday School. Blanche got back up and lead Sunday School which was basically just Bible teaching and it was really wonderful. They had been going through a book and this week was on Holy Spirit Living. Good stuff. Josh got up and spoke from Philippians 3. During Sunday School an elderly man had come in who Harry informed us later could not speak English, so he translated as Josh spoke. Josh had not planned for this apparently, and due to stage-brain or whathaveyou, he was completely unaware that he spoke for about an hour and a half. We joked with him in the car on the way back to the Mission and he had no idea. He thought it was about a half hour! He had made Harry go hoarse from so much translating!

After the service, we met a sweet man named Edmund who will probably be helping us a lot with construction. He and Harry took the four of us around to some prospective work project sites and they were really good. We met a woman named Nora who was probably nearly 90 and we are going to do some work on her house as well as her son's trailer down the road. When we got back to the church, Harry invited us in to his house and Blanche cooked dinner for us (that's right...dinner. Church got out a little after 2). With dinner she had what she called hot bread, that looked like over sized tortilla-like pancake things. SO tasty! Not sweet, just cooked dough, but it was amazing. She told us she would make the famous fry bread for us when we come back. Fry bread has been talked up to us by the interns that came out here last year. They say it compares to funnel cake that you might get at the fair, with powdered sugar on top. That sounds pretty good to me. :)

We sat around with them and watched home videos of the National Navajo tribal dance competition, in which several of Harry and Blanche's kids and grandkids competed! Ages 30 to 3! It was incredible to see... all the traditional clothes of the tribe and hundreds of navajo dancing different dances. Pretty awesome.

Harry taught us a few words today. Ya'at'eeh is hello. (sounds like yah-teh) Hagoone' is goodbye. (ha-goh-neh) and Ahe' he is thank you. (this one is harder cause it's got a phlegm sound... ahche-heh) Hopefully I'll be learning a lot more. Many of the elderly navajo don't speak English at all, and since Navajo only became a written language about 30 years ago, most of them do not read or write. Navajo is incredibly hard to read because it wasn't created as a written language. I also learned that the Navajo do not point if you ask them where something is, they point with their mouths, moving their lips to one side of their face. Neat, huh? Also, it would be incredibly rude to drive up to a Navajo home and knock on the door. You must stay in the car and honk, and once the resident of the house has come and opened the front door, then you may get out of the car. I learned so much today and for the first time felt like I got a good dose of the culture. It was great, getting to know Blanche and Harry. Blanche even came out after dinner and gave Molly and I each a pair of hand-crafted earrings- they are beautiful!!! What a great family, and what a great day.

Hagonne'!
Laura Marie

the land of Enchantment

at least that's what the license plates say... we shall see... :)

Two days ago, Chris and I made the 10 hour drive to Fort Worth, Texas and arrived at Molly's house in time for the wonderful dinner she cooked for us. Landon, one of the other interns, lives in Molly's hometown and he came over and had dinner and spent the night with us. What a fun guy. We left Ft. Worth around 9 yesterday morning and made the 9 hour drive to Albuquerque, New Mexico. The car was PACKED. We stayed with one of Molly's friends from school, Kelsi, and she and her family were so wonderful! We had a blast with them and feel like we already made good friends. This morning, Kelsi took us to a New Mexican restaurant downtown and then we walked around the University of New Mexico campus... it was really incredible. One of the buildings looked like it belonged right next to the Alamo. Well, most of them were still pretty unique- very southwest style.

Finally, around 3pm we picked up Josh from the airport and headed out for our 3 1/2 hour drive to Farmington, NM. Josh works full time for Experience Mission and will be helping us get oriented to each of the sites where we will be working. He spent a month out here getting the two NM sites set up in April since this is the first summer EM has sent interns to these communities. So, from what I understand, the four of us will be spending the night here at the Many Waters Mission and commuting each day to Toko'i and Twin Pines meeting the pastors of the churches and some other important community members until Monday, when we will drive to Inscription House in Arizona and meet up with Kristy Clum, the wife of Chris Clum, who is the founder/creator of Experience Mission. She will be there for the first team that comes down and help us learn the ropes in AZ and help us with the cooking as well. Molly's really excited about that, having never cooked for masses before. :)

All around, these last few days have been a blast. A lot of time in the car, good talks, great food, learning each other and how this summer is going to look. I like it. More soon, I'm sure.

Blessings, my friends,

Laura Marie

6 days and counting...

Training was this weekend in Michigan and I flew into Detroit and Autumn Zimmerman, one of the awesome girls that interviewed me, picked me up. We stayed at her parent's home in Jackson and I got to meet about 6 of the other interns that came early. We got along so well and talked about the summer and made a bonfire and ate smores. We got up Friday morning and drove the last hour to a place called Miracle Camp where training would be held. I met the other 17 amazing interns, ahem, I mean "summer staffers" ;) that will be serving this summer. Everybody was just so great. We had lots of sessions teaching us all kinds of wonderful info we'll need  for the upcoming summer, everything from conflict resolution to being an effective leader to splinting broken bones to cooking chicken for 50.

I learned so much- especially about what is coming at me this summer. It's going to be hard. 10 weeks of hard labor and little sleep and a constant GO level is going to take a toll. I know it's going to be so worth it though. Not to mention Molly and Chris are amazing. We get along so easily. That is truly a blessing and I know the Lord has anointed it for sure.

This weekend we hammered out our individual responsibilities we will take on once we get out there and we'll be doing those each week as the church groups come. I am the Trip Coordinator, meaning I will be covering the overall schedule, the evening Leaders' meeting with the leaders from the church group, and the evening team meeting with Chris and Molly. I'll be leading worship each night at the service as well as coordinating which of us will be speaking each night and giving the message. I'll be in charge of making sure all the materials are purchased and arrive on time at each of the construction sites for Chris. There's a couple more things I'm doing too, but I can't recall right now. It's a big job, and I'm kinda spread all over, but it's going  to be fun. I feel like my job load is definitely things that I have a passion and gift for.

I leave in 6 days. It's crazy to think! Now it's just making my lists and getting things ready to go. Spent nearly $100 at Target today- bought an air mattress cause they told me my little camping mat wasn't going to cut it for 3 months. I know this is going to be an expensive summer, but I'm leaving it in God's hands because I know He is the ultimate provider!

Blessings and love,

Laura Marie

a lesson on love

Just finished packing for Training. I leave the house tomorrow at 6:30 or so. My sweet grandfather is going to take me to the airport since mom will be working. I don't even know what to pack. Will I need a backpack? Weather.com just isn't telling me enough, because somehow I've already forgotten what the weather is like in the Midwest.

Prepared last night for the message I will have to give to my fellow interns this weekend. I'm not sure if it's supposed to be like practice for speaking to the groups once we are out in the field or if it's like giving a message directly for the interns. I'm hoping for the latter. Tonight I'll have to prepare my song list for the worship set. I'm pretty stoked about it. :) Who knows how it will go, but the Lord is in control. And I'm okay with it.

I'm speaking on the importance of our relationships with one another as believers. Have you ever been in a place where you didn’t expect to meet anyone who was a Christian? And then did? The bond of knowing you were brothers or sisters in Christ can be so strong and encouraging in a worldly situation, where you felt like you had a special bond and were immediately closer to that person than you would've naturally been. Often times, we lose this in the church. We forget the bond that we have under the blood of Jesus. He has placed us here as the Body, to encourage and edify and work alongside one another.

Two summers ago I went to Canada. I was going to be a part of a 35-person choir that would tour together for 3 weeks. We had 3 days to learn and memorize 15 pieces of music. Talk about crunch time. Immediately after we arrive and had dinner, we worshipped together in singing and then had some time to share together. The first thing our leader asked, very simply, was if each of us would share what we were expecting God to do on the trip. Most of the people in the room I had not met yet, much less did I know their names. But as each person began to share, there was a raw passion that began to build. It seemed a tangible entity in the room.

 

"I want God to expel the doubts I have in my life."
"I want a clarity about where God is leading me to go to college and what I should do with my life."
"I want to grow closer to God and depend on Him and nothing else."
"I want to become a leader in Christ and not be afraid to share the gospel and show others what Christ is about."
"I want to win people to Christ and change lives while we are on tour. I want our music and our witness to create an uncontrolable fire."

We had each shared intimate things, stories and glimpses into our lives. Let's be honest right now, on a first meeting with someone- this is rarely how the conversation goes!! And that's ok, because these types of conversations have their time and place. But my point in all of it is this: Because our initial connection was a Spiritual one, it was immediately an intimate one. From that night (the first night) forward, we were bound as a body of believers. We prayed for each others struggles and rejoiced in the victories. I have NEVER EVER in my life, seen this kind of intimacy and comraderie in a group of teenagers. EVER.

As I was doing my online training for what I will experience over the next 3 months, I read about relationships and leadership and about conflict. They laid out the problems that we are very likely to face within our own intern leadership team. There's only 3 of us and we will be working, eating, sleeping, for 3 months very closely with one another. It addressed issues like people vs. logistics/things and flexibility vs. detailed planning. Overall, I learned that in order to become a functioning team, we've got to get past the niceties and be real with one another. We must disagree and work it out. We must fiercely love and support one another and choose to encourage and lift one another up because it's what we were called to do. If you refuse to be vulnerable with others, they will never be vulnerable with you. The group will only go as far as the leaders are willing to go, and if we leaders aren't willing to do that with one another, we will ultimately be ineffective. I must be the kind of person that invites others to be real and honest and -themselves-, where they will find no judgment or even a spirit quick to "fix" them, but simply the love of the Lord. And I'm gonna let Him love on them through me. 

just started

So, I finally figured out how to start this thing. Pretty simple. :)

I'm so excited about my upcoming trip! I will be serving as an intern for Experience Mission, a mission organization that sends groups to cities and countries all over the world. The Navajo Reservation in New Mexico is one of the newest locations and I will be serving there for 10 weeks this summer! Chris Maxey and Molly Mulholland are two other interns I will be serving alongside, and we will be leading the groups that come each week in construction work, Kid's Club activities, worship services, and much more. I leave from Alabama on May 26th and drive to Fort Worth, TX to pick up Molly. She and I will then make the drive to Albuquerque, NM on the 27th to meet up with Chris and pick up Josh who will be training us for the first few days on the Rez.

I found out a few weeks ago that I will be leading worship each night for the groups that are there with us. This makes me excited and terrified at once. I've been singing for years but never excelled at any instrument, and knowing that I had to play guitar and sing was an anxiety-producing thought. The Lord has been faithful though, and through a few hours of practice and deliberation each day, I've been improving! My dear friend Jeffrey has been gracious enough to help me transpose some of the songs into singable keys with chords easy enough for me to maneuver.

This Thursday, I'll be flying up to Detroit, Michigan to meet up with all of the interns with EM to do our training before we hit the field. I am so excited!!! I can't wait to meet everyone and savor any extra bit of information I can learn about what we will be doing. Start praying now for the people we will meet and have the pleasure to serve with. I know the Lord has big plans for this summer and I'm just waiting for Him to bring me in on it! :)