Appreciation @ MindSay

Just wanted to say thank you to everyone who responded to my post. I wasn't sure that day if letting it out would help at all. Guess what! It did. I am not saying I am all better now or am not having those thoughts anymore but I am still here and still trying to deal.

I want you all to know that your words of encouragement did mean a lot to me and you all are appreciated and I think it is great that you can take the time out of your lives to try to encourage others and make them feel better about their situations.

THANKS! THANKS! THANKS! THANKS!

I meant to talk about this over the weekend, but other priorities did occur.

So, I'll talk about it now! Hahah.

There are a lot of young women who work at Camp. Half the staff, actually. And the vast majority of said young women have a drive and commitment to follow God with everything in their lives. This presents a challenge, because it'll often be, well, kind of lonely. God's with you, and the other girls encourage you, but...sigh. You know that if you weren't holding to a particular standard, you'd get way more attention. Rationale says that it's not the kind of attention you want, but when you're lonely, and you feel like no one notices you at all, it's tough.

It hit hard when I realized that of all the encouragement I've gotten in my mailbox this summer, the only one from any of the guys was when Laser wrote "Jesus <3s you!" for everyone. There's a lot from the girls. The ones my age, the ones younger than me, the campers, the moms I help out, different managers...nada from the guys.

It's tough to express - I tried to explain this concept to Thunder, Leaf, and Flood earlier this summer (it was a mixed conversation about why girls do what they do) - it's simply, God made us to desire male attention. They didn't get what was going on there (it was a trading info conversation, actually - Splash and I learned a fair amount about the guys then, too). It's not a sexual thing, exactly. I can tell you that when I have enough time with my Dad, I don't think about guys as much. It's just that we need to know that we're doing something right, and the other girls are too much like us to verify it.

This is why last Friday blew us all away.

We have different staff events over the summer. You have to have some time to relax and do something fun together - the majority of us are here for eight or nine weeks, and it starts to wear on you. We go play Ultimate at Soldier's Field, or to a Twins' game, or just take a night and get ice cream together. So, Kiwi, head girls' counselor, announces the ladies' formal, and doesn't tell us anything other than that we need to sign up for it in advance, the time, and that we're to dress up for it. We know that the guys are doing something 'manly', this is what they do every time the girls have a night together. We pretty much just figured that we were going bowling.

No, really. I have photos (somewhere) of our last singles' group getting all gussied up into our formal wear, and going bowling together. It's just kinda fun (plus, bowling shoes look silly with a strapless gown).

So, we meet in the staff lounge, and Kiwi's got this smile but she won't say anything. And then Delta (Kiwi's husband, head guys' counselor) comes in, and tells us to wait. And then the guys come in. Each carrying a rose, each rather remarkably cleaned up (we all dress very solidly casual at Camp). And each one takes one of the ladies and escorts her over to the chapel.

Normally, our end-of-week staff meeting is in the chapel. Not the case this week, but we hadn't realized that it was because the guys had taken the time to completely redecorate the chapel, for the whole candlelight dinner look.

After seating us, the guys gave us some time to just chat together and build the mystery, and then Thunder (male SIT/LIT Program director) comes out and explains that tonight is meant to be about us, a thank you from them, that they definitely notice what we're doing in trying to live for Christ, and they appreciate it. His words, "not a romancing, but a cherishing."

We do tend to see each other as brothers and sisters. Coincidentally, right now I'm sitting next to one of my brothers on staff who pretty much drives me crazy as a counselor.

So, they'd prepared food, and chocolate mousse, and served us. We couldn't get away with thanking them for any of it, because anytime that one of us said, "Thank you," to any one of them, they responded, "You're worth it." They read the end of Proverbs 31, and over the course of the week had put together a video of different guys on staff around Camp talking about what they appreciated about the girls.

The big ones that kept getting repeated were compassion, modesty, and encouragement. We're not flirting, we're not trying to date them, we're trying to serve God. We usually have the impression that this means that we're not noticed by them, and it's usually agreed by us ladies that it's worth it if it's what God wants, but it's hard. Hearing from them that they still appreciated us, and in fact appreciated us more for not trying to snare them but for trying to serve with them was incredible.

I haven't felt that appreciated and encouraged in months. The whole evening was just...a definite wow. We were blown away. Our guys rock.

I just want to take the time to thank each of my friends who came to my defense when saikotikgunman
thought it was his civic duty to tell everyone that I have two blogs.
I opened the second one to meet new friends, as well as to blog things that were on my mind, that didn't especially deal with Christian topics. If you think that is wrong, well, so be it. But I have had people ridicule when I have written about things they didn't agree with, and thought that it would be good just to do it elsewhere.

I am not trying to justify myself and I am not going to close that blog at present. If you want to go and read what I have written there, you are most welcome. If you don't like what you see, then you don't have to add irishlassie to your friends' list.

I love and appreciate all of my friends, and appreciate your support, prayers and friendship more than you will ever know.

wolfman you have been there for me all the way, along with everyone else and I appreciate you ...geekity14 especially grateful to you as well.

bonnie

As you are fully aware, I am a volunteer staff leader for our church's youth group (grades 6th - 12th).  True; I may give it a little grief from time-to-time, but I really love what I do (even when I don't know what I'm doing, which is nearly every week).  In fact, many times I think of it as more my job than the one I'm actually doing to pay for things like food and shelter.  I recently discovered that the majority of my close friendships as of late are somehow directly tied into youth ministry (if they aren't on the staff themselves, they are somehow related to someone on it, or were a part of it at one time).

 

So, clearly I love the teens and the people I work with as we minister to them and love them and have fun with them.

 

And they love me.

 

Not only that, they know me.

 

In an effort to show his appreciation, our youth minister (El Capitan, for those of you following along at home) gave the staff gift cards.  The rest of the staff, who are all outdoorsy-backpacking-biking-skiing-mountain-climbing-freaks, got a gift card to REI.

 

Me?  I got one to a bookstore  With the comment: Go geek out at Barnes and Noble. Take a day for yourself, grab some tea and read all day long!

 

Awesome.

Hello there!
Happy 4th of July to my US friends! :)
I think this is the 3rd year in a row I've been here in the US to celebrate with you all!
My good friend Andrea is still sawin' logs after a long day of travel. After a few hours in the air and airports, we picked up our car, grabbed some treats and foodstuffs and headed for the hills! That's our shadows waving to you, it was a LONG way down from where we were standing! It smells so good here, miles and miles of pine trees and running water everywhere! I'm typing to you this morning from the wee town of Leadville atop the beautiful and majestic Colorado Rockies, where - as the sign says, "Life is fine at 10,200", and I'm here to tell you the air is definately thinner up here! We were cautioned by one of the natives about unseasoned sea-level people and "altitude sickness" as they drive up the mountain. It pays to listen to the natives...we didn't notice it until just after the Eisenhower Tunnel at almost 13,000 feet when we stopped the car to snap a few pics. We took a turn off of the main I-70 and decided to weave our way across some not-so-traveled road on the way to our desination at Snow Mass Village where we have a 2-bedroom ski chalet rented with 4 others! We'll be driving through Aspen later this afternoon to hook up with some of our buddies heading in early for the party. :) It's just before 7am and I'm on the patio of a quaint and country-style inn - bundled up - with my laptop and a coffee watching the sun come up over the mountains. There's a hummingbird already happily chirping away on the feeder right beside me.
Yep, it's a beautiful life!
The nice man at the Budget rental office took a liking to us and decided we needed a spiffy and sporty little Mustang to drive around the mountains in this week! Hot damn! I was just looking at one on the weekend and thinking how much I still like those cars! So the Universe has answered of course and gave me one to test-drive! (I found out yesterday that it isn't good to ride the brakes at 65MPH on a 7% downgrade...I still don't like the smell of burning rubber, and I'll mention it when we return the car. For now, we'll stay in the slow lane. We don't miss as much that way.) ;) Not that I'd wish it on any one trucker, and I'd really like to know how often the very steep runaway-truck ramps positioned at the bottom of the downgrades gets used!
We're off to participate in a small-town USA July 4th parade and celebration today as we make our way to our destination, I'll be back with some more pictures and adventure stories when we stop again for the evening.
Wish you were here! Have yourself a glorious day!