Saturday. It's finally here. My week wasn't bad by any means, so I wasn't just waiting for the weekend to get here so my week could be over. On the contrary, really. But for some reason, I had spent most of this week awake, and I slept much less than I should have. So basically, I was excited to sleep in. Just a little extra sleep though! I didn't want to feel like I wasted the day away.
I ended up getting about 8hrs of sleep. That's a very good number, when you're referring to sleep. I woke up around 10am, before anybody else got up. I just wanted to take some time to chill. I ended up reading for an hour and a half, which was crazy, because I can't remember the last time I picked up a book that wasn't a text book or required reading material.
After everyone had gotten up, we started talking about how the day was going to go. We were supposed to take some girls from SF swimming, but their mom called and said they couldn't go because they weren't being obedient last night. Bummer.
Jonny called a couple guys from SF to see if they wanted to go swimming with him, since the girls were grounded, so to speak, and they were all for it. Just as Jonny had figured everything out there, the girls' mom called back and said they were now given permission to go swimming. Shoot. Now we're in a predicament, because we only have a few cars to use for the day and we have around 8 kids and five interns that we have to drive around for the day and the boys wanted to go to a different spot than the girls did. Craziness.
We got everything figured out by utilizing three different cars, and Stephen ended up staying behind, so that freed up some room. We ate lunch, then we headed out. On the way to SF, I had to drop off the keys to the Youth Center with Francis, so we ended up getting to SF around 1:30pm.
After we picked up the boys, we headed back north to Rosebud to find a lake that only Tony Jr. knew about. When we parked the car, I found out we were going to have to take a 2mi hike over the hills of Rosebud to find this supposed lake. Jonny forgot to inform me of this detail. I was wearing flip flops.
I was doubting the sanity of hiking in flip flops, but I went along with it. We hiked for probably 20min, before Tony Jr. decided that he couldn't remember how to get there by hiking. But that didn't stop us, because at that moment he also decided to inform us that there was a road we could have taken to get there instead. You mean to tell us we could have driven to the lake instead of braving a 2mi hike? Yup. Silly boy.
We all turned around and made it back to the car safely. Only a few ticks were found on the boys. I didn't find any on me, so I was thankful. We drove up the road to find that the road down to the lake was locked up. We couldn't drive down there but we were significantly closer to this lake than we were before, and the possibility of jumping the fence was up for pondering.
At first I said no, but then one of the boys told me that this was the rez, so there aren't any rules. It's crazy, but he's right. I parked the car and we hopped the gate. I wasn't sure about hopping over something that had been locked, but it wasn't illegal, and I quickly found out why they had that gate locked up. At the bottom of the road, there were some crazy ditches/potholes/ little ravines that must have been cut out by the rain over the past couple years. Good thing that gate was locked! My Alero would not have made it.
We enjoyed the lake for a about 30 to 45min, before we decided to go up to Ghost Hawk Park and meet the girls. We stopped to get some Powerade, then we were on our way! When we got there, everyone was playing around as happy as could be. I knew a lot of the little girls there, so they all called out my name and asked me to watch them jumping off the bank and what not. It was so much fun!
We ended up spending almost 2hrs at Ghost Hawk, before it was time to bring everybody back home. On the way back home, the boys and I decided that Ghost Hawk park was a lot more fun than Indian Scout Lake, the first lake we went to.
As we were talking on the way back to SF, Jonny and I started talking about where we were going to church tomorrow. I thought I had heard Jonny and Eric talking about church earlier in the day, so I asked Eric if he was going with Jonny, just to make conversation.
I guess they hadn't been talking, but Eric really wanted to go! That was incredible to see. All we did was ask, and God used Jonny's relationship with Eric to encourage him to accept our offer of church in the morning. I can't wait to see if he continues to go to church with Jonny for the rest of the summer!
When we got back to Mission, Jonny realized that he had left his backpack at Ghost Hawk Park. Back to Rosebud. We found his backpack moved, but untouched otherwise. He had some pretty important stuff in that back pack, so we both thanked God that nothing had been taken!
The rest of our night was devoted to Stephen, since it was his birthday on Thursday, but we had been too busy to actually go out and celebrate. We drove down to Valentine, NE and enjoyed a dinner together at The Bunkhouse. That place was legit. The food was delicious and it was cheap! Awesome.
After dinner, we walked around Valentine for a while. There's really only two main streets in Valentine and only one that was really worth walking down, so we made quick work of it, but it was fun to walk around and take some pictures with the team. We all decided that Valentine, NE was not a place we could live, but it's always fun to visit for a while.
We heard a lot of Rascal Flats when we were walking around, so on the way out we blasted Mumford and Sons. I'm sure that confused a lot of people. It was pretty funny to imagine what people were thinking of us. We got back to Mission around 9pm, then it was time for some fireworks!
For the past couple nights, Jonny and I have tried to practice our bottle rocket warring skills, but we really didn't seem to have gotten any better. Jonny got a couple shots off, and I got a couple shots off, but overall it was very spotty. We still enjoyed ourselves. Now we are all just hanging out, doing our thing. Maybe a movie tonight? Maybe just early bed. Who knows?
Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed yourself as much as we did today!
God Bless,
Brenden
Things I learned today:
1. Jonny likes to keep secrets, especially when they have to do with hiking to miles to find a lake in the outskirts of Rosebud.
2. I couldn't ever live in Valentine, NE.
3. Acts 4.
Saturday, June 30, 2012
Friday, June 29, 2012
God's Will Be Done/ Day 27
Today was a wonderful day. I don't think I could have asked for a more fruitful time with my crew today. God is so good!
My day started pretty much the same as it has the past couple days, though, I was running particularly late on my way into work this morning. When I got in, Eric was starting a quick meeting with the guys to talk about the projects that were in progress, the projects that needed to be started, and the time lines we were working with.
When the meeting was over, our day was basically prioritized for us. We had to pick up a trailer that had been welded for us, finish the work in the Rosebud dam, finish our fence job out at Soldier Creek, and help Percy with the shed again. I was pretty excited to have a solid list of things we needed to knock out today.
To start the day, we went to check on the trailer. Turns out the job will be more than we expected. We headed back to the office to wait for Ferg to show up. Then Ferg, Ernie, Marky, and I went out to Soldier Creek to finish that fence while the other half of the crew went out to help Percy, and one of the youth workers stayed behind to stain a picnic table.
We got out to Soldier Creek just in time to meet the sun peeking out from behind some of the storm clouds that were just leaving, so it started to get hot. We powered through the last hundred feet or so of that fence job though! It was beautiful by the time we were done-- we even finished a section that somebody else had had some trouble with-- and it was so great to finally have a finished job under my belt, after a month with the program.
On the way back from the fence program, God gave me another opportunity to talk about my faith and the Bible, as one of the guys asked me straight up what I thought about alcohol and drugs. It was really cool to be talking about real stuff that God must have put on their heart to ask my opinion of. I love being real with them.
After we finished the fence, we all decided we would take a lunch today, so we went our separate ways and met back up around 1pm. When everybody had gotten back from lunch, we had to run out to Mission to grab a cell phone that was left behind, so we spent a good amount of time just cruising.
When we finally made it back to the office, Marky was loading up some wood to take it to a Sun Dance, and the rest of the guys were going to load up to go to the Dam. They asked me if I wanted to go with Marky to help him unload all that wood, and I thought it would be a really cool opportunity to learn something about Sun Dances and Lakota Spirituality, so I went with him.
Marky and I had a pretty legit heart to heart on the way out to the Sun Dance grounds. We talked about all sorts of stuff, but we got pretty deep in regards to Lakota spirituality, the experiences he has had with Sun Dances, and what I believed about God in regards to those topics. I enjoyed my time with him so much, because this was the first time I really got to talk about God on a deeper level than I'm a Christian and I love Jesus. Legit.
Unfortunately, when we got to the Sun Dance grounds, nothing was going on. I say unfortunately, because I was hoping to learn more, by seeing everything that was happening, but from what I had learned from Marky, I'm sure it would've been unnerving, so I'm glad that nothing was going on when we got out there. Monday it all starts.
As we got back to the office, Nixson caught us and had us move a picnic table out to a gentleman's house. There was a little bit of an discrepancy between what the guy paid for and what he got, since we hadn't had a chance to stain the picnic table yet, so we told him that we would come out Monday and take care of that for him.
I wanted to make sure Nixson got the memo, so when I got back to the office, I went down to Nixson's office and checked in with him to make sure he knew what was going on with that table. He knew, so all was good. I also wanted to talk to him about some of the questions he had about how long it was taking his crew to finish jobs. This is what I had been waiting for.
We spent close to an hour talking to him about his crew and things that I had observed in my short time with the office. God's provision is incredible. I've wanted to be able to help Eric with some of the stresses he has been having, and when I least expected it, God provided me with the opportunity. I left the office practically beaming. I was so thankful for all the blessings God had poured out on me today.
After I got back home, all of us went out to Parmalee to hang out with a church group that was out there this week. Their group was a lot of fun, and it was a pleasure meeting them! I hope that they continue to make it a point to spend a week out here in the coming years. Consistency is so important.
We ended the night with a discussion about some of the excerpts we have been reading for the past couple weeks, which went well. Now we are bonding over the movie Batman Begins. Pretty sweet.
Thanks for keeping up with me!
Goodnight,
Brenden
Things I learned today:
1. When the guys first saw me, they thought I was some church kid coming to tell them about God. They know I believe in God, but they don't feel like I've been shoving it down their throat, which I think is important.
2. There is some crazy stuff that goes on at a Sun Dance. It has been really hard for me to think through all the information I learned from Marky today regarding those dances.
3. Acts 3
Wednesday, June 27, 2012
Crusing Is Alright/ Day 25
Wednesday. Half way through the week already, and I've only been back at the office for one day. That feels weird; I'm worried about my stamina for this week, though, since it will be so hot, so I'm kinda glad the week is already half way over.
I had some trouble waking up this morning. I shot up to my alarm but I closed my eyes for a minute. At least I thought it was a minute. I ended up sleeping for another 15min which was so weird because it didn't feel like that much time had passed.
I must have been really slow this morning because everything I did took longer than I thought it would, and before I knew it, it was 7:45am. I still had things to get together! Crazy. But I made it to work about 5min after 8am, which is good considering we don't even get started until at least 8:30am every day.
By about 8:30am, everything got started. There were two jobs available-- finishing the project at the Rosebud Dam or putting up barricades at the school where a Youth Appreciation day was being held. Since I had worked with the guys on the dam yesterday, I quickly picked the dam.
Before we headed to the dam, we had to run over to Rosebud Building Products, because, as you might recall, we ran out of materials in the middle of construction yesterday. We picked up the wood (16 footers), and loaded it onto an 8ft truck bed. Pretty janky. But funny. One of the guys from the crew I was with was worried about there being a flag or something on the wood, since it was sticking out so far, but then he was like "Well I guess it's the Rez so it don't matter." Classic Ferg.
We ended up doing a lot of running around today more than actual work, but I enjoyed today so much. Throughout the entire day, I made it a point to try to get to know Ferg and Ernie a little more than I already did. I talked to them a lot about their job, how they felt about management, why they did what they did, what they thought about their coworkers, and a bunch of other stuff. Super solid conversations. I really did learn a lot about them, their character, and the pride they take in the work they do at the office. I loved seeing that in them: pride in their work.
When we ran out to the dam this afternoon, the boat had been moved by the office that we were borrowing it from, and all the administration was gone, so that was a no-go. When we got back to the office, it turns out we had a shed that needed to be built, so we spent quite a while loading a couple hundred pounds of wood into our truck.
Guess what happened when we were about halfway through loading everything up? We ran out of materials. At that point, I found it kind of ironic that I had worked three different jobs with this office and in the middle of each job I had worked, we ran out of materials.
In the middle of the fencing project (that still wasn't finished), we had to quit because we ran out of fence; in the middle of the Rosebud Dam project, we had to quit because we ran out of floor boards; in the middle of loading the truck, before we even started the shed project, we ran out of materials for the floor boards. Weird. But it's a wonderful lesson for me to learn! I'm really glad this stuff has been happening so I can witness first-hand that kind of stuff that goes on in a business like the Employment Training program.
We ended up finding something to make the floor work, so after a couple hours, we were able to take all of that out to the site just south of Mission. We unloaded everything quicker than we had loaded it because more guys showed up, then Percy (the new carpenter) started working on the base/floor of the shed. We asked him if he wanted our help, but he wanted to prove himself since he was new. We'll help him tomorrow.
On our way back, we hit up PJ's Pizza. I asked Ernie and Ferg if they wanted me to grab them some food, because they bought me lunch yesterday, but not only did they say it was cool that I didn't pay them back, they also offered to buy me a pop! I was telling this to Greg and he said that was cool, cause he said that usually means that somebody respects you out here. That would be sweet.
After PJ's Pizza, wee ran around a little more, then I started to make my way back home around 5:30pm. I ended up staying late, because there were still guys around, and I was enjoying my time getting to know them so much that I wanted to stick around as long as possible. I can only pray for more days like today.
When I got back, I grabbed dinner quick, then Greg and I took Emily J.'s car down to his garage to fix her brakes. Everything went pretty smoothly. That was really nice, because the fun stops when stupid things go wrong.
When we got back from Greg's garage, it was around 9pm. Where did the day go!? I don't know, but it was a crazy awesome day. Can't wait to see what tomorrow holds!
Thanks for reading!
God bless,
Brenden
Things I learned today:
1. There is a pop station on the Rosebud Reservation! It took me a month to find it, but 94.7 is THE pop station of the area. Solid.
2. Nickson is a crazy dude. I think its a good thing. He's a business man in a world where I haven't been able to find many, but he needs to learn to listen to his crew.
3. Jeremiah 1:8
I had some trouble waking up this morning. I shot up to my alarm but I closed my eyes for a minute. At least I thought it was a minute. I ended up sleeping for another 15min which was so weird because it didn't feel like that much time had passed.
I must have been really slow this morning because everything I did took longer than I thought it would, and before I knew it, it was 7:45am. I still had things to get together! Crazy. But I made it to work about 5min after 8am, which is good considering we don't even get started until at least 8:30am every day.
By about 8:30am, everything got started. There were two jobs available-- finishing the project at the Rosebud Dam or putting up barricades at the school where a Youth Appreciation day was being held. Since I had worked with the guys on the dam yesterday, I quickly picked the dam.
Before we headed to the dam, we had to run over to Rosebud Building Products, because, as you might recall, we ran out of materials in the middle of construction yesterday. We picked up the wood (16 footers), and loaded it onto an 8ft truck bed. Pretty janky. But funny. One of the guys from the crew I was with was worried about there being a flag or something on the wood, since it was sticking out so far, but then he was like "Well I guess it's the Rez so it don't matter." Classic Ferg.
We ended up doing a lot of running around today more than actual work, but I enjoyed today so much. Throughout the entire day, I made it a point to try to get to know Ferg and Ernie a little more than I already did. I talked to them a lot about their job, how they felt about management, why they did what they did, what they thought about their coworkers, and a bunch of other stuff. Super solid conversations. I really did learn a lot about them, their character, and the pride they take in the work they do at the office. I loved seeing that in them: pride in their work.
When we ran out to the dam this afternoon, the boat had been moved by the office that we were borrowing it from, and all the administration was gone, so that was a no-go. When we got back to the office, it turns out we had a shed that needed to be built, so we spent quite a while loading a couple hundred pounds of wood into our truck.
Guess what happened when we were about halfway through loading everything up? We ran out of materials. At that point, I found it kind of ironic that I had worked three different jobs with this office and in the middle of each job I had worked, we ran out of materials.
In the middle of the fencing project (that still wasn't finished), we had to quit because we ran out of fence; in the middle of the Rosebud Dam project, we had to quit because we ran out of floor boards; in the middle of loading the truck, before we even started the shed project, we ran out of materials for the floor boards. Weird. But it's a wonderful lesson for me to learn! I'm really glad this stuff has been happening so I can witness first-hand that kind of stuff that goes on in a business like the Employment Training program.
We ended up finding something to make the floor work, so after a couple hours, we were able to take all of that out to the site just south of Mission. We unloaded everything quicker than we had loaded it because more guys showed up, then Percy (the new carpenter) started working on the base/floor of the shed. We asked him if he wanted our help, but he wanted to prove himself since he was new. We'll help him tomorrow.
On our way back, we hit up PJ's Pizza. I asked Ernie and Ferg if they wanted me to grab them some food, because they bought me lunch yesterday, but not only did they say it was cool that I didn't pay them back, they also offered to buy me a pop! I was telling this to Greg and he said that was cool, cause he said that usually means that somebody respects you out here. That would be sweet.
After PJ's Pizza, wee ran around a little more, then I started to make my way back home around 5:30pm. I ended up staying late, because there were still guys around, and I was enjoying my time getting to know them so much that I wanted to stick around as long as possible. I can only pray for more days like today.
When I got back, I grabbed dinner quick, then Greg and I took Emily J.'s car down to his garage to fix her brakes. Everything went pretty smoothly. That was really nice, because the fun stops when stupid things go wrong.
When we got back from Greg's garage, it was around 9pm. Where did the day go!? I don't know, but it was a crazy awesome day. Can't wait to see what tomorrow holds!
Thanks for reading!
God bless,
Brenden
Things I learned today:
1. There is a pop station on the Rosebud Reservation! It took me a month to find it, but 94.7 is THE pop station of the area. Solid.
2. Nickson is a crazy dude. I think its a good thing. He's a business man in a world where I haven't been able to find many, but he needs to learn to listen to his crew.
3. Jeremiah 1:8
Tuesday, June 26, 2012
Bringin' the Heat/ Day 24
Today was my first day back with the employment training office, since before LJ Week. Pretty exciting stuff. Today was also the hottest day of the week-- 105 degrees. Not so exciting.
The wonderful thing about going to work with the particular crew that I work with every day is that I never know what's going to happen. I never know how my day is going to look. And I never know if my day is going to be stressful, enjoyable, or particularly exciting. Today was no different.
I hopped right back into my daily routine of breakfast, time in the bible, devos, and prayer, which was awesome. I was kind of worried that LJ Week was going to throw a wrench in that habit, because often my devotional times didn't happen at a consistent time throughout the week of LJ.
I got to the office around 8am to sit around per usual. However, today sitting around wasn't all bad, because I had a chance to talk to Eric again for the first time since LJ Week, and I was excited to hear all that had been done in my absence. Unfortunately, it wasn't too impressive. I had big dreams, but it's okay to be disappointed every once in a while.
We got going around 9am. We had to make the grounds ready for the Children's Appreciation Day tomorrow, so that meant mowing a large plot of land and making barricades for parking or something of the sort. Half of us loaded into a truck to start the mowing and the other half stayed behind to make the barricades out of pallets. I was part of the crew that stayed behind.
God definitely worked that one out. I could have easily been sent to mow, I feel, but there happened to be just enough people already willing to go out there that I was able to stay behind. It's incredible to reflect on this moment, because I know that God had a reason for me to stay behind with only four guys, so I'm hoping that I was a blessing to them throughout the day.
We spent probably half an hour making a couple barricades but we didn't need many, so we were done fairly quickly. Most of the guys I was left with wanted to go down to the Rosebud Dam to finish work on a job that they had going down there, but it took us a while to actually get the okay and make our way down there.
When we actually got down there, it was quite the experience. We had a small fishing boat, power tools, lots of wood, and a platform that needed to be rebuilt. You will never experience anything like this. I had to use every muscle in my body the entire time we were out there pulling the boat around the platform, drilling, using an electric saw, and balance during the process. Crazy. But awesome.
Throughout the day, I obviously spent a ton of time with the guys, which was actually a lot of fun. I know that the reason I am in this place is to build relationships with the guys in the crew, so I'm trying my best to be a blessing to them in their work and in the conversations we have together. It's still a weird dynamic, because I'm still the new, white boy, but I know that after about four hours out on a lake fixing a platform, some good relationship building definitely happened.
So that was most of my day. I had to leave around 3:30pm, because I still needed to pick up the parts for Emily J.'s car in Valentine. We got back around 4pm and Greg and I went down to Valentine. It was a pretty long drive. We were both tired, especially from the heat, but Greg got McDonald's so everything was good.
We came back and we decided that we shouldn't go down to his shop to work on Emily's car until around 8pm, so I had some time to check on some things in my own car. My air conditioning hasn't been working since I arrived on the rez and other electrical things have steadily been failing. I needed to check all of my fuses, and I replaced a relay, but nothing seemed to be fixed. Really disappointing.
I don't think I have ever sweat so much in my life, as I did during that hour or so that I was trying to fix my car. So afterwards, I figured it might be good to drink some water, and get something to eat. I didn't want to use the oven since it was already 100 degrees in the house, so I just made myself a sandwich.
While I was eating, I realized I didn't have my debit card, so that was a scare. But I found it in Greg's truck. I chilled for about an hour until 8:30pm, and I decided I should try to take Emily's car down to Greg's garage and start working on it. That idea didn't stick around, because I realized that if I started work on Emily's car, and I ran into issues with it, then I would be stuck in White River. No fun.
So instead, I decided to go play catch with Jonny and Stephen. That also didn't last long. I can't remember the last time I played catch, and I have become pretty bad at throwing a baseball in the that time. Lame. But now I have time to rest. It's been a long hot day. Hopefully, tomorrow is cooler.
Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed yourself.
In Him,
Brenden
Things I learned today:
1. The best work-out routines involve a boat, power tools, lots of wood, and a platform.
2. Relationships are super powerful things.
3. James 5
The wonderful thing about going to work with the particular crew that I work with every day is that I never know what's going to happen. I never know how my day is going to look. And I never know if my day is going to be stressful, enjoyable, or particularly exciting. Today was no different.
I hopped right back into my daily routine of breakfast, time in the bible, devos, and prayer, which was awesome. I was kind of worried that LJ Week was going to throw a wrench in that habit, because often my devotional times didn't happen at a consistent time throughout the week of LJ.
I got to the office around 8am to sit around per usual. However, today sitting around wasn't all bad, because I had a chance to talk to Eric again for the first time since LJ Week, and I was excited to hear all that had been done in my absence. Unfortunately, it wasn't too impressive. I had big dreams, but it's okay to be disappointed every once in a while.
We got going around 9am. We had to make the grounds ready for the Children's Appreciation Day tomorrow, so that meant mowing a large plot of land and making barricades for parking or something of the sort. Half of us loaded into a truck to start the mowing and the other half stayed behind to make the barricades out of pallets. I was part of the crew that stayed behind.
God definitely worked that one out. I could have easily been sent to mow, I feel, but there happened to be just enough people already willing to go out there that I was able to stay behind. It's incredible to reflect on this moment, because I know that God had a reason for me to stay behind with only four guys, so I'm hoping that I was a blessing to them throughout the day.
We spent probably half an hour making a couple barricades but we didn't need many, so we were done fairly quickly. Most of the guys I was left with wanted to go down to the Rosebud Dam to finish work on a job that they had going down there, but it took us a while to actually get the okay and make our way down there.
When we actually got down there, it was quite the experience. We had a small fishing boat, power tools, lots of wood, and a platform that needed to be rebuilt. You will never experience anything like this. I had to use every muscle in my body the entire time we were out there pulling the boat around the platform, drilling, using an electric saw, and balance during the process. Crazy. But awesome.
Throughout the day, I obviously spent a ton of time with the guys, which was actually a lot of fun. I know that the reason I am in this place is to build relationships with the guys in the crew, so I'm trying my best to be a blessing to them in their work and in the conversations we have together. It's still a weird dynamic, because I'm still the new, white boy, but I know that after about four hours out on a lake fixing a platform, some good relationship building definitely happened.
So that was most of my day. I had to leave around 3:30pm, because I still needed to pick up the parts for Emily J.'s car in Valentine. We got back around 4pm and Greg and I went down to Valentine. It was a pretty long drive. We were both tired, especially from the heat, but Greg got McDonald's so everything was good.
We came back and we decided that we shouldn't go down to his shop to work on Emily's car until around 8pm, so I had some time to check on some things in my own car. My air conditioning hasn't been working since I arrived on the rez and other electrical things have steadily been failing. I needed to check all of my fuses, and I replaced a relay, but nothing seemed to be fixed. Really disappointing.
I don't think I have ever sweat so much in my life, as I did during that hour or so that I was trying to fix my car. So afterwards, I figured it might be good to drink some water, and get something to eat. I didn't want to use the oven since it was already 100 degrees in the house, so I just made myself a sandwich.
While I was eating, I realized I didn't have my debit card, so that was a scare. But I found it in Greg's truck. I chilled for about an hour until 8:30pm, and I decided I should try to take Emily's car down to Greg's garage and start working on it. That idea didn't stick around, because I realized that if I started work on Emily's car, and I ran into issues with it, then I would be stuck in White River. No fun.
So instead, I decided to go play catch with Jonny and Stephen. That also didn't last long. I can't remember the last time I played catch, and I have become pretty bad at throwing a baseball in the that time. Lame. But now I have time to rest. It's been a long hot day. Hopefully, tomorrow is cooler.
Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed yourself.
In Him,
Brenden
Things I learned today:
1. The best work-out routines involve a boat, power tools, lots of wood, and a platform.
2. Relationships are super powerful things.
3. James 5
Indian Days/ Day 23
It's Indian Days! For me that means no work today, which I'm not really complaining about because it's supposed to be 90 degrees all week, so I wouldn't mind only landscaping four out of the five work days this week. Is that a bad attitude? I don't know, but that's how I felt.
I was supposed to go to Saint Francis with Jonny and Stephen this morning to enjoy a parade and see some people, but I failed at waking up at a reasonable time. I also told Emily J. that I would go to NAPA with her to find some parts for her car, and I wasn't really sure when she wanted to go, so I wasn't really sure about going to SF.
I woke up around 11am, and just took some time to chill, read the bible and devos, and have something to eat. I have been super busy the last week with LJ, and I know I will be really busy the rest of my time out here, so any extra time I have to spend in the Bible is something I take advantage of. It was a pretty solid morning-- what was left of it at least.
By noon, everybody was gone. Stephen and Jonny were in SF, Laura was in Okreek, and Emily ventured out to Parmalee. And then there was one. I spent most of my afternoon anticipating being able to work on Emily J.'s car, so I didn't do much of anything for fear of missing her when she came back into town.
She texted me when she was on her way back in to town, then we went to check out her car. Unfortunately, while I was looking at her car, I assumed a couple things that I should have double checked while we were looking at it. So that caused a couple problems because I ended up ordering parts that we didn't actually need. Oops.
After I got back from NAPA, I was talking to Greg about what we ordered, and he had to set me straight in regards to what I should have been ordering. One more trip to NAPA. It should have been as simple as running in there and changing our order but '96 (the year of Emily J.'s car) was a transition year so the rear brakes could have been drums or rotors. Let's run around a little more.
We went back to Emily's to check what her rear brakes were composed of, and we found them to be calipers and rotors. Easy enough. We decided to pull her wheel off to check the caliper and pins to make sure we didn't have to buy more parts than we were already planning, so that took a couple minutes.
The first side looked really nice, which was weird because from what Greg was telling me, it shouldn't have looked that nice. So we put the wheel back on and drove it around for a couple minutes. There was definitely something wrong, but we had thought we heard it coming from the right side. It was definitely the left.
We drove it back to the Intern house because we have cement for a driveway, and we pulled the left side apart to see what damage had been done. It wasn't looking good. From what we could see, the rotor was fried, the pads were wearing unevenly, and the caliper might have been sticking. Hopefully something a little grease can't fix, but we had yet to see.
We put everything back together, then we decided to check around for parts. NAPA couldn't get their parts in until tomorrow morning, so it didn't hurt to check Valentine. Pronto in Valentine was about the same story, but their rotors were almost half price. Sold. We still had to wait, but it was definitely worth it.
Since we couldn't do anything with Emily J.'s car today, Greg, Emily, Laura, and I went to the fireworks shops that were running specials today. There was a tent selling buy one get three free!! Dang that was a sweet deal, but they only took cash! Lame. I never carry cash.
Everybody else took advantage of the deal, then Greg and I ran to see what specials were at another fireworks shop. Their deal wasn't as sweet, but I got away with four pack of 150 bottle rockets for a little of $6. I'm pretty sure I got the quality too! Solid.
When we got back, we needed dinner. Greg went to get dinner with Kelly, and the interns had a quick dinner together. We kinda rushed through dinner because there was still food that needed to be moved out of the fridge/ freezer in the school from LJ week. We had to move that, but the only place that had enough room was Greg's deep freeze in White River, so it took a little longer.
We moved everything without much of a problem. Bread and Ice cream were going to Greg's, but we also had some milk that needed to be moved. We didn't have room for it and nobody we knew wanted it, so we thought we could take it to some of the homeless people that hang out around the Mission shopping center.
When we got there, nobody was around. Weird. But I thought this just gives us an opportunity to rely on God to show us some people that need the milk, and sure enough, as we pulled up to the stop light about 100 yards down the road, there were a couple women sitting there.
So I pulled up near them and told them I had a weird question for them... "Do you want some milk". They kinda laughed at stared, one of them repeated "Milk?" in a tone of disbelief. I told them we don't have anything to do with it so we wanted to give it to somebody, so they said they would take it. One of them asked what we did to it, but we assured her it was still sealed and she took a jug too. As we pulled away, I thanked God for His provision.
When we got back from moving the food, Greg, Jonny, and I played around with some of the fireworks we had bought. This eventually turned into a fireworks war, which is always fun, but very hard to be victorious at.
Our games slowly died down, before Jonny asked if we wanted a sandwich. We thought we might try to hit Subway before it closes, so we hurried off. Unfortunately, our hurrying was to no avail. They had closed by the time we got there, so we went to Gus Stop instead-- little pizza's and Arizona Arnold Palmers are a good reason to frequent Gus Stop.
When we got back, everybody had started a game of Rockband, which was a ton of fun. Kelly, Greg, Stephen, Jonny, Laura, Emily, Emily J., and I played for probably a couple hours. We switched off between drums, guitar, and vocals, which gave us each a chance to show off our singing skills. Greg actually refused to sing or participate what-so-ever. We even started the song and handed him the mic! Nothing. Maybe next time.
After Rockband, the interns had a time of prayer together which is so important! I really enjoy being able to spend time in corporate prayer. It's always a beneficial and encouraging time for us to lift our voices to God and thank Him for His provision and ask Him to lead us throughout our week. Awesome.
I guess that's it. That's my Indian Day! Thanks for reading!!
God Bless,
Brenden
Things I learned today:
1. Cash is still king, if you want to take advantage of crazy firework deals.
2. Pray for all things. Big or small. (I know I listed this last week, but I'm constantly learning how true this is)
3. Acts 1:24
I was supposed to go to Saint Francis with Jonny and Stephen this morning to enjoy a parade and see some people, but I failed at waking up at a reasonable time. I also told Emily J. that I would go to NAPA with her to find some parts for her car, and I wasn't really sure when she wanted to go, so I wasn't really sure about going to SF.
I woke up around 11am, and just took some time to chill, read the bible and devos, and have something to eat. I have been super busy the last week with LJ, and I know I will be really busy the rest of my time out here, so any extra time I have to spend in the Bible is something I take advantage of. It was a pretty solid morning-- what was left of it at least.
By noon, everybody was gone. Stephen and Jonny were in SF, Laura was in Okreek, and Emily ventured out to Parmalee. And then there was one. I spent most of my afternoon anticipating being able to work on Emily J.'s car, so I didn't do much of anything for fear of missing her when she came back into town.
She texted me when she was on her way back in to town, then we went to check out her car. Unfortunately, while I was looking at her car, I assumed a couple things that I should have double checked while we were looking at it. So that caused a couple problems because I ended up ordering parts that we didn't actually need. Oops.
After I got back from NAPA, I was talking to Greg about what we ordered, and he had to set me straight in regards to what I should have been ordering. One more trip to NAPA. It should have been as simple as running in there and changing our order but '96 (the year of Emily J.'s car) was a transition year so the rear brakes could have been drums or rotors. Let's run around a little more.
We went back to Emily's to check what her rear brakes were composed of, and we found them to be calipers and rotors. Easy enough. We decided to pull her wheel off to check the caliper and pins to make sure we didn't have to buy more parts than we were already planning, so that took a couple minutes.
The first side looked really nice, which was weird because from what Greg was telling me, it shouldn't have looked that nice. So we put the wheel back on and drove it around for a couple minutes. There was definitely something wrong, but we had thought we heard it coming from the right side. It was definitely the left.
We drove it back to the Intern house because we have cement for a driveway, and we pulled the left side apart to see what damage had been done. It wasn't looking good. From what we could see, the rotor was fried, the pads were wearing unevenly, and the caliper might have been sticking. Hopefully something a little grease can't fix, but we had yet to see.
We put everything back together, then we decided to check around for parts. NAPA couldn't get their parts in until tomorrow morning, so it didn't hurt to check Valentine. Pronto in Valentine was about the same story, but their rotors were almost half price. Sold. We still had to wait, but it was definitely worth it.
Since we couldn't do anything with Emily J.'s car today, Greg, Emily, Laura, and I went to the fireworks shops that were running specials today. There was a tent selling buy one get three free!! Dang that was a sweet deal, but they only took cash! Lame. I never carry cash.
Everybody else took advantage of the deal, then Greg and I ran to see what specials were at another fireworks shop. Their deal wasn't as sweet, but I got away with four pack of 150 bottle rockets for a little of $6. I'm pretty sure I got the quality too! Solid.
When we got back, we needed dinner. Greg went to get dinner with Kelly, and the interns had a quick dinner together. We kinda rushed through dinner because there was still food that needed to be moved out of the fridge/ freezer in the school from LJ week. We had to move that, but the only place that had enough room was Greg's deep freeze in White River, so it took a little longer.
We moved everything without much of a problem. Bread and Ice cream were going to Greg's, but we also had some milk that needed to be moved. We didn't have room for it and nobody we knew wanted it, so we thought we could take it to some of the homeless people that hang out around the Mission shopping center.
When we got there, nobody was around. Weird. But I thought this just gives us an opportunity to rely on God to show us some people that need the milk, and sure enough, as we pulled up to the stop light about 100 yards down the road, there were a couple women sitting there.
So I pulled up near them and told them I had a weird question for them... "Do you want some milk". They kinda laughed at stared, one of them repeated "Milk?" in a tone of disbelief. I told them we don't have anything to do with it so we wanted to give it to somebody, so they said they would take it. One of them asked what we did to it, but we assured her it was still sealed and she took a jug too. As we pulled away, I thanked God for His provision.
When we got back from moving the food, Greg, Jonny, and I played around with some of the fireworks we had bought. This eventually turned into a fireworks war, which is always fun, but very hard to be victorious at.
Our games slowly died down, before Jonny asked if we wanted a sandwich. We thought we might try to hit Subway before it closes, so we hurried off. Unfortunately, our hurrying was to no avail. They had closed by the time we got there, so we went to Gus Stop instead-- little pizza's and Arizona Arnold Palmers are a good reason to frequent Gus Stop.
When we got back, everybody had started a game of Rockband, which was a ton of fun. Kelly, Greg, Stephen, Jonny, Laura, Emily, Emily J., and I played for probably a couple hours. We switched off between drums, guitar, and vocals, which gave us each a chance to show off our singing skills. Greg actually refused to sing or participate what-so-ever. We even started the song and handed him the mic! Nothing. Maybe next time.
After Rockband, the interns had a time of prayer together which is so important! I really enjoy being able to spend time in corporate prayer. It's always a beneficial and encouraging time for us to lift our voices to God and thank Him for His provision and ask Him to lead us throughout our week. Awesome.
I guess that's it. That's my Indian Day! Thanks for reading!!
God Bless,
Brenden
Things I learned today:
1. Cash is still king, if you want to take advantage of crazy firework deals.
2. Pray for all things. Big or small. (I know I listed this last week, but I'm constantly learning how true this is)
3. Acts 1:24
Monday, June 25, 2012
Switchin' Things Up/ Day 22
Sunday. My third Sunday on the Rez... I don't know where I'm going with that. It just seems like a significant benchmark for some reason.
This Sunday was a pretty typical Sunday. I woke up around 9am to get ready to go out to Pastor Utecht's church in Rosebud. I thought I was going to go with Daniel, Sean, and Stephen, but when I woke up Daniel and Sean had already left with Jonny and Greg, who had gone out to a church service in Spring Creek. Well then.
It actually worked out okay though. Earlier this week, I had thought about switchin' things up and going to Pastor Utecht's church in Parmalee-- he had said it was his favorite service to pastor-- and since Laura decided to go with Stephen to Rosebud, I had the opportunity to actually go to Parm church, as they call it.
Parm church is a night service though, so I had a lot of time before that service started. Since I still hadn't caught up on my blogs, I spent a good majority of my morning working through those. By lunch, I was just about finished before Stephen called me to have me drop off a box of t-shirts with another church group that was coming out to the rez through Lakota Journey.
After I had met up with that group, I came back to finish up my blog/ eat lunch. I started thinking about the fact that my car needed an oil change, and that I should probably do it today since I'm going to start up with the employment training office again this coming week. Cars. Not always the most enjoyable possession.
Greg said I could use his garage, so that was a blessing, for sure. I still needed the oil and filter though, and NAPA was closed for the day. Looks like I'm going down to Valentine. Greg told me that Bomgaars was the best place to go-- some stuff is half the price there as it is here.
But before I could leave, the interns had to have a team meeting. We talked about a lot of stuff, mostly pertaining to the upcoming week, and how everything was going to work now that LJ was over and we had the rest of the summer to devote our time to our volunteer sites. We had some pretty lengthy discussions and were able to grow from those, I think, so it was a good meeting overall.
Now, Valentine. It's a half hour drive to Valentine, so I wasn't terribly excited to drive all the way down there. Though, sometimes it is nice to drive by yourself and just think. But I guess I wasn't really in the mood to think, because I found a Muse cd in the car and pretty much just rocked out from Mission to Valentine. Pretty great.
Once I got to Bomgaars, it took me a while to find what I was look for and check out, but I was back on the road in about half an hour. On the way back up to Mission I called Eric to let him know that I would be back in the office tomorrow, and he told me that it was a holiday so I didn't have to come in. I didn't even realize Indian Days was an official holiday, but that's pretty cool.
I debated changing my oil tomorrow since I have the day off, but Emily needed my car to go to Parmalee to hang out with the kids there, so I definitely had to get it done today. But it was already getting kind of late in the afternoon, and I kind of wanted to eat dinner before I went to Parm church, so I decided I should just do it after church. Greg concurred.
Church was pretty sweet! Very different from Rosebud. There are typically more white people in a Rosebud service than there were in the Parm service, so that was one difference. I think I liked it better that way though, because I'm out here to meet people the people of the Rosebud Reservation, and most white people are ranchers outside of the reservation. The building was very different too. More of a homey feel instead of a official Lutheran service feel. Utecht was even in a t-shirt and jeans instead of the traditional pastor's robes.
After church, we had to stop back by the house to pick up my car, and bring it out to Greg's, so by the time we got out there, it was at least 9pm. I don't even know how long it took me to change my oil. I've done it a million times before, but Greg and I ended up sharing some tools-- like the oil pan and jack-- so that made it take a little longer.
It was a pretty good time though, especially after we finished up the work on our vehicles. When we had finished, we just sat outside and had a pretty solid heart to heart as we used to call them. We talked about all sorts of things like trials and tribulation, God's plan, the essence of following His call, maturity, being a man of God, relationships, and a plethora of other topics.
We finished up with a time of prayer just to worship God and thank Him for all He was doing out on the Reservation. Absolutely incredible. It was pretty crazy to look at the clock by the time we were done, because it was almost 2am. But nothing good happens after 2am, as they say, so we headed back into town.
On the way back, I narrowly escaped being pulled over by some cops looking to bust somebody for drugs. I live right off of a rather winding road, and I followed all the traffic laws on the way back to my house, so the cop didn't have a reason to pull me over, but he was definitely following me intentionally. That was exciting.
Now it's bed time. Indian Days is happening tomorrow so I have no idea what I'll be up to! Thanks for reading. Talk to you again soon.
Until Tomorrow,
Brenden
Things I learned today:
1. Muse can make a drive down to Nebraska much more enjoyable.
2. Cops pull so many people over in Mission at night, and usually it's an attempt to bust druggies.
3. Titus 2
This Sunday was a pretty typical Sunday. I woke up around 9am to get ready to go out to Pastor Utecht's church in Rosebud. I thought I was going to go with Daniel, Sean, and Stephen, but when I woke up Daniel and Sean had already left with Jonny and Greg, who had gone out to a church service in Spring Creek. Well then.
It actually worked out okay though. Earlier this week, I had thought about switchin' things up and going to Pastor Utecht's church in Parmalee-- he had said it was his favorite service to pastor-- and since Laura decided to go with Stephen to Rosebud, I had the opportunity to actually go to Parm church, as they call it.
Parm church is a night service though, so I had a lot of time before that service started. Since I still hadn't caught up on my blogs, I spent a good majority of my morning working through those. By lunch, I was just about finished before Stephen called me to have me drop off a box of t-shirts with another church group that was coming out to the rez through Lakota Journey.
After I had met up with that group, I came back to finish up my blog/ eat lunch. I started thinking about the fact that my car needed an oil change, and that I should probably do it today since I'm going to start up with the employment training office again this coming week. Cars. Not always the most enjoyable possession.
Greg said I could use his garage, so that was a blessing, for sure. I still needed the oil and filter though, and NAPA was closed for the day. Looks like I'm going down to Valentine. Greg told me that Bomgaars was the best place to go-- some stuff is half the price there as it is here.
But before I could leave, the interns had to have a team meeting. We talked about a lot of stuff, mostly pertaining to the upcoming week, and how everything was going to work now that LJ was over and we had the rest of the summer to devote our time to our volunteer sites. We had some pretty lengthy discussions and were able to grow from those, I think, so it was a good meeting overall.
Now, Valentine. It's a half hour drive to Valentine, so I wasn't terribly excited to drive all the way down there. Though, sometimes it is nice to drive by yourself and just think. But I guess I wasn't really in the mood to think, because I found a Muse cd in the car and pretty much just rocked out from Mission to Valentine. Pretty great.
Once I got to Bomgaars, it took me a while to find what I was look for and check out, but I was back on the road in about half an hour. On the way back up to Mission I called Eric to let him know that I would be back in the office tomorrow, and he told me that it was a holiday so I didn't have to come in. I didn't even realize Indian Days was an official holiday, but that's pretty cool.
I debated changing my oil tomorrow since I have the day off, but Emily needed my car to go to Parmalee to hang out with the kids there, so I definitely had to get it done today. But it was already getting kind of late in the afternoon, and I kind of wanted to eat dinner before I went to Parm church, so I decided I should just do it after church. Greg concurred.
Church was pretty sweet! Very different from Rosebud. There are typically more white people in a Rosebud service than there were in the Parm service, so that was one difference. I think I liked it better that way though, because I'm out here to meet people the people of the Rosebud Reservation, and most white people are ranchers outside of the reservation. The building was very different too. More of a homey feel instead of a official Lutheran service feel. Utecht was even in a t-shirt and jeans instead of the traditional pastor's robes.
After church, we had to stop back by the house to pick up my car, and bring it out to Greg's, so by the time we got out there, it was at least 9pm. I don't even know how long it took me to change my oil. I've done it a million times before, but Greg and I ended up sharing some tools-- like the oil pan and jack-- so that made it take a little longer.
It was a pretty good time though, especially after we finished up the work on our vehicles. When we had finished, we just sat outside and had a pretty solid heart to heart as we used to call them. We talked about all sorts of things like trials and tribulation, God's plan, the essence of following His call, maturity, being a man of God, relationships, and a plethora of other topics.
We finished up with a time of prayer just to worship God and thank Him for all He was doing out on the Reservation. Absolutely incredible. It was pretty crazy to look at the clock by the time we were done, because it was almost 2am. But nothing good happens after 2am, as they say, so we headed back into town.
On the way back, I narrowly escaped being pulled over by some cops looking to bust somebody for drugs. I live right off of a rather winding road, and I followed all the traffic laws on the way back to my house, so the cop didn't have a reason to pull me over, but he was definitely following me intentionally. That was exciting.
Now it's bed time. Indian Days is happening tomorrow so I have no idea what I'll be up to! Thanks for reading. Talk to you again soon.
Until Tomorrow,
Brenden
Things I learned today:
1. Muse can make a drive down to Nebraska much more enjoyable.
2. Cops pull so many people over in Mission at night, and usually it's an attempt to bust druggies.
3. Titus 2
Sunday, June 24, 2012
Sleep All Day, Why Don't Ya?/ Day 21
Today started out a lot different than yesterday. By about 8hrs. I've found that I always have valiant intentions when it comes to waking up in the morning, but I have a hard time following through. This morning was a pretty good representation of that fact.
My alarm went off at 8am. I think I remember hitting it so it would stop going off, but other than that I didn't move. Then Daniel called me around 10am and I answered the phone, but hung up on him cause I couldn't understand what he was saying over the wind. I texted him saying I had just woke up, but I didn't actually get out of bed. Oops. I finally woke up again around 1pm, rolled out of bed, and decided I should probably get started on my day. Crazy.
I couldn't believe how long I had slept for. It was almost 11hrs of sleep overall, and I can't remember the last time I got that much sleep. It felt good, but I wasted a whole day. Lame. Greg, Brian, Daniel, and Sean thought so too. The reason Daniel had called was to ask if I could come out and help them with the roof. I felt pretty bad.
They all got back about a half hour after I woke up, gave me some crap about all the help I was this morning, then we all just chilled. Emily got lice, so her and Laura were picking through her hair and treating that issue during this time. Then, when they were finished with the first round of treatment, we decided to start our meeting about LJ Week to reflect on how everything went.
We probably talked for an hour or two about the week, our specific roles throughout the week, and pointers for next year. Then Jonny went out to Greg's, I stayed back to work on my blog, and the girls went to go get lice shampoo.
A couple hours later we had a quick dinner before heading out to SF for a pow-wow. It was so interesting to be a part of that experience, because from what I have learned about pow-wow's they are just a huge celebration. On one hand it's incredible to see them continuing a tradition that has been passed down for generations. The ceremony had a sort of reverence about it when I started thinking about how long ago it was that these dances must have originated. But on the other, it was interesting to note that there didn't seem to be many people there, so maybe the celebration isn't as important to some people in SF? There was just so much I didn't understand.
We ended up staying for a couple hours. We saw a couple kids most of us knew-- Jessie, Jonnie, Echo, and Keone. We also had the opportunity to meet Jessie's uncle, Richard, I think it was. That small introduction was a pretty sweet thing that I hope God is able to use in the future, because we don't often have the opportunity to meet adults in SF-- they know us as the kids club, so they send their kids but we seldom have the opportunity to create relationships with them.
Afterwards, we all came back to our house to meet up with Greg, Brian, and Daniel, then we just kind of hung out. Greg and I ran to the gas station and I met a girl named Willow, who works in the baked goods department of the grocery store, Buche's, here in town-- one of Greg's many friends on the Rez. She hooked us up with the menu of baked goods for the week. She's pretty cool.
When we got back everybody started a movie, while I skyped Brooke. We had a pretty chill night. Church in the morning, so I should get to bed. We'll talk again soon!
God Bless,
Brenden
Things I learned today:
1. Sometimes it's nice to sleep for 11hrs, but it's not a recommended habit.
2. Mayo and a plastic bag are the first steps to controlling a lice infestation.
3. James 3
Let's Blow Something Up/ Day 20
Friday. 5am wake-up call. But not really.
I had every intention of waking up at 5am this morning. I even considered pulling an all-nighter since I had been getting to bed late every night and the few hours of sleep that I would get just wouldn't be worth it. I did decide to go to bed, though, and that was my first mistake.
Instead of getting up at 5am with Emily to see the first church off, I slept right through my alarm and woke up around 7am. I felt pretty bad. Fortunately for me, Emily had the kitchen key, so she was able to get the key to the dorms from the kitchen, and I wasn't needed this morning.
When I woke up, I started checking the bathrooms/ showers to see if anything had been touched. It didn't look promising. I went over to the cafeteria where SSEFC was loading up, and on my way over, I asked a gentleman from one of the churches that was supposed to be cleaning the bathrooms if he could get some guys to do that quickly. He didn't say much.
I hung out by SSEFC's bus for a while, because I wanted to make sure I said bye to my brother and sister who had come out for the week. I said quite a few good-bye's to my siblings, friends, the kitchen crew, and the Cayton's as bus and individual vehicles slowly pulled away. Our last good-bye's were said to Lauren and John, then it was time to get started.
By this time, all of the other churches had left as well, so we needed to go through the dorms and make sure everything was clean before we moved back into our house. I checked the bathroom one more time to find that the cleaning hadn't been finished. Annoying. I checked the showers and there wasn't much to see there. I can only assume those had been cleaned by the last church. Next year we need a check-out process.
So I needed to finish cleaning my stuff out of the intern room, clean the bathrooms, and make sure everything else was in order, before we returned the keys. I moved out of the intern room pretty quickly. We were all so excited to be back in our house. Dorm life is fun, but nothing beats having your own house to live in.
After I moved my stuff over to the house, I started scrubbing the sinks that were left unfinished. It didn't take long, but I was still disappointed that leaders and students alike failed to finish the job like they were asked. You live and you learn, I guess.
While I was scrubbing the last couple sinks, Emily and Laura were kind enough to help me wipe down the toilets, since everything was cleaned much better on the girls side. When we were done, it was time to go over to the cafeteria to start moving the extra food from the week to our house, so we could figure out what to do with it.
There was a lot of left over food-- one of the beautiful things of LJ Week. We probably won't have to go grocery shopping for a long time, because by the time we were done, we had a packed fridge, boxes upon boxes of food in the basement, and there was still food left over in the fridge and freezer at the school. Pretty awesome.
Once we were done moving everything, I called Greg, Sarah, and Emily to see if they needed any food. Sarah and Emily are both going to be pretty busy the rest of the summer and they will be doing a lot of moving around, so both of them say they don't need anything, but Greg was definitely interested. Greg came over to grab some brunch, then we ran a couple errands (his errands, but I went with because he hates driving alone), and we ended up finishing clearing the fridge by mid-afternoon.
After we finished at the school, I came back to try to work on my blog a little bit, but since I had gotten so little sleep the night before, my body just shut down. I ended up sleeping for a couple hours, before everybody decided to go to Restaurant in White River.
Dinner was great! I had never been to Restaurant before, but Stephen had told me that it was pretty reasonably priced and you got a good amount of food for what you payed. I would say everything lived up to what I had been told.
Now that dinner was out of the way, it was time to blow some stuff up. Sometime this past week, Greg and I had found a bowling ball that I decided we should blow up. I don't remember if I blogged about it or not, but it was a pretty big moment in my life. I had been anticipating this night all week, but Greg forgot the bowling ball.
So I had to drive back to Mission to get the bowling ball, which worked out well, because the girls had slept through dinner and they wanted to come out to Greg's too. We picked up the bowling ball and the girls, then we headed back up to Greg's house. When we got there, they were already shooting at stuff, so I had the opportunity to shoot an AR-15 (a civilian assault rifle, similar to the M-16). That was pretty sweet.
After we played around with the AR-15 for a while, it was time to drill the bowling ball and fill it with tannerite. For those of you who are unfamiliar with Tannerite, it is a completely legal impact explosive made from ammonium nitrate and aluminum powder that can be found at some local hardware stores or online. It's not something we made ourselves and the mixture will only explode using a high powered rifle round, thereby, increasing the safety of the explosive.
Once the ball was filled with Tannerite, Greg put the ball on an H-brace and started firing at it with his AR-15. That didn't work so well because his scope wasn't zeroed in, so basically he kept taking chunks out of the bowling ball, but no explosions. Time for the .30-06.
Greg took one shot with his .30-06 and the bowling ball just disintegrated. We didn't even see an explosion! It was there one minute, then it was gone. That was exactly what I was hoping for. So cool. And what was even cooler was the fact that Laura was there to catch everything on her Canon T3, so we were able to watch a frame by frame of the ball blowing up. Pretty sick.
So blowing up the the bowling ball was everything everybody was hoping for, but we just couldn't stop there. Daniel had some fireworks with him, so we just couldn't help but play with those as well. Bottle rockets and a couple artillery shells made for a good rest of the night.
Just as we were finishing up, a storm started rolling in. Craziest lighting I have ever seen. I'm pretty sure we could see it striking the ground in the distance. Unfortunately, Greg had left his compressor at Anne Moran's house so we had to rush out there to throw a tarp over it. We made it well before the storm came through, and we didn't see any damage from the storm when it passed over, so it was a pretty cool storm to watch.
We finished out the night by watching a movie, and everybody was more than ready for bed by the end of that.
Until tomorrow,
Brenden
Things I learned today:
1. A bowling ball is made mostly of cork.
2. Any time you can combine guns and an explosion, you're bound to have a good time.
3. James 2:26
I had every intention of waking up at 5am this morning. I even considered pulling an all-nighter since I had been getting to bed late every night and the few hours of sleep that I would get just wouldn't be worth it. I did decide to go to bed, though, and that was my first mistake.
Instead of getting up at 5am with Emily to see the first church off, I slept right through my alarm and woke up around 7am. I felt pretty bad. Fortunately for me, Emily had the kitchen key, so she was able to get the key to the dorms from the kitchen, and I wasn't needed this morning.
When I woke up, I started checking the bathrooms/ showers to see if anything had been touched. It didn't look promising. I went over to the cafeteria where SSEFC was loading up, and on my way over, I asked a gentleman from one of the churches that was supposed to be cleaning the bathrooms if he could get some guys to do that quickly. He didn't say much.
I hung out by SSEFC's bus for a while, because I wanted to make sure I said bye to my brother and sister who had come out for the week. I said quite a few good-bye's to my siblings, friends, the kitchen crew, and the Cayton's as bus and individual vehicles slowly pulled away. Our last good-bye's were said to Lauren and John, then it was time to get started.
By this time, all of the other churches had left as well, so we needed to go through the dorms and make sure everything was clean before we moved back into our house. I checked the bathroom one more time to find that the cleaning hadn't been finished. Annoying. I checked the showers and there wasn't much to see there. I can only assume those had been cleaned by the last church. Next year we need a check-out process.
So I needed to finish cleaning my stuff out of the intern room, clean the bathrooms, and make sure everything else was in order, before we returned the keys. I moved out of the intern room pretty quickly. We were all so excited to be back in our house. Dorm life is fun, but nothing beats having your own house to live in.
After I moved my stuff over to the house, I started scrubbing the sinks that were left unfinished. It didn't take long, but I was still disappointed that leaders and students alike failed to finish the job like they were asked. You live and you learn, I guess.
While I was scrubbing the last couple sinks, Emily and Laura were kind enough to help me wipe down the toilets, since everything was cleaned much better on the girls side. When we were done, it was time to go over to the cafeteria to start moving the extra food from the week to our house, so we could figure out what to do with it.
There was a lot of left over food-- one of the beautiful things of LJ Week. We probably won't have to go grocery shopping for a long time, because by the time we were done, we had a packed fridge, boxes upon boxes of food in the basement, and there was still food left over in the fridge and freezer at the school. Pretty awesome.
Once we were done moving everything, I called Greg, Sarah, and Emily to see if they needed any food. Sarah and Emily are both going to be pretty busy the rest of the summer and they will be doing a lot of moving around, so both of them say they don't need anything, but Greg was definitely interested. Greg came over to grab some brunch, then we ran a couple errands (his errands, but I went with because he hates driving alone), and we ended up finishing clearing the fridge by mid-afternoon.
After we finished at the school, I came back to try to work on my blog a little bit, but since I had gotten so little sleep the night before, my body just shut down. I ended up sleeping for a couple hours, before everybody decided to go to Restaurant in White River.
Dinner was great! I had never been to Restaurant before, but Stephen had told me that it was pretty reasonably priced and you got a good amount of food for what you payed. I would say everything lived up to what I had been told.
Now that dinner was out of the way, it was time to blow some stuff up. Sometime this past week, Greg and I had found a bowling ball that I decided we should blow up. I don't remember if I blogged about it or not, but it was a pretty big moment in my life. I had been anticipating this night all week, but Greg forgot the bowling ball.
So I had to drive back to Mission to get the bowling ball, which worked out well, because the girls had slept through dinner and they wanted to come out to Greg's too. We picked up the bowling ball and the girls, then we headed back up to Greg's house. When we got there, they were already shooting at stuff, so I had the opportunity to shoot an AR-15 (a civilian assault rifle, similar to the M-16). That was pretty sweet.
After we played around with the AR-15 for a while, it was time to drill the bowling ball and fill it with tannerite. For those of you who are unfamiliar with Tannerite, it is a completely legal impact explosive made from ammonium nitrate and aluminum powder that can be found at some local hardware stores or online. It's not something we made ourselves and the mixture will only explode using a high powered rifle round, thereby, increasing the safety of the explosive.
Once the ball was filled with Tannerite, Greg put the ball on an H-brace and started firing at it with his AR-15. That didn't work so well because his scope wasn't zeroed in, so basically he kept taking chunks out of the bowling ball, but no explosions. Time for the .30-06.
Greg took one shot with his .30-06 and the bowling ball just disintegrated. We didn't even see an explosion! It was there one minute, then it was gone. That was exactly what I was hoping for. So cool. And what was even cooler was the fact that Laura was there to catch everything on her Canon T3, so we were able to watch a frame by frame of the ball blowing up. Pretty sick.
So blowing up the the bowling ball was everything everybody was hoping for, but we just couldn't stop there. Daniel had some fireworks with him, so we just couldn't help but play with those as well. Bottle rockets and a couple artillery shells made for a good rest of the night.
Just as we were finishing up, a storm started rolling in. Craziest lighting I have ever seen. I'm pretty sure we could see it striking the ground in the distance. Unfortunately, Greg had left his compressor at Anne Moran's house so we had to rush out there to throw a tarp over it. We made it well before the storm came through, and we didn't see any damage from the storm when it passed over, so it was a pretty cool storm to watch.
We finished out the night by watching a movie, and everybody was more than ready for bed by the end of that.
Until tomorrow,
Brenden
Things I learned today:
1. A bowling ball is made mostly of cork.
2. Any time you can combine guns and an explosion, you're bound to have a good time.
3. James 2:26
Saturday, June 23, 2012
Sleep Is For The Weak/ Day 19
Sometimes it is nice to have structure in your life. A routine keeps people focused, and often ensures that the necessary tasks are completed in order for a day to run smoothly. But it makes for a pretty boring story. So instead of running through my morning routine, I'm going to start the recollection of my day in the afternoon.
Everything went smoothly Thursday morning, and now it was time for me to decide what I was going to do with myself. Since I arrived in Mission, I have continued to discover my love for the game of frisbee. Whether I'm just tossing a frisbee around or actually playing a game of Ultimate Frisbee, I always enjoy myself. So that's what I did Thursday afternoon.
I played with a couple different people at different times, but it was a lot of fun just hanging out in the school yard, tossing a frisbee. Since I spent probably two or three hours out there, I ended up getting really good at a couple different tosses, which was pretty exciting. We ended our time of frisbee with a two on two game of Ultimate. It was a little unorthodox, but it was fun! Sean and Luke won.
After Ultimate, Greg called me and asked if I would be able to meet him out at Anne's place to help with some of the roof. So I met him out there and spent about an hour learning a little bit about roofing. I mostly just handed Brian and Greg materials, but I was able to ask questions, so I was complaining.
It got pretty hot pretty quick, so we decided to take a break from working on the roof. Since today was the last day of kids club, Greg and I wanted to go out one last time to see the kids, so we headed out that way and got there a little before dinner time.
I love the kids of SF so much. I decided that I would give a couple kids piggy back rides today, since it was the last day and I had said no most of the time I had been out there earlier in the week. I think piggy back rides goes all the way back to when our church first came out to the rez. It was almost a way we could connect with the kids and they absolutely loved it, so year after year they would ask our group for piggy back rides and it quickly became a staple activity of kids club.
When it was time to bring all the kids home, I was definitely sad that our week was over, but I continued to take heart in the fact that I was here for the rest of the summer. I am definitely going to make it a point to spend time with some of those kids from SF for the next couple weeks that I have here. I'm glad it wasn't just goodbye this time around.
By the time we had finally gotten back to the school, it had gotten really late. I should have come back earlier but Greg and Brian left after a few hours, and I sent Stephen off without me cause I didn't realize what time it was when he was leaving. So needless to say, most of the churches were more than ready to get started with the rest of the night. Especially considering tonight was end-of-the-week cleaning.
Somewhere in between getting off the bus, and realizing how much we still had to do tonight, I found out Lauren had gotten sick. She was "out of commission", so it was totally the Interns show. Time to step up and get this show on the road. We had to get through snack, sharing, and worship, before we started to split up all the churches into their designated cleaning areas. Craziness.
I had a lot of on my mind and a lot to organize in a short amount of time, so I quickly got the interns together and told them my plan. First we needed to recognize the kitchen crew for all of the amazing work they had done this week. Seriously, without them, we wouldn't have an LJ Week. So we got them together and handed out gifts to each of them. It was awesome to be able to take that time to thank them.
Afterwards, we started snack, and as soon as the snack line had died down, we started sharing/worship. While everybody was worshiping, Emily and I ran back to the dorms to make sure we had enough cleaning supplies to make everyone's time worthwhile. We organized those supplies, then we waited for Laura to send everybody over to the dorms.
When everybody got to the dorms, I divided them up by church and sent a specific number of them to different stations that needed to be cleaned. Overall, after the initial hour or so of craziness, the actual cleanig went well. Everybody was willing and able, so most of the churches were done within the hour.
The interns stayed up to finish up some last minute things in the cafeteria. The kitchen crew finished up a couple things, Laura prayed, then I followed the kitchen crew over to the dorms to lock those up, before we locked up the kitchen. All of the interns were probably back to the dorms by 1am or so.
I did my rounds quickly to make sure nobody was left just hanging around, since cleaning had obviously caused most to be up passed the curfew. I only had to kick a few people out of hallways/ couch rooms, telling them I didn't really care if they went to sleep or not, as long as they weren't in the hallways. But most had gone to bed on their own.
I visited some guys from SSEFC, who were still up, and we talked for a while. Some pranking happened that I did not participate in, but was out of my control. Everybody had a few laughs, and both parties who were pranked took it well, which was nice because I didn't want to have to break up any fights that late at night. Then I went to bed.
I had planned on being up at 5am to see the first church off, and make sure everything was unlocked for them to be going back and forth between the dorms and their cars, so sleep was necessary.
I hope you enjoyed reading about today as much as I enjoyed living it. Thanks for reading!
Until Tomorrow,
Brenden
Things I learned today:
1. New ways to throw a frisbee
2. Roofing is harder for tall people, because of all the bending over one has to do.
3. James 1
Everything went smoothly Thursday morning, and now it was time for me to decide what I was going to do with myself. Since I arrived in Mission, I have continued to discover my love for the game of frisbee. Whether I'm just tossing a frisbee around or actually playing a game of Ultimate Frisbee, I always enjoy myself. So that's what I did Thursday afternoon.
I played with a couple different people at different times, but it was a lot of fun just hanging out in the school yard, tossing a frisbee. Since I spent probably two or three hours out there, I ended up getting really good at a couple different tosses, which was pretty exciting. We ended our time of frisbee with a two on two game of Ultimate. It was a little unorthodox, but it was fun! Sean and Luke won.
After Ultimate, Greg called me and asked if I would be able to meet him out at Anne's place to help with some of the roof. So I met him out there and spent about an hour learning a little bit about roofing. I mostly just handed Brian and Greg materials, but I was able to ask questions, so I was complaining.
It got pretty hot pretty quick, so we decided to take a break from working on the roof. Since today was the last day of kids club, Greg and I wanted to go out one last time to see the kids, so we headed out that way and got there a little before dinner time.
I love the kids of SF so much. I decided that I would give a couple kids piggy back rides today, since it was the last day and I had said no most of the time I had been out there earlier in the week. I think piggy back rides goes all the way back to when our church first came out to the rez. It was almost a way we could connect with the kids and they absolutely loved it, so year after year they would ask our group for piggy back rides and it quickly became a staple activity of kids club.
When it was time to bring all the kids home, I was definitely sad that our week was over, but I continued to take heart in the fact that I was here for the rest of the summer. I am definitely going to make it a point to spend time with some of those kids from SF for the next couple weeks that I have here. I'm glad it wasn't just goodbye this time around.
By the time we had finally gotten back to the school, it had gotten really late. I should have come back earlier but Greg and Brian left after a few hours, and I sent Stephen off without me cause I didn't realize what time it was when he was leaving. So needless to say, most of the churches were more than ready to get started with the rest of the night. Especially considering tonight was end-of-the-week cleaning.
Somewhere in between getting off the bus, and realizing how much we still had to do tonight, I found out Lauren had gotten sick. She was "out of commission", so it was totally the Interns show. Time to step up and get this show on the road. We had to get through snack, sharing, and worship, before we started to split up all the churches into their designated cleaning areas. Craziness.
I had a lot of on my mind and a lot to organize in a short amount of time, so I quickly got the interns together and told them my plan. First we needed to recognize the kitchen crew for all of the amazing work they had done this week. Seriously, without them, we wouldn't have an LJ Week. So we got them together and handed out gifts to each of them. It was awesome to be able to take that time to thank them.
Afterwards, we started snack, and as soon as the snack line had died down, we started sharing/worship. While everybody was worshiping, Emily and I ran back to the dorms to make sure we had enough cleaning supplies to make everyone's time worthwhile. We organized those supplies, then we waited for Laura to send everybody over to the dorms.
When everybody got to the dorms, I divided them up by church and sent a specific number of them to different stations that needed to be cleaned. Overall, after the initial hour or so of craziness, the actual cleanig went well. Everybody was willing and able, so most of the churches were done within the hour.
The interns stayed up to finish up some last minute things in the cafeteria. The kitchen crew finished up a couple things, Laura prayed, then I followed the kitchen crew over to the dorms to lock those up, before we locked up the kitchen. All of the interns were probably back to the dorms by 1am or so.
I did my rounds quickly to make sure nobody was left just hanging around, since cleaning had obviously caused most to be up passed the curfew. I only had to kick a few people out of hallways/ couch rooms, telling them I didn't really care if they went to sleep or not, as long as they weren't in the hallways. But most had gone to bed on their own.
I visited some guys from SSEFC, who were still up, and we talked for a while. Some pranking happened that I did not participate in, but was out of my control. Everybody had a few laughs, and both parties who were pranked took it well, which was nice because I didn't want to have to break up any fights that late at night. Then I went to bed.
I had planned on being up at 5am to see the first church off, and make sure everything was unlocked for them to be going back and forth between the dorms and their cars, so sleep was necessary.
I hope you enjoyed reading about today as much as I enjoyed living it. Thanks for reading!
Until Tomorrow,
Brenden
Things I learned today:
1. New ways to throw a frisbee
2. Roofing is harder for tall people, because of all the bending over one has to do.
3. James 1
Cruising/ Day 18
By this time, you are all aware that I had a hard time keeping up with my blog during LJ Week. There was so much going on every day that I just couldn't keep up with the blog posts, especially since I didn't have wifi in the dorms. I'm going to try to keep these next couple posts to a quick overview, so that I can go back to my daily blog posts.
I went through my routine on Wednesday morning just the same as I had the past couple days-- nothing new until it came time for session. Session that morning was shared with us by a man named Bob. He is a pastor at a local church called the Carpenter Shop. He came to speak to us about how his ministry got started and the ways God was working in his life out here on the rez.
Bob's sermon was very different than Pastor Utecht's the day before, but it was really cool having a native pastor come to speak to us. They are the ones who are continuing the ministry out here after we are gone, so it's important to hear their perspective especially during LJ week.
After session, it was time for brunch. Then I just kind of chilled for a couple hours. By this time, I remember thinking that the week was tiring me out, but at the same time, I was sad that the week was almost over. I had considered starting to work on my blog, but Greg called asking if I wanted to help him with something.
Greg always mumbles, or his phone is broken, so I didn't really know what I he was asking of me, but I told him I would meet him in the front of the cafeteria. When I got over there, he said he needed to pick up supplies for Anne Moran's roof, because he and a couple people from SSEFC were repairing part of it. He really hates driving alone, so that's the only reason I was with.
By the time we got over to Anne Moran's to drop off the supplies, most of the people from SSEFC were gone, so I spent a couple minutes handing Greg and Brian the supplies from the deck to the roof. That didn't last for long, though, because both Greg and I wanted to head out to SF to see some kids and have dinner.
After a couple hours in SF, Greg and Brian went back to Mission, but I wanted to spend as much time as possible with some of the kids, so I rode back on the bus. That brought back some pretty great memories! I loved the bus rides to and from Rosebud at the beginning and end of LJ Weeks in past summers, and I also enjoy bus rides to and from SF. Such a beautiful, serene drive.
We all got back in time for snack, sharing, and worship, then it was time to move everybody into the dorms to start getting ready for bed. Jonny, Greg, and I hung out for a bit that night. We had an absolute blast. Definitely the most fun we had had all week, aside from spending time at Kids Club in SF.
A couple hours later we called it a night, and we made our way back to the dorms for bed. What a great way to end the night.
Thanks for reading.
God Bless,
Brenden
Things I learned today:
1. Greg hates driving alone.
2. Sometimes life is more enjoyable when you are blowing stuff up.
3. 2 Peter 2
I went through my routine on Wednesday morning just the same as I had the past couple days-- nothing new until it came time for session. Session that morning was shared with us by a man named Bob. He is a pastor at a local church called the Carpenter Shop. He came to speak to us about how his ministry got started and the ways God was working in his life out here on the rez.
Bob's sermon was very different than Pastor Utecht's the day before, but it was really cool having a native pastor come to speak to us. They are the ones who are continuing the ministry out here after we are gone, so it's important to hear their perspective especially during LJ week.
After session, it was time for brunch. Then I just kind of chilled for a couple hours. By this time, I remember thinking that the week was tiring me out, but at the same time, I was sad that the week was almost over. I had considered starting to work on my blog, but Greg called asking if I wanted to help him with something.
Greg always mumbles, or his phone is broken, so I didn't really know what I he was asking of me, but I told him I would meet him in the front of the cafeteria. When I got over there, he said he needed to pick up supplies for Anne Moran's roof, because he and a couple people from SSEFC were repairing part of it. He really hates driving alone, so that's the only reason I was with.
By the time we got over to Anne Moran's to drop off the supplies, most of the people from SSEFC were gone, so I spent a couple minutes handing Greg and Brian the supplies from the deck to the roof. That didn't last for long, though, because both Greg and I wanted to head out to SF to see some kids and have dinner.
After a couple hours in SF, Greg and Brian went back to Mission, but I wanted to spend as much time as possible with some of the kids, so I rode back on the bus. That brought back some pretty great memories! I loved the bus rides to and from Rosebud at the beginning and end of LJ Weeks in past summers, and I also enjoy bus rides to and from SF. Such a beautiful, serene drive.
We all got back in time for snack, sharing, and worship, then it was time to move everybody into the dorms to start getting ready for bed. Jonny, Greg, and I hung out for a bit that night. We had an absolute blast. Definitely the most fun we had had all week, aside from spending time at Kids Club in SF.
A couple hours later we called it a night, and we made our way back to the dorms for bed. What a great way to end the night.
Thanks for reading.
God Bless,
Brenden
Things I learned today:
1. Greg hates driving alone.
2. Sometimes life is more enjoyable when you are blowing stuff up.
3. 2 Peter 2
Friday, June 22, 2012
Time To Watch The Dorms/ Day 17
This one is going to be short. It's a Tuesday, and I want to be in St. Francis, but it's the responsibility of each of the interns to stay back one day out of the week to watch over the dorms. It's not entirely exciting, but it's an important part of making sure the week runs smoothly for the churches on the trip.
My morning was a little more of the same. Waking up early, unlocking the dorms, falling back asleep, and waking up again in time for session. Session was super good this morning. Pastor Andrew Utecht spoke to our group.
He talked about a lot of different things, but one of the biggest things he had to share was how important it was to understand that we just need to love people. Forget the politics, don't hide behind religion, just love people. Such an inspirational message.
After the session and brunch, I took a nap. By the time I woke up, most of the churches left for their sites, and I was left to keep an eye on the dorms. I spent most of my time trying to figure out if I could connect to the wifi in the dorms, but to no avail. Greg stopped by a couple times throughout the day, in addition to a couple other people who were passing through.
Around 2pm, Greg and I were supposed to have a pool tournament with Emily and Audrey, but Greg didn't show up right away and Audrey didn't show up at all. She was packing all day. We decided to set up a new time for the tourney-- 6:37pm. If Audrey and Emily didn't show up on time, they would forfeit.
Greg went back to work and was back around 6:30pm. Audrey actually showed up early, but she lost her benefits of showing up on time--getting to break first-- because Greg and I decided the girls needed to show up between 6:37-6:47pm, or they wouldn't get to break first. We had to wait for Emily-- she showed up at least 15min late-- so they almost forfeited the tourney entirely.
Even though Emily and Audrey were late twice, Greg and I extended grace. It was time to play. We started off with a rough start. Emily and Audrey smoked us the first game, so Greg and I were pretty disappointed. Thankfully it was best out of three.
In the second game, Greg and I won because the girls shot the eight ball in. So basically we won on error. We lost the first game, and won the second game by error, so what did we do? We raised the ante. Whoever lost the last game, would buy the winners a couple Peace Tea's. Game on.
The last game took a long time. In addition to raising the ante, we changed the rules so that any scratch also meant we had to take a ball, that we had previously shot in, out of the pocket. None of us are very good. But the guys were victorious! It was well worth the time it took to play, because Greg and I were getting Peace Tea's! Boom.
After our Tourney, the churches returned from their sites, and the rest of the night went by pretty quickly. Snack, sharing, and worship were solid, then it was time for bed. Greg, Daniel, Sean, Jonny, Luke, and I hung out for a while, and now they are in bed.
I need to sleep. I'm heading back out to SF tomorrow. Pretty stoked. Thanks again for reading!
We'll talk soon,
Brenden
Things I learned today:
1. Forget the politics, don't hide behind religion, just love people.
2. Greg is not as good at pool as he lets on.
3. 2 Peter 1
My morning was a little more of the same. Waking up early, unlocking the dorms, falling back asleep, and waking up again in time for session. Session was super good this morning. Pastor Andrew Utecht spoke to our group.
He talked about a lot of different things, but one of the biggest things he had to share was how important it was to understand that we just need to love people. Forget the politics, don't hide behind religion, just love people. Such an inspirational message.
After the session and brunch, I took a nap. By the time I woke up, most of the churches left for their sites, and I was left to keep an eye on the dorms. I spent most of my time trying to figure out if I could connect to the wifi in the dorms, but to no avail. Greg stopped by a couple times throughout the day, in addition to a couple other people who were passing through.
Around 2pm, Greg and I were supposed to have a pool tournament with Emily and Audrey, but Greg didn't show up right away and Audrey didn't show up at all. She was packing all day. We decided to set up a new time for the tourney-- 6:37pm. If Audrey and Emily didn't show up on time, they would forfeit.
Greg went back to work and was back around 6:30pm. Audrey actually showed up early, but she lost her benefits of showing up on time--getting to break first-- because Greg and I decided the girls needed to show up between 6:37-6:47pm, or they wouldn't get to break first. We had to wait for Emily-- she showed up at least 15min late-- so they almost forfeited the tourney entirely.
Even though Emily and Audrey were late twice, Greg and I extended grace. It was time to play. We started off with a rough start. Emily and Audrey smoked us the first game, so Greg and I were pretty disappointed. Thankfully it was best out of three.
In the second game, Greg and I won because the girls shot the eight ball in. So basically we won on error. We lost the first game, and won the second game by error, so what did we do? We raised the ante. Whoever lost the last game, would buy the winners a couple Peace Tea's. Game on.
The last game took a long time. In addition to raising the ante, we changed the rules so that any scratch also meant we had to take a ball, that we had previously shot in, out of the pocket. None of us are very good. But the guys were victorious! It was well worth the time it took to play, because Greg and I were getting Peace Tea's! Boom.
After our Tourney, the churches returned from their sites, and the rest of the night went by pretty quickly. Snack, sharing, and worship were solid, then it was time for bed. Greg, Daniel, Sean, Jonny, Luke, and I hung out for a while, and now they are in bed.
I need to sleep. I'm heading back out to SF tomorrow. Pretty stoked. Thanks again for reading!
We'll talk soon,
Brenden
Things I learned today:
1. Forget the politics, don't hide behind religion, just love people.
2. Greg is not as good at pool as he lets on.
3. 2 Peter 1
Pray For All Things/ Day 16
It’s Day 3 of Lakota Journey Week. Yesterday went well for
most, and the energy level was still pretty high.
Unfortunately, for me, I did not get as much sleep as I
should have last night, so, even though 7am is not super early in the morning,
I was struggling to get up. Today I was a little later getting all the doors
unlocked, but I’m pretty sure I unlocked everything by 7:30am.
After I had finished unlocking the dorms, I really wanted to
go back to bed, but I needed to wake up and collect my thoughts. I had to get
ready to present a little bit about myself, how God brought me to my
internship, and what I am doing now that I am out here (above and beyond LJ
week).
I wasn’t too stressed about it. I usually don’t have a
problem public speaking, until about 10min before I have to get up in front of
everybody. However, I still needed to make an outline for myself. This one was
kind of important. Although, that’s a little weird to me, because I feel like I
have given other important presentations regarding topics other than myself
(which is usually an easy topic for one to speak on) and I have seldom prepared
an outline for those presentations.
Anyway, I wanted to write out my outline on my computer,
since it has a keyboard and would be easier to collect my thoughts, but when I
opened it up, nothing happened. I pushed the power button, but still nothing. I
thought the battery must have died, so I plugged it in and tried again. Nothing
happened. This was weird. I had just used my computer on Saturday night and it
was working fine, so there really wasn’t an rhyme or reason that this should be
happening to me right now.
Oh well. I had a presentation to outline and only an
hour to do it. I didn’t have time to worry about my computer, at that point.So I went into the cafeteria to try to outline what I was
going to say. I skipped breakfast, drinking only a cup of grape juice while I
was trying to decide the most important aspects of my story to share with the
churches.
It was about 15min to 9am, and I went over to the intern table and
half-jokingly said that I didn’t really want to speak this morning. Stephen
didn’t realize I was joking, so he told me we really do have to speak. Good
thing he convinced me, or who knows where I would’ve been when it came time for
me to speak.
We worshiped first, and then it was time. The interesting
things about the moments leading up to my turn was that I didn’t once feel
nervous. Someone must have been praying for me, because not only did I not feel
nervous, but my presentation actually went really well. I tried to be as real
with everyone as I could, but I didn’t get caught up in trying to be so real
that I was tripping over my words. I picked specific scenarios to be real about,
so it was pretty solid. I am very thankful that it went well.
After our presentation, we had brunch. Then I had to run up
to Ace Hardware so I could try to find a new padlock for Francis. She had been
trying to make copies of the Youth Center key for me, but since Valentine
screwed it up the first time, Greg thought it might just be cheaper to buy a
new padlock that comes with four keys.
I didn’t find a padlock that was worth the money. Most of
them only came with two keys and were more than $10. Which isn’t a big deal,
except that cutting three new keys would have only been like $6. I ran over to
the Rosebud Exchange to look for some butane, and as God would have it, I found
some pad locks for $7. I called Francis just to make sure it was alright with
her if I got a new padlock for the Youth Center and she was happy about it as
long as it had four keys. Perfect.
By the time I made it back from shopping, it was still early
enough that churches weren’t ready to go out to their sites yet. I talked to
Riverwood and they told me they were headed to the store to pick up a couple
things, so I just asked them to call me when they were headed out to Two
Strike.
When I got their call, I followed them out to Two Strike and
we made it there around 2pm. I was supposed to meet Lauren in Upper Cut Meat to check out the program Glenwood was having up there, but Francis told me she was going to stop by, so I decided it would be best for me to stay in Two Strike to see Francis.
It was wonderful to see Francis. I was very pleased that she was able to come down and talk with us about the program Riverwood was holding. She stayed for probably an hour reacquainting herself with the group from Riverwood, then she had to run to get some errands done.
I tried to get out to Upper Cut Meat, after Francis left, but I got lost on the way out there, so I just went back to the dorms. I needed something with sugar, or I needed a nap, so my reason for going back to the dorms was two-fold. I decided to grab something to drink, instead of taking a nap, and I tried to take a look at a couple things on my car that were causing problems.
After looking at my car for a couple minutes, I decided I didn't have enough tools for the jobs, so I went back to my dorm room to try to fix my computer. I called my dad to ask him if there was anything specific that I could do to try to get the computer running again. He gave me a couple pointers, but he said I should pray. I had been praying already that day, but I decided to spend a few minutes praying specifically that my computer would turn back on.
Guess what? My computer turned back on. God is so good. I told everybody for the rest of the day that God saved my computer. He saved my computer just in time for me to go out to SF for dinner. I spent a couple hours in SF hanging out with a bunch of super cool kids, then we had to go back to Mission for worship and a sharing session.
The session was good as always, and now it's time for bed. Thanks for reading!
In Him,
Brenden
Things I learned today
1. Pray for all things-- always.
1. Pray for all things-- always.
2. You can never be too safe.
3. 1 Peter 3
God Is So Good/ Day 15
Its the 2nd day of LJ week and the first real day of kids club. Everyone is very excited to get started with the day and see kids they haven't seen for a year in some cases. I think a solid night of sleep really helped the group to be focused more on the day ahead instead of how tired they were.
I was probably the last one to go to sleep last night and I needed to be one of the first ones up, out of the interns at least. I needed to be up to unlock the doors in the dorms so that when people get up to go over to the cafeteria they can get back in easily. That was a struggle but I was able to make it up and unlock the doors before breakfast at 7:30am.
After I unlocked the doors, I went over to our cafeteria for a hot breakfast, which is always a nice treat on Sunday mornings during Lakota Journey week. I finished eating breakfast just in time to lead a church group to one of Pastor Utecht's churches in Rosebud.
After church in Rosebud, we stopped back at the school to eat lunch, before everybody packed up to go out to their sites. We had churches going to Saint Francis, Upper Cut Meat, Antelope, Spring Creek, and for the first time in three years we had a church going out to Two Strike. Super exciting.
I was the liaison for the church going out to Two Strike, Riverwood church, so it was my job to spend a portion of the day with them. The impact Riverwood could have on the community of Two Strike could be so huge, so I definitely wanted to be there to try to help everything run as smoothly as possible.
Unfortunately, Sunday was a very hot day so the group had trouble finding kids to hang out with them because most of them had gone swimming for the day. That was a little tough on the pastor and some of the leaders I think, but God allowed me to be there with them and just try to encourage them.
I told them that its tough getting started in a community, especially when there hasn't been a consistent church group presence for over three years but year after year it will get so much better, and they will really be able to see the impact they are making as kids start recognizing that every summer a church group will come to see them! I'm thankful that I was able to be there with them.
I spent an hour or two in Two Strike, before I went out to Saint Francis which was about 5min down the road. I was so excited to go in town and see all of the kids who I had hung out with last summer. I was especially excited to see Susie, whom I had already spent some time with since I've been here, Katie, Jessie, and Taylor, whom Brooke had built a strong relationship with over the last two years.
When I got there I saw a lot of people that I recognized and was very happy to see returning to our club this year, but when I saw Taylor, I couldn't help but smile. She is so cute. And the first person she asked about was Brooke. I told her that Brooke had to work this year and she was hoping to come out a little later in the summer. When Taylor heard that she might be coming out later this summer, she got the biggest smile.
Its so incredible to see the impact we have on these kids lives year after year. Now that I've been out here for five summers, a couple winters, and now as an intern, I've learned enough about this place to really question the significance of a relationship built over one week out of an entire year. But it never fails to astound me when I see a kid that I might not even remember, because I may have only met them once, but they remember my name and something I did last summer when I was here. After meeting them one time, my name stuck with them throughout an entire year.
Why? Because, through Christ, we impact the lives of those around more than we can even imagine. God's grace and love work in mysterious ways, but He loves His children and He uses such a small thing as a week long relationship to continue to give them hope in such a dark place. And that fact is why it is so important for us to continue to come every summer. Even if its just for a week. If we open our hearts to God and ask Him to show Himself through us, absolutely incredible things will happen. God is good.
I love every moment I have in Saint Francis. And I enjoyed my time there on Sunday more than I have enjoyed my time anywhere else on the Rez this summer.
I had to leave briefly, after dinner in the community center, because Riverwood was leaving Two Strike around 7pm and I was the only one with a key to lock up. I ran over to Two Strike to make sure everything was closed up, then I went back to Saint Francis, because I knew there would still be people hanging around. I spent another hour or so in Saint Francis then we brought the kids home.
As I was bringing Taylor home, I wanted to talk to her mom because Taylor told me that she had moved to Antelope, and I wanted to know where her new house was in case Brooke came out to see her. When I started telling her mom that Taylor met a girl from our group about two years ago, her mom corrected me and said it was around 3yrs ago. She remembered Brooke! Another testimony to the power of God that even impacts the lives of people that we've never met through our Children's ministry. That was so cool to see.
When we got back to the school, there was a snack and a time for sharing from one of the churches. Each church will get a chance to share about their time out in their community throughout the week, which is always a very encouraging time for us. Worship followed, then it was time for bed.
I had to kick people out of the couch room tonight, which was a little more than I had to do yesterday. But all in all, things went very smoothly once again.
Thanks for taking the time to read these. Especially as I have been late in posting many of these. Hope you enjoyed reading about my day!
Until the next time,
Brenden
Things I learned:
1. God is so good
2. Relationships are such an important aspect of God's ministry here on the rez.
3. I need to learn not to doubt the ways God is using me. If I doubt that a relationship God created could be beneficial to a child or adult on the rez, then I am doubting the infinite power of Jesus Christ. How stupid.
I was probably the last one to go to sleep last night and I needed to be one of the first ones up, out of the interns at least. I needed to be up to unlock the doors in the dorms so that when people get up to go over to the cafeteria they can get back in easily. That was a struggle but I was able to make it up and unlock the doors before breakfast at 7:30am.
After I unlocked the doors, I went over to our cafeteria for a hot breakfast, which is always a nice treat on Sunday mornings during Lakota Journey week. I finished eating breakfast just in time to lead a church group to one of Pastor Utecht's churches in Rosebud.
After church in Rosebud, we stopped back at the school to eat lunch, before everybody packed up to go out to their sites. We had churches going to Saint Francis, Upper Cut Meat, Antelope, Spring Creek, and for the first time in three years we had a church going out to Two Strike. Super exciting.
I was the liaison for the church going out to Two Strike, Riverwood church, so it was my job to spend a portion of the day with them. The impact Riverwood could have on the community of Two Strike could be so huge, so I definitely wanted to be there to try to help everything run as smoothly as possible.
Unfortunately, Sunday was a very hot day so the group had trouble finding kids to hang out with them because most of them had gone swimming for the day. That was a little tough on the pastor and some of the leaders I think, but God allowed me to be there with them and just try to encourage them.
I told them that its tough getting started in a community, especially when there hasn't been a consistent church group presence for over three years but year after year it will get so much better, and they will really be able to see the impact they are making as kids start recognizing that every summer a church group will come to see them! I'm thankful that I was able to be there with them.
I spent an hour or two in Two Strike, before I went out to Saint Francis which was about 5min down the road. I was so excited to go in town and see all of the kids who I had hung out with last summer. I was especially excited to see Susie, whom I had already spent some time with since I've been here, Katie, Jessie, and Taylor, whom Brooke had built a strong relationship with over the last two years.
When I got there I saw a lot of people that I recognized and was very happy to see returning to our club this year, but when I saw Taylor, I couldn't help but smile. She is so cute. And the first person she asked about was Brooke. I told her that Brooke had to work this year and she was hoping to come out a little later in the summer. When Taylor heard that she might be coming out later this summer, she got the biggest smile.
Its so incredible to see the impact we have on these kids lives year after year. Now that I've been out here for five summers, a couple winters, and now as an intern, I've learned enough about this place to really question the significance of a relationship built over one week out of an entire year. But it never fails to astound me when I see a kid that I might not even remember, because I may have only met them once, but they remember my name and something I did last summer when I was here. After meeting them one time, my name stuck with them throughout an entire year.
Why? Because, through Christ, we impact the lives of those around more than we can even imagine. God's grace and love work in mysterious ways, but He loves His children and He uses such a small thing as a week long relationship to continue to give them hope in such a dark place. And that fact is why it is so important for us to continue to come every summer. Even if its just for a week. If we open our hearts to God and ask Him to show Himself through us, absolutely incredible things will happen. God is good.
I love every moment I have in Saint Francis. And I enjoyed my time there on Sunday more than I have enjoyed my time anywhere else on the Rez this summer.
I had to leave briefly, after dinner in the community center, because Riverwood was leaving Two Strike around 7pm and I was the only one with a key to lock up. I ran over to Two Strike to make sure everything was closed up, then I went back to Saint Francis, because I knew there would still be people hanging around. I spent another hour or so in Saint Francis then we brought the kids home.
As I was bringing Taylor home, I wanted to talk to her mom because Taylor told me that she had moved to Antelope, and I wanted to know where her new house was in case Brooke came out to see her. When I started telling her mom that Taylor met a girl from our group about two years ago, her mom corrected me and said it was around 3yrs ago. She remembered Brooke! Another testimony to the power of God that even impacts the lives of people that we've never met through our Children's ministry. That was so cool to see.
When we got back to the school, there was a snack and a time for sharing from one of the churches. Each church will get a chance to share about their time out in their community throughout the week, which is always a very encouraging time for us. Worship followed, then it was time for bed.
I had to kick people out of the couch room tonight, which was a little more than I had to do yesterday. But all in all, things went very smoothly once again.
Thanks for taking the time to read these. Especially as I have been late in posting many of these. Hope you enjoyed reading about my day!
Until the next time,
Brenden
Things I learned:
1. God is so good
2. Relationships are such an important aspect of God's ministry here on the rez.
3. I need to learn not to doubt the ways God is using me. If I doubt that a relationship God created could be beneficial to a child or adult on the rez, then I am doubting the infinite power of Jesus Christ. How stupid.
Today's The Day/ Day 14
Saturday. It’s time to rock. Today is the day. We
are as ready as we can be, and we will fight until we’re finished.
Okay, maybe I’m being too dramatic, but the start of
LJ Week is the start of one of the most exhausting weeks you could experience,
and I experienced it last as a student. I’ve never been on the Intern side of
things before, so I have no idea what to expect. All I know is that I better
know what I’m doing, because there are people out there depending on that.
We all woke up around 9am, because we needed to
clean up the house a little bit before Lauren came over. She needed to go over
last minute details with us, which was definitely a good idea when we got down
to it.
There were just a couple things we needed to go over
like what we would talk about during the leaders meetings, what churches were
sharing on what nights during the week, what we would say during our Intern
introduction, and other minor details.
During the majority of this meeting, I was in the
kitchen doing dishes. I heard the important parts, but since we weren’t going
to be living in our house for the next week—we moved into the dorms with the
churches—we needed to make sure all the dishes were done. We had company over
last night so there were significantly more dishes that needed to be washed
than usual.
After I was done with the dishes, I went out to meet
Francis from the Two Strike community center, and she was able to give me a key
to the center. She said she had tried multiple times in the past couple days to
actually get copies made, but the copies were not working at all.
It’s interesting how minor things like that can be
just enough of a frustration to slow down the work we are trying to do out
here. It was good though, because we have a key at least, and it’s with me so I
don’t have to worry about calling anybody tomorrow before Riverwood goes out to
Two Strike to start their ministry.
After I met up with Francis, John V. and I drove out
to Saint Francis to try to talk to a church out there and let them know that
one of our church groups would be joining them for their service. John V. and I
had a wonderful heart-to-heart on the way out and the way back. Good stuff.
We got back to the school just in time to see a
group unloading their stuff. None of us expected any of the churches to be here
until around 4pm, but it turned out that this church had been driving since
12am this morning. Craziness. But it was good to see them! They were a good
practice run for us as interns welcoming the groups.
The rest of the churches showed up slowly, and we
got everything organized in the cafeteria. After we organized some stuff, we
all had dinner. Thanks to the kitchen crew for making a fantastic spaghetti. So
Good.
Dinner was followed by announcements, Intern
introduction, and worship. Worship was so wonderful, because I have been out
here for two weeks and I have spent a lot of time with God, but not a lot of
time worshiping with music, because none of us really know how to play an
instrument.
We ended our night by having a quick meeting with
just the interns and we took some time to pray. We sent everyone out of the
dining hall, and we had a quick push-up contest before everyone went to bed.
The guys and girls side of the dorms were quiet by 11:30pm, which was
incredible because my friends and I were never that good when we came out here,
especially on the first night. It was nice not to have to deal with that as the
Housing intern though.
Greg and Kelly stopped by to say hi, but everyone
was already in bed, except for Jonny and I. I stayed up to welcome Mr. Cayton,
the leader of the SSEFC/COAH group, who was coming in late because he had work
to attend to. So Greg, Kelly, Jonny, and I hung out for a little bit before Mr.
Cayton got here, and we called it a night.
I can’t wait to see what tomorrow holds. Thanks for
reading!
See
you tomorrow,
Brenden
Things
I learned today:
1.
Spiritual warfare is very real.
2.
I can do 75 sit-ups without stopping.
3.
1 Peter 2
Monday, June 18, 2012
Just So You Know...
I haven't fallen off the face of the planet. And I haven't forgotten about all of you. Now that I've moved into a new place, I have run into technical difficulties in regards to posting my blog.
However, I have been writing out my posts, even though I cant post them to my page, so they will be ready as soon as I can get a solid wifi connection in the dorms.
Thanks for all your support!
In Him,
Brenden
Friday, June 15, 2012
A Day of Rest/ Day 13
Today was a beautiful day. A day to rest is such an important thing, but something I seldom respected this past year. This summer has been as good a time as any to change that, and I am very thankful for the opportunity I have had to refocus and take the time to recreate habits that I should not have ever fallen out of.
Instead of waking up at 6:30-7am today, I actually took some time to sleep. Even though I had planned on getting the same amount of sleep as I have been the past couple of days, my body would have none of that nonsense. I ended up sleeping until 9:50am, which was 10min before I had to be at the school to pick up the keys to the dorm. Good timing! Not gonna lie.
We live right next to the school, so I just walked over quick. I got the keys from Roxanne, learned how to shut the alarm off in case of a false alarm, and walked back to the house. I made an egg sandwich that desperately needed some bacon or sausage, but was good nonetheless. I read over my devos and enjoyed some more time in the Bible than I usually have before going to the office during the week, which was awesome.
Afterwards, Jonny, Laura, Emily and I went back over to the dorms to put up signs so that all the churches know where to go when they get here tomorrow. We had some confusion when we tried to correlate the maps that were given to me by the director of the school and the actual dorm rooms. It's all good though. We figured it out.
Shortly after we got back, Steven got back from Cool School, and he and I headed out to SF. On the way, I wanted to stop one more time to try to find Francis, who has the keys to the Two Strike community building. I called her cell phone and I was told that she was on her way to All Stop to get gas. As God had planned it, we were just driving through Rosebud when we were told that, so we watched the All Stop for Francis' truck.
We actually passed All Stop right after Francis pulled out in front of us, so we ended up following her back to her house. We found out that we kind of creeped her out a little bit, but she laughed once she saw my face. Oops.
I wanted to get keys from her, but she told me that she still needed to get the copies made because she had been really busy this week. She was going to go down to Mission to get copies made, after she dropped her groceries off, so she said she would call me when she was done.
In the mean time, Stephen and I went out to SF to find some people, but we stopped three times and we did
not find a single person we were looking for. What's with the Two Strike/ SF area and the troubles we have finding people in those communities!? I don't know, but this week has been pretty stressful trying to find people.
We drove back to our house, and shortly thereafter, Lauren, John V., Bloom, Sarah, Emily, Matthew, and Audrey came over so we could have some pizza and hang out. It was Lauren's birthday today, so wish he a happy birthday! We sang to her, had cake, and chilled for a little bit before everybody went their separate ways.
As everybody was leaving, a storm was rolling in and some people had mentioned going out to the field and watching the storm. Nobody ended up going out, but Jonny, Emily, Laura, and me, but dang. It was one of the coolest things I've experienced.
Since it's so flat out here, you can watch the storm coming in for miles, and the magnificence of God displayed as the storm was rolling in was an absolutely incredible spectacle. Jonny was reflecting the entire time about how cool it was that although the storm seemed so huge and went on for miles, God was still in control. There was no need to be afraid; God was there and He controlled the fury of the storm. Yes. Humbling to say the least.
We stayed out there for at least an hour waiting for the rain to come. And we only left after we were drenched by rain water. We jogged the half mile or so back to our place to dry off, and let the rest of the storm pass over us. It was a wonderful bonding experience to say the least.
After everybody got back to the house and dried off, we decided to watch a movie-- The Bourne Identity. Great movie. Great end to our day of rest.
Tomorrow the craziness begins. LJ Week is finally here and the interns are ready to rock.
Thank you so much for reading about my day today. I truly appreciate your support in this way.
Things I learned today:
1. Anybody can bond in the rain.
2. God holds the fury of a storm in His hand; how much more does He hold the plans He has for each one of our lives?
3. 2 Peter 1.
Instead of waking up at 6:30-7am today, I actually took some time to sleep. Even though I had planned on getting the same amount of sleep as I have been the past couple of days, my body would have none of that nonsense. I ended up sleeping until 9:50am, which was 10min before I had to be at the school to pick up the keys to the dorm. Good timing! Not gonna lie.
We live right next to the school, so I just walked over quick. I got the keys from Roxanne, learned how to shut the alarm off in case of a false alarm, and walked back to the house. I made an egg sandwich that desperately needed some bacon or sausage, but was good nonetheless. I read over my devos and enjoyed some more time in the Bible than I usually have before going to the office during the week, which was awesome.
Afterwards, Jonny, Laura, Emily and I went back over to the dorms to put up signs so that all the churches know where to go when they get here tomorrow. We had some confusion when we tried to correlate the maps that were given to me by the director of the school and the actual dorm rooms. It's all good though. We figured it out.
Shortly after we got back, Steven got back from Cool School, and he and I headed out to SF. On the way, I wanted to stop one more time to try to find Francis, who has the keys to the Two Strike community building. I called her cell phone and I was told that she was on her way to All Stop to get gas. As God had planned it, we were just driving through Rosebud when we were told that, so we watched the All Stop for Francis' truck.
We actually passed All Stop right after Francis pulled out in front of us, so we ended up following her back to her house. We found out that we kind of creeped her out a little bit, but she laughed once she saw my face. Oops.
I wanted to get keys from her, but she told me that she still needed to get the copies made because she had been really busy this week. She was going to go down to Mission to get copies made, after she dropped her groceries off, so she said she would call me when she was done.
In the mean time, Stephen and I went out to SF to find some people, but we stopped three times and we did
not find a single person we were looking for. What's with the Two Strike/ SF area and the troubles we have finding people in those communities!? I don't know, but this week has been pretty stressful trying to find people.
We drove back to our house, and shortly thereafter, Lauren, John V., Bloom, Sarah, Emily, Matthew, and Audrey came over so we could have some pizza and hang out. It was Lauren's birthday today, so wish he a happy birthday! We sang to her, had cake, and chilled for a little bit before everybody went their separate ways.
As everybody was leaving, a storm was rolling in and some people had mentioned going out to the field and watching the storm. Nobody ended up going out, but Jonny, Emily, Laura, and me, but dang. It was one of the coolest things I've experienced.
Since it's so flat out here, you can watch the storm coming in for miles, and the magnificence of God displayed as the storm was rolling in was an absolutely incredible spectacle. Jonny was reflecting the entire time about how cool it was that although the storm seemed so huge and went on for miles, God was still in control. There was no need to be afraid; God was there and He controlled the fury of the storm. Yes. Humbling to say the least.
We stayed out there for at least an hour waiting for the rain to come. And we only left after we were drenched by rain water. We jogged the half mile or so back to our place to dry off, and let the rest of the storm pass over us. It was a wonderful bonding experience to say the least.
After everybody got back to the house and dried off, we decided to watch a movie-- The Bourne Identity. Great movie. Great end to our day of rest.
Tomorrow the craziness begins. LJ Week is finally here and the interns are ready to rock.
Thank you so much for reading about my day today. I truly appreciate your support in this way.
Things I learned today:
1. Anybody can bond in the rain.
2. God holds the fury of a storm in His hand; how much more does He hold the plans He has for each one of our lives?
3. 2 Peter 1.
Thursday, June 14, 2012
It Never Gets Old/ Day 12
Multiple people have asked me how my day was today, and all I can do is smile and say, "It's always interesting." I have never met a group of people that can surprise me every day I am with them, but I am so thankful for the opportunity I have to spend time with these people because I have learned so much from them.
This morning I got to work around 8am, after breakfast, devos, and prayer, and I was pleasantly surprised to see one of the "seniors" of the crew already sitting at the table. When I sat down, the supervisor walked in and started writing names on the board.
After he was finished writing names on the board, he handed out a couple pieces of paper outlining our job for the Rosebud dam. We had to fix a floating platform. Pretty sick. As he was explaining it, I was getting super excited to hang out in the water and fix this thing.
Before we could go out to the dam, we had to wait around for at least half an hour for the rest of the crew to walk in. So when we were finished talking about the dam project, Ernie made egg and bacon sandwiches for everybody. That was awesome! I ate pretty quick, cause it was super good. Then we found out that they weren't ready for us at the dam. Shoot. There goes that project for the day.
Since we were out of materials for the fence project, the only projects we had left were running estimates for four projects that people were requesting from us. We had to wait until 10am for the first estimate, so that required us to just kinda chill for about an hour more in the office.
Now I know some of you are wondering how it's possible that I could just chill with an entire crew for 2hrs in an admin office. Well let me tell you. Those names that were being written on the board are the names of people who aren't coming into work today. Four out of the six names on the board were the four directors of the office. Brilliant.
So their absence left us to sit and twiddle our thumbs. At least until the first estimate, which finally rolled around at 10am. We packed up five people for a job that should only take two, and drove out to the first house.
The first house was super simple. We just ran the measurements, drew a map of the yard/fence, and told them we would get back to them in a couple days. We had to hand in our info to the supervisor so he can run an estimate for the cost of the job.
Afterwards, we had to go out to an officer's house in Antelope to run an estimate for a chain link fence for his dogs. His yard took a little longer because it was kind of awkwardly shaped, but we got it done in probably 15min and we were on our way.
Before leaving the Mission/ Antelope area, we stopped at the Mission Pawn Shop, the Rosebud Exchange, PJ's Perfect Pizza, and NAPA auto shop. Why? Because we needed to kill two hours, and we didn't have anything else to do. Depressing, huh?
We stopped back by the office around 12pm, because one of the little guys came in late to work, so we had to pick him up. Since it was lunch time, three of us took a lunch and the other three went to mow a lawn that we had to do. Finally! Some efficient thought processes happening here.
I ran home quick to grab a sandwich and went back to the office. I got there and everybody was sitting around except Ernie, who was staining a picnic table we built a couple days ago. I asked how the lawn was and they told me it was already done. What? Already done? You mean to tell me that we finally started thinking efficiently and we ended up wasting gas and time anyway? We can't win.
We sat around for a while waiting for Ernie to finish staining the picnic table-- more people could have helped but a mix of a lack of initiative and a lack of rags stopped us. Then we talked a while about what we wanted to do about the last two estimates, and decided that we would stop and do the last fence estimate and just mow the last lady's lawn since an estimate would waste a trip.
Searching for the last house that we needed a fence estimate for was quite the adventure. We had a set of directions, couldn't get a hold of the lady on the phone, and absolutely could not find the house. We were given a double digit house number, but all we could find were three digit house numbers. Tough. Lo and Ernie decided to give up so we went out to Spring Creek to do the lawn.
When we got out to Spring Creek (a 45min drive from our office), we thought we had found the place that needed the mowing, but the driveway had barbed wire across the front and it didn't look like anybody was home. We kinda stared at the house for 5min or so, then our driver just decided it was not worth going down there, so we left. 45min later we were back at the office to stand around for half an hour. I left a 3:30pm.
So basically my 8hr work day was literally spent riding in a car or wasting time in pawn shops... And I'm not even getting paid. However, the other five guys were. How is this possible!? Management. It's easy to blame the workers for not having more initiative or not working hard enough, but when all four directors don't even show up to work, I don't blame the crew! Dang. Pretty frustrating.
Even in my frustration, it's important for me to remember the fact that God is in control. He's in control of my life, the lives of others, and even the way a crew decides to spend their work day. His hand is over me, so I can't complain. I know He had a divine lesson to teach me, and I am so thankful for the opportunity He blessed me with.
But what a crazy day. I spend the last half of my day running around Two Strike trying to find info about a church and whether or not there were services happening this Sunday and trying to find Francis who has the keys to the Two Strike community building. No luck again. We'll see what tomorrow holds.
For dinner, Stephen and I went out to dinner in Valentine with some of the teachers that he works with, which was awesome! Unlimited ribs on Thursdays for just under $10. What a steal. And they were good too!! That was a good time overall, but we had to leave to get back for a team meeting.
Our team meeting was focused on our readings from When Helping Hurts and we had a very cool discussion over that. Now we are all just ready for bed, and a Sabbath tomorrow. Nobody is going out to their sites. We are all just staying here, finishing up last minute prep work for LJ, then we are making home made pizzas and watching a movie together. Sounds so wonderful.
I don't have a whole lot more. I hope you enjoyed reading about the unique day I had today. God Bless.
Love,
Brenden
Things I learned today:
1. God can use even the most frustrating situations to His glory.
2. Stephen's car and my car have the same top speed.
3. Jonny's knee is super ticklish.
4. John 15:4
Wednesday, June 13, 2012
A New Day, A New Opportunity/ Day 11
A new day means a new opportunity to live for God. It also means a new opportunity for God to astound me with His provision and plan for my life. I am having trouble thinking of ways today could have been better, and I have a hunch that it's because God was leading me through my day today.
I'm going to skip through my morning routine, because I think you all have it down pretty well by now. I got to the office around 8am. I was only the second guy from the crew to get there, which is weird to me since the supervisor and manager both told me to be at work at 8am and I'm just a volunteer. But whatever.
We got going around 8:30am, but we had to make a couple stops before we got out to the site. The first stop we made was to check on a truck that was supposed to be getting a new clutch, but they weren't open yet, so we drove back to the office to pick up a couple guys who came in late.
After we picked up the two guys, we went out to the site to start finishing the fence. Unfortunately, after five minutes at the site, we realized we had forgotten a post. I thought we could just send one guy back, so I walked to the back of the yard to start stringing a line to make sure the posts went in straight.
I literally got as far as tying the knot on the line that I was stringing, when the guys started honking the horn at me. I ran back to the truck to ask where we were going and they said they had to go pick up that pole. I literally asked them if it was going to take five guys to grab that post, laughing while I asked them. They said it would and I should just go with them.
So we went back to pick up the pole and get some food for one of the guys, so we didn't actually end up starting work until around 10am. We got a good amount of work done, but we had to leave again at 11am. Today was payday. We went back to the offices so everybody could grab their check, but since I was volunteering, I just walked inside to grab some water.
I sat down at the table to wait for everybody to get ready to go again, but then I realized one of the site bosses was eating. I didn't want to miss lunch so I asked if I should go eat. He told me we wouldn't go back out to the site until around 1pm, so I had plenty of time to do whatever I wanted to.
Okay. I'm not one to complain, but a two hour break was not something I really wanted to take after only working for an hour. We were so close to finishing! I just wanted to get it done. Especially since It was so hot outside and it was only going to get hotter. But I'm not in charge, so I took my 2hr lunch, and went back out to the site at 1pm.
When I got out to the site, three guys were already out there, then another guys showed up after me, so we had a total of five guys working to finish this fence. The reason I point this out is because five is the magic number. Any more than that and a crew becomes inefficient. So it seemed like we were off to a good start. Finally.
From 1pm to 3:45, the five of us finished filling the post holes on the left side of the house, wrapped the wire fence around the right side of the house, cut all the posts to the same height, and put up H braces on two corners. That's a lot, but it was fantastic. We worked very efficiently and there was almost never a guy standing around. I was pretty satisfied.
While we were putting the wire fence up, one of the guys asked me if it was against my religion to cuss. Another opportunity to talk about my faith! I told him that since I'm a christian, I read the Bible, and the Bible says to watch what comes out of your mouth, so I make it a rule of thumb not to cuss. He didn't say much more about it, but I'm just praying that each day God will continue to give me little opportunities to make an impact through conversations like the ones I've been having the past couple of days.
We basically called it a day around 3:45pm, but before I left, Eric grabbed me to have me sign a volunteer form for him quick. While we were walking into the office, he was asking me how I was liking working with the crew, and I told him that I was enjoying getting the perspective that working with his crew allowed me.
During our conversation, Eric mentioned that he wanted to take me over to the Rosebud Tribal Office to meet some of the officials there. Awesome! I didn't even ask him to take me over there, but God was all over it for me. God's plans are so perfect that I just can't believe the things that I am blessed with sometimes. God is taking care of me even when I am questioning whether or not I am where He wants me.
Another interesting thing that Eric mentioned was that he was worried about the amount of time it was taking his crew to finish a fencing job. This was pretty cool too, because I have been observing the crew and noting at least 10 different things that could increase efficiency if they were changed. I told him that I had observed some things that might help him, and all he said was that's what I was hoping for.
Boom. God is good. Two days ago I thought I was wasting my time by working with the crew, but today would not have been as good as it was if I hadn't continued to work with Eric's crew. I'm excited for the possibility of taking something and making it better, or whatever God has in store for me to accomplish during the rest of my time with Eric and his crew.
I'm basically getting the best of both worlds by working with Eric's crew, because I get to build relationships with the guys in the crew and through my work there, I am able to talk to Eric about his business and the tribal gov. Ugh. I just can't believe how well this is going. But at the same time, I shouldn't have ever doubted that this would happen. God is in control. I have no reason to worry or be stressed.
After work, I went to go meet a family in SF with Bethany, Stephen, Jonny, and Greg. That was a great way to spend my night, because I got the impression that the ladies that I met were very solid people in the SF community and I look forward to continuing to get to know them better!
On the way back from SF, Greg and I had an awesome conversation about God and His goodness. I'm so thankful for Greg every day, because there would be so much that I would be missing during this trip, if it wasn't for him. Super cool dude.
When we got back to our house, the girls were already making dinner. Breakfast for dinner was on the menu and we were all very excited for bacon. It was a glorious dinner. Eggs, toast, pancakes and syrup, and BACON! How could a dinner get any better? There aren't a lot of ways.
So that's it. That's my day! I love looking back on my day each day and reflecting on all the ways God has blessed me and all the events that were orchestrated by him. Nothing better. I hope you feel blessed by God tonight.
In Him,
Brenden
Things I learned today:
1. God will never fail you, if you are focused on living your life for Him.
2. I am wearing a pink sock right now... color blindness sucks sometimes.
3. I love Thousand Island dressing on my ham/turkey sandwiches.
4. Ruth 3.
I'm going to skip through my morning routine, because I think you all have it down pretty well by now. I got to the office around 8am. I was only the second guy from the crew to get there, which is weird to me since the supervisor and manager both told me to be at work at 8am and I'm just a volunteer. But whatever.
We got going around 8:30am, but we had to make a couple stops before we got out to the site. The first stop we made was to check on a truck that was supposed to be getting a new clutch, but they weren't open yet, so we drove back to the office to pick up a couple guys who came in late.
After we picked up the two guys, we went out to the site to start finishing the fence. Unfortunately, after five minutes at the site, we realized we had forgotten a post. I thought we could just send one guy back, so I walked to the back of the yard to start stringing a line to make sure the posts went in straight.
I literally got as far as tying the knot on the line that I was stringing, when the guys started honking the horn at me. I ran back to the truck to ask where we were going and they said they had to go pick up that pole. I literally asked them if it was going to take five guys to grab that post, laughing while I asked them. They said it would and I should just go with them.
So we went back to pick up the pole and get some food for one of the guys, so we didn't actually end up starting work until around 10am. We got a good amount of work done, but we had to leave again at 11am. Today was payday. We went back to the offices so everybody could grab their check, but since I was volunteering, I just walked inside to grab some water.
I sat down at the table to wait for everybody to get ready to go again, but then I realized one of the site bosses was eating. I didn't want to miss lunch so I asked if I should go eat. He told me we wouldn't go back out to the site until around 1pm, so I had plenty of time to do whatever I wanted to.
Okay. I'm not one to complain, but a two hour break was not something I really wanted to take after only working for an hour. We were so close to finishing! I just wanted to get it done. Especially since It was so hot outside and it was only going to get hotter. But I'm not in charge, so I took my 2hr lunch, and went back out to the site at 1pm.
When I got out to the site, three guys were already out there, then another guys showed up after me, so we had a total of five guys working to finish this fence. The reason I point this out is because five is the magic number. Any more than that and a crew becomes inefficient. So it seemed like we were off to a good start. Finally.
From 1pm to 3:45, the five of us finished filling the post holes on the left side of the house, wrapped the wire fence around the right side of the house, cut all the posts to the same height, and put up H braces on two corners. That's a lot, but it was fantastic. We worked very efficiently and there was almost never a guy standing around. I was pretty satisfied.
While we were putting the wire fence up, one of the guys asked me if it was against my religion to cuss. Another opportunity to talk about my faith! I told him that since I'm a christian, I read the Bible, and the Bible says to watch what comes out of your mouth, so I make it a rule of thumb not to cuss. He didn't say much more about it, but I'm just praying that each day God will continue to give me little opportunities to make an impact through conversations like the ones I've been having the past couple of days.
We basically called it a day around 3:45pm, but before I left, Eric grabbed me to have me sign a volunteer form for him quick. While we were walking into the office, he was asking me how I was liking working with the crew, and I told him that I was enjoying getting the perspective that working with his crew allowed me.
During our conversation, Eric mentioned that he wanted to take me over to the Rosebud Tribal Office to meet some of the officials there. Awesome! I didn't even ask him to take me over there, but God was all over it for me. God's plans are so perfect that I just can't believe the things that I am blessed with sometimes. God is taking care of me even when I am questioning whether or not I am where He wants me.
Another interesting thing that Eric mentioned was that he was worried about the amount of time it was taking his crew to finish a fencing job. This was pretty cool too, because I have been observing the crew and noting at least 10 different things that could increase efficiency if they were changed. I told him that I had observed some things that might help him, and all he said was that's what I was hoping for.
Boom. God is good. Two days ago I thought I was wasting my time by working with the crew, but today would not have been as good as it was if I hadn't continued to work with Eric's crew. I'm excited for the possibility of taking something and making it better, or whatever God has in store for me to accomplish during the rest of my time with Eric and his crew.
I'm basically getting the best of both worlds by working with Eric's crew, because I get to build relationships with the guys in the crew and through my work there, I am able to talk to Eric about his business and the tribal gov. Ugh. I just can't believe how well this is going. But at the same time, I shouldn't have ever doubted that this would happen. God is in control. I have no reason to worry or be stressed.
After work, I went to go meet a family in SF with Bethany, Stephen, Jonny, and Greg. That was a great way to spend my night, because I got the impression that the ladies that I met were very solid people in the SF community and I look forward to continuing to get to know them better!
On the way back from SF, Greg and I had an awesome conversation about God and His goodness. I'm so thankful for Greg every day, because there would be so much that I would be missing during this trip, if it wasn't for him. Super cool dude.
When we got back to our house, the girls were already making dinner. Breakfast for dinner was on the menu and we were all very excited for bacon. It was a glorious dinner. Eggs, toast, pancakes and syrup, and BACON! How could a dinner get any better? There aren't a lot of ways.
So that's it. That's my day! I love looking back on my day each day and reflecting on all the ways God has blessed me and all the events that were orchestrated by him. Nothing better. I hope you feel blessed by God tonight.
In Him,
Brenden
Things I learned today:
1. God will never fail you, if you are focused on living your life for Him.
2. I am wearing a pink sock right now... color blindness sucks sometimes.
3. I love Thousand Island dressing on my ham/turkey sandwiches.
4. Ruth 3.
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