Shin Splints

when i was in tonasket high school my sophomore year in high school, there was a skinny little girl in my class. i don't remember her name, i just remember she ran cross country and she was apparently pretty good. i also remember that when it was cross country season, she always had this mysterious tape on her lower legs. i never fully understood why...

the ball game

my sister, my brother and i went to a los angeles dodgers game on saturday night. it was quite the event.

we arrived a full two hours (or close to it) before the game started so we watched batting practice from the seats really close to the field! it was super cool... until we had to go to our real seats. then we wished we never sat in those seats. something about tasting something really good then having to settle for less really sucks (that's deep).

in short this is what happened:

-ate over 1000 calories of shelled peanuts in 45 min. (containing huge amounts of sodium[good for the heart])
-had a messy competition with my brother using the shells from our peanuts and our laps/shirts.
-stood up abruptly when a dodger hit a grand slam! spilling all the shells and whatnot onto the backs of the innocent folks in front of me. all in their hair and everything!
-paid eight full dollars for a bottle of water!
-watched an ambulance come on the field and take the umpire off after he'd been hit in the face with a fastball! amazing!
-left early after four almost completely uneventful innings. (seriously, there was like two hits total the entire time!)

yes, it was a lark. good bonding time with my sibs. most of that time is irreplaceable and invaluable. not to mention we went to a baseball game! that's gotta be in the top 20 things to do of all time! at least.

Once In a Lifetime

last night as i was laying in bed falling asleep, i thought it would be cool to wake up just barely before the sunrise and go jogging in that seldom experienced time they call twilight. i asked mark what time he thought the sun came up these days, seeing how every time i wake up these days the sun is already up and on its way across the sky, and he said probably around 6 or 6:10. so, i set my alarm for 6:00 am and tried my best to fall asleep.

falling asleep was one thing, but staying asleep was quite another. you see, at around nine or so last night i ate a brownie cake thing with rich chocolate icing and crumbled up peanut butter cups. it was super yummy! that little piece of junk kept me tossing and turning into the wee hours of the morning. i kept looking at my clock wondering if it was time to wake up yet. 2 am.... 4 am... finally i fell asleep, and the next thing i knew, the alarm clock went off. mysteriously, i was tired. i rolled over and looked out the window, it was super bright outside! "oh no!" i thought, the sun was already up. a second look made me notice that there were no shadows, meaning the day was still in the last few moments of twilight. i rolled over again thinking, "i missed it. i'll just wake up earlier tomorrow."

as i lay there, the birds were "composing" like there was no tomorrow! i mean they were chirping their little hearts out! i was amazed! what in the world could they possibly have to chirp about so much. as i listened i realized, the birdies have figured out this little secret that take us small lifetimes to figure out! there really IS no tomorrow! there's only RIGHT NOW! in that moment, i decided to wake up and go jogging anyway, because everything is a once in a lifetime experience!

as i began on this little bike path thing behind marks house, i headed out of the neighborhoods and out into the open desert called bakersfield. i noticed that the reason it was so bright and yet there were still no shadows was because a layer of dense clouds were hugging the horizon way off in the distance and effectively postponing the sunrise about 30 minutes (just for me?)!

the sun finally came up as i crested a little hill on the way back, so at the end of my mini route, i climbed up a little hill nearby, found a rock, and sat down and watched the sun rise all the way. it was exceptional! i sat there praying and thinking, and i realized that all kinds of life rely on that sun for life, and yet, the trees, the flowers, the birds, they all don't stress out trying to make the sun come up! they probably don't even worry or even think about it!

"look at the birds. they don't plant or harvest or store food in barns,
because your heavenly father feeds them.
and you are far more valuable to him than any birds!
can all your worries add a single moment to your life?
and if worry can't accomplish a little thing like that,
what's the use of worrying over bigger things?"
Luke 12:24-26

those little birdies don't stress out about life. they don't think, "man where am i going to get my next meal?" life just comes to them, they are sustained by God. in lots of ways, God wants my life to be like this, physically and spiritually. i just have to learn to let go! surrender! give up on trying to control my life.

"So don't worry about tomorrow,
for tomorrow will bring it's own worries.
Today's trouble is enough for today."
Matthew 6:34

in other words, live like there is no tomorrow! because there is no tomorrow! only right now! this is my new motto: everything is a once in a lifetime experience!

thanks for the reminder little birdies! and thanks for the truth Father.

Foiled!... In A Good Way.

i went solo backpacking the other day, like six months ago or something like that, and i wanted to blog about it. so sue me!

it was only over one night because i don't get much time off these days, but i was really craving some wild-nature-ness. there is something about the wilderness that draws me! i can't quite identify it. perhaps it's the way it reduces life to very understandable basic-ness. or maybe it's how nature reminds us of what's real and what's fake, what's truly important and what is insignificant or irrelevant. it could be the way that the wilderness removes a lot of distractions and enables us to think clearly, or it could simply be that God is revealed in a very noticeable, magnificent way through nature. maybe it's all of these. but still there's some mysterious, unidentifiable quality about the wild that persistently lures and entices me. i wish i could articulate it, because it really is a passionate thing within me. alas, i cannot. at least not right now. however, this "force" is what brought me to yosemite national park on this occasion.

i started out with a grand plan! it was to drive to destination A, the trailhead, then sleep in the car in the parking lot (everything was packed in my backpack and too inconvenient to unpack for an early start), wake up the next morning and obtain a wilderness pass from the forest service as soon as the office opened, then hike to destination B, vogelsang high sierra camp or vogelsang pass whichever i could reach by nightfall or by exhaustion. i thought i could probably make it to the pass which was further, because it didn't seem like that strenuous of a hike according to the map.

after that the plan was to cross country (no trail) across to destination C, the base of mt. lyell, which is the highest mountain in yosemite, and stare up at it, listening to it call out my name in the language of the mountains, a beckoning that fills me with insatiable yearning to join the lofty peaks in their heavenward aspirations!... after spacing off for a good chunk of time, i would then catch the john muir trail all the way back to destination D, my car, and wait for a better time when i could actually climb old lyell! after all it was october and it was snowing pretty hard on my way to the trailhead. which would imply that mt. lyell would be far too covered in snow to climb. especially with the clothes i brought.

all in all it was an excellent plan. and a plan is all it would end up being. i got really confused when i went farther than i planned and missed the first trail i was supposed to turn on. i thought i was on the right track the whole time until the trail started doing things not on the map, then i was really lost! i ended up backtracking and burning about two or three trail hours, and wandering around staring at the map and trying to match it with my surroundings, which were totally different, although i had no idea.

thoroughly lost, i finally ended up camping at a nearby lake because i couldn't walk any farther. my feet were blistering and sore, my back was aching because my pack was not fitting right, and i was really hungry for some warm food. so i called it a day and cooked some curry stuff with peas and ate dinner in complete solitude sitting upon a rock watching the sun set peacefully over some unnamed vista in yosemite. "good enough!" i thought.

the next morning i woke up before the sun and sat outside my tent in my sleeping bag in utter quietude waiting for the sun to rise. i ate breakfast and figured out exactly where i was. it turned out i had been really confused. i was in a very different place than i had thought the night before. so, i quickly formulated a plan B. i decided to climb the nearest/tallest peak and play around for an hour then come back and head back the way i was supposed to have come in the first place. so, that's what i did. i had lots of fun rolling huge rocks off the edges of 500 foot cliffs and watching them smash into the rocks below (i could actually feel it when the rock was big enough!). much of my time up there was spent imagining leaping off one of the peaks and soaring like an eagle to one of the other peaks miles off in the distance, effortlessly riding the thermals without a thought to the anxieties of the life below. somehow in my imaginations i took part in the experience of these majestic birds, floating above every aspect of earthly life.

all things considered, it was awesome! and strangely, a lot like life. after all, life is seldom what you plan. our feeble plans are always getting thwarted in some way. our limited vision is constantly leading us astray. and yet somehow, God helps us make lemonade out of all our lemons. and boy is it good lemonade! our lives are "bruised and broken masterpieces" that we "did not paint ourselves".

at the end of my trip i was able to put my "worth it!" stamp on that adventure, and i hope that at the end of my life i will be able to look back and say the same on a much larger scale.

Moments Are What I Live for!

we are currently doing two weeks of prayer for the same school. from 8:20 a.m. to 9:00 a.m. we do a week of prayer for the 5th-10th graders at Mother Lode Adventist Junior Academy, and from 9:30 a.m. to 10:10 a.m. we do another week of prayer for K-4th grade. It's pretty fun so far, although, i have to say that by far my favorite part has been RECESS!!! yep, i still love recess with all my heart. there's part of me that still wishes i were in grade school just for the recess twice a day.

unfortunately recess is only with the first through fourth graders, but it's still fun. i just wish it could be with all the kids! to be honest though, it seems like the little tykes have more heart. they don't hold back. i admire that. but...

they don't stand a chance against team y.e.t. when it comes to dodgeball! me, mark, and anil, we dominate every time! we just wreak havoc! there's balls flying, people screaming, kids falling, girls crying, and us having fun! i think it's only fair to treat them as equals. they don't hold back, neither do we.

yesterday, i chucked a ball at a third grader with the rally cry, "take that you vegetarian!" it hit him square in the back of the neck/head. he didn't even see it coming! it was a perfect throw! he turned around with tears in his eyes and wandered off and cried behind a tree for a couple of minutes, leaving me with a grin of satisfaction. "you're out!". he came back and gave me a high five later. anil threw a ball at a kid, knocking the kid flat on the pavement with a big ol' smile! BAM! "you can't handle this!" these kids love us! another time, one of the fourth graders threw a ball at one of his classmates really hard. the other kid tried to jump over it only to have it sweep his feet out from under him leaving him all sprawled out sliding across the blacktop! another one bites the dust!

out of all these moments, there was one today that takes the cake... and really makes me wish i had my camera out! right in the heat of the battle, at the climax of the whole thing, anil hurled a ball at a boy named noah. before he could blink twice, the ball smacked him right in the face/neck throwing his head back in a whiplash like manner, his face all contorted in a 'i just got hit in the face' look. "right in the kisser!" i thought. noah's head came back to a normal position and he stood stunned for about two seconds. then, with all he could muster out of his 7 year old body, he clenched both of his fists, locked his arms straight down at the ground, and screamed bloody murder at the top of his lungs... took a big breath, and let it rip one more time, as if to say, "everybody stop! i just got hit in the face!" everyone paused for a moment until he was carried off the field, blood trickling down his lip from his nose. then, as quickly as it had stopped, it started up again. yep. it's a good ministry i think. dodgeball ministry.

i just wish i could have had my camera to get a shot of that kid half bent over screaming with the force of a spud-gun! what a classic moment in time. i also wish i could have captured him with his bloody tissue from the teacher crammed up to his nose grinning just as big as before with his fresh battle wound. later i told him he was awesome for sustaining such a serious injury at recess. he gave me a big high five telling me the tales of the time he got mr. soandso out who is "one of the tuffest guys..." what a champ! it was fun, yes, but let's face it, the poor guy didn't stand a chance against team y.e.t.! he should have seen it coming from the get-go and been watching out for us. if you're a 1st-4th grader at recess, you can know that we're coming for you! so watch your back!

ah yes. it's these moments that i live for, and i truly believe that these are what the kids at MLAJA are living for too! we love them, they love us. "life is still worth living."

the yeo spot

i think there's a special space near my left ventricle. it's called the yeo spot.

look closely, you can see it. (tee hee)

Sit Loose!

"He who loves father or mother more than me, is not worthy of me... He who finds his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for my sake will find it." (matthew 10:37,39)

"Those are best prepared for the life to come, that sit most loose to this present life." (matthew henry)

i love 'em

Ryan and Phil.
Two of the greatest.

knuckle down, buckle down, do it, do it, do it.

so i drove all the way across the country, to tennessee and back again! it was amazing. lot's of people have done that, but very few have done that in the space of ten days.

this is how i started the trip off. with a big ol' bee sting. it was the coolest part of the whole trip. just kidding.

Tracy, the hitch-hiker! this is the guy that rode with us from barstow, CA to Albequerque, NM. 12 hours or something like that. It was awesome to see him open up to us. By the time he left the car, he was genuinely our friend

I slept on top of my car two nights out of three. it was a dirty/cold/uncomfortable job, but someone had to do it. what if a bad guy came? someone had to be outside to hear him coming and fight him off right?

i think this pretty much sums it up for emily wilkens...

the Cadillac Ranch? what in the world? ten cadillacs just buried in the desert.
This is the largest cross in the western hemisphere! who knew? right there in Oklahoma or something like that.

yeah, we had to stop a lot in order to maintain sanity. it was super fun though

another random stop on the side of the road. i'm pretty sure i got cow poop on my foot from this stop!
This is my personal favorite! we're singing with a guitar in front of the tennessee sign! ah the irony!
on the way back we stopped at union college in nebraska. Emily finally washed her hair... i didn't though. cool!

we stopped once and did the world a favor and removed this tire scarf from the middle of the road where everyone had to change lanes to miss. the look on my face and silly posture can be explained by the next picture:

yep.

this is me and em (palindrome) waving goodbye to the sun for the last time on this trip.


and this is the coolest picture of the whole trip (maybe). some mountain in colorado in the dead of night. p.s. my camera is super-rad


Tell me that's not cool! if you did, you'd be lying. this is somewhere in utah i think.


This picture is really cool from some view point. i couldn't resist stopping!


Emily Wilkens at her finest. i'll tell you this much, the only dull moments were when she was asleep. except the time i almost fell asleep at the wheel and killed us both. that was not dull.


and we made it to nevada the final stop for this nameless roadtrip. we were tired.


That's supposed to say "las vegas or bust", not just "vegas bust". (emily's idea).


so that concludes the pictures and comments for now of this trip which was the coolest thing in the month of march for me. i hope you enjoyed it as much as i did.

"for which of you,
intending to build a tower,
does not sit down first and count the cost,
whether he has enough to finish it..."