Its official!

After a lengthy (more lengthy than I ever imagined) application/interview process, I was accepted into the World Race!! Yay!! God first started opening my eyes to this idea this spring. I have a friend who talked about her amazing experiences in these amazing countries. I praised those experiences and thought that was such a great experience in her life and never once thought 'maybe I should do that.' A few months later, through God's impeccable timing and 'divine appointments' I met another girl who had a map of the world at her house and had pins in every place and country she had visited. I couldn't take my eyes of the map. So of course I asked her how the heck she got to visit all these great countries. 'The World Race' of course! So I drilled her with questions, to which she replied 'Why don't you go?' I of course said 'There's no way! That's funny!' Well God wouldn't leave it alone. I thought all night of logistics: work, school loans, my family, my age (yikes, lol), money. Any and after a wake up call of 'Do you trust Me?' by God, I worked out some financial issues and my head, and said 'Why not?!'

Well, next step was to break the news to my family who don't absolutely love that I travel for a living. God answered that prayer as well! General consensus was 'It seems to be what God has been preparing you to do' which was a huge answer to prayer!

Next step: start saving money! (still in progress)

Next step: go through application process and after bearing all my sins and life history (realizing that I'm the worst Christian ever, thank you Jesus for loving me through it all)

Next step: wait... wait for the call... Then it came!!! They, in fact, are crazy enough to let me come on this amazing trip!!!

Next step: well... pray for financial supporters. If you would like information on how to support me in this wonderful adventure email me at sarah.krystine@gmail.com.

Stay tuned for more details :-)

Well...

Each time I post (which I'm averaging about once per year...) I vow to be better at blogging... There's always next time. To catch up all up (whoever is following this) I spent a wonderful 5 months in Roseburg, OR which expanded my knowledge on wine, mountaineering, and home health. I then took 6 weeks off from work to travel to L.A. to fly to MN to fly back to L.A. to fly to New Zealand for 3 weeks to fly back to L.A. and drive up to Twin Falls. Yes. Too many travels some might say (mom?) but well worth it. I went from MN winter (recent 24 inches of snow) to summer in New Zealand. I believe I posted pictures from New Zealand. We had a fabulous time including photographing penguins, beautiful hiking trails, and of course Milford Sound.

Twin Falls, Idaho has been a wonderful surprise. I have spent 8 months here. Wow. God has worked mightly through the folks here in Idaho. When my recruiter first brought up the assignment in Twin Falls, I believe my first words were 'what the heck is in Twin Falls, ID?!' but God brought me to Lighthouse Church and to a wonderful group of girls who would become some of my closest friends. Its amazing how He does that. None of us knew each other well before I came and now are all scattering across the world within 4 months with such wonderful memories. I love meeting people I can visit in great places. One person brought up the idea of the disciples 'I wonder if that's how the disciples felt, Jesus brought them together for a short time then scattered them for His glory' which got me thinking on God's incredible timing and sovereignty when we are looking at Him like He's crazy. It's funny, it seems like He knows what He's doing. Who knew?! Lol!

I was blessed to be able to go to Costa Rica in August with a church in Denver (Roots Vineyard, check it out if you live in Denver) This trip was really challenging, encouraging, enlightening, and all those great things. I was challenged spiritually to be be thinking of the things of God more throughout my day. Its so easy to become routine and allow my mind to wander the entire day. 2 Corinthians 10:5 says to 'Take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ' and for one who struggles a bit with A.D.D. this is a challenge. Oh how I loved to be in that state of depending on Christ, seeing Him work in so many ways, focusing so much of my attention on Him. And yes, I should be doing that here in America but it seems so much easier here to depend myself, my money, hospitals, anything else but God. When I came back to my 'normal life' I realized how empty I felt, how quick I got back into the routine of things. I think from that I realized how bad of a Christian that makes me and how much I want to go back 'overseas' and get away from the easy American life so I can be in a place where I'm having to depend on God.

My favorite stories from Costa Rica are:

-the man with a stroke who we saw incredible improvement and healing in, in only a few days. After much prayer and a cane and education this man went from being quite bed bound to walking over 20 feet. Did we see him healed? No, be we saw a process of miraculous healing and a pretty major improvement within just a few days. The best part was the change in his eyes. When we walked in his eyes were down, looking very depressed. As we laid hands on him, we watched the light come back in his eyes and a GI-normous smile on his face as he felt the hope of Christ.

-healing of a migraine of a woman in church

- a man coming back to the intern who worked at the church who said 'you prayed for me last year to get off the streets and I've been off the streets since. Can you pray for my brother too? I want him to be healed too'

- a group of young men 14-23 so on fire for Christ, giving up their old (bad) ways and habits for following Jesus and just seeing the Holy Spirit working in their lives.

- one of our team members who had horrible acid reflux who was eating tums like candy become pretty miraculously healed and eating chips with spicy salsa by the end of the trip with no problems what so ever.

The trip in my mind was far from what I imagined but definitely a blessing. And hopefully a place I get to go back to in December.

The last update I have is I am in the middle of the application process for the World Race (theworldrace.org) through Adventures in Missions which is a journey to 11 countries in 11 months to serve "the least of these" while amongst real and raw community of people. So watch for further posts from that adventure.

Thanks for following!!

I'm here!!!

I forgot to write earlier when I got here so...: I'M HERE!!!!!!

It was a long road coming (literally) but a good road. I'm not sure if its a good thing to spend 30 hours by yourself after leaving everyone that you love and a city that you love as it provides a lot of contemplative time. But I did and God definitely carried me through. I did not, in fact, turn around as a threatened a few times. After about a few hours of crying intermittently (don't worry, I could still see the road) I listened to a speaker I had on cd which just opened my eyes to God and got me to realize that I was holding to my life in Mpls too tightly and losing focus on Him. I was able to just spend time talking to God about how I was feeling and how sad I was and just felt His arms wrapped around me, comforting me. I felt His presence so greatly in that car. He affirmed so strongly throughout the trip that He understood this is hard but this was where He wanted me: from the realization that He wants all my attention, not just what's left over to the the so incredibly beautiful mountains of Idaho to the waterfalls in Oregon. Yes, this is going to be an incredible time, lonely but incredible.

The one major prayer request I had for this trip was that I would become comfortable with my alone time with God. As a 200% extrovert I have become very comfortable and rely on my communal relationship with Christ (small groups, discussing the bible with my roommates, church-all very good and important things) but the thought of spending any alone time with God was really quite daunting. Throughout my 30 hour car ride (during which my ipod crapped out on me) I spent much time talking to God. That's the great thing about car rides alone... you can talk to God out loud and nobody really notices!!! God is just so good- so steadfast, so faithful!

It was incredible to drive here; I drove through every imaginable landscape from the green barren of ND to mountains in Idaho to brown desolate of SE Washington to waterfall and green rolling hills of Oregon. What creativity the Lord has!

Life since arriving has been a bit of a whirlwind but definitely good. The town I'm in is a good mix of po-dunk and retirement-ville. :-/ Hospital is good and my furnished housing is pretty stinkin nice! But I'm excited to meet more people and get out hiking!! Pictures to come! (when I get my camera back...) Tomorrow brings work, tennis, and live music!!!

Lesson learned today? Grocery Outlet and Fred Meyer need to come to Minnesota!!!!

$80

Great News! I've made it as far as Spokane, WA!

Here is what I learned today:

$80 and no planning at Miles City, MT at 11 p.m. will buy you:
*a smoking room (only room in the entire city left) at Motel 6 in an area that makes the 'wrong side of the tracks' in Maynard look good (which as a non-smoker attempted to avoid smoke smell by opening the windows and sleeping with very little clothes on... on a blanket from my car to avoid getting into the sheets...)
*garbage on the bathroom floor from the previous guests
*no anemities
*the Town Pump next door that were 'sold out' of wine bottle openers (at 11 p.m. after 10.5 hours of driving a glass of wine sounded delightful)
*a front desk that did not have a wine bottle opener
*close proximity to the interstate
*jake braking and honking throughout the night due to the close proximity to the interstate and the need to have a window open

$80 in Spokane, WA?
*a little planning (thank you hotwire.com)
*exercise room
*cookies and milk upon arrival
*non-smoking room
*glass of wine (well coffee mug of wine)
*clean floors
*room on a hill... have yet to hear a noise besides my air conditioning.
*long day of driving (had reservation... needed to keep going)

Lesson learned... sometimes a little planning isn't bad.

Not for the faint of heart... or generally, the cat lover

This happened a few months past, but funny none the less. I was home visiting mother (shortly after the last post after she had been discharged home). Again, this is not for the faint of heart as this post can be icky for those not used to bodily discharge.

Now, I am a farm kid and with that comes experiences. You grow up loving animals, naming your piglets (forgetting which one you named later that day because...well... they all look the same), picking out your favorite puppy out of a litter, rejoicing when a mama cat has kittens. Then something changes (well for me it did). You start realizing that that piglet becomes the onry pig refusing to go into the trailor at 6:00 a.m. before you have to leave for school and his smell does not come off your hands even with multiple washings; that puppy turns into a dog that grows grape sized ticks, shed all over, slobber on your favorite jeans, loves to hunt skunks (bringing home their smell), and not long after you get him, gets hit by a car/tractor/grain truck; and those cute kittens reproduce like bunnies!!! So needless to say, animals in general are not my favorite thing. Again, no offense to animal lovers :-/

On of my childhood cats 'Boots' has managed to survive the farm for a good 15? years. And by survived I mean he still has a couple teeth left (though rotted), 1/2 an ear on each side (thanks to various fights and most thanks to frostbite), a rotten stomach, and has managed to live through all the ridicule of having excessive saliva... drooling on EVERYTHING!! But he did enjoy his excursions- trips to who-knows-where. But in the last few years, his 'excursions' increased from day trips, to weekend trips, to week-long trips, to month-long trips, even a two-monther! using my parents house as, essentially, a Bed & Breakfast 'come in after his excursion, sleep for 10 hours, eat, and then leave again'. Until this last fall when 4 months past and there was no sign of him. We all said our good-byes (ok... not really) and their other cat 'Maddy' was happy for all the attention.

After 4 months, my cousin visited an uncle down the road and saw Boots! Alive and well! He had decided to live with my uncle who very willingly gave him back. So my parents took him back. He had aged, now throwing up, pooping in the house, really showing the signs of his age, drooling even more. Mom had found more abcesses (which if you have never dealt with this, its disgusting!!) doctored him up using her fantastic nursing skills.

I was home with mom when she was discharged from the hospital which required some 'doctoring' from me as she needed wound changes on her stomach twice a day. I thankfully have worked in a hospital in rehab for 3 years and don't get grossed out very easily at all so took on the task easily, changing her dressings, getting her breakfast/lunch/dinner.

One of those days, I look over to Boots coming down the hallway only to see him scratch his neck and chunks of fur/skin go flying and something spray all over. I went over to him and saw nasty goo flowing from an abcess in his neck. I yell (of course) MOM!!! BOOTS RIPPED OPEN HIS NECK AND THERE IS GOO RUNNING ALL OVER!!!! Meanwhile gagging. She told me I had to wash it up with peroxide and put stuff on it. I went over to him to look closer only to gag harder. How is it that I could tolerate changing dressing on my mom that morning which had goo running out of her, but the minute it comes from a cat....? No, I tell her. Can't do it. She said to wrap him up and bring him to her. So I grabbed a towel, wrapped him up, bring him to her and she said 'Yep, nope, that's bigger than I'm willing to do.' Understandibly so as she has an open wound and does not want infection anywhere near.

So she calls our vet who conveniently does not have any openings while I'm trying to stuff him into a cat carrier (which by the way, need to be bigger!), yelling at him to quit wiggling. I finally get the door shut and he begins his 'annoyed cry' which does not stop!!! Its like the monotone teacher that gets stuck on one word. My mom calls another vet who does have an opening but would have to charge us for a 1st visit (rediculous amount of money) but we make the appointment anyway. I look at mom with a look of sad disgust and tell her that it really is ok if she wants to put him down (not sure why she needed my permission since he hasn't been my cat for 10 years) but she got a look of relief on her face. We decided it was the right thing to do as she would have to do the cleaning and putting ointment on him after I left and didn't want to do that with the open wound herself.

So I go to the vet with him meowing angrily in the back seat. I turn the music up. We get to the vet and I tell her that we've decided to put him down instead as he's getting old and has rotten teeth and bad stomach, etc, etc. and she gives me the 'feel good' information about how they put animals down. So she asks if I would like him to be cremated and put in a box for me to take home. I almost laughed (apparently they really do that). I said no. She asked if I just wanted to take him home and bury him. I said no (that's a lot of work). I said that they can just do whatever they do with them (I'm really not sentimental, at all...) So she's filling out the bill and $45 for the euthenasia and $48 for 'group cremation' I said 'WHAT?! 48 bucks to have you take care of him?! And its free if I take him? Ok, fine, I'll take him' So she does it and hands me the box. 'I put him back in a sleeping position' '...ah, ok...' (really?!)

I put him in my backseat thinking 'now what am I going to do with him?' This was my first stop for errands... So I make my 2nd stop, then my 3rd-to a grocery store where I was sent on a wild goose chase by my mother for groceries including something she was craving- Bramble-Berry Tea (which apparently they don't sell anymore!) but being the good daughter I am, I look, and look again, and look again because she's sure its there! I finally tell her 'Mom! There is dead cat in my backseat!! How bad do you need that tea?!?!' Good point. By the 4th stop, my car was starting to smell as if something was... well.. rotting in the back seat.

I get home with box in hand. Now what? Mom said dad could dig a hole with the skid-loade when he gets home. So I wait. He gets home at 9:00... only to have to go to work the next morning at 5:30 a.m. I couldn't ask him. So my cousin stops by to say hi. He walks in the door, starts taking off his boots. I hand him a beer and say 'don't get too comfortable, we gotta go bury puppa-cat' So we grab our beers and shovels and the box and head out back. (No we're not from the country...)

We both start breaking ground and he (who has obviously dug more holes than I) was making a lot more headway and since he was doing such a great job and I obviously was more in the way, I stepped back.... and held the flashlight. After we (well... he..) got the hole dug, we put Boots in, filled in the hole. He asked 'any last words?' as I was stomping the sod back in.

"Whelp, see ya later" Hehe. I do give him credit. He was a good cat, I mean, not bad for a cat.. :)

What I learned that day? When putting a cat down, make that your last errand stop of the day.

memory vault

I went to my parents house this weekend in attempt to take my mother home from the hospital and be her 'beck and call' person. However, the nurse at the hospital took care of that as she was not discharged over the weekend as we had thought due to various complications. Which left this weekend as a great time for napping at the hospital, dates with dad, praying with mom and reading her scripture, re-living my 'speedbump' of a hometown, and going through memorabilia from birth to college.

My strict instructions for the 'next time you are home' were 'CLEAN OUT YOUR STUFF IN THE ATTIC!!!!' So I brought down my 6 or so boxes of things from my childhood. I'm really not sure how things got categorized as 'save' or 'throw' back in the day as I found things from pictures (yes, great! save!) to a Michigan hat (really?! why was this important?) So I got my best throw-away attitude on and did quite well supporting Goodwill and the garbage dump until I got to 'the box'. The box that when I opened I felt like I entered a movie. It was like I stepped into a time vault to my high school. It had medals and trophies, my crown from when I was Maynard's 4th of July Queen, high school yearbooks, prom 'champaigne glasses', my cap and gown. I almost choked up! Ok... not that much but I did so much enjoy going through those things.

So after many diaries read; 4th, 5th, and 'consolation' ribbons tossed; art projects donated to my nieces; my boxes of memorabilia and 'stuff' went from 6 to 1... a little sad but good. I realized through all of this that (1) what a wonderful childhood and home God provided through my parents, how loving and supportive they were (2) in the grand scheme of things, this will all burn (Matthew 3), simplicity is so fabulous.

On side note: Often when I return to my hometown (which is not often) I feel as if I walked into the set of Sweet Home Alabama except in Minnesota - from the street dance with the semi to the small down diner. In Montevideo (the big town nearby) I witnessed a great moment in history; a once in a life time sight. 'Rumor has it' is it was a teenage boy, not paying attention at the wheel (see photo below).














That just about made my weekend if not for Budgers Dinner House which is open just 4 days a week. 4 evenings and 1 brunch and about the best steaks and burgers in the whole midwest as you could not find a better steak for that price! And hot off the cow!! Even better :)

Lesson learned? write down why the various rocks, knick-knacks, and pencils were important to you as a child... otherwise they are getting tossed as an adult...

For those wondering, Mum's doing better. Still in the hospital, but feeling stronger after a long week and a half of feeling pretty crappy. Hopefully discharged closer to this next weekend. Yay! Way to be a fighter, Ma!

The Happy Sojourner

'A sojourner is a person who resides temporarily in a place' This is according to wikipedia which we all know is really the best thing ever. Anyone in the world can write anything they want about any subject. So you know you are getting the best possible information... (Thank you Michael Scott for the quote of the day).

In all seriousness, I think the 'sojourner' in me began at a young age when I apparently very willingly agreed to church members taking me home with them because 'I was so cute' (obviously). I think for as long as I can remember, I've been content trying new things, meeting people, going places, and generally being busy. I moved for the first time when I left for college. Nay, I did change bedrooms 3 times in high school. But I remember getting into the car leaving for college thinking 'whelp, see ya later' and for the next 9 years have lived in 12 different houses in 5 cities. I have grown to love adventure and travel more and more each year!

I often wonder (as does my mother) why God made me this way. I'm not sure at this point. I am confident that God will use it for His glory. My biggest challenge and greatest joy is seeing Christ in all my travels. And that is my intention of this blog is to share with all of you what God is doing, what He is teaching me, what I'm learning about life, what I'm learning about God.

What I learned today? I am reminded that I a traveler passing through. This world is not my home. I am made for a greater place: to be in heaven with Christ. So why I seek and think I find so much satisfaction in things of this world, I don't know.

Also, don't lean over patients trays to reach behind them, you can knock over their water onto their laps.