Something about Winter…

There’s just something about winter that makes me want to  go on an outdoor adventure.

Sure, there’s also A LOT about winter that makes me want to curl up under a pile of blankets, sip coffee all day, and read a good book.

But then there’s that something…

Winter is harsh and unforgiving and relentless.  Winter is long and cold and hard.  But winter is also crisp and clear and beautiful.  Winter is true to itself.

There’s something about the way winter pushes in on us so fast and forceful.  It never disguising itself like fall does with it’s Indian summer.  There’s no questioning winters arrival.

Winter does not make excuses for what it is, but in it’s harshest most honest states it is beautiful.  In the cold dark night when a snowflake lands gently on my eyelash and I know there never was nor will there ever be one just like it-winter shines.

Winter is real.

I think these reasons are why winter makes me want to adventure, because when I adventure I lean into the strongest parts of me.  When I adventure I forget about who I need to be at work and who I want to be in social settings and I rest in the joy of who I am and what I love.  The crunch of snow or leaves beneath my feet, residue of lake or ocean water sticky in my hair, traces of dirt and grime on my legs and face, the way my muscles move over rocks and trees in the forest-these are some of my most treasured things.  These things make me feel strong and authentic. When I explore, when I get caught up in the pure awesomeness of God’s creation around me, when I push myself to physical limits -this is when I often feel like my strongest and most beautiful self-my adventuring self.

Like winter-strong, beautiful, real.

Here’s to enjoying rather than enduring the winter this year.

Adventure my friends.

 

Today This is My Church

I have worked at Feed My Starving Children (www.fmsc.org) for the later part of my twenties.

I have had many great experiences while working here, but certain ones stand out more than others.  And one of these occurred in the October of 2012.

It was at the With Love From Vermont MobilePack in Essex Junction, VT (if you don’t know what a MobilePack is check out this video).  I was SO excited to be at this event.  You see, I grew up in Vermont and when you grow up in Vermont you LOVERMONT.  This also happened to be the first and only MobilePack in Vermont to date so it was extra special.

I remember vividly standing in a circle in  a middle school gym on a crisp fall day with the core team.  Some of the members I knew and had been emailing for months, some I had just met that day.  The event supervisor, Cory, asked that everyone go around and say their names and the churches they came from before we opened in prayer.  This was not an uncommon opening to a MobilePack event, but something struck me that afternoon.  As we went around from person to person one of the host team members said his name followed not by the name of a specific congregation, but followed by a phrase that has stuck with me for years.  He said “today this is my church.”

At the time it brought tears to my eyes.  Even today; years later, it evokes strong emotions.  You see, in Vermont church is HARD.  I grew up there in a tiny little church.  In Vermont people aren’t interested in church, they don’t flock there on Easter and Christmas, they are opposed.  Well, that weekend the community didn’t have to come to “church” because the team brought the “Church” to them.  In a middle school gymnasium filled with soy dust and vitamin powder the people of God where at work.  The people of God were feeding kids around the world AND they where showing a hardened state the love of Christ in action.

This happens a lot at MobilePack events.  You see God at work in gyms and fellowship halls, at exhibition centers and fair grounds.  It is undeniable that He does amazing things through these events, but in the hustle and bustle of doing over 200 of them a year.  In the day to day of making schedules and checking on trucking it can be easy to loose sight of that.  It can be easy to focus on meal numbers and fundraising goals and forget that often times the MobilePack site is a sacred space.  A space where the people of God are indeed living out the call to be his Church.  Where they are bringing the gospel to their neighbors in an unconventional way.  Where they are using their talents to glorify God.

I could share story after story about how I have seen MobilePack host communities being the Church in the last four years.  I am so thankful for hearing that simple phrase, “today this is my church,” early on.  That phrase has continued to prompt me to slow down on events and take a moment recognize that this work is bigger than spreadsheets and finished pallets.  This is indeed kingdom work.  And wherever I am , whoever I am with, when I am at a MobilePack I get to be part of the Church.  What a blessing it is.

Here’s to feeding kids and feeding souls.

Be the Church my friends.

 

 

 

That One Time I Ran a Marathon

There are a lot of great accomplishments that happened in my twenties, but none am I more proud of than the fact that I ran a marathon. (I’ve actually run two, but my second one was not nearly as impactful).

It all started the year after I graduated college.  A year in which I had no intention of running a marathon.  Heck at that time I had no intention of EVER running a marathon.  I’m not a “runner” per say.  I have short legs, I’m not thin, and I had never run more than 4 miles at one time in my life.

What I am; however, is competitive.

It was the spring of 2009 and my roommate at the time, Jenna, was training for a half marathon.  We worked out at the same gym and encouraged each other in our physical activities in general, but when she started training for her half it really kicked things into gear.  Jenna came home from a long run and told me she just ran 5 miles and I thought “I can do that.”  And I did.  Then she came home and had run 6 miles and I thought, “I can do that too.”  And I did.  Finally, Jenna just came straight out and told me I should run the half with her and I did!

Sometimes I hear people say after doing their first half that they would never run a full marathon, but I finished and thought “I want to do a whole” and I did! (you may begin to see a trend here).

The full marathon; however, wasn’t quite as easy…

I started off my training with two friends, but early on in the summer they fell out for various reasons.  So I was left training alone.  Training to run 26.2 miles for 18 weeks by myself was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done.  It was also one of the most rewarding.

What a summer that was.  I could go on and on about how I grew and what I learned about my body and my mind (bottom line both are AMAZING), but one moment has stuck with me in the many years since.

It was my second longest run-19 miles.  I was running loops around the neighborhood where I lived.  I was at about the 17 mile mark.  I was SO tired and then it happened…I tripped.  When you trip and fall full out after running 17 miles it hurts.  It shocks your body, it breaks your rhythm and focus, it scares you because if you get hurt this late in your training who knows if you can run the marathon.  I remember feeling like electricity was rippling through my entire body as I skidded across the pavement.  I thought I wanted to cry, but I didn’t.  What I did do was get back up and start putting one foot in front of the other for another two miles.  I remember audibly saying to myself alone on the street “I just wish this was over, ” but it wasn’t over so I kept going one foot at a time my mind forcing my body to do what I needed to do to reach my goal.

I did that same practice for 18 weeks (sans the dramatic fall).  That’s what training is:  pushing yourself to go beyond your limits so that your limits are extended.  That moment showed me just how powerful my mind and will are.  It showed me I don’t need anyone beside me pushing me to go on.  I can do that!  I’m a beast!

This is not to negate reliance on Christ, rather this experience highlighted to me the amazing capabilities God has given us as His creation.  The power that our minds hold when it seems we can’t go on.  In the years since when things seem hard I have often thought “if I can run a marathon, I can do this.”  And it seems to be true.  The confidence and determination that I have because of those grueling 18 weeks is an intricate part of who I am and how I live.  So a big thank you to Jenna for pushing me to run those first 13.1 miles!  Here’s to many more runs, falls, and “getting back up agains!” (both literally and figuratively)

Run with abandon my friends…

Jenna and I after I ran the Chicago marathon in 2009.

 

The Final Countdown…to 30

This is the last week of my Twenties. WOW this certainly came quickly!  Last night as I enjoyed a lovely Sunday hangout with friends we discussed ways to celebrate this final week of a pivotal decade.  The ideas ranged from ridiculous and irresponsible to somewhat boring (further highlighting the fact that I am indeed aging), but today I woke up and thought I’ll write a blog each day this week.  An exercise that can help me reflect on the past ten years, get excited about my thirties and work on a skill I keep saying I’ll work on SOMEDAY. Well as I stare 30 in the face it feels like all of a sudden SOMEDAY is upon me.

So here we go, my twenties are about to come to a close. What a decade.  Who knows what the next holds, but this past one was sure filled with a plethora of change.  When I turned twenty I was starting my junior year in college (Go Trolls!).  When I was twenty I was living on sheer determination and lattes (I guess somethings don’t change-although my taste in caffeinated beverages has certainly evolved).  If you had asked me where I would be in ten years when I was twenty I would not have said here.  I couldn’t even have imagined my current existence when I was twenty, but how beautiful it is and how beautiful the last ten years have been getting here.

As I reflect, I can hardly believe how much has been packed into my twenties how many friends, living spaces, jobs, heartbreaks, and joys. As I write this week I hope to share some of my most impactful moments and seasons.  I’m excited to explore these past ten years through the written word and look forward to what the future brings.

I suppose I should start in the beginning…

(Summer 2006 during a CCR staff outing-if you think I look exactly the same, it’s because I do #blessed)

Ten years ago I had just left my job at Clydehurst Christian Ranch. I worked there in the summer of 2006 (and it was awkward-forgive the inside joke).  What a special way to kick of my twenties.  I would not have asked for it any other way.  To find out the impact that Clydehurst had on my life please see my previously written blog:  Camp The Real World

Until tomorrow friends!

No After Pictures

There are no after pictures here

No plump cheeks and toothy smiles

There are no after pictures here

No success stories and dreams of what’s to come

There are no after pictures here

Just rusty hair and sunken eyes

There are no after pictures here

Only work to be done, so much work to be done.

In the Middle of a Miracle

It’s been awhile since I have last wrote. It’s been a busy fall.  Work always picks up in the fall flooding my inbox with emails and my heart with joy.  So many meals have been packed these last two months at a plethora of MobilePacks around the country each unique, each special, each a blessing in their own way.  I love all my MobilePack hosts and events in different ways,  but some are very dear to my heart and about two weeks ago I was able to be a part of one in Warsaw, IN that was nothing short of a miracle.

That’s what the host team kept saying to volunteers. They kept telling them “you are in the middle of a miracle right now”.

That MobilePack started on a Wednesday and the Sunday before it began the meal goal was 600,000 meals. Months prior the dream was to pack 1 million, but as time went on and funding did not come in the host team decided to make a hard, yet responsible, decision to decrease the meal goal.  Then the Sunday night prior to the pack, a mere 72 hours before set-up was schedule to begin, I received a shocking, amazing, miraculous call.  The call that said-“Kirstie, we just got a donation for $50,000 and we need to use it all this year, do you think we can increase our meal goal to at least 800,000 meals?”

Can you I thought? Yes we will make it happen.  But then 800,000 turned into 850,000 and 850,000 turned into 900,000 and then in a matter of hours the decision was to “shoot for a million”… if the money comes in.

What ensued the next few days was very organized and calculated chaos-but chaos none the less. It seemed that everyone at FMSC pitched in.  Procurement trying to get another load of rice delivered on two days notice, managers booking extra staff for the event, myself and the supervisor running numbers and making estimations in order to change the packing schedule to one that would both reach the meal goal and, hopefully, not completely exhaust our staff.

48 hours after the final details had been arranged and we had enough of everything to pack 1 million meals we headed off to Warsaw.  I was nervous, so very nervous.  There were so many questions.  Will we really have enough supplies?  Will volunteers even show up for the shift tonight that was added to the volunteer registration just 16 hours ago?  Will we have enough qualified volunteers to help us re-set and prepare and wrap and strap?  Ultimately, will we pack 1 million meals?

However, coupled with those nerves was an incredible feeling of peace and confidence. Not in myself, but in the Lord.  This event had been special from the beginning –a vision fostered in the hearts of two school teachers it was one of those events that seemed so organic and pure a true calling from the Lord for these individuals to host a MobilePack.  They followed Him, they dreamed big, and now it seemed that the Lord was coming through big too.  I was confident because it was evident that this event was the Lords that He was going to provide and that He wasn’t going to allow us to think for one second that it was our doing but His all along and it was beautiful.

I have never been so amazed than at that first session-the session that had been opened up for volunteers less than a day before was full. Full of people who had never packed before, full of people who made themselves available to pack food at a minute’s notice, full of people that the Lord brought to us that night.

The event was a blur- we laughed, we cried, we worked incredible hard. Our knees hurt, but our hearts were full and happy and blessed.

At a post-event celebration service a pastor said that this event was something in our lives that undoubtedly had the fingerprints of God all over it and I can not agree more. It’s funny to think about the places that God shows up in our lives.  The places where we see His presence so clearly.  I expect that at camps, retreats, church, but if you had asked me a year ago if I ever expected to meet Him, to feel Him, to worship Him in an elementary school gym in Warsaw, IN surrounded by mostly strangers and a few co-workers I would have said no. I’m so glad I would have been wrong!!!

Here’s to all the amazing and unexpected things the Lord has in store. I am so thankful for all He is and does.

Our staff praying before the start of the day.

School kids praying over the meals they packed.

Our FMSC Staff with two core team members.

Finding Community

As you may have gathered from some of my previous posts-my friends and I are really into community.  I don’t really know if we love community because we have a great one or if we have a great one because we love it, but either way I am so very thankful for what we have in our little “community unit”.

 (Most of our little community unit)

Sometimes I feel like we have it right, like somehow our little group did something that seems to elude so many and form a community we love and cherish.  A community that makes use grow.  A community that shares laughs and tears, fun and fights.  Other times I think maybe we are a little weird, maybe we hang out a little too much, maybe we should branch out or stop acting like what we have is so great.

But the other day I got this text from a former student worker of mine.  This is a woman I have known since her senior year of high school.  We have been on service trips together and she has worked countless hours for me as a student tour guide.  I attended her graduation and have met her family.  She was a very special student and now friend.  This text melted my heart:

 This text confirmed that what I have here is indeed great.  What I have here impacts not only my life, but the lives of others.  Kathryn has not met most of my friends-she certainly does not know them on any deep level-but even with the little she knows she realized the community we have is special.   She in turn craved and sought after a similar community in her own life.  It is beautiful to know that at the same time she pursued that I prayed that she would find it. I prayed that she would find a community full of love and genuineness and God.  What a blessing to see this answered prayer.  And who knows what young girl she may someday find and encourage to seek after that same thing to find people in this life who encourage you in the right ways, who love you for who you are,  and who you can live in true community with.

Here’s to friends new and old, near and far who encourage, and love, and make us who we are.

Camp-The Real World

It is camp season around here.  Next week the students from my church along with many of my friends who are leaders take off to camp for a week…camp…that little word means so much to me.

It’s more than rousing songs and nights full of tears, more than cliff jumping and star-gazing, more than late night cabin talks and sneaking out to get brownies.  It’s family, it’s life change, it’s love.

I’ve had multiple camp experiences all wonderful and significant in their own way, but camp to me is Clydehurst.  That beautiful oasis in the Gallatin national forest where I spent 2 of my summers during college.  Where I made some of my most amazing friends out of both fellow counselors and campers. Where I learned so much about who I am and who I want to be.  Camp.

There are so many reasons that I long to be back at Clydehurst each summer.  I long to be a part of a community like we had there, I long to be surrounded by the beautiful Montana wilderness, but what I think I long for most is to be the me that I was in that valley.

I distinctly remember a message one of my fellow counselors gave one summer in our small Sunday morning staff chapel.  He spoke about how we often talked about going back to the “real world” after camp, but how in reality camp is more real than Chicago or Nebraska or the Twin Cities or even Rancho Cucamonga.  Camp is closer to the reality that Christ wants us to long for-closer to what a tiny glimpse of heaven might look like.  We loved God deeply and praised Him richly.  I was never more aware of His wonders than on those frosty Montana mornings as I strolled to the flag pole with 8 little girls surrounding me or during those dark, starry nights on the bonfire pit hearing high school students sing his praises amidst the beauty He created.

I loved deeply, I listened carefully, I fostered genuine relationships, and throughout everything I constantly tried to point others to Christ.  It came easy at camp within the little world we created.  Where sharing the gospel and glorifying God was our one communal goal, where encouragement and accountability were constant and welcomed.  But here we are in this world and it’s harder and other goals wiggle their way into the forefront of my mind and I can forget who I was during those summers and how I wanted to be that me forever.

But now it’s camp season and I remember that is truly what I want…I want the camp me to be the real me always.

The Feeling of Home

A few Sundays ago I attended a church service at a church that I have spent a total of 14 days in-only 14 days.  In those 14 days I have worked at 2 Feed My Starving Children MobilePacks.  Such a short and busy time; yet, the moment I stepped onto that oddly familiar ground I felt like home.  I felt loved, I felt real, I felt deeply.  How is that possible-how can I feel so loved and connect to a place, to a group of people that I have spent a mere 14 days with?

I love the idea of home as a feeling; because I believe it is more of a feeling than a place.  It is an unexplainable and wonderful  feeling.  It is expereinced in a plethora of places that are all unique but the same.

I feel home in the green mountains of Vermont sitting in the second to last row of East Dover Baptist Church and I feel home when I walk into the lobby of Harvest Bible Chapel Naperville in it’s refurbished corporate building with cars flying by on 88.

I feel home in the stale hallways of south hall at 2 am and on the living room floor of the Mason Jar on lazy Sunday afternoons.

I feel home relaxing on my mom’s bed in Greenville, SC and lying on the bonfire platform at Clydehurst Christian Ranch under the magnificent Montana sky.

I feel home everytime I walk into a gym, multipurpose room, or church sanctuary that has been turned into a meal production site and I join together with others to pack meals for starving children.

What makes any one place feel like home?  I don’t know, but I know when I feel it and I know it’s a blessing and I’m thankful for all the places I can feel home.

Lessons from my Leg

Lately life has been “hard”…

As mentioned in a previous post, I recently had my ACL replaced.  Physically, I’m doing great things are moving along well and relatively pain-free; but emotionally, mentally it’s been hard.  Everything seems difficult:  standing up, going to the bathroom, showering, sleeping.  Grocery shopping on my own caused an emotional break down.  And everything is exhausting.

As I spent much time in tears this last Sunday trying to figure out how to accept the fact that I’m not self-sufficient, that I need help, that my life style needs to temporarily change in order to heal I also realized something else.  “Hard” is relative.  Going to the bathroom with a knee brace is not universally hard, not being able to carry your own watermelon into your house is not hard…it’s inconveneint.

I am being rocked by this surgery-by having to rely on others and slow down and experience daily discomfort.  I am going through a trial because I was privileged enough to have a surgery that essential serves to allow me to maintain my active lifestyle.  I did not need this to survive, I did not need this to keep my job or be able to support myself.  I “needed” this so I can ski and long-board and play club lacrosse.

Here I am in my knee brace thinking “man life is hard” when kids are starving, when people are living in the midst of natural disasters and war struggle to survive each day.  Here I am crying because I’m loosing muscle mass when people are battling cancer.  Here I am upset that I can’t do EVERYTHING for myself when others can’t even find jobs to support their families.  In perspective, this is not hard.

However, I don’t want to dwell in this guilt I have for feeling upset about my little hardship.  I want to learn from this.  Learn that the real struggle is not this circumstance or dealing with the guilt that I feel about being blessed.  The real struggle is in learning how to apply this lesson.  In knowing what actions to take, how to change my life and the way I think in light of realizing how easy my “hard” is.

Here’s to learning lessons and new perspectives.