Hello!
What an incredible week this has been! So much has happened!
This week I had the treat of having my friend, John, visit me from Oregon. We had planned to go hiking in Glacier National Park after my work contract finished, but my sister announced her wedding during the same weekend, so John will be traveling with another buddy of his. For the past three years, John has visited me in the national parks and we've gotten to take some amazing backcountry hikes through Sequoia, Yellowstone, and the Grand Tetons together, photographing some incredible terrain and vistas. To not have a summer hike together seemed strange. Having a canceled plane ticket, John was able to exchange it for a weekend flight out here! We had an incredible time visiting and exploring areas of Yellowstone that John hadn't explored, particularly Norris Geyser Basin and the Lone Star Trail.
The trip was short, but it was a great experience. One of the experiences that John got to experience while out here was "Christmas in August", where every August 25th the park decorates its hotels and we celebrate our annual tradition. For the General Store, we closed early and held a Christmas program, singing songs together, hearing the Christmas story from one of our employees, sharing a ton of our awesome cook's cookies, and getting an early visit from Santa Claus. It was a great time filled with good memories for everyone. As my manager, Scott, pointed out, this was the last time everyone got to hang out together as people's work contracts have been finishing up and people have begun to head back home. By the end of this week we'll have lost fifteen people from the store. The season of saying goodbyes has started.
In the midst of these transitions, school has begun to a great start, but I already feel the pressure of maintaining both work and school. The notion of being in school hasn't really hit me yet, so I'm still transitioning. It's great to be in contact with my online classmates from last year--we've already had an incredible time chatting online and catching up. But along with all this, this week I am also beginning a new job working for my former manager, Melissa Stock, as her choir assistant! I worked as her assistant for two years before, and now I get to return again to help out as her choir prepares for three concerts this Christmas. It'll be great to return to this job once I return to Oregon...a return that ticks down to only twelve days away!
Unlike last September's "indian summer", Autumn is already in the air. We've been waking up to 36 degree morning temperatures and days when sweatshirts are needed for nearly the entire day. The grasses have turned golden, and soon the lower-elevation trees will start to turn as well. I'm stepping into new things this week, and it's amazing to see how God is working in the midst of all of it.
Blessings on your week!
Pump Geyser
Thursday, August 30, 2012
Wednesday, August 22, 2012
Day 102: Setting A New Pace
Hello!
This has been a very good week here at Old Faithful. The ministry team and I completed our final Sunday in the park, and I am overflowing with gratitude at what the team has overcome this summer while also being such wonderful examples of Christ here to both visitors and employees. Each one of them has been a tremendous blessing! The team is dispersing this week--one teammate has already left, and another will be leaving tomorrow. The rest of the team will be taking off soon, except for myself (Sept. 10) and Tim (mid-September). Wow! It's hard to believe how the summer passed so quickly, yet I am elated in astonishment at how well the summer has gone.
My days off were spent taking some coworkers--Svietlana and Roman from Belarus--down to the Grand Tetons. This was a great time to spend with them, but unfortunately with all of the wildfires of Idaho and the vicinity, the mountain peaks were difficult to see. I was grateful for a good wind to drive the smoke away, but even this was short-lived.
The rest of my time was spent running errands and relaxing for a change of pace. School books have been arriving in the mail and I have been preparing for another semester of classes to commence. Eight more credit hours of classes split amongst four classes. I am excited to start again. The timing is great as work around the store has been slowing now that many of the local children are beginning school this week (they begin early to accommodate all of the snow days that frequent the area). Along with the slower pace, several of my coworkers at the store have also begun to depart back to school and their homes. It is a bittersweet loss reminiscing in all the time we've enjoyed together while also sharing their excitement to take their stories and pictures home to share with their families about their summer here at Yellowstone.
It's a lot of changes within a short space of time, but watching God walk me through this week has been tremendous. Soon I too will be heading home. It's now been over one hundred days since I began this adventure of heading out to Yellowstone. The 100-day milestone is always a big one for me in recognizing all that has happened within these past thirteen weeks while also considering what final escapades I want to make before I head home. I have a few more adventures in mind.
Blessings to you for this week!
This has been a very good week here at Old Faithful. The ministry team and I completed our final Sunday in the park, and I am overflowing with gratitude at what the team has overcome this summer while also being such wonderful examples of Christ here to both visitors and employees. Each one of them has been a tremendous blessing! The team is dispersing this week--one teammate has already left, and another will be leaving tomorrow. The rest of the team will be taking off soon, except for myself (Sept. 10) and Tim (mid-September). Wow! It's hard to believe how the summer passed so quickly, yet I am elated in astonishment at how well the summer has gone.
My days off were spent taking some coworkers--Svietlana and Roman from Belarus--down to the Grand Tetons. This was a great time to spend with them, but unfortunately with all of the wildfires of Idaho and the vicinity, the mountain peaks were difficult to see. I was grateful for a good wind to drive the smoke away, but even this was short-lived.
The rest of my time was spent running errands and relaxing for a change of pace. School books have been arriving in the mail and I have been preparing for another semester of classes to commence. Eight more credit hours of classes split amongst four classes. I am excited to start again. The timing is great as work around the store has been slowing now that many of the local children are beginning school this week (they begin early to accommodate all of the snow days that frequent the area). Along with the slower pace, several of my coworkers at the store have also begun to depart back to school and their homes. It is a bittersweet loss reminiscing in all the time we've enjoyed together while also sharing their excitement to take their stories and pictures home to share with their families about their summer here at Yellowstone.
It's a lot of changes within a short space of time, but watching God walk me through this week has been tremendous. Soon I too will be heading home. It's now been over one hundred days since I began this adventure of heading out to Yellowstone. The 100-day milestone is always a big one for me in recognizing all that has happened within these past thirteen weeks while also considering what final escapades I want to make before I head home. I have a few more adventures in mind.
Blessings to you for this week!
Tuesday, August 21, 2012
The Least of These
My latest sermon, "The Least of These", is now available through my "Summer Sermons" page in the right column. This sermon follows a Christmas theme, following in step with Yellowstone's annual "Christmas in August".
Thursday, August 16, 2012
Experiencing Christ/Confusion
I am sorry it took so long to get my latest two sermons posted, but they have now been added to the "Summer Sermons" list on the right column. Both were preached at the Old Faithful Inn; one entitled "Confusion" and the other titled "Experiencing Christ".
Monday, August 13, 2012
Day 93: Catching Up
Hello!
Wow! It's hard to believe that over two weeks have passed since I last posted on this blog. I apologize for my tardiness. These past three weeks have been filled with projects, errands, and priorities that scratched two weeks of Internet off my list. Over the past two days I finally got caught up on my emails and can now make some forward progress.
These weeks have been filled with several challenges that have been very draining. The team went through another week of turmoil that required several days of communication before anything got resolved. In the process though, the team had to work through a lot of frustration and disappointment. We are finally in a rebound just in time for our final Sunday of services before the team finishes our summer and begins to head our different directions back home to school and work. It has been such an enormous pleasure to have been a part of this team. I have been spending a lot of time with the team working through the thought of getting back to civilization and our various home situations--in most cases, a Christian environment where each of us can recuperate from our summer of ministry. This has been an incredible summer.
In the midst of team drama, I battled two different fevers that sapped my energy to do anything but sleep when off-duty. I am feeling much better, but this made a big impact on my past two weeks.
On a much more positive side, after my last blog post, I lost my small point-and-shoot camera that has been taking all of these photos. It sounds strange to think of this as positive, especially since I had to live without a camera for an entire week! Talk about torturous. Through this experience though, I was able to get a replacement camera, a Canon A4000 similar to my previous camera except with 4x more zoom and nearly 4 additional megapixels. The part that is most spectacular though was that my sister, Cherie, read my Facebook post about the lost camera, and bought me a camera--a Canon T2I! I had been looking to buy this camera for nearly three years now, so I cannot believe it's here now! Unfortunately, with all the rush of these past two weeks, I am only now getting the opportunity to begin playing with it. The manual is 180 pages long, so I have a lot of reading ahead! LOL
My past two weekends have been spent with Drew on some great adventures. During the first week of August, we drove to South Dakota to retrieve his motorcycle in Rapid City. Along the way, we visited Wind Cave National Park and the Crazy Horse Memorial. Both were awesome experiences. I was particularly thrilled with Wind Cave: it's the fifth longest cave in the world, and fourth longest in North America! Unlike the dampness of most caves, this one is fairly dry, preserving a rare cave formation known as "Boxwork", which was formed before the cave existed, but becomes exposed through the slow erosion of the surrounding stone. The other treat about this place is that I now claim it as my twentieth national park that I've visited! Only another thirty or so more to go.
The second weekend was spent here at Yellowstone enjoying Drew's motorcycle as we took it along the 125-mile loop that forms the Grand Circle of the park. This was the first time I had ever been on a real motorcycle trip. Along the way, the most exhilarating experience was riding through a bison jam while sitting on the motorcycle exposed to the bison within 15 yards! We didn't stay to enjoy the close proximity as we were content to look at the bison herds at a safer distance. The perk about being a passenger was having the ability to take photos while passing through though.
A long day awaits me, so I need to go now. I have two sermons to post. Hopefully the Internet signal will be stronger tomorrow and allow me to upload them. Photos from the past two weeks are posted on the "Photos of the Week" page. Enjoy!
Blessings!
Wow! It's hard to believe that over two weeks have passed since I last posted on this blog. I apologize for my tardiness. These past three weeks have been filled with projects, errands, and priorities that scratched two weeks of Internet off my list. Over the past two days I finally got caught up on my emails and can now make some forward progress.
These weeks have been filled with several challenges that have been very draining. The team went through another week of turmoil that required several days of communication before anything got resolved. In the process though, the team had to work through a lot of frustration and disappointment. We are finally in a rebound just in time for our final Sunday of services before the team finishes our summer and begins to head our different directions back home to school and work. It has been such an enormous pleasure to have been a part of this team. I have been spending a lot of time with the team working through the thought of getting back to civilization and our various home situations--in most cases, a Christian environment where each of us can recuperate from our summer of ministry. This has been an incredible summer.
In the midst of team drama, I battled two different fevers that sapped my energy to do anything but sleep when off-duty. I am feeling much better, but this made a big impact on my past two weeks.
On a much more positive side, after my last blog post, I lost my small point-and-shoot camera that has been taking all of these photos. It sounds strange to think of this as positive, especially since I had to live without a camera for an entire week! Talk about torturous. Through this experience though, I was able to get a replacement camera, a Canon A4000 similar to my previous camera except with 4x more zoom and nearly 4 additional megapixels. The part that is most spectacular though was that my sister, Cherie, read my Facebook post about the lost camera, and bought me a camera--a Canon T2I! I had been looking to buy this camera for nearly three years now, so I cannot believe it's here now! Unfortunately, with all the rush of these past two weeks, I am only now getting the opportunity to begin playing with it. The manual is 180 pages long, so I have a lot of reading ahead! LOL
My past two weekends have been spent with Drew on some great adventures. During the first week of August, we drove to South Dakota to retrieve his motorcycle in Rapid City. Along the way, we visited Wind Cave National Park and the Crazy Horse Memorial. Both were awesome experiences. I was particularly thrilled with Wind Cave: it's the fifth longest cave in the world, and fourth longest in North America! Unlike the dampness of most caves, this one is fairly dry, preserving a rare cave formation known as "Boxwork", which was formed before the cave existed, but becomes exposed through the slow erosion of the surrounding stone. The other treat about this place is that I now claim it as my twentieth national park that I've visited! Only another thirty or so more to go.
The second weekend was spent here at Yellowstone enjoying Drew's motorcycle as we took it along the 125-mile loop that forms the Grand Circle of the park. This was the first time I had ever been on a real motorcycle trip. Along the way, the most exhilarating experience was riding through a bison jam while sitting on the motorcycle exposed to the bison within 15 yards! We didn't stay to enjoy the close proximity as we were content to look at the bison herds at a safer distance. The perk about being a passenger was having the ability to take photos while passing through though.
A long day awaits me, so I need to go now. I have two sermons to post. Hopefully the Internet signal will be stronger tomorrow and allow me to upload them. Photos from the past two weeks are posted on the "Photos of the Week" page. Enjoy!
Blessings!
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