art , etc

Hey ya'll
*Sigh* NY is great, I'm not sure I want to go home so soon............ I've been learning so much about God and the creative mind- I guess I'm so thankful that He lets me communitcate in that way and that I can talk with others who are called in that area as well.
I've been slowly learning that there is a call for Christians in the art world. I'm just excited to be swept up along in what God is already doing. Thankyou so much for all of you who helped me get here. Its where I need to be right now.
Goodnight

Yeah for Sleeping In :)

Wow, so summer is flying by. Our staff will be leaving in a week from tomorrow. Kind of crazy to think that we will be taking over the leadership of the entire project. We will all eventually have specific roles, but most of us do not know what they will be yet. I have today off, so it was great to be able to sleep until 9:30, but I did wake up at 5:40 out of habit. Kind of crazy I know. So I guess an 8 am class wouldn't be so bad after all, but still. Anyway, our theme this week is the World. It's been cool to think about God sending us on project to other places around the world next summer, or for a year, or for the rest of our lives. It's been fun to learn about what the Lord is doing in different countries. Anyway, I should go check on my laundry and get ready for the rest of my fun-filled day off :) Have a great week!

Joy

Loving Eachother

Hey All,
Another week down. It's so crazy to see how fast the time goes by. Wow, seems like there's never a dull moment here. We just finished "All for One" week, in which we focused on the community of our project. It was great to spend time together and really get to know eachother. We have been challenged to share our struggles with eachother as well as to rejoice with eachother and encourage one another. It's been great to be open, honest, and vunerable with eachother. So yep, it's been another wonderful, fast, crazy week. We played a huge softball game last night in which it was students vs. staff. Fun times where had by all. Anyway, sorry this is short. I forgot that I had laundry in the washer (oops, it's been there for a couple of hours) and it's time for us to have supper. So have a wonderful week. I'd really appreciate your prayers for continued strength in the coming weeks as we all are tired and busy. Also, that we would continue to be bold in sharing our faith. Miss you all!

P.S. I'm too lazy to spell check, so you'll have to suffer through my spelling. Sorry :)

Outreach and a Day Off

Life is grand here in Medora town. We had a project day off on Tuesday this week, so monday night the guys went camping while the girls stayed overnight indoors painting our toenails and watching chick flicks. it was pretty great. we also took an old-time photo [which was pretty fun] and spent the day hiking, relaxing, swimming, studying- and me and 3 others went canoeing down the Heart River in Dicksinson, so it was an awesome day. Last Saturday we took almost all students and staff (so about 15 pple total) to a carnival in dickinson. We stayed for a few hours and just wandered around and drummed up some spiritual conversations. I partnered w/my roommate Leanna; we talked to several groups and shared the knowing God booklet with 5 people. This project is definitely structured differently than joy's, as you see in the opportunities to share with people, but we had a great time and it was really good practice for this fall. Other random events: my family [parents, joel] is coming to visit next week which i am pretty excited about. Also, I shared my testimony Tuesday Night at our Coffehouse. It was a smaller crowd, which was a blessing in disguise: last week we had 60 people packed into a small basement and if there had been that many, they would not have paid attention. projects people said i did well but i don't really remember what i said- at least the spirit was working in/through me!
that's aboot all fer now :]

amy

I Love the Beach

Hey Guys,
Well, I finally have free time to post on here. Wow, that's absolutely crazy. These past 4 weeks (wow, I guess it's been close to a month, not quite) have been great. I've made some great friends and built some really good relationships. We just finished up a big outreach week. It was called "Killing the Giants Week" The entire week was spent sharing our faith with anyone and everyone. Throughout the week 105 people came to know Christ as their Savior. As a whole our project had spiritual conversations with over 2421 (that was our goal). So yep, work is going good. I'm getting used to the early mornings. Who doesn't like starting the morning at 5:15. But tomorrow is my day off so I'm super excited to spend some time on the beach, and to actually sleep in. Anyway, I should let some other people use the computer. I miss you all!

Joy

Oh, P.S. if you ever want to write me a letter you totally can, my address is

Joy Nervig
Campus Crusade for Christ
North Myrtle Beach, SC 29582

Day off!

Wow, it's been a while...but today has been so great! As fun as last weekend was, it meant we haven't had an actual day off in two weeks, which is quite a long time. So i actually don't know where most of the people are right now, except a few went to an alligator farm which i would have loved to go to but i planned on reading this afternoon, but then one of the girls came back and asked if i wanted to go to old navy, so we went on a flip-flop run. Otherwise, this morning we went to church then i came back and took a 2 1/2 hour nap; i was/am way exhausted. But church this morning was pretty great. We're all getting used to amazingly long services...haha, he doesn't even start the sermon until at least an hour into church so the entire service usually lasts right around two hours or maybe a little more. It's a lively church with fun clapping and "hallaluah's" thrown out randomly, which is a lot of fun and pretty different from my northern friends :) One of the girls here mentioned a term that describes us perfectly i think - the "frozen chosen" I thought that was pretty great. But it was soo great to be at church this morning - it was packed! And when i say packed, i mean they had to bring in folding chairs and ask us to move in closer to each other and point out the open seats. It was so encouraging to see such a full church. Even if a lot of us aren't members, it's great to be able to just be there and give life and spirit into the building and hopefully be able to fill these people with hope that we care and that God will provide.
This last week I worked at the Vacation Bible School, which is way more tiring than any construction jobs i've worked at. Believe me, it was crazy. But we did get to see four children who said they accepted Christ, which was really great. We had the chance to present the gospel to all of them, so we don't even know what went on in their hearts or the seeds we could have had the chance to plant in their lives...so praise the Lord!
Next week i'll be working on construcion also. I don' tknow what specific job i'll have, wherever they need me i guess.
If ya'll could pray for tomorrow that would be great also. We will all be going to New Orleans to do initiative evangelism for a few hours on two campuses, so i'm sure we're all excited/nervous to see what will go on. It's really the first organized evangelism we've done and maybe the last that we'll do, which is kind of disappointing, but I'm confident the Lord will be with us, guiding us and helping us. We also have a lot of new believers on this project, i think, so it will be a lot of first-time experiences for people sharing the four laws and having the chance to share their faith, so it will be a great learning experience for them.
Random other thoughts - yesterday after work we went out to a mini-plantation that some guys have been working clean-up at in the past week. The ladies who own it wanted to invite us out to a barbeque. So we had amazing ribs, chicken, hummas, hamburgers, salad, homemade cookies and brownies, cake, chips, pop...it was all sooo good compared to the kitchen food. They also have really sweet grounds, like a few different houses, a huge dock right next to a great river that we swam in for a few hours, a trampoline in the ground, a big campfire pit, badmitten, and random places to hang out including a two story tree house. I had such a great time, i spent about 5 hours there swimming and eating and chilling out after our half day of work yesterday. Then I came back, took a short nap and went to the movie Cars with Scott S., Dan D, Michelle, and Heather. It was cute and fun to not have to entertain ourselves for a while. I think it was the first movie i've been to in the theaters since Christmas day...haha. Not to mention I was super excited to get to wear a light jacket because i was *gasp* cold. it was great...felt like home :) But the movie did make me miss home and wide open spaces and being able to see for miles.
Oh - and my favorite quote of the week comes from the pastor of our church down here. We were talking to him yesterday after our last day of VBS and he was telling us about the people around here. He said that "Katrina was like a big can opener prying open the hearts of the hard people."
Soooo hope ya'll have a great week!
See ya
lys

Spider Man 3

Hey ya'll
Just thought I'd let you know that I was walking to church this morning in Times Square and had to be re-rooted because they were filming for Spider Man Three! I caught a glimpse of Toby Miguire (sp?) hanging out, but sadly he wasn't doing any cool spidy moves.
New York is awsome, and the people here on project are soo fun to get to know.
Miss ya'll though!

work.

have you seen the movie office space? i love that movie. it's so fun to quote. after a VERY long day at work, i couldn't help but this of a funny statement made by Peter Gibbons in the movie. here it is, adapted to my life: "So I was sitting in my burger stand today, and I realized, ever since I started working at the Maltese, every single day of my life has been worse than the day before it. So that means that every single day that you see me, that's on the worst day of my life."

OK...so work isn't THAT bad. i could have a more fun job, i could have a less fun job. my manager is awesome, coworkers are great and i get to meet everyone in town. It's jobs like this that make me want to stay in college so i don't end up working in a Burger stand my whole life.

Other than that, things are great! especially since i have the day off tomorrow! :]

amy

A few pictures stolen from facebook friends...

Kevin, Allison, Alyssa, Tom - the group that worked on the drywall in Edna's house and had a blast doing it!

The library we live in - don't worry, those are definatly bullet holes in the windows of our library. But more scary than that is why a library would have bullet proof windows in the first place...

Callin' Baton Rouge

Hey ya'll!! haha..just wait till I get home - my friends here do have a point, there's really no great phrase to take the place of ya'll, besides like 'you guys' which is way too many sylables...
Anyway...i'm not sure who's more excited that other people have been able to post, me or everyone who's getting sick of reading about me :) Anyway, it's great to hear from you, Julie. I'm glad everything's going well and I can't wait to hear about everything amazing you've been able to see! Amy, I'm glad the job's going well! haha, keep working on making up songs, we'll need another one for TCX, right?
Well, as for me - ya'll can probably see by my name that I'm not in Kansas (Pass Christian) anymore. We've taken the weekend to go on men's and women's retreats! The ladies headed west two hours to Baton Rouge, Lousiana, and the guys headed a few hours east to the border of Florida/Alabama. They'll be going deep sea fishing tomorrow, which i'm a bit jealous of, but it's all good. Tomorrow we'll be headed to a theme park and water park which has the longest water slide in the world. I'm guessing it will be a pretty great time. Tonight we just rolled in, had a little bit of discussion about girlie things, and now we're hanging out and people are slowly going to bed.
Today was my last day of my second week of construction. We got the roof all done that we were working on! Have I even mentioned the roof? Well, even if i have, it's worth mentioning again. I spent four of my five work days on a roof re-shingeling a house. I'm not sure that I've ever known hot until tuesday started. Anyway, it was great to get that finished, it gives such a great feeling of accomplishment! We worked yesterday and our half day today primering the house that we drywalled last week. Not gonna lie - it was a humbling experience to see that our drywall job wasn't the best. But then again, what can anyone expect, we'd never done it before. Good learning experience, though, so it's all good.
After we got done today, we went to the kitchen for lunch and Susan and I sat with the funniest old couple today. They have been married fifty years and are pretty much impossible to describe. He's 71 and got repremanded about 5 times by his wife while we were there, but he needed it cuz he's spunky like that. But he told us he loves to talk and will look for us whenever he's eating at the kitchen, so that'll be fun. Hopefully we'll be able to share the gospel with him at some point. Opportunities for that have been pretty limited since we're not really in contact with a whole lot of people while we're working. It's hard when we have about 12 people at a worksite for one person. There's not much one on one interaction time in the small about of time that the person is even around.
Anyway, i need to get to bed so i can be rested for our day of great fun tomorrow!
Love ya'll! It's so great to hear from everyone
lys

night sky

Hey ya'll ( I've heard ya'll more here than my entire life)
I'm here in New York! Its pretty sweet. I'm super excited to actually be here alive, and well. We have a sweet apartement with lots of room (sorry Lys) in the business district of NY. Its fun to walk around the streets and I'm slowly learning how to ride the subways.
Its been really fun so far getting to know everyone, and so far we've goten a lecture by an artist (Christian) here in the city. I also get to meet with an artist in the city every week in a type of mentor program (!) We are working on a colaborative art project together which we will show at the end. It should be interesting because artists are used to working alone, and we all have different areas of interest.
I'll give you guys more details when I've been here a little longer. We went to the Rockerfeller Center, and looked out across all of NY. It was amazing!
I Love ya'll (I'm not going to be able to stop saying that....)
Forever His
Julie
p.s. Meghan, I forgot to call you the day I was leaving, so goodbye! ( I was going to call you to say goodbye)
Amy, have fun singing, and Lys have fun working!
Remember we're all under the same night sky
When I look up at
the night sky
and can't see any stars through the fog
I think of you, see clearly and no longer feel stuck in a grog
I like coffee
and getting lost here in the city
Ok, I need to go to bed. Goodnight (ya'll)

Maltese Madness

Today was an interesting day at the Maltese Burger stand. It has been cloudy all day and misted on and off. Of course I worked all day from 11 to 7pm with the manager and a project guy, Rob. Needless to say, we were pretty bored. He likes to write songs (as do I) so we came up with some pretty awesome ones during our 8 hr shift today:

to the Tune of "Working on the Railroad"
I've been working at the Maltese, all the live-long day.
I've been sleeping at the Maltese just to pass the time away.
Can't you hear the burgers frying, come on up and get your food.
Can't you hear the workers shouting words that are kind of lude.

Come and get your food, come and get your food,
come get your food right now-
Come and get your food, come and get your food,
come and get your food before it's gone

There is also an intercom that we call the names out from when the orders are ready. This is mainly Rob's job, and Rob is crazy so it's a really fun place to work. Examples: "Cory, I have great news. I just saved a bunch of money on my car insurance by switching to Geico. Oh, and you're food's ready-" ... "Oompa Loompa doopaty do, I've got another Burger for you-" he's pretty creative and caves in when we all egg him on.

I have a feeling this is how the summer is gonna go: On the weekends we will be so busy we will want to quit, but then once Monday comes, it will be quiet and boring, so we won't mind it. then another weekend will come and we'll wanna quit again. At least I don't have to pay for the food I eat while I work! today I ate onion rings and 1/2 a buffalo burger (yes it was really buffalo) for lunch, then I had a few fries and some cheese curds for supper.

All in all, it's a good, boring job and I love it.

amy

Work hard, play hard

Hey guys!! I'm so excited that i'm not the only one updating the blog...
haha
Anyway, yesterday was sooo much fun. We were at the beach for about three hours, but most of the time there I was playing ulitimate frisbee with 13 guys. It was intense...haha but i think i held my own pretty well :) Then to outback...which was also amazing! Then we had the biggest bonfire i've ever seen in my life. It was on the beach and included a mattress, wooden pallets, a TV, an office chair, and a computer monitor. It was pretty sweet, i'm sure all the guys out there would have thouroughly enjoyed it.
Today was a lot of fun also. I spent from 8:30-5:00 (minus 45 min lunch break) on the roof of a house tearing up shingles and tar paper and laying new shingles. It was the hottest i've been in my entire life, but i excaped too bad of a sunburn by putting lotion on three different times. haha...but it was still fun. All of the people I work with are great and it was pretty sweet to get a lot of work done. We'll have the roof done tomorrow, then move on to something else. And i got to use the nail gun...can't beat that.
Anyway, i'm way past exhaused so i'm pretty sure my bedtime will be in about 5 minutes.
Talk to you all later! Thanks for the comments!
see ya'll

HOWDY!

ahhh!!! internet!!! i had to pay 25 bucks to get internet access for the whole summer @ the general store next to my dorm here in Medora, ND, so you better appreciate my updates!! :D so, here's what's going on in my life:

The Badlands Summer Project 06 is made up of 8 men, 7 women and 7 staff members plus their 5 kids. How many summer project participants can say they can name off every student OR staff on their project plus their majors and home towns? I can! Wahoo! The project people here are amazing. I drove down following Ann from SMSU and she’s the only girl I knew before hand, mainly from Trek. And there’s Derek from SDSU- we haven’t made fun of each other too much, and have enjoyed leading worship for the group. I have clicked really well with everyone, especially a few of the girls. Mark & Emily Rygh are here along with Brian & Julie Kolling and all their kids. It has been really fun already to get to know all them better. My Ministry Team is 3 guys, me and one other girl, along with staff members Jason & Kassidy Skjervem. They are on staff in ND and are awesome people. Kassidy is pretty much Allison Hoffman to a tee. Anyway, our team focuses mainly on prayer and getting everyone on the project to be more committed to prayer for each other and our coworkers/dorm-mates. We also plan Tuesday nights at the “Coffeehouse.” It’s a crusade hangout in the basement of the Town Hall, an area given to us to use by the foundation (the group who hires the workers, etc). We are planning some awesome events for that. Here’s a sample of our schedule:
Monday Nights – supper and our own “CRU” meeting just for project peoples
Tuesday Nights – Coffeehouse from 9pm-??
Wednesday Nights – Women’s Bible Study (Emily & Julie, my roommate Leanna and Kristi), Men’s Reflection.
Thursday Nights – Women’s Reflection and Men’s Studies
Friday Nights – Bonfire for anyone & everyone!

I currently work @ the Maltese Burger joint with one girl, two other guys on Project and our manager Ricardo. He's from Indonesia and it's fun to teach him "english slang" - words like 'awesome' and 'cool.' There are literally people here from all over the world- So far I've met people from Kenya, Ukraine, New York City, and several other locations. what a great opportunity to spread the Gospel!

Everyone here is so open and good-natured. They love having Campus Crusade here- There has always been a huge problem with drinking and even teenage pregnancies every summer, and these problems are still around, but have gotten a lot better in the past years since crusade has brought a team to Medora. The workers love coming to our events because there is FINALLY something to do! Haha. And, everyone knows who we are which is crazy! It is truly amazing here. I am falling in love with this place. The Medora Magic is getting to me. :]

ps I bought my first cowboy hat last week - def. not my last! yeeeehaw!!

amy

free day!

Hey ya'll! What's up??

Not too much going on here, I just got done playing a game of Nerts w/some other people so that was fun. Earlier we went to church (which lasted 2 1/4 hours..), went to God's Kitchen for brunch, then came back. Laura, Becca, Amanda, Jenna and I went to take pictures on the beach so that was fun. I think i'm off pretty soon to take a short nap, then some people are going to Gulfport to see a movie so i'll have them drop me and one or two other people off at Barnes and Noble so we can hang out and read for free in air contitioning for a while, so that'll be pretty sweet.
I finished up my first week of construction this week, so that was pretty sweet to see how much work we got done in rebuilding someone's house.
And!!! We got air conditioning yesterday!! Woot woot! haha, well the guys' room got air condidioning and we're pulling it into the girls' room with fans, so it was one of the greatest feelings this morning to wake up and want to use a blanket! yay for that
I think tomorrow, our fun day, we'll be hanging out at the beaching, playing some volleyball or other games, then headed for a free meal at Outback Steakhouse, then having a bonfire at the beach, so that'll be pretty sweet. I'm excited for that and for the fact i get to sleep in until however late I feel like sleeping (so probably about 9am...haha) Then it's back to construction work on Tuesday. I can't believe i'm already done with my second week! I've just gotten to know these people and i love them!
Well i'm out...see ya!
lys

Really hot!

Hey everyone! Hope all is well! Everything is going really great here! The only downfall is the heat and humidity. This may be an overshare, but last night I woke up about 20 times because I was so hot...eventually I grabbed a towel that was by my bed, wiped off the sweat on my face, and put it on my pillow because I knew I would just keep sweating. So yeah...hopefully we'll get air conditioning soon. It wouldn't be cold, but at least we could get some actual sleep!
Anyway, enough complaining. Today was our third day (haha...that's ironic - third day's on the radio right now ;) ) of construction on Edna's house. After one more sheet of drywall goes up, we'll be pretty much done with drywall. Yesterday we got most everything mudded, so today we sanded and did the second coat of mud. It's also encouraging at the compliments we've been getting for our work. I'm having a lot of fun learning how to build a house, basically. And Edna's so fun to talk to. She's about 83 and such a cute old woman, and she thanks us for our work every time we talk to her. She was pretty fortunate in the amount of things she was able to save from her house, but she didn't even come back here until about a week and a half ago. It sounds like that's what a lot of people are doing.
Allison and I talked to a lady with her five kids yesterday at lunch and she almost started crying when she gave us a simple thank you for our work. Every time we talk to anyone from the area, i'm so encouraged that the work we're doing can have such an impact on the people. I know I say that a lot, but i'm constantly suprised at how appreciate these people are. It's such a blessing for us to be able to be here, too.
Anyway, I hope everyone else's projects are going well!! I miss you all, but I'm sure you are/will be making great new friends :)
And hey to all of you who are at home or in Verm or wherever else you are!
Talk to ya'll soon!
Oh, and the night of reflection we had on tuesday was amazing. I spent it on the beach for about three hours, just listening to the waves on the shore and enjoying God's creation
bye guys!
lys