Old news . . . is still news.

Okay, so basically, I haven't gotten my little bit all about snow camp out yet. Oh no! Right? Right. So here goes:

Snow Camp, No Turning Back Youth Ministries, 2007
So, for bible study sessions we dove into the book of Ruth. The beginning can pretty much be summed up in this way, (courtesy of Pastor Mike): Husband, "My God is king," (Elimelech,) took his wife "Pleasant," (Niaomi,) and their sons "Unhealthy," (Mahlon) and "Puny," (Kilion) from "the house of bread," (Bethlehem,) in "the land of praise," (Judah,) and moved them to the "toilet bowl," (Moab. Which technically means "God cursed." but "the toilet bowl sounds so much more dramatic, don't you agree?)

So anyway, if you look at it like that, doesn't the scene get set well? It's no surprise that Elimilech, Mahlon, and Kilion died, now is it?

I'm not going to go into all of his teachings here in my blog, there's so much! If you'd like to hear it all you can go to ntbym.com and podcast it and/or download the MP3s, or you can ask me for my notes, teehee.

I think the most amazing day was Friday. That night, we were up hecka late, (as always,) after the session just having the most amazing worship time I've had in a long time. It was amazing for me, I've been having some hardships come creeping into my life as of late, and it was just so amazing to be there with God. I had a chance to just lay it all before God, break down, and just let Him hold me.

After the service we had a little "fellowship" time, from like, 10-11. For this time I found myself in a group of four. (Mason, Monica, Me, and my brother Greg.) It was an intense conversation we had, ranging from Japan stopping their space program, to black and white holes, life on other planets, the beginning of time, time travel, and I think that's most of all we talked about. (It was deep, intense, and completely more involved than it sounds here I assure you.) It was great fun. =]

Of course the day on the mountain was nothing short of super-duper either! (Though we did have a random issue with like, nine of us not getting our lift tickets, it was weird, random, and resolved within a short period of time.)

It took me about an hour to "get my legs back" as I call it, (give me a break, it'd been a year since the last time I had skied, and that was the first time I'd ever skied! Haha.) So, after trying to get those legs back, and watching Heather and CeCe have their snowboarding lesson, all my fellow skiers were already up on the mountain. (Oh no!) The girls were off to practice their super cool looking sport, and I was off to find a ski buddy. Didn't have to look for long, David, John's brother popped up out of the blue, (he was there with a friend) and I talked him into going up with me, the amateur. (Actually, he offered, how nice!)

(At this point, I still wasn't confident that I had found my long lost legs yet, but I figured I'd just go up and see what happened.) So up I went, along with David of course. David's a snowboarder though, so he wanted to take a solo-seat, (understandable) so I got on the lift with a random Korean guy that was in line behind me. I, (being me) decided to make conversation. "I haven't skied in a while, and don't really recall how to get off these silly ski lifts!" I confessed. He was quite nice and assured me that it wasn't as hard as it looked. I didn't really remember it being hard, I just remember being a klutz and almost crashing quite a few times in my past. "Just get off a little earlier than you think you should." He added, to which I replied, "Well, I'm not sure when 'early' is!" "Don't worry about it, I'll tell you when." 'How nice!' I thought, 'He had said he skied a lot, so I'll just do that.' Well, all went well until he said, "Now!" Sufficed to say, it was just a little too early, the guy in the booth is all like, "Not yet! Stay on just a little longer!" Before I knew it the seat was catching up with me and bumped me right along as it hit my bum, how embarrassing! I couldn't get momentum! Korean guy? Psh, he was doing fine. One more bump from that obnoxious seat and I was going down the little hill at the end of the lift, yeah, I wasn't ready, so I ended up almost crashing into the pole on the right-hand side of the hill. It was hilarious! I laughed, (of course I was okay, and had stopped myself before I actually hit the pole . . .) but out comes the lift guy, "Are you okay?!" "Yep!" I laughed, he went on to ask that I "please wait just a little longer to get off" the next time I got up, and then went back into his booth. Ha! I got up and skied the two feet to David, and we both laughed again, with a "Nice," from him, we were off down the hill.

I was very slow at first, and my buddy was nice enough to wait for me, but on the next few runs I got to go faster. The second and third runs we caught up with Rachel N., CeCe, and Rachel and went up with them. (Rachel didn't have any poles, and sure you don't need them, but it's kinda nice to just know you have them, in case you fall down and what-not. So I gave her one of my poles, and we went down like that.) I've since almost become partial to no poles, it's kind of an adrenaline rush and feels so much like ice skating!

The van ride home was quite the adventure, let me tell you. My van consisted of Dave, (the driver,) Veronica, (shotgun,) LeslieAnn, and Jessica in the first row. Me, Heather and Monica next. Then came Joiya, Brittany, and Rebbecca. Then in the back we had, (at first,) Nathan, Ian, Daniel, and Morgan. Taylor was soon swapped for Nathan in the back, (though Taylor was already in our van, his placement was not exactally consistent ever therefore he was left off the original list xD)

We stopped for dinner on the way back, and set loose, I joined the group that was heading in to Taco Bell. (It was close, and I knew they had an amazing veggie burrito, enough said right?) There was a whole wad of us, I remember I was there, (ha!) Sarah, Rachel N., Lauren, and Joiya I think we were. Soon though, we were joined by Tony, Kelly, Jessica, and Mason. (Good times friend.) The resident story-teller, (Tony,) soon started in on a story about bible college and a guy that came to talk to them about being "real men." It was hilarious, ha! Time flew, and all of a sudden we were back at the lodge being pelted by Michael as he "helped" unload everyone's things along with Ralph, and then it was all over. Just as quickly as it happened. Sad day!

All in all, it was a crazy good time. The snow was cold, the cabins were amazing, snowball fights happened, and only one major injury occurred, (poor Casey . . .) I had an amazing time, maybe I'll tell more as I think of it, but this really covers all the high points. ;] I think the only thing I left out was S'ven and Kristi weren't this year due to them being in Holland, I missed seeing them, but still had fun, naturally. ;]

It was amazing, God is amazing, life is amazing.
Peace and love,
Mallory