The Adopted Core

Here are some picutres of a few of my friends. I can't do much right now becuase I have to run off and get ready for ESOAL. Please be praying for me. It starts tonight.

This is Maria. She is my best friend here at the HA.


This is Mike (left) and Kyle(right). We're hanging out for our usual Sunday night football.


Well, I'd love to post some more pictures, but it's taking to long. I have to run off and get ready for ESOAL. These are really the people I hang out with the most anyway. I'll post some more pictrures of my friends and core next week. Please be pryaing hard core for me. I'm going to need it.

ESOAL, here we come!

Well, at this point I don't have any pictures. I would like to take some of campus and random friends so that can all see what's going on down here. Until then, I will update you about ESOAL. Here at the HA, we have what they call LTE's, of Life Transforming Events. The upcoming LTE is called ESOAL, Emotional Stretching Opportunity of a Lifetime. As far as many people here at the HA know, it is the most gruesome spiritual training in the country. Oh course, that's just a speculation. At least, let's hope so. In preparation for ESOAL, the interns have been split up into companies and than into platoons. Each person then has an individual number. Actually I feel like I'm in a concentration camp running around with 03-05-114 written on my arm. Anyway, my platoon, platoon five of company three, work out together at corporate exercise every morning. We learn each others strengths and weaknesses, build unity among the team, and push ourselves to our limits. The Interns have also been given verses, a hymn, and a list of countries to memorize. These must all be known by ESOAL because there will be a test at the beginning as well as other things to memorize during the LTE. It must all be known word for word and in the correct order.
Here is the little I know right now about ESOAL. We are going to spend five days outside of our dorms. We will not sleep in tents, will not have showers, and will not have beds, and will have very little sleep. There will be various challenges stretching us physically, emotionally, and spiritually. Each challenge must be completed as a team. Also, those who are winners will receive rewards. This means that the platoons who do well may receive extra food, sleeping hours, etc. The goal of ESOAL is to beat your body to its physical limit thus dying to yourself, but then continuing because you are relying on the strength of the Lord. It's going to be a hard weekend. HA has even hired actual military sergeants to come and facilitate ESOAL. You can all be praying for me as I prepare for this vigorous challenge.

Hiking Halet's Peak

In this section pictures will be posted randomly throughout. Also, if you want to start at the beginning of my Colorado story, this isn't it. Wasn't thinking when I poasted this so this is actually the last section. The first to you can locate on the left of this webpage.

On Sunday morning we all got up at 2:45 am. It was very cold. It was about 40 degrees. (I have to give a shout out to Anut Tammy. The backpack was awesome! It was exactly what I needed that weekend. Becuase of the super crazy padding it didn't hurt my shoulders while I was climbing. Thanks so much!) I put on a lot of layers along with a hat and gloves. I thought it would be enough, but I would later find out that I was wrong.
We all met at the bus at 3:15 and drove to the foot of the moutain we were going to climb. When we arrived we all lined up in hiking groups that the HA selected for all of us. I was in hiking group 22. We decided to call ourselves Duce Duce. The purpose of the hiking groups was to make sure that everyone stayed together, made it to the top, and stayed healthy. If we had hiked as one large group it would have been chaos. As we stood waiting to hike, suprise, suprise, it began to rain. My group and I got together and prayed that it would not rain hard that day while we were on the mountain. Thanks to God it didn't. It did drizzle however, which was nice for a while because as we started to climb we got really hot.

Fianlly Duce Duce was called to begin hiking up the mountain. We were all very excited. However, it was really dark and only two of us had thought to bring a flashlight. Thus, the people in the middle of the line got shafted. The going was rather slow, but we did alright. Though it may have been dark, I have never seen such amazing stars in my life. It was so gorgeous!

By the way, for any of you that were worried or are getting worried. I was fine the whole climb. My hiking leader did a great job to make sure that we stopped every ten minutes or so for a little water and sometimes a little food. Toby also did a great job leading the way, giving us hiking tips, and helping the girls that were having a hard time. TM also placed staff at different checkpoints on the mountain trail to make sure that everyone was there, we were drinking a lot of water, and that we were all feeling well. I was perfectly safe.
Anyway, as we kept on climbing that sun started to rise. Though I never actually saw a sunrise because it was cloudy all day. We all started to get rather cold and put some of our layers back on. There was no sun, the drizzle may have started out okay but it eventually made us very wet, and the higher we went the windier it became. We kept on hiking through the cold, stopping here and there to take some amazing picutures! I have never seen such beautiful sights in my life! How could anyone look at those mountains and not believe in God? Well, at one point it began to hail on us. Then it stopped for about a minute and then it started hailing even harder. This made it even colder for all of us. We were wet from the rain, it was windy, and the hail did not make things any better. When we hit the tree line and started hiking in the tundra of the mountain it became even colder. The wind was much worse and the higher you got the colder you got. Thankfully the hail did stop though.
Finally we made it to the top of the mountain, and we were only a half mile from the peak. We were the third group to arrive. We had to stop at the last checkpoint before heading to the top. At this point we had reached the end of the trail. The rest of the climb was by forging your own trail and actually climbing in some areas. The staff at the checkpoint told us that we had to sit and wait for a while becuase at that time the visibility was three to five feet in front of you. Becuase I was cold and wanted to get to the top, I was not happy about waiting. However, it's better to be safe than sorry. Duce Duce then sat down together and tried to eat a little lunch, but our fingers were so cold that we gave up. We were basically sitting in a cloud, which added to the cold, so we couldn't see anything around us.

(This is an example of what it looked like where we were. If you hiked down for about two minutes you could see all around you.)

TM staff finally decided to wait for all 36 hiking groups to reach the top then the leader, Mr. Neil, would take us all up as one group. The option was also given for those who did not want to wait in the cold to go ahead and ahead a hike back down. Of course, I was too stubborn and determined to do so. As people began to arrive, we all began to realize how cold it really was. Almost everyone at the top got together and formed a large penguin like huddle so that we could keep warm. At least what would be considered somewhat warm at the top of the mountain. Then we all sang worship songs and had orselves a little worship session. I stayed at the top of that mountain waiting for the last group to arrive for about two hours. It was approximately 15 defgess with a windchill of zero. We were all wet and hungry, and the sun never came out. I was freezing cold. My gloves were much to thin for that weather so I couldn't feel my fingers, and my toes were like ice. Whitout a scarf, my face was cold and receving wind burn, and the rest of my body was just cold.
(This is Tamra, my hiking leader, and I about to hike back down.)

When the last group finally arrive, Mr. Neil said that he would hike up a little ways to see if the visibility was any better than before. He came back down and told us that the visibility was now zero and that it dropped about another twenty degrees as you went up. We had to hike back down. I was not very happy at hearing this news. I had worked hard all summer, exercised here at five in the morning, and waited in the freezing cold for two hours, and I couldn't got to the top. I saw the wisdom and reasoning of the decision but I still wasn't happy. Actually, it took about a half hour after starting to hike down for me to feel my fingers again.
(In this picutre you can see the difference of what we were standing in at the top and what it was like only two minutes down.)

I hope that you don't all think that I didn't have fun. I had a great time. I wouldn't trade my experience for anything. It was so much fun meeting new friends, hiking the mountain, and having that great adventure. I loved it. There were some people that hurt themselves coming down or who became sick, but we are all okay. I found out later that our experience was one of the hardest in HA history. Anyway, that is the story of my trip to Colorado.
(This is Heather and I at the bottom of the mountain when it started to actually rain.)

This is my group Duce Duce. Top: Jill, Tamra, Allie. Bottom: Katie (she's from Michigan and was actually born in Sparrow Hospital), Toby, Kristina, and I.

Free Day in Colorado

Well, one thing that we discovered about the Rocky Mountains is that it rains about two to three times a day. For some reason it was also very cold the weekend we were there. Of course I figured that I would be all right since I had a tent. (Ironically, it was the bungalow that I used in Tijuana, Mexico.) However, our tent was missing a few strings to tie down the cover and I woke up completely soaked and very cold. It was not cool. Thankfully, there was a laundry mat near by where I could dry my sleeping bag.
This year Teen Mania (TM) allowed us to have a free day to get used to the air. I had never really understood how different it would be! We had to get up at the usual time, 4:30 am, for corporate exercise. We did so little that morning, but after our very short run I was dying!
Anyway, the buses took us to a city that was near by our campsite where we could hang out for the day. Heather and I rode together and entertained ourselves on the way.


When we got off of the bus I got myslef hooked up with some of my friends. We created a whole big group of people to criuse the town. My friend Ryan decided to dub us Team Cool. Here is a picture, most of the girls are in my core. Ryan is the one taking the picture. From left to right: Heather, myself, Allie, Mel, Maria, Ashley (my Core Advisor), Rachel (her last name is Lantz! How wierd is that?), Erika, and Maria.

Ee kept "painting the town red" as dad would say. Where that saying comes from or what it means I have no idea. All I know is that people defintely don't say that anymore. We decided that we wanted to stop and get pizza for lunch. There was a waiter there with the craziest hair in the world! He serioulsy looked like a chia pet, so, thanks to Ashley, we took a picture with him. Don't worry about him or anything. He was really nice and we didn't hang out with him or anything. I'm not doing anything stupid down here.
On the day that we were in the city, there was some sort of historical fair going on. It was really interesting. Mom would have probably been there for hours looking at everything and explaining to all of us what happened and asking tons of questions so that she could know everything. Unfortunately, the group I was with wasn't very interested in staying so we left pretty fast. We did take this picture at one of the clothing shops though.
After we looked at the fair, we went to the most gorgeous hotel in the world! It's some sort of cool historical home that they turned into a hotel, but I don't know why it was important. Actually, while we were there someone was getting ready to have here wedding there that day. That's why there are white chairs in one of these pictures. Inside the loby was a piano. I wanted to sit down and play is so much! I miss pianos a lot. Rachel, you would have totally loved this place. Actually, you would have flipped out. It was incredible! I thought of you all weekend. Right out of the front door of the hotel was the most beautiful view of the mountains. It's too bad that TM wasn't able to have us HA interns stay there! Oh well, camping is more adventureous anyway.
After looking at the hotel, my group went back to camp. Then I hung around with Heather and my new friends playing hacky sack (it was funny watching my try to play anyway), BS (it's a card game), or attempting to make fires. We had to go to bed at 8:00 because that next day we were going to hike the mountain.

Driving to Colorado

Well, hello family! How are all of you? This is a post about my trip to Colorado. I'm going to post it in different sections so that you can easily stop and come back to it. It may be rather long, but I hope that you enjoy!

It all began Thursday, when we left Honor Academy (HA) at 8:00. We all loaded the buses and drove for about 18 hours to our camp site. I was really afraid that the drive was going to be really boring because I didn't know anyone on the bus. Thankfully, I met a lot of great new friends, talked with them, joked around, and played mafia. We had a great time!
This is a picutre of Sharon and I making funny faces on the bus.

These two crazy people are Rosemary (on the left) and Jane.
This crazy dude is Toby. He is a lot of fun. All of you would not believe how much he is like Jason! It is so weird! He is actually from Colorado, so he gave us all of the tips that we would need while climbing the mountain.
Anyway, so we drove and drove entertaining ourselves in the strangest of ways. We seemed to stop a lot on the way. Our bus always seemed to be the last to arrive anywhere! While we were driving I took a nap because I was so tired from not sleeping the night before. (You cannot understand how hard it is to sleep on some of their busses!) Then I woke up and I was surrounded by cliffs! It was crazy! Then I got really picture happy. It's a good thing that I had a digital camera! Here is one picture I took from the bus. I thought this was beautiful, but I would later discover I was wrong.

We finally arrived in the Rocky Mountains at Estes Park. Heather Hall and I got a tent and found a group of girls to room with us. Never have I seen such clueless girls about how to set up a tent! It was rather strange. The view outside our tent was gorgeous! Everything about the park was absolutely amazing! We had finally arrived in Colorado!