Home for a rest (again)

Back in Calgary. Feels soooo good. PA was really interesting in a lot of ways, but it was draining. There was the transition from Engineer to Youth Minister to Engineer, that was hard. The work was tough too. It was neat being in the mine, but it grows weary after a while... dark, damp, muddy, rubber boots... ugh.

BUT! We finished early, so I was home by wednesday night which was awesome. Thursday went shopping, friday hit sunshine with Karen, Saturday went cross country skiing with Karen, sunday was laze with... ok, you get the point. Yeah, was totally missin her too. You know you hit those points where you REALLY REALLY wanna be around the other person... was having one of those. I think I got a good fix this weekend though. Now I'm on 2 more days off too, which is awesome cuz I can catch up on all the other stuff I didn't do on the weekend, like laundry :D

So on to sunshine... mmm.... snow was okay, not great but decent enough for early season. It was awesome to downhill again too. I missed last season and I was scared cuz my feet were causing so many problems last time I went, but it was gravy. Three cruisy warm ups and they were pretty cramped up, but it seemed to go away after that and I could get the boots tight and into a nice performance setting and start doing some stuff. I slowly ramped up from cruising big turns to dropping small rocks (I think about 5 feet was the biggest, if that) little jumps, some medium bumps, and some agressive tight carving. If I can get out a few more days (1 or 2 at least) before Christmas then I think I'll be doing some really challenging stuff.

Ah well, getting long and I need a shower

A hobbit among giants

Well, one giant anyway, who ironically was like 4 feet tall.

What on earth am I talking about? Yesterday was the Diocese of Prince Albert Youth Rally. Warren (the Diocesan Coordinator) brought me to be one of the keynotes at the rally. It was an amazingly supportive thing for him to do. All the big shots in Canada do a lot of talking about fostering the gifts and callings of ministers in Canada, but he actually put his money where his mouth is and gave me my first real break. It was the first rally I was ever billed at, and my first sort of very large group keynote type thing. It went really well. We did a family night on friday, and I was really nervous for that one, but by saturday I was feeling really good and peaceful and stuff. When my session came up I was pretty relaxed, and it just flowed. It was one of those times when it felt like the Holy Spirit was doing all the work, and I kinda just provided the body. An amazing feeling to say the least. There's still lots of things I know I need to work on and improve, but the session still went really well. For my closing I did this little light of mine, and got the DYC band to join me unrehearsed. It was funny, they kept throwing me off in spots, but I think having their energy on stage got the crowd even more into it so it was better for it. I can't express what a blessing it was to be able to be there.

So what about this giant hobbit thing? The theme was Lord of all Things (like Lord of the Rings... get it?), and the other keynote, and really the main guy, was Greg Thompson. He's a youth minister and speaker type from Alabama. He's also about 4 or 4.5 feet tall or so. Anyway, he was an amazing facilitator. He was so spirit filled and transparent and inspiring. It was such a great honor and blessing to work along side him. He was very supportive of me too. He was positive and encouraging and affirming. AND at the end of it all he gave me his spirit and song 2 book (I was drooling over it a bit). I hope to find a way to bring him into Calgary soon, I'd love to see him doing his thing again.

Of course it was also tiring, but hey, I survived, and managed to work pretty good today too. Only a couple more days at the mine and we'll be done... 2 maybe 3. I can't wait to get home, I miss my bed, and my friends, and Karen, and dancing.

Okay, time to go snooze.

And every day you're in this place you're two days nearer death

Actually, its not that bad, if you dont mind dark, cool, and VERY dirty. Seriously, so dirty. I'm up at a diamond mine in Prince Albert (No I haven't found any, no I can't take a sample home). But it's wet. Very wet. Apparently there's like a lake right above one spot. And muddy. Thank God for rubber boots and stuff, except for the damn uncomfortable part. Man, those things hurt my feet. The gear is pretty interesting. There's the standard, steel toes, skid lid, coveralls, but the lid is a cool miners helmet (which is more or less the same, but with a rim all the way around and clip on the front), the headlamp, and a big safety belt. Also interesting, is the underground board. If you've ever seen October Sky, they have that peg board, and the miners put their tag on the underground side when they go in in case of a cave in or something. They have one of those here. So I got my tag... this is probably a lot more interesting if you're here now that I read over it. But the other cool thing is the bucket. It's this steel bin you climb into, then they raise it up like 10 feet to open the hole in the floor. When you're up in the air it feels like the drop of doom. I was waiting for the buzzer then the gut wrenching plunge. Luckily that didn't happen, but man, they lower you fast. Like stomach up in my throat fast. With walls whizzing past (in the dark) it's actually a little freaky. But, 235m later you are at the bottom. Good times.

Anyway, this is much more interesting to me than probably the rest of you. Wish I had the camera to get some pics, but my brother has 'borrowed' mine, which means who knows when I'll see it again.

K, I'm gonna bounce