A New Song

Hey guys! I know it's been a while since my last post. Things have been moving a mile a minute! Well, that's not entirely true. Here it's more like 35 miles per hour (gravel roads) but with all the bumps it really feels like your being bounced around.

I "worked" in the mornings for a week, driving the cutest little girl to pre-school. This would have continued but the state won't pay for her to keep going there. She's one of the foster kids next door to Jan and Corb. There are 8 kids over there, 6 of them foster kids. And the couple parenting them are my age! I am amazed. Please be praying for this family.

John, Lukey and Markey came to visit. This was pretty awesome. We went all the way up to the lake at Polson and all the way down to the University of Montana down in Missoula, where John used to throw-up in the frat house bushes. Yes. He pointed this out to us.

I came back to Federal Way for Jonathan and Jessica's wedding, so glad I did! It was awesome and to see everyone was good too. The next weekend we were back for a Native Women's Conference. It was kind of overwhelming. I felt a little lonely there, just realizing that I do not know this culture yet at all. I am still very much on the outside of it. Lord, help me learn!

It was a good weekend to see Amos and my family. I kind of kept it at that and was still exhausted. I originally thought that every time I visited I would get together with everyone, but there is something to be said for not exiting the mission field and immersing yourself in your old life. I'm still not sure what to do about this...

What's to come!

So. Jan came home last week saying that she had been thinking about the kids we saw in the Malt Shop. The Malt Shop is the local place to get burgers, shakes, basically Luke's Diner. *wink
During lunch at the high school, the kids flood in there, which Jan and I witnessed one day. Well, the Lord wouldn't leave her alone about it, so she asked the owner if I could come there some days during lunch or after school and play guitar and sing worship songs. So the owner is like, "any time you want! and if you want to do it at the coffee shop we own that's good too!" Can you believe it? So I am currently putting a short set of songs together to play after school on Friday. At first I was like, heck no! But then I thought about the fact that for some reason, God has been impressing on me to practice both guitar and my voice every day since I've gotten here. I thought it was for the future but then this turns up and, well, we hope; the rest is history!

So, my house, my house, my house. I came home from last last weekend to lots of bugs. And I thought, "Lord, I do not want to move out! I love it here. It's just these bugs!" Low and behold, the girls (from the church) know someone renting both a house and apartment right next to the church. Rent is right, and I immediately fell in love with the house, though I haven't seen the apartment yet. Well, driving back to my house I said, "Lord, I like it here. I don't want to move if it isn't you. Speak to me clearly." I came in and there weren't many bugs. Relief. Then I looked at the window. Crawling! With flying ants or termites, not sure which. I was so grossed out! So, I go into the bathroom! Crawling! From the ceiling on my counter, my TOOTHBRUSH...God has spoken. I called my landlord and they're fine with me moving out. Only trouble is, the new people want to move in right away and I still have nowhere to move to! The landlords of the new place I'd like are on vacation for another week and a half...past the end of the month. They don't have cell phones. Lord, we need a miracle!

That's pretty much the news. May got skunked but she's being babysat since I was gone, and they're keeping her until I figure out where I'm settling. I miss her. We got the Bibles for the youth church and we're averaging 5 or 6 every week. Pretty good for a church of 30! So anyway, things are good and I am ready to move. It feels weird to be unsettled again after just settling in, will it ever end? But I am holding on to the fact that God wants His best for me. So away we go!

Love,
E

Reality Hits

Wow, almost three weeks in. Feels like a lifetime. The highlights of each day get logged away in a my brain, and hopefully many will come out here. Today I had bugs, found out that Amos won't be coming out till October, and found a bird trapped in my woodstove that it took two hours to get out. I think I'm in a little bit of a funny mood to write, but here it goes...

The bug situation is better. On cold days there are hardly any, except there are ants now. But lots of traps out and it seems to be ok. They (the ants) threaten, but don't follow through. Today is the first sunny day we've had all week so when I left the house around noon I had seen about 3 coming in....but that's not bad. They all die anyway because Mama Denise sprayed my house and let's just say that dead bugs are better than live ones. (oh, PS-Mama Denise and Papa George also stocked the whole bottom shelf of my freezer with their organic, grass fed beef. And brought me two pallets of seasoned firewood, God bless them!) One crazy thing happened though, and that is that after two almost bug free days, I came home to a shower that looked like this...

No explaining it. But needless to say I scrubbed out the tub with comet before I took a shower. How do people take baths? =/

The next exciting news to relay is that I got a dog! Her name is May and she's on loan from one of the ladies on worship team, Kim. I was thinking of getting a dog I fell in love with at the shelter but I would hate to have to give her back if I only stay a year, so May seemed the perfect fit. She's an Akita/German Shepherd mix and extremely sweet and low maintenance. She comes with me everywhere in my Subaru and can't stand to be left at home. Stinker.

May and I went on a walk to the Amish store, which is about 3 miles away. I think I'm going to make this a regular walk because at the end of it there's cheese. Well anyway, on our first walk we had to turn around because I started hearing thunder in the distance. Ten minutes from home freezing cold wind began to blow, and within ten minutes of getting home there was torrential downpour.

Sidenote: I have a tin roof, and the rain on my house sounds like hundreds of people hitting a snare drum. Also, I've already had to have a fire in my woodstove 3 times, I love it!

On to ministry stufff.....

There were 5 junior high students at church on Sunday, Corb leans over to me after communion and goes, "do you want to take them back there [to the children's room]?" And I said, "sure!". Thus began what may be a youth church for Mission Mountain Worship Center! I told them I would have treats if they a) brought their Bibles to church (purchasing them Message: Remix...it's a starting place) and b) did assigned reading and told me what they thought of it. Needless to say, I was over-the-moon excited. We thought it wise not to put me in charge of anything in case I was only to be here a year, but seriously, am I going to spend the whole year not being involved cause I might leave at the end of it? SO yeah, going forward!

Yesterday we had the Pretty-On-Tops over for dinner. I made dessert. Julia's chocolate cake and sugar cookies!

Baking at high altitude is going to get some taking used to, and I need to be better at whipping egg whites....cause I'm pretty sure my cake was supposed to be a little less...dense? then it was. Haha, it tasted great though. It was awesome to get to hang out with some of our native families from the church. Over 85% of the people of the Crow reservation in Southeastern Montana actually speak Crow amongst themselves, so I love getting to hear the accent and just talk about life with the people from there!

Reality...
Jan and I were driving around Tribal housing a couple of days ago when we saw an ambulance and police car. Jan realized it was in front of a house who's owners she knew. Their son was on the front step. I'm going to call him "Jake" for the blog. Anyway, Jake has had lots of trouble with drugs, and has been pretty disrespectful to the Morgan's in the past. Jan wasn't sure that she should go find out what was happening with all the police and everybody there. We drove through the rest of tribal housing, to see some other families we know, and Jan just really felt that she was to go and check on Jake. Well, I stayed in the car and prayed, Jan went to the ambulance where Jake was (afraid that someone was after him and strung out pretty bad) and told her, "you have to come pray with me right now" she did, and he folded his hands and begged God for help. I'm so glad we came back! As they took him away, Jan said to me, "He's going to die if he doesn't accept the Lord." The realness of the situation dawned on me in that moment. This kid is 16, has been in and out of rehab, and the meth dealers in the mission valley who were gone for a while came back 6 months ago and the kids are getting hooked. Jake is in my town, part of my community. I don't want him to die! He's who is sticking in my mind right now. I mean, what are his parents going to do if they lose him?

The fact that my friends and family aren't here is weighing heavily on me today. I think I thought I would have a lot of people visiting (my mom, Andrea, Amos) and it doesn't seem to be working out. Well, at least not in the time-table I wanted it to. I asked Amos today, "if the desire of my heart is to see you guys, why won't God give me that?" He answered, "maybe He doesn't want you to have it." Now, I know that sounds harsh, but I truly wonder if having this first month without any visitors is a kind of "trial-by-fire" to get me settled in this place. As one YWAM author from Montana said, "Nothing that has come to Montana, and put its roots down, has done so easily."

More to come,
E