Journey of a Heart on Fire

2008-05-08T18:03:00.000-07:00

I've been trekking a bit, and though there are no outrageous stories (besides the one where, a poisonous black woolly caterpillar somehow got stuck inside my pants and i sat on it and was maliciously BIT), there are some pictures. we've been to a few different waterfalls. One is 10 minutes from my home, the other, 2 hours. what is it about waterfalls that attracts us? i think the most wondrous part for me is the mystery of it. for example, a park ranger could spend plenty of breath explaining 'water sheds' and drainage patterns and the shape of the globe, but i'll always still want to ask "Where does all that water come from?"

I tried to get the pup to sit for a photo shoot and look at the camera (in a very rare moment of acquiescing to requests of photos of puppy&me), but as usual, she preferred to lick my face. and the bunny... why would you NOT want to have such cute, rotund wisps of fluff be the ones to jump-start your biodegrading? this lil one, while alive, helped my 'hot compost' and grass-mowing.

glass to sand

2008-05-05T20:30:00.000-07:00

the following statement should be as shocking as it seems:
i watched my friend get hit by a car tonight.
now, i lay in bed replaying the moment; and it becomes more and more frightening as the realization of what happened sinks in.

we set out from our housing complex around 17.30, walking in the direction of Bukit Carmel Orphanage. around this time of the evening, the atmosphere is slowly transforming the afternoon into a golden-warm sunset. a few nimbus clouds gathered dryly high overhead, sparking a conversation about how the rainy season is almost over.
Three were walking: Chrissie, (my neighbor, colleague, and dear friend - soon also to be the star of our movie documenting the advantages of squatting in her driveway all day), Chrissie's friend from home (today is her first day visiting Indonesia), and myself (puppy in tow). We three were chatting away, cheeks rosy for the exercise, savoring the fresh, fresh air, and at times commenting on the speed and nearness of the many cars and ojeks (motorbike taxis) passing us on the road. There is no sidewalk. (duh) but the road is more than wide enough for three white girls, a puppy, and a few cars. its four lanes don't ever really hold more than one intermittent lane of traffic flow, but there are no speed limits. (the grade of the hill limits the speed of the cars and motorbikes.)
I was walking in the median, to allow my seriously-emotionally-fragile dog to cower in the grass when big cars passed. Chrissie and her friend were walking just inside the paved lane, allowing for more than a normal lanes-width of space for a car to pass them on the left hand side. We walked with the traffic.
We were halfway through our tranquil walk, giggling and exclaming over some oddity of international travel and life, when the bushes started becoming more bushy on my right hand side, leaving less space for walking in the median. This may have been why the other two girls were a few paces into the road, i don't remember. I don't even remember if they were any farther in the road than the way that we normally walk.
What i do distinctly remember is an unexplainable urge to look up and over at them, and in a split seconds' time my mind registering this: A large car was driving toward us very fast. It was in a direct line with Chissie's back. It wasn't altering it's course.
I fought through a mili-second of numb, dumb, fearful disbelief before some deep guttural impulse opened my mouth to yell. I don't even know what i yelled, and i can't imagine how i was able to - because in my nightmares i always get stuck in that silent mili-second of fear and am never able to prevent the catastrophe.

But this time the scream was loosed, and it made Chrissie move over - just enough that the only part of the car that hit her was the side-view mirror. I heard a deafening 'CRACK!' and stopped cold, expecting to see Chrissie's body flying through the air, or half of her body splayed out on the ground, or the car spinning figure-eights. Instead, I watched the car finally slow and halt, grinding through shattered glass on the concrete; and Chrissie turned a puzzled face toward me.
Still not believing that she could be ok, i prepared my mind's eye to see a mangled arm and back when Chrissie turned around. But all she did was shake her arm and ask 'what happened?'
The driver slowly reversed toward us, grinding again through the glass-turned-sand on the pavement, and we quickly tried to guess whether or not they might make us pay for the broken mirror that was now dangling from the side of their car. Regardless of our decision, we three were too shocked to really move or start walking away, and i kept thinking i'd have to catch Chrissie when she fainted from internal wounds or shock.
But she didn't faint, she was fine - though the welt tomorrow will be telling, I'm sure. The driver was apologetic, and actually spoke English, and I did my best to convey an incredulous expression of 'you've got to be kidding me! you're the only one on the road, and you hit us?' The only thing I could think of to say in the moment was 'hati-hati' which means 'be careful'. the little word seemed amazingly inept to communicate all that i wanted to say.

the car drove off and we continued walking. the last i saw chrissie tonight, her arm and hand were bright red. i clearly hear her matter-of-fact voice saying "you can just never let down your guard". well, there you have it. from a girl who was just hit by a car, some good, sound advice. you can just never let down your guard in indonesian traffic.

i love that girl. thank you Jesus for sparing her life!

bugs

2008-04-05T18:11:00.000-07:00

i've been gardening in the jungle. the jungle in my backyard.
apparently, since it's like always warm here and there is no winter season, all the bugs have had a chance to adapt and mutate and develop defense mechanisms which enable them to prolong life indefinitely.

which means, i must protect myself from very old, very poisonous bugs in my knee-high grass.

and that's difficult to do when you must clip the grass blade-by-blade with hand scissors. (no, really, that's how jungle grass is cut. I'm thinking, though, that I might prefer a machete.)

ya, so, a bug got me yesterday, and now i have a very itchy, very swollen left foot.

2008-04-01T03:25:00.000-07:00

I vividly and desperately scare myself sometimes. Usually I try to avoid it, listening pointedly, through my memory, to my mother's historic warning, "Don't work yourself up, Katie." Her nurturing eyes warned me appropriately. I have a tendency to rush into experiences and I often will myself to feel them to the depths. To really gaze at the incredible; to weep at what is broken; to laugh until i pee my pants (and what mother wouldn't want to guard her daughter from such embarrassment?); to clench infuriated fists at the unjust; to intensify idiosyncrasies when i feel abnormal. But part of maturing has been recognizing my selfishness in my emotions and exercising my ability to control my intense knee-jerk reactions. Even Anne of Green Gables was a more attractive woman when she had learned to channel her child-like tantrums into selfless, productive love and labor.

I walked out of another church service this afternoon. At my school. Admittedly, I went to the Easter celebration with built-up and built-in prejudices about what it would be like. "It doesn't matter what they are doing, it matters what you are doing in your heart," I told myself as I closed my eyes to focus on the worship song, shutting out the chattering and wriggling teenagers so distracting my mind. It didn't take long, though, for my frustration to mount. In the pit of my stomach I can still feel the retching-churning that made me physically need to leave the gymnasium in the middle of the Easter presentation. This is my God, was a phrase rising from the roots of the swirling emotions that were welling, welling and scaring me in the pit of my spirit. A well-intentioned teacher had, after 10 minutes of dysfunctional video, sound, and lighting, just shown the bloody Jesus-whipping scenes from the Passion of the Christ movie. And the students laughed.

I was disgusted, and my face is still pink and burning as a result of my deep emotion - the emotion that I often leash (for good reason). And I was thankful for my mother teaching me to control my emotions because I didn't sink into anger - anger at the teacher who presented Jesus in a manner that students were actually set up to laugh (they were shocked! and were drastically unprepared to deal with the spiritual reality that might possibly have been evoked by the images) or anger at the students for laughing at the man that I adore more than any one or thing in the universe with a love unspeakable and depths I do not fathom. In spite of good reasons for anger, I was not angry.

When my hands stop shaking, I will be sad. And I pray, pray that my sickening reaction to the cultural Christianity and meaningless iconoclasm and mocking of Yahweh will only lead me, drive me, bore me deeper into the depths of Truth in my own heart. If I am sickened by others' disregard for spirituality at the heart level, then I must be one who acts spiritual in all that I say and do. I must hate lies in my own life and love Truth, and cling to the reality that I hope for but do not yet see. I must acknowledge my own hypocrisies and lean into, lean into, lean into my grace and salvation in a way that will, O please Jesus, impact a life around me. I must, or there would be no purpose to the physiological need to vomit that God's spirit allowed me to experience this afternoon.

This intensity scares me. And requires action.

typical

2008-03-04T23:13:00.000-08:00

the above link is the epitome of typical indo road. footage from a trip to the ocean. beautiful, beautiful, beautiful.

i'll go to ethiopia in two weeks. blessed, sweet communion and giggling over home-spun scarves -- no, no, i mean really spun-by-hand-at-home scarves -- and sharing of stories about the joys and aches of teaching at an int'l school... such will be the stuff I look forward to, as well as finally planting feet on a continent i've mooned over for years. i imagine the first thing i'll do upon arriving at said friend's homestead is find a place to strip off the shoes & socks and dig my toenails into the dirt.

i facilitated a socratic seminar yesterday with my grade 7 students. when i teach them a terse, tight-lipped, squeezed-lungs feeling wells up deep in my guts. there is such a visible tension in them (amidst growth) between self-control and whimsical un-filtered compulsions. i feel like i'm pushing a giant sieve onto a room full of octopuses (octopi?): their thoughts and laughter and homework and questions flinging themselves all around my classroom like tentacles while i desperately attempt to squelch the inappropriate and nourish the appropriate. if tools were needed, in one hand would be a machete and the other sheep shit (as my gardener likes to term fertilizer - 'oh, yeah, we need some sheep shit for your lawn.' - wha? ok, ya, dung. i chalk it up to the language barrier.). Anyway, amidst this pruning and weeding and nurturing, I allow and even create many moments of un-comfortability for them in class - just for the purpose of stretching them. In a socratic seminar it means that I often act like the awkward silences don't exist, and i don't recognize their pleading-eyed 'ma'am, I don't know what to say.' Because I want that they learn to shake off their gangly-limbed strange-ness in my safe classroom so that they can let the good ideas surface and learn to wait for the moments of 'aha.' And it happened yesterday. A group of awkward, giggling, silent-at-all-the-wrong-time seventh-graders floundered through the moment until finally they touched the heart of the matter. and question by question by mounting question by -now rapid-fire question- they explored the cosmic battle between good and evil and turned their minds right around to Creator God. it was beautiful.

and i wouldn't trade the difficulty of it for all the self-assured twelfth-graders in the world. (though, for their own reasons, and for the record, i love them too.)

Rainy Season

2008-01-04T06:47:00.000-08:00

I’ve never been one to prefer an umbrella. Don’t buy them, don’t walk under them if they’re offered. And today I never would have tasted the rain on my apple if I had been using one. It’s been raining for two days straight. There is usually a break in the rain when a strong sun appears for a good few hours of the day, but in the past 48 hours no such thing has happened. And so my laundry hangs limply across strings inside my house, gradually losing it’s clothing-like shape as it silently surrenders to the creeping mold and damp air.

2008-01-03T03:40:00.000-08:00

The reason, in the middle of this bird market, for the slight smile on my face, is that this boy let out this pink chic from his wooden bird cage and chased him (bare-footed) across the brick street. His baby-giggling and baby hands reaching for the pink chicken fluff is an image that will stick in my memory for years...

2008-01-03T01:46:00.000-08:00

I'd love to blog about the heart of Jakarta, the trash-filled streets, and bicycles balanced 7 feet high with rice crackers. About flooding due to a lack of sewers, about garbage piles that should have been streams and molding shacks built on stilts above it all. About the smell of an illegal fishing port and the way that men sit, sit, sit squatting for hours without moving a muscle (did he blink? through my tinted window it's barely perceptible). About a toothless fisherman grin and a small child's batman sandals flippantly disregarded as unnecessary when he lounges on a bamboo mat, top of the fishing boat. About the way that unregulated, polluted port-waters transform into the clearest aquamarine vistas that you can ever imagine. About how even in the rainy season, the breeze is markedly tropical. About turtle conservation and butterfly reserves. Mangrove nurseries and the white odor of jasmine and gardenia.
But all I can think about right now is her face when she says, 'silakan, masuk.' Please, come in. She allows me into the home, where she is a maid, and works for my friend. She smiles and then retreats, visibly and emotionally, into her room. At the moment I am thinking: If I wasn't paid so much stinkin money, maybe I could be her friend. Instead, I hear through the grapevine about what she really thinks of me: rude, selfish, egotistical. All of my smiles, swirling thoughts, and grasping-grasping for some connection through the culture, class, and language barriers have, thus far then, been to no avail.
My heart pounds and I walk down the street with the gardener, quietly listening to what she has told him... gossip, cruel words, yet her honest feelings. She doesn't like me, and even, her actions would betray that she hates me. In this moment I feel a deep culmination of all of my cultural and spiritual frustrations thus far: it is so dang difficult to be understood, and to understand. And when you are "rich" and white in this country, misperceptions of who you are will be run with, guaranteed. My reaction, today, was to retreat myself, to my own room and cry for a while. Cry, cry, and pound the door of prayer: He already knows what happened and He already knows what is in everyone's hearts, but I just want to share my burden of purpose. Why am I here? After 6 months, one who lives closest to me is entirely offended by me. And no, it's not because I was preaching Jesus, it's just because I'm not living correctly in the culture. I exhale and ask how did this happen? (As if, in my desiring to live for others I have somehow earned the right to touch someone's life.) Yes, true, there are all 100+ students who I come into contact with... but changing a life as a teacher is a slow process. You so need a farmer's patient eye and the foresight to know that fruit doesn't often come until the tree is mature. But deffering to the fact that my student's lives may, possibly, slightly one day be changed is not enough for me. No! I scream in my spirit. I want those whom I touch every day to know implicitly that I carry the knowledge of Christ. I want to unmistakably, undeniably, carry tenderness, mercy, peace, and grace within my person. I want it so badly that my lungs constrict and my lips tremble and my knees pull up to my chest. Why doesn't she know that she is loved by what I do? It's not a selfless desire, surely it's not; it's messed and muddled with my own sin and imperfect motives. But I am crying from my core today and moaning my purpose. Jesus, I want you, but I also want to work with you... and, likely because of those impure motives, I am hurt when my energies seemingly reap nothing.
Jesus exhorted the disciples to forgive their brother 7 times in a day, but what about the stranger? Sigh. I need to be purified. I'm such a baby, truly. In graciousness, though, I've been provided (even here) friendships that hold a clear mirror to my face: Katie, they say to me, it's not about you. (Thank you: I don't want friends who coddle my pain.) It's not about me, and I must simply die to my flesh - that searing, aching, fleshly wound - and realign myself again tonight with who God says He is.
A 9pm mountain run, draped in stars and darkness, and an hour of worship will work wonders, I am sure. But if you are reading this, and you follow the Way, pray - pray that my heart would change and pray that (not for my sake! sigh!) this precious, loved woman-child of God would see Jesus' face in mine one day.

2007-11-22T19:51:00.000-08:00

A cup of tea, a cup of friends.

pak big boss

round and round we go

"character building"

i wanted to drink this rainbow. the pic is taken from the top of my driveway. volcanoes dipped in gold and crowned with rainbows... rainy season has it's magical moments.

Hot Sauce

2007-11-22T19:17:00.000-08:00

Sambal is a spicy Indonesian hot sauce. It’s nothing I would consider special, just basically tomatoes and hot peppers smooshed into a paste that can be bought cheaply (and, as a redeeming factor, can be smothered onto any and every dish imaginable).
What I discovered today is that running, here in the mountains, is like my growing love affair with Sambal. People use Sambal frequently because it burns your mouth, quickly and briefly. The effect, as my food-scientist brother has explained it, is to spur the production of endorphins – the happy chemical. You’ve got to endure the initial pain of your Sambal-smothered rice grains burning your mouth before you can enjoy the endorphin-after-effect. And you don't consciously know it's happening, like 'oh, my brain really likes the after-effect of a tongue on fire.'

Running in the volcano foothills has been exactly that for me. For the past 4 months I have creatively crafted a variety of semi-true excuses for not disciplining myself to run (e.g. ‘everyone stares at me because I’m white; my shoes have grown moldy because of rainy season; there are no street lamps; there are billions of tail-less cats lurking around fallen palm fronds just waiting to swat my ankles’ and on and on). However, now that I’m entered into a 5k race in Jakarta this Sunday, I need to at least remind my legs of what it feels like to run. But as I’m reminding them, I’m discovering that I actually like running in the mountains. The sweet easy downslope of a long hill and the cyclical burn of the incline subconsciously call to my muscles. Tonight, I actually seriously wanted to turn around and run up the hill again, just so I could run down it.

Like Sambal -- you start to crave the sting.

(incidentally, no tail-less cats bit my ankles during the entire duration of my run tonight)

2007-11-18T07:25:00.000-08:00

I've hit the '4 month mark' as they coined it over supper tonight. The time when the 'existential crisis of every 20-25 year old who is simultaneously experiencing culture shock' deadens your energy and quietly eats away at your passion until you think 'Hey! Come back here! I was into that!' yeah. My symptoms: listlessness; various amounts of time spent rearranging furniture (that, incidentally, belong to the school); alternating moments of panic and apathy in regards to my accumulating pile of work; a fluctuation between desperately desiring to cling to this nation somehow (to make a connection, find a small thread, a wiry sinew that could join my flesh and spirit with these people who often seem so utterly not me) and at other times despising the differences so much that it seems worthwhile to tactically plan my day so that I won't have to face even one other solitary soul (which, in such an immensely populated nation is actually quite difficult).

I'm not homesick, I wouldn't call it that. But today I rewashed my clean dishes 3 times. I clipped a clump of knee-high crab grass about 2 feet by 4 feet, and then I just left the clippings laying there, in the sun, to sizzle and dry while the rest of my jungle-yard remains an untouched wilderness. I looked at and re-looked at my piles of essays without picking up a pen. I started singing a song, but didn't get past the fist line. I am restless.

Christmas will be spent in central Java, taking a crash-course in Bahasa (Indonesian). I won't be with my family (American or Indonesian), and I won't feel the crisp kiss of a winter breeze or the sharp tingle of November air rushing in nose and mouth during a late-fall jog in the park. Coffee isn't even good here.

Tomorrow morning, my emotions will be different, I am sure, as I look into the faces of 100 students, who are awaiting the precious past perfect continuous conjugation of the verb 'know.' It will be exciting then, remembering that there are humans around me, learning and growing. And that there are babies to hold in the orphanage a few miles away. And that the rainy season has come and sunsets are often dripping with golden rain, and I'll get to see it from my back door.

If you can write me a letter, and put it in the mail, this would be an opportune time for it. I'm craving some real-live, it's-been-in-your-hands-now-it's-in-mine connection. I adore even the mundane - you can't write a boring letter, because the fact that it crosses 12 time zones makes it precious to me.

Send to:
me
P.O. Box 490
Bogor 16104
Indonesia

look into the world of

2007-08-23T02:04:00.000-07:00

my 11th graders, who have been some of the most enjoyable people to meet, ever in my life, have created blogs as part of our 'national program' english class. you can access our ever-evolving web-logs through my teacher blog at: www.iwillsheepfarm.blogspot.com.

Today will be my first day of Tae Kwon Do (...uh, spell check, please) training. one day soon, i will be a warrior princess. once i have the garb (belt and all) and a camera, i'll post a pic to make you laugh out loud.

it's strange that a person can have numerous infestations of the critter kind and love some and hate others. geckos, for example, are highly enjoyable, especially when falling onto your head during one of their ceiling capers. cockroaches, on the other hand, make me want to scream expleltives. ants, i can live with.

my dear, sweet, amazing, spirited, contempletive, whimsical, insightful friend carrie reeb arrived two days ago. she got a job at my school and has now been swept up into a whirlwind of job-training-on-the-spot while a new round of cultural adjustments barrage her on every side. she handles herself so well. and i love it that we share a room with one fake wall between us. we can hear each other teach.

i nearly fell off the ojek this morning as i desperately tried to side-saddle it (skirt-clad) on a motorbike that i realized had a taillight where the handgrip should have been. nevertheless, the mountains were breath-taking and i can't wait to see them again on the way home.

UNblocked!

2007-08-09T00:24:00.000-07:00

The internet at my school has had a pretty heavy filter on it -- all the kids have wireless, each with a laptop in class -- and there's a philosophical debate about whether or not the students should have full access.

Anyway, until recently, blogger has been blocked. So, I've not posted. But now I can! So check up on me. Like when there are earthquakes here. Like today. It was a lot bigger (and a few more seconds) than the first one I experienced, but I think my recounting of it that morning was pretty similar to the way I felt at 12:05am today. This time I just kept thinking "God, why are you shaking this mountain? God, why are you shaking this mountain?"

There is much to tell, besides the earthquake parts. For now, the entry below is what i wanted to post on July 19th.

And here is my eyeball. giving a perspective of what i see out my bedroom window. 5pm is my favorite time of day.

from three weeks ago...

2007-08-09T00:22:00.000-07:00

I have never felt the earth tremble before. Until 15 minutes ago. The alarm clock buzzed at 4:30 and about 5 minutes later my room started shaking. Since I was still sprawled out jet-lag heavy as a rock, I could feel every rumble. At first I thought it was some kind of alarm clock and I blindly, half-heartedly patted the bedding. A split second later I realized I couldn’t turn it off and that the whole building was shaking. The question ‘why is my house shaking?’ ran through my blurred mind. It was incredibly disconcerting, for although I was not alone (a friend was sleeping in the room next door) I was still very much out of control of the situation. I realized that I have not been trained in earthquake procedures (seriously, that was my thought: “hmm, what is the procedure for this?” like it was some kind of drill and I had kids to get under desks or something) I didn’t really know what to do. Get up or stay down? Run down the stairs and hide under a table? Do a little dance?

Never before have I understood so clearly Psalm 46. Right after the description of the earth trembling is the first ‘selah.’ And then immediately these words:

There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, the holy habitation of the Most High. God is in the midst of her; she shall not be moved…

It’s now 5 am. I’m off to jog. The view is incredible. At some point when I feel comfortable describing the indescribable, I’ll write about it. Until then, I think Psalm 46 does a pretty good job.

The Lord of hosts is with us;
the God of Jacob is our fortress. Selah
Come, behold the works of the Lord,
how he has brought desolations on the earth.
He makes wars cease to the end of the earth;
he breaks the bow and shatters the spear;
he burns the chariots with fire.
Be still, and know that I am God.
I will be exalted among the nations,
I will be exalted in the earth!
The Lord of hosts is with us;
the God of Jacob is our fortress. Selah

grounding

2007-07-13T02:24:00.000-07:00

i leave in about 25 hours. thoughts and moments have been swirling and crashing with an earnest ebb and flow for the past 6 weeks, to the point where i wish the whole moon-forced-earth-squeezing tide would just lift and stir and advance until a great flood would overwhelm and absorb my world to wipe out every last thing of inconsequential value in the face of God's great agenda. is that metaphorically clear enough? talk about the allegorical: i finished 'animal farm' tonight. ug, the terror of mixed, misunderstood motives and equality maligned. the leadership problem and the resources problem and the integrity problem and the lack of truth and abuse of value. selfishness. not at all concepts that've been absent from my mind in yet another life transition. there is an intense longing to struggle for what is right, rooted so deep in my spirit i surely couldn't shake it come flood or fire. american poverty is so it's own beast in a world of povertys and wrongs. am i ready to transition to such a ridiculously different place of learning (learning: instructing and seeking, simultaneously)? regardless, it has been six long weeks in coming and the good-byes have been so poignant i feel as though i've slow-walked through my own wake. one slow, long, clean cut from this life. one fast flight to a blank slate. that will be me (i've prepared mentally): the smiling american engulfed in an introductory moment to Singapore's monstrous hullabaloo. brave? not really. i've some stories about bravery. the courage that I mustered for a 2 second jump off a rope swing far outweighs the courage that it is taking me to move to the direct opposite side of the earth. climb a pile of wooden barrels and GRAB that rope when i jump? geez, i catch my breath thinking about it. changing my currency and figuring out a new mode and route of transportation? (mmm... but this is about real people) the thought causes assured tears, even now preemtively fostering a love for - what - a hundred? young people (classified: students). God so has a heart and a love for people, everywhere. it's not courageous to love them too, it's my job. i signed up for this at the cross.

the only real grounding, ever, for anyone, in all of time, on any journey, whirlwind, fire, or tremor is in the very words of God. real life is found in the whisper. longings for right and good will remain as contexts change, becuase the problems of selfishess and greed and misappropriation will not go away prior Kingdom come. (mmm... lets talk about the complexities of that one, my friends) My hands will always be feeble and the demands for courage too much for me lest I remember the greater reality of forgiveness, of Jesus' blood, of restoration through the cross. seeking the knowledge of God is truly the path i (desire to) walk on. relocating and my swirling thoughts thereof is really nothing new. it is an essential peripherial thing, just like all of the travelling and learning i have ever done has been. what i will do in this next phase of lifetime will surely be reaching into reality, touched by eternity. that's because i'm saved. i'm the recepient of way too much grace to not unrelentlessly place a singular and primary focus on the revelation of Jesus in scripture and the sacred. for this next new same thing, i can't wait.

i'll post when i arrive.

couldn't resist...

2007-06-12T05:47:00.000-07:00

okay, so, i said I wouldn't blog until july, but there's this thing about silence that makes speaking more fun. It's not as meaningful to talk unless the voice punctuates silence. On a much more superficial level, i've not been blogging for a year! so i can feel the webjournal calling. ;)

I am so enjoying saying goodbye to Cleveland. it's because women like this are so precious and have so blessed my life that even in parting, the 'sweet' in bittersweet is overwhelmingly overpowering. precious sisters, i love you!

Check Back...

2007-06-10T08:25:00.000-07:00

This'll be the blog for my adventures abroad. Check back mid-July for those wild-n-crazy katiebolling stories you love. ;)

Contact me until then at: kbolling713@gmail.com or 262-492-2085

JESUS IS ALIVE!!