Post-Departure Panic!!

"There is a time for everything,
    and a season for every activity under the heavens:

2     a time to be born and a time to die,
    a time to plant and a time to uproot,
3     a time to kill and a time to heal,
    a time to tear down and a time to build,
4     a time to weep and a time to laugh,
    a time to mourn and a time to dance,
5     a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
    a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing,
6     a time to search and a time to give up,
    a time to keep and a time to throw away,
7     a time to tear and a time to mend,
    a time to be silent and a time to speak,
8     a time to love and a time to hate,
    a time for war and a time for peace."

-Ecclesiastes 3:1-8

Right now happens to be the time to panic!! I leave for Denmark in THREE DAYS and my camera charger is nowhere to be found at the moment. That's a problem...

Three crazy days remain between present time and the time I fly across the Atlantic Ocean! I can't even believe it. The word "excitement" does not even come close to describing how I feel at this moment!!!! :D (Although "stress" might not be too far off - there is much to do between now and then!) 

I have no idea if I will be updating this blog at all during my adventure. I don't want to mentally live in a blog. I find that if I blog too much, my mind is focused more on what I will say about a certain event later rather than actually living in the moment and fully experiencing it as it happens. A goal for this trip is to find a balance. So final answer: I have no idea if I will be updating this blog at all or not, but it's worth checking (if you're interested!) Or you could just wait and I'll tell you stories in person when I return... :D

Looks like I might be a bit lonely on the flight there...

I've never seen such a deserted airplane seat before! At least I won't be too cramped in.

SHOUT OUT TO THE LIONS CLUB FOR SPONSORING THIS EXPERIENCE!!! Especially the South Park Lions for being my sponsor club (and for being super nice and fun when I visited!), Dave Wineman for rushing all my paperwork through the system the day before the deadline, and Debra VanTol for making all the arrangements with Denmark! Thank you thank you thank you!! I appreciate each and every person who has helped make this trip of a lifetime possible!!

And now, I must go find my camera charger. We have been searching the house for the past hour (that might be an exaggeration, I really don't know, but that's how long it feels) with no luck. Time. To. PANIC!

God's got this.

Everything Except The Grand Canyon

As our trip began to wind down, my aunt and I traveled from Sedona to our final destination: The Grand Canyon. I was expecting it to be nothing; I had seen so many photos, how exciting could it be?

Answer: magnificent. I won't even try to deny the fact that my mouth was gaping open wide for a couple minutes. The Grand Canyon is yet another wonder which people try to photograph yet continuously fail to capture the true essence of its being.

I tried too! 

The funny thing is that I enjoyed Grand Canyon National Park to the extreme, but it was for unusual reasons. It wasn't the canyon; it was the culture.

Even within the first few minutes at the initial overlook, I heard so many different languages I lost count. People come from literally everywhere on the planet to see the Grand Canyon, and that intercultural presence makes the park even more worth it. I talked to people from several different states, as well as people "touring" (as they call it) from Australia and England. The person who rang me up in the gift shop was from the Philippines, and the person refilling waters at dinner was from Peru. 

I always thought it would be awesome to work at an airport kiosk because each day would involve meeting so many different people with so many different stories going so many different places for so many different reasons. Turns out, many National Parks are similar in that way.

And the people were all friendly!! It had been a long time since I was in a place with such a large quantity of smiling, genuinely happy people.

I also loved the bus system. In Michigan, the closest bus stop is a 7 minute drive from my house, at which point it becomes useless to ride the bus; we're already almost to our destination. Perhaps that is why I found the bus system at the Grand Canyon so enthralling. It was free and stopped everywhere. there were buses that went from the hotels to the eating areas to the visitor centers, and other buses that hopped from one scenic overlook to another. It instilled a sense of freedom in me. We used our car a grand total of zero times between check-in and check-out. 

I am failing to communicate the thing I am trying to communicate. To sum it up, I will say that Grand Canyon National Park is amazing, and the amazingness spans far beyond the canyon walls. I would totally live there if I could.

Top 10 Worst Places to Feel Light-Headed (or Shaky, or to Have to Go to the Bathroom Very Badly)

This blog entry is a rip off, because I don't actually have a list of the top 10 worst places to feel light-headed, shaky, or to have the urge to use the bathroom. However, if such a list ever did exist, I have found a place that would most likely be on it. It's called the Cathedral Rock Trail in Sedona, which I braved with my aunt on Thursday (April 9th).

One of my aunts who was not on this trip but who was recently in Sedona called this particular hike "moderate." I call it "life-threatening." It was basically a climb up a series of short cliffs, followed by a ledge, then another short cliff. The views were gorgeous, but when I was climbing the mini cliffs, my mind was on everything except that.

I arrived at the top light-headed, shaky, and completely exhausted. I also had to use the restroom, but there's not exactly anywhere to hide on a trail of open rock. I befriended the "End of Trail" sign and held onto it for dear life (there was a cliff just beyond it).

I was desperately searching for a more gently sloping trail to take back down, but no such luck. I basically treated the entire thing as a giant slide on the way down, scooting everywhere on my butt (it was actually quite fun!)

I admit, I am making this sound a lot worse than it actually was. I must have a slight fear of heights, though I'm not willing to admit it, because every time I climb a rock wall I become extremely shaky and my palms sweat (which is basically the worst thing that can happen when climbing a rock wall). I thought this hike was terrifying, but there was a family that brought their young children up with them, and another guy who was jogging the trail. I cannot fathom either of those, but if people can jog a trail that I just described as a series of cliffs, it must not be as bad as I described.

It was definitely beautiful though! That is something I cannot deny.

P.S. Can you find me in the bottom photo? I became a daredevil for 20 seconds.

What Fits in a Square

After spending a few fun-filled days in Scottsdale, my aunt and I began our trek to Sedona. As we were driving out Wednesday, we stopped in Phoenix. My aunt needed to take care of some things at the post office, so while she did that I walked around the immediate area.

Right outside the post office was a park.. Er, maybe a city square would be a more accurate term. I decided to take a walk through it, a walk which lasted less than five minutes.

The abundance of diversity I saw in that five minutes is what is absolutely astounding to me. Under the trees were a couple of homeless men, dozing in the shade. A jolly bearded and shirtless man sat in the sun talking loudly on his cell phone. There were some tables on a large cemented area, and several ladies were enjoying a snack while chatting; others were engrossed in work on their computers. 

A bit further up there were several benches and a bus stop. I saw a family of Asian descent with their packs speaking to each other in some language I could not quite place. Several people of various ages sat on the benches in rugged clothes with ripped grocery bags filled with what I assume is everything they own. A nun sat on a bench waiting for the bus and conversing in Spanish with another person. An elderly gentlemen in a motor chair passed me on the sidewalk. Throughout the entire area I just described, there were college students walking with their backpacks and conversing in a joyful manner. 

In a walk lasting less than five minutes and covering an extremely short distance, I saw such a wide variety of people - different ages, languages, social classes, ethnicities, and stories. Yet they had something in common: they were in the same location, whatever their reasons for being there. There were no conflicts, and everyone seemed to be treating everyone else in a very friendly manner. 

This is the way the world should be; so often we let little differences come between us, but it doesn't have to be that way. It is possible for everyone to live in harmony despite the things that set us all apart. It only took a walk through a square in Phoenix to teach me this.

Insignificant in Saguaro

Sunday we had many fun adventures here in Arizona! We began the day with a bilingual sunrise Easter service on top of Sentinel Peak - it was gorgeous, both the views and the message! We then went to Old Tucson, the Senora Desert Museum, and Saguaro National Park West!

I have no words to describe Saguaro National Park. I spent an entire hike trying to come up with some; I couldn't. I took 200 photos in attempt to capture what I found unworthy of words; turns out it was unworthy of photos, too.

As we climbed the mountain associated with the Hugh Norris trail, we became more and more immersed in the cacti. The saguaros were everywhere, all around us, on every wrinkle of every mountain. We reached a peak; more saguaro covered mountains as far as we could see. Behind us: mountains silhouetted in the sunset, and more saguaros.

I felt so insignificant. I kept thinking, "Wow, God made all this. His world is so vast with so much beauty, yet he cares so much about me?? I am so unworthy. There's a song by Jason Gray that goes,

Tell me once again who I am to You,
Who I am to You.
Tell me lest I forget who I am to You,
That I belong to You.
To You."

I kept singing it in my head throughout the entire hike. It fit so perfectly! I was (and still am) completely awestruck! Ephesians 3:18 says:

"And may you have the power to understand, as all God's people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love is."


Saguaro National Park gave me a true picture of something that is extremely wide, long, high, and deep; yet I know it doesn't even come close to the extent of the love God has for all of us. The love of Jesus is truly amazing!

Here is a photo from our hike. As I said, it doesn't come close to showing the true beauty of the national park, but it's still worth sharing.

Lost in Tucson

Hello again! Saturday my aunt and I flew into Tucson, Arizona! It is super nice to have a break from the cold and unpredictable Michigan winter (supposedly spring... I think not). Michigan State was in the Final Four, and my aunt being the MSU fan that she is desired to watch the game. My take on the situation: ARIZONA! Who cares about sports? And so, the decision was made that I would be dropped off on the University of Arizona campus for the couple of hours while my aunt watched the game. I was excited to have a few hours to aimlessly wander and explore!

What an adventure those few hours turned out to be! I started out walking around the student union and then out into the surrounding area of Tucson. We had just driven through an area with many cool attractions, so I was attempting to get back to where we had been driving. Apparently I'm not as good with directions as I thought, because I missed a street somewhere and ended up walking approximately 14 blocks out of my way in the hot Arizona sun.

I eventually arrived back on the University of Arizona campus hot, miserable, and completely exhausted. I decided I needed a plan. I went to the information booth, where "friendly brochure guy" as he became known gave me a campus map (his name is extremely sarcastic - he acted like I was the biggest pain in the world for asking him to hand me a map from the pile directly next to him). I was hot, so what combats heat? Ice cream or a smoothie! I plugged "Tucson ice cream shops" into Google Maps and found a gelato place that seemed not too far away, so off I went!

Places look a lot closer on Google Maps than they are in real life. Several miles later as I was walking through a very sketchy part of town, I decided that gelato wasn't worth risking my life and I should turn around. The crowds of college students were long gone, and the only people surrounding me were men smoking and drinking, and a Spanish song blared from a nearby store. I could only understand one word that the song kept repeating; it translates to "penis" (either that or it was a super interesting song about a comb...). This was not a good area, and though I had my pepper spray, I still felt very alone and unsafe. I walked past a Dairy Queen and settled for an Oreo Blizzard, then quickly walked back to campus.

You'd think that a person would smile back if I smiled at them. You'd think that if I was within two feet behind a person, he would make sure the door didn't slam in my face. You'd think that if I was on a footbridge and there were three people walking shoulder to shoulder coming towards me and taking up the entire width of the bridge, someone would move over to make room for me. But no... No to all of the above. I was genuinely trying to smile and look friendly; maybe I had a sour look on my face from being hot, but I don't think so! Everyone was being so unfriendly. One guy even stopped and said to me, "Yeah, just be excited!" and walked away laughing with his friend. Really??

I finally arrived back on campus, exhausted and ready for the MSU game to be over already. Then I saw it. Right next to campus was a Jamba Juice, my favorite smoothie place in the universe with a grand total of zero locations in Michigan. And I walked all that way through a sketchy area for a Dairy Queen.... Life sometimes.

Well, that was my Tucson adventure! I do love the architecture here and how the culture is truly a mix of Mexican and American. Diversity is cool!

God and Denmark

I received official word on Monday that I will be traveling to Denmark for the month of July! I'll be spending the first two weeks of the trip living with a Danish host family, and the remaining two weeks at an international youth camp with people from around the world. How cool is that!? I can't wait to (potentially) make friends from all over the world!

This life excursion is cool indeed, but how God brought me to it is even cooler. Here's the backstory:

I discovered the opportunity to travel via the Lions Club one day while googling international youth exchanges.  After further research, I discovered that there was a super cool camp in Australia where they teach you how to surf and do high ropes and all sorts of other fun things. I had my mind set on this camp, and eagerly awaited the day when I could apply.

The day came to set the ball rolling; I contacted people and began the application process. It was not long after that the catastrophe set in - I discovered that there were no Australian camps listed for 2015. NOOOO!!! Reluctantly, I began to research camps in other parts of the world, and eventually narrowed it down to Italy and the Netherlands. However, despite how exciting they likely are in reality, I found myself unenthused, especially after noticing that the countryside near the camps, particularly in the Netherlands, appears to look little different from the roads near my house.

I was praying and asking people for advice on where I should go. For some reason, Denmark kept popping into my head. Each time, I would do a little research on it and narrow it out. It had a strange culture, there were very few vegetarians, they spoke a strange language; why did it keep popping into my mind, though?

Eventually, it was so present in my mind that I decided to send an email to the Denmark camp director to inquire about my concerns. His response was EXTREMELY welcoming and accommodating, and I realized that Denmark actually would work! It felt right, and I was excited - so excited that I put it as my first choice destination on my application! (My original plan was to still put Australia first in the off chance there would be camps available there in 2015, but Denmark overruled!)

I recently saw the list of youth heading out from Michigan, and one of the people is going to Australia. It WAS an option! If it had been listed though, I wouldn't have even given Denmark or anywhere else a second thought. Also, I requested a particular camp in Denmark, but for some reason they placed me in a different one.

This is SO God led! I'm going to a place so far from my original plans and I don't know why, but God made everything fall into place perfectly, and I'm so stoked to see what He does while I'm there! AHHHH getting excited just thinking about it!

Well, I'll go wallow in my excitement now. Have a super duper blessed day!

Hello everybody! I'm going to be traveling much in the near future, so I thought I would set up a blog to put some thoughts on. It will mostly be a travel blog! Probably with a few random non-travel thoughts thrown into the mix from time to time. Anyway, that's what this is. More to come in the next months! Stay tuned...