It's a long way to the top... but an almost longer way down.

So for the past week, I've been in Denver, Colorado. Fascinating, I know. I was there for my mission trip of the summer. This is going to be my most "what I've done today"-ish post so far, and it's going to be long... just to warn you. And don't feel like you have to read it. Because you might not want to, and it might be a total waste of your time. Anyway, I'm going to start now.

Sunday was an all-around great day, actually. Stephen and Joy were in town, an old friend (Josh, whom I hadn't seen in practically forever) was at church, and after morning services, I, along with my fellow teens (Jason, Sarah, Steven, Paul, Melissa, Ana, and Kelly) left for the beautiful state of Colorado. We drove for most of the day. All eight of us cramped in Kelly's suburban got kinda irritating after a while, but we made it there alive. That night, we stayed at the lovely and luxurious Super 8 Motel. Once we checked in, we left to go to Casa Bonita. Yummy food, but let me tell ya, you better be really hungry and willing to pay $9 just to get in for it to really be worth it. I was fine with it, but there was some grumbling at first that I could've lived without. But it was all gravy in the end. We had fun, and Sarah scared the crap out of Kelly and me in the cave thing that said "Do Not Enter." I knew we shouldn't have entered. Then we went back to the motel and I slept on the floor. That was comfy, I have to say. I'm sure it was much better than Melissa's bed, at least. (Heehee!)

On Monday morning, we woke up and had to pick up Chris at the airport. We thought we had plenty of time. Thought was the key word there. Kelly was smart and called to make sure his flight was on time and everything, and we found out that he was arriving in about fifteen minutes and we had a forty-five minute drive to get there. So we picked him up, a little late, but we still made it. Then we drove to the Lakewood Church of Christ, which is where the real adventure began. We got there, met people (Nikki and Robbie -- two of the head people of Dry Bones -- Tricia and my "twin," Emily -- two of the interns -- and Nick... Nick is flippin awesome... and also Andrew, Weston, and Mary Lou, the other three people who were in our group), had orientation and divided into crews (I was one of the two crew leaders), then packed our backpacks for the mountain climbing. Once we were packed, we ate lunch, then loaded the suburbans and headed to the mountain. That afternoon, we hiked to low camp. We just were hanging out there the rest of the day, had a devo with a campfire that Nick built, Sarah, Jason, and I had a toothbrushing party, umm... yeah. That might be about all we really did.

Tuesday, they woke us up about 6. We had breakfast, then packed up our tents and everything else and hiked till about the middle of the afternoon when we got to high camp. More hanging out at high camp, then another devo with another campfire, another toothbrushing party, more hanging out, then went to bed.

Wednesday was "Summit Day." I bet you can guess what that means... yeah, we hiked to the summit of a mountain. It wasn't the easiest hike, mostly because of the rocks and it was kinda steep on the way up... but it was totally and completely worth it. The view was just... wow. There really aren't many words to describe it. We were just around on the summit for a while, taking pictures, resting, soaking in God's beauty. Then we all got in a circle and sang. I almost started crying while we were singing. We sang "We Shall Assemble" (great choice by Jason) and "How Great Thou Art" (great choice by Nikki). Then Robbie had us all turn around and look out in front of ourselves in silence for a minute. We all turned back around and prayed. As we were praying... oh, man, it was so cool... I was just looking around some more, and in the distance, I could see dark clouds. I could see the rain falling on other mountains. It just was like a sheet of gray from where I was standing. Maybe I didn't describe that very well... But it was seriously freaking cool. Because of the rain and the fact that if we got stuck up there with a thunderstorm it would be really really bad and we probably all would've died, we had to go a lot quicker down the mountain than we had come up. Going down was so much harder than up... no motivation of seeing something so awesome and amazing (just the motivation of not getting struck by lightning) and my feet were all pushed to the front of my boots and it hurt really bad to go down. That, and I needed a chiropractor almost more than I ever have by that point. We made it down into the trees before it started raining, so we were okay. Then we got back to high camp and rested till dinner time. One last devo on a mountain with a huge campfire, compliments of Nick, one last toothbrushing party on a mountain, hanging out in a cool circle, then we went to bed.

Thursday was the busiest day. We hiked all the way down from high camp to the suburbans (I was about to cry because my back hurt so badly), drove back into town, had lunch, then had another orientation thing and met the other people (Matt -- Nikki's husband and the third out of three head people -- Reb, Brandon, and Brian -- the other interns), then had a "turf tour," then hung out at the pool hall for two hours, then handed out food, then got dinner, then went back to the church. Then I could finally take a shower. Oh man, it was so nice... I hadn't been able to take a shower since Monday morning and it was absolutely disgusting. Anyway. The turf tour... that was when they took us all around Denver. They showed us where the kids we would be working with slept, hung out, did their drugs (I will never look at a Reese's Cup wrapper the same), and just other things. The thing that got me the most, though... they took us into a tunnel. It was like a sewage tunnel or something, I'm really not sure. Before we went in, they told us that if we were scared of the dark, it was going to be pitch black. Okay. I do not like the dark. At all. So at the beginning I was kinda freaking out. Then Brian said something about there would probably be spiders. Yeah. My other big fear. I was pretty dang scared. I really don't get all that scared all that easily, either. So we went in in a single file line, and we had to like waddle because there was a stream of ickiness we did not want to step in going down the middle. As we went deeper into the tunnel, it got darker. The intern in the lead had a light, everyone else was just following her (I think it was Emily in the front). I started freaking out really badly and was crying a little (I told you I hate the dark), so Brandon had a flashlight thing on his keychain that he gave me. It helped a little, I could at least see where I was stepping. But it was still very dark and I was still terrified. So then we got to where we stopped. Brandon told us he was going to turn off the flashlights and it was going to be completely dark. He made sure we were okay with that and told Sarah and me that if we needed him to turn the light back on, he would. He turned it off... I was crying by this point. Just barely, but I still was. Then Brandon started talking. He told us about how some kids sleep in there... about how that darkness was like the darkness in their lives without Christ, and some more stuff. That made me cry even more, just everything he was saying. Then we sang "Here I Am To Worship," or at least I tried to. It's not the easiest thing to do, sing while you're crying (I swear, I really don't cry very much... but this post is really making it seem like I do). After the song, we prayed. He then handed me his flashlight keychain again, and we all headed back to the opening. That was the most moving part of the whole day, maybe even my whole trip. After that, we went to some huge camping store (R.E.I.) and the Starbucks that was attatched (yeah, I'm pregnant... haha, nevermind) and were hanging out there until it was time to go to Shakespeare's, the pool hall. Played pool, played Spades, then left. Handed out food, played tag with Cheeto, Wes, Andrew, Paul, Melissa, kinda Emily, and kinda Steven. Went to Wendy's for dinner, went back to the church, and slept.

Friday, we got up, had breakfast, I straightened my hair for like the third time ever, we had a morning devo thing, then packed backpacks of food so we could have a "picnic." It's illegal to hand out food in Denver, so we took enough for all of us and for other people to eat and had a picnic. We just hung out at the park for all of the afternoon. Well, my crew did, the other crew went and saw Mr. and Mrs. Smith with some of the kids. It was really fun. After the park, we went back to the church, unpacked the backpacks, then had a free night. We went to a restaurant called Red Robin's for dinner, then rented The Count of Monte Cristo. I liked that movie quite a bit, but Sarah hated it. I think she was one of the very few people from our group who didn't like it.

Saturday was our last day. The morning routine was the same. My crew took some of the kids to see Bewitched. It was soo great! Emily said she could hear Sarah and me laughing, and we were all the way at the back, while she was towards the middle. After hanging out at the park for a little bit longer after the movie, we went to the Denver Diner and ate dinner. We then said goodbye to Nick (very sad... I love how he liked me and Sarah so much!) and headed back to the church, where we had one last devo thing. Paul cried while he was talking about what all he learned... it made my respect for him go up. (Too bad he made it drop again in the car on the way back home, just because he can be really stupid and immature.) Then we got our awesome Dry Bones t-shirts, exchanged e-mail addresses and screen names, said goodbye, talked for longer, said goodbye again, got in the car, said goodbye again, then actually left. We were going to stay the night in the same Super 8, but Chris and Kelly decided to drive back Saturday night. We got back into town about 4:00 Sunday morning, then got to Kelly's about 5:00. We went to sleep, woke up late for church, and went to church. My mission trip was done. I was very very sad about it being done. It was kinda ironic, because I didn't even really wanna go too much at first. I miss everyone there and almost wish I could've stayed longer.

I really did learn a lot on that trip. I feel different, but I'm not exactly sure how. I might seriously consider an internship there some summer, though. I dunno. All I know right now is that I'm exhausted and need to go to sleep. So ta ta for now!