Pain, Jail, Piranhas and Sun

I thought I was going to post this last night, but alas, I didn't get a chance to do it before my eyes shut down. So here it is!

Let's go one by one...

PAIN. On Sunday, I decided to take a walk - nothing out of the ordinary. I got to talking with Christy on the phone and lost track of where I was going. I ended up at Blockbuster (it's about five miles away from my house...which means it's five miles back to my house...). As I was walking back, my foot started to hurt. I couldn't figure out why in the world my foot was hurting. Then I remembered what happened in February. In Feb, I went to the doctor because my foot was hurting and he said that I had tendonitis in my foot. I was supposed to rest it for a while - no hikes, long walks, etc. I was doing real well until I moved to Juneau...Guess I won't be going on any long walks for a while...what else could I do?

JAIL. Work is getting exciting again. Many of you have heard that my schedule is insane at work - hopefully that's changing this week. I started working grave shifts, and I love it! That has nothing to do with jail, but I thought I'd throw that in. We now have eight kids in the house. They're all pills - ha! We have a couple that are fairly good kids and it's exciting to encourage them to continue making good decisions and such. On Monday, one of our kids snapped. One of his peers accidentally bumped him with the broom during chores, and it set him off. He grabbed one of the table chairs and threw it at a staff member and stormed outside yelling, "I'm going to #*$& kill him! I'm going to get a &#^! kitchen knife and *$(^ put it in his *&^$ chest!" He was a bit upset. My boss went outside with him and talked with him. My boss decided that he needed to have a cool-down time at JYC (it's the Juvenile Hall here). So off the kid went! To be honest, I'm quite excited he's gone - he was not a fun kid...Sure made for an interesting afternoon!

The night before, I was working grave. I came on shift and there were about five people in the office - not a good sign. Ryan (one of the staff members) says, "I'm going to be next door in case anything happens. Come get me if you need to." I wanted to walk out right then and there. We were getting a little one who was choked by her drunk mom and went to the hospital (we ended up not getting her) and I was the lucky person to tell the drunk mom that her daughter was not coming here and that OCS (it's the same as CPS) would be calling her in the morning. When I got shift change, I heard about the incident that happened to our kid. He handed a note to one of our staff that had a website on it. It was some sort of site about kids who should have died. This kid battles with depression, so we were really worried about him. He wouldn't go to sleep and was acting very strange. I was on suicide watch with him for about three hours until he went to sleep. Anyone want my job???

PIRANHAS. This is a fun story...I'm not going to go into a great deal of detail, but this is a developing story, so you'll get bits and pieces of it. First off, my landlady has taken it upon herself to set me up with a friend of hers named Kevin. I know nothing about this kid other than "you have so much in common: he's tall, he is getting his masters degree, and he was in the Navy!" If someone could show me where we have stuff in common there, it would be greatly appreciated :-) This should be happening next week sometime, so I'll give an update then.

I went to the Gathering on Friday. The Gathering is the young adult ministry at the church I go to. It was such a great night - I finally met some people MY AGE! They do exist, folks. Send up a flare and alert the media! The only thing was that the kids my age were all guys - which is fine, don't get me wrong, but a bit intimidating. I felt like a piece of meat on a hook above a bunch of hungry red-bellied piranha's. They were chatty-chatty and asking me thousands of questions. After the Gathering, we went to Andrew's apartment for pizza and games. I followed a guy named Ray to his house (after we stopped and got pizza). When we got to the apartments, Ray says, "I actually don't know what house is his..." and I reply, "Call him!" He says, "I actually don't have his number..." My jaw dropped. How do people not have phone numbers? It's a common occurrence up here. So Ray decides he's going to knock on doors until he finds Andrew. Mind you, it's about 10 pm by now. Andrew comes out to check for us. Ray says "I didn't know which was yours!" As we walked in, I say "Now would be a good time to exchange numbers..." We go inside and play games and eat pizza. It was a great night - lots of laughs.

The next day I get an email from Andrew saying thanks for coming over and how nice it was to meet me, etc. He then asks a whole bunch of questions. (Oh, he works for JYS too - he actually works at the house my roommate works at.) I email him back and ask some questions of my own. We figure out that we both work grave shift on Sunday, and decided to email back and forth to keep ourselves awake. Little did I know what I was getting myself into...

20 emails later, I had a date, a wannabe boyfriend, a whole lot of clarifying to do, and a few freak-out moments. Like I said before, the guys up here are like piranhas and I'm fresh, new meat. I couldn't believe that someone I had met two nights earlier wanted to date me - I put a stop to that real quick. I told him I'd have to get to know a bit more about him before we order wedding invitations. He's persistent, that's for sure...I said it before: it's a developing story, so more to come later...For now, we are not dating, I do not have a boyfriend, and the date is being postponed...

SUN. Finally - the good part of the week! It's all been great, but this part is really good. Yesterday was one of the most beautiful days I've seen since I've been up here, and of course I didn't take any pictures of it. I went for a bike ride, ran into Bri's and my friend Matt, and he and I went to play frisbee golf. I warned him that I had no idea what frisbee golf was and that I hardly knew how to throw a frisbee. We had a blast. I got stuck in more Devil's Club (my thumb is SO SORE! This section should go back to the pain section of the blog...) and about killed my foot, but it was such a great afternoon in the sun! I think the high was 68 degrees - short and t-shirt weather!

Through it all, I think God is trying to teach me something or somethings. I'm not sure what the lessons are yet. I think it has something to do with patience in letting my body heal, trust in Him - that He knows me, what's best for me, the timing for everything. He is showing me daily that He is in charge, and that life without him in the center is not worth living. My prayer is that I continue to listen and learn. It sure is exciting!

I miss you all terribly! Hope you are doing well! I love you!

Blessings!