What a Month!

April has flown by and I can't possibly write about everything that has happened so I'll give you the highlights!

The beginning of the term was emotionally confusing – the excitement of greeting friends and hearing their stories from the break, the sadness of saying goodbye to students from last term who returned for a few days only to leave again, and the fun and awkwardness of meeting new people and getting to know them. The community here does not feel the same as last term – how could it with half the people being new? Each person brings their own flavour and contributions so some things from last term are missing and some exciting new things have been added. Unfortunately, we just don't have the time to develop the same comfortableness with each other that had existed after six months of living with the same people, but it's still a great place to be. The 'new people' I've gotten to know the best are Birgit from Germany, who has gone running with me a few time, Corinna from Germany, who is all-around outgoing, talkative and fun to be around, and Natasha, who is on the Spring Adventure Team doing what I will be doing in the summer.

I've been training to run a half-marathon and so far the longest I've run is around 11km! Unfortunately, a week and a half ago my right knee started hurting when I was running so I haven't been running since then. My knee still isn't totally back to normal and since I was planning to run the half-marathon in less than two weeks from now, that's going to have to be postponed but I still hope to run it some time this summer. Before I had to stop because of my knee, I was still running with Angela, a woman from my outreach. I've told her a lot about things I'm learning in lectures and what I'm reading in Screwtape Letters by C.S.Lewis, our assigned book for the term. She has been asking a lot of questions and even read some of the Bible herself so please pray that she continues to seek and that I'll know how to answer and how to lead the conversations, too.

Last Monday was my birthday! I got to share it with two other girls – EJ, the girls' RA, and Melanie, who is on Discovery with me. I was happy for that because on your birthday, at lunchtime everyone sings for you and you're supposed to stand up and give a speech; we decided to give our speech together! I felt a little homesick that day, but it made me realize how blessed I am to have friends and family to feel homesick for! I took the evening off to go for a long walk and reflect and pray, all of which were much needed.

We got to do the high ropes course and the giant swing again this term! The high ropes course wasn't really scary at all this time around, partly because I'd done it before and partly because I'd just done a bunch of rock climbing so the height wasn't that big a deal. However, I love just hanging out up there, bouncing around and swinging and trying things just for fun. I feel so comfortable and safe in a harness because it's so familiar. The giant swing was great too! That had it's own thrill because when they hauled me up there and I pulled the release, nothing happened! I was stuck! I had to bounce around a bit in order to get it to let go and I had no idea when it would happen... Oh, and I was trying to go upside down too!

I've been spending quite a bit of time with Sandy, who has become our dorm's gramma and a good friend. I enjoy hearing about all her life experiences and discussing lectures and other things with her. Unfortunately, she had to leave Holsby this week to return to the US for her grandson's graduation. Before she left, we wrote and collected notes for her to take with her and took her out for fika at a cafe in town. She is already missed muchly.

For Discovery this term, we get to go rock climbing, which is one of my favorite activities. One afternoon we learned to belay and practised climbing the climbing wall at school. Then, two weeks ago, we went to an outdoor climbing spot for the weekend. The first day was too wet and rainy to climb so we learned some survival stuff instead and practised building shelters using branches and bark. We made pizza over the coals for dinner! The second day we climbed! We had three different routes up the rock face and took turns climbing and belaying each other. I think I like being on the ground belaying almost as much as I like climbing since I get to encourage the person on the ground and try to give them pointers. We also built a fire and kept it going all day since it wasn't all that warm, and I enjoyed poking and stoking it. The third day we woke up to find that our leaders had abandoned us! They left us a note, a first aid kit, an emergency cell phone, a map and a compass and told us that our task was to make our way back to Holsby (no motorized transportation allowed)! We were excited for the challenge and set out by around 9:30am with the goal of making it back for dinner. The excitement lasted about half the day; by the afternoon we were getting tired and a little sore, especially since not everyone had brought the proper shoes and packs to walk back with all our gear. We walked onto campus at 5:25pm, 5 minutes before dinner!

On Monday, our Discovery challenge was to buy our meals for our backpacking trip this weekend. We drove into town and were given some money and a budget and told to meet back in an hour. At first I was a little nervous that it would be hard to figure out what to bring, but it turned out to be fun! We left on the backpacking trip on Wednesday night after class. I was a little anxious and stressed all day Wednesday, but I'm not really sure why; that went away almost completely as soon as we were on the road. The trip was exhausting but it definitely had some great highlights and we made some good memories and came together as a team more, I think. My knee hurt every once in a while, but not nearly as much as I was afraid of and less often each day, which is great! The weather was continually changing so we got some rain, some sun, lots of clouds, a fair bit of wind, but we never had to set up camp in the rain or eat dinner in the rain, which was a real blessing. Wednesday night when we left I had to say goodbye to Sandy, which was rough. The night walk was actually really cool; it didn't rain that hard and I like walking at night – there's just such a cool atmosphere. The darkness also makes people more talkative so we had some interesting conversation, too. We walked 7.8km in a little over an hour and a half that night. Thursday we practised taking a bearing with our compasses and bushwacking between different points. It was challenging and exhilarating! Friday was a challengingly long day – we walked 32 km over a period of 12 hours including breaks. By the end our feet were so sore! Saturday we awoke to discover we had been abandoned again! We misinterpreted the note to mean that we should make our way back to Holsby over the next two days; we chose a route and started off. Around 8km later, we got a phone call from Timo, the head leader, who was wondering why we hadn't reached a certain place and called him. It turns out that the note was supposed to be a clue directing us to a certain railway crossing where we were supposed pick up another clue and walk to another place and then call Timo. After the confusion and miscommunication was sorted out, he gave us the coordinates of the third destination, and we turned around and hiked there instead of hiking back to Holsby. From there we followed a string of clues to our final destination on top of a hill by a lake. What our leaders had planned to be a relatively short day turned out to be almost as long as the day before (in terms of time but not distance since we weren't walking as fast), and some of us were feeling like we couldn't go any further by the time we made it to the hill top at as the sun was setting. The highlight of that day was how we worked together to encourage each other and find our way; we also bushwacked through a swamp at the end, which was challenging and exciting and we all managed to get across without falling in! Today we hiked back to in good time to shower, check for ticks, and examine our blisters before dinner. I managed to escape with only two tiny blister but two of the girls' feet look horrific, and they were already trying their best to combat the blister with tape. We hiked a total of 105km over the last 4.5 days! Along the way we saw a moose and a lot of stunning scenery! We walked over many hills, through swamps, meadows and forests, and over streams on logs, rocks and bridges. We arrived exhausted, but it was worth it! Now we're all red-faced and walk funny because we're stiff and our feet hurt... Thanks so much for your prayers this weekend. I'm sure they were heard!

Well, that's April in a (large) nutshell. I hope you enjoyed reading!