Friends, it’s been a long and hard season. I've gone from staying at a friend’s house, to homeless, to squatter, to couch surfer, to working at Miracle Ranch as a day camp counselor. Now I sit in transition waiting for definite plans. This blog will be one of my longer ones just because I have so much to talk about in this one. I will tell you stories of things that happened to me and recent amazing revelations that have led to a deeper and more intimate relationship with my Jesus. I hope that you are blessed in some way by reading this. Like in any story I think I will start near the beginning. Beware: I will probably go on little rabbit trails in the stories, but I promise they all have a purpose and will make sense when you are done reading. (Like I said I have a lot to say)
I actually became in definition “homeless” at the end of April. Even though I knew there was a small mad hope in the situation, I saw homelessness as one step above death. I think I had actually hit rock bottom… and it hurt. I stayed at the “Salvation Army Family Shelter” until the middle of June. When I realized that I really was homeless I tried my best to see the good in the situation. I had thought about willingly being homeless in the past so that I could minister to the homeless community and this way I actually had the chance to do so. The only problem was that I pretty much had no choice in the matter. Even though I never would have spoken it, I was definitely mad at God for putting me in that position. It got even worse when my laptop charger broke. The one thing in my life that I THOUGHT was mine and more permanent was taken away from me like everything else that I felt that God had promised me. This forced me to go into an unintentional fast from my computer; I am so thankful for this. Through this little event I realized how I’ve been worshiping God’s promises over my life instead of God. Can you imagine the Israel worshiping the Promised Land instead of the giver of the Promised Land? If I were God I would be really mad; no wonder why they ended up roaming the desert for 40 years… about a week later I remember hearing “Rosie, do you trust me?” I replied “yes, lord, I trust you.” At which he replied, “apply to catalyst again.” Remember that leap of faith that Morpheus asked of Neo? This is exactly what applying to catalyst was for me. However, because I wanted to prove that I trusted God, I did it, the only problem was that I was FLAT broke. I had to fundraise just to get the $28 for the application fee. That is when I came up with the plan to go up to Seattle to Play my guitar and Sing Worship songs on the street to raise money.
I told people about my plan at the shelter and EVERYONE got really excited for me and one of the ladies randomly came up to me, handed me a dollar and says, “here’s your first dollar, I know that God is going to do something great out of this for you.” Before I knew it I had the first 4 dollars I needed to just get up to Seattle. The whole way I was nervous because if I wasn’t a good enough musician, it was quite possible that I might not make anything and I would be stranded in Seattle with no one to call for help. I earnestly prayed the whole bus ride, walking down the street looking for a spot to play, then finally while I was playing my heart out. For the first couple hours I had received a little bit of change, a few dollars, a new guitar pick and an earring. I was nearing the end of the 3rd hour when I began to get exhausted from playing, I prayed “okay, God… what I have right now is not enough for my application fee and bus fair (which is $4) back to Tacoma, I need you to help me out here.” After I said that prayer, a man randomly walked by and dropped a $20 bill in my gig bag. I ended up making $32.01, a guitar pick, and an earring that day. That weekend I turned in my application fee and the very next day (after a couple friends giving me money for the bus) I began to go hard at work trying to make the $300 for the tuition deposit that was due in two weeks. A week had gone by and I had only made $60 aside from what I needed for bus fair. I had my interview with Ryan Kee and we both came to the conclusion that yes, I do need to do catalyst but practically from a financial stand point it was not the right timing. I completely understood this to be true yet, I was extremely bummed at the decision. I couldn’t help but think, “But God I thought you wanted me to do Catalyst, why would you ask me to do something that I couldn’t do in the first place?” Once again I was faced with disappointment. Could you imagine what Moses felt when God showed him the Promised Land and said “Your generation will never set foot on that land,”? I think I know. Your heart skips a beat and despair sets in. Even though this was weighing heavily on my heart I decided to keep on fundraising in hopes of getting the money I need to get a job to make enough money to do Catalyst in January instead. At this time the situation at the shelter escalated. Every day I was there, I was being treated worse. They refused to hold my dinners or give me sack lunches because even though I was bringing in a small income, it wasn’t considered a “legitimate job,” then every time I talked to a staff member it was like they thought I was a really dumb child, my roommates all liked to dump their issues on me because they knew that I would listen and pray for them, in general it was beginning to be too much.
Back tracking just a little bit; about 3 months, I was staying with my best friend’s (Joy) family, I decided to apply to be a camp counselor at Island Lake (CRISTA camps). Unfortunately, I didn’t get the message that Jon Croaker called for my phone interview till 2 weeks later. Until the week of staff training, I tried to call every day without success. This was a contributing factor to my decision to move into the shelter. I figured that if I moved into the shelter, that it would only be for a month and that I would go right into working at Island Lake, plus Joy’s mom needed the extra room to pack up to move to Ohio. Of Course God had other plans. Now back to hating my situation in the shelter, I felt a constant urge to just get out of the shelter, but the problem was: “Where am I going to go??”Finally, I found out that it was the weekend that Joy’s mom was going to move to Ohio, so naturally I offered my help in return for a place to stay. My next plan was to couch surf after a few days of helping out. This is where God’s plan starts to unfold in a really cool way so pay attention.
I ended up staying at Joy’s mom’s house for 3 weeks. 1 week was just preparing for her to move. 1 week to sell the majority of stuff she left behind (I ended up giving away a couple things to people who I knew needed it.) while splitting the proceeds with joy’s brother, Chris. Then 1 extra week just because I knew I could get away with it (this was the squatting situation without electricity). During the last week at Joy’s mom’s house Chris’s friend was over every day come to find out because he really wanted to get in my pants. I am not going to say that it wasn’t a temptation, because it was. He was charming, but there were several things that I didn’t like about him. He definitely was not a Christian, was into marijuana, and did not respect women really like they ought. He pulled off the classic moves the “yawn and stretch” move, the “damsel in distress” move, and of course my favorite, tickling and rubbing my feet… I had made up my mind before the last one to give into the temptation. Even though I wouldn’t admit it to anyone else, I was lost; I didn’t know what I wanted out of life because like I said previously, I felt like God had taken away anything that I felt that God had given me. So what was the point in obeying his commandments if nothing good was going to come out of it anyway? At this point I can definitely tell you that Jesus is the light in the darkness pointing us in the right direction. The guy was making his way up my leg when I know I heard God’s voice clearly telling me, “This is not what you want, I need you to trust me.”After hearing this, I abruptly stopped the guy and told him that I couldn’t do it and basically had him leave.
At the end of the week I went to another house of a “friend” for what was supposed to be 2 weeks. I had the realization a few days in that this “friend” wasn’t really a friend that she was just using me in my vulnerable state and never really was more than a one way relationship. I just figured that I was only feeling this because “Familiarity breeds contempt.”So I was thankful and jumped at the chance when Joy called me asking if I wanted to Dog sit for her boyfriend’s (at the time)(Jesse) Dad (Greg) in Port Orchard. During the week that I was at my “friend’s” house Joy had called me to let me know that Miracle Ranch (CRISTA camps) was short staffed and that she had taken the liberty of recommending me for the job. She gave me the office number and told me to get a hold of Erik Henrickson. I called every day once a day until I went to Greg’s house at this time I kind of gave up until Joy called me and urged me to call several times in a day. I finally got a hold of Erik and ended up needing to be at Miracle Ranch that Sunday to work Day Camp. Luckily my mom helped me out by letting me stay two nights then my uncle gave me a ride.
You’re probably thinking that just getting up to this point was a big journey, right?? Well it was nothing compared to what I learned while at Miracle Ranch. I find ironic names really funny. I think ironies are God’s little jokes. For instance: when I recommitted my life to Christ back in 2005 it was because I met a friend through a program called “fresh start.” And the Bible is just filled with these ironies which cracks me up. For example: David having the affair with Bathsheba after watching her on the roof bathing, her name meaning, “woman who bathes.” Come on! Who else thinks that’s funny? While at the ranch, I’ve heard a few people say that a summer at camp is like 2 years in real life. I think this is a true statement because I learned in 3 weeks what normally would’ve taken me 6 months to learn. I think this is because you are literally on the front lines of ministry and you are always confronted by your weaknesses and forced to deal with it. It’s like consistently doing the P90-X for the whole 90 days; it’s intense but you are all the better for it.
My first day at the ranch was very interesting. I get there and there is no one in site…. I look around and finally I find WITs (wranglers in training) and LITs (Leaders in Training), just hanging out around camp at the time (it was their day off) walk out of the dining hall and without me saying anything ask, “Oh, are you new??” and I reply, “Yeah, I guess I’m supposed to start today as a day camp counselor.” So they dragged me around camp TRYING to find some sort of person in charge to help me; never found anyone in charge. I finally found Charis (Joy’s sister) and she helps me take my stuff up to “Sweet Water” (women’s dorms) where I meet the lifeguards in all of their shining and naked glory… yup, I said it… naked. So Charis takes me on a tour of the camp, which came in handy because I really needed it; I would’ve gotten lost otherwise. Then came lunch… ah… lunch… I get a hamburger for the first time in ages and sit down, eat it and make my rounds to meeting people. One thing that I noticed about every single person that worked there was that they all were quirky which is great but kind of overwhelming at the same time. So RIGHT after eating I get to learn the camp dances… oy… I think they are the SILLIEST thing that I’ve ever experienced. There’s a dance called “The Interlude” that made me need to go pee every time I did it and “the Cotton Eyed Joe” which wasn’t too bad because I had learned a similar dance about a year ago. I will post the interlude for you to see… haha. So I finally go to my first staff meeting and meet my new boss, who is really awesome. I’m introduced to my new co0-workers and dear Shortly asks loudly, “Can we name her today?” and Erik is like “is that a camp name suggestion? ‘Today’?”… I was kind of hoping to get that name because I liked it, but no… people sat on their hands all week not knowing what to name me so they made up “Rosie the Riveter” to tell the campers so that it didn’t sound like my real name(I had to demand a name at the end of the week, which ended up being “Fru-Fru”)… anyway… at this staff meeting everyone was assigned their jobs to prepare for the incoming resident campers except for me… so I was stuck with nothing to do nor knowing what to do. Finally, I asked Erik for something to do and I ended up helping the nurse (Hot Lips) and the nurse’s assistant (Huggles) with taking meds for the campers then helping them catalog these meds which took all day. We even ate our dinner in the nurses’ station so that we could work while eating. I guess after dinner I was supposed to go to a Day Camp Staff “Noodle”(meeting) and I didn’t know about it so Statistical Anomaly(aka: Stat, Tobi, or Robert) hunted me down to take me to it, this is where I met some amazing people: Earth Smirf, Pippin, and Gumshoe… pretty fantastic names, right? So later that night after I finally finished with everything including the little job of cataloging meds, I heard the question again, “Rosie, do you trust me?” All I could think was, “Yes, I trust you God; you brought me here right? But what could you possibly mean by that?”
When I stepped into day camp I had this fanciful idea that it was going to be easy like babysitting typically tends to be. Oh how I was wrong. 12 kids between the ages of 9 and 11, the girls were pretty easy because they were really cuddly and easily entertained, the 4 boys I had on the other hand… not so much. Everything that I had to say, there was always an argument for it, a correction, or a smart alec comment to be made. I was thankful to have LIT to help me out named “Kermit” for half the day every day. At the end of the day I was exhausted and distressed because I really did not know how to handle my kids, I can handle 1 difficult kid, but 4? I went to bed that night at around 11pm that night but did not sleep well and ended up waking up again at 2 am sweating (sweet water gets really hot at night for some reason)and with my mind rushing with worry, “how am I going to do this for a whole week?” I sat on the balcony overlooking the lake and a radio was on tuned to Spirit 105.3 when the “Jars of Clay” song came on “Show you love in every language.” I had an epiphany… The reason why these kids were acting up is because they had been to the same day camp every week because their parents use day camp as a cheaper option than day care. These kids are hurting and want attention. God basically told me that I need to love on these kids and intercede for them. So that’s what I did. Every day that I prayed for these kids I saw major improvements in their attitudes even though I did have to talk to one specific kid several times. Even though my first week was hard, it was really fun and every day I grew to love my job even more. At the end of my first week I prayed really hard to be kept on another week and I was.
So my second week, I was determined to start on the right foot… I finally got my camp name, I dressed up as a pirate, made some ground rules and steps of punishment if they broke those rules, gave them numbers for the line they were to stay in when we were traveling in between activities. Come to find out, I had 9 kids and they were the oldest kids who were 4th and 5th graders. It was easy in the aspect that they were old enough to relate to and they understood what I was talking to them about. It was hard in the aspect that it was harder to get them excited about the same things the younger kids were excited about. We were the extra team as well, so we ended up with no shirts at first then, when we did get shirts they were plain white… that would never do (after the kids coming up with an awesome design, I painted their shirts for them J). The kids came up with a team name “The LA-Z Boyz”, a cool team cheer which we put our hands in the air, yelled, “LA-Z Boyz UNITE!”, then we fell on the ground and went to sleep, last but not least we came up with a team song (while we were eating lunch) to sing while we were walking in between activities. This group was sooooo fun. I only had one kid (I had him the previous week) that I had to consistently talk to about discipline issues. This kid wasn’t too bad until the very last day. At this point he was ignoring all the rules so I had to give him step 2 which was taking 20 minutes out of his swim time. Now this was the last day and I REALLY didn’t want him to miss out on some of his swim time so I just let him stew until after lunch when it was time to get ready to go swimming, at which I would talk to him about what he did wrong and how he could improve next time. He took this stewing time hard. He was crying and trying to convince the other counselors to talk to me about letting him swim… Poor kid… While talking with me, he tried to walk away once but I caught up with him and talked some more with him. I explained to him what he did wrong and then how he could do better next time, I also let him know that I really am not mean, that I just want the best for him and that it just comes down to respecting people. That is when he asks, “Why should I respect other people if they don’t respect me?” At which I realize that it is a ministry moment, I respond, “Well, did you know that Jesus was mocked and spit on before he died on the cross? But he still did it for us.” Just then I saw a little light come on over his head, “No, I didn’t know that.” After talking with him more I found out that none of his family believes in Jesus or even talks about him. Then before sending him off to go swimming I tell him, “If you ever need someone to pray with you, just let me know.” As he runs off he replies, “Okay, I will.” Later, the kid that lives on camp because he’s the camp director’s kid told me that he talked to that same kid, and apparently he said, “Rosie is the very best counselor because I can pray with her.” This just showed me how persistence, love, and prayer can make a big difference and totally made my heart melt. 
Ok, by now you’re probably thinking that I might as well write a book with how much I’ve had to say, but I promise I am on the last leg of what I have to say. What I learned in my last week of working at Miracle Ranch was very critical and I’m pretty sure my life is changed forever.
Remember when David (of the bible) was walking down the street after having Bathsheba’s husband killed, he was rebuked by the prophet Nathan? David could’ve killed the prophet, but instead he tore off his clothes and offered a sacrifice to God. I would definitely say that David was the most teachable man that history has to offer. Because of David’s example I try my best to be teachable in every situation, not to say that my flesh doesn’t get the best of me at times because it does. The last week of Day Camp for me was extremely difficult and stressful. Because of a guest group that we had at the same time our activities were always being canceled, we had a whole new set of rules to abide by, I had 12 kids 3 of which were triplets, 1 kid blatantly told me that he didn’t believe in Jesus and would pout every time we had prayer or during fireside (kids service), and all of the kids except for 1 who was 7 was 9 years old… Talk about a tough crowd. Then to add on to all the stress, I began to get sick (I got a really bad sinus infection and bronchitis). I think with all of this piled on I was a little tougher on the kids than I should have. I let what I was going through affect the kids. So there was a parent that called and said that I was being too strict and the camp ended up taking me off of day camp mid week. I took this hard because I was forced to take a good look at where my heart was at the moment. For the first time in a long time I prayed to God in extreme lament. That day I shed off a ton of unhealthy thinking patterns by entering in warfare for myself. I think sometimes I get so focused on praying for others I forget to pray for myself. It’s almost as though I believe that God wouldn’t have freedom for me like he does for others. This of course is a lie. Freedom is as much for me as it is for someone else. I don’t have to live in shame, in despair, in fear. I can be myself because I have been given that freedom.
Finally, in conclusion... Because of God's consistent endeavor to humble me I am learning much more than I could have otherwise.
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