and now, a little poem i remember from elementary school:

spring has sprung,
the grass has ris
i wonder where
the birdies is

it is officially nice and warm and springy over here. to which i say, "it's about freaking time!" spring was all tricky this year, with false starts and fake outs. just the other day it was really really nice, then a thunderstorm hit outta nowhere, and that night it was freezing!! but today was like 25C (75F), and a little windy. i guess tomorrow is supposed to be even hotter! i try and take joy no matter what the weather is like, but it's always easier when it's hot.

in other news, i have discovered yet another reason that being a youth pastor is harder than working at starbucks- hyper kids kicking soccer balls at your face. so, now my favorite pair of glasses are broken (like the glass is actually broken), and my eyelid and eyebrow are sporting a nice set of cuts from the bolts of my glasses (they were frameless). so, for all you peeps out there who think starbucks is harder than youth pastoring...TAKE THAT!!

and cheryl is now gone. she was here teaching english, but her passion has always been youth ministry (although, she went to prison guarding school for a while, which is not youth ministry). she is probably the one person in the world who knows me best right now, seeing as how i've been growing and changing a lot since i've been here, and she's talked/listened me through it. her contract with her english teaching job ended, and they didn't renew, so she had to go back to canada. i knew it was coming for like 6 weeks before, but i had been focusing on asking her how she was doing, what life was gonna be like for her back home, stuff she had learned, etc., that i totally forgot that i was gonna be losing an amazing friend. so, the night before she left (a sunday, no less) i found myself alone in my house, crying a lot. and that night, in a behavioral pattern i'm beginning to recognize as denial, i stayed up really, really late working on stuff that really didn't need to be worked on, basically obsessing over rediculously inane things, and went to bed at like 5 in the morning, without any clear idea of what i would be doing for sunday school, which is bad. and after church we prayed for her some, and i cried a lot more, then she was gone. except i'm IMing her as i write this, so i think i'll be ok. that day was rough-2 hours of sleep, crying a lot, middle school youth group, and a soccer ball in the eye.


life is rough.