Never thought I'd be the one....

Two months ago, if you had told me that I'd be "that person" sitting in McDonalds with a Frappe and a computer, enthusiastically typing away, I never would have believed you.

Yet, here I sit.

I have decided that typing blog posts on my phone is totally not worth it, because of the number of typos, so alas, you must wait until I have opportunities such as this one to take advantage of free Wi-Fi. Thankfully, today's night local (aka, Walmart) is a 1 minute walk from McD's.

I also never thought I'd be ok with seeing roadkill so close and personal.  Like, 1 foot away.

And yet I am.

I never thought I would wash dishes with water from a spigot 2 feet off the ground.
That I'd drain pasta in a parking lot.
That I would drive an RV before I drove a 8-seater van.
Be ok with popping blisters.
Eat the same lunch 5 days in a row.
Beg for money at Masses.
Accept cookies from people I've never met.
Go to Walmart at 2:30 in the morning.
Sleep overnight in a Walmart parking lot.
Shop at Walmart multiple times a day, 4 days in a row.

(are we seeing a Walmart trend here?  We are of the opinion that Walmart should sponsor Crossroads.  We go there enough!)

We are a walking advertisement (haha, no pun intended) for Walmart, iPhone, and Chrysler.  Except now we have a Dodge van, so that doesn't really work anymore.

Basically, Crossroads has made me go sooo far outside my comfort zone!  On this journey, I have done oodles of things that I never would have done before.  And honestly, I needed to break out of my box.

Consider the box broken.
xoxo,

PS- say a prayer for us- only 1 month left!
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Dropping like ... Stanley

This post requires a pre-explanation: Who is Stanley?

I will give you some hints.  Stanley likes flies.  He is green.  He lives in a pot.  Night Shift loves him.

Stanley is a Venus Fly Trap.

Don’t ask why we scoured Lowes’, Walmart’s, and Hy-Vee’s galore to find him.  All you need to know is that when we (Mario, Stephanie, Josh, and I) found him, we were quite elated:

 (Stephanie)

But Stanley wasn’t happy living in an RV.  He quickly began drooping and no amount of sustenance, whether it be flies or cereal, would make him happy again.  So Stanley resided in our (non-working) sink, looking sad in a half-filled cup of water.  And just 10 minutes ago, Stephanie buried him in the trashcan.  He came quickly, and died almost as quickly.  And this, my friends, is the situation I'm in.  My health came back, and went away very quickly.

Monday night, I cried for the first time while on Crossroads.

I think anyone in my situation would have.

Let me back up a minute.  I was put on day shift again after 2 weeks on night.  Monday, it was super hot.  Like, 100.  I was prepared, though: I bought a hat, I had sunglasses, sunscreen, and plenty of water.  I started by first shift of the week walking with Grace.  She and I walked for a mile, then I had to get back in the van because my calves were killing me.  I had had 3 charlie horses the night before, so I thought that’s what it was.  After another 10 miles of others walking, Grace and I headed out again.  I had gone 2 before I started getting heat exhaustion symptoms.  At 3.5 I got back into the van, thinking that water and protein would make me feel all better and I could walk again later.  Well, faintness turned into spacey-ness turned into an escalating pounding headache, and I could feel my blood sugar crashing.  Nothing that I did helped.

Meanwhile, Amanda’s blood sugar was crashing too, so she couldn’t walk or drive, therefore John had to drive the whole way.  Peter is gone for the week, so Josh is doing most of the walking on night shift because Mario is injured.  Kirstin's ankle is hurting.  Michael, the guy who's with us for the week, also hurt his ankle.  It ended up that Grace did the majority of the walking (like, 21 out of 30 miles).  We got our 30 for the day, but just barely.

When I got back to the RV, I called Mom and after talking to her I realized that my body just can’t do day shift anymore.  I was crying, Mom was crying, Amanda and Grace were crying; we were overall just a huge mess.  I came in the RV where John and Josh were and (with tears streaming down my face) I told them “I just can’t do day shift anymore”.  Thankfully, they had foreseen this happening (as I had.  I had just been in denial…) and had put me on day shift just as a trial.  They were understanding (thanks, guys!) and promptly moved me to night.  I drank some water, told my family what was going on, and went to bed.

*sigh*  This isn’t how I was envisioning the rest of my Crossroads journey.  I figured I’d be the healthy one who could be put on any shift.  Not the girl who has to ask special consideration.  I hate having people worry, and I hate not being able to do what everyone else does.  I just really have to remember that God does know what he’s doing.  He knows that I will do just as much good on night shift as I would have on day shift.  That I can pray as much and do just as many sacrifices on night.  There is a reason.

So I am permanently on night shift.  And I’m ok with that.  As I said to my family, that just means that I’ll have more time to call people!!

~~~~

I’m gonna make some changes to my blog right now, and the next couple times I have internet.  My plan is to take away my graphic design page (because I never use it), change my book shift page, and add a pictures page with highlight photos from my trip.  (And I'm pretty sure this is gonna break a cardinal rule of blogging by telling you this, but) I'm gong to do a couple blogs in advance to be posted automatically for you guys.  With pictures and captions and such.  Enjoy, in advance!

Please, please, please keep us in your prayers.  Even though our RV is air conditioned, it’s still sweltering in here, and I can’t even imagine what day shift is going through at the moment.  Pray for our health, our safety, and God’s will in every aspect of this walk.

xoxo,

Different Kind of Sacrifice

I think everyone enters the Crossroads experience expecting something.  They may not know precisely what it is, but they're definitely expecting it.  It could be new friends, a life changing experience, to get in shape, to grow closer to God, to see cool scenery, to explore the country, and so much more.

One of my expectations was not to get sick.

The other day (Thursday, I believe it was) I woke up and walked 3 minutes down the road to Mass.  As I sat down, I felt a strange wave of lightheadedness.  Mass went on, and I got progressively worse and worse.  By the end, I was bent over, leaning on the pew in front of me, dizzy, with a pounding headache.  Afterwards, as I sat on the church steps with my head between my knees, all I could think was "This was not part of the plan".  I hated to do it, but I took the day off and slept for 6 hours.  Grace ended up walking for me, which meant she did back-to-back shifts.  (thankyouthankyouthankyouthankyou!!!!)

I was eternally grateful for those 6 hours of sleep.  So grateful that I did night shift that night.  An extra long night shift which lasted 14 hours and in which we walked 40 miles.  A night shift that lasted so long that I walked in the sun again.  Which was super stupid and dumb on my part, because I had heat exhaustion.

Heat exhaustion.  Why, oh why, oh why???

Did you know that the symptoms for heat exhaustion are pretty similar to those of heat stroke?  And that heat stroke can be fatal?  Yeah, me neither.  Needless to say, I was pretty freaked out for a little while.

If there's anything I hate, it's being sick.  Not because I feel yucky, but because I feel so useless.  Like I should be up and doing things, helping people make dinner and clean, but instead I have to sit on the sofa and do nothing.  And then I'll feel better and do something, and immediately after another wave of faintness will come over me and I'll have to sit down right away.  People, I promise I'm not faking!

Last night, I sat in the hot tub for a little bit, making me feel 1000% better, and then my mom was like "That probably wasn't the best idea for someone who has heat exhaustion".... oh yeah.  Whoops.  Kinda forgot about that.

(disclaimer: I'm drinking lots of sports drinks, taking natural remedies of various sorts, and am taking it easy.  No worries, I'm gonna be ok ;) )

This is all to say... I've been thinking about the reason I'm here.  My expectations.  I wanted to grow in my faith, to gain friendships, to witness to the dignity of life.  But as I've sat with a spinning head, I've wondered if my last couple days have even been worthwhile.  If I'm not walking, is there even a point to being here?

I've come to realize that there is.

Why am I here?  For prayer and sacrifice.  I'm getting a heck of a lot of prayer in sitting on this sofa.  It's a huge sacrifice for me to not walk.  I thought I was here to walk.  But there's so much more than that.  I am here to walk, but I can witness in other ways too.

Last night during dinner, Josh said something that I've always heard, but it really hit me.  He said "Make every bite a prayer!"  I may pray my morning offering when I wake up, but do I mean those words I say?  Do I mean that I offer "my prayers, works, joys, and sufferings of the day"?  Or do I say it because that's what I've been doing for years?  Do I remember that literally everything I do while I'm here is for the greater glory of God, and that everything should be a prayer?  It's definitely something that I need to work on.

~~~~
Break break.

We've been making videos like there's no tomorrow.  So much so that the Crossroads office assured everyone that yes, we are still walking. :P  (We are, in fact, 2 days ahead!)

So here, I present you with Peter's latest work.

And here is the video I referenced in my last post that Josh made: 30 Miles in Our Shoes

Enjoy your day (and your week!) everyone!  Pray for us all as we venture into the flatness that is South Dakota.
xoxo,

One, we are pro-life

Two, a little bit louder
Three, I still can't hear you
Four, more more more! 

PRO LIFE FLASH MOB!!

Maybe you've seen the videos online of the pro-life flash mobs.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x_uGRcwgG0w  At about 1:25, you can see a man in front of the pro-life group wearing a bright green jacket- his name is Peter and he organizes these flash mobs around the country.  Franciscan was blessed enough to have him come here to Steubenville to organize a flash mob in Pittsburgh.

5:25 am: the alarm went off.... We got ready and ran (literally) to the chapel.
6:00 am: food for the journey, aka mass. :)  It was a wonderful way to start and it gave us the energy we needed for the entire day.
6:50 am: gathering behind the chapel, and moving us all toward cars.  It was quite an experience trying to get everyone into vehicles..... as far as I know, God provided and we had (cramped) room for everyone!
7:10 am: We leave the campus behind and get on the road towards Pittsburgh!  I was lucky enough to ride in a car with Peter- he taught us some chants and songs that we'd be singing.  It was a really fun car ride.
8:00 am: We arrived at the Home Depot parking lot and walked over to the abortion clinic.  There were already some people there, so we joined their circles.  All together, there were about 6 circles of 15-30 people each.  Each circle prayed separately- my circle prayed 2 rosaries, a chaplet, a litany, a couple other prayers, and sang lots of songs.  Our counselors were able to talk to a few of the women going into the clinic, and each time another woman approached the door, we knelt down and prayed the next decade on our knees.  Powerful, to say the least.
10:50 am: We were getting towards the end of our time at the clinic, so our group decided to pray one last chaplet, but we wanted to sing it.  We began on our own, then by the second decade the group next to us joined in.  As each group ended their own prayers, they joined our group, so by the third decade we had about 150 students singing the Divine Mercy Chaplet.  Wow.  What an amazing experience.  The really neat thing was, we were standing right in front of the clinic, so I'm positive that they could hear us singing inside.  :)
11:20 am: procession back to the parking lot, singing Immaculate Mary the whole way. :)
11:30 am: (hot) pizza arrives for hungry, tired, and cold pro-life students!  We were able to talk and have a good time (still in the parking lot) while eating..... good times.
12:30 pm: (ish) we finished filling balloons with helium and headed down the road.  We made a stop at the abortion clinic, sang a song, got some bright yellow Life balloons stuck in the tree right outside, and continued on our march.  We came across lots of support- honking and thumbs up from other pedestrians.  And there was adventure- we took about 3 wrong turns and ended up by a Whole Foods where there was a Radio Disney broadcast going on... we kind of interrupted it.  Ok, ok, kind of is an understatement.  We completely messed up their event.  We were polite, yet excited, but one man in particular was rather mad at us.  Oh well.  Hopefully we gave him something to think about!  We finished our march through the streets and ended up at the top of a hill by an apartment building, that happened to have a handy little "lookout" thing over the street.  We packed onto it and sang an Ave Maria, then went back down the hill towards the center we had gone through.  There was a small protest going on concerning Iraq, so we let most of the balloons go there.  It was awesome to see them flying away.
1:30 pm: back in the parking lot after going back by the abortion clinic.... we also gave a bunch of balloons to little kids on the way.  One last song, one last prayer, and we were on the way back home.  The ride back was significantly more comfortable!
2:40 pm: arrival back on campus, where we stumbled out of the van and back to the dorm, promptly fell into bed, and took a nice long, much-needed nap.

This evening we spent doing odds and ends around.  I played a board game with two other girls- Quelf.  Oh. my. goodness.  Most hilarious game, like, ever.  We're definitely playing again.

Well, I'm off to bed...... 10:30 mass tomorrow (or, i guess, today!) and then some homework.  Joy!

xoxo,c