i know what it's like to...

(in no apparent order)

1. hit my sister squarely in the stomach with a head of lettuce from a sitting position across the room

2. travel to more than half my age's worth of countries

3. fit a tambourine around my waste... and get it stuck there

4. have my neighbors busted for dealing cocaine

5. drive through a massive puddle, flooding my car with 2 gallons of water

6. spend months... no years working on a cd with my dad, finish it, and from that moment on be unable to listen to it because i am so sick of the songs... and my voice... (gag)

7. watch the first four seasons of lost in 2 weeks

8. have my best friend attempt to drown me repeatedly (it's okay we were little... somehow that makes everything excusable)

9. walk 5.5 miles (with that same friend) in heels and a dress along the highway, until a nice lady picked us up and gave us a ride (we were not quite as little... but littler than we are now)

10. lock myself in my bedroom with mace when i was home alone... just in case there was a prowler

11. create an elaborate plan to run away from school... don't worry i never actually did

12. be told by my 4 year old niece that i can't get married yet cause i'm still a kid, but when i grow up, then i will get married... well, praise the Lord

12. be just bored enough at work to write a random blog post about... nothing

impressed or appalled?
...you decide

update

just thought you would all like to know that my guitar is happily fixed and my teacher's guitar is happily in no need of fixing.

phew! i made it!

...though, i did have little scare when i was walking with it and rammed it into the wall... yeah, now you understand my fear in the first place.

happy thursday, y'all
(i think all this gueetar talk is bringin out the country in me)

oh dear

today i had my second of hopefully many guitar lessons. i am very excited about this new addition to my life and how it will affect my impressing-those-around-me skills.

anyway, my teacher and i were strumming away at a song i practiced for this week and suddenly my guitar made a happy (well, not so happy) "ping" sound.

i assumed i had just done something wrong and was about to continue when my teacher in a very panicked tone (well not really panicked, but adamant) said "whoa, whoa... stop!"

"what happened?" i asked dumbly

"um... your guitar just broke"

yep, right there approximately 5 minutes into my lesson i had a broken guitar. thankfully we were in the back of a music shop so he took my baby up front for them to fix it and let me use his... saweet! and they still don't have it done so he let me take his home until mine's fixed! i know!

so now i'm kind of freaking out that i will somehow ruin his guitar by merely looking at it, and am determined to practice super hard so his guitar lending is not in vain. yes, i see the irony.

apparently he has never had a student's guitar break mid lesson. so i think it's pretty cool to be the first... you know... make a lasting impression.

i hope this doesn't freak out my family

do you ever feel like your life is very small... i do.

i mean i've had the opportunity to do many things, but when it comes down to it, my life is virtually free of any great risk, and sometimes i wonder why.

am i too comfortable with where and what i am?
am i afraid of what risk could signify, afraid of disappointing those i might have to leave behind?

i feel restless and extremely tied down, like a boat tied to the dock while the current is desparately trying to free me.

the question is, am i waiting for my Captain to untie and guide me on a great adventure... or am i refusing to let go of the dock?

i honestly don't know.

i don't really expect any answers. just trying to iron out my own thoughts... and since i don't write in a journal, you all get to partake in my soul searching. take it for what it's worth.

my favorite card... ever

so in zambia there is this boy named haggai. (you can check out his story here)

when i saw him i recognized him from the video linked above, but didn't really have an opportunity to interact other than a smile here and there. on day three the lesson was encouragement and the craft was to write an encouragement card for a staff member or someone you appreciate. coincidentally a few americans got some too (we really didn't tell them to do that).

anyway, after the craft was over haggai walked up to me and handed me this:

which is [a poorly taken picture of] a card with animal stickers on it

i thought it was so sweet! so i put my arm around him, thanked him, and then opened the card to read:

Dear Leslie

I love you so math

God bless you Leslie

Haggai

...yep, i think i will keep this card forever.

right now...

i am eating an apple while drinking apple juice...

...just thought it was interesting

mom, are you proud of me?

hello all my faithful followers.

it is official.

i am a real live bonafide blogger.

"why?" you ask

well... i am guest blogging on someone else's blog. wow, i feel just like lysa terkeurst saying that. granted our blog readership combined totals somewhere around 10, but i like to celebrate my little victories.

so for those of you who are interested, tyler (who went with our group to zambia, and who by the way is still there) has been blogging about our trip and i volunteered my memories of our last day with the kids.

so here it is...

Friday was our last day to spend with the kids and when we got to the school we did the usual songs before breakfast. It was fun to see how well the kids knew some of our american songs after only 4 days of singing them. I was still lost on their songs, but I pulled off a pretty convincing “watermelon, watermelon…”

After the singing John told the kids that the Americans were going to go hide and then they would find us and we’d have a special “talk.” I think this made our whole team a little apprehensive. I immediately had flashbacks of a Ukraine trip where we had a scavenger hunt which involved tieing the american boys to trees in the woods. One of our guys was tied for 2 hours before his team found him! (continue here)

what does malaria feel like?

i have made a decision.

i either have malaria(which takes 2 weeks to show it's sly little head so i won't know till next week for sure), a parasite(because i am constantly so hungry i could eat my hand... this wouldn't be the wisest of solutions i realize), or hypochondria.

let's just say the adjusting to coming home has been a little uneasy on the stomach area and my head continues to spin.

other than that, however, i have been greatly inspired since stepping foot on american soil and am excited to try out a few new things regarding my future.

yes, i know. the suspense must be killing you, but i feel it would be imprudent to tell all my plans before the time is right.

at this point i'm just dreaming and getting very excited along the way!

a question of ethics...

my mom came to help me out at the shop today because i am feeling severely jetlagged...

so currently i am sitting happily in blog land while she faithfully shelves new inventory...

hmmm... does anyone else feel there's something amiss about this picture?

just wondering.

let's get real

this past week i had the great privilege of spending time at lifesong's school in zambia. i would post pictures but

1. i took maybe 2

and

2. my camera is extremely dead and the charger is extremely lost

good news? taryn from imagine artists was on the trip and faithfully documented everything! don't know for sure how this helps you, but it really excites me.

so what did we do? basically we sang some songs played some games and smothered some lovin on these kids.

and what did i take away from this trip? ... i am very selfish and very small

like how i make the whole trip about me? yep, like i said... selfish.

seriously though, this is kind of how i view it...

let me just start by saying i'm all for the 1 week mission trip. i think it's great for spreading awareness and enhancing your view of God and his children. that being said i'm not sure how affective they are for those we're going to "help"... (too harsh?)

take this with a grain of salt because i'm still trying to work it out in my own mind, but this week i was continuously struck with the smallness of what we were doing. i mean we came for a week and taught God's word (which is really good) and we loved these kids who needed it (which is really good) but when i comes down to it, this is a very very small part of the picture.

if these kids somehow by the grace of God Almighty break through the vicious trap of disease and lifestyle that is in their culture it will not be because of anything we did this week. It will be in great credit to, God first and foremost, and the staff at lifesong and what they do... and let me just say they are doing an amazing job!

so i feel selfish...

i feel selfish for coming for one week and showing these kids that people who love you will still ultimately leave you

i feel selfish when i am supposed to be shocked at how little they have but instead am just disgusted at my own wealth.

i feel selfish for traveling thousands of miles where it's fun to give when the need is great but not nearly as fun where i am at.

it makes me want to do more, though i don't know what or how.

praise the Lord, He takes my selfish attempts to matter and what little i have to give and still graciously uses it.