The Week Off (1of2)

It all started with the thought of what it would be like to take a week off from work and the busyness of life. So I started to plan my week off, it was not really a matter of what I could do but how I was going to accomplish it and if it was affordable? So after a few phone calls I was set and everything was looking good I had invited my brothers and both of them wanted too go. It was practically set in stone now and I really did not want anything to stop me from going.

Two months later we were sitting in the car driving to Plains Montana. Leaving at 6:30 in the morning was not the least bit exciting, but we needed to do this in order to get to Camp Bighorn by dinner time. Oh man was it a long drive But God kept us safe and it was really good to be going on a road trip with the brothers the first of many too come. It seemed so surreal. To be graduated two years of college, being able to go out on my own oh the responsibilities!!

As the miles ticked on we came closer to our destination, the anticipation of seeing people that I had not seen for 6 months others for a year. I think it was in the last 15 miles from camp that my heart begun to pound faster and I started to get butterflies in my stomach I had never truly felt like this before. I have never really been one to use 'love' too often because it is such a meaningful word, but I can honestly say that I love these people. I only know a few other people that are so Real and honest with you, who care and want you to feel excepted for who you are and do not expect change but would love to see you change for the better.

As the week went by I helped in the kitchen, volunteering when friends were busy in class. I love working in the kitchen at camp, everything seems so on edge and meals can change overnight because we don't have something we thought we did. I love that sort of stress learning to cope with it and not let it bother you really helps me to get things off my mind. Working with Trina, Teagan, and Dave is real fun and having great people to work with really was nice.

There is going to have to be second part to this cause I am tired and I have alot more to write down about the trip.

Photo Adventures

OK. So I admit I have not actually been posting as of late, I am sure I could think of some excuse as to why but I do not think I will.

This summer has been filled with alot of driving around with the brothers going to old houses, scouting for deer so we know where to go hunting this fall, and many other small trips just for fun. With these trips I have been able to expand my photography portfolio, as I hope to make some prints and sell them at some farmers markets and various small fairs. And also these trips are not just for my portfolio but also allowed me to be a non-anxious influence on my little brother as he starts to get ready to graduate and step out into the secular world.

There is one thing I can tell you about this last month GOD has been good, he has blessed me with a great job that i absolutely love and continues to show himself in many areas of my life. Working at Boston Pizza has been very rewarding in the sense that I am blessed with very friendly co-workers and a decent boss who shows himself as a good leader.

This calls for a Celebration!

Well I should have posted this yesterday. Back in the day (1986) these two fell in love and well Lord willing got married. The date was April 12, 1986. Doing all the adding and subtracting and what have you it seems to my knowledge that these two have been married for 24yrs!!!! Congrats Mom and Dad (Ted and Kathy). To tell you a bit about how they met each other, they met at college and career and my Mom was dating someone and my Dad basically said "I will wait for you" (he did just that) and will here they are today. So this just goes to say that you should not rush into a relationship let the person know your intentions and then wait for them God will bring you together if that is what he has planned for you.

There are three of us kids in the family Jeff, Jason, and James. we used to go by the nicknames Curly,Mo, and Larry. And Hewey, Dewey and Lewey. And various others..... My Mom and Dad have have been all that one could want in parent's and have always been there when you needed someone to talk too.

Just wanted to show my appreciation for them and that If it were not for God being such a crucial part in our family I do not know if things would have turned out so well for us as a family.

Keep God centered in your relationships

Night at an old abandoned house.

So Timo and I went out from 9pm-3am to an old abandoned house too take some pictures with a fella. Using different sources and techniques of lighting is definitely challenging and I have only a select couple photos to show form it. Here they are.

Good cup of Joe for Mo(nickname as a kid)

Coffee. For some it is better known as the substance that keeps you awake when your not so awake. As for me it is something that I have learned too enjoy and not abuse. Coffee is all about the perfect bean. You might ask what is the perfect bean? The perfect bean to me is a bean with low to moderate acidity, medium to dark roast, and smooth and earthy. And of course as freshly roasted as possible being ground just before you brew so that the bean does not lose any aroma or flavor due to it's contact with air.

I remember the days when I would just drink coffee for the heck of it and use it a substance to help keep me awake, I mean I still do this from time to time. But the key point here is that coffee is like a good dark chocolate it has subtle flavors and can be very complex so treat it like something that you enjoy and try not to abuse it. It is here for us to enjoy!

Personally my favorite beans are Bolivian beans, quite delicious.

Trip to the Olympic coast

Well it all started when the rain started to come down, we knew we were in for it. The rain kept coming like as though it`s source was a bottomless bucket. Washington was the place, and there was no backing out now. We had picked up the 6 kids and their fearless leader that morning and were going to be driving 2.5 hrs and hiking 5 miles (talk about a long day). Needless to say the kids joyfully set up their tents that night and went straight to bed not even taking the time to eat some food! I was surprised because they are all between the age of 13-17 and are growing so I was surprised they were not hungry. I do not want to share my entire trip on this post so if you want to learn more about how the trip went come talk to me, I will be more then willing to share. But to wrap up the trip in a couple sentences I will say this. We missed all but one tide and waited many hours for the tides to lower. And ate not so much food, hiked 20.1 miles, and got very wet when we were not prepared for torrential downpours. The trip successfully challenged my servant leadership, requiring lots of patience and perseverance and taught me a lot about leading people on trips. Now I just need to take my little brother on a trip like this to show him some of the world, and too show what REAL hiking is. This is all I have to share right now because at the moment I am having a tough time staying awake. So ask me about the trip, till then bye

Check out this band!!!

http://www.theraa.com/audio/the_RAA-frank_ab.mp3

why have my posts been so negative lately.

I am yearning to see the bright side of things right now but the grieving has started and I have not yet departed. I have not realized how hard this is going too be till I realized how much I love each and everyone of you that I know here at camp and withing eXplore. cherish every moment that you can when your with those you love and hold dear to you. for they will not always be there. I heard someone say that life has chapters and you in an attempt to finish the book need to turn pages. This is by far the hardest page I have had to turn in my life.

Lately I have been bottling things up because I do not know how to approach people about grieving, instead I have been using music and photography as a way to relieve myself of the pain that I am going through.

Dang I really dislike writing posts that are really negative, and not so happy. I wish that I could have something happy change my attitude towards what is going on in my life right now so that you all could hear something good about how I am feeling right now. I am so horrible with relationships, super blunt and un-confident not knowing what to do and what to talk about besides serious things. I only like talking to people about serious things with people and this is why I am very shy around people I do not know much.

I leave for a trip to Olympic national forest for a week to lead some kids with Timo down the shore. It will prove challenging but I know I will grow from it and that God will reveal himself too me.

Anyway I should head to bed and stop typing my random and non understandable thoughts.

With love from a dear friend, Jason.

Futures.

Hmm. where will I be in three years. I know I will be where God wants me too be, but I sure love the idea of being back at Bighorn and working in the kitchen. well sounds good but somewhere in there I want to travel a little, go to culinary school, make more friends and grow in a deeper friendship with those I already have. and lastly I will be 23 so I got to be looking for the perfect person. These thoughts were really just revolving through my head tonight as I sat around a fire people chit chatting around me. so I thought I would share them with all y'all. God is still chipping away at me.

The Hole.

when I look at this picture I see a hole leading to who knows where in the middle surrounded by a very beautiful atmosphere. For me the beautiful atmosphere is eXplore and the hole is the upcoming year surrounded by a rusty wire; the rusty wire being my lack of knowledge of the secular life of being outside of a community that cares so much about each other. Then the shiny new metal wire is those who will be there for me in the upcoming year while I figure out who I am outside of eXplore. My family is the one thing that I will have outside of e-mails, phone calls, and Skype chats with friends that I have made while being in this loving community for the last two years.

It seems hard to think that I only have 12 days till I go back to Prairie and finish up my degree. There is no more holding off the grieving process of saying good bye to those that are staff at camp. But now more then ever I am realizing God's love as he is making the future look brighter and strengthens my relationship with him more and more. The end of the year will be good I am just not excited for it. -later-

"Even at night the sky is blue"

This is a picture of an experiment with long exposure

photography and it really surprised me to see how this

photo turned out. If your wondering where this picture

was taken it was taken at a campsite that Exi-dos had

made for a night while we were floating down the Rio

Grande. Some of you might ask where is the Rio Grande?

well the Rio Grande is in Texas the land of "go big or go

home." We as Exi-dos took a trip in Texas this semester

as part of the WEA course we were taking. This course

challengedthe team a lot in the physical, spiritual, and

emotional realms of life. We canoed down the Rio

Grande and backpacked both below and above the Mesa

de Anguilla.The canoeing was a blast and we were able to

spend lots of time perfecting our paddle strokes.As for the

backpacking portion for me it provided lots of room for

processing the reality of life and what some of the next steps

will be for me as I step off the branch of a community that has

supported me a lot over the last couple years and into the

reality of secular life. The trip was phenomenal and I would

recommend the desert to anyone that has travelling on their agenda.

-later-

My Star trail Photography

Well recently I figured out where the north star is and along with that I have been able to work on perfecting my star trail photography skills. This is the latest and best of my work so far. I am not going to write much about how star trail photography works because it is a long and complicated description and it would be easier if I showed you how to go about the process.

Do you ever sit outside at night and just look up at the stars?Each star was put in its place for a reason Genesis 1:16b-17. I have been learning to enjoy the stars more often as of late.

Thoughts and Processes (subject too confusion by reader)

I feel in the last few weeks that I have been on an emotionally and physically draining roller coaster. It has made me really think about what I really desire and want in my life. Up till now I used too just leave it too God and then sit back and see what happens not really putting my desires into play only relying on God's desires for me. Not that this is a bad thing. Being told that I was not getting the internship was really hard for me because after I was told "I was not ready for the position" I immediately started rolling down this emotional ride that which I really did not want to go down. It hurt me so much to hear this because I realized that this was it, I was never gonna be part of this sweet explore internship that everyone talked about, I was going to need to move on to this whole new era of life as a 20 year old and leave Explore the only thing I have had outside of my family. Then later on that week i was told that I was not going to be able to go on the trip to the coast with some of the best friends I have ever had in my life. I knew they wanted me too come but I said it was "okay" though personally I was ripped my heart was screaming fro air as I tried to figure out why these things were happening too me? What was God trying to show me or teach me? I am still trying to figure these things out. Slowly as the days go by I am beginning to realize that Explore is slipping away. I only have a month and a couple weeks left before I go back to Saskatchewan. As a last ditch effort to hold on to the inevitable I thought of joining staff this summer but rethought it and decided not too realizing that I was only trying to hold onto the inevitable. I Love eXplore.

Adventure Trip

Well it started at about 10am on the 20th of January. We as team Exodus were given that first clue of our adventure trip. We had to head up to Mt. Sinai cabin to get our first clue from Brad. Off on the great adventure to the unknown after this point.

We as a team experienced many difficult adventures and choices as we ventured on through the land unbeknown to us. Not having interns with us provided us with a new perspective of the team and what each of our strengths and weaknesses are without the interns there to lead us. The trip was great and included sleeping in the open during a really really cold night. And waking up to a good 1/4 inch of frost on top of you (oh so comfortable). I am not one for writing so this is gonna be short. I pulled many things away from this trip and I hope that i can apply these things to my life sometime in the future. One thing is that I was wrong in some instances and for me i struggle a lot with becoming defensive in arguments and I think learning from this trip will give some new perspectives on life.