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.