Opportunity

I'm in the middle of camp, at my favorite spot on earth, and my tradition every summer now for 13 years.  Every year is different with it's own stories and ways we see God working in the lives of the staff, the counselors, and the children who come for a week at a time of outdoor fun but also get to hear about God and His crazy love for us.

(Getting ready to tell parts of the Bible story as the campers go on a night hike around the lake. They did such an awesome job!)

It's my happy place. Or at least one of them.  :) 

But I must take a break from camp for a minute to fill you in on something else.

There was a period of time a few years ago where I felt like I was at an in between phase in my life.  I knew I wanted to be more deeply involved with the orphan and adoption but I had no idea what that was supposed to look like.  I prayed over and over "just show me what you want me to do - I'm willing to do whatever that is! - I just don't know what that looks like right now." And as most of my friends know, He was faithful and has answered those prayers in the form of both of my jobs - both as a nanny to seven boys, four of whom came home through adoption, and at the Empty Cup coffee shop where all our net profit goes out in the form of adoption grants.  I love it.  :)

Happy boys. 😊

(Apparently it was braid-your-hair-to-the-side day this particular day at the Empty Cup. 😂 All us baristas always have a great time working together!)

Now I have another opportunity to expand what I know about working with children from hard places, and to use what I will learn both in my job, and at camp, and hopefully be able to be a source of encouragement and a resource for anyone who works with children in any capacity.

This spring a friend and I went to a conference called Empowered to Connect, put on by Show Hope and featuring the methods created by Dr. Karyn Purvis from Texas Christian University (TCU). (More on that in a minute...) Show Hope's website describes this conference like this: 

"The Empowered To Connect Conference is a two-day conference for adoptive and foster parents, ministry leaders, and professionals designed to help them connect with children from hard places in order to help them heal and become all that God desires for them to be. This conference is ideal for adoptive and foster parents, those considering adoption or foster care and those who are serving and supporting others, including social workers, agency professionals, church staff and ministry leaders, counselors, therapists and others all involved in adoption and foster care ministries or services."

This conference is so so good!  Good for anyone who works with children in any way - all children, no matter their background.

This was the second time I had been with my friend.  Both times I left feeling like I had just seen the tip of the iceberg and craved to know more about the methods Dr. Purvis has created.  This time, I couldn't shake that feeling.  I knew that TCU has a training for professionals a couple times a year but didn't know if I qualified as a "professional" (as in, I'm not a licensed counselor or therapist).  I felt God prompting me to at least email them and ask. I did, and explained who I was and what I do and did they think there was any way I could at least apply for the training course?  They wrote back and said there would be a training this fall that anyone was welcome to apply for.  So I filled out the application still not knowing what chance I would have of being accepted. 

I wasn't. 

End of story. 

Thanks for reading.

Hahaha.

Just kidding.

After waiting a couple months and then one more extra week due to the fact that they had many more applicants than expected - over 300! - I got the email that started out "Welcome Participant!"  

!

So in August I will be starting a ten week online course, an hour long phone interview, and finally a week of intensive classes at TCU in October!

What exactly is this course?

Good question.

Dr. Purvis developed a method called Trust Based Relational Intervention.  I am going to let TCU's website speak for me and help me describe TBRI.

What is TBRI?

TBRI® is an attachment-based, trauma-informed intervention that is designed to meet the complex needs of vulnerable children. TBRI® uses Empowering Principles to address physical needs, Connecting Principles for attachment needs, and Correcting Principles to disarm fear-based behaviors. While the intervention is based on years of attachment, sensory processing, and neuroscience research, the heartbeat of TBRI® is connection.

Who is it for and who should use it? 

TBRI® is designed for children from “hard places” such as abuse, neglect, and/or trauma. Because of their histories, it is often difficult for these children to trust the loving adults in their lives, which often results in perplexing behaviors. TBRI® offers practical tools for parents, caregivers, teachers, or anyone who works with children, to see the “whole child” in their care and help that child reach his highest potential.

Why use it?

Because of their histories, children from hard places have changes in their bodies, brains, behaviors, and belief systems. While a variety of parenting strategies may be successful in typical circumstances, children from hard places need caregiving that meets their unique needs and addresses the whole child.

(These three quotes all from 

http://child.tcu.edu/about-us/tbri/ )

TBRI is geared for use with these precious children from "hard places" but as I have learned more about it, "hard places" is a lot more broad of a term than you might think.  It also can include the child who's mama had a rough pregnancy or even a difficult birth.  Or a child who has walked through his parents' divorce.  And really, the principles it teaches are excellent to use with any child at all!

I am so excited for the chance I have been given to take this course and become a TBRI Practitioner, excited to be able to use the principals as I work with all seven boys I nanny, and excited to see how else God will ask me to use what I learn.

Will you pray with me that I will do my best to make the most of this opportunity and learn and absorb as much as I can, and to trust that God will provide all I need to get me there? I have seen Him provide in amazing ways before for other friends in other situations and if He had me chosen as one of the participants out of the 300 or so applicants, I know He wants me there and will provide for me too!  :)

Ok, back to camp and getting crafts ready for this coming week. Sad that our main craft lady won't be there this week but super excited that one of my favorite sidekicks will be helping me out in her place... 

down in blue ridge

Hello!!  I haven't been to this space in a long time! A lot has happened in the past year with sadly little time for updating about it here.  I most often do short posts with a picture or two on instagram or facebook these days but just had to write about this weekend so as not to forget the insanely ridiculous incredibly awesome time we had...

I hadn't been on an actual vacation since the cruise I went on in 2010! That was too long.  So a few months back, my friend Jennifer and I decided it was high time for a reunion of sorts with some of us girls who were all friends in high school oh-so-long-ago just a few short years ago.  I love planning that kind of thing and enjoyed texting back and forth with Jen to get all the details together.  We originally were going to stay at a cabin in Blue Ridge, GA that belonged to some friends of hers but they happened to book it for the same weekend just as she emailed them to let them know we officially wanted it.  Oh well!  There were only a few hundred other cabins around that area to choose from so we both started looking for just the right cabin - right price, right size, on the pretty nice size cuz why not.  Finally we found the one!  Plenty of space, plenty of beds, a nice kitchen, nice furniture, creek in the back, fire pit and hot tub outside, decent price...perfect!  

Or so we thought. 

Packed and ready to ESCAPE! :) I was riding with two of my friends and we ended up leaving a little bit late, of course. No big deal, that always happens. 

Then they had a nail in the tire of the car so we had to stop and get that taken care of.  Mildly annoying since we were all eager to be on the road but we were later very thankful we had taken the time to do that!  

As we were on the road, I text Jennifer, who was coming up from further south, and found out she was already at the cabin.  That's when the um excitement began.  

I started getting texts from her...

"Did you bring paper supplies?"

As in paper plates, etc?

"Yeah...it's limited here"

(Stop to pick up plates and plasticware...check...)

"Um...there are no towels!" 

"Correction...the towels were in the dryer..."

Right...all eight of them. Including hand towels.  For six girls.  She ended up talking to the office and asking for more towels and they said well, how many towels do you have? 8. Oh, well that's all you get.

Jen said um i just signed a contract that said there would be 20!

Oh. I'll send some over...

gee...thanks? sorry for the inconvenience!  :-p

A few minutes pass...

"smoke detector...that's never annoying...chirp...chirp...chirp..."

"there's only one roll of paper towels..."

I answered back..."is there toilet paper??"

"...one roll per bathroom..."

*blink, blink*

Good grief.

So we finally get there...Jennifer says "the air conditioning isn't working."

This is beginning to make me wonder....

Then Laura and Alison call saying that they are about an hour away and Laura's car just died so they were waiting to be rescued. 

Great. What's next?

Why did I just ask that??

So we wait for people to come and send Carissa and Jennifer to talk to them when they do show up.  Get the smoke alarm fixed. Guy calls the office again about the air conditioner to which Annoyed Office Lady says well....how long has it been broken?   The implication being "did that lady break it when she got there??"  Seriously?

Another guy comes and fixes the air.  Thank goodness.

Heidi (oh Heidi...) comes with more towels and Carissa manages to get more TP and a few other things from her.  She also mentions to Heidi that the hot tub has leaves etc. in it and just needs to be cleaned off a little....Heidi goes to check it out and comes back a few minutes later to say "ok, so I went ahead and shocked the water and got all the stuff out for you...just give it 30-45 min and it should be ok!" 

Great.  Thank you. 

So at that point we just chill and start catching up and reminiscing about high school and people we used to know while waiting for Laura and Alison to arrive.

They finally do and after struggling to park her mom's van on the ridiculous gravel driveway (burning rubber and spinning tires anyone?), we all go inside for a late dinner.

'Cuz everyone needs a swag bag!  :D 

This is pretty much what we looked like all weekend.  :)

Dinner was delicious and fun and included this amazing chocolate strawberry pie for dessert!

{drool...}

Then we headed downstairs to crash on the big comfy couch and chat some more and after a while Carissa says she's going to get into the hot tub and Laura and I join her.  The chemical smell was pretty strong and Laura only stayed a couple minutes before her eyes were starting to burn a little bit and she had to head back inside.  Carissa and I hung out for a while longer, enjoying the quiet night and the soothing water.

Finally we headed inside where I headed to the bathroom to shower off and change...which is when I glanced in the mirror and my mouth dropped open...I had just thrown on shorts and a workout top for the hot tub because I hadn't been able to find my actual swim suit to pack and eh, who cares?  I love this top...it's super comfy and I like the dark purple color it is was...

 The chemicals in the hot tub were so strong they bleached my shirt!!!  :-o  Turns out, you're supposed to wait 24 hours after shocking the tub - not 30-45 minutes!  

(Girls...say it with me..."That's not good..."!)

I still smelled like chlorine the next morning. 

So one by one, the girls all started getting sleepy and ready to head to bed...first Laura, then Andrea and Carissa...finally Alison...so Jennifer and I start getting ready for bed when she decides to go up to the kitchen for some water...where she runs into Alison who says she found dead stink bugs on the top of the comforter on her bed....pulled back the sheets and found dirt, pieces of leaves and fir tree bits all in the sheets!!  Ew. 

So Jen comes back downstairs and fills me in and proceeds to check her bed for dirt...she didn't find dirt...she found hair.  ALL. OVER. THE. SHEETS!!  People hair, animal hair, and as she later told her husband, "hair I shouldn't be seeing!!" Again. Ewww.

She decides to steal the sheets off the single size bottom bunk under where Laura was sound asleep and I follow her part way upstairs...which is when I hear giggling from her and take my phone with flashlight on up to see what's going on. The side of the wooden bed almost comes off as she pulls the blanket off! Of course, lol! We used my phone to inspect the sheets on the bed before pulling them off...more hair all over! What the heck?! This place had obviously not been cleaned before we got there!

So by this time it is about 1:30am and she and I are now wide awake and a little wound up and end up cracking up over all the ridiculousness of the day.  She kept wandering from her bedroom out to the couch (where I had already decided to sleep earlier...best decision of the weekend ha!) saying "I just...I...I don't know where to sleep!!"  Finally she crashed on the couch and we stayed up just talking for another hour.

The next morning we fixed breakfast...eggs with all kinds of goodness in them, coffee, muffins...

 ...and this was Jen's plate.

"Jennifer...PROTEIN!!"

She called the office again and Heidi answered.  She told her about finding hair in the bed to which Heidi said (girls...) "That's not good."

No kidding!!

"Which bed?"

All of them!!

Seriously. Not..."oh my goodness I am so sorry! I will come change the sheets right away!"

Nope. Just..."which bed." 

What is the least amount I can do to fix this?

Then she said well do you want me to bring you the sheets so you can change them?

*blink, blink*

Really?

We have to change the sheets that you should have changed when you cleaned the cabin? Wait, I mean when you were SUPPOSED to clean the cabin? 

Nice.

So we plan to be out when she comes so that she can change the dadgum sheets herself like she should have in the first place...

And we enjoyed walking around the little town and eating lunch and wandering in the little shops...

Olive Oil place. Who knew this could be so cool!

Hahahaha!!!

Um.

No. 

We stopped by to send J and C in to chat with the supervisor who never called back...but of course no  one was there...

So we head back to the cabin... 

...where we find sheets in an open box (never mind that it's in the middle of the woods on a breezy day so that more dirt and leaves can land on it...) on the porch with a note saying "I left these on the porch for you."

No kidding. 

But we really did have an awesome time just being together, laughing a lot, sharing what's going on in our lives and just having time away where the labels we wear every day (while we all enjoy what we do and where we are in life right now...) could be set down and we were each just ourselves for a couple days.

Twinkies and cups...

Those poor people in the next cabin...

:D 

Peaceful view from the back deck. 

Deliciously looking at the delicious potatoes deliciously. 

Fuzzy dinner time groupie pic... (As opposed to selfie pic...lol)

Yes, she is standing in the trash bag.  :}

Alison getting ready to do my big, frizzy, poofy hair like she's a doctor about to perform surgery...

"here, you might need some of this..." 

Another groupie pic...kind of challenging to fit us all in...but we did it! Ha!

The other trauma of the day...getting all three cars up the dadgum driveway!

This is why we were thankful we had taken the time to get Andrea's tire fixed...spinning on the gravel like we all did, we did not need a popped tire on top of everything else!

EMERGENCY BREAK!! 

Jennifer flooring it...in reverse (!) with me in the car...and almost backing us over the cliff...

Carissa calling down so sweetly through the trees from the top of the driveway, "Are you guys ok?!"

Back to the little town for coffee together in a coffee shop set in a former bank.

Who knew there were more than one of those? 

I predicted what would happen all weekend and I was right...we chatted pretty much nonstop the whole time. Six girls. Who haven't all been together in years...what else would you expect? :)

So. Good. 

Aw, aren't we cute.  :) 

Girls, despite all the crazy, I had such a great time catching up, laughing, and just hanging out! I am so thankful for old "pick up where you left off" friends and while we were missing part of our group, I am thankful for the time we had! Next time maybe more girls will get to join us...

...NOT in that cabin...!!

Lol!

A few more quotes from the weekend...sorry if you're reading this and have no clue what these are about! Feel free to ask us and we may or may not explain...heehee!

I'd tell you but you'd have to kill me.

That's not good.

That's how drunk people die!

Uhoh, Kathryn...I can't dye your hair...the box says your tattoo could affect the hair color! 

I could really use a utensil...

...you wanna fork??

I think she's gonna make it!

That's going on the list!!

I don't know where to sleep!

There's ANOTHER funeral home!

Love you girls!!