a weekend in the burg...

i went to gatlinburg last weekend. i loved it. and i hated it.

see, after spending two summers in a row in the burg it's not my fav place. it's ok for a day, but trying to live there for more than that is not a wise choice for many reasons. but that is entirely beside the point.

we went to gburg for campus outreach's fall retreat. a weekend to get away, hang out, hear about Jesus, play basketball or go hiking or go to the good ol' dw, or maybe sit in a river. there were a lot of people there, most of whom i did not know...i knew some from smp and i knew most of the international students who were there (i invited some of them...). my bro come (yay!) and my dear kelso was there!!! so fun, i got to room with two girls i have spent a lot of time with, romee and aeri, and kels. it was amazing!

i guess i will attempt to tell all about it...i feel as if i've lost my knack for blogging.....ugh. oh well.

soo...i worked until 1657 and then i walked out the door, down the hall into our directors office. we had a 30-second chat and then i was free for the weekend! i had wipped my hw so that i would have none over the weekend - so proud of that! i was free, free, free!!! i practically ran to mem gym where my lil bro was waiting with d+m's 15-seater van. we jumped in, headed home for all my stuff for the weekend.

when we finally got back to campus we headed over to m.s. cooper where i was picking up 10 international students.... i think we had 18 total, praise Jesus!! it took a while to get everyone loaded, and it took a while to persuade everyone that i really could drive the beast...but we finally were all loaded and when we got on the road at 1756 we were all pretty stoked!

"STOKE." to quote ryan... =)

so i drove and they talked. for a while. then i drove and they sat quietly. for a while. then i drove and they slept.

*grin*

i talked to my lovely brother the whole trip. that part was really amazing!

so we finally rolled in to the hotel sometime before the first rally started, rolled out of the van, down the stairs, through registration where i ran into my wonderful and amazing bff KELSEY LONG!!! following that we dropped our bags on our beds and rolled on back down to start the first rally.

our was about swag surfing and our speakers testimony. pretty cool stuff.

while we were getting crunk with glow sticks and Jesus, paul was giving a talk in korean to our korean internationals. i didn't hear that one, and even if i had've i wouldn't have known what he was saying...but i heard a lot about it from the others. paul is our resident crazy korean christian. paul is amazing. sometime when we're in heaven together, try and meet him. his name is paul bang, he looks korean. he is about 5'8", fairly skinny. has an amazing laugh. loves God, koreans, and sharing the gospel...

after that we had a party...there was red bull. it was sugar free. and sucked. there were glow sticks. they glowed. and inspired jealousy. there was really loud music. lecrae. justin beiber. miley. regardless, it was fun. we danced and laughed and took pictures. about equal parts of each. i pretended to be korean and no one tried to stop me. overall, it was amazing.

then we went to bed.

NOT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

i went with 7 amazing people. ryan...simon...hyunho...joohyun...romee...injae...aeri. the names you can pronounce are there "american names". ;) i think it might make sense to say right here that i love koreans. i love international students, but i hang out with so many koreans that i feel like i should be able to speak korean. and then there are others...i don't know if you can understand, but they are my people. i love internationals.

anyhow...i went with those 7 to walk around gburg. everything was closed so we walked and looked and talked and took pictures.

for the first time someone asked me what i'm sure they all wonder. "don't you feel weird hanging out with us?" ok, so he didn't say it quite like that, he was really sweet about it. he said, "so, so you feel lonely when we are all talking in korean and you can't understand us?" i said, "nope. i like you. i know it's going to happen." he just smiled, i think a little confused, and put his arm around me. gotta love ryan.

after we got back, we all went to our rooms. we hung out there for a while. kelso was somewhere else. aeri and romee decided to go to bed, i went down stairs to talk to my bro.

finally, at around 0200, me and kel went to our room, talked a little, and then we all went to bed and fell asleep.



saturday, i woke up and went out to spend some time with Jesus. he was reminding me about love...i love because of him. i love through him. and that's the only way. how else can a stand to love these people who will leave my life in a matter of months? most likely to never return in any way? only through him. Solo en Cristo.

first session was on Jesus as Savior. twas good of course.

after that was finished something very cool happened.....there had been some confusion when we were all paying, and somehow i had payed for one extra person who wasn't coming. but somehow i didn't want the money back. i told them to keep it and that God would bring someone else. that was the last i heard. so i figured that somehow the money had gotten lost in the system, and that mystery person hadn't showed up.

but saturday morning, a girl named lizzy came up, gave me a hug, and said "THANK YOU!!!!!" and some more. well, turns out that she had been invited repeatedly, and declined repeatedly...she was planning on going to gatlinburg later in the semester, and so didn't want to spend the money. but then she was told that someone had already payed for her, and all she had to do was jump in the van and come. so she did.

and God was working. i don't know what all she was thinking, she didn't tell me. but it was obvious that the wheels were turning and a soul was seeking. that was more than i could've asked for.

God knows what he is doing. always.

after that session, we decided to treck down to pigeon forge to eat lunch at a japanese joint. it was amazing. of course. i've eaten there before, while i lived there. but it was good to be back. =)

during that time i got to sit next to lizzy and just chill with her. brandon got to share with ryan for most of the time we were there. i don't know what he was saying, but he was talking about stuff that matters and ryan was listening.

after we finally got finished with our hibachi, we split up. half went back to gburg to hike the chimney tops and i took the rest of the group to dollywood! it was very weird to be there. but we had fun. rode all the rides, watched none of the shows. eat none of the food. walked most of the park. good times.

shortly before we decided to leave, simon and i had the best talk i have had in a long time. i love how honest so many of the internationals will be with me. real, raw, and painful. i love that they know i can understand. i love that we talk even though it is hard, simply because it is SO WORTH IT! we talked about God mostly. but there was more. all i can pray is that as simon sees where he's really at, he will run to God instead of away. i love that guy. i am so overwhelmed at the priviledge i have had to share in his journey toward God. all i can do is be faithful. and pray. pray. pray.

after we left dw we sat in the road.

they slept. simon stayed awake with me for about 3/4 of the drive then he fell asleep too. the traffic was the worst i have ever seen it. and i lived there for 4 months... it took us 100 minutes to drive what should've taken 30 at most. got to the rally late and sat in the back.

the hiking crew got back at the exact same time we did. somehow that was good. not sure why or how.

we were all tired. we were all out-of-it. but truth is truth and God will use it any way he wants.

at the end of that rally an epic thing happened, dudley showed up!!

soo.....i knew he was coming, but it was still epic. :)

we got to talk a little while people were doing "small groups" after the rally, but who wants to talk in a room full of people? it was just good to see him.

after that rally, they had an nyc get-pumped rally. it was fun, but very loud, and i already knew i was going. i wish i'd left before it and gotten more time with dudley...oh well.

after that was over i went upstairs to put on some shoes then headed back down to find dudley.....


we decided to go eat, although i think it was a given... =) subway was the choice, and so we headed off into gburg.

i don't know about him, but i had no idea how amazing it was gonna be.

it didn't take long to get warmed up...i tend to be pretty awkward, and i didn't know how the evening was gonna go...neither of us are that talkative around people we don't know that well...but i was still hoping that it would end up being cool. i had noo idea. LOL

we ate subway. it was awesome from the beginning. from laughing with the workers and the other guys in line, to analyzing green poles and points it was all fun. he payed. i never know when to let people pay for me... we ate upstairs. of course...it was dirty, but that created a fitting atmosphere. i laughed a lot. i think dudley was having fun too...

we went into the mall and the cool shop was closed, so we walked under the ropes and past the signs that said not to. that was good.

then we walked all the way to the top on the strip, then started back on river road. i knew sooner or later we would up in the river, and we did. unfortunately, i was wearing shoes, and they had no grip so jumping on the rocks was a little difficult. oh well. then we sat. for a long time. in the river. and talked. we talked about all kinds of things.....a couple times i wondered what the lady on the balcony above us was thinking. then i wanted to laugh cause i knew that nothing she was thinking could've been right. lol

but it was cool. it was cool that i knew we would sit in the river, and then we did. it was cool that we sat on rocks with our feet in the water. it was cool that he took his shoes off. it was cool that we talked for an hour and it felt like minutes. it was cool that the water kept running. it was cool that we laughed at all the saem ridiculous things. it was cool that we could see some stars in the middle of gburg. maybe all that sounds normal, but it's not. it's very rare that i do things that i love and that the person i do them with does them with me. normally i get weird looks and "no - i'm not doing that"s. idk if it's normal for him or not.

then we climbed out. that part was fun. i'm so boring most of the time.

we walked some more. terrorized ducks. well...he did. i don't pick flowers or wake up sleeping ducks. but it was extra funny when he did it. you have no idea what i'm talking about, but i think that's totally ok. =)

then we walked some more. we walked past a girl crying and a guy being a jerk to her. that made dudley mad. we walked all the way to the bottom of gburg. and then we walked some more...off the road. because before we had been walking in the road. sometimes people came driving in our lane and we had to move, i didn't get it. they had 3 lanes, couldn't they leave our alone? losers.

so we walked to a fish hatchery and watched fish and talked about dudley's hat. i liked that cause i know he likes his hat.

we walked some more and saw some funny signs. on of them said "no fishing on thursday" which is about the funniest thing i've seen this month. (except maybe dudley's blog about what happened next...) maybe you had to be there. cause we laughed for like 5 minutes about that sign.

like i said, it's nice to be normal and not feel weird for it.

then we walked back. only we took a little different way, and this time instead of a nice gravel hill, there was a nice dirt and gravel cliff. we had fun getting up. i'm not even gonna try to write about it....it was dark, i got hit in the head with a rock. he got to the top. i almost fell, and he came back to help me. suffice to say that there were a few times i wondered what it was like to have 2 broken legs and a concussion. and maybe a broken back. k, that doesn't quite suffice. i will also say that i never would have gotten to the top without him. and when i was lying there on the face of that "cliff" hanging onto his hand to keep from falling who knows how far onto rock trying to figure out how it was all gonna work out, i picked my head up and looked at him and for a second it didn't matter how big of a drop it was, or how i was gonna get out of the royal pickle i was in. cause some things are worth it.

i've always thought that the destination is the journey. and i know from that split second of reality that it's true. regardless of how it ended, i had lived those moments with him, and that is what life is about.

and then somehow i was crawling and we were at the top. and i laughed. i think he might have as well. i didn't look back at what we'd climbed...i don't know why. i should've. i think i was too busy thinking that i wanted to do it again. =)

then we walked back.

saw another guy and his crying girlfriend.

that made me mad too.

but all good things have to end. and he had to leave. so i went back inside and watched a group of college kids play a game of something like musical chairs and thought. i thought a lot of thoughts. but mainly wondered what i was doing. here i am covered in dirt and feeling so dead. there are moments in life that make the rest of it worth living. but those are also the moments that make the rest of life seem like a shadow and not real life. i wanted to go back outside and never come back. i wondered why i had so much more fun with him than i have on my own. i wondered why i did things with him that i always want to do, and just don't when i'm by myself. still wondering... i asked myself why i am so boring. i asked myself why i don't have any other friends like him. still asking.

and i was also thinking that it was a good thing he lives in clemson and i live in cookeville. still thinking that.


after dudley left and i had thought enough to make most of the dirt hate me and fall off my jeans, i hung out and talked to kelso for a while. and we hung out til about 0300. finally i jumped into the shower after admiring the scrapes all down my torso and the bump on my temple and the bruise that was my felt knew. i slept pretty good that night. =)

i was the first one up the next day. i went and unlocked the van so that all my friends could put their stuff in it. then went and hung out for a while with whoever happened to be around, and then we had the last rally which was the "commitment" part. really just stating your response to all the truth you'd heard. i spent most of the time explaining to my crazy koreans what was happening.

then we broke up into small groups to share, and i pulled lizzy aside to talk to her. we talked for a while...about God and truth and surrender and all kinds of other things. i love it. there's nothing better than sharing living water with someone who is thirsty. nothing better. i don't know what God's gonna do...i haven't gotten to talk to her since, but i am praying, and i know God is working. that was an amazing way to end.

but it wasn't the end. i still had to say goodbye to kel, and take an international picture. once again, no one tried to tell me that i'm not international. (we all are if you think about it...just saying...) i love those guys.....i love pouring my life into them. i love sharing the gospel with them...i love driving them...i love teasing brandon with them...i love them teasing me...i love learning about their culture and themselves...i love trying to understand them...i love them calling me beth........i love how powerless i am to save them. i want them to know Jesus so bad, and he can do it. all i have to do is obey him, and he will do the rest. i love that the most.

after we were done taking pictures and saying goodbye we once again went and parked on the road. when we finally got to pf we met up with the rest of the crew for some mcallister's. gotta love the forge. that was fun though everyone was terribly tired. i took the back way all the way around pigeon forge but the road was pretty much a parking lot all the way to I-40. everyone fell asleep and i talked to my bro.

half way to cookeville i was pretty sure i would fall alseep cause sam had and everyone else had. so i called jo. :)

we stopped in crossville for gas and caffeine.

then we were all awake and having fun. laughing and listening to music. etc. when we got back to campus we had to say goodbye again. but i see them all the time now, so it's ok.

sam and i hit the road and headed back to hartsville to drop the van off and have a birthday party for mom.



so i guess that was the weekend. only i still have so many left-over thoughts.... thoughts about my relationship with God. thoughts about how i can be a better laborour in his harvest. thoughts about simon and lizzy and many others. and thoughts about my life.......what can i do to have more of those moments i live for?

how can i be so boring? i hate to think about it. i wish i took more risks. i wish i did more. but i don't. because i want someone to do them with...and i don't have anyone.

a weird realization for someone who loves being alone so much.

so overall, the weekend was amazing, and i would relive it in a heartbeat.

and i am trying to figure out what to do with all these extra thoughts in my head.