$20...

Here I find myself in the wee small hours of the morning, praying that the computer before me will decide to print soon...

A little background for you: every year from the day after Thanksgiving until just a few days before Christmas, my Dad runs a Christmas tree lot. This is a family business that goes back decades, but my Dad just "inherited" this business a few years ago - my Grandpa who started it passed away years ago and my Dad has taken it on. For reasons that are beyond my understanding, Dad seems to enjoy the busyness and stress that the Christmas tree lot adds... Anyway, every year at this time the guys in my family start getting "the lot" ready. The signs are everywhere: later work hours, pine needles on the floors of the house, and on and on. When the lot opens and customers come in, we have a list that we use to check off their name if they're on the mailing list (we send a postcard in November to say where we'll be located, etc.), or add them if they're not. So the tree lot opens tomorrow morning (Friday) and tonight we got home and found the mailing list that the printer had dropped off. But all of the addresses were out of order and none of the names had the correct addresses next to them! This means that when the cards were mailed out, the addresses were right but the names were all wrong. Mr. Smith got Mr. Jones' card instead, etc.

Don't worry, I'm actually getting to the reason I'm up so late (more for my entertainment than yours - I need to type to keep myself awake). Once we got home and realized the mistake, we got busy trying to fix it. I thought we were doomed, but praise the Lord, my Dad and brother recovered the list and fixed it in a few hours. THEN I got the lovely job of printing it! Woo hoo! I guess that's because I'm the only one at home with a working computer. Or maybe because out of all of us at home, I looked the most awake... So I had to find a printer in the house. I found one, and a software disk; so I got busy installing it. Then I realized that the printer and the software weren't for the same printer! That stunk. Then I got my old printer from upstairs, got it set up, and only then realized that it was out of ink. So that wasn't cool.

So NOW I've been searching the internet for drivers for the printer that we actually do have, that actually has ink. And as I've been typing all this, it has downloaded and the printer light is blinking as if to say "Ok Ashley, now I work!" so I guess that's my cue. If you got all the way to the end of this post, thanks for carrying on reading. You are a true friend if you read it all - leave a comment and give yourself some credit. Mad props to you.

This afternoon as we were eating our turkey we talked about how any bad story can be redeemed by adding "And then, I found $20!" at the end. Even if it's not true, at least it makes things sound more interesting.

Hey, guess what I just found? $20!!!

The end.

3 time zones in 1 week = welcome to missionary life

Paris: the "City of Lights"

Just one week ago I was in France, and last Saturday night I was sitting on a park bench in Paris with a nice view of the Eiffel Tower. I had just spent the week leading my first short-term mission trip with OM - 3 teenagers, 3 parents, one teacher and I met up with 40 others from all over the world to share the message of Jesus. We worked in the cities of Nantes and Saint Malo (both on the western side of France) for 9 days; it was a privilege for me to lead our group there and watch God work in and through us during the trip! God just continues to blow my mind by showing me new things about Himself and teaching me to depend on Him more and more. It's hard at times, yet humbling to realize that God cares so much about me that He wants to continually refine me in new ways. I want to become more like Jesus... What a joy it is to serve Him.

I left France one week ago and returned to my current home, Atlanta, where I basically slept for 3 days straight! I needed it after a long week of outreach, and I'm grateful for those 3 good days of rest right after the trip. Apart from sleeping I also spent part of those 3 days unpacking, doing laundry, and then re-packing - this time, for Seattle. Denise (fearless leader of OM USA High School Ministries) and I (her sidekick) flew to Seattle on Thursday morning, and we'll be here until tomorrow. We're taking the weekend as our High School Ministries Retreat, to evaluate the past year and look forward to 2007. We've been talking, planning, praying, and having fun along the way. :-) We're so thankful that God has given us this time to get away and seek Him for the year to come.

Yesterday we went out to Bainbridge Island to spend the day with some friends of Denise's. We had an awesome time just hanging out with them, and I also had a new experience: the family's 12-year-old son and I fixed the plumbing in their bathroom sink! You just never know what you're going to get when you join OM! After that adventure, a few of us wandered around the shops in the quaint little town of Poulsbo and even caught part of the gorgeous sunset. God is so beautiful...
That's all my posting for now... I'll try to do this more often though - just yesterday I was reminded that it has been a month since my last post. Oops! I'll work on that. Have a great weekend, everyone.