Parisian Thanksgiving

(Warning - This is hecka long)

I woke up about 7am to the incredibly annoying sound of Bridget and Tiffanie singing some wake up song to me. After much grumbling, I finally got up. Downstairs, I had a great breakfast of chocolate croissants. Hmm, it would be Thanksgiving in the US in a few hours. Maybe I could call home when the Lanes are over…

So we all hop on the subway after breakfast and head to the Eiffel Tower. It’s pretty cool! As we went up the glass elevator, everything below got really small, until… the stupid fog was too thick and we couldn’t see anything below anymore. Bummer. Well, I took some pictures of me at the top, even though you couldn’t tell where this was. I dropped a margarita umbrella off the top, just for the heck of it.

After we got done at the Eiffel Tower, we were informed that today was our free day, so we could go wherever we wanted. Me, Brook, Jenn, Kelly, and Nicole decided to go places together. We were going to meet some of the guys at the catacombs later. We headed off first to the Arch de Triomphe. Pretty cool thing. We took pictures that made it look like we were holding the Arch. Haha! They we went to the Orsay museum. That was my favorite because they have lots of Monets. We got lunch at this little café by the Orsay. Jenn had to order for us because the lady didn’t speak English. I had a super-good pizza crepe. Hmm, not too bad for Thanksgiving lunch. We sat and ate on the museum steps and talked for a long time. Hanging out in Paris is good!

Next, we decided to go to a “souvie” shop down the street. There was the hottest guy working there! We all bought stuff and stayed there quite a while. After that, we got on the subway and went to the Opera Station, where the other girls wanted to go to Fragonard’s. I stayed outside because the first time we’d gone in there I almost hyperventilated from all the perfume.

Soon we noticed that we had half an hour until we had to meet the guys and the catacombs were 14 stops away from Opera. So Brook navigated our way to the catacombs.

Halfway there, Caleb (who was still trying to get Brook back!) hops on our subway car. The other guys are a few cars down. So we got off the train and met with Joey, James, and Mike. When we got to the catacombs, the sign at the entrance was in French, and Jenn couldn’t read it. A camera above us was moving around and watching us. Then a lady’s voice shouted at us in French. “Don’t look at me guys! I can’t understand that fast!” Gee, thanks Jenn. We finally decided that 16:00 meant 4pm (it was 10 after 4) and that they’d closed for the night. (Brilliant deduction, no?!) James, Mike, and George decided to ditch us. We really didn’t have much of an agenda now. “I’d kinda like to get some postcard stamps,” Joey suggested, as an option. So me, Brook, Caleb, Joey, Jenn, Kelly, and Nicole set out in search of a post office or somewhere we could buy stamps.

We were in a really bad neighborhood, and it was getting dark. But suddenly, I spotted a blue vending machine on the side of a building. That’s the kind of thing we got stamps out of in London. So I ran up to the box in typical “obnoxious-American” fashion, pointing and yelling, “Hey guys! Here’s a stamp machine!” I noticed some of the French people giving us glares and strange looks. Oh well. So, as we were trying to figure out how much stamps were, and how to get them out of the machine, Jenn was reading something in French on the machine. “Uh… guys? I’m pretty sure those aren’t stamps.” “Yeah they are Jenn.” Well… actually… I’m pretty sure those are condoms.” Oh dang. So that’s why everyone was giving us weird looks when we were all excited about stamps.

So we finally found a post office and got some postcards sent. It was Thanksgiving day, we were hungry, and we were in a strange part of Paris after dark. The few cafes that didn’t seem shifty were really expensive. Brook took the lead to get us back to Opera Station. When we got off the Metro, we stood outside wondering what to do for dinner. It seems that we all had the same idea at the same time – we’d spotted a Pizza Hut! Yum!! So we went there and ordered two large pizzas (for the 7 of us). When the food came, we found out that “large” meant 8 regular-sized (not “New York” or “Chicago –sized”) slices. So we each had a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner of two slices of pizza and warm Pepsi, as most French restaurants that we went to don’t serve ice. We found a Hagen Daas down the street, so ice cream completed the meal. “We’d better go guys, we have half an hour until we have to be back at the hotel.” But somehow, “going to ice cream down the street” had gotten us semi-lost. We were only 3 Metro stops from the hotel though, so it should be no problem.

Boy were we WRONG!! The first train was so packed that we waited for the next one. Finally we got to where we were one stop from Anvers, where our hotel was, but we had to walk forever through the station we were at to find the right line to get there! We had about 7 minutes to get to the hotel, and we ran through the subway stop for about 5 minutes trying to get to the correct line. When the train doors opened, people literally FELL out because it was so full! I grabbed Brook and Kelly and said “We HAVE to get on this one!” We all squeezed in through the mass of people, with Caleb trying to shove us all in further. The doors closed, right on his butt! They kept re-opening and trying to shut… “Ow, dang! Oo, oh…. crap!” He finally got in. Then someone realized that we hadn’t bought lunch for the train ride. Oh well, too bad, we’re really late already – possibly making the entire team miss the train to Rome.

We fell out when the subway doors opened, with Kelly mumbling something about some old pervert… We booked it down the street and into our hotel… only to find that the trains were on strike, so we had to take an Italian train line that left later that night. Ugh!

But that was one of the funnest days ever. Great Thanksgiving too! Haha!

Me, Brook, and Kelly at the base of the Eiffel Tower...

(Oringinally written by Jessica, October 2000. Written about Thanksgiving Day, 1998)

Because I Am An Oregonian

YOU MIGHT BE FROM THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST IF . . .
1. You have no concept of humidity without precipitation.
2. You throw an aluminum can in the trash and feel guilty.
3. You use the words 'sun breaks' and know what it means.
4. You know more than 10 ways to order a cup of coffee.
5. You complain about Californians as you sell your house to one for twice its value.
6. You never go camping without waterproof matches and ponchos.
7. Half your friends work at Microsoft or Boeing.
8. You know the exact location of fifteen drive-thru espresso stands in your neighborhood
9. You stand on a deserted street corner in the rain waiting for the "Walk" signal.
10.You know more people who own boats than air conditioners.
11.You obey all traffic laws except "Keep right except to pass".
12.You can taste the difference between Starbucks, Seattle's Best Coffee, and Veneto's.
13.You consider swimming an indoor sport.
14.You consider that if it has no snow or has not recently erupted, it's not a real mountain.
15.You know what they mean: "Today's forecast: showers followed by rain" and "Tomorrow's forecast: rain followed by showers".
16.You can tell the difference between Japanese, Chinese, and Thai food.
17.In the winter, you go to work in the dark, come home in the dark, and only have an 8 hour day.
18.You understand what people mean when they say "pop".
19.You consider a floating bridge a pain in the butt, not an engineering marvel.
21.You feel overdressed wearing a suit to a really nice restaurant.
22.You can point to at least two volcanoes, even if you can't see through the cloud cover.
23.You personally know someone from Alaska.
24.You feel like you've grown up with Bill Gates and can't figure out why people can be so mean to him.
25.You think people who use umbrellas are either wimps or tourists.
26.You find a wallet with $500 and give it back to the owner.
27.You know how to pronounce: Sequim, Puyallup, Rainier, and Issaquah.
28.You used to live somewhere else but won't admit it publicly.
29.You know the difference between Chinook, Coho, and Sockeye salmon.
30.You knew immediately that the view out Frasier's window was fake.
31.You've ever ordered a half caff/decaf, nonfat mocha Grande with raspberry whip (or know what it is).
32.The bride & groom registered at REI.
33.You are amazed at an accurate weather forecast.
34.If someone ran your car off the freeway, you might drown.
35.You put on your shorts when the temperature gets above 50, but still wear your hiking boots and parka.
36.You switch to your sandals when it gets above 60, but keep the socks on.
37.You have actually used your mountain bike on a mountain.
38.You'd be miffed if the store was out of your favorite brand of water.
39.Fifteen blocks away is a good parking spot.
40. Distances are measured in "minutes," not miles. And, nothing is more than 30 minutes away (except the beach and the mountains.)

(I was unfortunately not the mastermind behind this literary work)

Things I've Learned From Guys

I wrote this for Emily several years ago in honor of our friends from whom we learned these valuable facts.

• Chevy – good. Ford – bad.
• A fuel-injected V8 engine is the only acceptable engine for any automobile.
• The gun rack in a truck is there for a purpose.
• John Deere. Enough said.
• Old Jeeps can be started without a key.
• Dodge “K” cars (like the old burgundy one I used to have) are cheap pieces of junk.
• Don’t go 85 down Highway 22 between Aumsville and Stayton.
• Your Gerber is your best friend.
• Guys have the unique ability to “write their names in the snow.”
• Governors don’t let cars go fast; they are bad.
• Mule = a golf cart on steroids.
• When getting ready to go hunting, always take your guns into the bathroom with you. There’s a chance that you could shoot a buck out the bathroom window.
• Compressed air hoses pop if you hit them with a hammer.*
• If you find a rodent in your backyard late at night, grab a bow and arrow, and a paintball gun. Attack.
• Plastic keys are not made for use in car doors.
• If you’re gong to a gift exchange and forgot the gift, you can always swipe parts off someone’s car and wrap them up.
• People in Bi-Mart won’t try to stop you if you casually walk through the store with your rifle.

* I learned this one 4th of July when Corey was making bombs out of firecrackers. He was pounding something with a hammer and accidentally hit the compressed air hose. This formed a lump in the hose which I poked at, then the hose finally exploded.

Here are some of the people involved with the above list

(Originally written by Jessica 3 April 2002)

What the What?!?!

I found this in a box of stories and werid stuff from my youth. Andria, Apryl, and I used to really enjoy making up "Top 10" lists. It's a wonder we never made it on Letterman. Ha. You really need to be tired and semi-delerious to think this is funny, because that was most likely our state of mind when this was invented. Actually, you'd probably have to be one of the 3 of us to think this is funny.

Top Ten "101 Ways" books:

10: 101 Ways to write your name using only a toilet seat cover and a tree-shaped air freshener.
9: 101 ways to file papers using only a thumb tack and a hair dryer.
8: 101 ways to feed and army with only a strawberry and a green pea.
7: 101 ways to fix a leaky faucet using only a bottle of vinegar, and whiteout pen, and an old shoe.
6: 101 ways to have light during a blackout using only a pencil and a jumbo bag of potato chips.
5: 101 ways to catch a naked mole rat with only a spoon and a broken record.
4: 101 ways to give yourself a new hairstyle using only a hole punch and the family cat.
3: 101 ways to pierce your ears using only a fire extinguisher and a 10 ounce can of SPAM.
2: 101 ways to take the youth group to Disneyland using only an umbrella and the cassette tape "Psalty's Camping Trip."
1: 101 ways to build a chair using only a pin, a flowering skunk weed, and the movie "The Brave Little Toaster."

If you made it through this list, congratulations! I'd love to hear what you think about it (or how psycho you think I was!!) by having you comment with the comment link at the bottom of this post.

(note - yes, "The Brave Little Toaster" IS a real movie)

A Day In the Summer of Me

Ok, it’s 8 in the morning 2 weeks before high schools start. Normally, I’d be sleeping. But instead, I’m at the church.

Yes, it was time for the backpack trip. There were a lot of people going. Me, Andria, Em, Becky, Bekah, Micah, Loren, Leah, Jordan, Jimmy, Titus, Brandy, Craig, Emily, Craig, and Justin. And also, Colin, Lori, Mark, and Palma. A weird combination of people.

It started out with a long drive to Ollallie Lake. From there, we hiked about 3 miles (behind Loogie, I mean Micah). We finally got to Upper Lake. There wasn’t much room to put tents and stuff, but we made do. Me and Andria shared my tiny tent, and we made fun of how Jimmy, Titus, Micah, and Loren had a tent not much bigger than ours that they all 4 had to fit in!

We tested the lake water, and found it to be a little bit warm, so some of us girls and Justin took a swim in our clothes. Then we made dinner (after changing in the “dressing room” of trees on a hill next to the “girls’ bathroom”). I had ravioli soup as opposed to most peoples’ cup o’noodles. We hung around not doing much until it got dark. Then we all sat around the camp fire and talked, had a message from Colin, and sang. A lot of people went to play capture the flag. About 10:30, after NBC Nightly News, we said goodnight and hit the hay.

“The best part of wakin’ up, is Folgers in your cup!” What the heck?! Me and Andria woke up and died laughing. It was Jordan singing, with Leah egging him on. Me and Andria laughed so hard, we had to get up. There was no way we could sleep after that!

So, within about the next hour, everyone was up. I ate my fruit and some oatmeal for breakfast. The “refrigerator” (a patch of snow) was shrinking, so we had to eat everything out of it soon. After a little while, we decided to go for a hike. Mark and Craig left about a half hour before the rest of us. We talked to them on the walkies. Then as me, Andria, Lori, Colin, Em, and Becky left to follow Mark and Craig’s trail, Micah, Loren, and Jordan decided to go through the sticks to the butte where we’d all meet.

It was a steep climb up to the butte, but we made it. It was an awesome view too. After a while, we decided to go back to camp. We were SO thirsty!! (But thanks to Lori and Micah, I wasn’t as thirsty as everyone else!) But all the guys, except Colin, decided to hike over to another butte before heading back. So the rest of us decided to go down the way Micah, Loren, and Jordan had com up. I don’t know how the heck they got up that way, especially with packs on! We had to slide down half the way on our butts ‘cuz it was so steep! We finally got to what we thought was the bottom. But then, we saw a huge ravine in front of us. At the bottom was our lake. We ended up going down it. Andria and Lori almost fell down it, but we made it down more or less safely.

After lunch, the guys finally got back down. Me, Andria, and Emily went swimming again. We jumped off the rocks in the middle of the lake a lot. It was fun but cold! Soon, Mark, Loren, and Jordan joined us. After a while, we all ended up sitting on the dry rock on the island in the lake. About half and hour later, we decided to go back. But, the only way to get back to shore was to swim in the freezing cold water. Yes, it was definitely cold.

We dried off and sat around the camp fire, talking, laughing, and sleeping. Sometime during that time, Loren and Jordan disappeared in the direction of the “guys’ bathroom.” When they came back Jordan goes, “Hey mom, we wrote our names in the snow!!” That was about the time me and Andria decided that we need an 11 year old boy hanging around our houses.

Well, by this time I was pretty hungry, so I ate my can of chili, with Leah finishing off what I couldn’t gag down. We all shared water bottles, utensils, and dishes so much, I’m surprised we didn’t all get sick. Especially because me and Micah had pretty bad colds. The sun was setting, and the mosquitoes were eating random body parts off us, so several of us went down by the lake, where they surprisingly weren’t so bad. After only a few minutes, I’d had about enough of Jimmy’s stupid remarks and Palma’s rudeness, so I went back to camp.

When it was dark, we had another mini-sermon and songs. Then, Em cracked out the hobo pies. Oh yeah! Those were great! We also made campfire popcorn. Well, only Lori’s batch was successful. Micah’s caught on fire and got stuck all over the pan, which also burnt. Soon we were all covered with marshmallow, pie filling, and charred popcorn. About half of us, including me, decided to go to bed. I fell asleep to Jimmy’s voice yelling, “Everybody stand back, this thing’s gonna blow!!” Now there’s a comforting thought.

The next morning, I awoke to birds divebombing out tent. Some genius dumped food by it. It took a few hours to get everyone awake and packed. After the group pictures, we headed back to Ollallie. I hiked with Bekah, Becky, and Jimmy for most of the time. We were way ahead of everyone else, except Justin, Micah, and Loren, who we couldn’t keep up with. The seven of us made it back to the van about 20 minutes before everyone else. Everyone came back tired, dirty, and hungry. But it was the most fun I’d had in a long time! Long live youth group backpacking trips!



(Originally written by Jessica 29 September, 1999, about 26-28 August 1999)

What Can You Do With a 19-Year Old Super Chick?

Who says God doesn’t use young people to do great things?

When I was 19, I went on a short term trip to El Salvador. During the second week of our trip, Ruth, a 19-year-old poor Salvadoran girl who didn’t speak a lick of English was our “evangelist” for the week. I have to admit that I was a bit bummed at not having Lili, the 30 something Paraguayan woman be with our team. But I put on my optimistic face (and yes, I DO have one!) and waited to see what the week would bring.

I can’t say that anything super extraordinary happened during that week as far as the team and the ministry went. But I know something super extraordinary happened with me that week. God showed me that He uses ANYONE to accomplish His work – anyone who is willing. Ruth was willing to be used by God. She led 21 high school students who didn’t speak her language around her country hoping to touch someone’s life with the love of the Lord. SO many things could (and probably did) go wrong. The group was obnoxious. We were sick of eating tuna and cheese sandwiches. People had diarrhea. Michael put on a skirt and climbed a tree in public. We didn’t learn our new skit very well. I almost sent Sheila to the hospital by giving her prescription medicine that was too strong for her. We had NO clue about acceptable social behaviors for El Salvador. Not to mention that Ruth grew up in a poor area, and my best guess is that the Christians there were really conservative, making us even more offensive to her.

That week, I saw how God took Ruth – a 9th grade educated girl who was exactly two months older than me, and used her to tell people about the Lord. True, many of the people who we came into contact with only came to see the gringo freak show, but there were those who were truly touched – much more by the Salvadorans in our group that by the hueros. I felt God ask me if I were willing to do something bold for Him. I thought I could NEVER be in a leadership position like Ruth was. Then He reminded me that Ruth was 2 months older than me – NOT an acceptable excuse that she’s older and wiser.

God used young people in the Bible. He called Samuel into His service at age 7 (hmm, there’s a striking coincidence). Timothy was apparently a teenager or maybe early twenties (?) when he was a preacher. And, some of the people that I most look up to are younger than me. Leah L., my “mentor” during my first senior year of college is two years younger than me (although she’d humbly deny that she played an important role in my life!). Jenny K. is a year younger than me, and she taught me SO much about my worth in God’s eyes. Michael "hermanito," a huge inspiration to me in accepting God’s call to be a missionary, is 4 years younger than me. Elsy, my encourager to keep pressing on toward the goal God has for me, is slightly younger than me. And Ruth, my age, showed me that God will use people of any age to do weird and scary things for Him if they are willing!!

¡Gracias Rutti por tu animo! ¡Sigue adelante sirviendo el Señor con todo el corazón! Dondequiera que estás, tengo fe que Dios vaya usarte tocar las vidas de miles de personas. Nunca vas a saber el impacto que estabas en mi vida.

(Originally written by Jessica - January 2004)

Amazonian Grocery Stores - All That and a Bag of Chips

The grocery stores in Amazonas, Brazil are, well, a bit different than those in the States. Everything in the stores is arranged to look nice. All the products are set up un a specific order. The shelves may be a foot deep, and the bottles of liquid dish soap 3 inches in diameter, but instead of setting the bottles 4 deep, there will be just one big row of dish soap on the very edge of the shelf. As soon as someone buys a bottle, another is immediately put in it’s place so the store continues to look orderly.

A product that is in demand and sells quickly will be hard to find in Amazonas. Since stores cannot keep the product in stock, they just quit ordering it. It’s a hassle to have to keep ordering a product over and over. The store operators are not very happy when people go in and buy the entire stock of one product!

Around the world, chips are packaged in bags with a lot of air so they stay fresh. However, this does not make for convenient stacking on store shelves. To make the chips stack better, the vendors in Amazonas pop all the bags of chips to release the air (which, to North American tastes, makes the chips stale).

The same applies to bags of dog food. The bags ore too bulky, so the vendors stick tersado (machete) holes in the bags to release the air and make the bags more compact. Tom and Sue suggested that the vendors not poke holes in the dog food bags, as it makes the food go bad faster. To this, the vendor replied, “Why do you care? You’re not the one who’s going to be eating this.”

When going on the mission field, be prepared to encounter things that seem “totally illogical” to North American minds. We might think, “Well, that’s a dumb way of doing things, we ought to do it this way…” But that’s just part of moving into another culture, dealing with differences that we can’t change, but it doesn’t make things of other countries wrong, just different!

Originally written by Jessica 8 October 2003