What Sunday Afternoons are for

This could only be better if I could have taken this picture while I was asleep on the couch and if there was football on the TV. I miss it already.

YAY STEELERS!! I am celebrating a week late because tonight Ben is coming to cook for us. Silly Ben, he bet against the Steelers! I am extra glad because this means that we do not have to clean out Ben's truck. I will try and get a picture of Ben's truck so you will understand just why I am extra relieved on top of WOO HOOO!!!! 6 SUPERBOWL RINGS!! GO STEELERS!!!!

YAY

good news, the problem is not the camera! YAY! The problem is not the Computer! YAY! The problem is not the cable! YAY!
By the process of elimination I was able to deduce that the problem is with the card reader!

so now, i can load photos from my big camera. But I don't have the right cable to load stuff from the little camera.

Let's Roleplay

Imagine you work at the local drug store. A customer walks in and purchases: A box of Pepto-bismol, 2 liters of ginger ale, and a bag of cough drops. What is the appropriate comment.

I'm guessing your first thought was not,"Enjoy your evening!"

:)

Other news

In other news, i can not load photos from either of the cameras to my computer. It distresses me. I am not sure if hte problem is with the reader, the cable or (the worst option of all) my computer.


If that was not the case, i would insert a photo of our new kitten or the pretty sunrise this morning or the allegheny river valley covered in snow.

instead i will post photos of what i already had on my computer

the time i forgot i had a loaf of bread rising and it went out of control


the time micah dyed his hair and part of his beard black with 10 cent leftover halloween spray dye


Micah and Ben painting each other and our kitchen


A sign that says "quitting business". I do not know why that phrasing intrigues me. Also note the small sign that says "10% off Beer"


And two photos of my mom and the dog jumping that will probably get me disowned

Happy Birthday Miss Brenda



I better stop now.

Hi.
i am not dead.
Im at Judah &meghan's Apartment on Their laptop. I do not like thier keyoard. it is different frommine and I can't make it work right. and the space bar only works if you hit it with your right thumb.not the left Also i am a stinky typer. how woudl you spelltyper...oh wait it's typist isn't it
there is a lot of snow here so we are holed up with the simpsons and the playstation. Meghan and I also have books. Meghan baked brownies and while the boys were out getting some fresh air we cut them out of the pan and hid them and then we told the boys we got hungry.I thougth Micah might explode :)!

there is not much more to tell. We are still in grove City, my sweaters are stil in Slovakia, beter luck next winter I guess. third time's a charm. Micah and I ar e tenatively plannign to return to Europe in the Spring.

So tha'ts the story.

i am toying with teh idea of selling some prints of my photos in the gift shop of ben's hotel or some like place. it seems like it might b complicated but myabe worth trying.

this is a long and incoherent post. my most sencirest apologies for sounding like 6th grade girl.I never really liked 6th grade girls and i hated being one

OK, the internet is never coming to our apartment. :( the end. Currently posting from the Grove City Library.

This is not a festive thought (i'm slow getting into the spirit this year.) but it is a thought i had at work this morning:
Garden salads are salads with just veggies theoretically made from a garden
Chef salads are salads with meat but are not made from a chef.
I am glad about this. but shouldn't the name be different?


This morning i walked to the Post Office and got like at housand packages. A little old lady who was ringing the bell for the Salvation Army gave me a ride home so i didnt have to walk... it is good to live in a small town at Christmas time. If you sent a package to us, it probably arrived. We got mail from Wyoming, and Beaver Falls, and a few from New York and I dont care what Abi or Aunt Nancy Say, i'm keeping that one package for myself!

I am going to clean and make christmas cookies today. Bring on Christmas, I'm getting ready!

Hi
i'm still here
here is now Grove City PA again
I'm processing a lot of stuff
I have a new old job (same place new position)
Micah is still looking for work
We have grandma Henry's car.
We have no clue what exactly comes next.
we're prayign about it.
we are not in Slovakia.
once again i'm in the uS over the winter, and my winter clothes are stored in Slovakia.
I miss my sweaters.

so...ummm....well

I may be a blogging failture :) I even mistyped blogging just now TWICE.
I'm in grove city, i still have to go to the library to get internet :(

i have a bunch of stuff to do, including painigna nd scrubbing back at the appartment (which STILL only has one p), so i will make this quick.

WHO in the name of all that is good would name a child CHANCE. no kidding, i just sat next to the kid at McDonalds, and that was his name. i heard it more than once!!

From Beaver Falls

:) another photo-less post on location...this time from Ami's apartment/dorm. I would include a picture but my 300D is dead (and for sale if anyone is interested). my new 30D is in transit from MISSISSAUGA, Ontario. My old film camera is in Ami's stuff in Wyoming, and the little camera is in the red toolbox next to the big wooden box in the Henry barn.








Here is where a photo of Ami's desk would go if I was not camera-less (and lazy)








Where will i post from next you may wonder. We'll I'll tell you. New York City. And then Wyoming.

Las tnight i had a dinner that was not supposed to happn for a year at least. but it was Good. My dad was back in PA for a wedding instead of Wyoming and Micah and I are in the United states instead of Slovakia. And so last night i got to sit at a table in applebee's with my huband, my little sister, and my Dad.

Today Ami & I leave to celebrate Canadian Thanksgiving with the Iovinos tuesday when we get back, Micah and i leav for 26 hours of driving to WYOMING. We will stay through Sunday and then take it slow on the way home.

I am not thinking about the numer fo hours in transit. I am concentrating on seeing every member of my immediate family insid of a week!!

Choreography

I spelled that right the first time.

I have this song from white Christmas in my head. Never mind that i do not like this song. Never mind that we skip this song every time we watch the movie. Never mind that it is a beautiful day in September, and i am not dreaming of snow. Somehow, I can do the entire annoying snooty voiced intro and can hum all the annoying bridges.

I have decided to share the misery. Don't blame me, Ami started it I have merely one upped her by linking to the entire vicious thing. I shudder to think what Abi will come up with.....

Contrast

now another on location post form the library in jefferson ohio!






this is where the photo of the library that looks like a library would go if i was not lazy







My in-laws do not have high speed internet (28 Kb/sec is normal) so I'm spendign this afternoon at the library. Hopefully micah comes to pick me up before 8 tonight. We do not have cell phones yet.


We arrived in New York without any incident besides a 3 hour flight delay. We decided that having New York City as your rentry point to US culture was (for us) a little like diving directly into the deep end. In NYC we visited with Jimmy & Abi and CLAIRE MARIE, ate at a cuban restaurant, visited the empire State building, and played (a lot of) rock band on the XBox. We also got lost in what we think was the Bronx on our way out of the city. It was a good time.

Sunday we drove to Ohio and the past few days have been a bit more our speed. Monday we went to the Amish Salvage grocery store, a consignment shop located behind someone's house in a barn, the Middlefield Library (an amazing establishment - it had a fireplace and "adult DVD's" i think they just meant that they were not animated, but the sign made me laugh), and a cheese store (nothing like Grandpa's Cheese barn, but disappointing only in that they were not making cheese behind the big window when we were there). Tuesday I made chocolate granola, read some and wrote our update letter. Micah helped Ben clean out an apartment full of mold and other disgusting things. Tuesday night I drove in a dump truck (but did not get to see the back go up) to Dinner at Meghan & Judah's apartment.

Let me be CLEAR, i'm not judging either of those places. I enjoyed myself immensely in New York (except when we were lost on our way out.) I love my sister and Jimmy and Calire. Skipping everyone at the Empire State building was great and I fouind out that I like cuban food (fried Plantains!!) I also got a huge kick out of the Library, the fact that the Amish sell Salvaged groceries, and my ride in a Dump Truck.

I'm Just saying.


PS Judah just came to pick me up on his way home from work. Micah called and asked if he could stop at the library on his way home. Judah thought Micah wanted a car repair manual or something. Micah thought He "might have left Stasi at the library"

look, a post

from the airport in Hungary. I am not ambitious enough to take and post a picture of the airport in hungary. you will be ok with that right? I'll just describe it, it looks like...an airport

this is where the photo would be if i was ambitious :)

We have almost 3 hours of flight delays and free wireless internet. we ate the sandwiches that Miro packed for us. I ate my pickles and micah's too. we bid on a camera on e-bay and called new york on Skype. the airline gave us bottled water and a sandwich. we hope this was not in lieu of our promised inflight meal.

Every time that i typed "airport" in this post, i had to go back and add the r. anyone want to make up a definition of an "airpot"? :)

see most of you soon.

a bit more adventure

Life got a bit more interesting.

My camera is Kaput. I would take a picture of the broken shutter. Except that it makes me want to cry when I look at it. also it is difficult to take a good photo of the inside of your good camera. I have not tried. i have a mental block.

there are some complications with our temp stay permit. There are a few options at this point. one involves going back to the states for, oh, about 3 months. Marian summed it up just about right " the process has taken forever." It is just the way bureaucracy works in Slovakia with papers" We're working on figuring that out.

Our flight we bought for the wedding is highly restricted i.e not transferable refundable or changeable.... so basicaly if we come home now for bureaucracy reasons, we are out $1600. which is a pretty good price for two round trip tickets. we thought we were doing so well and getting them in advance and for a good price.

I have a vicious combination of cold/allergy/flu symptoms. I am trying to avoid the urge to take asprin, benedryl and DayQuil all at the same time.

so anyway, pray for us. things will go ok. God is in control of this adventure.

Adventure

So I started getting thisquestion of the day. I thought it might be interesting to give me something to blog about or a kick in my thinking pants. (i have no clue what thinking pants are. or where you would wear them. anyone...anyone?)

Today's question isWhat adventure are you craving?
I think a lot about adventure, Adventure is half the title of this blog! for as much as i thrive on tradition and routines, i still hate to be in one place too long. i have a list of places i want to go that is waaay longer than the list of places i've been. (Poland is at the top right now based on proximity...Morocco is on there too as soon as KT names the date) I am not sure it will ever be shorter than the places i want to go list. I almost hope not. But i think i imagine myself to be more adventurous than i am. we can't forget the princess part of me. the part that likes pretty things and a good book wrapped up in an afghan (the blanket kind, not that i am prejudiced against the person kind, but i have no desire to wrap up in one, and i am sure micah would mind).

I don't know if i crave any kind of adventure right now. I would really like to be settled maybe i'd like the adventure of decorating our own place with Micah. I think i am living just about all the adventure i can handle. of course, "He gives more grace as the burdens grow greater" But i'll tell you i am living exactly the adventure that i want to be in the middle of, and not just because it puts me in close proximity to Poland and closer to Morocco than Ohio. That is a plus though.

How about you, what would you pick if you could choose your adventure (remember those books)?

Micah and the saw of death

Micah and the saw of death from Anastasia Henry on

i don't think there is anything else i can add to this. it speaks for itself.

except that Micah is starting to be distressed by his web presence :)

Prolificacy

I did a little math today. I know, that alone would be blogworthy!

I figured out how many pictures i have taken with my camera.

TWENTY TWO THOUSAND six hundred and ninety nine!!!

now that strikes me as a lot of photos. and that is just since christmas of '05!! and it does not count the shots taken on the little camera we bought last year. I did not realize I was so prolific. I love the word prolific. I am going to use it more often in daily conversation. 

SOUGHT FUTON FUTON DOILY PROLIFIC!!!

Currently i have around 5,000 photos on my computer. The rest are backed up on DVDs or CDs or whatever but that is a LOT of photos. a lot of lots of lots of photos. My children (hypothetical children, breathe Miss Brenda) will be very glad, I think to sort through discs instead of a huge box of half filled albums and unsorted prints.

i think i will buy myself a new lens to celebrate my prolificacy (this really is a real word) or maybe more budget realistically, i will get a big print of one of my own photos for over the couch we don't have in the apartment that we don't have. (pray on tuesday, if this one falls through, we may loose our cool...)

ps. earlier in this post i spelled new N-O-O. i fixed it.

pps. What adjective would you use regarding a post about my prolificacy (a real word!! i looked it up!) which contains no photos?

Hiking

Last Saturday, Micah and I went hiking in the Prosiecka Dolina.


Micah is really the one who likes hiking. I just like to take pictures. We have a good deal, I go hiking with him and try not to complain and he waits while i take pictures and tries not to complain.


The particular trail we took was written up in a photocopied flier that we got from the info center. It rated the trail as good for older people or children...


So micah wore his new sandals, because if older people could do it, he could do it in sandals.

we want to know who rates hiking trails in Slovakia? We can not imagine our grandmothers doing this.


the trail did end at a pretty neat water fall


I took over 100 photos and Micah climbed a tree.

do you think I will get in trouble for posting this one?

Flying

Guess who's coming back to the states!!! We're planning to spend the first day sleeping the rest of the first week doing our best to get Judah and Meghan married in style and without incident! and then who knows, what adventures the USofA has in store for us. We're contemplating (and trying to figure out the gas prices) driving across the country to Wyoming. Life was much simpler before my parents moved 20+ hours away from Micah's parents.

I officilally stink at writing newsletters.
also i can not spell
grrrr

Butter

Also, they reengineered butter?! I have not done any baking or cooking since we got here so i have not done any real grocery shopping either. i can not comment on the shape or size of butter in Slovakia or Europe at large. And i dont have an incompatible butter dish to compare. I am afraid that when we get home in October for the wedding, i will not be able to recognize butter the same way that the new 5$ bills threw me off last time i came home form Europe.

definitions

I can not type i would like tho start with that even though it has no bearing on what i want to say. I did one of those things that scans your blog and makes a word cloud. one of the main words in mine was JSUT. i can not spell just. that just took three tries. my hands just get a head of themselves.

anyway what i really wanted to say was that i'm thinking a bout what the point of having the two blogs. The reasoning is that this is my private face in the internet. and the micahandstasi.blosgspot is for more official things. this is where i can be sarcastic and occasionally snarky. it is also the place where i can wax rhapsodic about ClaireMarie and whine about flies. I can tell the funny stories aobut married life here... But i think that havign the other blog will take away from this one. I hope not but you can never tell. i'm going to keep trying.

Also, if that man does not stop ringging that bell i am going to take it and throw it in the river.

I miss you too.

Sorry about the depressing front page. It's Just CampFest, gotta run
pray for us.
Talk to you soon

Stasi

obituary

Rabbit died.

i miss her

i dont even like cats

She was a good kitten

I dont want to talk about it anymore.

hair

I cut my hair.
all by myself!
just like a big girl!!

I have no clue what came over me. I have never cut my own hair. well, I imagine that I must have cut it as a child at some point. I was that kind of kid.

There was that one time we played hairdresser with the Neighbor's dog clippers. But that was my sister's hair and that is a different story. Actually it's just about all there is to the story... except that we cut the neighbor kid's hair in a reverse mohawk and his mom had to totally buzz his head.

Ok, it was just my bangs but it was a totally spur of the moment thing. Still, I think they look good (if a tid bit shorter than i intended).

I am concerned that this will lead to bigger and crazier spur of the moment things. Very little good has come of things that combine spur of the moment and scisors.

Also, i discovered that if you take your self portraits in front of a mirror, you can see what's on the viewscreen in the mirror. Very convenient.

I like italics today.

Micah Vacuums Rabbit

Micah Vacuums Rabbit. from Anastasia Henry on Vimeo.

We named the cat after the car, Kind of. I htink she's so cute here getting feisty with the attachment.

On our honeymoon I bought this little digital camera that shoots video. I wanted to have something smaller than my big SLR and something that Micah could use without freaking out. I have a real video camera, but it's a pain for shooting silly things like this, messing with tapes and capturing and editing and exporting. The little camera just uploads the video when i load pictures.

I'm thinking about shooting and posting more video, especially for MicahandStasi.blogspot.com. what do you think?

FLIES

If you did not know better you might htink that, considering the frequency with which they appear on my blog, that i like flies.
I do not.
Besides the fact that my work area is a tad bit unorderly ("neporiadok" in Slovak) you may note that there are flies all over it. in the first picture there is one on the CD case as well as the one that had the audacity to die on my keyboard. they guy in the second shot was still alive and just buzzing about on his back.  

it's a delightful sound. 

It's a constant sound.

There are 10 flies dead or in the process of beating themselves to death against the closed window above my desk.

One just landed on my shoulder as i typed that last sentence

I want a screen over the open window

well well well

The car is a VW Golf according to all the paperwork....but for some reason, the back says rabbit. So everybody is wrong. But it is definitely NOT a Polo. Now that I think about it, i wish it was.... oh! the fun we could have if it was....MARCO!!! :) :)

Rash 2008 Update.....I will not post pictures. It has gone down some, although it still itches. The cat has a severe case of Notoderic Mange...Feline Scabies. 80% of websites and the Vet say that the mites will not bother humans. 19.9% of websites say that on the off chance they do infect humans the result is "mild and self-limiting". I found one website that described a possible reaction that included intense itching (worse at night) for about 3 weeks. This seems to be the reaction we are having. Lucky us! The good news is that we're already a week and a half in, and as Micah says, it's not like it'll itch intensely for three weeks and then suddenly stop, it has to taper off some.

I updated a bunch of photos to Flickr

we are going to look at an apartment tonight.

I have no clue why i titled this post the way i did...but have you heard the joke about the three holes in the ground?

weird

so all i was doing was a search to see if i could find out if a certain band was at campfest 2007. and i came across this....


this probably doesn't mean much to you, but i edited this. i spent hours lining up beats and editing video from 3 or 4 different performances together. i'm in a sort of awe. When i got tho Slovakia a month ago, Roman told me that this video was playing on the christian TV station and all....but really it's weird seeing somethign you did on youtube if you didnt put it there.

i'm just weirded out and i still don't know if MIC played at CF 07

Skin

I got a shot in my butt. I have a rash that literally covers everyinch of my body between my neck and my ankles front and back. It itches like crazy. now at first it started on my stomach. a patch maybe tyhe size of my palm. but then it started to spread. this is bad, i thought. Micah said, What have you never had a rash? it'll go away stop complaining. so i did. and it continued to spread.
(meanwhile he sunburnt the heck out of his shoulders. Blisters and everythign. and i was quite sympathetic. Even though i predicted this when i saw him without his shirt. i even warmed the aloe before i put it on. and made sure he had enough water.)
but once it coverd over 50% of my body i asked Milos to take me to the doctor. There was no way i could have done this on my own. anyway the doctor looked only at the rash on my right arm, the nurse gave me a shot, they said it was a reaction to some food or lotion (which doesn't' explain why Micah is starting to get the rash too) I got a prescription for some verrry strong antihistamines and two bottles which contain from what i can tell a solution of Aloe and menthol. But i didn't itch when i went to bed last night and i feel a lot better today. We'll see.

Something to think about.

For a long time it had seemed to me that life was about to begin - real life. But here was always some obstacle in the way, something to be gotten through first, some unfinished business, time still to be served, or a debt to be paid. Then life would begin. At last it dawned on me that this was my life. This perspective has helped me to see that there is no way to happiness. Happiness is the way
~Alfred D Souza

Micah tells me this all the time. I was waiting to get to Slovakia, and now that we're here, I'm anxious to get a place of our own. And once we have a place, it will be something else. He's right of course, I do struggle with this. I love being married but I hate being married to someone who's always right.

Around here, the 4th of July is just the day after the 3rd and before the 5th. Eat something off the grill and think of us tomorrow.I have not found my American flag yet. I'm sure it's packed in some bag that i have not gotten to yet. There's not much point in unpacking just to repack everything once they find an apartment for us. This goes against the quote I started with. See, that's how deep it is in me. 

work?

This "weekend" I went with Timothy Sound (Part of YFC Slovakia) to work the main stage at a music festival. They picked me up at the ranch on wednesday around 5. we drove two hours and then worked till about midnight or so unpacking the trucks. Thursday we got to the festival site at 8 and worked till around 11 that night getting the stage and all the wires and monitors stuff set up. We headed back Friday morning around 9 to finish setting up the lights and projector and screen and checking everything. Volnost nad Nevolnom (Freedom in Nevolnom - name of the town) started at 3 that afternoon and went till about 2AM. We slept in till around 10 on Saturday and walked around Kremnica for a bit. We headed to the festival around 2PM and worked till 3AM and then got up at 6 AM (3 hours later) on sunday to tear everything down we finished up around 3PM, and then drove back to the ranch. I did not help unload the truck since once it's all boxed up it's too heavy for me.

It was a great weekend. I enjoyed almost every minute. I came home VERY tired. Micah said he's going to talk to the "powers that be" and ask that they not return me next time until i've had a full night's sleep. I get kind of grumpy when i'm tired. (understatement)

All that to say that i have today free!!
I realized that having the day off to do what i want looks a lot like what i do when i work. (aside from the fact that I slept in till 10 and pent the rest of the morning in bed with the kitten and a good book) I have written a few personal e-mails that i've been putting off. I uploaded and played with some pictures in photoshop. I called the bank. I updated my blog. I uploaded some photoshop brushes. I have not bought any yarn yet so i didn't knit anything. and it's raining so i couldn't go for a walk or anything.

Basically i sat at the computer most of the afternoon, just like a regular day. But i didn't do anything i didn't want to or even anything requiring much thought. i'll work tomorrow, and it will look a lot like this afternoon.

I am either very lucky to have a job that i mostly enjoy, or i am very dull and have no personal boundaries.

Buying a car in a foreign country

This is our newest car. In the past year and a half, I have had 3 new cars. Well, none of them were new, but new to me anyway... Also, the front ends of the other cars got smashed up. I'm hoping against that for this one. I have bad luck with cars.


buying a used car is a simple and straightforward procedure or so we were told. Let me sum it up for you....

The first thing you must do to buy a used car in a foreign country is have money to pay cash. In order to do this, you had to request a temporary salary increase at least 2 weeks in advance. No one told us this. If you did not already request the temporary salary increase, you have two options. You can wait two weeks, stranded at the remote location where you are staying temporarily because you can't live anywhere else without a vehicle. Or you can just empty your bank account and borrow money from people you work with. and then pray that no big expenses come up before the next payday.

The second thing you must do is speak the language. If you don't speak the language, you have to find someone who does. Preferably someone who also speaks English and knows a little about cars. This person should also be willing to give up his free day to drive you around looking for a car. (Paly Biros has put up with more trouble on my behalf than any one person should ever have to. I believe he will get an extra crown in heaven just for that)

The third thing you must have is a temporary stay permit (this is a cluster of a process itself). If you do not have a temporary stay permit yet, you must find a Slovak willing to let you put the car in his name. This person will also have to go to the police station at 5 in the morning to transfer all sorts of paperwork. You will have to go with him. He will also have to do something about insurance (still not clear what or how much it will cost).

After you have gathered these things, you will have to drive your car home. If you buy your car 2 hours from where you live, and you do not know what the road signs mean, this will be a stressful thing.

If you get it home, you must be sure and communicate with the man whose name it is in so that all the bureaucracy will be satisfied. This will be complicated by the fact that he does not speak English.

So we have a car. It is sitting in the parking lot. We have no clue when we will be allowed to actually drive it again. It's ok though, we dont have anywhere else to go.

the brain is a wonderful and mysterious place.

I stood up to go down to the bathrooms and take some pictures. (that sounds funny...because this is a retreat center/campground, they are building extra bathrooms outside...oh never mind)
Anyway, As i stood up, i looked at the clock and the thought that occured to me was,

It is quarter to eleven, do you know where your chickens are?

yeah, i'm a bit confused and surprised too.

dum dun duuunnn

creative control strikes again. and on the first day. lets just say that my morning was a total waste because not only is the great idea i had thrown out the window, i am having trouble wiping the slate clean and starting my brain over on a new track :(

I'm in Slovakia!!!

i have waited over a year to type those words again. It feels good! It is nice to be here. Micah doesn't speak any Slovak so i feel really good about what i remember. Tomorrow when we meet with Milos who doesn't speak much English i may feel differently.
It was 24 hours from when we got to the airport until we landed in Kosice. 13 of those hours were spent sitting in airports. Yes, more time on the ground than in the air. i hate airport chairs. that is all i will say on that subject. period.

I thought we might be in trouble when a couple with a baby sat down next to us on the flight from DC to Germany. I consider it God's very big gift to us that the baby didn't cry once during the whole 8 hour flight. She looked like she was about Claire's age. I think Abi might consider it a very big gift if Claire went 8 hours without crying.

I thought we were really in trouble again when the security guard in Germany told Micah there was a pocket knife in his bag. Micah was 100% sure he put that knife in his checked bag. They emptied his bag, found the knife and threw it away for us (no strip searches or anything). I am not sure wether the knife moved itself to the carry-on before or after we left home. All I know is that it didn't show up when we went through security in Pittsburgh. I'm just saying :)

So to summarize, 13 hours of layovers, 11 hours of turbulence free flights, 1 baby who didn't cry, 1 confiscated pocket knife, 2 Henrys in Slovakia. I count this a successful trip so far!!

moving out

can i just refer you to my other blog? it's a reall busy day. we're moving out tonight. nothing is packed and i'm supposed to be calling the FBI not blogging. gotta run.

Spaghetti Brain

OK updating this has been on my list all week!

And now I'm locked out of my appartment (long story, i'm an idiot, apartment still only has one p) and i'm online at the Library. So I am updating to tell you that we made it!!
if i was not locked out of the apartment, i would be on the phone with the travel agent to finalize tickets right now!! (looks like it'll be June 5th)

going to google and then call a locksmith...more later!

YAY yay YAYAYAYA!!!!

SOOOO CLOSE!!

short post. 

lots of calls to make. lots to do. 

Apartment only has one p in it. Our apartment is a mess. 

I work 9+ hours today. I do not believe that a high school male will start getting ready for Prom at noon. I do not believe that he didn't know about the prom more than a week in advance.

We only need between $425 and $450 in pledges by May 15th to reach our goal!! We are trusting God to bring the needed funds in and plan to leave the 1st week of June!!

WOOT WOOT.....

Panory Time

I feel compelled to reccomend to you subscribe to the new and upcoming blog, Panory Time!! the link is over in my sidebar.
It's written by my brother, Alex. He's a little like me. In fact some people believe that he IS me just 13 years younger and a boy. We even had the same haircut for a while.
I should prepare you by letting you know that a Panory is Alex and his friend's own comic creation. A Panory looks like this:
- -
O

except there's a dot in the middle of the o. add a circle head around the face and a stick body and "pow, you have a Panory"

additionally, it's not all about Panorys....(how do you pluralize a made up word?) Sometimes it's an interesting look into the mind of a kinda different 12 year old.

I may be biased. but I love the little Booger, and i think everyone else should too.

below the fold....

No one was in either car, no one was hurt. Just my poor car. The whole story is someone parked uphill in the parking lot from us, without using the parking brake. Consequently, the jeep rolled down the slight hill and into my car.

When we parked the car last night, it was fine. This morning, Micah came back up to the apartment to ask if the car was OK when we parked it last night. (we got home kinda late) :(

Then told me that he had bad news.
Then i felt like crying.
Then the police came.
Then I got fully dressed.
Then i spent all morning on the phone with insurance agents and claims people, who only return calls once you have given up and gotten into the tub.

They keep calling it "your loss" like someone died or something....

It is time to leave the country!

Breaking News in Grove City....

That is all I have to say.

LOOK WHAT I DID!!

OK, I might be taking a bit more credit than I'm due with the whole what I did thing. BUT I Planted these as SEEDS!!! I put my hands In DIRT on the Kitchen Counter......AND! thy haven't died yet!! This (as well as the BEAUTIFUL! weather the past few days) calls for LOTS!!! of Exclamation points!!! and CAPITAL!!! LETTERS!!
I think it's the influence of the farm boy I married. Sometimes though green things in my care live a while and then die unexpectedly. I just hope they turn into flowers soon and look just like the seed packets...only actually GROWING in the pots on my windowsill!!

Spring is here. I can tell because of the little green sprouts on my windowsill, and the increased amount of pressure in my sinuses and the volume of my sneezing. I LOVE! SPRING!!!

referral

It is my humble opinion that everyone should go and look at pictures of my niece in the wild. 

she crawls with her head on the ground, burps and eats dirt.

I tell you what sir. Babies have the life!

Random update stuff

I got a job as a waitress in a BBQ place here in town.  Waitress is the one job I always have always said I could never do. I figured that I would be no good at it. I was mostly right, but since I work the lunch shift we are never too busy and I manage to hold my own. A customer has only made me cry once.

During the past week or so I have collected a number of random thoughts. 

1) The phrase "Dodge Garage" rhymes. Even though it doesn't look like it should. I am surprised that more advertisements don't use this in their radio jingles. It is so perfect that it should be cliche by now.

2) A funeral procession went past the other day. At the end of it there was an ambulance. This seemed backwards to me. I mean I've heard of ambulance chasers, but that's ridiculous! Maybe it was an old person who died and lots of old people came to the funeral? (or it could be that it just got stuck behind the procession)

3) Only 30% of Americans have passports. This is logical to me and sad at the same time.

4) I sometimes watch subtitled TV in my downtime. The other day a lady on the travel channel tried Pickles with Honey & Sour cream. Wether it tastes good or not is totally irrelevant (btw, the travel channel lady said it was good). The real issue is WHO thought this would be a good idea to try in the first place? 

5) I think my brain needs a better music filtering system. In the past week I have had in my head: It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas, Heart and Soul, Freak Parade, Personal Penguin, I Surrender All, My Maria, and various other random, out of season, and generally uncalled for music. 

Dear Brain, could we please stick to the top 40 pop country and christian charts? or at least seasonally appropriate songs that I know all the words to?

6) Occasionally the Closed captioning on ESPN is jibberish that looks like some sort of Scandinavian language. I can't imagine that deaf sports fans appreciate this.

7) spell check wants me to spell jibberish with a G. I politely declined.

8) This is Micah's foot. This picture was taken on my living room floor. It is directly related to the log that was in the bathtub for awhile. In fact the parts of the picture that aren't Micah's foot are pieces of the log that was in the bathtub.

9)We have pledges for 71% of our monthly support!! Looks more and more like we will be getting out of here BY THE END OF MAY!!!

10) I lost my cell phone. If you have it, please call me. It has been deactivated and I have another now. (thanks Mr Phil and Mom) If i used to have your phone number, chances are it was programed in my cell phone and consequently I may no longer have it. Give me a call sometime and then I'll have it again.

Well, there you have it. 10 or so random things that have recently occupied space in my brain.

one of those days

did you ever have one of those days where everything you wanted to do is taking twice as long, you have a thousand e-mails to answer, and appointments to schedule and the kitchen is full of smoke and somehow you lost an entire plate of cooked bacon....and then found an entire plate of cooked bacon on. the. couch! with no clue how it got there. admittedly my couch in only about 10 feet from my stove but STILL!

roller coaster

I love roller coasters. It is stretching to get on them: knowing that I'm about to be scared to death but trusting that the engineers did their job and I will get back off (in one piece). I always keep one eye on the chicken ramp until the moment that I get strapped in. I love to scream. I am the one who burst your eardrums last summer. I do not put my hands in the air. I hold on 'til my knuckles are white. But when the ride stops I feel like I won something.

If you guessed that there was a non-theme-park related reason that i am blogging about roller coasters in February, you win!
Getting on the Steel Phantom or the Thunderbolt is one thing. Living a roller coaster is another--and I'm tired of it, worn out by it. I'm strapped in, committed. The chicken ramp is not an option anymore. I'm holding on for dear life. But i'm getting tired of the ups and downs I wish that I could count on staying right side up for awhile, I want my feet on solid ground again. Preferably Slovak ground.

huh?

One of the greatest joys of being married and sharing a bed is that you get to hear the other person's last incoherent ramblings while they are half asleep.

Micah swears that the other night i started to sing "how much is that Hippo in the window" but then stopped and asked what sound a hippo made. I do not remember this. I think he is making it up.

Last night Micah said to me "you should call the Superbowl people" we have talked about watching the game a number of places so i asked him which people he meant...it went downhill from there.
Micah: call whichever ones you can get a hold of.
Me: what should i tell them
tell them that you like ice cream
huh?
and tell them that rice cakes don't taste good but they are good for you. but if you eat them with milk they fill you up so they're good if you want to lose weight
ok then, should i ask them anything?
yes, ask them where Polaris is located in the winter sky

oh yes, married life is all i thought it would be and more!

Hey I put my new shoes on!!

YAY!! a happy theme song for my tuesday!!

well, Technicaaly, they are socks, but look how cool they are!! and i guess they weren't NEW today, they were a christmas gift thtat accidentally got put away in the wrong place and it's the first time i've worn them. they are soft and wonderful!!!!



and i put on a pair of sneakers that had gotten burried with my flip flops.

and suddenly everyhting is right!!

GERMANY!!!!

Ganz Meine Meinung!!!
:) :)
this is my new favorite phrase (in german)

it means "i agree COmpletely!"

my cousin Sarah taught it to me

i am using it every chance I get.

Micah would like to learn how to say contemptable. i think my enthusiasm is overwhelming to him!!

I am a moron

I just said "have a good" evening to someone right after he told me that he was going to a funeral.

Take Luck...and care....take care....of your luck....You too!!



Micah introduced me to Brian Regan (not literally). He does not look like anime in real life. please, pretend that it is an audio clip.

thinking in Slovak

I speak English differently when I am thinking about Slovakia or to a Slovak person. When i was over there last year I worried that I might permanently loose my already precarious grasp of the proper usage of articles, proper verb conjugations and prepositions. (Mrs. Pringle would be so disappointed in me)
I was writing a short e-mail note to the YFC/MPK folks in Slovakia just to wish them all a merry christmas. i found myself typing things like "...wish very much that we can come..." and "we are having trouble to raise" and "please tell everyone in MPK office"

In other (kind of a downer) news: In spite of the fact that, over the past 5 days, we have celebrated Christmas in all the places we might ever consider home: our apartment, my grandmothers house, my parents house, Micah's parents house, I am feeling homesick for the place that i have never lived. I honestly thought we'd celebrate our first Christmas in the Low Tatra mountains at the YFC Ranch this year. I have to remind myself that sharing our first christmas with all our relatives is a huge blessing and that God's timing is never wrong.

Marriage Changes Your Perspective

Micah has started cutting Blondie cartoons out of the Sunday paper and attaching them to the fridge. He says that Blondie used to be his least favorite comic but, since we got married, it is quickly becoming his favorite. I dont know what to think about this. I might have liked it better when his sense of humor had less to do with married life and more to do with cars. Unless his old favorite comic had more to do with marriage than i realized....

The Year in Song

Can you spot My and Micah's lines?

(To the tune of “We Didn’t Start the Fire” by Billy Joel)

True confessions, Resignation, Lots of prayer and restoration
Bathroom renovations, Camping on the beach

Accountability, Gratitude and humility
Family reunions, Gobs-no gluten, Lots of tea with peach

Chicken dance, Songs to sing, Manifests and tracking
Resumes, Interviews, Business meetings in canoes

Tie your shoes, Comb your hair; Do you have the dog in there?
Getting Alex out the door, I can’t take it any more…

We didn’t see this coming…
Yes, it caught us nappin’
Now it’s got us rappin’
We didn’t see this coming…
Didn’t plan to do it,
But God saw us through it.

Blogspot, iPod, Control freak, Trusting God,
5K, Rainy day, Run around the block.

Movies at the Guthrie, Dinosaurs at Carnegie,
Full-time, Over-time, Work around the clock.

Mother of the Bride dress, Could I have any more stress?
Wedding days, Pirate games, Jose, Jose, Jose.

Labor and delivery, Grandma Brenda, GB.
Whimsical Tuesdays, What else do I have to say?

We didn’t see this coming…
Yes, it caught us nappin’
Now it’s got us rappin’
We didn’t see this coming…
Didn’t plan to do it,
But God saw us through it.

Slovakia, Airports, Wedding plans, New York
Wedding jars, I do, Mrs. Micah Henry

Malibu honeymoon, Grove City - two rooms
Drive across the country, Quarter of a century

Student teaching, College grad, Move back in with Mom and Dad
Big Apple, All of us on a New York City Bus

Grandma’s pearls, La Maze class, Phipps bride, Chihuly Glass
Claire Marie the Fabulous, Now Jimmy’s one of us.

We didn’t see this coming…
Yes, it caught us nappin’
Now it’s got us rappin’
We didn’t see this coming…
Didn’t plan to do it,
But God saw us through it.

Greg Holland, boyfriend, Yes they’re dating once again
PennDOT, Internship, Construction worker tan.

Car wreck, Bridesmaid twice, Canada was pretty nice
Junior year, Fancy House, Geneva Marching Band.

Twenty years looks like fourteen; he said so in Counseling
Drove the roller, and the paver, Her first College B.

Sister-of-the-Year award, Roadwork makes her really bored
First-time aunt, wait I can’t, make this rhyme with anything…

We didn’t see this coming…
Yes, it caught us nappin’
Now it’s got us rappin’
We didn’t see this coming…
Didn’t plan to do it,
But God saw us through it.

PanoryFest, Big success, Harry Potter, DS
Swimming lessons, Tennis camp, Down the water slides

Uncle Alex, Frog rock, Shower days, Alarm clock
Camp Invention, No detention, Brother of the brides

Black Belt, Tae Kwon Do, keeping Mom on the go
Mahaffey Camp, Wildwood, Principal’s Office

Sixth Grade, Journaling, Suicide, Counseling
Paper route, We’ll find out, if ’08 can top this…

We didn’t see this coming…
Yes, it caught us nappin’
Now it’s got us rappin’
We didn’t see this coming…
But when we are gone
God will still go on and on and on and on…

Things....

Things I like
~Vacation on the beach with fireworks each night.
~Street Luge with two old men and a broken car.
~Driving my "Cute Lil Thang" Roxy down the Highway.


Things I do not like
~Having my car stolen.
~Caravanning with truckers.
~Doing the dishes for a beach house full of people.
~Waking up from all these weird dreams.

*edit* yes, all of these were the contents (that i remember) of a night worth of really weird dreams.

PS does anyone know if Giraffes have an aversion to standing on level surfaces? or did my brain make that up last night.

If You're Happy and you know it.....

Go Around Twice!!

It's time to start getting into the Spirit!! And being in the Christmas spirit doesn't have to do with red and green or lights or ornaments or spending $150 on the perfect little black dress, or getting 25 gifts for under $50. It's certainly not about going broke (but if you are, be sure and flash your lights)
The Christmas spirit is all about Luke 2:14 "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth, peace, good will toward men"
I'll share pictures of my christmas decorations and thoughts about Peace and Glory to God in later posts, but for today, have some good will. Good will toward men is all about attitude, it's letting someone ahead of you a crowded store, not yelling at your kids about glitter all over the living room carpet, and sometimes, it might be going around twice just to let the Happy out. So here's my little attempt at good will in case i don't see you in person today. Because making someone smile goes a long way toward Good will.
So i hope you aceept my good will for what it's worth and then go out and share some of your own with someone else...if you do that, you might come a long way closer to Peace on Earth and Glory to God than you might think.

new car...yet to be named

it's snowing. the "feels like" temperature is currently 25. i belive it. the low tonight is supposed to be 29 degrees. it is cold. tomorrow's high is 36.
this seems like the perfect time to blog about our new car. it is a convertable :)
a new car might seem like a frivolous thing for two newlyweds leaving the country.
a convertable might seem like a rediculous thing to have in WPA in the late fall.
but Micah's car.....well it currently resides in Mercer Auto Wreckers Land. The rear bumper was hangin on by sheer will and a few zip ties (and maybe some bubblegum). and the muffler (well, technically the entire exhaust system) stopped hanging on a while ago. He had to take a route home from work that didnt go through any towns. Darn cops and their enforcing the state laws and all. So, the car needed replaced before Micah went to jail.
Also, we bought the car salvaged in September and we (micah & my dad) worked on it in my parents driveway for weeks. and when we got it all spiffied up (new headlights grill, muffler, tires, and scrubbed all up) we took it to get inspected. I got a call asking if there ws a trick to staring the car. the starter failed. So Micah and I drove to Connoquenessing, push started the darn car and took it back to my parents. and then we left for a month.
when we came back, Micah fixed the starter in the living room. with a Soldering pen. in the LIVING ROOM. The "fixed" starter ran long enough for the darn thing to pass inspection. Abi & Claire spent a day driving me around to get all the paperwork and stuff done. Then the next day, when Micah and i came to take the car home, the starter failed. We push started it agian, (Micah's really good at this) and drive it home to Grove City.
Micah put a new starter in and new speakers and a fuel filter. there is also talk of a new thermostat. I set the clock.and anyway we now have a convertable in Western PA in November. I never even got to drive it with the top down. i did dream that i did the other night though (seriously) I like it. we may lookinto shipping it to Slovakia.

Bold FLY!!

well, it took almost a month but i finally got a picture of that darn bold fly.
i swear i will update again soon....keep your eyes open for the cross country road trip, our new convertable, and Abi's wedding.

bold fly

in my appartmment, we have no hot water. we also have a very bold fly. it woke me up this morning buzing in one ear and then the other. it lands on my hands while i type and it will not leave mmy hot chocolate alone. once the plumber comes to fix the water heater, i am going to wal-mart and buying one of those hanging fly sticky thingys that I hate. because i hate this fly immmesurably more. ("bold fly" sounds like a great name for a band) (a really annoying band)

--

Most people would wait to scrub their kitchen floor until the hot water heater was fixed huh? especially if "scrub kitchen floor" wasn't even on the 29 item to do list for the day. I am not most people. the kitchen floor was grossing me out. I am not mmost people, i am distractable, procrastinating, compulsive people. it is hereditary.

CAMPFEST 2007!!

In spite of my prayers and VERY strong desire, i wasn't at Campfest this year. But it went on without me. So here's the rundown on the "Event of the Year."

More than 4500 young people from Slovakia, Czech republic, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, USA, Poland and Romania visited the festival. They created a "tent city" where they lived for the weekend.There were 160 total volunteers, and there was a group of volunteers from Holland who came helped us a lot with manual work and publicity. A miracle for us was the group of Americans from Italy who came with willingness to do some of the less pleasant work. The rest of the volunteers were Slovaks who worked very hard before, during and after the festival. There was also about 80 spiritual counselors, a thirty member team dedicated to prayer in addition to the technical and organization teams.

The program was very rich and each person could choose something according to the style they liked - All styles of music bands, pantomimes, dramas, talks, seminars, childrens programs, movies with christian themes, soccer, beach volleyball, a jump house for the kids, and an inflatable water football game. There were bands from Great Brittan, Poland, and Germany in addition to bands form Slovakia. All that helped to create good time for the visitors of CampFest 2007.

What was happening behind the stage was not always visible to the participants...but it was no less important. The Lord was at work, He touched hearts and changed lives. We got some feedback from counselors who had discussions in special tent that was set aside just for that purpose. Altogether there were about 550 discussions and from those about 50 the people decided to accept Jesus into their lives. About 150 discussions were about going deeper in relationship with God and confessing their sins. About 100 people searched for help with problems in relationships- family, friends.

Wedding Photos

a few at least and then a link to more





here's the link to the set.
I'm in CO again for MTI training, it's going well.
we've been married 3 months, we arent dead yet.
my to do list is long, the promised blog subjects are coming.

Can you see it?

Well, here's the photo of my new hair. I'm the one on the left. Alex, my baby brother is the one on the right. When I was his age, my hair was that blonde.

My mom always said that Alex looks like me when I was his age. We have the same face, the same stubborn cowlick, and the same goofy smile. Looking at pictures of me when I was little I could see it. But it turns out now that he's grown up and especially with my new haircut and glasses Alex looks like me...now.

Looking like other family members is nothing new for me. Ami and I once got the same haircut in different states. Another time I dyed my hair the same color as my mom's. And for two years our glasses were really similar before I got these new ones. I consider my mom and sisters when i change my appearance, I just never thought to consider my 11 year old brother.

I like my new haircut even if it does make me look a lot like my 11 year old brother.

Things that need (to be) said....Who knew?

It was my Senior year of College!! before anyone said anything about the absence of "to be" in my grammar: "Can someone cover for me tomorrow, my paper needs written", "This tape needs labeled", "The schedule needs filled in-do it now!"

It seems to me like the kind of thing that your English teacher, or your parents would tell you before you left the state to pursue higher education. But then again, it also seems to me that you parents wouldn't let you make it out of Kindergarten before telling you that the sleeves on a shirt are not called "arm-sleeves"! (pant legs, arm-sleeves it made sense to me)

What follows is my edited (read: stolen and chopped up) version of what yinz would find over on Wikkipedia

need, like, or want + past participle

Examples:
“The car needs washed”; “Babies like cuddled”; “The cat wants petted.”

The Right Way:
“Babies like cuddling” or “Babies like to be cuddled”; “”The car needs washing” or “The car needs to be washed”; and “The cat wants petting” or “The cat wants to be petted.”

Useless Facts:
Need + past participle is the most common construction, followed by want, and then like. The forms are "implicationally related" to one another. Put another way, the existence of the least common construction implies the necessary existence of the two more common constructions, but the existence of the most common construction does not necessarily entail existence of the two less common constructions.

Origins:
like and need + past participle are Scots-Irish, want + past participle could be from Scots-Irish or German, but it seems likely that this construction is Scots-Irish.
The distributions of all three constructions are implicationally related, the area where they are predominantly found is most heavily influenced by Scots-Irish.

(Murray, Frazer and Simon 1996; Tenny 1998; McElhinny 1999; Murray and Simon 1999; Montgomery 2001; Johnstone, Bhasin and Wittkofski 2002; Murray and Simon 2002; Wisnosky 2003; Johnstone and Baumgardt 2004; Johnstone, Andrus and Danielson 2006; Crozier 1984).

Look at me gettin' all fancy with sources n'at.

breakfast & blogs

Usually, I go back to bed after micah leaves in the morning. This mornign i stayed up and ate a bowl of Corn Pops. I bought 3 boxes of cereal on Sunday. Buy 2 get 1 Free! There are now three times more boxes of cereal in the appartment than there are people living here. I do not know what I was thinking. I blame genetics. Visit Miss Brenda's blog and ask her how many boxes of cereal she had last week before the Great Cereal Purge of '07.

While I was eating my cereal, I redesigned the template on Miss Brenda's Blog. She compared me to her plumber. I am pretty sure that was not flattery. I expect the flattery will begin once she sees my handiwork.

Coming Soon...to a Blog Near You!

(the title needs read out loud in your most dramatic voice)

I have a whole list of stuff to blog about.
in the upcoming days you can look forward to reading about:

- strange things in the doctors office
- my new hair=my brother's old hair (with pictures!)
- our new car
- a link to wedding photos (better late than never, eh?)
- Henry-Slovakia Update
- to be homesick, you have to have to define home
- Campfest 2007!!
- driving across the country
- proper omission of "to be" (i.e. "this entry needs lots of quotes and parentheses")

not guarentteed to appear in this order.

how do you spell garinteed?

geranteed?

garentead?

gaurantteed?

garentteid?

garunteid?

gahrunteed?

geruntead?

geruntteed?

I believe there's a "U" somewhere.....and a few double letters....i dont know why i'm convinced that double T's seem right....it's a lot more fun to play with it than to look it up.

Maybe learning to read with phonics will turn out to be a problem after all. But making those letter snakes out of my dad's old tie was so much fun in kindergarten. (Miss Brenda, do we have any pictures of my snake??)

gettin' all science-y here

Has anyone else noticed that the ammount of perishables in your grocery bag and your need to get to the bathroom directly corrolates to the ease with which your key fits into the lock and also the ease with which it turns? it also seems to be related to how far the kitchen table juts out into your path, but that may be incidental

Nick the Amazing

loook!! Nick the Amazing strikes again!! he fixed the T in my header!!!
Hi Nick, i didnt even know you were reading :)
I made an apointment today to get my hair cut on monday. I'm going back to the short style i had last september.
in spite of having internet, i am rather dull.
We spoke to a missions comittee on Tuesday and Micah's COusin;s church is going to support us to go to Slovakia!!
YAY

Ta DAAA

I have quit playing with my template. I wish the T was capitalized in "this" but I rasterized my font in Photoshop. that means it would be a pain in the neck to fix it. It also means that I am too lazy to fix it.

Micah has 3 days off this weekend!! Initially he told me that he had to work Saturday and Sunday. He likes getting a rise out of me...not that it's a difficult thing to do. Tonight Micah took me out to dinner instead of bringing me flowers since he stopped at the dentist on the way home.We had pizza. Not at the place downstairs, we went to the really fancy restaurant....Pizza Hut!! Then we went to the library and got a library card to check out a few Andy Griffith DVD's. Then we went on a romantic walk to the gas station to buy a newspaper. I love Friday date nights :)

glasses & the internet

I have given up on having good hair. I am settling for having clean hair...and really good looking new glasses :)
Just so you know, my face isn't really purple. I have no clue what is wrong with my white balance


Also, you may be wondering, why all the posting? most of the answer is that it beats doing the dishes.
The real answer is that last week after having little or no internet in the appartment, I went over to the barber shop across the street and asked if he would give us the password to his wireless internet in exchange for a small fee. After convincing him that I was "the nerd" in my marriage and he didn't need to discuss this with my husband, and after assuring him that neither of us would hack into his business account, he gave me the password.
And, since I braved the barber shop, Micah put away the groceries. Somehow the egg noodles ended up in the refrigerator. But we have internet and I didnt have to carry the groceries up the steps, so I'm not complaining.

Creative air conditioning

Micah has had a problem this summer, the air conditioning unit is in the bedroom and the couch is in the living room.

How Micah has been keeping cool.

ouchys

I fell in a creek yesterday. my arm is scraped and sore and my knee is brusied. my shoes have dried, but my jeans are still covered in mud.
I got really nice new glasses, but I don't have good hair at the same time that I have a desire to photograph myself. Micah's started working 6 10-hour days, so he's not here to take my picture either. and agian, i never remember when i have good hair.
I'm thinking of cutting my hair like i did last year around this time, all off.
Yes, it is all about me

Obviously, i have a rather loose interpretation of "A Slovakia Update in the next few days". but anyway, here is one....kind of....
i'm going to try and do better about posting here. maybe tomorrow i'll tell you all about why and how we buy our internet from a barber.

I know I’ve been out of communication for a while, but I have a good excuse (I think so anyway) and he’s sitting on the couch right next to me while I type this letter. I spent the last few months in wedding planning mode. Micah and I got married at the end of June and after our honeymoon in California, and getting settled into our new apartment in Grove City, PA, I am getting settled back into missionary mode and you are getting the update that I owe you as well as a brief introduction to Micah.
I figured that rather than me trying to describe him, I’d let Micah share his vision and calling in his own words

“For the last few years God has impressed on my heart that He has a plan to use the talents and skills that He has given me for His glory. I feel like God has called me to work and use my hands to share His love by meeting the needs of his people. I mostly shrugged this off, however, as something that would never come to fruition. The vision that God had placed in my heart was not one of great evangelistic work, and so I never thought that I would pursue full-time mission work.

But praise God, He had other plans. As you know, Stasi recently spent a year in Slovakia. It was during this time that God began broadening my limited view of how he calls and uses people in His service. I could no longer avoid pursuing God’s call just because it would not fit into a classical view of full-time missions. I began praying that God would show me how He wanted to use me, and that if God wanted Stasi and me to be married, that He would show us a place where we both could serve Him.

Neither of us thought that this would end up being in Slovakia. But after seeing the need at the ranch, the role that it will play in realizing Youth for Christ’s vision for change and revival in Slovakia, and how God could use us both there as part of His master plan, we both know that this is where God wants us to be.

I don’t think that I can fully relate to you just how unqualified I feel to be the caretaker/manager at YFC’s ranch/camp. But I do know that our God is able to do above and beyond all that we can think or imagine possible. And since God goes before us, I know that we have nothing to worry about.”

At the end of September Micah will be doing in the cross cultural training that I did before I left for Slovakia last year and I will be joining him so that we can learn and process together. After that training, the only thing we need before we can leave for Slovakia is to complete our fundraising.

Because we will be ministering in a different area and capacity than I was in last year, and because there are two of us now, our budget has gone up from what I had to raise for last year. In addition to the up front costs we need to raise, we need to receive $3,200 in monthly pledges. YFC’s policy is that we must have all our support pledged before we can set a departure date, but it is our goal to be in Slovakia before the end of October.

We believe that God will raise up a team of people who will join with us in our ministry through prayer and financial support, and we hope that you will continue be a part of that team. If you gave to my ministry last year would you please pray about continuing your support and possibly increasing your pledge? If you never took that chance last year would you pray and ask God where you fit in our new ministry? But most importantly would you please keep us in your prayers, as we raise support and prepare to go?

Keep your eyes open for our next update, we’ll share more details about our ministry in Slovakia then.

Still Living an adventure,
Micah & Stasi Henry


P.S. Because Micah and I combined accounts, we are starting from zero. If you plan to continue giving on a prior pledge, YFC needs to receive a new donor slip. Please fill out and send in the slip at the bottom of this letter.