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.

some random thoughts

Micah told me on our honeymoon that he liked my pedigree. I think he meant my pedicure. not that my pedigree is anything to sneeze at.

Blueberry rice was only a good idea if i had added more rice. and if Micah liked blueberries. it was a great purple color though!

Changing your name is a royal pain in the butt!

We got Married!!

I am Mrs. Henry now.

sorry bout the lack of updates, the wedding ate my last two months. also sorry about the lack of pictures. to try and fix that, here's a link to Nick the Amazing's photos from the weekend. he does not call himself "The Amazing". that's just in my little world. if you have pictures, i'd love to see them!

the wedding was ammmazing. i had a great day! Aside from one or two transportation snafus (I forgot to obsess over that small detail! thanks for bailing us out Heidi :)) everything was perfect! I am convinced that if you didnt have fun, it was your own fault!

look for a Slovakia Update in the next few days.

UPDATE!!!!

I'm sorry that I have been so negligent in keeping you all in the loop since I got home.

The summary is pretty basic though, I've been practicing using doorknobs, remembering how to flush toilets, spending time with Micah and my family, adjusting to being back in the states and trying my best not to compare everything to “how we do in in Slovakia”. Micah and I will be getting married on June 30th at Mars Alliance Church.

I have also been working on preparing some videos and PowerPoint presentations to share my time with you all and getting ready to go back to Slovakia.

Micah has been officially accepted with Youth for Christ. He has spent a week in Denver for Candidate Orientation and is getting ready to head to Indiana for 10 days of training with YFC during the first half June (5th –14th).

Micah and I spoke last Sunday at the Garman Church of God and we’re planning to share that a few more times. If you’d like to meet with us and hear about what God did in Slovakia the past year and what He has in store for us in the days ahead, just send an e-mail or give me a call.

The news from Slovakia is good. The café is open in Presov and four Christian bands have already recorded their album in our studio. Timothy is also going to record their live album in the end of May. They’re preparing 24/7 prayers May 19 – 26 with cooperation with six local churches there in Presov.

At the Ranch they’re dealing with building and hygiene permissions, water supply and permission from the electricians. June 1-3 will be the Mobilization conference at the Ranch. It’ll be a time of prayers and fasting for youth in Slovakia. The main aim of the conference is to mobilize people to pray for the ministry among youth in Slovakia. For those who believe that we can become more involved in God’s plan with young generation through prayers.
Everything at the ranch and national office is building up to CampFest on August 9th. We expect about 6000 people to come.

Please pray for Micah as he prepares and travels to this training and for us as we plan the final details of the wedding and fundraise. Even though I’m home, please continue to pray with me for the ministry of YFC in Slovakia.

a month

i've been home a month.
i have horribly neglected this blog.
i'll do better i promise.

today is my name day in Slovakia.
i'll be accepting candy and flowers all day long.

I'm baaaack!

i am home in mars, using our wireless internet on my bedroom floor!
the flights home were mostly unremarkable besides a problem with my luggage at the start and some turbulance getting into boston.
the dog and my brother have gotten huge, i got to be AlMeade's "rester" (person who lays with him till he falls asleep) tonight. he asked me. it is good to be home.
i still remember how to use a doorknob. I am shocked by how much ice restaurants put into a glass of soda. we went to eatnpark for grilled stickes. Micah and i got a little lost on the way.
oh life is good. i am going to bed. i think i've slept like 4 of the last 25 hours and those were a nap on a plane. . . .

T minus 33 hours

update on my room: you might not have thought this possible, but it looks worse. :)
i have a box of soup packed and ready to mail to myself, and all of my socks and like items packed. in a suitcase!
i had dinner with the o'Connells, gave Andrea some books and my miniature rose bush. and opened my last bottle of ale-8 let the caffeene fueled packing begin.
my problem with packing is not actually getting things into suitcases. i am a master at getting lots of stuff into the suitcases. a handy skill when packing to drive home from college. the difference is that darned airplanes have weight limits. everything into a suitcase, no problem, everything weighing less than 75 pounds. well, i cant change the weight of things :(
i continue to maintain that by personally weighing in under 125 pounds, i should get an extra baggage allowance. i should be allowed more baggage weight than someone who weighs 200 pounds for example.

back to packing...