It’s so funny thinking about how different technology was when I was 17. On my first day in Van, I saw a boy Stu who my friend Steven had introduced me to that summer. He came up to me in the hall before our first class and asked if he could help me find my class. He looked at my schedule and we realized that we had the first 3 periods together so we sat together in all of them. The zipper of my backpack got stuck at one point and he tried to get it unstuck for me and it broke off in his hand and he felt SO bad. He also went to CCF youth group and played in a band. I was intrigued. I was actually spending time with Stefan outside of school, but some things happened and that fizzled and after that I started to have a crush on Stu. My family knew about this and so one day over Christmas break the phone rang and my mom rushes into my room, “Stu is on the phone asking for you.” At that point we didn’t even own a cordless phone much less cell phones. I went out to talk to him in the living room and my parents and Dan who was home for break all conviently found important things they HAD to do in the living room right then of course. It took several more months and a lot of encouragement from our friends, but in March he finally told me he liked me which was good because the anticipation of if he was ever going to ask me out almost killed me!
When Dan would stay at the house, he would sleep on an air mattress. One of our favorite things to do was lay on the mattress as it inflated and at the last minute it would pop us up. The funniest times were when I had my foam curlers I would sleep in in because it made me look extra nerdy.
When Dan would stay at the house, he would sleep on an air mattress. One of our favorite things to do was lay on the mattress as it inflated and at the last minute it would pop us up. The funniest times were when I had my foam curlers I would sleep in in because it made me look extra nerdy.
I didn't get my liscence til the summer when I was 17. Before that Dad or Mom would drive me to school. Sometimes Dad would drive me in one of the Mercy Ships vehicles that he liked to call the "Bat Mobile." It was SO loud and SO ugly that I would make him drop me off in the front of the school instead of the back where the majority of the kids came in to school. Because of my extreme embarrasement, he also took great joy in honking the horn as I was getting out of the car at the school. He also reminded me today that I would slink down in the seat and hide as he would rev the engine as we passed the police station.
That spring Miss Kelly and Andy got married so I flew out to the wedding. I was SO happy that they were getting married since I had seen their relationship from the beginning on the ship. Keri, Jeff, and I were all in the wedding. Since we didn't have the dresses til we got there, I didn't realize how long they were. I was walking down the aisle with Kelly's brother who I thought was super hot. My one hand was looped through his arm and the other was holding my flowers. All was well til I got to the 3 steps up to the stage. Step 1: Step on dress. Step 2: Step further onto dress. Step 3: 3rd step even deeper into dress and boy had to drag me to my feet. I was SO embarrassed, but just starting laughing. Then the next 2 bridesmaids came up the aisle and did the same thing. Since their backs were to the audience, they couldn't see what was going on, but I could and I was laughing so hard there were tears streaming down my face. I was feeling very bad and unprofessional in my bridesmaid duties, but Kelly's mom was in the front row and could see it all and was laughing with me just as much.
In May, we had a Mercy Ships retreat. There was a swimming pool and a river that we could swim in. Rachel and I decided that that night all of us Mercy Ships teen girls were going to go skinny dipping after it got dark and we were SO excited! That day we all had gone swimming for several hours and none of us thought to put sunscreen on. We planned how we were going to ditch the boys after spending the evening playing cards with them, but as the evening wore on, we got more and more sore and red and finally realized the extent of our sunburns. It was so bad that the thought of jumping in the water was painful. Instead we ditched the boys, put on the most loosely fitting clothes we could find, grabbed some snacks and found a place where we could tell secrets and talked into the wee hours of the morning.
That summer was a really hard one. I have always believed that travel was a good determination of whether a relationship could work or not. A group of us from our youth group went to the Philippeans and Stu and I were both on it. Let’s just say that we broke up shortly after. That trip was really hard for lots of reasons, and when we got back to the US, our youth group basically dissolved and many of us were devasted about a lot of things that had happened.
That summer was a really hard one. I have always believed that travel was a good determination of whether a relationship could work or not. A group of us from our youth group went to the Philippeans and Stu and I were both on it. Let’s just say that we broke up shortly after. That trip was really hard for lots of reasons, and when we got back to the US, our youth group basically dissolved and many of us were devasted about a lot of things that had happened.
That summer when I arrived home from the Phillipeans, Crissy and Selena came to visit. Selena has just met this man Vishal and was nervous because he was coming to PA when she went home.
Starting my senior year was really hard with everything going on. Some of my sweetest memories were of my Mercy Ships youth friends especially Peter, Rachel, Doug, and Cari. We were always creating adventures and I would not have passed Algebra 2 that year without Peter!
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