Dreams coming true at 20

20 started with a few more dreams being fulfilled for me. Since I was 16 and had to read Les Miserables, I had been dying to see the Broadway play. I remember Stefan told me that he had a surprise for me for my birthday and asking what I thought it was and I was too afraid to hope that that could be it because that was what I wanted most, but sure enough my 20th birthday came and he had arranged to take me to NYC to see it. The year before while watching the ball drop on TV, I had mentioned outloud, "Someday I am going to spend New Years in Time Square and see the ball drop in person" to which the people with me just laughed at me. Well New Years when I was 20, Stefan, his sister, Liz, Jordan, and I headed to Time Square and saw it live. I was freezing and the ball was WAY smaller than I thought it would be, but it was amazing to fulfill something I had wanted to do and I think everyone should spend at least 1 New Years in Time Square. It happened to be right after 9/11 and the security was CRAZY that year and as the confetti fell at midnight Stefan said, "I bet this is laced with anthrax." Luckily we survived.

That May Stefan and I broke up and shortly after, I headed to TX for Jill's wedding. After the hustle and bustle of New Haven, I basked in the slow quiet pace of Van. I spent a month in TX hanging out with Rachel and Jessica and working in the Mercy Ships mailroom. That was such a fun summer. My last weekend before heading back to CT, Rachel, Genae, Tamar and I took a road trip to Houston to pick up Laura. We listened to the Moulin Rouge soundtrack the whole way, went to the beach, musuems, and had so much fun. Then we picked Laura up and stopped at a gas station. Laura went to put more oil in the car, but poured it down the wrong spot and hot oil splashed up in her face. None of us had seen it happened, but Laura was crying and yelling and we were paralysed with fear. The owner of the gas station finally called an ambulance and Laura was rushed to the hospital. Luckily she didn't have any lasting facial scars, but it was such a scary situation.

I headed back to CT, but met with the YWAM leadership and told them that I would be moving back to TX 6 weeks later. Those 6 weeks were a sweet time of rest, spending quality time with people I loved before heading back to TX and restoration with Steef. The week before I moved, all of YWAM New Haven road tripped to IL for Ricci and Jeremy's wedding. Emily, Stefan, Brian and I drove together and had so much fun. Then on the way home, our car broke down and we got stuck at Emily's parents house for several days of forced rest and vacation.

Ricci and Jeremy decided to spend their first married year in TX. Stefan was able to get a job in TX for the fall staffing a DTS at Mercy Ships so we all moved back down and adjusted to TX life. I got a job at Mercy Ships working in Donor Services and helping in the mailroom. I also started taking dance classes with Jessica and Ashlee at the local YWAM base. I LOVED my tap and hip hop classes!

That Thanksgiving, did Thanksgiving Dinner in Ricci and Jeremy's little apartment with Steef, Josh Clark, Devon, and that was the first day I met Ryan.

More big changes at 19

Right after Christmas I headed out to New Haven. But not before I got a perm. Yes, yes I did. I was feeling alittle guilty because I felt bad leaving my parents with no children at home. They managed just fine though. I didn’t sleep much the night before I left because I was packing and spending time with Stu before I left for 7 months so I arrived in CT sleep deprived and unsure about my decision. Jesse showed me around the 2 YWAM houses and I met 1 of my roommates Brittany who I thought I would have nothing in common with. Jesse let me go sleep in her room for a few hours and I layed there and cried and cried. Then everyone moved into our little house on Orange Street, classes started and I realized this was one of the best decisions I ever made. New Haven was BEAUTIFUL, I was so wrong about Brittany- she was amazing as were my other 2 roommies Emily and Erika, and I loved the people on our school. The staff teased me because within the first month I had broken up with my boyfriend from back home and had dyed my hair dark red which are 2 things that normally are bad signs and they hadn't expected it from me because I had been around YWAM for so long. New Haven was super snowy that winter and we had so much fun playing in the snow and since we walked everywhere and didn't have cars, we didn't have to worry about driving in it.

One of the things that I love about living in community are the fun celebrations around holidays. Without us girls knowing, the boys decided the week before Valentines Day to each take one of the girls and do nice things for her all week (our school actually had an even number of boys and girls). We came home each day to flowers, or sweet notes, or treats on our beds. We thought it was so sweet that on Valentines night, we invited them to a big meal that we cooked, decorated for, served them, and did a presentation for them. I was of course in charge of coming up with romantic quotes and scriptures and that is when I fell in love with "Set me as a seal upon thine heart, as a seal upon thine arm: for love is strong as death."

There was one thing that had made me have 2nd thoughts about attending the school. That was the fact that Stefan was going to be on it. I had spent the last few years carefully avoiding him. The problem was his 2 best friends were on it and I was friends with Jordan and Aaron from the past so I naturally hung out with them the first few weeks of the school, but tried to avoid Stefan. He kept trying to get me to spend time with him and I kept saying no. Then one night he knew I needed to go do laundry at the laundry mat and asked if he could come along. I relented and we spent the evening doing laundry and started talking about the past and realized the reason that we weren't friends held no value. We quickly realized we still had feelings for each other and started dating.

Jill had also started dating Micah and that Easter I invited Dave and Stefan to come with me to Jill's to spend it with Jill, Micah, and Dan who was visiting from NH.

One weekend Crissy, Selena, Wesley and Dan all came to New Haven to visit me. We rented a hotel and spent the weekend having tickle wars, exploring New Haven and having long talks as more grown up versions of ourselves.

After the 5 month lecture phase was over we headed first to England for 2 weeks and then traveled to Paris, Florence, Rome, Switzerland, Croatia and then a boat to Bosnia, Serbia and then flew to Greece. England was both fun (because Cari had moved there and we got to spend time together) and hard (because the atmosphere was very heavy & dark, we didn't have any time off, and I had several experiences of men trying to attack me). I loved traveling across Europe. Rome was amazing because it was so over the top. My day in Paris could have been out of a movie. Switzerland was the most beautiful place on earth. Croatia was a dreamland. We got to Bosnia and I was shocked. It was 2001 and the war had just recently ended and the destruction was everywhere. Bombed out buildings, no jobs, serious depression, and strong warnings not to go off the path or road because of bombs. I was shocked how much I didn't know about the world when I saw that. 5 of us stayed with a sweet Muslim family. The parents didn't speak English, but the 2 kids (who were our ages) did. They had several friends in the neighborhood who everynight would gather on their porch and hang out and talk for hours so we would join them everynight and I loved getting to know them and their experiences. Sometimes we would talk about the horrors they had exerienced, some nights we would just tell jokes and laugh for hours. Some nights we would talk about what we desired in life. It was amazing. They mother of the family insisted on wasing our laundry and hanging it to dry outside the house. One morning we were eatting breakfast in their kitchen and I looked out the window and pinned on the line in full view of anyone looking out the window were my Boxer Joe panties that had a big smiley face on the butt. Only me.

After our school was over, I decided that I wanted to return to staff, but first went home for a few months to get ready to move. During that time 9/11 happened. Jill was in the city that day for jury duty and called me when she managed to cross the bridge before they closed down. I didn't realize the extent of what had happened and was still on a high after receiving a letter in the mail from Stefan who was in Africa during that time. It really wasn't til I moved back to CT a few weeks later and we went to the city and experienced it that the horror sank in. The night I moved back to CT, New Haven put off fireworks without warning the citizens. The 911 phonelines received SO many calls that you couldn't get through and they had to start putting emergency broadcasts on tv and radio to let people know it wasn't an emergency.

Entering adulthood at 18

I can not for the life of me remember my 18th birthday. Things started getting brighter that spring. Stu and I ended up getting back together and prom was coming up. Also, Martha had given birth to her first child Daniel and she flew over to the States right before prom and stayed til the day after I graduated. Ashlee and I were SO excited about prom. Mom actually picked out my prom dress at Marshalls and I LOVED it. I wore it around the house tons before prom arrived. Then the big day came. Ashlee and I went over to Christina’s house and she did our hair and makeup. Stu had borrowed a car and came to pick me up, but not before we took about a million pictures at both our houses. We went out for dinner, but the real fun started when we got to prom and met up with all our friends. Stu wasn’t a big dancer and that was the night that I realized that I actually WAS a big dancer. Our friends danced and danced and danced. It was so much fun. Stu’s mom wanted to have a big all night party for us after prom and had hired a kareokee machine and made tons of food and had gone all out decorating the house. The problem was that we were all EXHAUSTED by the time prom was over. And if anyone has seen me when I am tired and am not allowed to sleep, it is not a pretty sight! So we got to his house and after about an hour we all fell asleep. The poor lady was ready to party and we were all party poopers so she went around trying to wake us up, but finally realized it was a lost cause.

Finally graduation was near. One super sweet memory was that one morning I was awoken by the other Mercy Ships youth “kidnapping” me taking me and the other Mercy Ship seniors out for breakfast at the Dinner Bell.

That summer Ashlee and I went to a dance camp at the YWAM base. We had such a blast and started a dance team at the church. I LOVED being able to perform again and I loved dancing.

I was unsure what I wanted to do after graduation so I started a semester at Tyler Junior College and took a dance class, an intro to business class, an intro to teaching class, and a photography class. I LOVED my photography class. It was back when we still learned to process pics in the darkroom and my class was such an eccentric mix of students and we really bonded.

I found out that the Rick and Brenda Lewis, Jesse and some of the other staff of my first X-treme Summer trip had started a YWAM base in New Haven, CT, were starting a school called the Forum which was a 7 month program. I had applied and been accepted to do my DTS on the Anastasis, but when I found out about the school in New Have, I applied and was excepted. The thought of leaving TX and my friends, boyfriend, and family behind was both scary and exciting. I knew it was an oppurtunity that I couldn't pass up.

17

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.

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 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!

Sweet 16

16 was my favorite birthday to date. It started very early. Phillip knew that I had been born at 12:07AM so he and all his friends attacked me with hugs at that time. My friend Caleb (who was in the Teen Missions blog and ended up moving onto the ship) was a baker onboard so every morning when he would put the bread in the oven at around 5AM, he would come to my cabin and wake me up by sitting on the end of my bed and talking to me til the bread was ready and I would fall back asleep til it was time to get up for school. Well that morning he came into my cabin with a birthday cupcake for me with a lit match for me to blow out since candles were not allowed on the ship. Kelly made signs and hung them all over the ship reminding people to wish me happy birthday. That year I had a cabin separate from the school room since I was the only 1 in my class so crew members stopped by my classroom all day to wish me happy birthday. Then that night Kelly and Keri had planned me a big party. First we went to McDonalds (which sounds crazy, but when you are in Guatemala for months, this is the best!) and then we came back to the ship and played tons of games and had a dance party. Poor Kelly broke her toe playing crab soccer. Philip was moving off the ship the day after my birthday so after the party was over, we found a quiet spot and talked til 4am.

We played tons of the games living on the ship to keep entertained. I became an undefeated champion of Rummy. We would have competitions and I was unbeatable. My secret- I took big risks.

I also wanted to be a hippie at this point. I imagined I would grow up, marry super young and my spouse and I would live on love and little else traveling constantly. That spring we spent a lot of time on the west coast and it was the perfect setting for this life I thought I was destined to live. Jill and Dan were with us on the west coast and we had so much fun. Dan had an obsession with the little orange antenna balls that 76 gas stations handed out. I remember one night a big group of us sitting in the 15 passenger van parked outside the gas station and taking turns going in and asking for them.

At the beginning of the summer we moved off the ship. Martha was getting married that summer so Mom had gone to TX the month before us. We left the ship in Portland and I still remember pulling away Keri and Jason standing on the dock as we drove away and crying. It was so sad, but I wanted the opportunity to go to a normal high school for a few years. Jill, Dan, Dad and I rode tripped back to TX with all our stuff. Jill and I had a grand time talking, laughing and singing the whole way from Portland to TX. We thought this was the best road trip ever, but after a few days of this, Pappy had had enough and yelled that he wanted silence the rest of the way. I guess a man can only take so much. : )

That fall I started my junior year at Van High School. It helped that I already knew a lot of people in Van and I joined the church & Mercy Ships youth groups and met many more people very quickly. That fall was also really fun because Dan was at Letourno University and was able to come home a lot of weekends and Graydon had moved to the YWAM base in Lindale and would come hang out with us. I remember one particular afternoon when Dan had brought a friend home from college and Graydon met us at the Mercy Ships base and the 4 of us ran around exploring in the woods of the base in the drizzly rain all afternoon and had so much fun. I always loved hanging out with my brother and his friends and Graydon was my fav because he was so funny and he was so sweet and always looked out for me. That afternoon he made me wear his sweatshirt because it was so cold and rainy.

Not everyone gets to see the sides of Pappy that we get to see. That fall my friends and I were very into Ska music and we would “skank” our hearts out. Well Ska Mania was coming to Dallas with 3 of our favorite bands, the Supertones, 5 Iron Frenzy & I can’t remember the 3rd, but we wanted to go so badly, but our ride fell through and I was so sad. Without me asking, Pappy borrowed the Mercy Ships 15 passenger van and drove all my friends and I to the concert. What a peach! We had such a fun night!

Fabulous 15

Amy was 1 day younger than me so we always celebrated our birthdays together on my birthday. On my 15th birthday we sailed into Pensacola, FL, and all of our friends went out for our birthday dinner at Blimpies. Keith Brinkman pretended that 1 of those window Christmas candles was our birthday candle and burnt his hand when we "blew it out" and he covered it with his hand.

15 was SUCH a fun age. Although people had always still been friends with me on the ship no matter my age, by 15, I was close enough to the crew's age that I was seen as an equal. We had night watchmen who would guard the gangway 24 hours a day to make sure noone came onboard who wasn't supposed to. There was 1 nightwatchman who moved onboard who won my affections over and I started staying up til 2AM talking with him everynight that he had the late watch. I am not sure how I got up the next morning for school, but I was in love. When we got to Cozemel, Mexico, he asked me on my first date and I was shocked that my parents agreed to it because he was 23 and I was 15, but he was such a nice guy AND my parents knew he was moving off the ship soon. They were pretty smart. I was heartbroken when he moved off and cried for weeks. We went to Hard Rock Cafe and out for ice cream and then a sweet long walk along the water under the stars.

As I mentioned in the last post, Miss Kelly took us on lots of excursions. 1 was to a little island in Guatemala that was only excessable by boat. For some reason we went into a little store and she told us that we could each pick out something for her to buy us. We were looking around and Annie was looking at the frames when all of a sudden she yells out, "That's me!" We thought she meant that it looked like something she would like, but we looked and it was actually a pic of her in the frame. When she was little a chain store took pics of her and her little sister as models and this pic had somehow made it's way into a frame in a remote island of Guatemala and Annie had found it. One of the many crazy stories in life!

One week a group of the crew went into a remote village to work with a school and church in a village. There was a scorpian that lived in the shower. We slept on the floor under misketo nets and there was a chicken that lived in a box with us that eventually Lisa killed it and plucked it front of us and was made into stew. I could not eat it after living in the same room as it.

At 15, Amy and I LOVED the band DC Talk and their latest album "Jesus Freak." We arrived in Jacksonville, FL and realized that they were doing a free concert within walking distance of the ship. We were estatic, waited all day there, worked our way to the front & had the time of our lives! Also, we were contacted that year by probably the biggest Christian teen girls magazine at the time that they were intested in our lives and wanted to send a reporter out to spend a few days interviewing us and taking pics for Brio Magazine. When we sailed back into Jacksonville, FL, Andy was there and we spent the next few days being celebrities.

The summer when I was 15, Amy and Dan both moved off the ship. My parents were always very cautious about our needs and how choosing the life of missionaries affected their children. My dad asked me if I wanted to move off too then, but I decided I wanted to stay on the ship an extra year. That summer though I did meet Rick, Brenda, and Jordan Lewis. Rick and Brenda were leading a youth trip called X-treme Summer to Mexico. I knew alot of the leaders because they had been on a mobile team to the ship the year before so i decided I wanted to attend. We spent a week in TX and then drove down to Mexico for a week. I loved being around so many other people my age and getting to know Brenda, Jesse Carter, Mooky, Pete & Josanna, and Jessica Velnosky better. Funny how so many of them still have a presence in my life.

When I got back from X-treme Summer, a new DTS had started onboard. My mom told me that one of the boys Josh on it had been asking about me because his cousin had been one of my good friends on Teen Missions the summer before. Josh and I started hanging out all the time and then one day he started acting really weird and that day wouldn't talk to me, but he and Miss Kelly sat out on the dock for hours talking. I was so mad at them for excluding me (even though I found out later it was because he had been asking her for advice on what to do about his crush on me), but later that night he asked if he could talk to me and told me of his feelings and wanted to talk to my parents to ask if we could date. Kelly was in love with our friend Andy and the next day she and I walked down to the Landing in Jacksonville to giggle about boys. Unfortunately Josh fell in love alot faster than me and was ready to marry me, but I was 15 and wanted to see the world before settling down. That fall there were so many fun young people onboard. We docked in Guatemala next to another ship called the Logos 2. They were way stricker than our ship, but they had lots of dances. On Thanksgiving they invited our ship to a dance on their ship. There was a boy named Phillip onboard our ship who I really liked and I suspected he liked me, but my mom didn't really like him and he was scared of my dad so he never asked me out. And there were a bunch of scandenavian beauties onboard who liked Phillip as well. That night we headed over to the dance and Phillip kept making me promise I would save a dance for him. The girls kept asking him to dance and I was tired of watching it so I walked out and was headed back over to see if Pappy would like to watch a movie since mom was out of town. It was dark and there were tons of stars in the sky that night and all of a sudden I hear Philip yelling my name from up on the ship, "Erin come back and dance the last dance with me." My memory of that night was so dramatic I swear it had a soundtrack playing on the dock that night. : )

That year I traveled to:Pensacola, FL; New Brunswick, Canada; Puerto Cabezas, Nicaragua; Santo Tomas, Guatemala; Cozumel, Mexico; Jacksonville, FL; Richmond, VA; Chambersburg, PA; Montreal, Quebec; Grand Haven, MI; Chicago, IL; Duluth, MN; Cleveland, OH; Buffalo, NY; Jacksonville, FL; Panama; Puerto Quetzal, Guatemala; Lindale, TX; Monterray, Mexico.

14 and comfortably roaming the world

14 was a year of constant Alanis Morsette and Cranberries, and my favorite outfits were worn covered with a “flannel”. 14 was my first birthday when we were sailing the whole day. We arrived in Nicaragua and the dock was literally falling apart. A kid actually fell through it into the shark infested water while we were arriving. There was a section of the dock that you had to cross on 2 by 4s over the shark infested water. We were only there for about a week and I only left the ship when I actually had to.

I LOVED living on the ship, but there was crazy emotional stuff that we dealt with traveling as much as we did. One of those things was culture shock especially going from the States to impoverished countries. Let me just say that we never snuck into a port quietly. No. We are talking about a big ship full of foreigners providing free services pulling in and so we ALWAYS drew big crowds and there were always people on the dock next to the ship trying to see in. There was a dining room on the ship that everyone ate their meals in. What I remember distinctly on that arrival to Nicaragua was one of the first meals when the tide had made it so the people on dock could look right into the dining room. I went and got my plate of food and sat down at a table. And I turn and there were all these super skinny kids looking in the window at my plate of food. I full weight of that feeling of how much I am blessed with and take for granted when so many in the world are starving hit me yet again and I ran away crying with no appetite.

After a week, we headed back to the Dominican Republic. I heard that there was a team from PA coming, but Selena & Crissy hadn’t thought that they were going to be able to come. Another thing about living on the ship was that we only got mail occasionally- usually at least a month after it was sent. Well that year, Selena and Crissy sent me a birthday/Christmas box that did not arrive on time, but then I got the great news that Selena had been able to convince her dad to let them come and they were bringing 2 people who were on our WV trip, Rob and Jenny! Their box they had sent a month before arrived when they were onboard. My family had been planning to spend a week up in the mountains, but since it was the same week that Selena & Crissy were onboard they let me stay on the ship. We had SO much fun that week going to the beach, climbing waterfalls, dressing in love skirts and having midnight rendezvous on the dock and talking, talking, talking. When it came time for them to leave, we were alittle OUT OF CONTROL! We bawled and bawled.

In April the ship went into dry dock which meant everyone had to move off. Since the DTS was too large to go to host homes, they had to go live on the base in Lindale and since Mams worked with them, we went along. I LOVED this DTS and had become fun friends with so many of them. On the base we met James, Jon Hauserman, and a Gecamo who was a really hot latino that the ladies all loved. That month was SO much fun hanging out with all of them and then hanging out on the the pool house roof with James and Gecamo til the wee hours and then sneaking up the ladies dorm super squeeky stairs at 3AM every morning.

Martha and Dan had both spent a summer with Teen Missions International previously and when I was 14, I was old enough to take one of their trips. I sat down with my dad and told him I wanted to go and so we worked out a plan. TMI is SUPER strick and you have to wear pants and construction boots all summer. We had such a hard time finding boots that fit the requirements that were a small enough size for me. There is a training for all the teams called Boot Camp where you live in tents, wake up and run an obsticale course everymorning, and then train during the days for the things you will be doing. A few of the teens did “Early Bootcamp” that ran at the same time as the little kid programs and left earlier in the summer. Selena also went that summer and although we were on different teams, it was fun to get to see her. I took my first solo flight and when I arrived in FL, the guy who came to pick us all up from the airport was a guy named Caleb Massey who had come for an evening to visit the ship the year before and hung out with my friends so it was fun that I already knew him. I LOVED bootcamp even though it was SO hard and most people hated it. Then we flew to Ecuador where were built the 2nd story onto the building we were staying in. I have no clue what the building was used for, I don’t remember talking to any of the locals the whole time and we all got super sick. But I still had the time of my life. Being away from home for 2 months really made me grow up and think for myself. We had no running water so we hauled freezing water in buckets to wash our hair occastionally though it would give us a headache because it was so cold, we peed in squata potties, and I remember when we would finally go into a city and wash our hands, they would literally change color when all the dirt came off them. I didn't have a mirror and I remember seeing my reflextion in 1 after about a month of not looking in 1 and thinking, "Oh yes, I had forgotten what I looked like." I loved our team though and the basic way of life and the Andes Mountains are SO beautiful. I got in lots of trouble that summer because I talk constantly, had a relationship with a boy (one of the biggest no nos of the organization) and I would always giggle during quiet times. I loved that summer with all my heart though and only got homesick one night when I was really sick. On the way back to FL, we visited the Ecuator then flew to Panama for a few days where we slept in beds and took real showers for the first time in 2 months. We had a week of “debriefing” in FL which I pretty much cried the entire week because I was so sad to leave my “TMI Family.” When I flew back to the ship, it was in New Orleans and my parents came to pick me up. On the ride home I was telling my mom about how 1 of the girls was going to vacation right after the trip and how I thought it was so sad she wasn’t going home, but to somewhere she had never been before and my mom was like, “You have never been to New Orleans before, how is that different?” But the truth was that the ship was my home and it didn’t matter where we were docked, it would always be going home to me.

When I got back to the ship, Keri Coombs had moved back onboard and her new roommate was also going to be my new teacher- Miss Kelly. Those 2 acted like there was not a 14 year age difference between us and that year was amazing! Luke & Joe had moved off the ship, so our class was just Amy, Annie, and I and Kelly let us decorate our classroom ourselves, and she was an amazing teacher taking us off the ship on all kinds of real life adventures to educate us. Then in the evenings the whole group of us would play sports on the dock, play sardines on the ship (the most popular spot to hide was the walk in fridges), swimming or playing sand volleyball at the local naval base, etc. Since everyone lived in the same place, you didn’t have to call to arrange to meet, you just all hung out every night.

Traveled to: Nicaragua; Dominican Republic; Bahamas; Port Canaveral, FL; Norfolk, VA; Wilmington, NC; Puerto Cabezas, Nicaragua; Santo Tomas, Guatemala; Corpus Christi, TX, Lindale, TX; Merrit Island, FL; Riobumba, Ecuador; Panama; Orlando, FL; New Orleans, LA; Tampa, FL; St. Petersburg, FL.