Well, so much for writing a new post every week. I suppose my life just isn't interesting enough now I have a full time job for me to feel inspired to write. Something out of the ordinary has to happen. cue half a foot of snow in mid/late March in western Oregon. Yes, we really got a pile of snow, and it was a very wet, heavy snow. Wet heavy snow falling on trees waterlogged from months of rain and beginning to bud out into bloom means massive destruction of the trees and the power lines strung beneath them. People were without power for up to three days in some areas. This being Western Oregon, the chaos extended to the roadways, where people unused to snow were suddenly driving through 4-8 inches of the stuff. It doubled my drive time to work, luckily, i was prepared and left half an hour early from my house. the flickering power supply made it interesting, since i need to use the computer at work, and each flicker causes a shutdown of all programs running at that point. The upshot of all of this? I got to drive in the snow again! It is an activity I have sorely missed since moving away from Spokane. Also, there is now plenty of firewood available for anyone who wanted to hold onto it and allow it to dry and season properly.
Probably the biggest impact the snow (a new record for the date, by the way) had on my life was the delay it caused in my application process to an organization called Sacred Road Ministries. You can view their website here for a fuller explanation of who they are and what they do, but essentially, they plan and run short-term mission trips on the Yakama Indian Reservation in central Washington state. Their summer internship program involves coordinating with the incoming groups to figure out how the group (usually high school or college age) can best benefit the community. They also run a number of other programs on the reservation, including a children's Bible study.
I learned about them after my pastor visited the Reservation about two weeks ago and came back all fired up about how much good they were doing in the community. He suggested I check them out as a possible resource for a summer internship (and possibly more) so I did. It took me a while to get the application, but now it has been finished and submitted and the needed references have been sent in. It was a bit of a push to get it done (I got the application from the Tuesday and it was due Friday) but now all I have to do is wait for a response and pray.
