Change of Plans

"Come now you who say 'Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, spend a year there, buy, sell and make a profit.' whereas you do not know what will happen tomorrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away. Instead you ought to say, 'If the Lord wills, we shall live and do this or that.'" James 4:13-15

There has been a change in my plans.

many of you who even know I have a blog anyway have already heard the saga of my hospitalization, but I've included what I wrote on myspace and facebook below, In case you have not.

This is mostly an official update to say I will not be going to camps as planned this summer, God has chosen otherwise. I would appreciate your prayers though, in seeking His will for me this summer. A lot of it I know has to be spent "recovering" (read, "sleeping"). But there has to be a reason I am not at camps, and I would love to find it out that I might follow His direction in that.



here is the story if you have not heard,

I was down in the OC the Saturday before memorial day at my friend, Annie's place for a bachelorette party in honor of her marriage the next weekend. I decided to spend the night, since I never get to see any of the girls who were there (I'm not kidding-several flew in from other countries for the event, so there you have it). I woke up in the middle of the night, not being able to sleep, but with nothing else particularly wrong, and got up to go to the bathroom. That is the last thing I remember until waking up Wednesday night in the hospital.

But I'll tell the story chronologically. Apparently Sat night/Sun morning I started throwing up (still at my friend's down in the OC), and finally around 10am, one of my friends, Becky, called my parents to come get me because I was not doing well. I actually do have a slight memory of her popping her head in and telling me she was going to do this, but with no feelings or other thoughts attached to that memory (like I didn't wonder why, but I don't remember feeling bad, I just remember the scene itself).

My parents came down and brought me and my car home at which point they called the Dr. because I've never had migraines or anything of the sort. Those brilliant people they talked to told them to wait until after the holiday and bring me in (they may have actually called Monday-remember I have no memory of this).

Monday I was still not feeling well and apparently called my best friend, who also happens to be a nursing student, to come over and sit with me while I was throwing up and felt like crap-what a pal, Lacy! Just as my parents were arriving at a memorial day party down below, I apparently had a seizure. Lacy called 911-and then my parents-and I was taken to the ER AV Hospital. Props to my church for half of the members sitting in the ER waiting room for who knows how long-I've seen pics (c:

Some awesome nurse got me to cut in line for the CT scan and they found and AVM (in short a malformed blood vessel had burst in my brain and it was bleeding). They immediately stuck a drain in my head to get the blood out. Apparently I also needed a breathing tube, but I fought so hard against it that they had to sedate me. Tuesday they transferred me down to the ICU at Kaiser in Hollywood where I woke up Wednesday-after having the breathing tube removed-to Lacy and another friend of mine, Dana, laughing their heads off-probably at either my haircut (they shaved a nice portion off the middle) or at whatever I was saying on all the vicodin and morphine I was on. I totally thought I was dreaming until I woke up Thursday morning in the same place, with my pastor sitting in the corner of my room, instead of back in the OC where I thought I should have been- talk about trippy!

Over the next week and a half I ate a lot of jello, my brain continued to drain and I asked over and over what had happened cause I kept forgetting (c: oh and I slept. a lot. I also got a lot of visitors, so I'd like to take a moment to thank everyone that visited me (and who brought me shakes!) because I loved it-that would be Dana, Lacy, Hannah, Kerry, Jon, Krysti, Pastor and Mrs. Patterson, Mrs. Wright, Lo, Danielle, Laura, Krista, Lei, my parents, Bonnie, Tim, Andy, Rachel and Stacy, Dan, Sarah, and Marybeth, Megan, Becky, Matt, Kristin, and major props to my grandma for sleeping in those kaiser chairs (Lace, Tim, and my parents know they weren't comfy, but none of them are 73!)-if I forgot to mention you, lets just blame it on the fact that I had brain surgery and was on lots and lots of drugs. You guys rock my face off-actually most of you almost made me laugh my stitches out-but what would the ICU be without a little laughter?

Tuesday of the second week they took the drain out of my skull. They took a couple more CT scans, and then sent me home that Friday. I'm not allowed to do much here (they actually told me not to run-yes, I coached CC and Track, but run? are you kidding? I could barely stand without falling over, let alone my blurry vision/blindspot, what made them think I'd try to run?). I'm walking around fine now and the headaches aren't bad, I really only am getting em at night. I got my stitches and staples out yesterday. I'm watching lots of movies and love to have people over-as long as you don't expect to do too much more than talk or watch a movie (c:

The saddest part is that I will not be able to go to camps this summer as I had planned, which is such a bummer-but if you are going to girls camp at Verdugo, the docs cleared me to come visit for a day, so I'll see ya there (c:
I'm not really sure what God has planned for me this summer. But the half of me that isn't totally bummed about not getting to travel camps is really excited to see what He's got.

If you want to be praying for me here's how you can be:
I have another CT scan on the 27th, at which point we'll schedule the procedure they have to do to actually fix the AVM (and oh, by the way they found an aneurysm that hasn't done anything yet, while they were up there, so they want to deal with that at the same time). I'll need wisdom in deciding the best way to deal with it (apparently they can do a lot though my femoral artery-yes that's in my leg-so hopefully that will be effective enough, but I have to talk to the docs about all the options, ya know) I really want to just get it done and get better asap, so that would be great.
As of now I am still planning on moving to Canada in the fall, Lord willing. Pray for guidance there though.
And of course when I have the procedure, it'd be great to not have any complications.

thank you all for your prayers and concern. I'm not out of the woods, but I think I can see through the trees.

Camp Dates

Here are the dates of each camp, so you can be praying each week for the specific camp.

Verdugo Pines: June 21-28
Eagle's Cove: July 5-12
Pine Orchard: July 13-18
Camp Berea: July 19-26
Li-Lo-Li: July 26-August 9

thanks!

How It Happened

It goes back a few years, but I'll try and breeze through the first few. In 2004, I worked on staff at Verdugo Pines Bible Camp, and since then have been a counselor up there every summer. It was there that I met Jodi Greenstreet, the speaker for girls camp. Being on facilities staff, I didn't see much of the kids or program staff. The only reason I met Jodi was because all of the kids kept getting us mixed up (apparently we are either twins, sisters, or she's my mom). Long story short, two summers later, I joined Jodi, her roommate Patti, and another Bible college student, Kelsey, traveling to several camps where we counseled, helped Jodi with skits, and led worship. During the school year, Jodi and Patti run a youth center in ON, Canada-this will come into play later.

February 2007 came around and I was soon to graduate college without a clue as to what I would be doing shortly thereafter. I had had this crazy, off-the-wall idea back in my fall semester to open a coffee shop focused on connection and conversation, and involved in the community, but had no idea how to begin to think about opening a coffee shop. So I tried to forget about it. After some time, prayer, and the inability to stop thinking about the coffee shop idea, I pitched it to Jodi and Patti-maybe it could happen through an existing organization. They told me they'd pray about it, and after a follow-up or two, it kinda died out as I started to really freak out about what I'd be doing after graduation.
I spent last summer working for The California School Project down at Biola, and helping out with the youth at the church I had been attending. At the end of the summer, after going back and forth as to whether I should stay down there or come home, I felt like God wanted me home, though I still had nothing to do, and the grace period on my school loans was coming to a close. I needed some kind of income, so I called my high school and quickly got a part-time coaching job and was put on the list to sub.

What I did not know was that someone from the school, while doing my reference check, had called Jodi and Patti, and just mentioned that they were excited to have me come on to coach. That was the day they were going to call me and ask if I would consider coming out to Canada to work at the youth center. They took that comment as a sign from God to wait, and did not call me.

That was in late August or early September. In October, my best friend was in a car accident and broke her hip, confining her to bed for three months. Well, not only was I not in Canada, but I had no full-time job to keep me from visiting her in the hospital, and helping her at her house during the long recovery period. Jodi and Patti told me later that when they heard about her accident, they knew why God had told them to wait.

By January, I had been hired by two school districts and was coaching JV basketball, which I loved. I was on my way home from practice one day and thought to myself, ya know, I could do this for a while, stick around subbing; see some of my girls up to varsity, then figure out what to do next-but I'm ok for another year or two. Contentment. Finally! Then I got home.

I opened an email from Jodi and Patti and my heart leaped when I read that they wanted me to travel again with them this summer. Of course I would! That was such an amazing summer! Sweet! Then I read on. I literally stared at the computer screen for at least sixty seconds as I read and re-read their second proposal: They asked if I would pray about moving to Bradford with them in the fall and help out at the HUB (the youth center)-and if God works it out, they want to start a coffee shop to connect more with the community! I wish my screen had taken a picture of my face at that moment, because my chin must have hit the ground with how wide my mouth gaped at reading the email. After the astonishment subsided a bit, my only second thought was, but if I move to Canada, I won't be able to coach next year. I resolved to pray about it and gave myself a date to decide by, a month or so after that.

That weekend, I took my basketball team up to camp, as a sort of service project/team bonding experience. We had a lot of fun sliding around in the snow, getting no sleep, and somehow even made cleaning the dining room fun. We were there three days, Friday to Sunday, and had team devotionals each morning and evening. Saturday night we spent two or three hours discussing some difficult truth and in short, my entire team- without prompting from me, decided to act on that truth. There were tears and hugs and prayer and it was great. And of course no one wanted to go to bed afterwards (mind you it was 1am by this time), including me. So we stayed up for another hour, and then I insisted they get the remaining four hours of possible sleep before we had to serve breakfast. As I lay there on the futon trying to sleep myself, but still not being able to for the excitement at what just happened, I got this revelation: Beth, what would you be waiting around for next season? I mean it'd be great to get to coach again, but everything you wanted your athletes to get, everything you wanted to see happen on your team as a coach-just happened. And all of the sudden, I was free to go to Canada.

Two days after I got back from camp, I called Jodi and Patti and told them I'd love to move out with them. I am truly amazed as I look back on the last year-heck, six or seven years since people started telling me to think seriously about what I want to do with my life-how through all of my freaking out and confusion, God had it figured out all along. And on top of that, now I can look and see that He had so many blessings along the road to Canada that I would have quickly discarded had he offered them beforehand, but now having experienced them, wouldn't trade for anything. He was hiding his plan because he was spiteful, he knew it was the only way it'd work. He is truly worthy of my trust.