Hey Fam from Mel and Sarah

Hey guys! Me and Sarah have just been hanging out over here in Colorado and we have been thinking about you all! We miss you :( !!

Sarah came over on Tuesday night and we went to subway and shared a sub for dinner (we went to subway and shared a sub the first time we met in Chicago)! And then we drove to my house and went for a walk and then popped in She's The Man and laughed a lot. And then we stayed up and talked for a couple hours. By the way since my house is only half finished, we were sleeping in this huge unfinished basement, I was scared at times even though it was my house (when the toilet flushes upstairs it makes a scary loud noise)! Then we woke up and decided to take our sweet time getting ready....it was a while, Sarah did my ma

keup haha...then we drove into Boulder and ate lunch at this Panera with an awesome mountain view. Then we shopped around and ended up in Borders and read for a long time. Then we went down 

to Pearl Street and got Ben and Jerry's ice cream and it was so good that we decided we had to go get a carton of it for after dinner. Then with some confusion with Dottie (she took us to a walmart that wasn't really there) we were on our way home! Oh yeah and we picked up some hair dye for Sarah at Target along with the Ben and Jerry's ice cream.... :) !! Then came home ate dinner and dyed Sarah's hair mediu

m golden brown!!!! It's a lot darker but soooo pretty!

Then we went to blockbuster and rented Funny Face, everyone should see it because it's an Audrey Hepburn classic! While we did that we sat on our little camp out in the basement and did pedicures and painted our toesies! And then watched Sydney White and by that time it was 2:30 so we were really really tired. 

Today we are thinking Starbucks and then the pool :). Then Sarah will head home 

:(

Anyways we've been thinking about you a lot and reminiscing about all our awesome times in Africa together. We CAN'T wait for our reunion in October, it's going to be here before we know it!! LOVE YOU GUYS!!!

-Mel and Sarah

Bonjour from Natan

Hey everybody! How's life been going? I thought I'd give you all a little update on how I'm doing. After I got back from Chicago I stayed in Salina with my family for a couple of days. At first it was really good. My family and I generally get along. For those of you who don't know I have an older brother (who is going to be a 5th year at KSU next year) and a younger sister (who is going to be a freshman at KSU next year! woohoo!!). Speaking of my sister, I found out she is living in the dorms that are right across the street from my apartment, and I am pumped. She is good at baking, and she wants to come over and make cookies, which I think is a fantastic idea. After living awhile with my family, though, it started to get to me. My mom and sister argue a lot, which they find pretty normal. They aren't even really mad at each other, its just how they communicate, but after being on project with all of you fine people it was really tough. So I was ready to move back to Manhattan.

Once I got back to Manhattan things were pretty much normal. My roommates were happy to see me, and they were the ones who were most excited to hear stories about project, which honestly surprised me. They are pretty big partyers and atheists/agnostics, and it was weird that they were asking questions about my ministry and were genuinely interested in what we did. After a while, though, I got bored in Manhattan, because I don't have a job. I applied at the hospital today, so we'll see how that works out. I visited Lawrence last weekend, and that was pretty cool. It was great to see Geoff and Tyler again. After that, the PPD kind of hit me. I'm not depressed, I'm just sad sometimes because I feeling kind of worthless laying around here all day not doing anything. Adding on to this is the fact that my quiet times haven't been very good, if they are there at all. I just feel like I'm falling back into my old habits, which is not something I want to do. Tyler gave us all some good words of encouragement on this, though, and that was really uplifting. I've been praying about it a lot.

So anyway that is just about all that's been going on with me. Just kind of being lazy/looking for something to do. Overall I'm doing good, but if you guys could pray for persistence in my walk with the Lord, I would really appreciate it. I am praying for all of you.

I miss and love you all!
Nate

DEUX!

Oh...herro!

I thought I would jump on the bandwagon and update you on how life has been since being back in 'merica. The first few days were definitely interesting. I was so excited to be home and be around things that I knew and that were familiar. The very first night back though, I decided to go to the grocery store to get a few things (including rear mirk). First off, driving was extremely weird. It's not like I forgot how to drive or anything, it just really weird, like I was floating around or something. Secondly, when I got to the grocery store it was like 1 in the morning and all the shelves had just been restocked and everything was lined up perfectly. It really hit me and I couldn't stop thinking about how huge the store was, how much food there was, and how nice everything was. The next couple of days were just kind of amazement and euphoria of how nice EVERYTHING is and just recognizing things around me.

So the Friday after we got back me and the fam left for vacation in Colorado. I got to see Sarah, Melissa and Geoff in Denver for a few hours which was really awesome. After that, it has been so hard being around only my family and not being around friends and people that I can relate to that are my own age. This has lead to me becoming irritated with my family and withdrawing from interacting with them. I also have really struggled with quiet times and prayer. Like everyone else has said, it is just way too easy to fall back into my old ways. I'm extremely excited to head back to Missouri and just be around friends again and get back to a routine that I'm used to.

I love and miss you all so much and hope that I get to see all of you ASAP!

~ Chris 'C-Dub' Wagner

Ps. don't forget to take your malaria pills!
Pps. DEUX!

it's Levi

so i really like this blog idea

thanks, Geoff, for doing this

Nicole, it's weird that you type like that (making every sentence a different line) 

cuz i do the same thing

except i normally cut out the punctuation

anyway, when I got home I had a few days to rest, but it wasn't enough

my boss (who, incidentally, is also my mom) kinda pushed me into working pretty quick

they needed somebody to fill in before i had quite recuperated, but i decided to get in there anyway

big mistake

i still feel like i haven't quite caught up on sleep

i'm back to my old american routine of not getting up to my alarm, even after a full night of rest

in africa i got before my alarm most days, even after only six hours or so of sleep, and i felt like i had energy most of the time

but now i have trouble getting up and i feel drained all day and it's kinda suckin the life out of me

that has meant that, when i come home, i feel like laying down and doing nothing else

if a friend calls and wants to hang out, i'll do that

but if not, i'm a total pile for the rest of the night

the laziness has led to a huge decrease in time spent with the Lord 

and, when i do get to in the word, it feels shallow

i know i told tyler and a couple other guys that my biggest concern about coming home was lack of drive and what that could do to my walk

it looks like that's actually happening, so...

if you could all just pray that i get the swift kick in the rear that i need to keep going, that'd be greatly appreciated

so now for the happier part of the post

i'm going to Wichita this weekend to see a bunch of my family

but before that, on Thursday, i am going to see my favorite band (The Hush Sound) with my favorite non-projectperson (Natalie) and my roommate for next year (Justin) 

so i am superpumped for that tomorrow

anybody else got anything exciting going on?

~Revi Fowter

p.s. some suggestions for the blog

1. i think we need some color

2. maybe put your name in the subject line or somewhere near the top of the post so u know who it is before reading

3. we should def upload some pics

biya biya!

hey lovers,
i miss you all quite terribly. like whoa. but i bet you knew that already.
i'm doing well but can't wait to see you all!!
i don't really have an update on me but on brad - you know, our friend jésus.
he's got to raise $10,000 cash money in a month!!
sooo we should all help him out a little in whatever way we can.
his address is:
Bradley Graevs
204 Eagle Run Rd.
Tunas, MO 65764
so holla at him with some monies yo. orrr something...
and don't forget prayers too. those are always helpful. :)
hope you all are doing wonderfully. i miss you tons and pray for you always.
lovelovelove,
nicole

Update on Life From Michael

Hey team!

I haven't talked to quite a few of you since we all returned to our "normal" lives. Coming back was not that hard for me when we first returned. I was looking forward to having my home room to myself, to walking barefoot around my house on soft carpet, to watching TV while lounging on the couch, to opening a refrigerator filled with my own food, to driving my car, to blasting my favorite music in my car, to getting on my oh-so-favorite Mac laptop, to going out at night, to seeing my home friends, to getting back to Como and all of the great parts of a college town, to working and making money, to watching Cardinals baseball, to wearing fashionable and well-fitting clothes, and quite a few other things. At first, all of these things were great. I felt fine allowing myself to do pretty much whatever I wanted because I was going to go back to work full-time starting last Wednesday. However, I found out on Tuesday (one day before I was supposed to go back to work) that for various reasons my employer wouldn't be able to hire me back for a month. Honestly, that was somewhat of a relief knowing I wouldn't be waking up at 5:45 every morning and going to a full day's work. I was also looking forward to having plenty of free time to read, research, or do anything productive that I wished. The only downside that I originally saw was a serious lack of money. But for the past week since I should have been working I have been anything but productive. My average routine consists of waking mid-morning, watching some SportsCenter, making a quick and unhealthy lunch, watching two or three episodes of Lost Season One online, taking a nap, showering, washing some dishes, checking the mail, and then turning the TV back on. I have felt a major lack of purpose since returning from Africa. It's been getting to me these past few days that I'm not doing anything with my days. I've also been thinking a LOT about what God might be calling me to do after graduation. I've got two or three ideas with scripture to back up any of them. It seems like I flip flop what I feel his call is every single day. So, I feel purposeless with my daily routine and am in a state of muddled confusion about the future. I am a big fan of schedules and plans, so I can't wait until a have some structure to my days and know what's going to happen next. Tomorrow I am actually moving back to Como for the summer (I think) and will be going to job orientation for a job that I will have for at least a month or more (I think). I love when things get set in stone instead of dealing with instability (it's a miracle I was OK with that in Africa), so I am praying that starting tomorrow I might have a better idea of what the rest of my summer will look like. Please be praying that things might become more settled in Columbia and that I will find a bit of purpose in my summer days. I love all of you African peeps. I'd love to hear some extended stories of everyone's experiences since returning home. Until Cameroon Summer Project 09???

Michael

First Post

Hey team, don't have much time to talk at the moment since I am late already driving back to Kansas City to see my grandma and to go out to lunch with her. But things have been pretty good since being back. I got to go to denver for my room mates wedding right after I got back and then got to hang out with Chris W. Melissa and Sarah for a couple hours in Denver, so that was awesome. Then I got to see Tyler and Nathan when they came in to Lawrence to hang out. Oh, and I got a sweet email from douglas that was so encouraging. I will write about it later and just kind of fill you guys in with what has been going on since then. Love you all. ~Geoff