1,2,3

the next three posts are a series. they can be read individually but may be better understood as a whole. so, if you're interested in reading them...it might be helpful to start with number one. -SN

3: the dirt

SARA GOES TO NIGERIA TO HOPEFULLY BE THE HANDS, FEET, EARS, MOUTH OF JESUS.

i do a lot of research at work. i read the bbc news site everyday. there are times when i weep at my desk b/c of the stories i read about my world. the natural disasters, the greed, the poverty, the injustice, the death, the war, all of these things make me feel small and powerless. it is hard to know where to start. but i've found that if you keep your eyes open for opportunities Jesus steps in a shows you that, with him, you're not powerless at all.

i remember sitting at my desk. it was the end of november and there were lots of stories about the AIDS epidemic, leading up to World AIDS day on December 8. suddenly an idea started forming in my head. it was a crazy idea, an idea that would cost a lot of money, involve a lot of hard work, an idea that saw me taking chemistry [insert scary movie music here]. i should become a nurse.i should become a nurse.i should become a nurse. this idea repeated again and again in my head for weeks. i couldn't shake it.

i slowly started to leak this pesty idea into the ears of people who know me best. it was first met with reactions of disbelief, "you? a nurse?" but slowly, slowly these people that i trust with my secrets began saying things like, "yeah, i could see that," or, "i think you might be good at that." i started to half-heartedly look up information about nursing. i didn't know the first thing about being a nurse besides the fact that they get to wear scrubs to work. that in and of itself is reason to sign up. but the thought of CHEMISTRY [bum, bum BUUUUUUM] was still enough to keep me from actually persuing anything. it took a year and a simple prayer to finally convince me to sign up.

i was at church for the first meeting of the jr. high youth group. a few elders came to pray over each of us leaders individually before the kids blew in. when it was my turn to be prayed over this woman elder stepped up to the plate. the rest of the elders surrounded me and put their hands on my shoulders and on my back. it felt kind of creepy. but then she started praying. she spent a good three minutes praying that i would have "healing hands." maybe it was my frame of mind. maybe it was that idea that kept repeating itself in my ever-running mind. but i took her prayer as a sign. i became accutely aware of the hands that were on me. they felt warm and encouraging and strengthening. i thought, "i could have hands like these." i passed chemistry with an A.

sometimes life seems so muddled. sometimes life is like the dark grey that IS michigan. but sometimes a light shines through and you can finally see the path. sometimes you're on a bus, alone and you miss an opportunity and it changes your life. sometimes you find yourself standing under a fifty foot statue of the buddha. sometimes you read articles like this one while sitting at your desk and decide to sign up for a chemistry class and three more years of school. and sometimes all of these events lead you to take a leap of faith, travel to Nigeria for two months, and volunteer in a medical clinic with your new hubby.

in two and a half weeks brett and i are on our way to africa. there, i will get my first taste of the medical world. it is amazing and inspiring to look back and see how every trip and stumble, how every good day and every bad day, how every bad choice and every good choice has led me to this point. and it is exciting to know that this is not the end point. this is not the goal, reached. in fact, it feels more like a new beginning. weird how that works isn't it? i'm ready to get my hands dirty. and my tongue is like a spring-board, ready to bounce the name of Jesus in response to anyone who asks me why i've got dirt under my fingernails. -SN

2: curtained in incense.

SARA UNDERSTANDS THE NECESSITY OF SHARING JESUS WHILE STANDING UNDER A 50 FT. STATUE OF THE BUDDHA.

after leaving honduras i became somewhat depressed. one might say that i was overwhelmed with opportunities.
the needs of this world are many and i was finding that i could not commit to seizing all of them. i decided that i would have to pick and choose my battles. so, i started to weed through the things that were most important to me. first i became a youth group leader. in my mind, if kids are not made to feel special in their younger years they won't give a damn as adults. through ice skating adventures, corn field mazes, scavenger hunts, bowling competitions, and small group sessions i gained the trust of a few thirteen year olds and befriended them. i think we all started to feel special. next, i joined the social justice committee at my church and began the difficult task of trying to lure christians out of the pews and the safety of their own homes and into action. i was most involved in helping immigrant families in the GR community. many of them were illegal which meant that many christians did not want to help them. (no matter your views on illegal immigrants...they are here. many of them suffer.) when christians i admired would tell me that they could not support immigrants b/c they were breaking the law i wanted Jesus to come back, right then. if you've seen poverty, if you've REALLY seen it, you'd understand why these people risk their lives and the lives of their children to come to a place where they aren't even wanted. i became fairly disillusioned with my church's social justice team and decided that i could fair better on my own. since then i just do things when i have time between school and work. but something always seemed to be missing.

then last summer i went to mongolia. i had the unique experience of helping my boss teach a class of university students about journalism ethics. mongolia holds a long communistic tradition. some of the students couldn't believe that bribes weren't "normal."

mongolia is quite possibly the end of the earth. it seems untouched by the outside world. it is beautiful. it smells fresh. it is very welcoming. the green land reaches forever until it hits the soft sands of the gobi desert. then right there in the middle of it all sits the capitol city. its streets fade into dirt paths, then horse trails as soon as you reach the city's edge. it is a land steeped in traditions and superstitions. the people seem eager for something.

while i was there i visited a number of different attractions around the capitol city. i saw some of the last remaining statues of Lenin. i visited the central plaza where a replica of Lenin's tomb has been erected. i worked out at one of the small outdoor gyms and visited parks where all of the play toys were small statues of khan. i even got a chance to drink the national drink, fermented mare's milk. after that me and the toilet in my hotel room became good friends. but the most impressing experience for me was visiting the largest buddhist temple in the center of the city.

It was my first time in a buddhist temple and it was gorgeous. i think that anyone could appreciate its ornate beauty. it had that distinct asian style roof. there were prayer wheels with cryptic golden prayers etched into them. and bald child monks, dressed in the familiar red robe of the dhali lama, were walking around with mischieve in thier eyes. it was all very enchanting. then i went inside.

standing before me was a fifty foot golden statue of the buddha. it had many arms with each hand twisted into the sign of a buddhist blessing. there was incense curling into the air. prayer wheels lined the walls and were kept in a constant spin by the people performing their daily rituals. the back wall was filled from floor to ceiling with smaller buddha statues. i watched as people filed in and bowed before the great statue whispering their requests. unheard prayers. suddenly the place felt so empty and i was finding it difficult to breath as though i was being suffocated by the mere thought that these people were without Jesus.

i haven't turned televison evangelist or anything. i'm not going to be seen handing out tracts on the street. in fact, i once even burned a tract given to me by an old person as a tip for their sunday morning breakfast...it had been my sixth one that morning and i was upset. didn't they know that jesus tracts wouldn't help me pay for my christian college tuition? didn't they know that i was a pk? anyway, that was before i knew better...kind of. i believe that it is intrusive on somebody else's culture and beliefs to push my own beliefs without knowing anything about him/her. the thought of missionaries going to the third world with nothing but a Bible in hand bothers me. Jesus never really pushed himself on people. He fed them. He clothed them. He taught them. He healed them. He got his hands dirty. But Jesus had the advantage that he was, well, Jesus. i, of course, do not have that advantage. i have the desire to feed, clothe, teach, and heal. but now i see that just doing these things are not enough. along with my dirty hands i must also have the name of Jesus readily poised on the tip of my tongue.

it took travelling to mongolia, and a fifty foot golden statue curtained in incense surrounded by unheard whispers to convice me of this. sometimes i'm a little slow. -SN

1: opportunities

in a few weeks i am going to be asked to give my testimony to a group of people who are eagerly waiting to send me to Nigeria... to be a MISSIONARY. honestly, the word itself scares the poop out of me for the very reason that i can't imagine "real" missionaries ever using the word poop. but i know full well that God created my in-most being, i am fearfully and wonderfully made, and before any word is on my tongue my creator knows it even if it is sometimes, unfortunately, the word poop. i know that i was created to share my story, b/c it is God's story, and he has given me my own unique way of sharing myself with others that doesn't get lost in fields of TULIPs.

in thinking about "my testimony" i've realized that i have never been asked to do this before. sure, i have shared parts of my story with teens who ask good questions about peer pressure, sex and God. i've told my neighbor why i read the Bible while pointing to the verses that really solidify the reasons why grace is all she and i need. i've written essays explaining my relationship with Jesus Christ and have been offered jobs because of my answers. but this? this is different. this is the whole story or, as paul harvey likes to say, this is the "rest of the story."

so, i thought that i would start to write down some thoughts on this here blog. i figure that some people do not know my story, even people in my own family. and who knows who reads these things! perhaps my story will resonate with someone else's story who may not realize that the author is God...

as of right now i think of "my story" in three separate key moments: sara meets Jesus on a bus, sara understands the necessity of sharing Jesus while standing under a 50 ft statue of the Buddha, and sara goes to Nigeria to hopefully be the hands, feet, ears, mouth of Jesus. i hope to write about each of these moments separately but show how each builds on the other.

SARA MEETS JESUS ON A BUS
i distinctly remember seeing God's hands on a bus in tegucigalpa, honduras during my senior year of college. it was on that bus where my heart broke and changed forever. up until that exact point on that bus i had been living a fairly shallow, empty life. i grew up a PK [preacher's kid] and i had been living many of the stories you hear told about PKs. that day i was alone on a bus, i was wet from the rain, and i was upset that i wasn't able to find a taxi that would get me home faster. There was a woman sitting in front of me holding her small baby. the baby had serious health problems. he was pale, had an enlarged head, small patches of fuzzy hair, and shallow sunken eyes that never seemed to blink. i know now that this is a sign of severe malnutrition. but when i got onto the bus the sight of the baby scared me and i know that my face betrayed me. everyone on that bus knew that the white girl was afraid and they watched her take her seat a few seats away from the woman. i chose to sit behind the woman instead of anywhere near her. the bus stopped and the woman got up to claim it. she had so much to carry, bags of food from the market, diaper bag, stuff, and her baby. i could have helped her but i didn't. i was too afraid of her baby.

that is when an amazing thing happened. Jesus entered the scene. the dirty, poor money collector on the bus approached the woman. i thought that he was going to tell her to hurry up, or at the most offer to take her bags. but instead he gently took her baby and with a gentle "con permiso--with your permission" kissed him on the head and carried him off the bus.

i remember feeling so ashamed. i had the opportunity to be the hands of Jesus and i had missed it. i felt as Peter might have felt the day he denied Jesus not once, not twice, but a whoppin' three times. i realized that most of my life had been a series of denials. it was just easier to turn my back then to actually SEE what the world needed from me, what Jesus needed from me. i don't think that i knew who Jesus was until that moment on the bus. and i regret to this day not sitting down next to that woman and telling her how beautiful her baby was.

since my experience on the bus my life has been dramatically different. i am a follower of Jesus. the stories of Jesus, his passion, his peacemaking, his willingness to be a servant and wash feet, his tears shed for his friend Lazarus, his concern for the poor and widowed, his ability to discern between the ways of the world and the ways of his father in heaven challenge me every single day. Jesus was a man of action not just of words. He was human and he never missed an opportunity.

i still miss opportunities every day. i'm a sinner. but i've been washed with the blood of a man who wasn't.

it all blurred into chili

i have never boasted to be the best cook, though i give it a good go sometimes. i have a few choice recipes that really suit me. they always reward me with mouthwatering smells and savorry tastes. when i'm having a bad day i'll cook one of these comfort meals. when i invite people over i will make one of these meals to impress them. but when the sun is shining and there are no guests to grace my table i will often try a new recipe or two. i tend to plan out these experimental meals for days, collecting the wisdom from those who may have their own secrets. add lime juice, they say. try a bit of hot sauce, they'll add. let it sit for three days, they'll advise. i usually don't go for those "sit for three days" type recipes. i'm more of an instant gratification type.

tonight i tried my hand at meatloaf. it may seem surprising to you that i have never tried to cook meatloaf before. it was even surprising to me, in fact. the other day when i asked my sisters for meals to cook for breastfeeding women and one of them mentioned "meatloaf" i had to scratch my chin. yes. meatloaf. perfect.

since then i have been going over the simple recipe, checking and double-checking the ingredients. what must be said here is that i am scatter-brained shopper. it must be some sort of learning disorder. my brain refuses to see everything on the list. i will have my carefully written out list in hand and it never fails that i will forget one or two of the essentials on my list. i usually have to return to the store one or two times in order to complete the recipe. this time it was twice. first i forgot the evaporated milk. then i forgot the brown sugar.

finally, at 5pm tonight I was ready to roll. i rolled up my sleeves. i washed my hands. i cut an onion. i called my sister to calm my nerves. next, it was time to dig into the meat. i hate touching meat. when i do, i usually can't eat my meal. brett does most of the meat chopping in our household. but, today i was ready. i mean, i had been preparing for this for like a week! i grabbed the meat out of the fridge and opened it. to my surprise i saw that instead of buying ground beef i had mistakenly bought ground beef STEAK, which is different. i had beed tricked by the sale.

i decided to forge ahead. i found that i could rip the meat apart and that it started to take on the appearance of regular ground beef, just in larger chunks. it was disgusting. i added the egg, the evaporated milk, the onion, and the staple: oatmeal. in went my hands, squishing the meat until my head felt woozey. i quickly formed the small loaves and threw everything in the oven. then i washed my hands seven times.

brett came home then and i told him all about my adventures with the meat. those stories always gift me with that toothy grin and deep laugh. brett was genuinely excited for the meatloaf. bless him. he's been on the bad end of my experiments before.

beep, beep, beep, beep. just as the potatoes were ready to climb out of their steamy whirlpool, the meatloaf was done. that never happens! what good timing. i fixed up our plates, filled our water glasses, and asked brett to pray. sometimes brett's prayers are longer than expected. tonight i felt like i had to keep peaking at him b/c i couldn't believe he was still going. perhaps it's because of the meatloaf. it looked so good under my nose. amen. finally.

the first bite was awful. the second bite was worse. by the third bite i was done. brett kept trying to ask me if i had followed the recipe. "did the recipe give you a time," he said. "yes, " i said. "did you follow the time," he asked. "yes, " i said. "well, it seems...i don't know." we agreed it was gross and cleared our plates for their bath.

thanks to brett the meatloaf has been turned into chili. as he was killing it he looked over to me and said, "let's never eat meatloaf again." amen brett, amen.

i guess my breastfeeding friend will just have to go hungry tonight. --SN

hey y'all

the rhododendron were a'blume in the great smoky mountain national park. see some pics here of our trip to North Carolina.

an amazing thing happened on our trip. somehow, for the second time in my life, i let the map fly out the window. have you ever seen an atlas get hit by a semi doing 70? it's pretty funny...

full tank-a gas

brett and i are takin' to the open road this weekend, road trippin' it down to North Carolina so that brett can walk his aunt down the aisle. we leave at 01600 today. the excitement i feel has conjured up some memories from road-trips past. if you care to know em', jump on in. the backseat's open.

1995-i'm on my way to Gulf Shores Alabama with my best friend's family. We're caravaning with her aunt and uncle and cousins. The windows are down, the excitement is up, and we were playing a continuous game of tag at each consecutive stop. It came time to re-fill the tanks and all the kids were poised to jump out of the vans and run as fast as they could away from the 'it' person, Katy's cousin Jeff. We stopped, the van door flew open, and out i ran, top speed, shoes barely hitting the pavement. i took the chance to look over my shoulder to guage the speed of my predator. when i turned around my head slammed, full force, into an advertisement posted between two pumps. I was knocked cold, flat onto my back, world dark. when i came to, my friend's entire family was huddled around me like they were waiting for me to make the next play. jeff then reached down, tagged me, and said "you're it."

1996-i'm on my way to Marco Island, Florida. It's my high school senior year spring break. i'm with all my best girlfriends. i have the chicken pox.

2000-i'm on my way to colorado. brett is in the seat next to me. we're off to spend a week in the mountains before saying goodbye for the next year. the trip is lovely. the air was warm, the music was michael jackson, and i was with my best friend who was singing "billy jean" at the top of his lungs. we hit nebraska and the weather took a turn for the worse. we actually saw parts of a roof blow in front of us. we decided to turn on the radio to see if we were going to die. the tornado warning signal was blaring as the announcer was listing counties where people should already be in their basements. i checked the map. "brett?" i said. "do you think we should pull into a ditch?"

when we get to colorado and set up camp i decide to call my parents, like a good daughter does, to let them know i'm ok. my dad answers the phone and I say, "dad, i'm here. we made it safe!" my dad says, "where are you? who's we?" apparently i had forgotten to tell my parents where i was going. my mom then got on the phone and reminded me to be careful "both in and out of the tent." i think i blushed the rest of the week.

2000-i'm on my way to texas. my friend hannah is in the seat next to me. we're off to catch a flight in Austin that will wisk us away to Honduras for a full year. "sin wagon" is painted on the top of our car for all the truck drivers to honk at. and we've got enough mixed tapes to make any child of the 80's proud. on the way we see a sign for BOOMLAND and decided that we could not pass up a place with a name like that. we picked ourselves up some straw cowgirl hats and diet cokes. if you've never been to boomland, i highly suggest it.

we make it all the way to memphis, home of the king, before we decide to stop...for a couple days. first on our list of 'musts' is Graceland. we had a hard time finding graceland. you see, i let the map get sucked out of the window. i didn't quite know how to break the news to hannah so we ended up getting more lost than need be. you wouldn't think that graceland would be that hard to find but remember we were in a car with "sin wagon" painted on it and i had just let the map fly out the window. when we finally reached graceland we found it to be less than gracious. they wouldn't let us in for free. all they allowed us to do was sign the graffitied cement wall surrounding the infamous pelvis's home. although, it did happen to be "elvis week" and we were able to see a lot of crazies dressed as elvis. oh, and we got two free american express t-shirts by applying for a credit card.

our first night we decided to check out Beal Street, the birth place of the blues. seeing as how hannah had already set off an alarm by touching a statue of bb king in the visitors centre, we decided that we should at least visit bb's bar. as luck would have it we met some young chaps who apparently knew everyone on beal street. we got into clubs for free...and we drank for free too! at least that is what we thought, but these boys had other ideas. when hannah and i came to this realization we excused ourselves to go 'freshen up' in the bathroom. we quickly found the back door to the joint and escaped. unfortunately we escaped into a fenced in area with the dumpsters. we were too afraid to go back in so we jumped the fence! if there was ever a movie moment in my life, it was then. it totally kicked ass.

we made it to texas and found that "sin wagon" had actually baked itself into the paint job of hannah's car. her dad was none too happy.

2001-i'm on my way home from the great west. my parents are in the front seat. they had picked me up in texas when i arrived back from honduras and we were taking a family trip "out west." we visited all the great land-marks and some of the not so great land-marks too. my mom had rented the book-on-tape "hannibal" which we intensely listened to the entire trip (it was 12 tapes long).

2002-i'm on my way across the country of ireland. my friend natalie is beside me. i had just spent a month working in England when I decided to call up natalie to ask her if she wanted to meet me for a guiness. she obliged. this was my first experience driving on the "wrong side of the road." i'm not very good at the stick shift, but we had decided to rent a stick to save some euros. i knew it was going to be trouble when, before even leaving the parking lot, i couldn't figure out how to put the car in reverse. i had to keep driving around and around in circles before natalie rolled down the window to ask someone. while leaving the lot i hit three curbs. in the round-abouts, that are so popular in europe, i often had problems manuevering my way out of them. you can imagine how dizzy we felt. but we made it across the entire country to the cliffs of mohr and the aaron islands. we drank in pubs with old irish men singing ballads about conner's pass. we rented bikes and rode in the ever-present drizzle. we slept in co-ed hostels with naked frenchmen. we even made it back to the airport safe and sound after i had driven the wrong way on a one-way in the middle of busy Dublin. i can still hear the crowds of dubliners screaming "you're goin' the wrrrong way! you're goin' the wrrrrong way!" cheers.

these are just a few of my road-trip memories. i'm sure that this little jaunt to North Carolina will be no less adventurous. we've borrowed a small fridge that plugs into the car's lighter. that, no doubt, will be filled with cokes and turkey sandwiches.

an ode (for the future...)

brett and i do not have a washing machine. therefore we wait until we have a smelly mountain, made of various degrees of dirty cloth, before we break down and bring it to the mat on Fulton. we chose this laundry mat for a few different reasons. first, it's the cheapest. we've scouted the whole city and it is the only place in town where you can get a cold wash for a buck. second, it is close to our apartment. and third, "free soap thursday." we rarely take advantage of "free soap thursday" but it is appealing enough to lure our business, even on mondays.

the thing about the Fulton mat is that it totally sucks. it is dirty. the machines hold about two shirts and a pair of jeans. the money dispensers on the machines do not work. and people are allowed to smoke inside the building. if you get caught there with a smoker, you leave with smokey clothes. it's like you have just spent two hours in a bar rather than in a place that boasts free soap.

the people that work at the mat are, at best, hard to figure out. there seems to be some breaking of child labor laws going on. everytime we are there it seems as if the person half-heartedly mopping the floor with what seems to be gutter water, is younger. we think the business may be owned by a family, a family that is continuously in and out and talking on those beeping Nextel phones. a family that kind of looks like a bunch of thugs. however, more likely the place is simply run by people who just don't care. i came to this conclusion last night. we were at the mat and the phone started to ring. the oldest of the workers yelled across the whole place to the younger girl who was about to answer the phone, "make sure you don't get on that camera!" apparently, the cameras at the Fulton mat are not to keep an eye out for burglers, but to keep an eye on the employees. suspicious.

sometimes a machine breaks down or your money gets stuck. this means that you have to interrupt someone's Nextel phone call to get help. it's almost not worth the large sigh and eye roll to ask for help. but quarters (ie-gold) are precious things in the land of laundo-mat. you can't just let them get eatten up.

one time brett had already filled a dryer with quaters when we noticed that there was a large wad of gum stuck to the side of the machine. we wanted our gold back so we went to stage our complaint. the girl came over to the machine and peered inside. she spotted the gum, touched it with her finger, and then looked at us as if we were crazy. "naw, that's OLD gum," she said. old gum? does that make it any less gross? to her credit she gave us our gold back.

the Fulton mat has this way of pitting brett and me against each other. we walk in that place and inevitably the same argument flares up. "sara, more clothes can fit in this one." "brett, you have to DISSOLVE the soap before putting the clothes in." "sara, why are you paying for hot water?" "brett, if we are going to wash our clothes in this hell then i at least want them somewhat clean!" it never fails. but, we're both getting better at getting over it. now it's just routine. we say what we came to say and then we buy squirts out of the vending machine.

every time brett and i journey to the Fulton mat we know that we will be there for at least two hours. we usually bring some reading material and last night we brought our own cokes. we had had our argument already so there was nothing more to do than watch and analyze all the other people there and try to figure out why the circle machines cost $2 a load. when it was finally time to start folding brett looked at me and said, "you know, someday we'll look back fondly at our time at the laundry mat." i suppose he's right.

my favorite memory

after graduating from college i moved to tegucigalpa, honduras to teach 6th graders at a bilingual school. living in a place like honduras gives you a bank full of memories. i survived heat, bugs, amoebas in my belly, and a robbery. i snorkeled in the clearest water in the world, slept under the stars on a sailboat with yugoslavians on their way to india, and drank enough port royal and ate enough papusas to call myself honduran. i had a lot of good days and a lot of bad days. but, both the good and the bad have all turned into stories that can keep people laughing at a party. they are all good memeories now...but this is my favorite:

my mom, my aunt, and my sister came to visit me one month before my sad departure from honduras. they came and hung out with my kids at school, laughed with them, enjoyed their silliness. then it was time to take them on a little honduran adventure. i had heard of this small cabin, built by a german couple, up in the national cloud forest. i had never been to the cabin before...but i had directions. the directions went a little something like this: catch the morning bus to san juancito. look for the blue pepsi stand. when you find it, go inside and ask for jorge. it was vague enough and true enough to honduran form that i thought it might just work.

in the morning we packed up and headed to the bus stop. we boarded the old school bus, complete with its stickers, catholic paraphernalia, and stolen mercedeez benz hood ornament attached to the front. it started to sprinkle. the bus ride took us straight up a mountain, around harrowing curves, past shacks, and bustling streets filled with people selling their goods. finally we pulled into the small town of san juancito. dirt roads. a gutted-out old bus. chickens. stray dogs. a blue pepsi stand.

by this time the sprinkle had turned into a spit. we entered the small blue pepsi stand to find a man and his daughter eating breakfast, eggs and beans. they greeted us with a warm "buenos dias." i went to the counter and asked the small, smiling honduran woman if she knew a man named "jorge." her face brightened even further as she said "SI, pues!" she grabbed a HUGE radio off the wall, turned, and just about poked my eye out with the longest antenna i've ever seen. the lady yelled into the radio probably louder than necessary, "JORGE...VENGA!" jorge come. we sat down next to the father and daughter eating breakfast and they continued to stare and smile between bites.

soon, a blue pick-up truck pulled up next to the blue pepsi stand and out jumped a very white man with very blonde hair. he had cut off jean shorts and a big toothy grin. he spoke with a german accent. jorge.

jorge told us to pile into the truck. my mom and aunt sat up front to chat with jorge, while my sister and i jumped in the bed and decided to stand for the ride up the mountain, holding onto the bar at the top of the truck. up and up and up we went, climbing until our breath was taken by the views.

jorge drove us down a small dirt path and stopped in front of a wooden gate. we had arrived. jorge opened the gate and invited us to watch our step. we "watched our step" right into his secret garden. tropical flowers, vegetable plants, and vines all reached out to touch our feet in a plant-like welcome. ahead of us was a small two-room cabin. jorge showed us to our rooms and asked us what we would like for dinner.

that night was filled with girl-like giggles as my mom, my aunt, my sister and i sat overlooking a large mountain pass, identical feet propped up on the porch rail. we watched a rain cloud engulf us and then became silent to listen to the rain torture the roof. we ate jorge's meal and drank his wine, two bottles of it, then decided to turn in for the night.

my sister and i snuggled down together into the softest bed a goose has ever produced. we chatted and laughed until our breathing became deeper with sleep. we heard voices outside our door. our mother and aunt were totally showing us up by staying up late. we jumped out of bed to join them back out on the porch. i can't describe the feeling, but i know that i haven't felt it before.

in the morning we took open air showers and rode back down the mountain with jorge.