Colorado Recap

Hello there!  It's me...your long lost blogging friend!

I would apologize for my blogging hiatus, except who could really blame me with this right outside my front door.  (a.k.a. Sorry...not sorry)

Colorado State University where I spent the last seven weeks.  See those mountains in the background?!?!?

For the past seven weeks, I've been in Fort Collins, Colorado, with about 2,000 others on staff with CRU, going through ongoing ministry training.  I know I've alluded to this already in my  Colorado Teaser, but it was by far the best thing I've done all year that I didn't even know I needed.  I knew going into this summer that it had been a long year of adjusting to a new team and a new city.  It had been a great year, where we had seen God show up in some pretty incredible ways, but by the end of the spring semester, I just felt tired, the kind of tired where not even a good, full day on the beach does the trick.  

And then this summer....seven beautiful weeks of connecting with friends who are doing the same job I am, rejoicing in the same victories and wrestling with the same struggles, seven weeks of learning from people with incredible experience in leading ministry teams, and seven weeks of being encouraged to make my relationship with the God my number one priority (not my ministry or my team or my students).  Oh, and did I mention seven week of exploring Colorado.    

Day trips to Boulder...

People watching on the Pearl Street Mall

Hiking my first 14er and straddling the continental divide...

I just can't even tell you how amazing this moment was.  We left Fort Collins at 4am to make it to the peak of Gray's Mountain and back bellow tree line before the afternoon thunderstorms rolled in.  8 hours of hiking at 14,200 feet.  I knew it was going to be hard, and up until that moment, it was the hardest thing I had ever done in my life (that was before I did my second 14er a few weeks later).  I've done longer hikes, and I've done steeper hikes, but that altitude was harder than I expected.  Everything felt like it was moving in slow motion.  But that view at the top...if there were ever anything that made that hike worth it, it was that view, literally standing on top of the word...or at least the Continental Divide.

Trips to Denver for Rockies Games and Thai food...

Our view at the Mile High Stadium

A quick trip to Vail...

Followed by a 3:30 am wake up call to hike my second 14er of the summer, Mount Massive...

Our hiking group at the second tallest peak in Colorado, 14,500 feet.  If I thought Gray's Peak was hard, this one was harder.  

But again...that view makes it all worth it.

Movies at Red Rock's Amphitheater...

A day trip to the capitol of the least populated state in the United States, Cheyenne, Wyoming...

The thriving metropolis of 59,000 just days before the largest rodeo in the United States comes to town.

A front row seat to see one of my all time favorite bands play, Needtobreath, courtesy of our CRU National Staff Conference...

Did I mention I was FRONT ROW?!?!?!?  I mean...I sang "Outsiders" right along with them.

And good friends to experience it all with...

Again I say...it was a good, sweet summer.  

Colorado Teaser

I know...I know...I've been a little absent lately, but there has been good reason. 

 

 

With this right outside my front door, it's hard to convince myself to use my free time to sit in front of a computer.  This is a hike right outside of Fort Collins, at Horsetooth Mountain, I did the day after flying into Denver. 

 

I'll update more about my time out in Colorado soon, but so far, I'll just say that it has been the best thing I have done this year that I didn't even know I needed.  In just one short week, I've learned so much about leading a campus ministry team from people who have far more experience than I do.  I've slowed down in a way that is impossible to do when school is going.  I've connected with the Lord in a way that has been life giving, refreshing, and needed, and, not to worry, I've had a blast.  Between movies, hikes, coffee with friends, and one Body Boot Camp Fitness class that left me sore for a week, there has been plenty to do to fill up free time when I'm not in classes.  

Fort Collins Possibilities

I love living at the beach.  In the past two days, I've spent a total of eight hours laying on the sand with the sound of the ocean in the background, and with the exception of taking a while to find a legitimate parking spot, every moment of those eight hours was perfect.  Today, as I was walking back to the car with my sweet friend, Kinny, covered in sunscreen, sand, and salt, no make up on, ready for a post beach nap, I suddenly realized how seamlessly I seem to have transitioned from my city life in Charlotte, to the beach life in Wilmington.

But, as much as I love the beach life in my "new" (at some point I'm going to have to stop calling it new) town, in just six short days, I'll dig out my Chacos, Camelback, and Mountain Hardware Fleece that have been sorely neglected since I moved here, and will board a plane to Fort Collins, Colorado, where I'll spend six weeks being trained in this position as a Campus Ministry Director. 

In the spirit of the Year of Do, I've been working on list of things I can do in my free time this summer to take advantage of my time in Colorado.  I'm not sure I can actually call this a Colorado Bucket List.  Tackling all of this in one summer might be more ambitious than my free time will allow.  Let's call it more a list of potential adventures for Fort Collins. 

Ahem....without further adu...things I'm looking forward to about a summer in Fort Collins, Colorado...

1) Go to Wyoming (I know it sounds a little crazy, but it won't be that far away and I've never been before)
2) Visit Boulder, CO and hike Flagstaff Mountain
3) Visit Garden of the Gods in Colorado Springs, CO
4) Wander around the LoDo neighborhood in Denver
5) Hike Quandary Peak (It's the shortest of all of the 14ers at 3 miles one way.  I'm pretty sure I'm not in shape enough to do Longs Peak, but this one is a possibility and hiking a 14er is on my life bucket list.)
6) Run down a sand dune at Great Sand Dunes National Park
7) Hike Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park
8) Bike Fort Collins (Officially the most bike friendly city in the U.S.  You can actually rent bikes from the Bike Library for free for the summer.)
9) Swetsville Zoo (a "zoo" where all of the animals are sculptures make out of scrap metal)
10) Eat at Lucille's (boasts best breakfast in Fort Collins, although I think they have some steep competition)
11) Eat at Tasty Harmony (Organic vegetarian food)
12) Eat the best burger in Fort Collins at Study (because as much as I like organic vegetarian food, I love a good burger)
13) Get coffee at Starry Night in downtown Fort Collins (because I'll need somewhere fun to study for these classes I'll be taking)
14) Listen to live music at Lucky Joe's
15) Visit a ghost town
16) See either a movie or concert at Red Rocks Amphitheater, just outside of Denver
17) Watch a baseball game at the Mile High Stadium
18) Visit the Continental Divide
19) Drive Pikes Peak Highway
20) Go to the Telluride Bluegrass Festival in late June (although this might might be a stretch.  I'm pretty sure Telluride is on the opposite end of the state.)
21) Eat at Yum Yum, a Lebanese/Mediterranean restaurant in Fort Collins.

That's it...I'm officially ready to take advantage of the weekends in Fort Collins this summer.

Wilmington in the Summer: Art Galleries, Bluegrass, and End of Life Care

My friends had been talking about how great this "art gallery" was for weeks.  "It's part art gallery, part concert venue, and it looks like an abandoned building," they said.  And they weren't lying.  Driving to the benefit concert that night, we passed straight through the parts of Wilmington I had gotten to know over my ten months living here, and into areas I hadn't know existed.  Well, that's not exactly true.  I knew there had to be something under the big bridge downtown, I just didn't expect it to be an "art gallery."  When I show you pictures of this building, you'll understand why I keep putting "art gallery" in quotations.  None of us really knew what the benefit concert was for, but one of my favorite bluegrass bands in town was playing and it sounded like an interesting night.

As we pulled underneath the big bridge, with the faint thump of cars driving overhead, a building sat to our left, overlooking the river.  From the outside it looked pretty nondescript, white walls, big factory like windows, gravel parking lot.  It looked like it had had multiple uses during it's life span, maybe a psychiatric hospital or a hog processing plant (I'm from Eastern North Carolina.  We have a lot of hog processing plants, and they all looked pretty similar to this art show/benefit concert I was about to walk into.)

We unloaded from the car, walked past the sign that read "Art Factory," and stepped into the building, hot/muggy air meeting us halfway.  Apparently they don't air condition buildings that resemble hog processing plants.  A sweet looking elderly lady met us at a folding table set up just inside the entrance, surrounded by concrete.  Concrete walls, concrete floors, everything was grey. 

She handed us a flyer for the event that read, "Living Will Coalition" at the top.  Apparently, in the pursuit of our favorite bluegrass band, we had stumbled onto a benefit for an organization that advocates for people to have a plan for their end of life care.  She directed us to the next table covered in pink slips of paper where a large man with lots of tattoos and a pony tail that stretched to his waist asked if we had given any thought to our end of life care and if we might want to go ahead and fill out a living will tonight. 

It's an odd feeling, standing inside what appears to be a place where your pork for your last family BBQ was butchered, listening to wagon wheel, talking about how you would like to die.  But it was one of those random nights I absolutely loved, good friends, good music, and a good story by the end of the night. 

Wilmington Summer Bucket List: Concert at Airlie Gardens

Picture this...it's Friday evening, eighty degrees and sunny, and to early in the year for the bugs to be out.  You're lounging in a beach chair munching on your favorites foods from Trader Joes, listening covers of some of your favorite 90s songs, all while sitting under a giant oak tree.  The conversation with good friends is wonderful and every once in a while someone you recognize from various places from around town pops in to say hello.  Sigh...every Friday should end like this.

My view for the concert

 

When people say that summer is the best time to live in Wilmington, I'm pretty sure they are referring to events like this.  Let's count this as one more success for the Wilmington Summer Bucket List.  

Wilmington Summer Bucket List: The Creepy Zoo Wasn't So Creepy

I'm not going to lie, my expectations were pretty low for the zoo on Carolina Beach Road.  For starters, who really expects a zoo on the outskirts of a beach town; A surf shop, maybe, but not a zoo.  But it was one of those places that has piqued my interest ever since I was driving through town with my friend Brooke and asked what the giant building shaped like a lion's head was.  So I rounded up a some friends and a few kids (because zoos are always better with kids around) and we set off to experience everything the Creepy Zoo, as I had affectionately started referring to it as, had to offer. 

What did we find?  It turns out the creepy zoo really isn't that creepy at all.  Actually, it's kind of amazing.  Who would have thought a leopard, white tiger, sloth, giraffe, and lemurs all lived within 10 miles of Carolina Beach. 

It's a super blurry picture, but here is our rag tag group of Creepy Zoo explorers standing at the entrance.

 

 

At the entrance you could pick up corn and peanuts to feed the animals with.  This donkey was quite friendly once he realized I had food.

 

 

Oh you know...just another day in the life...chasing a peacock.  At this point, I'm pretty sure Jacob was saying, "A bird!  I will catch it!"  Don't worry...he never did.  Did you know peacocks can jump fences?

 

 

I love sloths.  I think they are my favorite animals.  They just look so friendly.

 

 

I was attempting to feed the parrot a peanut.  I couldn't quite reach far enough.

 

Enthralled by the swans...so clique yet so true.

 

Special shout out to my friend, Julian, (and the random photo bombing girl behind us) who called me last night and said he wanted to mark something off my Wilmington Bucket List with me.  We actually marked off two things, the Creepy Zoo and the Trolley Stop.  You can read about his Day of Do adventure with me at http://julianjcarter.com/ 

 

Today was one of those unexpectedly good days.  If anyone living or planning a visit to Wilmington is reading this, I highly recommend a visit to the Creepy Zoo.  Once you get past the building shaped like a giant lion's head, it's actually kind of great.  

An Honest Look at Burnout: What I Did Wrong This Year

[Disclaimer: I wrote this blog post about a month ago in a moment of complete desperation and exhaustion after what had been a really long couple of months.  I told myself I'd never actually publish it.  It was a little too revealing and personal and felt like too much of a risk.  But I was talking to a good friend today about the Year of Do and how this year has been about taking risks I wouldn't normally take.  So...why not write this for the world to read (or, lets be honest, the few and faithful).  Why not give a little glimpse into the world of burnout and what happens when we don't trust God.  So...here it is.  I hope it's helpful for someone to see what I did wrong this year as a Campus Director of a Campus Ministry.]

Today I hit a wall.  This morning actually. 

I'll spare the details of what led to this point, but needless to say, there I sat, knees pulled up to my chest, in the middle of my bed, crying into my cup of coffee.  I felt abandoned.  I felt alone.  I felt like I had voiced for months that I was heading in this direction, feeling overwhelmed and exhausted, but as the responsibilities continued to pile up, I felt used.  Like every spare minute and ounce of energy I had to give had been given, and there I sat, dried up and spent, still falling short of the needs around me.  My friends had warned me for months that I was headed in the direction of burn out, and this was it, the moment I had been warned about.

There are really very few moments in my life where I have desperately wished I was married.  I can think of maybe two, and usually it is when my car or computer breaks down and I don't know how to fix it.  But this morning, as I sat sobbing in my bed, I desperately wanted someone to crawl up next to me, wrap their arms around me, and fight for me when I didn't feel like I had the energy to fight for myself. 

But there I sat, alone. 

Jesus was not my first pick of people I wanted to run to in that moment.  To be honest, I felt like He was partly to blame.  If this is what handing your life over to Him looked like, I wasn't sure I could do it anymore.  But my roommate, parents, and good friends were all at work, my staff team was busy preparing for the days ahead, and I wasn't even sure how to vocalize what I was feeling in the moment if there had been someone to listen. 

So I rolled out of bed, still sobbing, grabbed another cup of coffee, a journal, and my bible, and I climbed back into bed, to vent to the only one available. 

I picked up the journal first.  I wasn't ready to hear what Jesus wanted to say to me.  I needed to vent. 

"I need help.  I need a rescuer.  I feel like everyone else has someone fighting for them, and if I'm honest, I feel abandoned, alone, and a little used.  You talk about finding joy in situations that are far worse than this, but I don't know where to find it right now.  I'm exhausted." 

The journaling went on for a few more pages, echoing a common theme of exhaustion and hopelessness.

Next I pulled out my Jesus Calling book.  I wasn't ready to hear from God himself.  My heart was still a little bitter.  But I could ease my way into it by hearing what other people thought He might say. 

April 24: "Rest in the stillness of My Presence while I prepare you for this day.  Be still, and know that I am God.  I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth!"

And then it hit me, the reason that had led to my current state.  I sat up from the fetal position I had been huddled in and loosened the death grip on my cup of coffee. 

At some point on staff, I had known that I could never do this job on my own, that I needed God to act and move if we were going to be successful.  But, whether it was because I had been distracted by a new ministry and position, or because I had done this so long I had let arrogance slip into my work ethic, somehow, for the past year, I had been doing everything on my own.  I didn't trust God to exalt himself, I needed to do it, and I needed to do it perfectly.  I didn't trust this ministry to succeed without my constant attention.  I needed to be at its beckon call.  Deep down, if I was honest with myself, I wanted God to take a backseat while I showed Him how things could really be done. 

But it hadn't worked. 

I had spent the last few months giving everything I could, but with every criticism or suggestion I heard only one thing, "It's not enough."  And it was true, it wasn't enough.  I wasn't enough.  This ministry, the staff who give so selflessly, the students who show up every week, they needed more than I could give them.  They needed someone who didn't have a limit the way that I did, who never faltered in giving love and grace, who would literally move heaven and earth for them.  They needed Him: The Strong One, The Everlasting God, The Lord Who Provides, The God of Peace, The Lord The Shepherd. 

And so I climbed out of bed, with what felt like hope for the first time in months, knowing that I wasn't enough for what lay ahead of me that day, but that this ministry and the people in it would have everything they ever needed, provided by someone who loved them more than I was capable of.