Back in Missouri!

Well, I'm finally back home. Btw, so sorry I haven't posted in forever! I will try to keep my blog a bit more up-to-date. Of course, I won't be able to up-date from Ecuador.... Anyways, when we came back as a family from IL, I stayed a whole 1/2 day w/ my family, most of that being spent packing for my next trip. I met most of my volleyball team @ Kroger, then we left for Springfield and VB camp!!=) The actual camp was great! Though, we did get in an accident on the first day while on our way to the mall. No one was hurt except for the lady driving the other car. But she was on drugs so she didn't get as hurt as any normal person would after hitting their head on their windshield so hard it cracked...... Anyways..........they caught her after she drove away from the scene and took her to a hospital, after which she probably went to jail........I suppose I should give you the whole story.........

We were minding our own business on our way to the mall after camp on the first day, sitting at a red light and talking and laughing as a van full of girls is bound to do. Sarah, our coach was driving and 11 girls from the team were riding in our big white van. The lady had pulled out of Walgreen's and started driving towards the intersection we were stopped at. I think we were headed south and she north. Anyways, she ran the red light, hit a car waiting to turn on the west side of the intersection then came swerving towards us. I think Sarah heard the squeal when the lady hit the other car, but barely had time to look up before she hit us. She was driving just a small car and since we were in the big van, it hit right below Sarah's seat. If the lady had been driving a truck or we'd been in a smaller vehicle, Sarah would've been badly injured or even killed. We thank the Lord that it was us in the big van and not someone else....... When the lady hit the other car( I think she just got one of the lights, they weren't hurt), she hit the windshield, then when she hit us, she obviously was not wearing a seat belt, because she was flung from the divers seat to the passenger's side, hit the windshield over there and landed on the floorboard. No one else was in the car. After hitting us, she climbed up pushed back the driver's seat got in looked around kinda dazed and drove off. Sarah realized she was gonna leave and started yelling at us to get the licence plate number. We did and one of the girls called the police while I called Dad. We were pretty close to the baseball field and there were people going to the game, so we had about 10 witnesses who all saw the same thing, which was really nice. The policeman came and got all our ID and phone numbers. We pulled over into a small parking lot that was very convenient.=) We all got out of the car and everyone started calling parents and such. One of the first things one of the girls said however was, "Are we still going to the mall?" We did go to the mall, though the accident took about 45 min out of the time we could spend there. I only bought one thing. A skirt.

After that things went as planned except for the ride home, Mom & Dad had to bring a couple minivans down to pick us all up. Volleyball camp was great and we got to do a bunch of other thing too.=) We got to go bowling and to see a Springfield Cardinals game(minor league, yeah, it took me awhile to figure that one out.), and we also got to go swimming!=) Another thing that I thought was awesome is that coach Sarah led us in devotions every evening. We studied the story of Esther(which totally should be spelled "Ester") and also studied some of her character qualities, our personal qualities that we shared w/ Esther, and the qualities of one of the other girls. It was very good for me to take the time to really think about someone else's qualities and think if they coincided w/ Esther's qualities.....I also found out a bit about myself. On the last night we stayed there we did our devotions in the sanctuary(before we did it in one of the sunday school rooms.), then after we spent about an hour in prayer at the end of which we sang a few praise songs together. To be honest, I don't think I've ever taken that much time to pray before. It was great and I really need to do it again sometime..... Anyways, in whole the trip was great! Well, the accident was really scary, but no one got hurt and if it had been someone else in a different car........let's just say I'm glad it was us.

I'm back home now, though I think I already said that and I'll be going to volleyball open gym real soon.=) This is only the 2nd open gym I've been able to go to which is a real bummer, but o well.... I finally almost finished the dogs' haircut, which I started in what was it???May? Wow. Oops... So I'm pretty much done w/ them except that both their tails look funny and rocky won't stay still enough for me to get his back end and there's a couple spots on joy that could be better, but I think they now officially hate the scissors. I'll try to get pictures before we leave. Which reminds me......................

My family and I are leaving for Ecuador on Wednesday!!!!!!!!!=) Prayer for safe travel would be appreciated and that the weather would cooperate(weird word) w/ our plans to go into the jungle. Also, a lot of you probably know this, but some of our friends, the Quittschriebers(I know awesome name!) are going to adopt 2 kids from Russia who stayed w/ them for a couple weeks I think. Anyways, they're trying to adopt, it costs a LOT of money, but they put it in God's hands and they really believe God wants them to do this. Anyways, I know they would appreciate prayer greatly.

Wow, I definitely have not started packing yet. I think I'll be doing a bit of that today after volleyball and stuff....=) Sorry this post is so looooong, but I had a lot of catching up to do. I've been slacking on running too. I did great while in MI and then came volleyball camp, and I did bike/roller blade once or twice, but nothing regular....=( Well I gotta go to volleyball now, I'll try to write more later.... Bye!