Kyle and Leah Nelson's Blog

Summer Recap...

on Thursday, September 9, 2010

This summer has been an absolutely busy one. Alot of fun, but busy. In May we were offered to move into our friends house(pictures will come soon). They moved to Germany in early august and we moved shortly after they left. We are so thankful to be living in a house now. Seriously.

At the same time of having to move our good friend Andreas (Maxximus) Haupt was visiting us from Switzerland. It was great to catch up with an old friend and have a little vacation time.

After Andi left we had roughly 3 days before Leah's parents arrived. We had an awesome time with Stan and Jeannine going to glacier park, fishing, touring native american museums, going to the amish store, and driving, lots of driving ;) It was nice to have them here and the time really flew by.

Leah has been working as a CNA in a town called Ronan (about 20 minutes from our house). It's not the most glamourous of jobs (wiping butt almost all day) but it's a pre-requisite to get into the nursing program. She starts back in with school on the 27th of September.

Our youth group has been going strong all summer with it's theme..."The Summer of XS" The main idea is that anything that is truely worth doing is worth doing in excess(XS!). We broke down the whole youth group into grades/teams and made a competition out of the summer. We had journals with daily bible reading for everyone to do and write something in, and every week they would have to turn them in to get points for their team. We also did mini one day missions trips that they would get points for if they went. Once every 3 weeks or so we would break down into small groups and have "family time" discussions that allowed everyone to process things and go a little deeper through discussion. In the end, Leah and I's team ended up winning and for the prize we won a trip to a place that has paintball, xbox's, pool, foosball etc to hang out for the day. It really went well and was awesome to see some things "clicking" with kids as they discussed what we've been talking about all summer. We had a corporate sponsor, XS, that donated energy drinks all summer...yeah good times.

To wrap up our summer we drove to Washington over labor day weekend and got to visit our friends Jessie and Jesse for a day on saturday. Then on sunday the 5th we drove to the Gorge Amphitheater in the middle of Washington and saw Dave Matthews Band and Ben Harper. It was an awesome time. We drove up to the campground and were in awe of what it looks like when 15,000 people camp in a field. It was crazyness. The good kind. The show was awesome. 20,000+ people out in the middle of nowhere at an absolutely beautiful place having a good time. It was over all too soon. We'll be back for more. It was a great end to an awesome summer.

Told you it was beautiful

Camping is insane!!!

Glacier

on Monday, June 7, 2010

We took our first trip up to Glacier Park this year and were treated with decent weather and a momma black bear and her two cubs! The bears were just hanging out by the side of the road for quite awhile!

Spring is Here!!!

on Friday, April 23, 2010

220

on Tuesday, March 9, 2010

1- weekend
3- average hours of sleep per night
85- teenagers
220- volts it takes to restart the human heart
3,000- cans of Mountain Dew consumed

While that may sound like a normal youth retreat to you, but ours really was extraordinary. Instead of having a speaker for the weekend we had a drama as the centerpiece of the retreat. Without a lengthy explanation of the details of the drama, in essence it was about the prisons we put up around us. For each of us it is a different prison. It might be insecurity, sexual addiction, drug/alcohol addiction, self loathing, unforgiveness, or whatever else holds us back from becoming who God wants us to be.

One of the quotes that hit home was:
"Your future is not a matter of chance, it's a matter of choice"

I think this was a good wake up call for just about everyone at the retreat. You have to make choices now that will determine your future.

The most powerful part of the weekend came after the last act of the drama ended. We all went up to our rooms with our small groups and had a time of recognizing the prisons that hold us back from being all that God wants us to be. The things that hold us back from our future. After 20 minutes or so of reflection time and writing down what holds us back we all had a chance to share those things and pray with each other. It really was a moment of freedom in a lot of lives that night. It was amazing to see the awesome release that it brings when things are spoken others and then given up to God.

I'm really thankful for being able to be a part of our church's youth ministry, it's possibly the most effective ministry in our whole valley at bringing people to Christ. And it is such an amazing thing to see 150 young people every week come to a church and worship God. Alot of them, their parents are not christians, they became christians in the last year, or this is their first experience with "Church".

February Update

on Thursday, February 4, 2010

Hard to believe it's already the second month of 2010. Twent Ten, Two Thousand Ten, or whatever you feel like calling it. The past month has flow by. Leah has been busy with school, lots of homework. I think I've learned more about bones in January than I have in my whole life. She's also taking a Native American history class. It is interesting to hear the other side of the history books, told from their perspective. God has been so, so faithful in providing for Leah to go to school. The first two semester of schooling are paid for by a federal PELL grant, and the school gave us a $1000 scholarship as well.

I've been busy with work, I've been working lots which is really nice. I've been spending most of my time in a large Tribal Health building working my way down from the 3rd story down to the first.

Here's a blurry little cellphone pic of what I've been doing the last week and a half. This is a Dental clinic.

Lately I've been kind of addicted to reading this blog for ideas of food to make for dinner: http://www.seriouseats.com/ It's worth checking out.

Speaking of food, here's a delicious meal from our honeymoon in Mexico.

Back to school...

on Tuesday, January 5, 2010

Today, Leah is headed off to her first day of school at our local college to finish her pre-requisites for the Nursing program offered here. We're both very excited that she's going to school to finish what she originally wanted to do before entering YWAM. It should be a good adventure the next three years, Leah will be in school full time the next 2 semesters and then part time next school year. Hopefully getting into the two year Nursing program in Fall 2011. We are both still very much wanting to go back into missions, and sometimes being home and waiting can be the hardest part, but we know that God has a whole lifetime ahead for us and that this is a good waiting/preparation time. We are leaving our options open for what's ahead, we know that at least we would like to visit the "very large asian country", maybe next year. We are also considering doing a TESOL course at the YWAM Montana base to be certified to teach english overseas...just thoughts and dreams at this point.

Leah is looking at possibly using her Nursing to get into midwiffery in the future and using that overseas. I am considering and hoping to learn how to provide clean water and practical technology for third world countries. After drinking water that I saw feces floating in at one time, I can clearly see the need for this in providing health in the simplest form. In reality, we don't really know which direction we'll be headed first or what God has for us in the future but, I really do believe that God leads people through desires and dreams.