mjreed.com

We finished the wood flooring in one of the upstairs bedrooms.. Carpet is installed Monday! Woo-hoo..

I know this drives some people nuts, but when I get hooked on a song it’s like a drug and I MUST hear it all the time and when I can’t listen to it, it runs through my head.

Right now I’m at work with Matt (entering HUNDREDS of camper registration forms) and will leave tomorrow for Alexandria -and a month of teen camps!  All day I listen to the new United album on the iPod.  But I am highly biased and can’t seem to stop repeating my favorite song -sprinkling in a few others just to mix it up a bit (and to feel I’m being fair to the others).

My name is Jill Reed, and I get hooked on songs (and on using shoe horns, for those of you -Trent- who remember that entry so well!).

**”King of All Days” (#4) on the “A_Cross//The Earth: Tear…” (Sorry that’s all it will show me for album name on iPod!).  I think in second place for me is Matt’s favorite (#1) which is “Freedom is Here.”

Ok, so we’ve uploaded a bunch more pictures from all the days we were in Nicaragua.  There were a ton more taken (about 3,200), but these are the ones that seemed to stick out.  Click on the Nicaragua photo on the right sidebar to see them… enjoy!

Along with its owner, it seems my purse is not quite acclamated to being home yet.  So far, in it, I have my check card, I.D., and a roll of toilet paper!  You don’t know how useless it is here, but how necessary it was in Nicaragua!  I guess I haven’t quite adjust to being home.  Still, you never really know when the need will hit you, so the toilet paper’s staying for a while.  (Also still adjusting to the luxury of actually throwing my used toilet paper in the toilet and flushing it, rather than sticking it in a garbage can, but that’s a whole other story!)

Okay, on our Nicaragua trip we were introduced to these “caramelized Peanuts” by some of the Master’s Commission people we were working with (little shout out here to John, George, and Suzy).  I bought a few bags of them at a gas station stop (and though I’m usually pretty generous and this will surprise a lot of you who know me, I only gave away ONE bag when I realized they were all gone and there were students who hadn’t been fortunate enough to spot them first!  I know, it’s TOTALLY unlike me, but these stupid nuts do something to me, maybe they make me nuts!  -Yes I’m aware that’s a very bad joke).

Today I opened them, and though I planned to only eat 5-6, I’m now on about 20.  And for some reason I can’t quite explain, I MUST eat them in twos.  One at a time isn’t sufficient.

And to whoever I didn’t give these up to… I am sorry (mostly).

We’re home and it doesn’t feel quite like home.  I think I left part of me, part of home, in Nicaragua with those we befriended.  It hardly seems real I’m home (maybe I just fell asleep on the bus again -between programs- and will wake up to “you know we are ferocious”), and it hardly seems real that the faces that feel so near to my heart are so many miles away from me right now.  I just saw them yesterday, and this morning at the airport, and now they’re so far out of my reach.

But they’re within God’s hands.  And it was a joy to pray for them as we flew over the land they’re working to save, the people they’re trying to raise up, and the place we have formed so many great memories of.

Yikes!  Can’t believe the time is already upon us!  We leave early tomorrow for our missions trip to Nicaragua!  We have been feeling like it will be more restful for us than the last month of ‘house work’ has been!

Seriously we’re really looking forward to seeing the things that God has planned for us and for the people we’ll be working with.

Now all we have to do is finish buying a few things on our list (as youth group has just ended and we’re tearing down), pick up our bags to pack, and pack!  Then I think it’s early to bed since it’s early to rise tomorrow (ugh)!

Remember to pray for us.  We’ll also be updating our website and Facebook via Twitter throughout the trip.  (I know, we’re nerds.  Also, it’s maybe a little bit for the parents of the students going with us -just a little bit.)