TUBA

10 days in Tuba City,

1 week to process & finish journalings,

3 days of writing/sending thank you letters to supporters,

7.5 days to accomplish snail mail goals...

which still leaves like an entire week til now, and soooo many different excuses for why this post has been so slow in coming. Sorry if you were waiting, sorry if you weren't waiting, sorry that this post is so long and rambly and not very good at conveying all the AMAZING that this trip really was. Pleeeeeeease talk to me in person if you want to hear more and/or are confused by anything in my inadequate writing!!

Some background information: I went on a mission trip this summer! From June 24th to July 3rd, to Tuba City, AZ. Tuba City is the biggest and "nicest" city in Navajo Nation, the Native American reservation located in Arizona. It is hot, dry, and dusty. It is full of red rocks, night skies full of stars, and a surprising number of fast food places. The kids here hang out at a skate park, and there is a grocery store (Basha's) whose name some members of our team still do not know how to pronounce (BAshee's? BAW SHAW's???).

We spent a lot of our short ten days traveling to and from Tuba, but for a few days in between all the traveling days, 110+ people from all over the country (Chicago, California, Maryland, Virginia) collaborated to put together a Vacation Bible School for the kids, a Teen Week Program for the youth, an Adult Bible Program, and an Outreach Ministry for the community at large. I know it was an amazing experience for our team as a whole, as well as many people of Tuba City.

But here are the Madison-specific moments that were momentous during my time in Tuba City and some before and some afterwards - I know...so self-centered. Gah can't help it. But! :) again, please please talk to me if you want to know more! Someone asking me, "how was it?" about this trip caught herself, saying "what a simple question to an answer that could probably fill a book, right?" At the time, I didn't think it was true - how could I ever have so much to say about any one thing? - but writing thank you letters, other letters, journal entries...I'm finding that she really was right. My heart overflows with things to share, and this blog post is so insufficient. The following bullet points will probably not be in any sort of order (except maaaaybe chronological), and may be edited in the next few days as I remember more to write, and may not even make sense, and will probably make the scrollbar on the right side of the screen reeeally teeny.

Madison's Momentous Moments, Tuba City edition (each shall start with a quote from my TC journal entries! Privileged preview :o !! Haha not reeeally... But these will reveal moments of insecurity and honesty, I hope):

• "I feel so unprepared for this trip - I feel like we haven't bonded enough, we haven't gotten all the events together, we haven't...ahh I dunno (Friday June 24th 3:01pm)"
• This was before officially leaving for the trip. Was so full of doubts in preparing for, and even during, the whole thing. Constantly felt inadequate and self-conscious about our (lack of) preparations, and my own unpreparedness, lack of prayer, etc. But seriously, God redeemed everything good and everything that lacked. What a foolish little person I was to think that any of this was about me at all!! And with that, I'll share my personal anthem verse for this trip: "But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me." -2 Corinthians 12:9 AH what a wonderful God.
• "...to not come back until we've shared all our love with the kids... (Friday June 24th 6:10pm)"
• On the flight out to Arizona, I got to sit next to Jinnamin, whose dream is much more admirable and lovely and humbling than anything I could think of (ask her about it! hehe). Anyways, right after she turned her phone off for the plane's take-off, she showed me this text from Sunny who said (something along the lines of), "don't come back until you've given the kids all your love!" Immediately I felt so at peace and convicted to simply...LOVE, as Jesus has loved me. I quietly promised myself at that moment to truly remember this conviction every moment of the trip. God used this little promise in tremendous ways - allowing me to just channel His great love for His beloved children! It was amazing, what I felt for these kids I only knew for a few days. So not from me - I'm way too selfish - it was all from God, this love.
• "It's hugely spacious and open land, but..(Saturday June 25th 3:56pm or something like that)"
• ...for some reason, I kept feeling so unopen, unclear. Does that make sense? Like, the opposite of open. Blocked up? I dunno. But every time we drove out in our huge white vans into the huge red desert and every time I looked out at the open land, my chest would feel all squeezy and claustrophobic inside. I came to associate all the openness with barrenness and dryness, instead of the beauty that I could have seen. Not really sure why. I just kept feeling so parched, and wanting more of God's presence in Tuba City. Maybe it was God placing more prayers in my heart. It worked.
• "...because they are lovely and loveable... I want to love more. That shall be the theme of this mission trip. Love More. (Saturday June 25th 11:44pm)"
• More about this love thang. This particular love burst was about my fellow mission team members. I just kept seeing so many lovely sides of these people I was serving with and couldn't help but love them and want to get to know them more. It was truly amazing, what God allowed me to see and feel, once I stepped back from my own judge-y nature just a little bit. Amazing. I truly love my TC team.
• "...I am proud to proclaim to you, O Diarye, that we are facebook friends (28th of June 11something PM Greyhills Hotel)."
• HAHA more love! This is about a particular person, obvi, and just how much I love and admire her, even though I don't know her very well. So proud to be fb friends with her. This passage in general was very blabbery cause I was really tired, but it was basically a bullet point list of everyone I was in love with on our team heehe.
• "Bucket List check! train count: 113 Flagstaff, AZ TUbaCity Mission Trip (6/29/11)"
• Okay so on Wednesday, the Teen Program took a field trip to Flagstaff, Arizona - about an hour away from Tuba. We split up into different teams and engaged in some friendly competition via a photo/video scavenger hunt all over the downtown area, which was cute and surprisingly easy to navigate. I was really scared that I would lose people and it was weird to be in a position of leadership over these kids cause I...SUCK at being directionally oriented, but it was okay and I didn't lose any of my girls AND we came in third place! :)
• "I am not really sure what to feel right now. I am a little bit upset that my hands smell like dirt (Wednesday June 29th 11:59pm)"
• This is just a teeny thing, but still kind of a significant olfactory memory...haha. The soap in the girls' bathroom (out of the dispenser stuck on the wall) always made my hands smell like dirt. 
• "I wish to speak to him more and I pray that God softens his heart (Wednesday June 29th 11:59pm)."
• About one of the teens I met - I love and worry over and care for him a lot. He was one of the teens who were "delivered" from demons by Pastor Joshua, and I am superbly happy to say that he is so completely changed since we left Tuba City. It's really amazing what God can do in someone's life - these are such cliche words and I lament the fact that the clichedness takes away from their power, but cliches are cliches for a reason, right? Was so blessed to have witnessed his transformation, and just to be a part of his life. He is mature beyond his years and amazes me on a regular basis. I just want to continue to show him love and let him know that he is so special to me. I know God is going to do powerful things through this guy. Lucky, lucky boy.
• "Missing-toenail-water-drinker and her little brother (Wednesday June 29th 11:59pm)."
•  There is a skate park in Tuba City where the locals go to hang out. We did "park ministry" there, basically reaching out and letting people know about the VBS, Teen Program, and Adult Bible Study that was going on for the week. I met these two tiny kids who kept trying to reach the water fountain - a little girl and her little brother. She had a slight toenail injury and it was all dangly, but at first she kept insisting that it was okay and that I shouldn't look at it. But by the end of the evening she trusted me enough to ask me if I had a nail clipper or something. I somehow found one for her and clipped it as best as I could. This evening was full of moments of doubt - kept thinking, 'should I have done VBS? It's so easy to love these kids and they clearly need so much love... Am I doing what God called me to do, truly?' Ah so many doubts, but in the end I am so glad I was a part of the teen ministry. Praise God for doubts pondered and doubts redeemed!! I hope toenail girl and little bro are okay. Getting enough water and all. Ah.
• "Youth kids can provide you with love bracelets, too (Wednesday June 29th 11:59pm)."
•  Another small silly sadness I had about not doing VBS was the fact that there would be no tiny tokens of tangible love I would be able to take back home (or so I thought), since we wouldn't really be doing crafts in the Teen Program. It's not the actual little bracelets and stuff I'd miss, obviously, but the gesture of giving, I guess. Somehow a gift, whatever it happens to be, just seems so much more special when it comes from a baby. Maybe because they really don't have much to give, but they put that effort into creating the little craft and then they just GIVE it to you. Hahaha I don't know. But anyways, I was wrong about this too. Total love loot from my TEENs: 1 sillyband, 2 plastic bracelets (1 right off of her wrist, another the next day, from her house), a little evangelism booklet ("To. Madison, I hope you like this book because it tells you how people believe in God."), a marker picture of two cute, small creatures saying "THank you :)", 1 friendship handshake. I am so rich with love.
• "All the addresses so far have been P.O. Boxes (Wednesday June 29th 11:59pm)."
• Decided to ask for some of the kids' addresses so I can further embark on my bucket list checklist of "developing a meaningful snail mail correspondence." Everyone wrote out their addresses in a different order of things (first the PO box number, then the zip code, then the city, then state...? wait wait city first? wait...) so I was kinda confused at first, but the letters seemed to have gotten their all right. Whew.
• "...so faithful in the smallest to medium to the biggest things...how can I keep from shouting your name (Friday, July 1st 12:50am nighttime journaling sesh)."
• Just in awe of God's faithfulness! He literally answered e v e r y prayer: for love, to let us see GREAT things, for tangibility, for closure, and for thirsts quenched, literally and figuratively. Totes should've asked for a unicorn... HAha just kidding. God is not a magicbox. One of the most amazing ways that God answered my personal prayer was through my small group - a group of 3 girls that I fell in immediate sync and love with, from the first day. There was a lot of angst on my part, though, because I felt like I wasn't connecting with them on a "deeeper" level, especially during our discussions. On the last day of small group time, I had prayed beforehand, "God PLEASE let them open up to me PLEASE PLEASE change MY heart if it's not your will to show me tangible things PLEAASE AH," but was disappointed to see that they were just as nonchalantly unresponsive as the days before. So I gave up on them. I KNOW! SO BAD! I just got frustrated and curtly told them that if they didn't have anything more to say, we can just close up (this was like 5 minutes into small group time, which was supposed to last...longer than that), and I walked out. I WALKED OUT. What a disobedient and impatient little brat. But then, praying by myself, I knew that I had to go back. So, biting back my stupid pride and whatever else was in the way, I went back to the room and was surprised to see the girls still sitting there. I apologized and asked if we could talk some more, since it was our last meeting time. I shared a bit about the silly things that plague the daily life of little Madison Lee (feeling so insignificant and bratty, comparing my luxurious worries to what these kids go through), and amazingly, each person opened up in an amazing and personal way. I won't share details here because I want to protect these bared souls, but...yeah. God is amazing. Even when I gave so feebly and small-ly He used that.
• "Hey! ...You changed my life! (Saturday July 2nd early morning journaling...catching up ...7:30ish)"
•  Documenting a piece of dialogue. The last conversation I had with one of the kids. That's it. haha
• "You are loved! (Friday, July 1st)"
• I had wanted to write a little note to each person I had gotten close to in the Teen Program, but -__- fell asleep the night before and didn't have a chance to. But, still wanting to give the kids a little something, I condensed all the feelings and thoughts I had for them into one slip of 3x1 paper ripped out of my journal and...that was this. A leeeetle note saying "You are loved! -Madison"
• "It's all hot" 
• One tiny sentence that led to a special afternoon of spending time together, playing the piano and talking about nothing much. After our afternoon activity one day, some of the leaders took the kids down to Sonic, but one of the teens wanted to stay behind at the church because it was "all hot" and stuff and she didn't feel like walking. I stayed behind with her. Was surprised and grateful and humbled that she opened up to me that afternoon. Ah so much prayer needed for her.
• "Ephesians 6, Romans 6 (I read this), James 4 (Thursday July 7th 9:08 am @ Wilsdorf/Chem lib)"
• Remembering what happened Thursday night, after the Youth Rally. This whole "deliverance" business was a lot more straightforward than I expected. But then again...I guess I didn't really have any expectations or knowledge of how it would be. Ask me about this in person.
• "...and sat on ledges and wished that I had my phone with me so I could call someone from up there and say, "I'm calling you from the top of the world!" (Sunday July 10th 4:29pm @ Greenberry's)"
• Remembering a grand, thought-ful moment on Saturday, when we went hiking in Sedona. John and Lana are a couple there, ministering to a college fellowship called One Tribe (at NAU). John gave his testimony which was...so powerful in like, a really caaalm way haha. Hard to explain. It just made me think a lot about the future, God's plans, etc. Need to think and pray more about this, so check up on me later :)
• "so easy breezy (Wednesday June 29th 11:59pm Greyhills Hotel)"
• ...was my trip compared to the missionaries' lives - Peter and Joann, John and Lana, and soon Bob and Angela and all their families, too. One thing that consistently made me tear up was praying for these people who were so obedient to God's call and were serving Him FOR REAL, with all their lives, in this desert place. I just found it so heartbreaking and heartwarming and...really convicting, I guess, how these missionaries simply laid down their own lives and pursued after what God called them to do. So amazing. So admirable to me.

 There are so many more bullet points to be explained, so many quotes to be explored, but...this entry is already so long. I'll stop here with

"...My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness. Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me." -2 Corinthians 12:9

and thanksgiving and praise to the amazing Creator who loves beyond all human feeling, who exceeds all human understanding, who pours out rain in the desert, who cares for the smallest and the weakest and those that absolutely cannot finish even teeny things like blog posts, without His grace.

P.S.
links to pictures:
TubaCity pt.1
TubaCity pt.2
though you probably have to be a friend of a friend of mine at least, to see them