Christmas parties and the Birds of Prey Center.

This past week was an unusual week because we didn't have a school group the second half of the week, so we had more time to do special projects, like building alligator enclosures, taking our invasive tree species and planning the adventure program. On Thursday, we met with the marketing man at St. Christopher to talk about the Adventure Program. It was a very encouraging meeting. We talked about potential directions the program could take and he seemed very interested and excited to get it started and off the ground. We are trying to figure out group costs and equiment at this point. We found out a few weeks ago that we have enough money to build a Climbing wall for the camp, so that should be built this spring!

On Friday, we had 2 hours of intercessory prayer as a St. Christopher staff. It was a really cool time to come before the Lord coroporately and thank Him for the blessings He has bestowed upon us and confess and ask for more of His glory and presence to come. It's such a blessing to work for an organization that believes in that! After prayer, we had a Christmas party complete with catered food and the White Elephant gift exchange. After the party, our director, David treated the Barrier Island staff to the Birds of Prey Center. We were able to see some really sweet birds, including hawks, eagles, vultures, owls, and osprey. You can check out the pictures to get a good idea of what we saw. The center takes in injured birds and nurses them back to health. They had birds from all over the world. We also saw a flight demonstration where they flew the birds right in front of us and fed them on posts all around us. Wow, those birds were amazing and so big!

Saturday we started off the day with a program at Seacoast called "Adopt A Block." We are going to be going to a nearby neighborhood once a month to help people out in the community. We are partnering with a community house in the neighborhood. Right now, our goal is to go in and start to build relationships with people. We split up into teams and raked a few yards this week. We hope to keep going in the future as God allows us.

Thanks for your prayers!

Christmas time is here.

I went home for Thanksgiving and suprised my family! It was lots of fun seeing friends and spending good, quality time with family again. Even the weather in Michigan cooperated for the most part and I only caught a glimpse of snow on Thursday morning.

We've been doing a little Christmas decorating in our Staff House. The big Christmas tree is in our living room and all the purple lights are in my room with my little purple tree:) It's a little weird trying to get in the Christmas spirit when it's still in the 70's and you have Palm Trees surrounding you, but I'm not complaining.

This weekend was quite eventful. We had a LIFE (Living In Freedom Every day) Retreat at church on Friday and Saturday. There were 7 sessions that included teaching, praying, and response time. Session topics included things like Purity, Pride, Rejection, Guilt, etc. There were 6 preceeding sessions and sermons that we had been going through as a small group on Wednesday nights, so this was the end to the series. It was a good time to connect with the Lord and work through issues and also get to know the other small group members a little more. After the retreat on Saturday, Derek (another staff member) and I headed downtown Charleston and walked around for a while. The sun came out after raining all day. We went to the Marion Square to see Santa and watch the lighting of the big Christmas tree and the park. Later on, we met up with a few other staff members for dinner.

During the retreat I received a phone call from another staff member that he had found 7 baby squirrels in the filter of his car and that he was going to bring them back to the staff house. So now we have little baby squirrels we are trying to feed and nurse back to health...just another day in the life of a Naturalist.

Thank you for all your continued prayers and support, they are much appreciated.

living life to the fullest.

God is so good. I think I learn that more each day. Last weekend, Carolyn and I went for a backpacking trip in upstate South Carolina on the Foothills trail. It was a beautiful trail filled with waterfalls and bridges. We just missed the peak time for the turning leaves, but they were still beautiful. We stopped in Greenville on Friday night to visit with one of my college friends and eat some pizza, then we slept at Carolyn's house that night. Carolyn dad dropped us off at the trailhead on early Saturday morning so that we would have plenty of time to hike. We had quite a long trip planned for the weekend, so we wanted to make sure we would leave ourselves plenty of time to hike in the daylight. We started down a dirt road looking for the trailhead. After a few minutes we passed two trails, but they were not marked for the Foothills, so we decided to keep going. After about a mile of going downhill, we wondered if we were going in the right direction. We stopped and asked a few people for directions, finally someone else pulled up and pointed us to the trails that we had passed earlier. We went back and went down the trail, only to find out that it was just an overlook to a waterfall. We were starting to get pretty stressed out and upset by now. Finally, we went back and found our trailhead and started hiking after an extra 2 hours and 3 miles.

As we started our hike, we ran into a man who warned us of Wild Boar and Bears, so we started to get slightly worried at this point. We hiked about 13 miles that day and made camp for the night at Bear Gap. We woke up early the next morning before sunrise to start hiking. We hiked all day long and stopped at beautiful bridges and falls along the way. We thought we were behind the whole time and didn't want to be late on Monday, so we kept pushing ourselves. We hiked up a challenging set of "Cat Stairs" which seemed never ending, only to keep hiking uphill after that. We found someone at the end of the day that told us we were less than 3 miles away from our trail exit, which we were supposed to hike out the next day. So we stopped and camped for the night after hiking about 18 miles. We were so tired; I think we went to bed around 8:30 that night. We hiked out an hour the next day to our car and traveled home with plenty of time. It was a great trip, although we were pretty tired when we got back.

A few weeks ago, the Lord asked me to step up in obedience and speak in chapel. So this past Thursday I spoke in the St. Christopher Staff Chapel. Leading up to that point, I was pretty stressed and overwhelmed, since public speaking is the last thing I want to do. We are going through the Lord's prayer in a series and it was my turn to speak on Forgiving others as Christ has forgiven us. I was so nervous leading up to it, but as I step behind the podium into the sunlight streaming in with the ocean to my back, the Lord took away my fears and took away my agenda, and I was able to speak His words freely. And guess what? I actually enjoyed it. I spoke truth, made people laugh, and told a few of my stories. I felt so blessed and honored afterward. I received very uplifting encouragement from the staff after the message. My director came up and told me I had the gift of pulic speaking, I almost dropped dead on the floor. If you would have told me that 10 years ago, I would have said you were nuts, but I have to remember I am a new creation in Christ and He has chosen to bless me with gifts to use for His glory. My mentor was filled with praise and said I should expect to give the message again soon. God is so good to us, He is so faithful. Why did I ever doubt He would abandon me and leave me?

God has burdened my heart. I have a friend who is going through a very rough time right now. He is confused about life and God and other things. I had a few deep conversations with him this week. Yesterday during our girls' staff Bible study, we were given time to spend with the Lord. The Lord just broke my heart for my friend. He gave me a small glimpse of the way that He was feeling toward the situation and I cried for a long time. I cried the tears that the Lord was crying for my friend. It was so sad, but so good to drink deeply of the Lord's heart. I feel so blessed.

The Lord is willing, He is waiting to bless you. Will you give it up? Will you lose yourself in Him and allow Him to bless you and free you? He longs for you to drink deeply of His love and His spirit.

Thank you for all your love and prayers, I couldn't do it without you.

beached whale.

Today, we received a call that there was a beached Pygmy Sperm Whale a few hundred yards down the beach. I was on house keeping when we received the call, so we immediately grabbed buckets and ran down the beach to join the effort. We started hauling water from the estuary onto the whale and kept passing water until NOAA arrived at the scene.

By the time they got there (about 1 and 1/2 later), the whale was bleeding quite heavily and there was really no chance of survival. So we watched the team take samples and treat the whale, until finally they put it out of suffering and carried it away in their truck. It was a pretty sad end to a great effort to rescue the whale. It was so cool how people just started to come out and help and we were all working for the same cause because we all had hope that the whale would survive. Even though the whale didn't make it, it was a cool experience to be a witness to the event. It made me think about possibly getting involved in a team like that later on.

the sky is the limit.

God always has something up His sleeve, even when He seems absent or removed, He is always at work for the good of those who love Him. God has been stretching me and opening new doors of possiblities that I never thought were possible here at St. Christopher.



It all started with a conversation with my mentor. We were discussing what my passions are and where I see the Lord taking me in the future. I mentioned my love for the outdoors with young adults; taking students into God's creation for a few days at a time to challenge, grow and stretch them in new ways. My mentor thought I should bring up the idea of starting an adventure education program here at camp. So last week I had a meeting with the camp director to discuss my passions and the possibility of starting something here. I love how God works, He said that He had wanted to start a program like that for a while, but was waiting for someone to step in with passion and initiative to start. We sat down with the Student Ministries director and came up with some great ideas and possiblities. We are looking at offering a Christian Leadership Experience to high school and college-age students. I've been coordinating with my supervisor about incorporating our team building activities and offering trips to area schools and youth groups. Our hope is to have our first group come in the spring. That is my first prayer request...that the Lord would bless the program and our planning, that He would take it the direction it needs to go to glorify Him and reach students. I could also use prayers for peace and clarity, since it's kinda overwhelming to think about all at once.



Obedience. The key to growth and maturity in spriritual insight and wisdom. The Lord asked me to speak in our all-staff St. Christopher chapel a few months ago, and after hesitation and probing from the Lord, I surrendeured and agreed. We are doing a series in chapel focusing on the Lord's prayer and taking it verse by verse. So next week, I will be speaking on "as we forgive those who trespassed against us." It's been fun using my skills from an Inductive Bible Class I had at IWU, but it's also a little nerve racking at the same time. It's just always there, in the back of my mind ya know? That is my second prayer request. That the Lord would speak in me and through me as I prepare and deliver the message next week.

Thank you for all your prayers and support. They are much needed and much appreciated.

Katelyn comes to town.

My good friend Katelyn came to visit me this past weekend. It was so good to see a familiar face from home. She had only been to the Charleston area once before, so it was great to play tour guide for the weekend. She came in late Friday night, so we stayed with my aunt in Charleston and ate some great food...mmm. Then Saturday we spent the day downtown looking at shoppes and visiting the village markets. We took a stroll down Rainbow Row and visited the big Pineapple fountain. We saw a beatiful sunset on the beach Saturday night, then I gave Katelyn a camp tour, including a visit to the Herpetarium where she met all of our snakes and alligators here...hehe.

After church on Sunday, we spent the day hiking at a county park down the road. We were able to see lots of wildlife including 4 Alligators, Turkey Vultures, Banana Spiders, Great Blue Herons and much more. It was a very relaxing fun afternoon. We headed back to camp for dinner, then went out to Crab Dock for a bonfire and star gazing with some other staff members. It was a great night to see the Milky Way:)

I had to work on Monday, but Katelyn came along with my afternoon class on the beach and to the Mud Pit, she was a trooper, covering herself in mud with me and helping me control my class, who was a little out of control. She hung out with the staff on Monday night while I was working. Then flew out at 6:20am on Tuesday morning, wow, was that early.

Overall, we had a great weekned catching up and exploring the beautiful sites in Charleston, it was such a blessing to have someone coming visit me.

island adventure.

On Saturday we left camp for a short kayak ride over to an island near the ocean, about 1-2 miles away. 4 of us left from camp in the afternoon with plenty of time before sundown. The current was much stronger than we had expected, and one staff member was having a hard time paddling, since she didn't have much experience. After about an hour of trying to paddle to the island, we looked to shore and realized we had not really gained any ground. The staff member having the hard time went paddled back to camp while myself and a friend named Chad paddled over to the island.

After about 20 min. of intense paddling, we made it to the island and pulled our kayaks ashore. The island is in the shape of a triangle, so we started hiking around one side and looking for birds. I brought my bird book and we both had binoculars (even though we weren't really that good at bird watching) we did spot a few sweet birds. The 2nd side of the island is on the ocean, so there are Sand Dollars everywhere. We felt like little kids during an Easter egg hunt trying to grab all the Sand Dollars we could carry. As we kept hiking, we realized the sun was setting. It was such a beautiful sunset, I can't even begin to describe it...and pelicans were flying all around us. While the sun was setting on one side, the moon was rising on the other. We eventually made it to the last side of the island...then we realized the place where we were supposed to hike was flooded because of high tide. So we had two choices...to swim or to hike the long way around the other side of the island. We chose to swim...little did we know what we were getting ourselves into.

As we stepped into the water, Chad reminded me to do the "Stingray Shuffle" one minute later a 2-3 foot Stingray came out right in front of Chad. He screamed like a little girl and ran back to shore...we had a good laugh over that one. Chad was wearing Crocs that he put on his hands and used as paddles, I had everything in my backback including all my Sand Dollars and bird book (which is now ruined). So there we were, swimming through the Estuary, praying for the Lord to be with us. It was so funny! I couldn't look at Chad without thinking I was going to drown after laughing so hard. We swam for about 20 mintures before reaching shore. We ran back to our kayaks (which thankfully were still there). By this point, it's dark and the sun has set, but there was a very bright full moon to guide us back. We said a prayer of thanksgiving and had a laugh before we set off for the last leg of our adventure.

We made it back to shore in 15 minutes, where we were greeted by a few worried staff members...we were about 1 hour 15 minutes later than we were supposed to, but we had a great story to tell:) Anyway, it was a great time and I wanted to share the story with all of you, hopefully there will be many more to come.

Folly Beach Challenge.

On Sunday I participated in the Folly Beach Challenge, which was an adventure triathlon. I participated in a team with two other friends from Barrier Island. I started with a 3 mile kayak, then Jason biked 8.3 miles and Josh ran 3 miles to the finish line (they're twins in case you didn't notice). We had a great time, finishing in 6th place overall in the teams. I had a great time kayaking and putting it in full gear at the end. Rounding the last buoy I started to really dig in and I passed a man who yelled, "you go girl!" Our friends and family came from camp and around the area to support us and cheer us on. Triathlon #4, they get better and better every time.

Friday night we had a chance to go downtown Charleston and participate in the Moja festival. They had live reggae music at the Customs house and a man taught me how to dance, it was pretty fun! Saturday night we went downtown again and learned how to Shag dance from a local church, and of course they had free ice cream! How did they know?? Not quite as good as the Junction though. Ha!

simply blessed.

I cannot express it words how much the Lord has blessed me. I am blessed, period. I am blessed to have a family and friends who love me unconditionally and pray for me. I am blessed to have a job that I love during such a stressful economic time. I am blessed to be able to live and work and breathe in such a beautiful place. I am blessed with beautiful sunsets and countless stars. I am blessed with intellect and a mind able to reason. I am blessed with the fulfillment of my dreams and a chance to see the world. I am blessed with a great Christian community who loves the Lord and challenges me to grow deeper in my relationship with Him. I am blessed to have a roof over my head, clean water, a warm shower, and food on the table without thinking twice. I am blessed to have such great health and two working legs. I am blessed by the unconditional, unmerited love of my Lord and savior. I am blessed by His kindness, mercy, gentleness, peace, hope and joy. I am blessed to be a part of the Lord's family and to be called his friend. I am blessed every moment by the presence of the Lord. I am blessed by the rest and joy that he continually pours over me. I am blessed by the Lord and I am grateful.

beautiful skies.

These pictures are for my dear friend Kathleen. She is a missionary in Haiti right now and she loves skies. The skies have been full of God's glory here recently and I wanted to try to share them with you. The pictures don't really do justice, but they will have to do. So Kathleen, these are for you. I love you and miss you dearly.

We had a false alarm with the turtle nest last night. We thought that the nest had been sinking in from the turtles, so we sounded the alarm and got everyone out there. We sat around waiting in anticipation for hours, but nothing happened. We're not really sure where the mix up happened, but we had fun waiting, singing, playing games, etc. We ended up taking one hour turtle patrol shifts until 2:30am, until we gave up and called it a night. Lets just say, it was a rough morning. According to the official Turtle Patrol, a few of the turtles hatched on Sunday night and we missed it again, they are going in tomorrow morning to dig up the nest and do the inventory. So it looks like I'll just have to try again in the future, but I can't say I didn't try. Plus, there is a possibility of a live birth when they dig up the nest, so my hopes are still high.

We had a great time this past weekend. We played out on the water all day Saturday, starting with a morning kayak to an abandoned shrimp boat, then we went out sailing after lunch. It was great because the waves were pretty big. We sailed over to the sand bar where a sailboat had gotten stuck on the sand. The Coast Guard came in and checked it out, but everyone had already left the boat. Then we went back out kayaking to an island and walked around and did some bird watching. The island is protected for birds because it is home to so many endagered and threatened species. We saw over 1,000 pelicans!! Crazy. We also got a chance to see lots of rare birds. We walked over to the beach on the ocean side and found tons of sand dollars...whole! It was like a dream come true. We found a Bobcat on our property, and later we saw a deer chase the cat away. Oh, I also forgot to mention that I played tennis with the boys and beat them 6-0 and 6-1:). Anyway, it was a great weekend along with a great church service on Sunday.

Hope you are all well, I love and miss you!

nest excavation.

Two days ago I received a call that both of the double nests had hatched the night before. I took my nightly walk that night, but the nest looked undisturbed. These are the same nests that had Ghost Crab holes in them the previous days. I will really disappointed when I was informed that I had missed the hatching. This morning I was able to go to the nest with the Turtle Patrol and watch them dig up the rest of the nest and take an inventory on all of the eggs and unhatched turtles. Although we didn't find any live sea turtles, we did find a baby that didn't make it out.

There is still one more nest left on our beach. The Turtle Patrol told me to go when it's dark during high tide, so I'm going to wake up and check until the final nest hatches. They also said that they think that last nest will hatch this week, so hopefully we will be able to catch it.

2 down 1 to go.

So as you all know, I've been checking on the sea turtle nests daily. Well, last night I went for my nightly walk to check on them and I found that one of the nests had a ghost crab hole in it. I know the ghost crab ate some of the turtle eggs, but I don't think he could eat all of them. The other two nests were still left untouched. Then...I went out tonight and another ghost crab had gotten into one of the nests. So now there is only one nest left untouched. This is the nest that was laid at the later time, so it probably won't hatch until late this week or early next week. I am planning on calling the Turtle Patrol to see if they have any idea how many eggs the ghost crabs can eat. Since the sea turtle are so close to hatching time, I don't see how a ghost crab could have eaten the whole nest. Well, it's been a sad two days for the sea turtles, but I have hope that the last nest will make it all the way through.

dreams do come true.

After surviving the first week of classes, we were pretty ready for the weekend. Classes went well for the most part this week. There were a few ups and downs, but overall the week went well. The kids, teachers and chaperones were all great. On Friday when I was teaching the Crab class, we caught a Florida Stone Crab, about 4-5 inches wide. He gave me a showdown, but I ended up winning and grabbing his fierce-looking claws.

Today, I went to a conference at the camp and had a great time worshipping, praying and soaking in the presence of the Lord. Then, me and a few guys went out kayaking for the afternoon. It was beautiful, the sun was out, about 80 degrees. We paddled down the estuary a few miles, then found a small cove to paddle down. When we got a ways into it, we realized there was a dolphin feeding session going on right in front of us. We paddled over to catch a glimpse of the action and the dolphins didn't really seem to mind. A few of them came right up to our kayaks! We sat and watched with awe, laughter and enjoyment. God really does know how to give good gifts to His children. We paddled back and I went out sailing for a few minutes, then played in the ocean. Life is good. God is good. We had a great time last night, going out to town and visiting one of my favorite places...Cold Stone...mmmmm.

okefenoke. first day of class.

Our staff went to the Okefenoke camp ground on the Georgia Florida border for the holiday. The campground was a black water swamp, which means the water was a dark black/red color, reflecting the scenery really nicely. Sometimes it was hard to tell the difference between the sky and the water. We had a great time kayaking, canoeing, resting, and playing games over the weekend. We played a few round of Euchre and fun camp fire games:) We had a great time deeping our friendships and doing a lot of laughing. The second day I went on an 18-mile kayak paddle to the top of the swamp and back with my program director. I am trying to build up my endurance for an adventure race coming up in 2 weeks. I am entering the race with 2 other guys from camp as a team. I am racing in the kayak 3 miles, and the guys are biking 3 miles, then running 3 miles. It should be lots of fun:)

I checked one more off my bucket list:) When we got back from camping on Monday I went out with two of the guys from camp and they taught me how to sail!! We sailed across the estuary to the Botany Island and went shell hunting. I sailed back for a few minutes, I think I discovered my new favorite hobby...better make room in the garage for a sailboat. There were even dolphins jumping right near our boat. It was a dream come true.

Today was my first day as a teacher. I taught the Seining class. We teach the students about fish and give them a tour of the aquarium, then we take them out to the estuary with nets and drag them in the water looking for any creatures we can find. It was a little chaotic today trying to keep the students' attention during the actual seining. I found myself getting frustrated with myself not doing as well as I had hoped, but the Lord reminded me that it will take time to be the teacher I hope to be. Right now, I just need to be content with getting through the classes and doing my best, and over time I will gain more and more knowledge and experience. I just tend to get frustrated when things aren't perfect the first day, but I need to sit back, relax and enjoy the learning experience right now.

I am on a mission. One of my goals is to see the hatching of sea turtles while I'm down here. I've been tracking a few nests in the area and they are supposed to hatch within the next 15 days, so I plan on checking the nests on a regular basis. So hopefully, I'll be able to catch a hatching soon!

Thank you all for your support and prayers, they are much appreciated. Love and miss you much.

SC aquarium

We had the chance to go the the SC aquarium yesterday for free, since we have a partnership with them. We also had the opportunity to check out the behind-the-scenes Turtle Hospital and aviary.

There were about 15 turtles that had been found and brought in to recover and heal. Everything from baby turtles to a 365lb. Loggerhead Sea Turtle. Some of them had been caught in fishers' nets or had gotten hit with a motor blade from a boat. It was so cool to see!

Yesterday, I honestly walked outside and said it felt a little chilly, which was really like 75 degrees. I think I'm getting used to the weather pretty quickly.

We've been having fun playing lots of sports and watching the US Open recently. It's fun that our staff is so athletic, I've even been testing my skills at volleyball the last few days. This weekend we are heading out to go camping on the Georgia, Florida border at Okefenoke campground. We are going to canoe, kayak and lounge for the weekend, so it should be a great bonding experience:)

gator getters.

Today we had gator getters come and get our 9'2'' American Alligator from our pond. It was sad to see him go, but it was a danger to the kids during classes. The gator getters told us that they would mount the skull for us.

I got to see a real gator hunter in action. The man hunts and wrangles gators all the time in SC, because people feed them and they end up in places they shouldn't be and they end up dying. Moral of the story...don't feed the gators.

alligator alley.

Today I caught a 2 foot alligator in our herpatarium, it was a pretty sweet rush...watch out crocodile hunter, you've got some competition coming:)

new places and faces.

Hi Friends.

I made it to SC and I have been here for a week now. My trip down was a bit interesting. Ha! I made it to the mountains of NC before my car started to smoke. I pulled over and waited a few minutes for everything to cool down and it ran fine the rest of the way, but with no air conditioning...that was pretty hot! I stayed with some great friends and relative on the way down. I am thankful I had time to kind of think about putting closure on the last stage of my life, then get excited for the next stage.

I feel like a walked into a dream coming here. I really do live on an island. We are like 30 minutes away from the nearest town and we are right on the water. The place is beautiful, peaceful, and welcoming. And so full of life! The first few days were a little rocky trying to adjust to the new surroundings and people. Now that I'm starting to form relationships with people and becoming familiar with the area, I am enjoying myself much more. The people here are great. Everyone has their own little quirky personality and we are all very different, but we work so well together and have so much fun. I haven't laughed as much as I have in the past few days in a long, long time. One of my hopes for this year is that I really just enjoy myself. I feel like I've worked through so many struggles and pushed myself so hard recently that I just want a chance to have fun and rest.

We had a chance to go sea kayayking on Saturday, which was great! There are two guys here that told me they would teach me how to surf if I taught them how to play tennis...dreams do come true:) It's pretty hot, but nothing unbearable, I don't know, I kinda like it. I could live down here. I saw the most amazing sunsest ever the other night. The sky was full of color with lightning clouds off to one side. I took a prayer walk and saw some dolphins, while soaking up the sunset, thank you Lord!

The classes are kind of a lot to handle right now. There's a lot of information to learn in a short amount of time, but I'm sure it will all come together soon. One class that we teach ends with kids playing around in a mud pit! We got covered in mud as a staff, but it was so much fun.

Please know that I love and miss each of you.
Laurinda