Licht Krieger!

My biggest challenge and my greatest joy, those are the two ways I can describe my team. Both descriptions are very true and what it came down to was this: they were wonderful people, but so incredibly fit. Our fitness levels ranged from mine-a girl who works out by tap dancing-to Dominic, a German 22 year old training for marathons. The first few days, I didn't notice how strong they were, but when our first tour hit, I could feel myself slowly falling to the back of the line. After our first day of hiking where we left last and ended up at our destination quite some time earlier than all the other teams, I asked myself, "Why am I on this team?" I quickly found out I was on this team to learn some lessons. Lessons about humility, strength and joy. We were a team of very distinctly different personalities.

We had our fearless leader, Tony. A man who listens to country music and line dances on Friday nights, but happens to hail from Northern California. He was cynical about everything which caused me to defend my optimism even more than I did before.

There was Karen, our civil engineer from Hamburg, Germany. She taught me how to deeply care for people, always cook with salt and the vital importance of a very good friend.

There was Sarah, a priceless gem. Through thick and thin, there was somehow always a smile on her face. When she had monstrous blisters and when we were camping in the pouring down rain, she somehow managed to keep all of our spirits high.

We lost Jonathan two weeks in due to a dislocated shoulder, but he was an excellent friend from the start. Easy to talk to with a full life behind him and a full life before him. He dressed like an old man and was so utterly proud of it that we too wanted to look just as goofy.

That brings us to dear Celeste. I met her about five seconds after I arrived in my room. She was a vivacious bubble of energy who knew Taurenhof front and back. She was only 19, but carried on conversations that a 25 year old wouldn't dare to attempt. She taught me the beauty of relaxing and enjoying every moment of life.

Dominic...how do I even begin? 22 years old from Southern Germany, but he is already fluent in three languages, has spent a year doing missions work in Africa, has a beautiful voice and ran 12 km in 45 minutes. A phenomenal man, but the most humble person I know. He always hiked in the back of the group so that nobody would have to feel like they were last. He carried my climbing equipment on a day that I couldn't bare the weight. He taught me that it's okay to ask for help.

And Luke, dear wonderful Luke. A Canadian who had been traveling the globe since January, he was just about closing off his trip with these five weeks in Austria. I am so glad he was on our team for many reasons. He embodies the rule of "a time to speak and a time to be silent." Sometimes he would be absolutely silent and other times we could talk forever on the trail about everything big and small.

It was a wonderful team and I'm so glad I was with them. They were always very encouraging, even when I so often doubted myself. They taught me that it's okay to ask for help, to cry when I must and to laugh when I want. I was quickly dubbed "Happy" because even when I should have been so entirely unhappy, there was always laughter mixed with tears. There was something about the combination of the mountains and this wonderful team that brought out the best in me. I came alive when I was with them and it was a true honor to be a part of the Licht Krieger with them.

And in case you are wondering, Licht Krieger means "Warriors of Light" and it has to do with Ephesians 5:8 which says: For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light." We did our best to make this ring true as we walked through the mountains together. Step by step, sore muscles and all.

My Happy Place

"Tonight was ultimate peace with the Alps in all directions. Somehow, each day brings a new wonder that I cannot believe. I am challenged beyond my limits, but the peace that comes afterword is perfection." -July 12, 2010: Upward Bound Day 9

The day had been a very long, hot and difficult one for me due to an empty water bottle paired with a steep push to our final destination. This picture was taken that evening after our dinner of sauerkraut and dumplings and in that moment I was filled with peace and wonder. Peace of mind because I had accomplished much on this day. I had hiked quite far with a pack on my back for the first time since I was eight and now here I sat in the middle of the Alps staring at the massive mountain range. But more than peace of mind, I was completely struck by the enormity of this world. This wasn't the first time I had this revelation and it certainly wouldn't be the last.

I was found in this happy place so many times while in Austria. It's a place where I can see the vastness of the world and within that I am able to see the glory of God. Something so often discussed was the difficulty with loving an intangible God. How is it that we can love and believe in a God that we cannot see or hear or touch? Well, moments like this one demand for that question to be rephrased because we can see God. He is in the world that He created and we can see Him everywhere. We see Him in the mountains and in the stars. We hear Him in the birds and the howling wind. We can smell Him in the hot pine needles and the fresh rain. We can taste Him in the fresh berries and the clear water. We can feel Him as our hands scale rocks and as cold snow falls into our boots. HE IS EVERYWHERE.

My father gave a sermon on Sunday that completely summed up my feelings about Austria. The sermon considered the power of beauty. Beauty has the power to transform us into someone new. It has the power to hurt, but also the power to heal. The power to move forward or the power to take a step back. As I sat on the rock you see in the photo, all the troubles of the world seemed to melt away. I was completely captured by the immense beauty of our world as the clouds weaved through the valley. I knew deep down in my heart that Seattle and Iraq and the Gulf of Mexico were all out there somewhere, but right there, in that moment, all I could see was mountains. All I could feel was peace. All I could think was how great is our God.

This picture now sits on my desktop at work and I stare at it every once in a while. I don't do it to make me sad and wish that I were not in an office, but rather in the Alps. It is simply a reminder that God is good and that I can always feel His presence in my life. He is not an intangible God and that is something I firmly believe. So long as we believe and trust in Him, we will be able to taste and see that the Lord is good!

Upward Bound

It's 5 am. I have now been up for an hour, trying to fall asleep, but it is hopeless. Those planes which took me halfway around the world have also taken away a normal sleeping pattern. So here I sit, in my bed, wishing to be asleep, but with a mind racing too fast.

How do I even begin to tell what I have experienced in the last five weeks? I could share a thousand memories of moments in the mountains. I can give an account of each tour we took through the Alps. I can match these accounts with dozens of spiritual analogies that I witnessed first hand. But none of these will ever amount to a full debrief of all that I have experienced and the ways that I have grown and been shaped. In the coming weeks, I'm sure I will give more detailed stories, but for now let me just share with you a little bit of what Upward Bound has meant to me.

I went into this program with the wrong attitude, but after about 2 hours, that attitude didn't seem to matter. Any preconceived notions of what Upward Bound had in store for me were thrown out the window the moment I stepped through the doors of the main building with the large letters of TAURENHOF painted on the outside. I entered my bedroom, shared with six other girls, and looked out the window. Right outside my window were the Dachstein mountains, boasting gloriously over the quiet and rainy streets of Schladming. These were the mountains I had come to climb? No, not really. I didn't come to climb physical mountains...I came to climb away from home, just for a moment. How strange that life can make me so tired that my only solution is to run away. "Austria will be the perfect escape," I thought to myself. Wrong. Austria would be the place where I would face and conquer the challenges that drove me there. "The mountaineering will push me out of my comfort zone," I said. Wrong again. These mountains would stretch me and push me so much that I would stop in my tracks 300 meters from the destination begging for water, feeling unable to continue.

Why oh why oh why did I ever think that this was going to be easy?

There was no way of knowing, really, how simple or hard this journey would be. We can try to plan things ahead of time, but in the end, you can never know until you're there. I learned quite quickly upon my arrival that you don't need to know. One of the biggest ideas of Upward Bound is that if you don't have to plan ahead, don't do it. This meant that for five weeks, we would not know where we were going, what we were doing, how long we would be away, what time it was or how far we would be hiking. For many, this was a huge challenge, but for me it was the biggest blessing I could have asked for. After a strictly scheduled year of school, not having to think about anything was heavenly. So now, when people ask me questions like "How far did you hike on any given day?" I can't provide an answer. I have no idea how far we hiked, but the distance was not the point of the hike. Ask me questions like, "Where did you see God on this hike?" or "What was the most beautiful thing you saw on that hike?" Those are the questions I can answer because those are the things I experienced.

On our last day, we met with our leaders one by one to discuss our time at Upward Bound. They asked us questions about our original goals and fears that we thought of on the first day. They asked us how we grew. They asked us what we learned. They were big questions and we could have discussed them for days. Let me tell you about them as well.

My three original goals:

1. To love the mountains. It's true. I'm a Dahlstrom who, until quite recently, didn't love the mountains. How this happened, I'm not sure, but by some freak accident, I never found the rest and beauty in the mountains that the rest of my family seemed to grasp so easily. Coming to Upward Bound, I wanted to find that and I did. Very quickly. Maybe it was the special Alpine feeling or the goats that wandered the mountains, but something that should have happened 20 years ago finally happened and I can say honestly now, I LOVE THE MOUNTAINS!

2. Live for today. This goal was difficult at the time, when I found out we would know nothing about the program until we were actually doing it. After about one day, though, I realized how perfect it is not to have to plan anything. Living "in the now" was a beautiful thing and getting back to reality will be very difficult.

3. Grow in Christ. Yes, I did this too. It would have been impossible for me to be in those mountains and not see Christ. It would have been impossible for me to be surrounded by 35 wonderful students and not see Christ's love. He was everywhere and I began to grasp that much more.

My three original fears:

1. Caving! A conversation in the cave:

Victoria: "Isn't this awesome?"

Holly: "No, I'm really freaked out right now."

Victoria: "Why? We're in a cave!"

Holly: "That's why!"

Victoria: "What's freaking you out?"

Holly: "You know, the crawling through small spaces, the fact that if I take a wrong step, I could fall an indeterminable number of meters into oblivion and die or the fact that I am unable to see the light of day."

Victoria: "Oh. Good reasons, I suppose."

The fear never entirely went away, but I still spent the night in that cave and seeing the light afterward is a feeling I will never forget.

2. Using this time only as an escape. I was afraid that I would use this time as nothing more than running away from my problems. Quite quickly, the program wasn't even used for that reason. Upward Bound was not a place to run away, but a time to refresh and a place to grow.

3. Going too fast. I wasn't talking about the hiking, just the five weeks as a whole. I didn't want to take any second for granted, but treasure the time I had there. When the five weeks were up, I could hardly believe it. I think it would have been impossible not to let the weeks fly by, though. They were too jam packed with beauty and joy to avoid the inevitable fact that they would finish so soon after they began.

The biggest question of all: What has stood out to me the most?

I think, of all the lectures and all the hiking and all the reflection time, what has stood out to me the most is that fact that this world is so much bigger than I can comprehend. I remember the first night of our first tour, I sat on a rock on a ledge and stared for a long time at the mountains beyond. I could see nothing but mountains every direction I turned and they seemed to go on forever. It was at that moment I was filled with awe by the fact that I get to be a part of it. I get to be a part of this beautiful world and that is a privilege that I shouldn't take for granted.

I swear there's magic in those mountains. Magic that makes cold pasta taste good. Magic that takes away fears. Magic that brings everyone together. Magic that makes the troubles of yesterday disappear. So go. Go to the mountains. Find the Lord in them and bask in the glory of creation.

"Oh taste and see that the Lord is good; blessed is the man who trusts in Him." -Psalm 34:8

Blessings

I have been here in these mountains for six days now and each day holds a new wonder.

The first day, it was the people.
The second day, it was the sound of the rain falling through the leaves.
Third, the vibrant green matched with the bright blue sky.
Fourth, the family of goats basking in the sun.
Fifth, there was the conversation.
And sixth, there was the view from what felt like the top of the world and then a light night hike beneath the most beautiful stars I had ever seen.

I have lived in Washington all of my life and I have traveled through many different mountain ranges, yet these mountains hold something that no other mountains have. I'm not sure if it's the exotic feeling or the cows and sheep that graze on the hills, but there is something majestic hiding in these trees. My soul is at rest here. The world can be so silent here that all you can hear are your footsteps and the wind in the leaves.

Of course, if I paint too beautiful of a picture, it can't possibly be true. Yes, we are all suffering from bad blisters and very sore muscles, but there are so many moments when I just don't care. Last night, we were sleeping in tents and woken up late at night. We were told to go on the same hike we went on the first day, but this time at night, without our leader and without speaking. Normally, such news would have angered me, but when I poked my head outside the tent and looked up at the stars, I could have run for miles. The most phenomenal stars I have ever seen were twinkling above my head...why would I ever complain?

Something struck me last night as we trudged up the road. We were stopped four times by our leaders and they each had a bible verse to share with us. In the silence and in the darkness, all I could hear were my own thoughts inside my head. Mostly prayers and hymns were running through my head. I'm not sure why, I never listen to hymns except at church, yet here, in the silence, the words of "Amazing Grace" and "Be Thou My Vision" were the only things running through my head. No anxious thoughts or bitter thoughts or questions earnestly seeking answers. Just words of thankfulness and awe.

How blessed I am to be living in the place I am and at the time I am. I sometimes hate reading the paper or listening to the news because it just highlights all the things that are wrong in the world. Yes, these things do happen and they are horrific, but why can we never look at the good? Why can we never pause for just one minute to see the beauty? The beauty in relationships, in birds and in rain. Pause right now. What do you have in your life that is beautiful? Wash away the bitterness and fear for a moment and think of what is good.

I am learning quickly that it is far more important to stress about what is right in front of you as opposed to what you're unsure of in the future. I am here in the Alps for five weeks and I have no idea what I'm doing after dinner. I also have no idea what I'm doing with my life, but it doesn't matter. What matters is that right now, in this moment, I have no need to fear. Life is good...so why stress about the things which we have no control over? We must learn to give up the things that hold us back from simply living. Our lives are gifts and we should not bring fear and anxiety into them.

I see Christ all around me. In the smiles, the sheep and the river, He is there. Where do you see Him today?

So Long, Farewell...Hallo!

I have been awake for 29 hours. Never in my life have I stayed awake for so long. Yet, here I sit, finally showered and droopy eyed with a racing heart excited for the weeks to come. After a flight to Chicago, another to Munich, one train from the airport to the city and another from Munich to Augsburg, it is safe to say that I am exhausted. So, when I called my friend Deni, I was surprised when she asked me if I was still in the States. "Well, no," I reply, "I'm at the train station in Augsburg." It turns out our dates were mixed up and I arrived a day earlier than expected. But I am immediately struck once again by the generosity of these friends of old. She said not to worry and within fifteen minutes, her black car pulled up to the train station.

When I arrived at their home, the whole family was there, grandparents included, and they joyfully set another place at the table for me because I came just in time for coffee and cake. We sat at the table and I tried desperately to pick out just a few words in German through their conversations and I just smiled. I am happy to be here.

The sun is shining more brightly than I have seen in Seattle since last August and every person I pass greets me with a cheerful "Hallo!" I am glad that I get to start and end my trip here with good friends who will well equip me for whatever journey lies ahead. What a blessing it is to have friends I can call family spread across this massive globe. And especially now in this little corner of the world in the southern part of Germany where a train will take me anywhere my heart desires and a friend lies waiting on either side.

In just a few days, I will be hopping on quite a few more trains making my way to Munich and then Salzburg which will lead me on to Schladming. There, my sister will be waiting with many other eager students and staff, ready (or perhaps not quite) for the adventures that lie in store for the next five weeks. I'm not sure what it will be like, but I'm excited for the mystery. With mystery comes surprises and surprises are quite excellent most of the time.

Thank You

It's weird, the way time works. One minute, you're stressed out of your mind unable to go on and the next minute you're breathing again. Year two is officially finished and I am now halfway through college. Yet, somehow, I'm not terrified. I feel in the right place for the first time in a while. I don't feel a huge lack of direction. I don't feel ahead of or behind everyone else. I'm 20 and that feels like the right age. I have found my place on a leadership team, starting year two in the fall. The greatest fear is what exists between me and my relationships.

I am a girl of many circles and it is increasingly difficult for me to make those circles intertwine. I desperately hope that I will be able to hold onto all of them, but life doesn't always work that way. How long until this heart becomes too heavy to hold on? When I let go, will they hold on while I regain my strength? Yes, I know they will. That's why these friendships still exist. If I give up when the other gives up, then there is no hope. But there have been years of one of us being too tired and still this love continues. For this peace, I will be forever grateful.

The last year has been far from easy, but I have learned so much. A year that started in pure bliss quickly hit a wall. A wall of questioning God and of wondering where I was supposed to be. As I overcame one fear or question, another would quickly pop up. It was like I was playing Mario...hopping on a mushroom only to see one of those nasty flowers in front of me, threatening to eat me and stop me from stepping any closer to the finish. Exhilarating highs and exhausting lows with nothing in between. Nine months of this emotional roller coaster is enough for now. As people ask me how year two was, I respond with, "Good. Very hard, but very good."

I am thankful for the year. No, I wouldn't have asked for many of the things that happened, but I came out alive and that's the point. There were conversations that I wish I could have avoided, relationships I wish I could have mended or grown and actions that perhaps shouldn't have been taken. But if I look back on the year and beat myself up about the things that have already occurred, how will I ever move forward? Not only did I come out alive, I came out knowing a much more clearly who I am. It's a good thing, being able to know who you are. I am learning how I handle things that seem too hard to face. I am learning what I need to rejuvenate. I am learning how best to relate to those around me. I am learning the importance of the words, "I love you." I am learning that life isn't always going to be easy, no matter how hard I try. Learning to be flexible. To be vulnerable. To love.

I thank you, Anna, for living with me for nine whole months, through the good and the bad. Thank you for the post-it notes, for the letters, for being quiet when I needed to sleep and for bringing me daisies when I had a cold. They all meant so much to me and I won't forget it.

Thank you, Jill and Em, for hanging out in our room even though your room was just as cool. Thanks for the encouragement when stress ensued. Thank you for plopping yourself on the fun couch and begging for snuggles.

Thank you, Jess Robertson, for playing the viola. That four stringed instrument, C-G-D-A, has created a friendship that will last forever. Thanks for being the perfect height and having the perfect heart for hugging. I'll be coming back to Fourth for some more of those.

Thank you, Candice and Becky Jo, for holding me and for listening. Thank you also for trusting me to do the same for you. You've both helped me through a very tough year.

Thank you, Chomes, for those many nights spring quarter where we brushed our teeth in every sink. You are my somebody to love, if you know what I mean. You've brought me so much joy.

Thank you, Ben, for drinking tea in my room between classes. For the long talks, for the encouragement and for allowing me to live in the fantastical Friends & Family world, but also stay connected to my SPU world. I know it's not easy, but I appreciate it so much.

Thank you, Val Baby, for wrapping chords with me every Wednesday night and for walking me and my instruments back to my room. Thank you for always knowing just when I needed you.

Thank you, Lara, for second chances and for making things new. I love you, more than I showed.

Thank you, Aly, for making sure that I will never forget the importance of group staff. Also, for teaching me the importance of living in the moment and not stressing about the future.

Thank you, Dahlstroms, for every single Sunday. For salmon lunches and listening ears. For advice in my woes and encouragement in my excitement. For Christmas in Ramsau. Most of all, I thank you for the unending love.

Thank you, Dewey, for the walks. I know you're just a dog, but our walks three days a week have given me a lot of time to think and have given me much needed peace.

This list could go on for so long, but I suppose it must stop somewhere. Thank you all, you know who you are, for giving me the strength and courage to persevere through difficult times. It is when I get through those times that I see beauty, hope, peace and love. I see it in all of you and it lights up my life. Thank you.

To Fourth

There is JOY

in our spirits.

There is BEAUTY

in our friendships.

There is LOVE

in our hearts.

There is LAUGHTER

in my memory.

There is TEA

in my throat.

There is LOVE

in my heart.

There is a STROBE LIGHT

in the bathroom.

There is TIE-DYE

in the shirt.

There is LOVE

in the heart.

There is FOURTH

in the Hill.

There is CHRIST

in the soul.

There is LOVE

in the heart.