EVALUATION

My days at the ranch are very numbered. In fact I count them on one hand. Two days.
And surprisingly I'm ready. Mentally, emotionally, spirtitually, physically.

Physically, my room is mostly packed up. The only stuff left is clothing etc that I'll use in the next couple days.

Mentally, I'm counting down hours until my family gets here. (17 hrs) I'm so excited to show them my home. No one really gets this place unless you've been here and even with them coming for 2 days I'm hoping they'll at least understand it a little. Not they don't understand but it's more like they just can't. Everytime I walk around the ranch these days I try and picture it through their eyes.

Spiritually, all I can say is that God's love and grace is sufficent. That's it. I've had countless examples of that for the past year and I feel like he's prepared me to face the Real World and whatever it throws at me for now.

Emotionally, I'm already feeling the disconnect that is going to be completly necessary soon. Half of my support system here has already gone home. The new crowd of staff is moving in. And I feel myself purposedly not making big emotional connections to any of them because I know I'm leaving. Plus I feel like JVL has done all it can do for me right now. I love this place and everything it represents, but at this point in my life I'm ready to move on. That doesn't mean I'll never come back because I really don't know what the future holds for me. Trusting God here.
That being said I will miss it all. And it definitely will hurt when I do leave. But that's something that's worth what I got.

2 ADVENTURES FROM THE RANCH IN COLORADO

Adventure 1:

I went fishing a week or so ago for the first time ever. I went with Jordan and this 5-year she was watching, Will. I'm the resident JVL Indian so I was dressed up in my headdress, buckskins, and war paint. We were using pepperoni as bait and Jordan had caught this giant trout within about 30 sec of putting her line in. We were so surprised that we had caught something it slipped out of hands and back into the pond. Will was very upset about this. He's watching the fish swim away and leans over thinking can catch it again and ends up tumbling into the water. Jordan: "He can't swim! He can't swim!" So I tear off my Indian clothes and jump in after him and pull him to the little gravelly beach on the other side of the pond. Will immediately starts sobbing because he's Indian headdress that is made out of construction paper is "soggy!!!" I immediately start freaking out inside because his whole leg is coated in blood. But then looking down my left foot is also blood red. I had scrapped off most of the skin on my toe and the blood had gotten everywhere. Will was thankfully unhurt. Turning around to look at the pond I notice my shoes about to go over the little water fall down into the creek. So I go sprinting across the water to save my shoes.

Fortunately for the rest of the week Will was NOT traumatized and would come up to everyday and say "Hi, Josh the Indian!" My Indian name is Shusha (It means running water) and he couldn't remember that so he called me Josh.

Adventure 2:

Last Wednesday Jenny the Baker and I decided to go climb a 14,270 ft mountain called Gray's. To give you an idea how tall that is: Pike's Peak is only 14,049 ft and you drive up with a donut shop on top of it. We get to the trail head and it looks very sketch but oh well. We walk a good 1.5 hrs up this 45 degree angled totally pot-holed road. And we're working hard. We are not talking at all. All we're thinking about is putting one foot in front of another. And we round this bend and there's the real trailhead: parking lot, bathrooms, official sign. And this man stops to tell us we've climbed about 2,000ft at this point and 3 mi. But he points to this mountain which reaches almost to the clouds and says you have another 4 mi one way and another 2,000ft to go. And you didn't have to do those 1st three miles. You were suppose to drive it.

Are you kidding me!?!?!? That's it!??! And we're already half dead from this climb and we haven't even started the real trail?!??!?!

Jenny and I are disappointed but we're here now so we start off. (We immediately cross the Continental Divide) The air is getting thiner and thiner and our legs are burning more and more. We find this sign that says we've come another 2 mi and have climbed another 2,000ft. Halfway Up. Oh dear. We're not going to make it though. The rest of the trail is full out switch backs up this crazy steep mountain and we're already dead.

So we make a decision that you know what hiking 10 mi round trip with a 4,000ft elevation change and getting above tree line is good enough for today. And we can always try again another day.

So we turn around feeling accomplished anyways and the trip that took 3 hrs going up only takes an hour going down and I spend the whole time explaining crew to Jenny.

Now this might surprise you guys who knew me before I came out here But rowing is not my life here. In fact whole days go by when I don't think about crew. People know I'm a rower and that was my life before and I"m going to row for school etc but my addiction has dropped significantly since being out here. It doesn't occupy my conversations or my clothing or my schedule. So Jenny truly didn't know much about it. And she just kept asking questions and I just talked and talked and talked. And the more I talked the more passionate I got about it and the excited I got about going back to it come fall. God's given me this passion for this and given me the gifts to be good at it but that doesn't mean it hasn't to be my sole focus, almost my idol, when I go back. I can excel at it and love doing it without become so consumed. A healthy balance.