Spring is here in Denver, Colorado. With the unseasonably warm winter spring feels as though it has been here for sometime. As I sit and write this I look out of my balcony at the 16’ of snow that sits below and laugh at how unpredictable the seasons are around here. I feel like in many ways this has been my life.

Just to fill you in. I have been staffing for YWAM Denver up at our Eagle Rock campus for the past few months. I came out on a temporary status before my team leaves again for Bosnia. I have been helping facilitate the two courses running this winter. It has been a great joy to be a part of watching almost 100 men and women between 17-32 have their lives changed and then given the chance to go and change others. This weekend the students leave for the outreach portion of their schools. We have teams leaving for Mexico, Panama, Thailand, and Albania..

During their schools I was in charge of running a weekly outreach to the homeless in Denver. Every Monday we would take 15 students to either Boulder or Denver and spend time talking to, getting to know, and sharing our lives with some of those living on the street in our area. It has been an amazing experience to engage in the community in this way.

                This has been a season of change for me. My coming to Denver was originally a transitional period between my time at home and leaving for Sarajevo. Shortly after coming here our team discovered that our leaders wife has a medical condition that will keep them in the states for at least a year. This of course is very disappointing, but we as a team and myself as an individual believe that we should also stay in the states and return as a team. This changes quite a bit for me. After some consideration I believe I should stay on staff with YWAM Denver. I will be working with the base here in training and outreach. YWAM Denver has a vision to train and send out aid workers into the world. We do this through a beginning training course called a DTS. This is a course where students come and learn about how to do aid work in some of the worlds most difficult areas. We are a faith based group and there is also help in learning about their faith and some of the "whys" for what we do. After their lecture phase is over we send them out to various places of the world where they are involved in meeting physical, emotional, and spiritual needs in very practical ways. Currently we have teams in Thailand, Mexico, and Panama. As a base we send 20 short term teams out a year and have 3 long term teams as an extension of our stateside base.

       My role this quarter in YWAM Denver is working with the multi cultural DTS. I am a small group leader with the school. We basically work as mentors with a few students; talking with them about what their learning, coming along side them, and serving them in any way we can. This is really the heart and soul of what we do and I am excited to be a part of it.

    What’s on the horizon for me... I am heading back to Columbus April 6- 11. During this time I will be meeting with supporters, visiting with my family, and raising support. If you are interested in meeting with me please email me back and let me know that you are interested and what time frame works for you.  If you are interested please email me at humanitarista@mac.com or call me at 614-893-9629 . I will be sending out monthly updates via email if you know someone who is interested in receiving updates please feel free to send me an email and give me their contact info.Please feel free to contact me with any questions, comments, or concerns, Know that you are all in my thoughts and prayers and I hope that God continues to bless you all.

Peace and Joy,

Laurie Granger 

its the small things

i am continually amazed at how this life turned out. i am scared to death half of the time... the half that i am not thoroughly enjoying this ride. but i fear things that i know i really need not to. and that's a challenge. i wonder if that trust thing will always be an issue for me. i think trust would not be as powerful if it wasn't able to overcome fear? i have come to the realization that life is an ongoing lesson in trust. a lesson that i have become more and more aqauinted with

he's making all things new

i can't explain it really, the change 61 days make. i could start with the obvious i guess. a new city. a new job, ect. but it is much more than that really. i cant describe it as accurately as i would like but it is like laurie v 2.0. for starters, i have become a vegetarian , and quite by accident at that. i began with a fast....i was going for a while so i was just on juice and water and then moved back up to vegetables . but then i just kinda decided to stay with that for the most part. sure ill eat your occasional dairy and bread but in all honesty i am quite content with the no meat thing. and it seems to be suiting me well. secondly, i am becoming far more adventurous than the city limits of columbus proper had allowed me to be. i have begun longboarding. it is a blast. let me start by saying this is a stretch for me. i was never a skater, or very athletic, or had an balance, so this is quite a feat for me. now i by no means am very graceful at this. my skinned knee and bruised ankles can attest to that, but thats kinda the fun in it all. another change: my temperament . i wouldn't say that it has changed all that huge as much as it has evolved. i have lived my life as a pretty easy going person, but has taken a different route. one of more integrity and less give a damn. not working a nine to five and wholly relying on the Lord's provision scared the hell out of me at 21, at 25 it is something so out of my hands that it is freeing. either this is going to end with me falling on my face or proving God's hand in my life and either way i will continue to do this. i know this is the right path. that is the truly liberating part. it leaves me with a new outlook on my years ahead. in the mean time i am having the time of my life v2.0. he is making all things new. again.

to do list for the spring/summer:

one month shoe fast

join a community garden

master the art of the slackline 

own and be sweet at longboarding

camping in the rockies

renegade wildfower

silent retreat

death defying mountain drive

after well over a week of 60 degree weather the state of colorado finally decided to bring back winter. friday afternoon it began to flurry. around 4:00pm I had finished all my work and decided to gather my laundry and stuff i'd need for the weekend. when i came out of the building the snow had gotten a little heavier and had covered my windshield and back window. I began my trip down the mountain in all reality thinking i'd be down in maybe a half hour. by the time i was a mile down the road the snow had gotten real bad. I was getting a little uneasy when a pickup truck came up behind me...knowing i'd be heading down the mountain at a much slower speed than it i pulled over and let the truck go around me. the couple in the truck pulled up next to me and rolled down the window. the woman was clearly part native american and had a concerned look on her face. she asked me if everything was alright. when i explained to her that i was letting them go ahead because i was going to take a long time to get down they told me they would keep an eye out for me and put there truck into 4 wheel drive so as to get better traction. i followed them for about another half mile....realizing that even at 5 miles an hour i couldn't keep from sliding down the steep inclines i pulled off and decided to head back up to eagle rock. when i turned around i went to drive back up the hill and all of a sudden came to the rude awakening that i couldn't get my tires not to spin in place heading back up the mountain. soo....i was stuck with the realization. either i would have to make it down this mountain or sit on this hill where i was (if this could get any more metaphorical i could vomit) So i put it in low gear, grabbed to the rumble strip and prayed like hell till i made it down...a hour and a half later. it was messy and there were some close calls but the bottom of the mountain never looked so good. i could end this post with all the obvious anecdotes, but i'll leave the story as is...and thank God for my death defying mountain drive

one year

my own memories surface today. getting the phone call . the flight there. seeing it on the front page of every newspaper i saw for days. the night we we went back into the hallway.....it feels like it was yesterday.

remember

i cannot sleep tonight. my mind races remembering this night last year.  i know so much more now than i did in the days that followed last year. phil and tiff will forever be heroes to me. they died saving a community of people that night. they died loving...phil and tiff...we will not forget. 

change

i have yet to sit down and document this week because it has been so filled with emotion that i have trouble grasping my words. Sunday was warm and beautiful. It was 78 and a cloudless sky when my sister and i got up groggy eyed and made our way down to the statehouse. As we arrived we saw it...the mass of humans that had converged upon the grounds of this regal white building. we had come to see the same thing as the rest of this sunday morning ... Barack Obama. We looked for the closest space we could to stand and watch. We ended up on the west side of the building standing in the shade of a monument to brave Ohioans who had fought in the civil war. The event started out with the local politicians warming the crowd up for the main event. Standing shoulder to shoulder I surveyed this sea of humanity. They were white, black, young, old, muslim, jewish, rich, poor, office workers, union men, and they were full of hope.  Standing there I heard the speech I imagine this man had given hundreds if not thousands of times before, but he still spoke with an earnest tone. I had heard much of the campaign talk already, but standing there on that bright autumn afternoon I knew we were on the edge of something great.

I had voted almost a month ago thanks to the early vote so as to not be stuck in what could amount to be a very long line. so, when tuesday came it felt like any other tuesday. I had to work that evening and was going to miss the beginning of the election coverage.  I assumed nothing would be official to very late if at all tuesday night. As the evening grew late and the polls closed I was receiving text after text of the states that were coming in.... all blue. By the time I was ready to close up shop the whole thing had been called ...He had won. 

You could hear the beeping horns and the yelling outside of the store, but it wasn't until I got home that night and turned on the tv did i really see it. When Obama delivered his acceptance speech something changed. An ease was in the air that hadn't been there before...that of real equality...that of hope for something better than the last few years. Wednesday I woke up to a different America. I woke up to the America that voted for hope over fear, and it poured into the streets. I woke up to a new country.