Monday, April 28, 2014

When I grow up

When I grow up I shall move to the countryside and buy a red barn next to a pond teeming with bullfrogs.



When the weather is cold, the pond will freeze over and I will hang lanterns around its perimeter to light the ice so you and I and can skate across it after sunset. Together, we'll wobble and spin until our cheeks are rosy and the moon has risen high in the inky sky. Then we'll tramp inside to thaw by the fire where we'll sip hot chocolate and munch on sugar cookies fresh from the oven. Soon, our warm, thawing bodies will fog the window panes, and the house will fill with fireside chatter and laughter. When the fire's crackling flames dwindle to whispering coals someone will spin a song about faraway lands full of giants, wizards, and selfless heroes. We'll smile and imagine, and when the song draws to a close our  eyes will grow heavy with sleep. We'll part for the night to head to our beds.

When the weather is warm, I'll rise with the sun, pull on my boots, and head to my expansive vegetable garden where I'll water rows of carrots, sweet peas, potatoes and corn. When my vegetables have drunk all they can drink I'll head to the henhouse to collect fresh eggs. Then I'll milk my pet goats, in spite of their stubborn bleating. Back at the house I'll eat a farm-fresh omelet on my wrap-around porch before heading inside to make blackberry scones. When the sun has warmed my window panes I'll invite you for afternoon tea and still-warm scones with clotted cream. We'll sit on the porch munching and sipping, and then we'll decide that tonight is perfect for a bonfire. We'll invite our neighbors, friends and family, and within hours we'll be roasting marshmallows over a raging fire. As we lick sticky fingers, my neighbor, who happens to be a world class fiddler, will set his fiddle to singing and us to dancing. We'll dance until the kiddos have curled up on blankets and drifted to dreamland, and then we'll pack up and head home until next time.

I just thought you should know.


Photo was taken with my iPhone 4s in Ridgefield, Washington.


© by scj

Friday, April 25, 2014

From blob-y to jog-y: an update on my health

When I last visited Washington, over Christmas, I became a sweatpant-wearing, fudge-eating blob. I slept for 13-14 hours every night and spent virtually every day lying in front of the fire staring into its crackling flames. I stayed with my folks for a month, and during that time went out with friends in the area twice. My body didn't want me to do much, and since she and I are tight I gots tah listen to her.

But this week. This week my visit to Washington has been wildly, radically different. I've slept 7-8 hours every night (this small thing feels like a giant miracle) and I've gone out with friends almost every day since I've been here. And the running. Oh, the running. My body continues to let me run, without relapsing afterward. Not only has she let me run while I've been here, but she's let me run in the pouring down rain, with no illness-related repercussions.

When I first moved to California I missed Washington weather. But then I became a big ol' Orange County wimp and complained every time the weather dipped below 70. Except when it rained. I'd never complain about that. Because when it rained I'd lace up my running shoes and splash through the streets till my clothes were soaked and my hair clung to my neck in wet clumps. Running in the rain is one of my favorite things.

It's also the best therapy I've ever known. For most of my life, whenever my gut churned with emotion, I'd run until all that thrashing, white water emotion turned to sweat and seeped out every pore. I'd push and I'd pound, and after a few miles of long, quick strides, I was emptied. My soul felt scoured of all its stress. And when the sky dumped rain? It gave me a clean body to match my scoured soul. Everything felt fresh and awake and zinging with life.

After I got sick 3.5 years ago, I couldn't be wet for long because my body couldn't maintain its temperature. Wet hair or clothes made me shake with chills. So not only was running not an option, but standing in the rain for long wasn't either.

But yesterday I braved the rain. I've been feeling so good the last several weeks that I figured I should test the ol' body to see what she could do. And boy did she deliver. And boy did the skies also deliver. They dumped buckets and buckets of warm, spring rain. Halfway into my run, the light morning sprinkle turned into a deluge, and then the deluge turned into hail, and then my mouth turned up into a big old smile.

I've been smiling ever since.

And I've been wide-eyed with wonder at my body's ability to recover from my socializing and exercising this spring. You may remember the post I wrote a year ago to celebrate my progressing health. After years of functioning at about 10-30% of my "normal," I'd finally progressed to about 70-80% of normal and felt fantastic. But a few weeks after posting my celebratory blog, I had a relapse that threw me in bed for five weeks. Since then, my life has been a cycle of feeling okay (functioning at 60-80% of normal) and relapsing (functioning at 10-20% of normal). I've not been able to celebrate signs of health this year without the realization that imminent relapse is likely.

And yet here I am, over four weeks into a regular running regime, and rather than regress into relapse, I feel stronger each day. The health I feel this spring is wildly, wonderfully more vibrant than anything I've experienced in years. And my run in the rain yesterday is proof — my absolute favorite spring gift from a very good God. Today, I just wanted to share it with you.

Rainy, hail-y, running bliss


Happy, spring-y Friday, my friends!

-Sarah


© by scj

Wednesday, April 23, 2014

A blossom-bedecked Easter trip

When I was a little girl I dreamed of having a spring tea party in the top of a blooming tree.


I fancied I could build a table around the sturdiest part of the tree's trunk, and then sip apple juice (because let's be realistic, folks; back then tea was dis.gusting) surrounded by walls of pink blossoms.


But I never found the perfect tree, and my apple juice tea party remained a sparkling figment of my imagination. Eventually, all that imaginative blossom-y magic multiplied and swelled, until it spilled out of my imagination and into my wide ruled notebook in the form of a short story.

In the story, a sly wizard turns a girl, about the age of nine, into a dandelion seed.


The wind blows the girl-turned-dandelion-seed far away to a distant land before the spell is lifted and the seed becomes a girl again, mid-flight. Surprised (to say the least), she falls from the sky and lands in a tree laden with blue apples.

Wide-eyed with curiosity, she plucks one of the plump blue apples and takes a juicy bite. It tastes like cotton candy. Minutes later she shimmies down the tree and discovers she is in an orchard of apple trees, each growing apples of a different color and remarkable flavor.

Somehow — and I can't remember how — the girl is discovered by fairies who take her to their house, the Babbling Blossom Tree, where they sit and sip tea surrounded by thick walls of pink blossoms.

I can't help but remember that story with fondness when I visit the Pacific Northwest during spring, as I have this week. Everywhere the trees are wearing their Easter finery while the birds look on and sing with approval. This place is magical.



I'm on spring break, so I've decided to rest up at my folks' house for the week. When I arrived last weekend, Spring had rolled out a pink carpet to welcome Easter,

Photo credit for this goes to my pops
and the warm rain had recently coaxed the tulips out of hibernation.



One of my favorite Washington activities is taking long walks through the verdant, blossom-bedecked countryside. It's the best way to try to drink in every ounce of spring.





One of our many Easter gifts this year was clear skies and sun — perfect walking weather. So we donned our walking shoes and hit the trail.




This is my new favorite selfie. My sister is the one holding the camera. Doesn't she have the most vivacious smile? I'm next to our honorary sister, Annie. We've known each other since we were little tykes:

Annie, me, and my brother, Aaron




My mom is next to Annie, looking beautiful and full of life. And next to my mom is our new friend, Eileen. Eileen and I met on the plane Saturday night, on our way up to Vancouver from LAX. She lives in Singapore, and made the long trek to Vancouver for work. It was her first trip to the Pacific Northwest.

Eileen joined us for church and Easter lunch before we gave her a tour of our Washington spring. She is a lovely person and was a delightful addition to the festivities.



Since Easter, I have been plowing through grading [very slowly]. Actually, I've mostly been lying in an enormous pile of grading whilst staring blankly at the ceiling and occasionally twitching. All this grading has necessitated a number of breaks, during which I've time with friends and family. It's been the very best kind of lovely.

And it just keeps getting lovelier. Right now, the rain is thrumming across the window panes, there's a fire dancing in the fireplace, and I have a steaming cuppa tea to my right and a pile of books at my fingertips. Everyone should take a trip to the Pacific Northwest to celebrate spring. It'll do a soul loads of good.


Photos taken with my iPhone 4s in Ridgefield, Washington.
© by scj

Sunday, April 20, 2014

Because He Lives


A Forward: 

When I was a little girl my mom would tip toe into my bedroom after I’d snuggled under my comforter, sit on the edge of my bed, and rub my back while singing the old hymn, “Because he lives, I can face tomorrow…”

At the tender age of eight, I’d never had to “face tomorrow.” “Tomorrow” was full of tree forts, mud pies, homemade kites and jellybeans. I loved tomorrow. It stood sparkling on the horizon, all swollen with starry-eyed hope.

But then I grew up, and my “today” began to sag and crack under the weight of adulthood: a broken engagement, a virus that kept me bedridden for the best of my twenties, a pile of overwhelmingly large medical bills. “Today” extinguished tomorrow’s sparkle, and most days tomorrow didn’t seem worth living.

But in the darkest of moments I’d remember my mom singing the hymn from my childhood: “Because He lives I can face tomorrow.” It’s a promise I’ve clung to these four hard years, and it’s proven to be a sturdy promise strong enough to stand on and bold enough to whisper truth in my ear: “There are worse things than a sick body…”

Humankind, with all its goodness and beauty, is infected with something dark and sinister. We lie, cheat, and steal; we harbor hatred and perpetuate injustice; we often love ourselves better than we love other people. No matter our resolve to live and love perfectly, we fall short.

And it gets worse. One day, we will all most certainly die. There is no circumventing or reversing this reality. It’s a curse we all labor under: eventually the universe will crush us, and we know it.

Death and a soul that’s marred by badness: These are worse than a sick body. Sickness comes and goes, but I’m stuck with my soul for life. And then I’m stuck with death forever.

Tomorrow’s not looking so great…

Except that today we celebrate Easter.

Today we remember the historical moment thousands of years ago when the Roman guards looked in Jesus’ tomb and saw it was empty.

Today we remember the hundreds of eyewitnesses who saw the crucified Jesus walking around, breathing easily, fully alive.

And today we celebrate the meaning of Christ’s death and resurrection: because he lives, all the bad stuff in our souls doesn’t have a future. Because he lives, death won’t have the last word. Because he lives, we can know God. We can face yesterday, today, and a string of 10,000 tomorrows with God at our side, on our side. 

It’s a story for the ages that’s changed my life. It could change yours, if it hasn't already. I’ve posted this story today — a post from the archives— as has become tradition each Easter:

------------------------------

Late Saturday night, the day before Easter, I was about to climb into my childhood bed when my mom came to the bedroom door with light in her eyes.

"Guess what we need to do?" she asked me and my little sister, who was spending the night

"It's tradition!" she said, "And this is our last chance to do it before Aaron moves."

My mom has always tried to cultivate a culture of celebration in our house by creating traditions.  Our Easter tradition is one of my favorites.

Every Easter when we were kids my mom taught us about trees. Sturdy trees, slight trees, blossoming trees, and a forbidden tree.

She explained that long before the pine trees stood erect on the distant horizon, or the willow trees bowed beneath the blue sky, God existed, all by himself.

He didn't need people, or planets, or atoms to exist, but he wanted to create people and planets made of atoms, so he used words to make things appear from nowhere.

His life-breath spread stars across the sky, coaxed trees from the ground, and kissed life into man.





He loved the things he spoke into existence, but he was especially fond of the man and woman he created, my mom explained.

He showed them his love in many ways.  He gave them special names, Adam and Eve, and he let them live in a verdant paradise teeming with magnificent animals. It was cool, lush, and full of trees laden with fruit popping with color and exploding with flavor.

He also gave man and woman souls, created in His image.  Their souls were marvelous; they could create, and imagine, and recognize beauty, goodness, and truth.  But most marvelous of all was their ability to love.  

They could choose to love and enjoy God's goodness, truth, and beauty, if they wanted, but God would never force them to love him. Love never forces others to reciprocate.  And Love is most delighted when the people he loves choose to love him back. So he gave them an opportunity to choose Him. He created a tree loaded with fruit that he asked Adam and Eve not to eat.  He hoped that they would love him enough to trust and obey him.  




But Adam and Eve decided their ideas were better than God’s, and so they chose to eat the fruit of the forbidden tree. Their love for self became the thing that motivated them, rather than a love for God, and when their focus became inward they turned their backs to God.  

Anyone who rejects God is shunning the source of life and goodness, and choosing death and badness, my mom explained. That's why eating the fruit from the forbidden tree changed everything. Death, badness, ugliness, and lies—all the opposite of God—infected all humans and the earth they lived on.

It grieved God's loving heart.

Humans chose death and separation from God, and God's justice demanded they got what they chose. But God’s mercy drove him to make plans involving another tree. He would die in our place on this tree in order to satisfy God's justice, making it possible for humans to enjoy God's life and love forever, once again.

My mom wanted us to remember how Jesus hung on the hard, splintery wood of the tree, his broken body food—Bread—for us; Bread that, if we choose it, would satisfy our deepest soul hungers, giving us life and restored relationship with God.

And so every January we would cut the branches off our Christmas tree, and then saw the trunk in half. As our tiny fingers stripped the tree of its branches we would remember the day Jesus put on skin and came to earth so he could give us Life, Himself. 

We would store the trunk’s pieces in our garage until the day before Easter when we would fashion the two pieces of the trunk into the shape of a cross, and stick it in a bucket full of dirt and rocks.


My favorite job was placing flowers in the bucket at the base of the cross, a reminder that neither of the death-bearing trees had the last word.  The Bread of Life gives us new life-that-conquers-death.

Then we would fasten a sign to the cross declaring "He is Risen!"  


And we would put the cross in our front yard.


Early the next morning the Easter sun would spill over the tips of the pine trees and cut through the darkness, 


an announcement to the world that darkness and death are no longer the victors, 

because He Lives.

© by scj

Saturday, April 19, 2014

Glorious track days

This week my sister-in-law, Natasha, competed in a heptathlon at my alma mater, Azusa Pacific University. Natasha had a severe foot injury that required surgery and a year of recovery, so this was her first heptathlon in two years.

She nailed it.

Her foot surgery last year necessitated a number of changes to her approach to the heptathlon, including having to switch her take-off foot for the long jump. Despite the difficulties Natasha faced coming into this meet, she got personal records in five of the seven events, including the long jump, which resulted in a personal record in her overall heptathlon score. It was an exciting post-surgery debut.

I wish I had pictures to show you from the meet. The sky was blue, the breeze was gentle, the athletes were sleek and studly, and the air was humming with adrenaline-charged electricity. Olympians and aspiring Olympians sprinted, hurdled, threw and jumped to the sound of firing starter guns and cheering fans. It was a beautiful sight.

But it's hard to take photos when adrenaline is coursing through your veins and turning your stomach's contents upside down. So all I have to show from the meet are these photos of my sister-in-law and some of her competitors and friends. (I didn't take these photos; I stole them off Facebook, man).

Top Twins






A number of my teammates from my track days were at the meet his week. I loved getting to connect with them. These folks are my people. They're closer than close, specialer than special. They'll always feel like family to me. I guess that's what happens when you train 40+ hours every week together. All that sweating, vomiting, cramping, stretching, ice bathing, competing, and eating pasta with a common goal has a way of bonding a group of young people for life. We'll always get each other in a way others don't get us.

Seeing a handful of my old teammates yesterday had me pouring through photos today, reminiscing about the good old days.

Here I am as a freshman with my original 4 x 400 meter relay team. We were chocolate and vanilla.












This is my second 4 x 400 meter relay team, after a few of our teammates graduated:


The four of us ran on the same relay team for three years. Three of us were also 400-meter hurdlers. We ran a loooot of 400s those three years...







One year three of us 400-meter hurdlers made it to the final at Nationals. It was a blast. It was also very hot. And windy. Too hot and windy.




 We were thick as thieves. And tired as tired can be.


Sparks and I competed in the same events for 4 years. We were great pals.




These boys. I still love 'em. Here we are a hotel in Johnson City Tennessee. The team loved going to Tennessee. Mostly for the sweet tea and the opportunity to practice our southern accents. Well, the girls like practicing their southern accents. One year we girls maintained our southern accents, for the most part, for weeks after we'd returned to southern California.



We spent a lot of time in airports traveling to and from competitions. This looks like Utah. Must've been a layover.

Prepare for taaaake offf! This is Parish. He was a philosopher-sprinter, just like me. 


 We also spent a fair of time in hotel rooms. In this picture I am doing my best mosquito impression, the accuracy of which is obviously uncanny.


 Lorraine was my training partner for four years. She is so, so special to me. She is also a very, very fast Jamaican. Boy she made me work hard to keep up.





Our team hiked Half Dome in Yosemite every year. It was a glorious adventure. 

 We also had kayaking races after the big annual hike. Here Sparks and I are killing it, for the win.

 Sometimes we played the "Ha-ha-ha!" game between events at competitions.

Every spring we'd have to stay on campus after everyone had gone home for the summer. The school put us all up in the same dorm, and we liked to pile in someone's dorm room to watch movies. Those were good days. 

My college track years were some of the best years of my life. I've missed them, and I'm glad I can still participate in the track world through my sister-in-law. It is an unexpected and lovely gift.

And the financial gifts some of you gave to Nastasha's campaign last week were lovely, too. As Natasha was warming up for the meet my brother leaned over to me and said, "I'm so glad my campaign ended yesterday. It was such a wave of encouragement for Natasha as she mentally prepared for this big meet."

So if you prayed, or contributed financially, or shared the link to her campaign on your social media site, thank you, from the Jackson crew.




© by scj

Thursday, April 17, 2014

A month of books

One of the exciting things about feeling so healthy the last several weeks is having the mental capacity to read. Since I first got sick 3.5 years ago, my brain has been so affected by the illness that I haven't been able to do much reading. So I've been making up for lost time lately. And boy have I read some dandies. I thought I'd share several of my favorites from the past several weeks with you today.

1. Every Good Endeavor: Connecting Your Work to God's Work by Timothy Keller with Katherine Leary Alsdorf


This is a book about the dignity and power of work. It describes God's original intention for work before the fall of man (work is not part of the curse!), explores the post-fall hardships of work, and suggests a new, Gospel-shaped understanding of work this side of heaven.

Timothy Keller, a writer and Pastor at Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City, integrates literature, psychology, philosophy and science into his theology of work to create a robust, engaging, and paradigm-shifting argument.


My family read this book together via a Skype book club (you should try it!) and we all loved it.



2. Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH by Robert C. O'Brien




This book is a delightful page-turner about a field mouse named Mrs. Frisby whose son will likely die if she doesn't receive help from a group of unusual[ly endearing] rats.

If you don't often read children's literature, then you must change that! There are few adult books out there that are more poignant, entertaining, profound, and beautifully written as those written for kids.


I have loads of recommendations if you're looking for good children's literature!



3. Still: Notes on a Mid-Faith Crisis by Lauren F. Winner




Lauren Winner converted from Orthodox Judaism to Christianity when she came to know Jesus Christ in college.

Since then, she's written a witty memoir chronicling her journey to Jesus; a book about sex and chastity (haven't read it); and a small book detailing the Jewish customs and traditions she misses and thinks Christians could learn from (this is my favorite of her books); and most recently, Still.


In Still, Lauren, wrecked by her recent divorce, experiences what St. John of the Cross called "The Dark Night of the Soul, " in which she can't see God's involvement or feel his presence in her life. Still is her fragmented spiritual memoir — a mosaic of snapshots from her season of darkness and doubt, in which she grasps for hope and trudges toward the Jesus she cannot see.

Still doesn't give fellow sojourners advice or wisdom for navigating the Dark Night of the Soul, but its honest recollections may make them feel as if they aren't alone, and will model for them the process of reaching for Jesus when grief and doubt weigh heavy.




4. Heidi by Johanna Spyri




Heidi is an orphan who moves in with her crusty uncle who lives in a cabin nestled high in the Alps. Heidi's infectious love of life softens her uncle who eventually opens his home to Heidi's friend, a sickly little girl confined to a wheel chair.

If you've always wanted to visit the Alps, or at the very least want to re-visit the Alps, then I recommend this beautiful little book. And if you love miraculous, happy endings, then you'll love Heidi. 



5. The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett




I think my years of sickness must have shaped the kinds of books I gravitate toward: I love stories about sickly kids whose lives are changed by the beauty of the outdoors.

In this book, Mary is orphaned and must leave her home in India to live with her uncle in England. When she arrives at her uncle's house she is spoiled, demanding and rather sickly. But everything changes when Mary discovers a secret garden on her uncle's grounds and decides to cultivate it with her new friends, one of whom is her cousin who has bedridden all his life. Together they delight in the magic of spring and friendship. You will too.




Enjoy, my friends!

-Sarah


© by scj

Monday, April 14, 2014

A very cool opportunity for you: cheeeeeck it out!

How is it possible that I missed National Siblings Day last week?

Actually, I retract that question. Everyone close to me knows how it is possible that I could miss such an important and delightful holiday:

I almost certainly have early onset dementia.

This is a self-diagnosis, of course, that I may have mentioned to you once or twice. I can't remember.

The [much too rapid] deterioration of my memory has affected my life in a number of ways over the years, including but not limited to:

1. The time I got in my car, wondered why it smelled of cigarette smoke, noticed a beach bag in the front seat that I did not recognize, and then tried to drive away. Except the key didn't work. Why in tarnation didn't the key work?! I must have pulled out the wrong key — you know, the spare car key for the spare car I do not have. Or maybe the key was broken? Or upside down?

Or —

Oh. I see. This isn't my car.


2. The myriad times I've gotten in the shower still clothed.


3. The myriad times I've left the house wearing clothes that are inside out.


4. The myriad times I've showed up to appointments days early, or late.


5. The time I lost my grade book, tore the house apart looking for it, and later found it in the mailbox where I'd apparently put it, because, you know, who doesn't like a good scavenger hunt?


6. The time I was juggling 8 bags of groceries and couldn't get into my apartment. The darn key wouldn't work, after five years of working just fine! Surely it was broken [another broken key!]. Or the lock was broken. Or the door knob was broken. I couldn't figure out what, but SOMETHING WAS BROKEN.

After standing at the door pounding and yelling for a roommate to please please come open the door, I walked down the steps, looked around, and realized I was at the wrong apartment building.

Turns out my brain was broken.


But hey, there's no rule that says you can't celebrate National Siblings Day several days late. And so, I give you: a shout out to my amazing siblings, in the form of some of the worst poetry you have ever read. I blame the poetry on the dementia, too.



Dearest sister and brothers,
I’d like to thank our mother
For all of you.



My life has been rife
With all sorts of delight
Because of you.



 Words cannot express
How you are the best.




No really. There aren’t enough words in the world to capture this stuff:






You’re smart, hilarious and kind
And I really wouldn’t mind
If we all still lived in the same house.




Actually, I’d love it.
And surely we’d all fit
In mom and dad’s basement.

Let’s try it. 


The end.


But wait! There’s more! Not more poetry [insert sigh of relief], but another sibling! My little brother Aaron done got hitched a few years back, and now he and his wife, Natasha, are living in Canada where she is training for the 2016 Olympics as a track and field heptathlete.

My sister-in-law, Natasha 

The heptathlon is a two-day event comprised of seven different events: the long jump, high jump, javelin, shot put, 200-meter sprint, 100-meter hurdles, and 800-meter run. If super heroes existed, I feel quite certain they would be heptathletes by day (world-savers by night).




Heptathletes earn points for their seven respective events, and the athlete with the highest cumulative point total by the end of the two-day event wins. Because the heptathlon is the most intensely rigorous and varied sporting event for women in the world, the woman who wins the heptathlon at the Olympics is arguably the best female athlete in the world.




By this point you've probably concluded that my sister-in-law is fiercely determined and wildly talented. You'd be right about that. She's a mighty hard worker: she currently trains 6-8 hours every day at Calgary's Olympic training center AND she works a part-time job.



But that's not the thing I admire most about my sister-in-law. Natasha is working fervently to bring the Gospel of Jesus to the largely unreached world of sports. She is determined to use her platform and its accompanying power to proclaim the goodness of a God whose love for us is absolutely, wildly unimaginable. She's a heptathlete AND a world-changer: a true God-empowered superhero.

If you are looking for ways to support a missionary in the next year, then I have an opportunity for you.

But first, there's bad news: Canada has pulled back their funding for professional track athletes, leaving many of their elite athletes to scrounge up their own competition costs. These costs can accumulate quickly since most of the elite competitions require international travel, room and board. It's imperative that Natasha compete in these competitions if she's going to realize her Olympic dream.



Because Natasha is determined to do what she can to make it to the Olympics, she's created a campaign to raise funding to cover her competition costs. The campaign has lasted the duration of the month, and is now in its final days.

(Check out her campaign video below):


If you'd like to help support Natasha's ministry and Olympic dream by donating, then you can go to her campaign website :

http://makeachamp.com/natashajackson

There are two days left in her campaign, so hurry on over! Every little bit helps: five dollars for a tank of gas while traveling to and from competitions; $10 for a meal on the road; $20 for a rental car.

If you're unable to give financial support at this time, then there are a couple of other ways you can support Natasha:

1. Share the link to her campaign website via social media.

2. Pray for her, particularly for a fruitful ministry, good health, ample financial provision, and a sense of God's involvement with her training and competing.


Thank you to the moon and back, everyone!

Aaaaand happy Siblings Day [a week late]!!!

-Sarah



© by scj