maybe i shouldn't go home

Last Wednesday evening just after 7 I got into my wonderful '91 Honda Civic to head home for a dentist appointment I had on Thursday morning. I had not been home since I came down to Bluffton and was looking forward to being home in an hour and a half.



Five hours later I arrive at home.



I was turning onto 108 when my car started acting strange. My lights dimmed, my radio turned off, and my RPMs were bouncing all around. Soon it returned to normal and I went through the town of Miller City. Of course when I re-enter the country my car starts acting up again. so I called my mom who was at church working with the Junior Highers (yes my mom, why? because my dad was on a mission trip in Mexico) and explained to her what was going on, she told me to call Caleb (my brother) in Fort Wayne.



While I was on the phone with Caleb my cars RPMs read 0, my lights dimmed more and more, and my radio quit again. In other words, my car died. I tried to pull off the road, but the ditch was steep, i tried to turn on my hazard lights, but they didn't work. On top of this, my phone is dieing, and i am in the middle of the country with no lights around.



The car that was a distance behind me slows down and pulls of the road in front of me. An older gentleman got out of the car and helped me get it off the road more. At this time another car stops behind me and two farm guys get out who luckily new the owners of the farm across the street. They helped me push the car into an old farm drive way and the older gentleman who stopped first offered to take me as far a Napoleon.



So, I got into the car with this stranger. Since my phone was dieing I used his cellphone to call my mom and let her know where I  was exactly and that I'd meet her at the Napoleon Walmart (about 1/2 hour drive from where I was). I turned off my phone so save the battery in case I'd need it again and let Caleb know what was going on. He was not happy.



Harry B was the man's name and for the next half-hour we got to know each other. He was born in Germany, he was in Vietnam for a while, lived in Holgate for 6 years (a little town that we passed through on the way to Napoleon), and now lives in Napoleon. We talked about his daughters, my siblings, politics, the economy, the radio and how the news is so slanted, and all kinds of little things.



I called my mom when we arrived at Walmart, but she wasn't there yet so I told Harry that I'd walk around Walmart until she got there, thanked him and got out of the car.



When my mom got there she informed me that Nate and Paul Andre offered to drive out, load my car on their trailer and take drop it off in my grandma's shop. So we waited for them to arrive and headed back to my car.



On the way Nate got a phone call, he had previously arranged for my youth pastor Wendell to drive his truck into Archbold and drop the keys in a drop box at a shop. So Wendell drove a truck to the shop and left it there.

Meanwhile another man named Doug back at church is wondering who stole his truck out of the parking lot. Wendell called Doug's house because he had a question about the Internet, since nobody was home he left a message that said "hey Doug, give me a call." Back at church the police are about ready to be called since nobody is claiming the stolen truck as a prank ( I am still unaware of whether the police were called or not). Somehow Wendel and Doug got a hold of each other and the mystery was solved. Now Nate and Doug had to get the right trucks in the right places.

On our end of the phone the conversation is finished and we're almost to my car. Once we found it and got it loaded we head back into Napoleon first (so we could get my moms car) and then to my grandma's shop outside of Wauseon. By the time I finally arrive home it is almost midnight, and I am tired, and hungry (I didn't eat supper on campus. I work until 7 and decided to just wait another 1.5 hours until I was home so that I could have so tasty home cooked left overs).

My mom and I, being the wonderful mechanics we are, diagnosed the car as having an alternator problem. I did the stuff I had to do around home and I drove my dad's Caviler back to Bluffton.

Some trip home. I was expecting a nice stress free 1.5 hour trip and a nice relaxing time; instead I had a nerve racking, hitch hiking, 5 hour trip home. Thank goodness for my church family for helping me get my car home, and praying for me as soon as they learned that I was riding in a car with a stranger and having a stressful night. Still, looking back, it was a great adventure and I'd so do it again!

10 years gone. 10 years loved strong.

As many of you know this past Thursday, September 11, was the anniversary of my brother Shaun's death. It had been ten years, hard to believe I've lived that long without him. One scraggly looking tree took my big brother, that's crap. Especially considering that dumb tree came down a few years later in a storm. The tree took a hit from a Chevette, but not a storm...

Anyway, I'm down here at Bluffton away from everyone who knew my brother, and anyone who'd supported and comforted in past years on this day --or any time I needed a friend to bear my heavy heart with me. I went to bed Wednesday dreading the next morning and rethinking through my memories of Shaun, and reliving the day he died.
Thursday morning arrived way to soon accompanied immediately by loneliness and dread. I dragged myself out of bed so that I could get ready for Chapel. As I got ready I again relived the last day, thinking about how pleasant and trouble free my life had been 10 years ago at this time. Sitting in my third grade class listening to Mrs. Markley and loving life. If only life could be frozen in time to protect my innocent naive look at the world which was about to cave in.
10 minutes before I had to drag myself to chapel my cellphone rang. I answered it to hear the love of God coming from my high school youth pastor Melanie Nofziger. She remembered what the day held for me and my family and called to let me know that she was thinking and praying for me and my family. I was taken aback by how amazing God was, I was debating whether or not to leave my dorm for chapel because I didn't want to face a bunch of happy people who didn't know and therefore wouldn't notice or care. I knew it would come across to me this way even though it isn't true they were all simply unaware. Still, it wouldn't make the day anymore bearable to see them. Then God steps in to remind me that I'm not alone, that people love and care. Melanie's call gave me to boost I needed to leave my dorm and head to Chapel.
On the way back from lunch I opened up to Laurin and she was there for me. She lovingly wanted to share my pain and even asked to hear the story of his death. This was the second time I got to see God's love. Just by listening Laurin helped me feel not alone, she was willing to climb into my sadness and just be.
I called my parents and talked to them for a little bit in the afternoon, it was good to talk to family and support them as they supported me.
I was headed to work feeling alone again when Jamie Hill, a girl from high school, texted me at 5:11 to let me know that she was praying for me. I was amazed that a girl who hadn't seen me in months cared enough to drop a note, another God moment.
That night I was still feeling low so I went into Findley to spend some time with my best friend Nicole. Over a fruitista from Taco Bell we caught up and listened to each other. Just being together again we helped each other... no magical cure of happiness, but just listening to each other and supporting each other helped to tare down the walls of loneliness.

Thank God for never leaving me, and for constantly announcing his love for me all day. Each time I hit the bottom he sent love and comfort through unexpected friends. Thank you to each and every person who remembered. The prayers, calls, and notes are much appreciated and felt.

Welcome yo

Happy Friday! I've been at Bluffton for a week now and it's good. Rachel had already been here for a week since she is mega cool and runs Cross Country. Way to be Rachel!
The girls on my floor are loads of fun and filled with giggles. The floor did a little photo scavenger hunt that has produced some entertaining photos. Laurin and Rachel also got some good surprise shots of me talking on the phone and trying to "de-spot" my comforter.

Classes are going great, I really don't have much to say about them at this point...sorry. I've been working in Centennial as a housekeeper. Shannon and I clean the classrooms on the first floor before we split off. She then heads to the top of the stairs to sweep and then she cleans the ground floor bathrooms. I head to the first floor bathrooms and doors (boo finger prints).

Laurin's brother Caleb went to Hesston and roomed with my brother Caleb; go figure that she and I would end up on the same floor at Bluffton and being good friends.

Last night Rachel, Laurin, and I decided that we should head out to the Findlay Walmart to get some stuff. Since we were headed into Findlay I called Nicole and Laurin called her buddy Katie. While Laurin was on the phone with Katie and I was the phone with Nicole we got the two of them to meet up with each other some place on the Findlay campus at 8:45, so that Katie could drive the two of them to the Walmart we were meeting at. Back on our end we figured out directions to the Walmart (and double checked to make sure we were all headed to the same store). On the drive Rachel took the remote and searched for any radio station that would come in (I'd left all of my CDs in the dorm) we programed all of them into my radio...a few of them were okay. Most importantly the radio station search entertained us.

Walmart was good fun, but it was more fun to stop at the Findlay campus to see out friends dorms, and a tiny bit of the campus. We all enjoyed our short catch up time and then we parted for Bluffton. Good times.

So maybe that all sounded lame...and if you weren't with us that is just fine. I don't think any of us care what you think, but if you'd been there you would understand.

Blessings yo, and have a happy Friday night

Real Like Bob

Last weekend Hershy, Nick, and I went to Mugswigs in Canton for some amazing coffee. They'd been talking about it since staff training and we finally found the time to go. David, and I had gone to Nick's house before hand to climb the silo and watch the sunset; however, the clouds didn't cooperate and so the sunset was blocked from our view. So after watching a plane land, we went to the airport and checked out some mega cool planes. David wasn't up for coffee so we dropped in off at camp and met up with Hershy at Mugswigs around 10:30pm. The place was packed so we all went and played with the giant marble ball thing in Canton and then got our coffee. Since the place was still full, we took our drinks to go and wondered around Canton. We ended up in a random green patch with picnic tables so we sat down. Twenty minutes later a 39 year old man walked up to us and sat down at the table. Over the next two hours we talked to this man about politics, drugs and his experiences with them, sex, his job, and all kinds of things going on in his life and Canton. Before he left I asked him if we could pray with him. He looked quite surprised and said that he didn't know that we were that type of people and how he was so sorry that he'd been cussing so much, etc. We reassured him that we were not the least bit upset and after 10 more minutes of random conversations Bob brought back up the prayer and we all held hands and prayed. After we said "Amen," Bob looked at me and said "I'm going to give you a hug. Do you know why?" I replayed that I didn't and he said "Do you know why? I'll tell you after I give you a hug. I'll give you a hug first." So he gave me a hug and said "Do you know why I gave you that hug? I gave you the hug because you are the only woman who has every really listened to what I said." In my prayer I had repeated some of the things which he had told us and it proved to Bob that I was listening and actually cared. He picked at a Coach key chain that somebody had left on the picnic table and handed it to me saying that I was like a coach to him because I listened to him. All we did was welcome Bob's conversation and listen instead of pushing him away because he was a homeless stranger, and through us God was able to reveal His love to Bob.

I got back to camp at 4am and was stilled pumped about our time with Bob. What happened that night is something that I have wanted to do for a long time and would love to do for the rest of my life. I want to sit and be with people, on their level. To many people sit in their comfortable homes on their comfortable couches, not giving a rip about the people outside their door or in the streets. If they even see the people they brush right past them and ignore them. Excuse me, but we all deserve to be respected and listened to. Stop looking down on people who don't have all of the luxury's you have and look them in the eyes and get to know their hearts. Everybody is hurting in this world, the least we can do is share God's love while we walk with each other down path of life. Besides who wants to spend life walking down a road alone?

Please remember Bob in your prayers as he doesn't yet know Jesus.

God Bless,
Brooke Gugel

First Day of Summer?

oh my, life since graduation...wow
So I chilled at at my Wauseon home for a week, had my last piano recital with Mrs. Bruce on Sunday and headed for Camp Luz as soon as that was over.
For the first week I trained with Everett and Heidi for Outpost camp (Tim is doing outpost as well, but he was still doing school stuff...sad day)! On Wednesday of that week the three of us were joined by some other uber cool people and trained on the Ropes Course --Complete with a test from Mandrew-- Everett also got us all certified in Basic First Aid and CPR from the Red Cross. Woot Woot! Gotta love them there classes.
So when I graduated I was uber excited to be done with schooling and tests for a while...so much for that idea. Add Mandrew's test to all of the Red Cross tests and you come up with 5 tests in one week of summer. But it's all good, many memories compliment the week.
Most everybody else came out for regular staff training June 9. Talk about being mega excited! really missed my camp family and enjoyed the reunion and the time spent getting to know the first year staff.
I had hoped to head off to camp and leave the rest of my thoughts behind me, but God had other plans. My last Wednesday night spent with my youth group was a big thing the pulled me down. Some people came in to pray over and prophesies for us. Most of what they said settled with me, but there was one comment that slid into the mix about my college major that shook me up. God and I spent a lot of time discussing my college choice and major. So that with several other things made my time rough, but good. God has been stretching, bending, breaking, and re-shaping every part of me. With His craftsmanship, this current restoration will be amazing to look back upon in hindsight.

I was planning on leaving staff training Friday evening to be ready to leave with my youth group Saturday at 7:30AM; however, that did not happen. My mother told be to head back to camp and wait out a bad storm that I was going to have to drive in from Wooster to Norwalk (Wauseon had awful storms that whole week, some with 100mph winds. She didn't want me to be caught up in a similar storm). So I made a u-turn and headed back for camp. washed my laundry, packed a lunch, and all that jazz. --Side note, thank you to whoever folded my laundry, that meant a lot to me, and lifted my spirits.--So I left Saturday morning at 4:15am after 2 hours of sleep for a 3 hour drive that ended in the Church parking lot. I stopped for coffee, but nobody would come to the counter to take my order so I got back in my car and used good-ol' water to keep me awake. My wonderful parents came to the church to say say hello and goodbye and off I went with my youth group to Reading, PA.
We spent the week at New Hope Community Center, a church that is being refurbished. I will admit, I did not want to leave camp and go. Hindsight, even though the week was quite unorganized, God worked. We did a little work in the church, cleaned a park and some streets, and enjoyed some street ministry, but what I loved the most was just being out in the city with the people! A group of us went out to find ice cream and after asking several people for directions found the place only to discover that the store clerks only spoke Spanish, (which didn't surprise us, we lived that week in a Spanish-speaking area, and were the minority) God placed one man who spoke a tiny bit of English in the store and he translated for us. I asked him which flavor was best and he recommended the coconut...it was quite tasty! The ice cream was tasty and only $1, so several of us happily found our way back to the store for more ice cream. Our translator was there again and this time I had some cheesecake, and then a short conversation with my new friend!
God placed Melanie, my youth pastor, all around me that week and enabled her to help me process and let go of the prophetic words that were weighing heavily on my spirit. One tid-bit of wisdom that helped a great deal was "if it doesn't settle with your spirit; it isn't from God." She reminded me to test the words against the scriptures, and then my own heart. Thursday evening Ralf, the local youth pastor, shared with several other men, and a woman, adding their wisdom. At the end they had some prophetic time as well. I sat in my seat most of the time just watching and not wanting to go forward and be hurt again. I was praying to God telling Him that I did not desire to spend 3+ weeks working on clean up again. My filter of truth was in place and I just sat back praying and watching. Tessa approached me and said she was sent to comfort me. I wasn't going to stand by myself and take another hit from something that was/is suppose to be of God. Tessa and a few others offered to stand with me, and they did. The words spoken settled with my soul, as I carefully fed them through the filter God and I set up. God is good.
We woke early this morning and headed home, after 10 hours in a Van, with a 2-year old that was running a fever (God, please bring peace to Becca) we were back in Wauseon.
This weekend has sleep, laundry, graduation parties, and Libbey's benefit before I head off to Camp Luz again!
God Bless, and happy first official day of summer!

'08 Graduation

Guess who finally graduated!! Woot Woot! Nicole and I carpooled in my amazing '91 Civic with some amazing music pounding out of my system. We found that the song "Whatcha gonna do with it" by Family Force 5 sounds mega amazing coming out of my speakers; it sounds almost like it was created for my car. ;-)

Saturday night I was running a fever and felt like crap, the later it got, the worse I felt. I went to bed praying that God would help me make it through the graduation ceremony and my party. In the morning I still did not feel to hot, but I couldn't skip church because I was being commissioned for Camp Luz. I got up, took some medicine and got ready for church. I had a headache most of the day, but I was at least better enough to smile and pretend to be healthy! Nicole showed up to my party with 9 herbal pills she got from her mom that were suppose to help me get better. I definitely felt like a giant pill popper when I took them, but they did seem to help! Yeah herbs!

My family and I estimate that over 200 people came to my grandma's for my party. I felt loved and honored. I am also quite thankful to my Iowa cousins Lisa and Tasha who served that tasty soup and delicious ice cream roll. Thanks ladies!

Ethan showed up in his promised yellow shorts that had believe written on the butt. They were mega amazing! After he, Jeni, Nicole and I saw Juno Ethan told us that he had shorts like the runners, which had made me burst out in laughter every time they came on the screen, and he promised to wear them to my party! I think what made them even better were his tall argyle socks. hehe, way to be Ethan!

Senior Prom

1. Yeah, so prom was May 3, it was super amazing!
   I took Rachel (my fall roommate)! Nicole took Taylor, who fit into our group like beef on a cattle farm! The four of us went to the Barn restaurant to eat before hand and had plenty of people staring and complimenting. One lady actually came up to our table and asked Taylor how he managed to get 3 ladies to dress up for him....I'm not gonna lie, we all thought it was a bit awkward, especially since none of us actually understood what she said for about 30 seconds. Rachel hid my purse while I was in the restroom..darn woman, what kind of date is she ;-) just kidding, I am SO GLAD SHE came with me! haha, her off the wall stuff really cracked us all up. For example, While we were eating Rachel stops and stairs at the wall, which is covered with antique tools, and after a bit declares "I have a random question.." Taylor and I looked at the wall, then at each other wondering what kind of question she had. Then she stated "Why did we choose to eat at the Barn instead of some place closer?" Haha, well, maybe you had to be there Taylor and I were quite confused for a second. Then I realized what was going on and pointed out that if we wanted to eat at a place between our house and prom we'd have to eat at the Country Dip, which is a small ice cream shop with picnic tables.
   Prom was at the Valleywood Country Club in Swanton. A very nice place, except someone felt compelled to make sure that there were enough chairs around tables so that everybody could sit down at the same time. Which was silly because, well, we did not eat at prom therefore the table and chairs were basically irrelevant. Wait, they did hold our party favor gift bags (which could have just as easily been put somwhere else). This year one person at every table received a garder in their gift bag, if you look at the picture with Josh you can see he was the lucky winner at his table. I really thought it was a weird thing to give out a prom....but whatever. : ) Our DJ was great! While he did play a lot of rap songs; however, he was the most diverse DJ I have heard at an Evergreen dance. He played some rock, country, and of corse Techno! Nicole, Taylor, Rachel, and I squeezed onto the super small dance floor (which was made bigger after the first song because several people decided to push some of the tables away from the floor) and partied all night! The small dance floor filled with thousands of crazy dance moves that made the place crazy hot! Every 4-5 songs we would squeeze our way off the floor and head for the porch to get some cool and refreshing air. Man, I do not think I have ever danced that much, or that crazy, before! None of us are fans of the grose "all over eachother" dancing, so we started our own crew, and dropped our own moves with the rythm! Haha, we all busted some great moves!
   Rachel had to get to work at Subway by 11 the next day, so she and I got up for 1st service which starts at 9:00am. That was brutal! After prom we all headed to the high school for after prom (imagine that). After doing their inflatable obstacle course, money machine, and a few other games we headed to the media center and played Would You Rather for.....a long time. By 2:30am none of us had enough energy (all that dancing) to remember our first option so each card had to be read 3-4 times before we all could make a choice. I became slap happy and was unable to stop laughing for more that 45seconds. We tried to play Battle of the Sexes, but none of us wanted to read the directions. Whatever we did kinda worked because we had a grand time. A few other people dropped in to find out what the excitement was (there was a hypnotist in the gym and 2 other people were not interested, so they joined us and had WAY MORE FUN), still the boys were unable to tell the girls what a colander was...According to the guys a colander is some article of clothing/accessory that girls wear. After after prom was over (at 3:30am), we went got into Taylor's spiffy BMW (okay, so he borrowed the car) only to discover that the battery was dead! We did not leave the lights on, or do anything that would cause the battery to die, Taylor was later informed that the car just didn't have a good battery (Hey, thanks for the heads up)! I got out of the car and headed back into the school to find someone with jumper cables who could jump us (it may have had cables in it, but none of us knew where). Bethal jumped us and we got back home sometime after 4...morning came too soon! But it was an awesome sermon by Ron about the simplicity of being saved, seriously it was good. Sunday I got home picked up a blanket and went for a walk., my destination was my favorite place and a good nap! Haha, what I wanted--and needed--was sleep, but I could NOT waste the beautiful day God made, so I enjoyed them both! I only slept an hour though, I was awakened by a cold that my date gave me (thanks Rachel)! Haha, I should have known better than to take a sip of her mountain Dew when she said that it tasted a little weird....oh well, I am pretty much over the cold now. Basically, prom was great, and I LOVED EVERY SECOND OF IT!