so here i am with another post . . .

First of all . . . i want to thank you all for your coments on my last post.  But, you can put the rumors to rest now and honestly tell people that, no, Kyle and i aren't together anymore.  But i am so grateful for the three months the we were together.  God blessed our time but we both felt like ti was time for it to end.  I learned so much from everything that happened and if I had the time to tell you all about it i would :) (but who knows how long that would take ; ))  I feel such an overwhelming and exciting peace about the situation now and i thank God for that.  Thanks again for all your comments . . . and i'll try to keep you posted if any other relationships develop :D . . . thanks again and God bless . . .

now onto a more positive note :D . . .  

picture this . . . a small room with pillows scattered about the floor, a CD player softly playing worship music, the walls covered in a white paper, and a black light shinning down all around you.  Now picture verses, encouraging thoughts, and praised to God written all over the walls . . . but not with just any ordinary pen or pencils, mind you, with highlighters!  The combination of writing with highlighters and the black lights makes whatever you wrote on the wall just jump out and GLOW like you've never seen anything glow before :D  It is so encouraging to sit in there and not only read the wall s but let God speak to you in such an amazing environment.  The other day i ventured over to they prayer room (this is what the amazing little room is called) and found some amazing things written on the walls, so i thought i'd share the with you all . . .

  "even when my eyes are dry,                                      Jude 24&25:  To whom is able to keep you from 

    even when my soul s tired,                                                       falling and to present you before his

even when my hands are heavy,                                                  glorious presence without fault and with 

                  i lift them up to you.                                             great joy-to the only God our Savior be glory

its not about how i feel, oh Lord,                                             majesty, power and authority, through Jesus

i am here for you, i exist for you."                                                Christ our Lord, before all ages, now and

                -seven places                                                                forever more!      Amen

Psalm 63:3-4 . . . because your life is better than life, my lips will glority you.  I will praise oyo uas long as i live, and in you name i will lift up my hands.

k so here i go . . . . this was africa (i'm sorry its so late but at least it is here for your enjoyment now :) . . . .

here we are at the airport - waiting - . . . . . . mike troyer sleeping with his eye shades (these were an extra packet thingy the airline gave us - it came with socks and a travel toothbrush - these came in handy on more than one occasion) . . . . . . this little tv was our lifesaver on the plane - we got to keep a close eye on where we were flying and we got to watch movies - . . . . . . our plane - if you didn't guess that already - . . . . . . janae trying to sleep in the airport . . .  . . . janae, now wide awake, and ready to do some puzzles with me to kill some time . . .  . . . our airplane food - you know how you're supposed to be greatful for the food you have, well with this food it was quite a struggle . . .  . . . left to right - jolynne, kelsi, and me -with todd gazing on from the back :) . . .  . . . kelsi sitting on some luggage . . .  . . . our arrival at the weaver's house - to say the least we were all pretty exhausted and glad to finally be in africa :D . . . while in africa we did crusades, medical clinics, and bible school sessions at different villages. we fell in love with all the kids we met and it broke our hearts to have to leave them . . . . . . this was us singing songs with the kids at a bible school session - for bible schools we did a skit, puppet show, sang songs, then had full out interaction with the kids - they showed us their houses, brothers and sisters, what they do for fun, how good they are at soccer, the list goes on and on . . . . . . where ever we went there was always swarms of kids. they weren't shy at all :D . . .  . . .one night it rained, so while we sat on the busses waiting for the rain to stop and at the same time feeling incredibly blesses that we had somewhere to sit and be dry from the rain, the kids gathered around our busses and we taught them how to make some crazy faces and they really liked it when we took pictures of them from inside the bus and then showed them the picture by pushing the camera against the window for them to see :D . . .    . . . at a crusade holding another kid (but his one was a quick-y and i never did catch his name, but he was adorable anyway :D ) . . .  . . . this was at a very poor poor village . . .  . . . this was "the way" to carry a child around - i thought it looked slightly uncomfortable but i seemed to work since everyone was doing it anyway :) . . .  . . . kelsi . . .  . . . patrick . . . . . . these kids smiled like they didn't have a care in the world! and their smiles weren't just on for show . . . these kids were smiling from the inside out and they're faces showed that in the coolest way i've ever seen :D . . .  . . . joel and shannon . . .  . . . mike . . . .  . . . kristi . . . .  we also went to some villages and some of the houses were a little less than mansions . . .  . . . james standing beside a house . . .  . . . a roadside shop  . . . .   . . . yet anoher house type building . . . .   . . . this was acctually one of the nicer houses - they did have a few of those every now and then . . . .  . . . one of their kitchens . . . to say the least there was quite a bit of poverty in the places we visited.  it was very eye opening and the best thing i could think of to compare it to was one of those national geographic's magazines . . . it felt like God had picked a picture out of that magazine and had thrown us right into the middle of the picture . . .

we also had a work day were the girls painted walls, messages, occasionally themselves :) . . . the guys poured concrete, dug holes, and got sun burned (prolly other stuff too but i wasn't there helping them so i don't know the full extent of their hard work :) . . .  . . . the concert we later put on for ourselves - we rocked out to the songs of  'the sound of music' and any other song that just so happened to pop into our heads at the moment, but it was mostly the 'how do you solve a problem like maria' song from 'the sound of music :D . . . . . . this just so happened to be the day the water truck came to fill up our water tank - it was running very low and we were pretty excited to see it had come :D . . . here are the guys . . .  . . . merle . . .  . . . mike and his saharah hat/turban/thingy . . .   . . . one of the holes the guys dug . . .  . . . shannon and ?, someone who from the back i can't tell who it its, are digging another hole . . .  as a way to sight see a little bit we went on a canopy walk . . .  . . . these weren't the most comforting things to walk on but we had a lot of fun . . . .   . . . ashley and jolynne showing that they are obviously not scared at all of how dangerously high off the ground they are :D . . . we also had quite a few bus rides to get to all the different places . . . to pass the time on them we slept . . .    . . . . kyle . . .

 and i'm sorry to cut this post short but something is wrong with the computer and it won't let me put anymore pics on . . .

to sum it all up we had a very good trip! there weren't any big problems and it was just so evident that God had his magnificent hand over every aspect of the trip . . . He was so real to us and was just so there . . . one of the things i'll never forget about the trip was . . . so we were going to have 3 crusades on this trip but because of rain we only had 2 . . . but only because of God's hand over the weather . . . we were getting ready for the crusade the on the last evening and the sky looked a lot like the night before-if not worse- and the night before we had canceled the crusade because of the rain . . . we all started praying for God to hold back the rain so that we could have this one last crusade . . . and what did God do? He answered our prayers in the most amazing way!!!!! yes its true! He stopped the rain and we had the biggest baddest crusade ever! :D it was quite the evening and afterwards we were all on the highest high of our lives! :D God really worked a miracle that night . . . . this is just one of the many many stories that God blessed our trip with . . . (for the full and complete version of our trip to Africa, check out your local book store for the Griner Adventures, volume 1 . . . . comming soon! :D just kidding . . . but i'm sure we have enough stories to fill a book or two :D)

k thanks for listening and i hope you weren't bored by this little slide show :D . . . i'll get the other few pics on as soon as i figure out what is wrong with the computer . . .  k later . . .

*kari*