no pain, no gain.

alex and i have officially started working out more. alex has been riding his new bike a ton, and i have started the jillian michaels 30 day shred. i started at just about the worst time since you are supposed to go for 30 days straight, and i started 2 days before my birthday and vbs, and about a week before our laughlin vacay! But, even with the hurdles, we're both pretty dedicated to our workouts. For me, videos have always been the way to go because I am an inside girl. I could stay inside all day every day and be pretty content as long as I can look out the windows! I'm hoping to see good results from the shred now that I'm home and can get on a regular schedule with it. I also plan on using the new wii game that alex gave me for my birthday to up the results! I'm already 3.8 pounds lighter than when I started :)

can't wait....

if you know me at all, you know that i LOVE bangladesh. i've been to a few different countries, but my heart literally aches for the people of bangladesh. my experience there has shaped me in ways that would take days to explain, so you can imagine my excitement when i heard that Russell Brownley of the wuss productions was making a movie about none other than Bangladesh...and not just some random movie about bangladesh, but we spent time in the same village with the same surfers, so i know i can count on seeing my friends soon...if only on film . I haven't had the pleasure of meeting Russell, but he did another movie about the efforts of Surfing the Nations in Arugam Bay, Sri Lanka...which is where I went in February of '06. So, we have many mutual friends, and I am so excited to see his film about Bangladesh! Here's a sneak peak from his vimeo site along with his description on the video ::

Surfing Bangladesh in HD from Russell Brownley on Vimeo.

Some images from my recent trip to Bangladesh. Its is a glimpse into a documentary that I am working on about a surf club in Bangladesh. Many of the children are street kids or come from very poor families. Some don't even know how to swim, but their love for surfing brings them together and into a way of life they never even knew existed. An ocean that was once deemed off limits due to fear and a very conservative Islamic culture, is now becoming source of fun, escape and even a chance for a way to make a living.

it's coming...

v. b. s.

i honestly can't believe all that God is doing. this week has been a huge eye-opener for me. my dreams were not big enough. God has taken this tiny little dream we had called GO: BIG, and blown it up across the entire county. we have the privilege as staff to travel to different sites and see what God is doing through people who were willing to step out of their comfort zone. lives are being changed in HUGE ways, and many more lives will be changed without us knowing anything about it. it's day 3 right now, and i am thrilled to continue to witness all that God is doing through a simple act of obedience. we didn't know if our people would be ready, but with all 26 sites being led by volunteers, i'm pretty sure they were ready. we didn't know if kids would come, but we have more kids spread across the county than we ever had in our building. we weren't sure if we could create vbs curriculum that would be transformational and relevant to kids of all ages yet here we are hearing stories about kids AND adults encountering God. We may have had many quesitons, but as i sit here, i know for certain that this is what God wanted from us. he wanted our obedience. he wanted us to go outside of our walls and reach His children. he wanted full and complete dependence on Him. i am so blessed to be part of this...