Welcome to the Ranch!

We are here! We arrived last night around 8:30. And if you don't know anything about JH Ranch let me describe our arrival last night:

You step out of the bus and are immediately blown away by just how beautiful the Ranch is. Green grass reaches far out in the pasture, mountains cut across the sky, and the air has not one trace of humidity (if you're from the south you know how beautiful this is).

Then, as you're walking up the hill from the bus to the main buildings, you start to hear the clapping and cheers of the full time staff and guys who came early for river guide training. They're lined up, making a tunnel with their hands, and each one of them has a huge smile on their face.

You go inside where punch, cookies, and small talk await you. For returning staff members this is a time for long overdue reunions filled with hugs and reminiscing. For new staff members it's a time for meeting yet another and another new person. With each one it's hard not to think about how God might use them in your life this summer.

My favorite part is next. After a quick talk from one of the full time staff members, Jonathan, we begin to sing songs of worship. Jonathan had mentioned that this was a place for free worship, but you didn't really understand that until you started to sing. The people around you are completely open in expressing themselves to God. Whether this means claiming His goodness aloud with hands held high, or standing still with a silent prayer on your mind- the room is just so...vulnerable.

When worship is done, Jonathan (in charge of boys summer staff) and Katie (in charge of girls) give out living assignments. You take your luggage to the correct trailer and follow your crowd of new housemates to where ever you might be assigned.

Which brings me to The Convent! Yes, that's what it is called. The Convent is so named because it is a house of all girls that live the farthest away from the main area of the Ranch...and also any guys! Now, "house" might be a generous term for the place I'll be living this summer. To give you an idea- I'm sharing a room with five other girls and I'm pretty sure it's not much bigger than my freshman dorm room! But I couldn't be less worried about the small size; in fact, I'm interested to see how it will only make us closer as the weeks go by.

So. Here I am. At JH Ranch. I've been here less than 24 hours and it's incredible just how present the Lord is. I know He's never not with me, but here I don't have to look. His spirit is bouncing off the walls, it is overflowing from every room. Last night, as my roommates and I were almost ready to collapse from exhaustion we made time to pray together- for ourselves, each other, and the summer we'll spend in our little, loving room. It may not seem like much, though to me a little activity such as that feels like the most refreshing breath of air.

I forgot what it's like to be around such a yearning group of believers. I say yearning because though we are all on different paths and at different points in our relationship with God, we are all just striving after Him. It is a beautiful common ground to have.

I'm now sitting on one of the Convent couches, typing this out on my phone and looking at yet another breath taking view. This is going to be a beautiful summer.

Sweet Home

If you’ve never been, Alabama is probably much prettier than you would expect. At least, that’s what visitors tell me as they sit in the passenger seat, looking around with a somewhat surprised look on their face.  The main comment people make on their first trip to Alabama is, “It’s so much greener than I thought it would be.”

Especially now, in the beginning of May, it is so very green.  The rain is generous in the spring leaving us with trees upon trees covered in new clothes. And the trees heavy with leaves, pinecones, and blooms, huddle tightly together and burst over the roads.  The roads are constantly curving and often rising, then dipping. It’s not necessarily mountainous around my neighborhood, but when you’re running, you get a feel for just how steep those hills can be.  I love the hills, my heart is in the hills. If you ask me “mountains or the beach?” I’ll say mountains every time, though I don’t know if that makes me more partial to my hometown, or if my hometown makes me more partial to the mountains.  There are creeks that can turn into miniature rapids during a thunderstorm (I say rapids because my cousins have actually attempted to raft one during a storm).  They are full of crawling crawdads, little darting fish, and the occasional snake, but when you’re a little girl in a hot Alabama summer, nothing can keep you from wading through the cool water.

That only describes a small, small section of Alabama, but it’s my section. It’s my first home and believe me, I would not want to say that about anywhere else in the world.  I can understand that other people might feel similar ways about their home states, but if you are also from Alabama you understand the difference. 

Being from Alabama is like being from a history- a history well-marinated in tradition...and butter.  It’s something I’ve only noticed after being around more non-southerners, if you will, but this lifestyle of tradition is one that is unique to the south-east- if not just Alabama (I can’t speak for the other states). 

With this attachment to tradition comes strong feelings of pride. I have a friend, Annie Monson, from the mid-west who now lives in New Jersey and for the life of her, she cannot get her head around the pride we Alabamians feel. For a state that is not always ranked so favorably in demographics, we still think that there’s no better place to live in the country.  Keep your lack of obesity; we’ll keep our delicious barbeque and call it a day. 

I write all this for an important announcement: I’M BACK! After two days of being Bama-bound (only my mom could turn an 8 hour drive to a two day trek), I have arrived to my house in Birmingham.  An unlikely occurrence these days, all six members of the Drew family are present and accounted for.  Alabama never felt so good as a warm summer night surrounded by my parents, brothers, and sister.  These are the people that have dealt with me the longest and loved me the hardest.  It’s a sad fact that I take them for granted- I never realize quite how much I need them until I feel their arms around me. Of course, it doesn’t just stop with my immediate family- my cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents are all such beautiful sights for sore eyes (and I share their gene pool, so lucky me!).

Being away from Wake is tough.  I miss it terribly.  It was an odd moment to wake up this morning in a queen sized bed- let me divulge, I did not enjoy it.  But, I had been away from Alabama long enough.  This time around, it was my mother’s church bus-sized conversion van that carried me home, and I am thankful for it.  I might still shed a few tears when I talk to my far away friends, but I’m also going to appreciate this time in Dixie.

Besides, I leave for California (!!!) on the 19^th… I just can’t stay in one place can I?

Freshman Frenzy

This upcoming Monday will conclude my first year at Wake Forest University.

Now will whoever is holding down the fast forward button press pause for a minute? I need to digest all that’s happened this year.

I came to college back in August. I was young, naïve, and completely unsure of how to get around my freshman dorm, much less the whole campus.  Today I can comfortably tell you how to get around campus…as for being young and naïve I’m pretty sure that hasn’t changed. When you come to college, I’ve found, there is this interesting atmosphere of experience that I don’t remember being present in high school. You’re on your own, away from parents, living with your friends, and you’ve got four years to make the absolute most of it!

What will you do with college? What will college do with you?

Of course, it’s not so dramatic as this inside the freshman brain upon arrival to school. I was more focused on questions such as:

Why did I think it was a good idea to leave my friends?

How do I get rid of these fluorescent lights?

What are all of these Jersey kids doing here?

How do I get to the Pit again?

Wait, maybe having your Mom at college would be a good thing?

I was so caught up in a thousand little fears and worries every day that the answers to all of these questions snuck up on me without me even noticing.  Looking back on the beginning of my freshman year, I am shocked at how intentionally God worked in my life to create a home for me at Wake Forest. Though the fluorescent lights still reign as king in my dorm room, I acclimated easily enough to having my childhood friends in different places than me. After eating a couple of meals, I found the Pit (our cafeteria) with no trouble. Having my mom at a distance has only made our relationship stronger, and one of those Jersey kids became one of my best friends.

Freshman year could probably be described in one word for me: growth. It has not been easy. I would even go so far as to say that at times, this was one of the hardest years of my life. These two semesters have been full of mistakes, misjudgments, and misguided paths I stumbled through. I am not proud of everything I have done this year, but I am blessed enough to know the grace of Christ.  And for the times when I just didn’t feel it, I had sweet friends there to remind me of God’s great love. That, to me, is what it is to grow. It is not something marked by perfection, by flawless transition. It is not strictly personal, an isolated action. I have had my share of “growing pains” and I have leaned on people for so much of the way.

So why was I surprised the first time I referred to Wake as home? It was such an odd moment. There I was talking about fall break and it just slipped out: “I’ll be home on Sunday.” Home. I felt a bit guilty, as if I had betrayed my family and Birmingham by calling somewhere else home. But it was true. I do feel like Wake is a home for me. My little freshman dorm, the old brick buildings, Wait Chapel and its spotlight after dark- these are images of home for me now. What else are images of home for me? Catherine Douglas laughing on my floor, Annie Monson dancing to a middle school rap song, Tillman Hamilton sitting across from me at the Pit- these are just a few of the people who feel like home to me.

(cue that depressing song  “feels like hoooooome to me...”)

This has been unreasonably long, but I believe I warned you that I always have too much to say. And don’t you worry, this is not the last of my freshman year posts. It’s going to be an exciting series of posts that leave me in tears because I JUST DON’T WANT IT TO BE OVER.

P.S. to those of you who go to Wake and are judging me because I had trouble finding the Pit…you should know my sense of direction is very poor in that it doesn’t exist

Carry Me Home

"If you wrote an autobiography, what would you title it?"

This was my absolute least favorite question of the Wake Forest University application. I struggled with my answer for days and ended up slapping something down that had no actual significance to my life. I can't remember what I answered now, but I'm sure it was not one of my better responses on the application (but jokes on Wake, because they still let me in!). Needless to say, none of you should be surprised that I wasn't too thrilled about naming this blog either. 

I began to think just what I wanted to post here. I'm not a mother bursting with family tips, a chef with clever cooking ideas, or a missionary with inspiring anecdotes. I'm mostly a nineteen year old girl (or is it woman at this point?) who has altogether too much to say on pretty much everything.  One of my main motivations, however, for deciding to start this blog had to do with my summer plans- I wanted to be able to keep my friends and family who won't be joining me in California on my daily life. After contemplating this and thinking up some disgustingly cheesy titles (California Dreamin', Caroline Goes to Cali, etc) I realized that this blog could serve the same purpose during the other seasons as well. See, I'm not really one to stay in the same place for long.  I blame my parents for giving me the travel bug, but there's something else inside of me that can't get enough of leaving my comfort zone. 

Only here's the thing, I like my comfort zone. A whole lot actually. At this point in my life, I actually feel like I have a couple of comfort zones. The most obvious is my family's home in Birmingham, Alabama, but as time has gone by and I've invested in other people and places, I'm fortunate enough to think of home in a plural sense. These are the places and people who have helped shape and create who I am today.  I carry them with me when I'm away, and when I return it always feels like I'm slipping on a big, old sweater I had lost for a month or so. 

So this blog is called Carry Me Home in the spirit of it being for all of those who are at "home" while I'm away and maybe want to see what Caroline's up to. It's for me to get out all of that extra talking at the end of the day. And who knows, maybe someone I don't even know will stumble across this mess and find something they like in all the rambling.