TOmato in a Potato Field...literally

I found out the hard way yesterday that sunscreen works best to prevent a sunburn before you get one. Six hours out in a potato field and I now look like a tomato, or a beet. I'm not sure which is more accurate. if you have seen the pictures, you decide, and let me know...

Journalism write up

Camp Palisades Senior High Camp2009
“3D Life”

By: Mallory Wheeler

This year at Camp Palisades, we followed the last three days of Christ. Director and speaker Eric Jackson planned many activities that took the campers through Jesus’ last three days on Earth. Such activities included a re-creation of the Passover Seder, the washing of the disciples’ feet, and painting cabin doorways red with the “lamb’s” blood.
There was a very good turnout for Senior High Camp this year. For many who attended, this was their first time to camp. They said it was an experience they would never forget. Many said they plan on attending camp again next year.
As well as learning about the last three days of Christ, we participated in Camp Wars. This activity was made up of various challenges during each day at camp. The four self named teams: Team Awesome, Team Kokomo, Team Fiery Pumas, and Team To Be Determined went head to head in challenges that required teamwork and cooperation as a whole. The water balloon launch, Extreme Tug of War, capture the flag, and Soaker Dodge Ball were only a few of the challenges we faced.
The rafting trip this year was quite an experience. We arrived at the rafting site a couple of hours early because of a communication error. Luckily we found ways of entertainment to pass the time. When we finally did get on the rafts, the entire trip was amazing. The river, which usually runs about 50 to 60 cubic feet per second (CFS), was running at around 110 CFS. The entire trip down the river was fast paced and once over, there wasn’t a dry spot on anyone that went on the trip.
We had our plates full up at camp this year, literally. The food up at Palisades is one of a kind. Delicious and never ending. Every camper that appreciates the time and hard work the cooks put in to make sure we were well fed.
Molly Shipley led worship for both camps. At Senior High camp, Shyler Mayerhofer and Henry Funk brought their guitars to camp as well. By the end of camp they were helping with worship.
Saturday evening we made the hike up to the cross. As usual, some of the campers ran up the mountain and were there a lot sooner than others. There was a lot of teamwork on the way up the mountain. Small support groups developed, and campers stuck together, encouraging each other up the mountain. Once everyone was at the top, there was a devotional and some worship. Then everyone headed back down the mountain.
Later that night, after dinner, we watched the Passion of the Christ. After going through the trials and Jesus’ last three days, watching the video meant so much more and was more easily understood because we had been studying the scene.
Sunday we were all up early to pack our things and get ready for the ride back home. After breakfast, there was a Sunday camp service in the lodge, and the cabin leaders shared some advice with us campers.
“Take what you learned up here off the mountain.”
“Share your faith with others,”
“Live for Christ. Live a 3D life.”

Blessing OR Curse How We Became One

I have never had a problem being myself or expressing who I am. When around the right people I can be crazy and out going. But most people think of me as strange. They notice two different personalities and classify me as schizophrenic. What most people fail to understand is I am never alone. I share my mind, and body with another. As strange as this may seem, believe it, because truth is the strangest fiction of all.

When I was small, about 8 or 9, my dad received a job transfer and was moved from his post on the Florida Keys to the cold loneliness that is Alaska. Father and mother were thrilled for a change in scenery. They had been waiting for an opportunity to leave the area.

They welcomed the change, but I was stubborn and refused to abandon all that was familiar and move 3000 miles away to a place I had never been nor ever wanted to go. On top of that, I wasn’t ready for the major climate change. Going from the sub-tropical Florida Keys to the sub-arctic tundra of Alaska turned out to be quite a shock.

Nonetheless, we went anyway. It wasn’t as if I could change what was happening, so I put up with the move and went in silent rebellion.

The stress from the move and the change in climate made me sick and delusional. The intense cold restricted my breathing. It cracked my skin so severely that I couldn’t move without screaming out in agony.

The complete exhaustion from my illness took a negative effect on me. I started to lose my mind. Everything I said was in an incomprehensible language. I would go through bouts of seizures. I would see things that weren’t really there, and I would drop in and out of consciousness for days, sometimes weeks at a time. I would just lie there, as if I weren’t alive. I was physically unaware, but inside, I was fighting a war with my own mind…and you can’t beat an enemy that already knows everything about you.

This struggle with insanity spent all my energy. I was a dead battery. Now weak and vulnerable, physically and mentally, I couldn’t run from what was coming after me.

No one ever told my parents that the land they bought was abandoned for a reason. The realtor failed to mention the Eskimo burial ground previously located where my bedroom is now. It wasn’t ever said that the people buried there were considered mentally unstable and possibly murderous. None of this was ever mentioned, but by this time, I knew exactly what was happening… and why I was acting so strange.

Andremeo was his name. At first I thought of him as a companion due to the fact that he only came around after the sun fell. But for some reason, the more he was around, the weaker I got and the stronger he seemed to become. He eventually got strong enough to appear in daylight, and by then, he was always present, and he wouldn’t leave.

He was a spirit long parted from his physical body. He had been murdered 400 years ago, tortured to death because he wouldn’t abdicate. Yes, Andremeo was royalty. Though before the revolution, he was loved by all and a fair ruler. Then disaster and havoc compromised his sanity. Before he was killed, he murdered thousands of innocent civilians. I know all this, because before he forced his way inside me and seized control of my mind, he showed me parts of his life. They were mostly pleasant, good memories, but there were some very disturbing visions as well.

Something that always stood out vividly in my mind were the ice blue eyes of the massive malamute husky that seemed to always be by Andremeo’s side in the visions. There was something possessive about those eyes. They were always watching, waiting, staring at me. The vivid shade of blue made the animal almost demon like.

I never have understood the significance of that dog or his demon like blue eyes, I’m still not sure I do. I may never understand the importance of that animal. Andremeo withheld that information and I know everything about him. He knows my thoughts, my secret desires. He even controls a part of me. He stole a portion of my willpower when he forced his way into my brain when I was weakest.

You can’t begin to imagine how humiliating, how horrifying it is to not be able to control your own body…your own actions. When Andremeo takes over, he throws me into the back of my mind, puts up a wall, and all I can see are those ice blue eyes staring me down, striking fear so deep inside of me, all I want to do is hide. But how do you hide inside your own mind? I’m still trying to figure that one out. If you have an answer, let me know. Being a prisoner in your own mind is torture of the worst kind. I feel perfectly fine and in control one moment, and the next, something startles Andremeo, wakes him. And he takes over.

Absolutely anything can cause Andremeo to seize control, jealousy, anger, loneliness, or fear. But I’ll take the risk. Just because I might lose control and become someone else at any moment isn’t going to stop me from living my life.

I have learned to cope with living with Andremeo. But believe me, it wasn’t easy. I have always been stubborn, and he didn’t change that.

When I was in 7th grade, my best friend’s parents died in a horrible car crash. She was a total wreck afterwards. No pun intended. My parents took her in as an adopted daughter instead of having the state send her to a foster home. I thought having Becky as a best friend and a sister would make dealing with Andremeo easier; maybe helping her move on with life would preoccupy me and keep Andremeo out of trouble. But he was just as stubborn as I was. And though we shared a physical body, we were as about as different as sunburn and frostbite.

I welcomed Becky as a sister wholeheartedly. We had been best friends since I had moved here, so sisters shouldn’t be that different. We did everything together. And I guess Andremeo got jealous. He hated the fact that Becky was living with us, and did everything he could to tear our friendship apart. Jealousy can make people and spirits for that matter do horrible things.

Becky never knew my secret. I kept it away from her to protect myself from judgment. Too many times had I already been shunned because of my “abnormality”, and I was trying a new tactic of keeping Andremeo a secret. He didn’t appreciate that and released his rage by trying to hurt Becky.

It was about 3 months after Becky had moved in with us. She was finally starting to feel better and we were becoming closer than ever. I would have forgotten all about Andremeo, if it weren’t for the constant pain I had in the back of my mind.

He didn’t like all the time I was spending with Becky. But I was 13 and my best friend had just lost both her parents. I just didn’t feel like dealing with the spirit. I had to take care of my best friend.

I ignored the warnings that Andremeo sent me in dreams, ignored his blunt flash-forwards of horrible things happening to both my best friend and me. But unfortunately ignorance is not exorcism and it just made Andremeo all the more livid.

One night in June, Becky and I were sleeping outside, it was the warmest it had been all summer and we weren’t going to let the opportunity pass by unnoticed. We were up late, telling stories and talking about boys, the things normal 13-year-old girls do. It was about 3 in the morning when we finally fell asleep. Becky was dead to the world, but I was half awake, because Andremeo had a plan to get rid of Becky, and although I was aware of it, there was nothing I could do, because Andremeo had figured out a way to render me completely helpless, trapping me in a cage in the back of my own mind.

I fought to get free, to save my friend, but he still carried out his plan. He knew of a place, in the old part of town, where there was an open pit. It was once an old quarry, and for years, tons of rocks were dug out of the area, making the hole around 200 yards deep. While Becky was asleep, he took her there, and slid her down the steep side of the pit. If you fell down there, there was almost no way to get out.

Satisfied that his plan had worked, he took us back home, and we settled back into the back yard for the rest of the night. I don’t know how he did it, but the next day, I couldn’t tell my parents where Becky was. Andremeo had put some sort of block on that subject. And all I could say was, “I don’t know…I don’t know.”

A full-scale search was started for Becky, but it wasn’t until the 3rd day of search that they found her. She was right where Andremeo had left her, at the bottom of the quarry. She was barely alive. The fall down to the bottom had worn the sleeping bag she was in down to a thin layer of cotton, and the jagged rocks had shredded the backside of her body. She was in horrible condition and when she recovered, she pointed the finger at me.

All she could say was, “I thought you were my friend Alex, and I thought we were sisters. I guess you couldn’t handle competition.”

And though my body had done it, I hadn’t. But she didn’t see it that way, and as soon as she recovered, she left for a foster home, never giving me a chance to apologize for Andremeo's actions, let alone tell her the real truth.

I lost a friend that day because I was too afraid to show her the true me. The part of me that is not so desirable, that part of me is Andremeo. By hiding his presence, he reacted the way most people would when they get jealous, they got rid of what they were competing with for attention. In this case, Andremeo pushed Becky out of my life forever…and I have never seen her since.

There is another episode that stands out vividly in my mind and changed my overall feelings about Andremeo. After he hurt Becky, I hated him. But I learned my lesson.

I was a junior in high school and was having a hard time fitting in…after all…a kid who has to share her mind and body with a possessive Eskimo prince will tend to have problems. Finally I had made a few friends who accepted me for who I was. Spirit possessed and all. One of my new friends was planning a party at her house. I was excited to go and was hoping that I wouldn’t have any episodes with Andremeo.

I got to Leanna’s house around 5:00 that evening. Everything was going great. We ate pizza, played games, swam, and jumped on her trampoline. (Andremeo really enjoyed that.)

After it got dark, I went inside alone to get my jacket. It may have been a warm summer night, but for some reason, it felt to me like the middle of winter. My hands were ice cold, and my body shivered uncontrollably. Suddenly, I see those ice blue eyes, and the animal they belong to, flash out of nowhere. They stare me down. Then disappear. The sudden appearance startled me, but I wasn’t going to let Andremeo ruin tonight.

I went back outside to notice everyone standing around a growing fire. Again, I saw the ice blue eyes. And in addition, felt a shrill biting cold.

“You can’t ruin tonight.” I thought, “I won’t let you.” I sent a silent message to Andremeo to PLEASE behave.

In return, Andremeo sent me a memory from his life many centuries ago…

In this memory, Andremeo was 12 or 13, not yet ruler. He was walking with a friend, a brother, Telloram, and they were on their way back to their village from a hunting trip. They had failed at returning with any meat for the village and the boys weren’t in the best of moods. Suddenly, Andremeo smells smoke on the air. He looks at his friend with a terrified expression, and they start to run.

During the brief summer months, Andremeo’s tribe lived in wooden huts. Each one could house 100 to 150 people. Most of the time, aunts, uncles, cousins, and immediate family would share a hut.

The buildings were often poorly crafted, with little to no ventilation, and only one exit. In the event of an emergency, it took a long time to evacuate the entire structure through the single file door at the end of the building.

As they ran towards their village, Andremeo and Telloram’s worst fear reached further and further into reality. One of the huts had caught fire. But from their vantage point, neither boy could tell which family hut it was. They could only hope it was empty. But, each boy had a gnawing feeling deep in the pit of their stomachs that everyone and everything they held dear was in mortal peril.

Finally close enough; the boys knew the worst was happening. The hut on fire belonged to Andremeo’s family, and as if that wasn’t bad enough news, the source of the fire was near the entryway. There was no way for those trapped inside to escape. He sat and watched, unable to help, as his family and loved ones died in that fire. He only wished the fire hadn’t left him behind.

Andremeo lost everything that day. He had nothing left. Nothing except a throne he didn’t want and an eternal fear of fire and anything remotely warm.

After the fire, and his coronation, Andremeo moved the village to the harsh northern mountains of Alaska, where it was never sunny and almost always wet.

As I finished watching this tragic memory, I felt a tear on my cheek, and I knew it was mine. Not wanting to cause another outbreak, I recognized Andremeo's fear, and stayed away from the fire. For as long as possible, that is.

I didn’t want to sit alone in Leanna’s house, so I sat outside, and tried not to look bored. But eventually, loneliness got the better of me, and pyrophobic spirit or not, I was going to stand by that fire.

I guess Andremeo had fallen asleep, because as I walked…no …was drawn toward the blaze like a magnet, I felt no tug at the back of my brain. No urge to turn the other way, like I had so many times before when he took control. In fact, I got all the way to the fire with out one sound from Andremeo. I found the lack of resistance strange, but I welcomed it. The last thing I wanted was a problem.

I stood by the fire for a good 15 minutes before Andremeo became even remotely aware that we were near the fire. He started to panic, so I took several steps away from the blaze, and he calmed down. Another 20 minutes passed by and the huge fire was starting to finally die down. We both, human and spirit, welcomed that. I was tired and ready to head for home, and Andremeo was relieved for his obvious pyrophobic reasons.

Then Leanna and her father started piling more wood and other flammables into the pile, and suddenly, the bonfire was roaring back to life, hotter and stronger than before. I started to panic. Andremeo was on full alert, and was telling me something was extremely wrong something inside the burning pile was a gas can. Everyone was unaware of it, but it was sizzling, crackling, building pressure. And before anyone could say, “Run”, the pressure released itself, and there was an explosion. Being the closest, the flames blew me over, they licked my skin, and the embers burrowed their way through my flesh.

Andremeo took control. He sprang into action. But instead of running away, he made a positive difference, and helped the others.

I remember hearing him think, “I have already lost everything I loved. That pain is nothing I want to go through again. It’s incomparable to anything she could ever feel. I have made my mistakes. Driven away a close friend hurt Alex over and over again, made her a prisoner in her own mind. It was time I apologized, set things right. At the very least, I can try to save her everything…I won’t let her lose them.”

That was the first time I had ever heard Andremeo say my name. And it gave me hope. Before he had only referred to me as “girl”. That little difference assured me that Andremeo would save us.

He kept his promise and helped us all out of the explosion with minimal injury. The most serious damage was our own, and we had 2nd degree burns all the way down the left side of our body. One thing is for certain: I will never think of Andremeo the same way. Before this accident, he was just a burden, a nuisance, and trouble beyond imagination. It was either his way or no way. Now he is a part of me.

Leanna and the others were never told that it was the “evil spirit” that saved them. They had accepted Andremeo as a dark, strange, unusual and unfamiliar part of me. But I don’t think that they ever liked him. I know they never liked him. After all, when you think about it, and only understand what others have told you, he is a deranged spirit that forced entry to my body when I was 8. He paralyzed my mind and took over my body. He made me fear him with those ice blue eyes that pierced my very being.

But what outsiders fail to realize, and wont ever understand is that Andremeo is just a scared teenager who died a terrible agonizing death at a young age. Taking control seemed to be his way of running away…of protecting our body and me.

And when I think about it, those ice blue eyes weren’t demon like. They were soft and caring. They were hope and trust, a guarantee that everything would turn out ok. The eyes of that malamute were watchful. A faithful dog always watches after his human. Always protects them.

I don’t just “deal” with Andremeo sharing my mind anymore. He is an active part of my life. We work together. We trust each other. He gives me insight from his life to help me make decisions in mine, and I help him overcome his fears. And Andremeo no longer feels the need to take over. He no longer feels jealous.

There have been so many times, already in my life, where others have offered to rid me of this “demon spirit”. (The majority of these offers came to me after he tried to kill Becky.) But every time they have asked I have declined, because what I thought was a curse at the beginning, has really been a blessing. I just had to open my eyes and heart to realize it.