Winter Blast 2006: Priceless

This weekend, I went to Grace Adventure's Winter Blast for middle school students. It was great!

First of all, thanks to all who prayed for my job at Grace because on Friday night Ben took me aside and offered me a job.

It's cool to see how God uses circumstances for the better. I really wanted to go with our youth group to Camp Barakel this past weekend, but it ended up not working out. At first I was really bummed out about not spending time with my brother and all of his friends, but I think it was better all around for me to go to the Grace retreat instead. For one, I got more experience working with kids I didn't know, and I also got nuggets of wisdom on being a counselor at Grace.

The youth group I hosted for the weekend was from Hart United Methodist Church. There were six kids and one leader: Tyler, Paul, Ellery, Mercedes, Rachel, Kaylee, and Mrs. Hammerle. Since they didn't have a male leader, I stayed with their guys and sat in on their small group discussions. (Also, most of Saturday, Mrs. Hammerle was gone because she was playing the piano at the Solo and Ensemble festival, so a different volunteer came up for most of the day). I did the normal hosting duties of answering questions and meeting needs, but I also had the chance to just be there and listen to the guys in place of a guy from their church. One of the kids had a hard time opening up, but on Saturday night, he just started talking about everything tough that had been going on in his life. I tried my best to show him God's love and to ease his hurt. He ended up being more flexible and open for the rest of the time, and it was really cool to see how God worked in him. I also got the chance to teach them mafia before lights out on Saturday. They all loved it, and it really helped them build relationships within their group. It was tough to see them go on Sunday because even though we barely spent 2 days together, I'd grown attached to all of them as if I'd had them for a week. Please pray for the entire group that they'd stick to commitments they made.

Another cool God-thing was how I got the chance to talk with Brian during free time on Saturday. Brian's been a counselor at Grace for the past 2 years, so he was able to pass on little bits of advice and things he'd learned about the campers.

Looking back I'd say that even though I really wanted to go to Barakel with the youth group, I wouldn't have had it any other way.

Only 2 Main Philosophies?

Today in Philosophy, we talked a lot about Buddhism and where the assumptions it makes lead.
The core of Buddhism is the idea that life is suffering, suffering is caused by desire, and in order to get rid of desire you must get rid of personal existence.

I follow it and tend to agree with it up until it assumes that the existence of self is a myth and should be gotten rid of (oh yeah, and the whole non-existence of God thing).

I think the reason I have such a hard time with these ideas is because of my innate beliefs. I innately believe in the existence of God.

The main fallacy of Buddhism is the idea that suffering is caused by desire, period. I would say that it is caused by self-centered desire, which can't really exist in the absence of a "self."

My professor quoted C. S. Lewis today when he said basically that there are only two religions: Buddhism and Christianity. One thinking that we don't actually exist, and that are existence is the cause of our suffering while the other believes that our selfish desires cause our suffering and the key is to live a life of giving rather than taking, as taught by Jesus.

But as the discussion continued, I noticed a third basic philosophy present itself. A girl in the class seems to think that there is nothing wrong with taking and consuming to fulfill desires. She said that as long as you're happy and not hurting others, then it's fine. She didn't seem to have much concern for the aspect of suffering present.

So, are there 3 philosophies or just 2? Does everyonene fit into one of these basic patterns of thinking? Is your purpose either to live a life of giving to others and to work to eliminate your own selfish desires while not denying that you exist or to go about trying to eliminate all desire until you cease to actually exist? Are your tendencies towards one or the other tied to your basic beliefs that all other beliefs boil down to? There is no way to prove the non-existence or existence of self. It's got to be something you just either believe or don't.

Throughout the discussion, I kept thinking about how we talked about something so similar in GEW with all beliefs boiling down to whether or not you believe God exists. Does this idea of whether or not "self" exists boil down further to your beilef on the existence of God? If so, how does Romans 1 play into whether or not you believe in God and therefore personal existence?

If anyone's read this far, I'd appreciate comments of your own thoughts on this idea.

Interview Tomorrow

If any of you see this and remember, could you please pray for me tomorrow (Fri. the 20th). I have a job interview at Grace Adventures at 2pm. This job would be so awesome to have. I love Grace and I would love to work with the campers up there. Thanks.

Lumbers

I've just completed all of my first day of school rituals:

I attended classes, waited an insane amount of time in the line to pick up my financial aid check, sifted through a crowd of people in the food court, attended more classes, and nearly suffocated trying to wade through the sea of books, shelves, and people in the bookstore.

I think I'm going to enjoy most of my classes this semester. They're all pretty different from the classes I had in the fall.

My Anatomy class today exposed me to my first irrationally large and impersonal class. The prof. in there is kind of quirky and more than kind of "farm-boy"-ish. It shouldn't be too hard of a class since there's no lab and it's mostly memorization. My philosophy class is a good distance away, and in the world's tiniest classroom. The prof in there should be interesting, but from what I hear most philosophy profs are. My writing class is going to be a lot different from any other I've ever had. She told us today that we won't be using a thesis statement in our papers. (Which happens to fly directly in the face of my philosophy prof.) The best of them all is my Statistics prof: Dr. Jann-Huei Jinn. He's the first of the infamous "impossible-to-understand" professors. The guy's hilarious, and he likes to joke around, but I find it very ironic that the word that he says most funny is "numbers." (Hence the title of my post).

Lumbers.

I've got to go now and get some other work done.

Later.

Happy New Year (a little late, I know)

I know I haven't updated in a VERY long time, but for some reason, I've had LESS spare time than I thought I would over break.

It's been a good break. I've worked a lot, but not so much in the last week or so. Inventory is as much fun as I anticipated, which is NOT at all. We went to Detroit for Christmas to visit my dad's side of the family. By the time dinner started we had 21 people there! My parents got me a digital camera and my Aunt Candy and Uncle Randy got me a DVD player / VCR combo. I also got some cash, gift cards galore, and clothes.

My brother and I are going to a Pistons game this Saturday. We got great seats (5th row!), and it'll be the first NBA game for both us us. I can't wait!

I found out that I will not be spending near as much on gas this semester. I only have to go on M, W, and F, and my schedule is a close match with Keith's so we'll be able to carpool.

Right now I'm in the process of applying to Grace Adventures to work as a camp counselor this summer. I'm a little late in the process, so I'm really hoping and praying that they're still hiring.

On New Year's Eve, Mike, Cody(ie), Cade, David, and Dallas came over to hang out, watch football, and play Apples to Apples (another Christmas present). Good times.

New Year's night, the high school youth group, plus Dallas and me, got together one last time before most of them went back to school. We played mafia, Quip It, Apples to Apples, and a Hershey Kiss variation on spoons.

Mike got me to start watching 24, and now I've borrowed the entire first season. It's a really good TV show.

Sarah got me to watch my first Jane Austen movie, Emma. I am proud to say I made it through it without developing a proper British accent.

Rose Bowl tonight was an exciting game. I'm sick of USC winning all of the time, so it was refreshing to see Texas come back and stomp on 'em.

I talked to Pastor Jamey this week, and he said I'm all set to go on the middle school winter retreat. I'm really looking forward to being able to get to know everyone a lot better in a "non Sunday School" setting.

Well, I gotta get to bed. I've got to get up early tomorrow to go to work.

Good night.