Thirsty

My YouTube debut!

This video is the intro to all of the camp videos this summer. Instead of Holy Hydrated at the end, it says "Quench Your Thirst."

Greg, Sharpie, and I really had fun making it, so I hope you enjoy.

Disturbing the Comfortable

It all started out innocently enough. After lunch one day, Jeremy and I went to Hage's to check out study books that we could possibly use in LIFEGroup next fall. We found one or two that intrigued us, but Jeremy found another book that seemed interesting: Irresistible Revolution by Shane Claiborne.

We paid for our books and went back home. The next time I saw Jeremy he told me "You have to read this book. It's great." As soon as he finished, I followed his recommendation and read through the book. On the back cover it says:

This book will comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable.

That last phrase was a pretty big understatement. Shane Claiborne is all about living as an "ordinary radical." He sums it up as living out your day to day life in a lifestyle of radical love. He does this in Philadelphia, PA where he lives in a community known as The Simple Way. Together, they meet each other's needs, take care of each other's financial situations, and serve God in the community. He tells stories of his early start in a "get saved every Sunday" youth group experience, his time spent in Calcutta with Mother Teresa, and his college years where he worked with the homeless in Philly. His entire life is devoted to actually living in a way that shows that he is serving and following Jesus. By taking care of the oppressed, hurting, and homeless, he is being Jesus in his community and loving his neighbor.

I was doing alright with the book until a few chapters in when Shane quotes Soren Kierkegaard in referring to how Christians shirk responsibility.

"The matter is quite simple. The Bible is very easy to understand. But we Christians are a bunch of scheming swindlers. We pretend to be unable to understand it because we know very well that the minute we understand we are obliged to act accordingly. Take any words in the New Testament and forget everything except pledging yourself to act accordingly. My God, you will say, if I do that my whole life will be ruined. Herein lies the real place of Christian scholarship. Christian scholarship is the Church's prodigious invention to defend itself against the Bible, to ensure that we can continue to be good Christians without the Bible coming too close. Dreadful it is to fall into the hands of the living God. Yes, it is even dreadful to be alone with the New Testament."

This part really got to me. It cut right to the core of why I do the things that I do. Too many times (even since reading the book) I find reasons not to get out there to love people and to serve them. I say that I'm not ready. I make up excuses about not being equipped. But the fact of the matter is that I know what I need to do. I need to love my neighbor. I need to take care of widows and orphans. I need to humble myself as a servant for the sake of following Christ.

I read the book about 2 1/2 months ago, but I still have a long way to go. My mindset has changed big time and my experiences in Chicago are a big influence on that as well. The Justice and Mercy series that we just wrapped up follows along these same lines, and they're all pointing me towards action. I need to keep praying so that I can see how God can use me best. But in the mean time, I need to be willing to love in whatever opportunities that arise. The one thing I do know is that I'll never be the same. It's impossible to walk away from reading this book not changed. I was comfortable, and it disturbed me.

I dare you to read it. Let it disturb you.

Haiku: Part Deux

Sifting through my old posts, I found this one.

It's been a while since I've tried my hand at Japanese poetry, but I'll give it a whirl.

Restarting my blog
Is a real difficult job
Will you comment please?

Thermometers rise
The air is feeling sticky
Summer is looming

"This is a riddle"
Stirs memories of campfires
Greg "The Tank" Lenger

The Office is funny
Michael, Jim, Dwight, and Stanley
Pitiful Toby

Are haikus enough
To get you to read again?
Is this all in vain?

Dunder Mifflin Meets Heroes

Funny video I found of two great shows merged together with hilarious results.

Alliteration: It's a funny thing

News - Herding humpbacks with hoses gives a spray of hope - sacbee.com

The story's not half as interesting as the title, but I still think it warrants a post.

Mute Math

Here's the video I promised from Mute Math. These guys are awesome live. Enjoy.

2006-2007 in Photos

To sum up my life from last summer until now, I'll post some pics.

I got a Dwight Bobblehead for Christmas. It came decapitated. I now have an intact one.

The "hurricane" that swept through camp last July placed a large tree within feet of my cabin.

I went to 3 Tigers Games last season and this season. The first time was with the Manns, the second time with Harriman, and the third time with some friends from work.
We lost the first game, but won the next two, meaning that I am no longer a jinx.
At the game I went to this April, Inge hit a walk-off home run right in front of us, and it landed us on TV. That game marked the first time in at least 12 years that the Tigers have beat the Twins with me in the stands. I guess that's a good sign.

My first ever Wings game this January also ended well. Besides the Wings defeating the Predators, our seats were located just a few rows in front of Steve Yzerman's box.

I'm still disappointed in the Wings ending the season at the hand of the Ducks, but there's always next year.

As I'm writing this, I realize I have too little text to keep up with the pictures, I'm posting, so consider this paragraph a filler.

The picture of Stevie Y. is a little blurry, but trust me, it's him. The girl in front of me was freaking out the whole game and would frequently stand up and turn around to try and get a better picture. A little bit of construction and the auto show in Detroit got me a little lost, but we still made it to our seats with plenty of time before the opening face-off.

This year has also been a really good one for concerts. Unity was in August and was kinda dull, but in September I saw a free Sanctus Real concert at Spring Arbor. It was an awesome show with great music. If you're not familiar with Sanctus Real, they're definitely worth your time. In November, I saw Switchfoot at Hope and they were also amazing, but I forgot my camera that night. In March, I went sans camera to the Skillet concert in GR and a Mute Math concert at the end of the month. Both shows were awesome, and I'll post a Mute Math video soon. Last weekend was Rock the Coast. Family Force 5 was crazy, and BarlowGirl was good, but it was pretty forgettable.

But the concert that tops them all was David Crowder* Band last Friday night in Kalamazoo. The environment was incredible, and worshipping with Crowder was phenomenal. I wish that kind of emotion and heart was present every time that we worshipped. Too often, I go into it with the wrong attitude, but I wonder how much of that attitude is instilled from the musicians...

These are just the high points of the year as far as I have pictures for. I've continued working with the middle schoolers at church, and I still love hanging out with them and investing in their lives. I made it a priority to keep reading for fun and growth since Christmas break, so I've filled a lot of time that way, too. I hope to get around to posting some good (but brief) reviews one of these days. I'll be dedicating my reading time at camp this summer to a new book called "No Perfect People Allowed." It has me intrigued so far by the little bit that I read at work (read: Hage's downtime).

Awesome New Switchfoot Video

Switchfoot, despite "selling out" in the eyes of some people, are still making great music. This song has a lot to say, and the video is hilarious.

Gearing Up

I've been thinking that it'd be a good thing to get this blog going again. All the steam that it had 2 years ago is gone, back when everyone had a blog, but I miss having a place to jot down my thoughts or share cool things that I've found.

I leave on Tuesday for Grace Adventures staff training. This will be summer #2 of working there as a counselor. I'm focusing on making sure that I don't let last summer affect my expectations for this year. I'm excited to get to know this year's staff.

I've got some vids and pics to share, so look for more posts soon.

Happy [Belated] New Year

We're really "busy" at work tonight, so I thought I'd update what appears to be a very low priority in life right now.

Like anything in life, to make something grow, you have to invest time and energy into it. I have neither when it comes to this blog.

School is up and running again. My classes are all in the mornings 4 days a week, so my free time is in more solid chunks of time. That's nice. I work better when I have a lot of time to do something at once than when I have a bunch of smaller chances.

Anyways, I met with Ben on Friday, and I will be working at camp this summer again. I'm pumped to see what God has in store up at Grace Adventures for 2007.

And in other equally exciting news, I'm going to my very first Red Wings game ever tomorrow night. I've wanted to go to one since I was 8 or 9, but now that they're not nearly as popular and sans Shanahan and Yzerman, I finally get to go. Can't wait.

Hopefully it won't be another month before I update.

Ouch

I got rear-ended tonight while going to the mall after work.

Some moron, for lack of a better word, slammed into me while I was waiting to turn left from Harvey onto Sternberg. Upon crashing into me, he backed up, cut over three lanes of traffic, and turned right to race onto the highway. My car was barely scratched at all.

That Bonneville is a beast.

Giving the Old Blog Some CPR

It's been a long time.

I learned CPR 3 years ago in health class. I'm going to try it on this blog. We'll see how that goes.

I randomly decided tonight to check my blog stats. I guess there's still one person out there that reads this thing. This one's for you. Whoever you are...

It's been a busy 3 1/2 months since my last post. My family and I moved across town. I now live within sight of the Concrete Church (aka St. Francis De Sales). I've finished my semester earlier today (yesterday?). The last time I posted, I was just beginning the semester. Life has been very routine, so I'm looking forward to the next 3 weeks without school. My time has been filled up with school, work, church, and my LIFEGroup. My LIFEGroup has been amazing. I've had a small group before, but I've never been a part of one that on a weekly basis easily goes for over 3 hours without anyone really noticing. Without my LIFEGroup, Organic Chemistry would have claimed my sanity months ago.

I'm already looking forward to next summer and the fall semester just ended. I've applied to work at Grace Adventures again, but I'm not yet sure if that's where God wants me. I'd love to spend every summer for the rest of my life there, but I've been wondering if I need to find a summer job that would prepare me for "my future career." I still don't know what that is, so while I'm in limbo, camp seems to be the best place to be. Everything there is just right. In my mind, there's no better way to spend a summer than by serving God.

I had better get to bed. I've got to work at the "den of iniquity" all day tomorrow. I need my sleep.

P.S. If you're a coworker of mine, please realize that my nickname for my place of employment is an inside joke, not a perfect reflection of how I feel about it all the time.

Long Weekend Lulls Student Into False Sense of Laziness

While I've always enjoyed the long Labor Day weekend that immediately follows the first week of school (not anymore for most schools, I know), it never ceases to give a false sense of "second summer" if you will. Four days off in a row after the first week of classes almost makes those first few class periods seem as if they were all a dream. Nevertheless, as I found out today by my homework load I tackled, that first week of school really did happen.

It all balances itself out, though. I had a great weekend overall, and GVSU has Tuesday off, so I still have a little bit more "free time" (a precious commodity in a few short weeks).

To begin my weekend, I went to the Tigers game with Patrick, Mike, and his dad. It was great! (pictures soon) The Tigers won in a 9-0 shutout against the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim California of the United States. This was the first Tigers victory with me in the stands that I have actual memory of. My nickname at sporting events as "the jinx" is officially gone now.

Saturday, I worked, and that's about it.

Yesterday, I went to church, ate lunch, and then went to Camp! It was cool to see a lot of people that were up there volunteering for Labor Day Family Camp. Peter, Shane, Sharpie, Jason, Lexie, Marla, Megan, Kirk, and Krystal were all up there, and we got a chance to hang out in the evening with some ice cream at the Station. We later raided the kitchen and played some great rounds of Jenga.

I slept in today, worked on my homework, and caught up with some current events while watching the evening news:

Stingray kills 'Crocodile Hunter' Irwin

Crikey!
We all knew it would happen someday, but it was kind of unexpected. I feel really bad for his wife and two kids. I used to love watching his show.

We'll miss you "Crocodile Hunter."

Transitions

Camp is done now, and life is returning to normal.

I had an amazing time at Grace this summer, and after being asked to sum up my experiences in a sentence more than once, I offer this very inadequate summary:

I learned and stood in awe of how much God can do while using imperfect tools such as myself.

After camp, David, Patrick, Mr. Mann, and I went to a Tigers game. The Tigers continued their losing streak with me in the stands, but it's just awesome being in Comerica Park with the Tigers doing as well as they are this year. Mike, Dr. Harriman, Patrick, and I are going to a game this Friday. Hopefully the Tigers will prove once and for all that I am not a jinx at professional sporting events.

Later in the week of the Tigers game, I went to Unity. I got to see some awesome concerts (Aaron Shust, Chris Tomlin, TFK [they were alright], Casting Pearls [not so bad], Newsboys, Tears for Juliet, Matthew West, Superchick, and Steven Curtis Chapman.

It was a pretty good weekend. I hope that next year they get David Crowder Band and/or Sanctus Real. That would be awesome.

In the meantime, I picked up most of my books for classes that start... tomorrow.
Yeah, school's already starting and summer doesn't feel over yet. It hasn't all hit me.

Despite my denial, I do realize summer will be ending in a few short hours, so yesterday I got in one last day at Grace for the summer. I helped out as they hosted a large group from Grace Bible College. I got to work the ropes course and see some pretty awesome blobs from the Blob tower.

I left Grace a little early, in order to make it to Middle School Mania last night by 5:30. My plans were thwarted by my first major car accident. I stopped at a stop sign, looked left, looked right (possibly for too long) and started to go, not noticing a car RIGHT at the intersection I was turning into. My car was badly damaged, but miraculously driveable. The other car was totalled. It was kind of a bummer, but luckily no one got hurt. It only delayed me 1hr and a half.

Middle School Mania with its medieval(sp?) theme seemed to be a hit. Whipped Cream fun was had by all.

Now, I must go and track down my new parking permit for the school year that I seem to have misplaced.

Peace.

"Belay On!"

My final week of having campers was different than all of my other weeks. For the first time of the summer, I was having Middle Schoolers, you know, 12-14 year olds: Focus Camp. I work with that age group at church all the time. Should be no sweat.

However, my week was far from what I was expecting. For one thing, one of my campers was 16. Yeah, his church wanted him to go really bad, so when he missed the high school week, they worked to get him into the middle school camp. I'll admit, in the beginning of the week, I made this "opportunity" into too big of a deal, but it was quite a change from what I thought the week would be like. The cabin dynamics were interesting with having kids ranging from a sheltered 12 year old to an experienced 16 year old.

With a lot of prayer and support from some of my friends, I was able to manage. Our conversations at night were pretty interesting. And on the last night, I spent 3 hours doing just 3 one-on-one conversations. I think a lot of seeds were planted, and it was a good week, overall.

With Focus Camp, every camper gets to spend 2 hours a day "focusing" on a certain activity they want to work on or challenge themselves in. I worked with the High Adventure focus. It was so much fun to work with our group on goal-setting and challenging themselves. They did the indoor tower, ropes course, Dangle Duo, and outdoor tower. My hands got blistered, but I leared a lot about working to challenge students. It was an awesome experience. "Belay on!"

Besides the storm...

Last week of camp was Challenge Camp with 10-12 year olds. Besides the "hurricane" that hit on Monday of that week, a lot more happened. Including the addition of 2 new brothers in Christ: Jaharie and Derek.



Connor, Derek, Sam, Noah, Ryan, Jaharie, John, Brenden, and James were a lot of fun.

Seeing God in the "Hurricane"

Monday started out as a quiet day. No one really expected hardly a drop of rain. At 4:00, I escorted my kids to the climbing tower where we were set to climb. We began hearing low rumbles of thunder in the distance, so we headed towards the indoor tower, thinking that this fast moving storm that came out of nowhere would just blow over.

While we started the first climbers inside, the storm hit hard. Sheets of rain blowing hard in winds anywhere from 70-100 mph (hurricane force). Booming thunder and bright lightning came through and within minutes we were in the dark.

We continued climbing, expecting the storm to end soon and the power to come back on. We saw the wind and rain, but had no idea of how strong this storm truly was. By dinner time, it had let up, but we were left without any power (or water for that matter), plus we had countless down trees all over camp. We were told not to go back to our cabins or through any wooden areas until further noticed. We stalled in the dining hall, and then held an impromptu Bible study indoors and without our own Bible / curriculum. We followed that with some canteen time and by the time that was finished, a generator had been hooked up to the boys cabins water pump. We were finally allowed to go to the cabins and relieved ourselves by flashlight. We then killed the rest of our time with a really fun skit night "American Idol" style with all of the cabins performing skits in the dark as the emergency lights turned off and more storms rolled through. As we turned in early to bed, we had the chance to improvise some fun with our campers.

I taught my guys mafia by flashlight and read to them from a book we've been reading this week. We got free ice cream from the canteen that would have melted anyway, and had an overall fun time.

Somehow, our entire cabin managed to fall asleep in the sticky, warm cabin without any fans. This morning was a cool, clear morning where we could see God's beauty shine through all the damaged forests and flooded athletic field. Both his strength, and his goodness were displayed.

The power finally returned a little after 4 today. I'm thankful it's back on, but the experience of this storm and the following power outage is unique to this group, and I think God definitely used it for the best.

During our Bible study, the guys really opened up and I could see God beginning to move in their hearts. I can only trust that he'll continue working in them this week.

During our extra time to kill, I saw them bond as a cabin group and really connect with each other. That was awesome.

So despite going 3 meals without power/water, a whole 24 hours without showers, and just as much time without any electricity, God was working in the midst of the storm in Mears, MI.

Challenging, but good

This past week of camp was Discovery 3.

Here's some pictures:

Joey, Jens, Zeke, Anthony, Justin, Kyle, Josh, and Jason were a pretty good group. They slept like rocks, so that was nice. I had to deal with a little homesickness with one of my campers, but it all turned out for the good. Josh, from the second to last picture, was able to learn a lot about love and helping others through that situation, and God really moved in his heart this week. Also, Joey, the last camper pictured, accepted Christ on Thursday, making the difficult spots of the week all worthwhile.

Discovery 3. Late nights. Homesickness. Rain. Good.

The Faces of Love

This past week at camp, I had Discovery campers again, they were mostly 10 year olds with a few 9 year olds mixed in. I was very blessed in the fact that they were very cooperative in the Bible studies and personal devotions times.

Here's my guys from the past week:

Bastian, Drew, Jake, Nicholas, Luke, Graham, DJ, Stevie, and Jacob brought a great deal of fun with them to camp.

Sadly, though, my week was filled with reminders (especially towards the end) that these kids live in a broken world. So many of them were hurting. My heart broke quite a few times during the last night and morning. Please pray for one of my guys who was in the hospital the last I knew. The details aren't important. The fact that he's hurting and needs God's love is.

During the week, I was also inspired to remember that each and every one of these kids, despite their background, bears the image of God. I never want to forget that.

A year ago this past week, I was in Chicago, experiencing the greatest sense of love and compassion I've ever felt. I want to try my best to love these kids as recklessly as that. If you want to know how to pray for me during the rest of the summer, that's it.

I go back up tomorrow (or today, actually) to serve while we minister to families for this 4th of July week.

The Longest Short Week

Today at 4pm, my 7-9 year olds went home with their parents. They only have camp for a shorter week because the parents can't handle their kids being gone that long, but they were quite a handful. Here are some pictures.

I did enjoy quite a few teachable moments with Jordan, Grant, DJ, Josh, Connor, Alex, J.D, Beau, and Jon, but by far the highlight of my week was this...