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...