a spider, a pumpkin, and a diploma



maybe so...
Ty and I found it aimlessly gliding near Trevor and Josh's bunk bed this morning. She was an evil creature - the kind of creature that, had she been 100 times bigger, would make me cuss and wet myself and cry. I realize that I've just cast myself out of the ranks of Sam (Frodo's companion) and Harry Potter - each of whom have stood their ground before a terrifyingly large spider and have lived to tell the tail. Perhaps I can aspire to live wich such courage as they.

In other news, Whitney and I found a great deal on pumpkin candles at Target...





Is that Dwight in the background? Yes, it is. Man, he really Schruted that picture by being in the background. Thats what people say when they really screw something up really bad.


I also managed to find a home for my diploma while at Target...

popsicle?


no, it's a personality test that I took online. It says that I'm an advocating leader. That sounds good. Here are a few highlights of the description of me:

Your solid grounding in the practicalities of life, along with your self-assuredness and your willingness to appreciate new things make you a LEADER.
Never one to pass on an adventure, you're consistently seeking and finding new things, even in your immediate surroundings.
Your confidence gives you the potential to take your general awareness and channel it into leadership.
The intellectual curiosity that drives you leads you to seek out causes of and reasons behind things.

Being social, empathic, and understanding makes you ADVOCATING.
Some people find being around others exhausting—but not you! You are energized by spending time with friends, and you are good at meeting new people
Despite these reservations, you are open-minded when it comes to your worldview; you don't look to impose your ways on others.

What do you think? Does it sound like me?

an update

Well, it's been a while...
Here's an update: I've been working 50 hours a week, our refridgerator broke, whit and I went to Disneyland on not-so-heterosexual day, our college group went camping at the beach, I feel like Brad Pitt wearing my new Banana Republic shirt, the weather has been awesome lately, and Christmas is coming









camping
at the beach


















and my favorite girl ever...

if it's blurry, it needs a signature, right?

i love fall

As awkward as running after whitney riding her bike with a camera pushed against my face (making it difficult for me to see where I was running and not fall) was ... it ended up being worth it.




When we got to the apartment complex, this boy was playing with his new puppy. I'm not sure how old the puppy was, but we asked the boy and he is this many (3). He was very nice and shared his puppy with us to play with. All and all, a great fall afternoon in Riverside.

so the other day I woke up before the sun came up ... who knows why. I decided to get some shots of the sunrise. Here's a palm tree. I just read Dr. Price's description of how our Creator so perfectly instilled in us a sense of beauty - I want you to read it here


shane and shane's new album is amazing... get it.

beach, bank, bourne

- I love the beach.

- Bank of America hired me.

- The Bourne Ultimatum is an excellent movie.

I've been here in Carlsbad, CA all week with Whitney and her family. They rented a vacation house and we've been hanging around Southern Southern California the past five days. We went to downtown San Diego last night to hang around (I saw the dead sea scrolls! ... they're awesome). I decided that I would probably choose San Diego over all other "big city" feeling big cities to live in. San Diego has an awesome downtown that, to me, feels a lot like what New York would probably feel like if I had ever experienced it. Granted it's a lot smaller in almost every aspect, perhaps thats why I would choose it first. The loft apartments built on top of restaraunts and bars with the kind of fire escapes you find in all the good action movies would be awesome to live in. Too bad I won't ever be a millionaire ... which brings me to my second reason for blogging:

I got a job at Bank of America. Starting next week, I'll begin the training process to be a teller at the branch on Mag and Tyler. This second job will help pay the bills and allow me to start saving some money for life (I guess thats what college grads need to start doing). I may be more excited about getting some nice new clothes for the job than for the job itself, who knows.

The Bourne Ultimatum was awesome. Since I have not yet seen Ocean's 13 I cannot with a good conscious say that Bourne is the one (contemporary) trilogy that gets better with each movie. I can say that Ultimatum was awesome. Did I already say that? I do find it necessary, however, to watch the second one and third one back to back, pausing and pondering how the two are so awesomely intertwined. To those who have not seen Ultiatum, make sure to watch the first two before going to see it; I did and it proved to be a great idea.

Like we say down here in San Diego ... Stay Classy!

SVG6

A week or so ago my ISP team that went to St. Vincent had a little get together picture party BBQ. I made a 12ish minute video with a lot of my pictures and video from the trip. I gave everyone a copy and Kirk put it on youtube. I'm glad he did because it gives me a chance to show a lot of my ISP trip supporters that read the blog a little bit about the trip. To those who supported me either financially or through prayer or both, thank you. I literally could not have done it without you. God continues to glorify himself throughout the world, and I'm just glad I was able to be a part of it in St. Vincent, thanks to Him and a lot of you.

Enjoy the video ...
the quality isn't as good since it's on the internet, but oh well.
also, kirk cut a little bit out of it so it's only like 9 minutes on youtube.

St. Vincent Video

adventures of the bunk-buddies

My bunk-buddy Tyler and I recently found ourselves in need of some adventure. We decided that a hike of mount Rubidoux would do the trick. And what's a hike up a "mountain" without a ridiculously manly meal before it? Does anyone know if mount Rubidoux is actually a mountain?

After our BBQ shredded steak sandwich (that we grilled), we grabbed our cameras, backpacks, Bibles and a flashlight and headed out to meet our manhood quota for the week. Equipped with our rainbow sandals, we decided to get crazy and hike straight up the mountain instead of sticking to the trail. We had a great time of hiking, talking, taking pictures, and reading. It was good to get out into Riverside and enjoy God's creation here.

Here are some photos from the night





Here's Tyler feeling a little patriotic



this was taken with a weird lens we borrowed from trever called a lensbaby









thanks for being my model Ty. And by the way, if you were wondering what a bunkbuddy is, its a mutual agreement that Tyler and I have to share the same bunk bed.

clouds

dock

flowers

water

torture

Before heading off to subway for a delicious sandwich and dr. pepper (and to my surprise Garden Salsa Sun Chips), I picked out a book from my library in my office. Yes, I do have a library... it fits on one bookshelf right now. I grabbed perhaps the oldest and definitely most worn book I have. It's called "Tortured for Christ", written by Richard Wurmbrand in 1969. It has since been republished a number of times, and in 52 languages. The cover informs me that more than 3,000,000 copies have been sold (and that figure comes from 1976). Perhaps some of you have heard of it.

Anyways, I grabbed it before lunch with the intention of reading something during my lonely meal. It did not take long for me to be more engulfed by Richard's words than my 6" subway club on honey oat bread, sun chips, and dr. pepper. I was swept to Rumania in the 40's when communists siezed the country and the church suffered even worse persecution than under the previous power, who were called the Naziis. Wurmbrand tells his story of finding Christ and begining the daunting (and illegal) task of sharing the truth he found with 1) Russian soldiers, and 2) enslaved Rumanians.

He talks about how the church was forced underground and what it was like leading it. He tells stories of sharing his faith in situations that could have, and many times did result in his imprisonment and beating. Richard Wurmbrand's boldnes strikes me.

My favorite part of the book so far are the stories of both Russian soldiers and oppressed Rumanians coming to know Christ through unconventional ways. For instance ...

The first story (and maybe my favorite) is of a Russian soldier who heard about Richard and came to see him at his home. Wurmbrand says that this soldier "loved God, he longed after God, but he had never seen a Bible. He never attended religious services. He had no religious education. He loved God without the slightest knowledge of Him." So Richard began to read to him the sermon on the mount. The soldier danced around the room after hearing the sermon and parables. He joyfully exclaimed, "What a wonderful beauty! How could I live without knowing this Christ!" Then, Richard says, he made a mistake. He read to the soldier about Jesus' crucifixion "without having prepared him for this." He was not expecting this and, when he heard how Christ was beaten and killed, he "fell in an armchair and began to weep bitterly. He had believed in a Savior and now his Savior was dead!" But then, Wurmbrand read to him about the resurrection. He had not known his Savior arose from the tomb. "When he heard this wonderful news, he beat his knees and swore a very dirty, but, I think, a very 'holy' swear. He rejoiced and shouted for joy. Again he danced around the room, overwhelmed with happiness!" When prompted to pray, the soldier obviously didn't know the "right" way. He fell on his knees and his words were:

"O God, what a fine chap you are! If I were You and You were me, I would never have forgiven you your sins. But you are really a very nice chap! I love you from all my heart."

Wurmbrand says, "I think that all the angels in heaven stopped what they were doing to listen to this sublime prayer from a Russian officer. The man had been won for Christ!"

I wanted to write more, but I realize that this post is entirely too long. What I want this post to conclude with are these three points:

1. Like this Russian officer, perhaps we (and definitely I) need to hear the story of Christ with a fresh set of ears and experience the happiness, utter devestation, confusion, and sheer joy of Him. The freedom we have in America to go to church and be free to believe in Christ is awesome (please know that I mean that), but it may make His story too commonplace to our ears and emotions. Jesus was a radical, wild, untamed man (kind of like ethan johnstone). Let's not tame Him and His teachings.

2. Everyone needs to read this book. I just searched half.com for a copy of it. It turns out it only costs 75 cents there. I only read the first chapter at Subway (all 34 pages of it), but am absolutely convinced that all believers need to read this book and be inspired by the way God uses this man.

3. If I wasn't before, I am totally convinced that people can come to know Christ without ever reading a Bible, hearing a sermon, or encoutering a missionary. The question about people in the world that have never heard about Him and where they will go when they die ... I believe they could still have come to at least a knowledge of Him, and maybe even decided to follow Him. Acts 17.22-34 is sort of an example of this, how people can come to realize that there may be "an unknown God." I, by no means, am saying we should therefore be lazy in evangelism. Rather, I'm convinced that God is not limited by anything to reveal Himself to anyone.

What a wonderful beauty! How could I live without knowing this Christ!

collegeministry

I've been the college minister at Mag for about 12 or 13 days now ... here are some thoughts:

1. College ministry is hard.

2. I, having just graduated college, probably am not the most qualified for the job. **

3. No, having CBU across the street does not equal a large (or healthy) college ministry for Mag.

4. I see why a lot of college groups end up being a separate 'church' in and of themselves. The college mindset aims more at being different and unique (neither a negative thing). However, this can take a college ministry far from the church's overall strategy of operating and reaching the lost. I don't want to start a new church within one.

5. Programing is difficult. I'm having to answer seemingly impossible questions like: if a midweek program at the church isn't very effective, but in-home Bible studies are during the week, what do I do on Sunday morning? At the same time, my church's strategy is to make Sunday morning a staple for each ministry - so what do I do during the week? How can I get college students to want to come to the church they just left home from? How can I reach the 70,000+ college students in Riverside? Can a college ministry survive the summer? What's the college ministry at Mag's niche in this community?

6. I really miss Whitney. I know you think it doesn't have much to do with college ministry, but for me it does. You see, she's a big part of my life, and when I don't have her to bounce ideas off of and encourage me all the time, things are different. It affects everything... so, I miss her.

7. I'm cheezy. I realized this (in a more real way than ever) last Sunday when I was trying to meet all the new High School grads coming to college Bible Study. I turn into a cheeze ball when I meet new people - its my attempt to connect to them in some way while making them feel welcomed at the same time. I wonder if I can change this to become more cool ... hmmm

8. College ministry is hard.


** Although, I also realize that neither Jacob, Moses, Jonah, Paul, nor all 12 disciples were the most qualified for their jobs either. While I do recognize the gifts that God has given me, I also revel in the fact that if there be any "sucess," it will be God's doing, not mine.

here's me and my sister at her high school graduation ... I don't know why, but I really like this picture


here's more of saint vincent