I use Xanga...

New Post....

2005-10-14T02:03:00.000-05:00

Ok, I guess I'll put something new here, but it's not going to be substantial....
Everything is going great with Work (at Marsh still) and at School (ivyTech). I was sick earlier this week so I missed working Monday-Wednesday, but I'm able to work again thankfully! Praise God that based on the test results, i do not have Hepatitis A!
If you wanna know more...Read my xanga...

TTYL

ECHO JOURNALS!

2005-07-15T01:51:00.000-05:00

Alrighty, My journals are all now posted, i warn you it will take you a while to read them all! there's about 4,000 words! So you might space them out - dont read them all at once!

Hope you enjoy reading!

Saturday June 18, 2005 (Drive from Indy to Selma)

2005-07-15T01:48:00.000-05:00

Kevin and I got up at about 6 a.m., pulled together the last minute details and packed everything into the car. Mom and Dad took us down to the Southside RP church where we finally arrived at about 7:20 a.m. After a quick challenge from Pastor Johnston and Mr. Hanson we got a group picture and loaded into the van and truck. We pulled out of the parking lot at about 7:45 with me driving the truck (and trailer) and Heather Baumgardner driving the 12-passenger van. Driving the truck took a little of adjusting because there’s a dead spot in the steering, but after 3 or more hours, I had pretty much got it figured out. J We drove for a good long while, probably around 3 hours before we stopped somewhere in Kentucky past Louisville for a bathroom break. After about 15 minutes we were back on the road and this time I rode in the van. Following another 2 hours or so we had another quick break and were back on the road. Again I rode in the van until we stopped for lunch at about 12:45. We stopped at the welcome center to Tennessee and got out the meat, peanut butter, and jelly for sandwiches; chips and water which constituted our lunch. After about 30 minutes we were back on the road again with Mr. Hanson driving the truck again and I rode in the van once again. At about 3 after we got gas, I got in the driver’s seat of the truck again and drove until just after 6pm when we stopped in Selma, AL at the wal-mart to eat dinner (again sandwiches like at lunch). After filling up with gas, we drove to the church which was only about 15 minutes away. We got to the church at about 7:45 and met Pastor Joseph and also Ray and Alice Joseph who were here visiting. The group played a couple games of “zoo” and “I never” before we started cycling people through the shower (those that wanted one). Lights went out at about 10pm, and at last I’m able to sleep! Boy am I tired (it’s kinda hard to sleep in the vehicles with everyone talking)!

Sabbath June 19, 2005 (At Selma RP Church)

2005-07-15T01:47:00.000-05:00

Morning Service

Isaiah 65-66:2 “The society that could be” Pastor Ralph Joseph

Journal

After about 10 hours of sleep I got up at just before 8 a.m. I rolled up my sleeping stuff and packed up my tub then went and ate breakfast. We had cereal and Danish rolls plus OJ and bananas. After breakfast was all cleaned up, we had a time to spend with God and reading the Scripture. I also read some from the book “His way to Pray” by Wayne Spear which I have been reading for a while. Finally about 9:20 we went upstairs to be ready for Sabbath school which started at 9:30. the topic was the story of Gideon. Following a brief fellowship time we started the worship service from Isaiah. Then to the pitchin lunch GREAT food! After a couple hours we took a lovely tour through some of the important areas of the movement of the 60’s. we got back about 7 then had dinner. After many took showers, lights went out at 9.

Monday June 20, 2005

2005-07-15T01:46:00.000-05:00

We got up at 3:45 a.m. and were packed up and on the road at 4:30 a.m. Mr. Hanson drove the truck for the first 3 hours and then we stopped in the first rest stop area in Florida for breakfast. I then drove from just before 8 until roughly 11:30. We got gas and then drove for about 30 minutes more before stopping for lunch. We ate most of the leftovers from the pitch-in at church yesterday. After less than 30 minutes, we were back on the road and then Jill drove the rest of the way. We stopped once for a bathroom break and hit the road again. At about 5:30 we got to the church we would stay at. Then we ate dinner (sandwiches again) and then had a bit of time then had devotions and bed at 9pm. Total driving time was about 13 hours counting the breaks and lunch, but we were all definitely glad to finally be there! I made a quick call home and let them know we had arrived.

Tuesday June 21, 2005

2005-07-15T01:45:00.000-05:00

Journal

We were going to get up at about 5:45 am, however Mr. Hanson’s alarm clock did not go off. We actually got up at about 6:30 or 7. We rolled up our sleeping bags and moved them to another room; packed up our tubs and loaded them into the trailer; and got into either the van or the truck. We drove to ECHO and didn’t have much time to do our QT, but we then had breakfast. Courtney one of the interns shared about friendship and their different roles. We then sang a couple Psalms then Danny took our group on a very detailed tour of the whole place before dividing us up for our different jobs. (can’t remember what I did in the morning, but I only worked on it for just over an hour because the tour lasted till about 11 then lunch was at 12 or 12:15 depending when we stop) In the afternoon I worked with Jill and some ECHO people installing 20 solar panels on the top of a lean-to that was built. We did actually get the whole project done (even though we did work until about 6 or 6:30), to the surprise of the people we were working with. Many of the rest of the group was working on the trenching project and amazingly got it almost all dug! We had our sandwiches for dinner after showering and got to the church about 8:30 or so where Mr. Hanson did a short devo before lights out.

Sharing – Courtney (Intern)

Team unity etc…

We’re the “b” team (I got your back; we’re the body….etc)

Eph 4:16 from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.

Ecc 4:9 Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their toil.

Ecc 4:10 For if they fall, one will lift up his fellow. But woe to him who is alone when he falls and has not another to lift him up!

1Sa 14:7 And his armorbearer said unto him, Do all that is in thy heart: turn thee, behold, I am with thee according to thy heart.

Whatever you decide, I’m behind you

1Sa 20:41 And as soon as the boy had gone, David rose from beside the stone heap and fell on his face to the ground and bowed three times. And they kissed one another and wept with one another, David weeping the most. 1Sa 20:42 Then Jonathan said to David, "Go in peace, because we have sworn both of us in the name of the LORD, saying, 'The LORD shall be between me and you, and between my offspring and your offspring, forever.'" And he rose and departed, and Jonathan went into the city.

5 roles as part of a team

Encourager - a friend Stacey; how can you encourage?

Coach - Uri “the Yiz,” Spiritual helper; how can you coach the teammates?

Prayer warrior “little angel” - Crystal knowing that prayer is the most important

“Bouncer” – Rosie; give suggestions to and get feedback from on any topic and they will give great advice

Carrier – Tiffany someone to help carry the burden, give the benefit of the doubt, support decisions no matter what

As applies to me:

Which of these do I show to others?

Who in my life demonstrates these to me? Who are the friends in my life who show each of these?

Devotions @ 9 pm – Mr. Hanson

Theme of “wholeheartedness”

Philemon

In the first 3 verses – we see Paul writing to his “sidekick, sister, and fellow soldier.” Paul was involved with and cared for people.

Why is caring for people so important in being wholehearted to God? God cares for people, who can I help build up? You can’t be wholehearted for God without being involved with other people. Think about other people first.

Wednesday June 22, 2005

2005-07-15T01:44:00.000-05:00

Journal

Morning trenching (lots done!), afternoon weeding arboretum then “recycling” or composting dead plants from the herb “pre-sale” area.

Devotions @ 7:30 am – Mr. Hanson

Psalm 101 is the theme song (as of now)

Phm 1:3 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Phm 1:25 The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit.

In these 2 verses one word implies the act of wholeheartedness – LORD. This is acknowledging God is the master and I am the servant. My job is to satisfy the master. What does this mean? My first thought in the morning should be – “what do you want me to do today Lord”? Elder Ken Thompson is a great example of this – serving others before himself, looking out for others first.

Sharing - Rachel (Staff)

Share the Gospel in everything you do, you don’t know who is around you that isn’t a believer.

Thursday June 23, 2005

2005-07-15T01:43:00.000-05:00

Journal

This morning I worked with Jill cutting and putting vetiver grass in the loft of the old shed. I cut tons of the grass with the gas hedge trimmer while wearing one of Rohda’s long sleeve shirts, but my legs got really cut up, oh well. Jill and I gathered and loaded the cut grass onto the trailer on the golf cart then took it to the “tool depot” area and put the grass in the loft so it could get dry and then be used in a thatching project. Once we finished cutting the amount of grass that was needed, we then then went with Courtney to get some supplies for the rabbit cage project then weeded some trees on the mountain. Then we had a delicious version of shepherds pie and some really good fruit-yoghurt-pie-stuff (Heather really can cook some good food!). After lunch, I worked on the massive trenching job mostly working with Jeff and Kevin gluing pipes together, and then burying them, which required digging out under the pipes in some areas and once the pipes were in the trench, they had to be held down and then have sand (dirt) put on top of them. There were a couple pipes that we really had to bend to make them fit in the trench due to the curves, but they all went in. We worked late until about 6:15 then cleaned tools and showered. After showers we packed up and then rode to Burger King after a vote of where to go. We ate dinner on 4 of the 5 $$ that Mr. Hanson gave us, saving the last dollar for the next meal, then packed everyone into the van except for Mr. and Jill Hanson. When we got to the church, we had 40 minutes till lights out at 9:40. I got ready for bed and of course that included some aloe, but not too much. Then to bed we went.

Devotions – Mr. Hanson 7:30 am

Philemon and Psalm 101

Onesimus was: wholehearted, half hearted, no hearted to his master. He rand from his master, met Paul and became a believer, and Paul sent him back. Not wholehearted = wholehearted (or even part hearted) for something else. Not wholehearted to God we will find all kinds of excuses to skip QT, wander in daily walk etc… Also we will not talk to as many people about Christ and His work.

Friday June 24, 2005

2005-07-15T01:42:00.001-05:00

Journal

In the morning Kevin and I worked on a whole bunch of different stuff. We started the day by moving about a ton and a half of concrete from the trailer to the back of the red truck. We also fixed a bunch of holes in the tires on a golf cart (4 in one tire, 3 in another). Then we went and finished the thatching project on the rabbit hutch. We went to the new shop to find a cap for the rabbit hutch but didn’t find anything so we worked on some other things such as airing the trailer tires and washing off the concrete at the back of the shop. After lunch I can’t remember what I did. After work went to Ft. Meyers Beach and had a lot of fun, including racing crabs, but it started raining really hard so we got totally soaked and finally made it back to the cars and left. When we got back to the church we had a little bit of time but we went to bed shortly afterwards.

Devotions – Mr. Hanson, 7 a.m.

Philemon

Especially verse 1, also Ecclesiastes 4:9-10; it is good to have someone else to hold you up and to lift you up.

2 guys (David Hanson and James Faris) plan to go to college in junior high, they studied with their door open, had food there and had quite a ministry. They held each other up in their work. Because of them helping each other, their ministry was multiplied.

Follow their example and have people in your life holding you up, and other people to hold up.

Saturday June 25, 2005

2005-07-15T01:42:00.000-05:00

We worked from about 9-12 and didn’t get up till about 7. we had our QT and breakfast and then we divided up for our jobs. I worked on a pile of dirt and rocks, pulling out the rocks to be used on the mountain terracing project. I can’t believe how tired my muscles and my body in general is, but we got a ton of rocks out and then we decided to break for lunch. We had leftovers and then after just a little bit we went and played soccer with Courtney and Craig (intern and newest intern), 2 Hatians, and Eric an ELSABO student. After the great game of soccer was over, we went and showered. A small group went to the beach to try to find Liz Neel’s glasses that she lost last night at the beach. The others went to the shell factory to get Brandon a hat and then everyone met at the mall. We ate dinner and I had chick-fil-a but we didn’t have too much time after that but Kevin and I found some really cute animal pillows that we bought. Then we left the mall and came back to the church, had a bit of free time, practiced our Psalms that we’ll sing tomorrow in church, and went to bed.

Sabbath June 26, 2005

2005-07-15T01:26:00.000-05:00

Morning Service – Ephesians 2 (esp. verse 18) – “Approaching the Triune God”

Many religions have a god but they aren’t triune in nature. True religion begins and ends with Christ.

To approach the Triune God:

1. Through Christ

2. In the Spirit

3. To the Father

Summary

One God exists in three persons.

We pray knowing He hears; live each day knowing He cares.

A Christian: One who lives by faith on God.

Evening Service – Genesis 37 – “The firstborn of God’s family”

Journal

Up at about 7:15, dressed and put away our sleeping bags into the van, and had breakfast. We then did our QT and then had about an hour to wait before the beginning of the morning service at 10:30. we had a good sermon on the trinity and then had a lunch provided by the church starting at 12. As always the food was very good and I enjoyed the fellowship with the people there. We stayed at the church after helping clean up and spent the afternoon playing duck duck goose, I never, and other games. Then we had dinner and got ready for the evening service starting at 6. We sang 2 Psalms in the middle and after the evening service we were invited over to the Bleckstrand’s house and were there till about 9:30 playing Bible schrades, eating tacos and ice cream, fellowshipping and Mr. Beckstrand gave a little talk or challenge from Prov 3:5-6 and Ps 119:105. He gave 3 questions we all will have to answer in the next 10 years (the decade of decision - ~15-~25) 1 who will we serve, 2 who will be our mate (if any), 3 what will be our mission. We then went back to the church and went to bed.

Monday June 27, 2005

2005-07-15T01:25:00.000-05:00

Journal

Up at normal time, QT and Breakfast then participated in the weekly Monday morning staff/volunteer/intern meeting. The singing was really good. Then we divided up for Jobs I worked on the mountain taking out the logs and putting in rocks all day long. Lunch was really good and we presented Courtney with the signed soccer ball and she signed many of our books because she would be leaving Tuesday at about 7 am. When Mr. Hanson and I finished, all the logs were cut up and moved away from the mountain so we could get on to working on the rock wall for the terracing project. After work we showered and got ready to go, then went to Dr. Ju’s house and swam and ate there, leaving at about 9:30 but not many really wanted to go… back to the church about 10 and lights out at 10:15.

Devotions – Mr. Hanson – Philemon

“Love” appears in about 6 verses. We will focus on verse 9 – “Phm 1:9 yet for love's sake I prefer to appeal to you…”

We do some things out of love – cleaning our room because we want to, calling home more than once because we miss them etc…

Rom 5:7 For one will scarcely die for a righteous person--though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die—

Rom 5:8 but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Some do QT for only 5 minutes because that is what they have to do, others take time to reflect on their QT during the day and might even have 2 QT in a day just to have that much more time in God’s Word.

Love for God is a requirement for the person to exceed the rules. And by doing that makes them much more valuable to those they are serving.

Tuesday June 28, 2005

2005-07-15T01:24:00.000-05:00

Journal

We got up at the normal time of about 6 and loaded into the van and got to ECHO. After our QT, Breakfast, and devotions we divided up for jobs and went to work. I worked with Mr. Hanson, Danny and Jeff and several others throughout the day on the mountain. We moved the wall out by about 2-3 feet and re-dug the trench. Jeff moved the rocks from the old trench to the new trench with the loader, otherwise I don’t think they would have moved.

Devotions – Mr. Hanson

Psalms 101, 9A, Philemon

Wholeheartedness – what is a synonym? Sincerity is one example. In the Roman times, it is a Latin word (sin and sere) meaning without wax. The pottery makers sometimes would fill in cracks on cracked pottery to make it look perfect. If it was perfect, the maker would write “sincere” on the bottom – meaning it was perfect.

Christ paid all our debt for sin, this book is an example of this (Paul paying for what Onesimus owed to Philemon).

God works in people and what he does is to make us valuable to others and to Himself.

Sharing – Stitch (intern)

Ecclesiastes.

Ecc 2:24 There is nothing better for a person than that he should eat and drink and find enjoyment in his toil. This also, I saw, is from the hand of God, Ecc 3:22 So I saw that there is nothing better than that a man should rejoice in his work, for that is his lot. Who can bring him to see what will be after him? Ecc 5:18 Behold, what I have seen to be good and fitting is to eat and drink and find enjoyment in all the toil with which one toils under the sun the few days of his life that God has given him, for this is his lot. Ecc 12:13 The end of the matter; all has been heard. Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man.

Find enjoyment in whatever you are doing. Work with a joyful heart and enjoy God, remember him in everything, for that is where you’ll find your joy.

Wednesday June 29, 2005

2005-07-15T01:23:00.000-05:00

Journal

We got up like normal and got to ECHO and had our QTs. Several of the girls got up early and went to ECHO ahead of time and made some eggs and potatoes for us! Such a good breakfast for our last day! We divided up into a couple groups, I went to the mountain to help Jeff and Danny moving rocks and making the wall. We finished the first wall (as far as we’re going with it) and after lunch started on the second terrace! Lunch was delayed slightly because we went to cover up the fresh mortar and move the concrete so it wouldn’t get wet. The food was great (as always) and we moved back to work. This being the last night we were here, nobody really wanted to leave, it was hard. Danny even gave us a bunch of Lychees for the road! I love the experience at ECHO so much, God uses it in my life every time I’m there and this time is no exception.

Sharing – Lindsay

Poem – “grocery list”

Take notice of the little things, it will probably have a ripple effect. Our 2 weeks here have HUGE ripple effects. Think about the little things that you could do today to show others God’s love. Noticing or doing the little things can make a day much better for people.

Thursday June 30, 2005

2005-07-15T01:22:00.000-05:00

Journal

We got up at 3:45 and were on the road by 4:30. We drove till 7:30am when we stopped for gas, but didn’t get out. Then we drove for a bunch more and finally got to Atlanta around 3 in the afternoon. We stayed at a church and then went out for dinner! Lights went out at 7:30pm because we would be getting up really early the next day.

Notes of reflection of the trip

How have I changed?

How have I grown closer to God?

How did the things I did effect others?

Has my focus changed?

Am I really wholehearted?

What do I really need to change at home?

I am being sent back to my home after a time away (Philemon 11-12), how will I implement and apply the things I have learned from Philemon and Psalm 101 into my life?

Friday July 1, 2005

2005-07-15T01:17:00.000-05:00

Up at 1230, on the road at 1250, I slept on the floor in the van till about 5 (4 hours of sleep) and then everyone was talking. We stopped for gas and breakfast just before 7 and I drove from then till 10:20 (9:20 indiana time) when we arrived back in INDY. We got to the SS church a lot earlier than expected so mom wasn’t able to come right away. Once she picked us up we came home and unpacked and checked email and cleaned that up too…..

Been a while

2005-07-06T13:37:00.000-05:00

Ok, so I told everyone i'm not using Blogger as my primary site anymore, and now it's been like 1.5 months since i've put anything on here at all! Oh well, if you wanna keep up with my occasional post, read my xanga at: http://www.xanga.com/home.aspx?user=bearer_of_Christ otherwise you will be left in the dark. :-)

Well if you want to see the pictures from my recent trip to ECHO, go here: http://gallery.futuredesigns.org/index.php?album=brian%2FECHO_2005%2F and you can see my pictures along with Stacey's and Kevin's! Be warned, there are almost 400 pictures in total.
I may post some of the best ones on here so you can easily see them, but that wont happen right now.

Another piece of useless trivia, it's been over a year since i started my Blog here! It's gone by pretty fast!

Anyway, TTYL

2005-05-19T00:08:00.001-05:00

And another one

Posted by Hello

2005-05-19T00:08:00.000-05:00

One Closer pic

Posted by Hello

2005-05-19T00:04:00.000-05:00

Heres one picture of the ring that Kevin made for me on Tuesday morning. THANKS Kevin!!

Posted by Hello

2005-05-18T23:42:00.000-05:00

And a close up...

Posted by Hello

2005-05-18T23:41:00.000-05:00

Its a bit ago, but heres a Pic of the roses we got for mom for Mother's day.

Posted by Hello

2005-05-18T23:38:00.000-05:00

Remember the Iris pictures i posted a while back....well these are the other kind...again if you want a few, let me know, they're free!

Posted by Hello

2005-05-18T23:32:00.000-05:00

This is just the flowers that i got to plant: (going clockwise starting at the bottom) Gerbera Daisy, Lobelia, Salvia, Marigolds.

Posted by Hello

2005-05-18T23:30:00.000-05:00

Here's a closeup of the Gerbera Daisy

Posted by Hello

2005-05-18T23:27:00.000-05:00

Here's all the stuff i got today to plant! Tomatoes, Green Peppers and some flowers.

Posted by Hello

Evening service notes; Pastor Johnston

2005-05-01T23:44:00.000-05:00

Matthew 28:16-20, 2 Corinthians 13:11-14

“The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ….be with you all. Amen.”

There’s so much in these verses, we can’t really even begin to scratch the surface of the meaning of it

Verse 11 – the first big idea in this passage - The benediction shows up all through the whole New Testament and is a thing that was always an important part of the worship of God.

Even Moses was commanded to issue benedictions

At the conclusion of a letter to the church in the NT there’s always a blessing.

Verse 14 – the second big idea in this text – the Trinity.

The OT constantly insists that there is only one God. But in the NT there’s 3 distinct entities that are specifically named or shown to us.

Perhaps the most graphic example of this happening is in the Gospel of John.

John 14 is probably the best example of Jesus explaining the coming of the Holy Spirit.

How do we explain that there is only one God but in 3 persons?

The thought of the Trinity is perhaps the most difficult thing a human mind has to try to comprehend

There are 3 people that are co-existent, but only 1 God.

In the Works of Jesus and the reality in the New Testament is summed up in the existence of, and the attempt to understand, the Trinity

Verse 14 - The third big idea – The grace of God

Grace: we must be saved by grace, live by grace, labor by grace

The human heart wants, yearns, tries…to come up with a good reason for why God would save each of us….beyond the grace of God, but that’s the only way of salvation.

Grace is unmerited – there’s nothing I can do to earn it.

Ponder the grace of God in calling me to faith in Jesus Christ

But didn’t I do something in my childhood that makes me eligible to receive the salvation of Jesus?

No, in each of us it was His grace, and only that.

2 Cor 6:1 - not receiving the Grace in vain – Am I living for myself or by the Grace of God?

Am I living trusting God’s grace? Or is it just my human will?

Philippians 1:6 – God will bring the work in you to completion

Our culture encourages us, even in the Christian church, to live by our determination, our human drive. But we don’t hear about walking in Grace.

You can’t serve without God’s grace working in your heart.

2 Corinthians 12:?, 1 Corinthians 15:? – our labor must be by the grace of God, and then you’ll see marvelous results.

Have you ever taken your “to do list” and made it into your prayer list?

What God will ask me to do is way beyond what I am able to do.

Am I saved by my works? Or have I been saved by God’s grace?

Slave of besetting sins? Or trusting in God’s grace to overcome?

Laboring by the grace of God? Or exhausted by sheer self effort?

Don’t live in pride, self will, rebellion….submit to God’s grace.

2005-04-26T12:07:00.000-05:00

And another one (I won't bore you with posting 10 very similiar pictures, so these are only the best few)

Posted by Hello

2005-04-26T12:06:00.000-05:00

I took a couple really cool cloud pictures: This one Kevin helpfully placed himself in, but its the best one and its messed up now...

Posted by Hello

2005-04-26T12:03:00.000-05:00

And a couple more Iris flowers. Oh if anyone reading this wants some...I have hundreds (well it seems like it anyway) too many so you can have all you want for FREE!

Posted by Hello

2005-04-26T12:02:00.000-05:00

If you've never seen an Iris flower....here's what they look like.

Posted by Hello

2005-04-16T01:15:00.000-05:00

Here's the whole tree, it's getting kinda scrawny looking though

Posted by Hello

2005-04-16T01:10:00.000-05:00

Many years our/my Magnolia tree has a hard time blooming well, this year was the exception.

Posted by Hello

A few pics:

2005-04-03T02:30:00.000-05:00

These are a couple pictures showing the "huge" pile of mulch and the progress of the project of spreading it all out.
*I took the pictures a couple days ago so they are slightly out-dated* :-)

Anyhow, I'm off to get some sleep, even though I'm not super tired, but if I don't go to bed, I will never want to get up tomorrow!

2005-04-03T02:29:00.001-05:00

The blocks I put in front of the barn

Posted by Hello

2005-04-03T02:29:00.000-05:00

a daffodil

Posted by Hello

2005-04-03T02:28:00.001-05:00

This area is now mulched

Posted by Hello

2005-04-03T02:28:00.000-05:00

Where I put some of the mulch on Thursday

Posted by Hello

2005-04-03T02:25:00.001-05:00

everything in the driveway

Posted by Hello

2005-04-03T02:25:00.000-05:00

2 cubic yards of soil

Posted by Hello

2005-04-03T02:24:00.000-05:00

5 cubic yards of mulch

Posted by Hello

Updates...

2005-03-29T00:18:00.000-05:00

I hate to break the horrible news.....I think I'm on the verge of being converted to Xanga!

So for a while, my main site will be Xanga. Check it out at:www.xanga.com/bearer_of_christ

But as for the update part - things are going great right now. Everything's pretty much just like normal, working about 30 hours a week and the rest of the time is at home working on different stuff.

Due to the wonderful weather recently I've been doing a bit of stuff in the yard cleaning it up etc. Today I went and got 2 cu. yds. of dirt and 3 cu. yds. of mulch and I'm going to get 2 more cu. yds. of mulch tomorrow morning. Thankfully I had some help, Jaci volunteered to come along and was a great help, even if she could barely move the dirt or mulch! :-) Thanks again! Now I have my work cut out for me for about the next month - spreading around all the dirt and mulch! Oh well.

I'm off to bed...Catch you all later.

Men's Retreat

2005-03-20T00:47:00.000-05:00

I'm not even going to try to tell all about it because I should be in bed right now....anyway....
Me and my dad and brother went to a conference that was from 7pm Friday the 18th to about 3pm Saturday the 19th. It was a time of great fellowship, some basketball, volleyball and plenty of snacks. Andrew Quigley from Scotland gave 3 wonderful talks about disciple making. It's our responsibility as Christians to be fruitful, but we have no way to be fruitful if we're not abiding in Christ. The most practical application he suggested is to grow in our relationship with God by Reading the word, Praying, Loving God and others, and Obeying God. I was very deeply challenged by each of the talks to live much more of a solid Christan walk, basing all my strength in the foundation of Jesus Christ, My Savior.
If you are bored and want to read all 2,500 words worth of notes I too, I posted them on my xanga site.
Well, I'm off to bed.

Good grief, time goes way too fast!

2005-03-18T00:19:00.000-05:00

I've been home already almost 2 weeks! I can't believe it. And yet, I still haven't written any more about my awesome trip. What is up with that anyway? Sure I have a decent excuse - I've been very busy - but who cares right?
So anyway, I'll give a little more detail right now. Eventually, I hope to be able to post all the journals I wrote while I was there, but that means that I have to type them all in first!

Saturday February 26, I left for the airport at about 5:45 am. The flight was scheduled to leave at about 7:45 but did not actually leave until about 9:15, but that didn't matter to me since we had about 9 hours worth of layover in Miami before the next flight. Finally it was time to get on the plane to Managua, Nicaragua. We arrived there at about 9 pm local time, only one hour before what it is here. We collected all the bags and loaded on the bus, going to our home for the week - La Quinta. After a few announcements and the like, we went to find our bed for the night.

Sunday February 27^th we unpacked our group bags and sorted out all the clothes we had brought down to donate. Next we went to see a few things in Managua. We went to a really high hill from which we were able to look over almost all of Managua. That was really neat! Then we drove around a little bit and stopped by a really old cathedral built in the early 1700s. Last, we went to Oscar’s church and had a tour of the place by Cecil. I can’t believe how much it’s changed since the last time I was here! WOW! Eventually it was time to go to church there. It was good, but as always, I can’t understand Spanish so it didn’t make a whole lot of sense. I am going to learn Spanish and be fluent someday!

Monday, February 28^th, and Tuesday, March 1, were both work days. We went to Belcezar’s church which is about 20 minutes away. The first day we cleaned up the whole area where the first floor would be. We also poured some concrete guidelines so that we would be able to pour all the rest of the concrete on Tuesday, which we did. So the first floor was done and the second was not ready for us to pour just yet. One of these 2 days, I met a couple girls (Luisa 11, and Marie 8) who attend school there at Belcezar’s and yet they live about 30 minutes away. They were so much fun to play with and they have the cutest smiles! Maria is sponsored to attend school already, but Luisa was not, so I decided to start sponsoring her. Every day after that, they were eagerly awaiting our lunch break so we could play and try to converse in my pathetic Spanish. I had everyone on the group making fun of me because I was taking hour or two lunch breaks because of playing with the girls, but it was worth every bit of it!

Wednesday, March 2^nd, we took off from work! The morning we spent at Los Bracilles, a city about 45 minutes away, where there is another church and school which NRN (Nicaragua Resource Network) supports. What we did was to take each of the 6 grades from the school individually and have them rotate through a series of about 3 games and then gave them a prize at the end. That was a lot of fun! Following lunch most of the group, plus some Nicaraguans supported by members of the group, went to a mountain. We rode a series of about 17 sections of “Zip-Line” all the way down the mountain. The views were spectacular, especially at the top of the mountain where we could see for miles!

Thursday, March 3^rd and Friday, March 4^th were our other main 2 work days. Between those two days, we poured all the rest of the concrete – both on the second floor and also the front entryway. That was a lot of hard work, praise the Lord we were able to accomplish all of it! Let me give you a reality check…we were mixing all the concrete in piles on the ground, by hand mind you. To lift it to the second floor – we had no crane or elevator or anything fancy like that. The method was, fill a 5 gallon bucked about 1/3 with concrete and then hand it to someone who would lift it up to someone on a table who would lift it to the person up top who would pull it up and then get ready for the next one. The buckets would then be dumped by several others who were also on top. Eventually the buckets would be tossed back down to begin their rotation all over again. This was not easy work! The floors both look absolutely wonderful and I can’t wait to go back again to see what the finished product will look like!

Saturday, March 5^th, we had no work to do since we had finished it all, so we took the day off! Many went to Hogar De Fe which is a children’s home out in Los Bracilles. I went with 4 others to see the volcanoes at Masaya. I had seen them before but never had I seen all that we got to explore. The craters are absolutely huge and none of the 50 or so pictures that I took even begins to show its size! Of course I didn’t expect to be there as long as we were, so I decided not to use sunscreen – very bad idea there! After looking around for about 2 hours, we headed back and decided to stop and get some lunch at Pizza Hut due to the time. When we got back to La Quinta everyone was just about ready to leave for the market. For the afternoon we were able to wonder the market and get whatever it was we wanted to bring home with us. I got some t-shirts, a couple hammocks, a machete and a few other things for my siblings. (I know, I’m a nice brother ) We had to be back to La Quinta and be ready to leave at 5:30 for church so our time was cut short but I got everything I needed. Tonight, the last night, we went to Belcezar’s church for the service (oh, I don’t think I mentioned it – they have a church service every night except Monday night and over the week we went to 3 different churches that are supported by NRN). After the service was over I couldn’t believe it, but Balbino, Javier and Belcer Jr. were all there! Those 3 are friends I made on my first and second trips. I was able to talk with them for a while trying to catch up with each other. Between my wimpy Spanish and their attempts at English we were actually able to understand each other pretty well! We exchanged our e-mail addresses so hopefully we’ll be able to keep up with each other. I really didn’t want to leave but I didn’t get the choice, so we were whisked away back to La Quinta. The night was spent with packing because we were leaving the next day and more fellowship like every night.

Sunday, March 6^th, at last the day had come to leave for home, but I couldn’t believe it was over already, I could have stayed for another week or two easily! I love it down there soo much and I know the more I go there, the more of my heart stays there when I leave. It’s hard being there for only a week at a time, but that is all that worked out this time. I’m very thankful that God worked it out so I could go and see everyone down there! We left on the plane and came back to Miami and eventually Indianapolis, arriving about 9:15 pm. So that’s the trip! It’s over.

Wow that was a lot longer than I had thought it would be! If you’ve gotten a chance to see my pictures already, you will by now have a pretty good idea of all that I did. If you haven’t seen them yet, make sure you do that. I know there are a lot of them, but that’s what the thumbnail view is for!
Ok, I’m headed to bed! Catch you all later!

Yes, as rumor has it...

2005-03-06T23:52:00.000-05:00

I am home.
I got home about 10pm. The week went really well, and I'll be sure to post a little more about it at least. Going into the trip I knew it would be over too fast and now, I'd go back again in a heartbeat.
If you want, my pictures are posted and you can look at them by clicking here.
The ultra short version is that we did 2 floors of concrete that were each about 25 x 50 feet. Also I really enjoyed getting to know the other members of the group and some of the Nicaraguans.

Thanks soo much for your prayers (and comments too :-) )!
Buenos Noches!

The time is now...

2005-02-26T05:22:00.000-05:00

I'm out of here!!
Talk to y'all later!

It's finally here

2005-02-25T17:47:00.000-05:00

I leave at 5:30 tomorrow morning and I can't wait!
Pretty much everything is packed by now, so its just a matter of waiting till 5:30 to roll around...then I'm out of here!
Will return late on March 6th!

TTYL

Oh, there better be at least a few comments when I get back!

4 more visitors....

2005-02-22T13:14:00.000-05:00

and I will have had 3,000 visitors to my blog since September 10th!
Thats a lot of people!

Hard to sumarize the weekend in a few short words, but I don't have time for any more than that.

Well, saturday was a lot of fun - making cakes and then going to Jaci's birthday party at her house. Lots of good food and fellowship, what more can you ask for?

Sunday - 2 very great sermons. The first on Mark 10, the second on 2 Corinthians 7 (if I had time I'd give a quick overview of each, but I don't).

Monday - I worked and had a couple exciting things happen. First a lady fell down and then I got to call 911. I hope she's alright! Also our new manager came. After work I went to Goodwill to get some clothes to use at Nicaragua and then came home. BSF (Bible Study Fellowship) was very good tonight and a very challenging lecture.

Well that's about it...and I'm out of time anyway!
TTYL

Title? Does it have to have one?

2005-02-18T22:56:00.000-05:00

Ok, so I went to the doctor yesterday morning and he said I probably have a sinus infection. That sounds just lovely! Well, maybe not! He gave me some antibiotic for free (hey, I'll take it!) and perscribed an decongestant or something like that. Because of my insurence, I only had to pay less than $5 for the over $30 medication. This is really cool! So I'm starting to feel better and as the stuff starts to do it's job, hopefully I'll be all better in about a week...especially because I'm leaving for Nicaragua a week from tomorrow!

As far as really exciting things going on....there's not really much at all. I did get my vacation pay today for the year though, which is really nice!
Well, I'm off to go get some things done before I head to bed. TTYL

P.S. I just thought of an idea! Everyone that reads this, try to post something exciting that's going on either today or this week sometime.

I dont normaly do these things....but this one's pretty close!

2005-02-16T23:05:00.000-05:00

You Are 22 Years Old

22

Under 12: You are a kid at heart. You still have an optimistic life view - and you look at the world with awe.

13-19: You are a teenager at heart. You question authority and are still trying to find your place in this world.

20-29: You are a twentysomething at heart. You feel excited about what's to come... love, work, and new experiences.

30-39: You are a thirtysomething at heart. You've had a taste of success and true love, but you want more!

40+: You are a mature adult. You've been through most of the ups and downs of life already. Now you get to sit back and relax.

What Age Do You Act?

Funny thing is that I'm 20, so it's really close!

To those of you who haven't seen my Xanga...

2005-02-14T23:17:00.000-05:00

I've been pretty sick for the last week, and not only me but my parents and some of my siblings too! We are all to generous!
Well I basicaly didn't do anything all week except work and sleep, so I have no clue how I'm going to get everything done that I need to get done to catch up. The bug's something like a cross between the flu and a cold with maybe a few pneumonia-like symptoms thrown in there too. It's petty bad and I'll be more than happy to get rid of it any day now...
I am however as far as I can tell, on the way to getting better. I really need to be all better before I leave for Nicaragua.....(prayer item there) :-) But just being down there will help me get better anyway, so whatever.
I'm so ready to go - just 11 days and 6 hours! But I do have some packing to do before then...
Well I'm going to go get some sleep, maybe I'll feel better tomorrow.

Letter I wrote about my upcoming trip...

2005-02-08T00:32:00.000-05:00

NICARAGUA!

Dear Family and Friends,

God has graciously opened the door once again for me to return to Nicaragua! I will be going on a one week short term missions trip with NRN, the same organization as before (winter of ’00 - ’03). Nicaragua Resource Network (NRN) is a ministry of a church in Carmel and has an ongoing relationship with three main pastors in Nicaragua. Belcezar Gonzales is one of the pastors and has a growing ministry of about 18 daughter churches. Since my last trip in February 2003, I have had the privilege to serve on the Belcezar committee. My responsibilities have included awareness of needs, decision making and support in prayer for his ministry. Belcezar is also the pastor for whom the construction projects will be done on this trip. The projects will likely include working on a parking area as well as expansion of the school.

As part of a group of about 20, I will be leaving on February 26 and returning on March 6. Your support in prayer will be an essential part of making this a successful trip. I am asking prayer for five specific things:

1. Preparation for the trip – physically as well as spiritually.
2. That God would be working in the hearts of those who we will minister to during our time there.
3. Safety, health, and team unity in travel and on the construction sites.
4. That God would be glorified in everything.
5. That I would be open to learn the things God desires to teach me.

My trips in the past have been a blessing to me and very successful. There are several things that I can attribute this to, but mostly it comes as a result of your prayers. To this end I thank you each in advance specifically for your prayers during this trip. If you feel that God puts it on your heart to help support me in this trip financially, your gift of any amount will be gratefully received. Please feel free to ask to me about this exciting opportunity that God has put before me so you know better what I will be doing. Thank you for your support financially, but most importantly, through prayer.
To God alone be the glory!

In Christ,
Brian Fulk

Work; a steal of a deal; Proverbs Study...

2005-02-05T22:11:00.000-05:00

On Friday, I went in to work at a bright shiny early 8a.m. Honestly, I don't like getting up, but I don't really have a choice. Work went about like normal and as I was getting off, the next person came in and told me that there was a super good sale at Old Navy.

Once I dropped off the stuff I got for mom from MARSH, I went straight to Old Navy. I ended up finding 11 (7 pants, 2 shirts, 2 fleeces) things that would fit me or my brothers. The total bill? $23! That's it! Aparently the clothes from last year had to go and they were doing a good job of getting rid of them!

I came home and about 6, I took Johanna over to Steak 'n Shake because for Christmas I gave her a "coupon" for a meal with me. It was a good time of talking and the food was great.

Once we got home, I left to go to the Bible Study at the Faris home on Proverbs. It was a great study about wisdom - how we display it, and how we need to work on getting it. The study went until about 9:45 and until about 1a.m. we sat around and fellowshipped and talked, not to forget the ice cream! Great time, can't wait till the next meeting!

No more IM for this week

2005-02-02T01:06:00.000-05:00

I have decided due to several reasons to not use any form of instant messaging for the duration of one week. I have lots of stuff I am supposed to be doing but I always can find someone who I would rather talk to than to do what I really should be doing! (sound familiar?)
I have come to the conclusion that my priorities are a little out of wack and I need to get them straightened out. Now is the time.
I know blogging can take a lot of time too, but recently I have not been posting anyway, so I will not at this point say that I won't do any posts, just no IM. If i discover I'm spending too much time there, I might cut that too....I really need to make better use of each of the precious hours that God gives me to live.

What is man's chief end? To glorify and enjoy God forever! (God is the first and highest priority, then family, school and then friends and computer use...)
Give it some thought, you might come to the same conclusion I have, even if it scares you to think what life will be without IM!

Really long!

2005-01-25T00:35:00.000-05:00

It seems that I have arrived at that point where I have lost interest in posting regularly. I will do my best though to try to get something up every week.....

(If you don't have time to read a really long post....the most important stuff is summarized at the end)

Looking back at the recent posts, I really haven't said much since the beginning part of December! For that month, I was nearly constantly working 40 hours every single week and the only days I had off were Sundays. I went to several different concerts, one of which I was a part, the others were: The Nutcracker, an ICC concert, ISO Christmas concert, and I think that's it. I also really enjoyed the CYA formal dinner and then Christmas followed. We did things as a family and also at my Grandparents. Sometime in here I finally got my braces off after 2.5 years! New Years eve, my family went over to the Ames house down the street. That was a lot of fun, we watched a movie and at midnight we all gathered around and shared what the thing is that we were most thankful for in the last year. A few of us stayed until about 4 am talking with Jaci, it was a wonderful time!

So January for now: My dad and I talked about the possibility of going back to ALERT and it was decided for several different reasons that I am not going back to ALERT now, but there is the possibility of going back in July. Work slowed down and now I'm "only" working about 30 hours a week with usually one day off besides just Sunday. At work, I've been able to have some really good discussions with several different people about my various beliefs and the importance for them to put their trust in Christ. I even invited one of them to visit church. Sometime in the early part of the month, my car was having problems and ended up in the shop for about 2 weeks and in the meantime, I used another car. I managed to leave the lights on one day and killed the battery and it’s amazing we were even able to get it to start by jumping it. We almost had to have that car towed to the shop as well! I'm glad I have my car back now! Michael, Kevin and I went one night and we watched the movie "National Treasure." It's a great movie and I'd recommend it to anyone. One thing it emphasized was the importance of working as a team and also the danger of greed. (The soundtrack is really good too!) About the second week of January, both Mom and Dad were out of town. Mom went to MI for a funeral for her aunt with her parents. Dad was in VA for a business trip for about a week. One week later he left for Switzerland and was gone there for almost 2 weeks! (He just got home on Sunday the 23rd!)

The next big event was the CYA Winter Conference: It started on Friday the 15th and went through Monday the 17th. Ok, I don't want to bore everyone with all the details so I'll try to just give the highlights...

I was really challenged and encouraged by the 4 messages by David Reese (from Colorado) on the topic of Holiness; what it is and how to achieve it. Probably the one point that will stick with me is that as a Christian, I must always be striving to live a more holy life, even though God is the one who does the work of sanctification (holy-fi-cation) in my life.
In our free time we played things such as Taboo, Mafia, Soccer, Set and many other games.
On Saturday there were 2 workshops that I was able to go to - "Deepening our time with God" and "Answering the World's lies." Both of those were very helpful and encouraging.
The meals were absolutely wonderful! Thanks cooks!
Sunday we got to go to Kokomo RP church. The message that Mr. York gave was very convicting in the area of righteousness and zeal. For lunch we stayed at the church and had a pitch-in prepared by the church. Thanks so much for the food, it was great!
The "stump the pastors" session that afternoon was very helpful. It answered some important questions that I had on some topics.
The last message by David Reese struck very close to home - I need to learn how to reject the small voices telling me to sin and quit believing the lies of the world because God has the power to keep me from falling, I do not have to sin! The remedy is Christ himself! Personally I have no way to be holy and to obey Christ; all I need to do is believe in and be consistent with the truth.
After dinner, about 6 of us got together and sang for about an hour and a half! That was very much a highlight for me!
Later on, we stayed up and then eventually watched "Minority Report" - one of those movies you have to think about! We kept on talking and fellowshipping until the last of the group finally went to bed about 7 a.m.! That time was an awesome time that will remain in my memory for a really long time!
When I got home on Monday, I found out that one of my guinea pigs had died - Spaghetti. I was rather surprised! I suppose though animals only have a short life normally though. He is the 5-6th one I have buried.

This week since the conference:
I've done a fair amount of work and other miscellaneous stuff. On Saturday the 22nd, I had my first experience with a flat tire. I was driving home so I could get ready for work and be there on time at 5 p.m. Unfortunately, I managed to hit the pothole that I thought I had missed and the tire went flat in a real hurry! Kevin and I got out and started to get the spare tire and jack out. Very quickly we realized we were in a bit of a pickle! The spare tire was flat, and the jack was rusted shut! Thankfully Kevin had grabbed the cell phone on the way out of the house and we called Michael. He came and brought an air pump with him to fill up the spare tire. We used his jack and changed the tire, and I left for work using his car. I stopped by home very fast, changed clothes and got some dinner to take with me. In the end, I ended up about 45 minutes late for work, but it wasn't too busy thankfully! What fun.....!
Dad was able to find a replacement rim for only $30 which is a steal of a deal! So now my car's finally back to normal!

Biggest news recently:
I have now gotten my passport back (which cost almost $200! to have processed faster) and I'm officially signed up to go to Nicaragua again! I will be leaving Feb. 26th for one week; I can't wait!
Wednesday or Thursday I picked up a cold but I'm starting to get over it thankfully.
I then got my first flat tire on Saturday by hitting a pot hole. :-(

Prayer items:
Get better from my cold. (Already by now over it)
Preparations for the trip to Nicaragua.
Wise use of time.
Better prayer times.

Sorry this was so long....bonus points to anyone who reads the whole thing. :-)
God bless you all.
Signing off for the night...
~Brian~

(post started on Jan 25, not actually posted till Feb 1)

Don't worry...

2005-01-25T00:13:00.000-05:00

I havn't totaly forgotten about posting!
I'm working on a really long one that will include a short description of December, January, the CYA Winter Conference, a little about the upcomming Nicaragua trip, getting my passport, and my experience with a flat tire on Saturday...
It will even have a short summary of the most important stuff at the bottom for those of you who can't read it all.
Well TTYL
~Brian

What an awesome conference!

2005-01-17T16:56:00.000-05:00

I don't have time right now to do a full explanation of the whole conference, but it was a wonderful time of felloship and learning from and about God! The messages about holiness (of which I didn't get a single picture) were absolutely wonderful and were both a challenge as well as an encouragement.
I figured I would let you all know that the total 27 of my pictures are now up and you can see them by clicking right here!
TTYL
I promise I will give a more detailed description, just not today. :-)

I'm off....

2005-01-14T17:19:00.000-05:00

...to the CYA Winter Conference. It will last through Monday, and I'm sure it will be a lot of fun!
I will plan on taking a bunch of pictures and I'll be sure to let you all know how it goes....
God Bless,
TTYL

Time for some new news!

2005-01-10T17:20:00.000-05:00

The biggest thing is that at this point, though i'm not going back to ALERT untill maybe July, I'm signed up to go to Nicaragua at the end of February!!!
I can't wait!....the last time i was there was in February of 2003 (a very long time ago!)
One thing that immediately had to be taken care of was getting a new passport (my last one expired the end of last year). I got my pictures on Saturday and then went to the post office today. It cost me $55 for the passport application fee, $60 to expedite it so i'll have it back in time, and $57.30 for the Post office fee and the postage!! That's like a small fortune right there!!
Well Lord willing all the details will work out just perfectly and I'll have a good trip....but theres about a month i have to wait, that will seem like forever!
So, I'm working my behind off till then....Got to go!
TTYL
Leave some comments .... i'm getting lonely on here! lol

Please Pray

2005-01-06T19:46:00.000-05:00

A friend of mine (Nathaniel Pockras) who lives in Bell Center, OH called earlier today and asked for prayer concerning his family and the ice damage.
There is a lot of ice and as a result, there are lots of trees and limbs down. They lost their power at about 10 pm on Jan 5 and aren't expecting it back on until this weekend. One of the problems is that they have no heat now, and also have a considerable amount of water in their basement. To top it all off, the family all have colds or the begining of the flu.
Pray for health, electricity, and that the damage wouldn't be too extensive.
Thanks for praying!

Time goes too fast!

2005-01-06T01:51:00.000-05:00

I know, I used to be in the habit of updating every day...well I soon came to the realization that there are more important things in life. But I will give you a quick sentence recap of the last....say, month.
Lots of great family time, wonderful times with friends, tons of work and toss in a few misc. things here and there.
Ok, there's my summary!

One quick thing that I know many of you are wanting to know....I'm not going back to ALERT this month due to several reasons. Hopefully God will work it out for me to go in July, and I really want to go to the graduation for my unit, I cant wait to see everyone again!

Prayer items:
Johanna (my sister) is having eye surgery on Friday - successful operation and quick recovery.
Mom's trip home from Michigan tomorrow - she is there with her parents because her aunt (Grandma's sister) died this last weekend.
Dad's buisness trip - getting stuff done and working out a way to be home for Johanna's surgery.
Me - figuring out what to do this "semester", relying on God to show the path to walk, better use of the time I have.....there's so much more I could add!

Anyway, off to bed...TTYL

Have fun:

2005-01-02T01:20:00.000-05:00

One more thing thats pretty much pointless but fun none the less! :-)

Spell Your Name

A-You can be very quiet when you have something on your mind.
B-You are always cautious when it comes to meeting new people.
C-You definitely have a partier side in you, dont be shy to show it.
D-You have trouble trusting people.
E-You are a very exciting person.
F-Everyone loves you.
G-You have excellent ways of viewing people.
H-You are not judgemental.
I-You are always smiling & making others smile.
J-Jealousy.
K-You like to try new things.
L-Love is something you deeply believe in.
M-Success comes easily to you.
N-You like to work, but you always want a break.
O-You are very open-minded.
P-You are very friendly and understanding.
Q-You are a hypocrite.
R-You are a social butterfly.
S-You are very broad-minded.
T-You have an attitude, a big one.
U-You feel like you have to equal up to people's standards.
V-You have a very good physical and looks.
W-You like your privacy.
X-You never let people tell you what to do.
Y-You cause a lot of trouble.
Z-You're always fighting with someone

B-You are always cautious when it comes to meeting new people.
R-You are a social butterfly.
I-You are always smiling & making others smile.
A-You can be very quiet when you have something on your mind.
N-You like to work, but you always want a break.

C-You definitely have a partier side in you, dont be shy to show it.
I'm not going to spell out my whole middle name (Christopher) - it's too long :-)

F-Everyone loves you.
U-You feel like you have to equal up to people's standards.
L-Love is something you deeply believe in.
K-You like to try new things.

Ok so most of those are true.....but not all of them!

Another milemarker!

2004-12-28T19:11:00.000-05:00

Be the 2000th visitor and if I'm feeling generous I might get you whatever your favorite candy bar is or something like that. :-) Let me know if you think you were the 2000th.

Time for the update...

2004-12-26T17:04:00.000-05:00

I promise this will not be short.....Don't say I didn't warn you! :-)

Ok, I'll start all the way back with Thursday, Dec. 9 - I got some extra hours at work because someone called in. Once I got off, our whole family went to the Indianapolis Sympnony Orchestra's Christmas program. It was really good and wow can those guys sing! I wish I could be in a group like that.

Friday, Dec. 10 - I worked from 10am-6:30pm and then I went over to the Pulliams house to watch a movie called "Finding Forrester." It was a really good movie and inspirational in many ways. The movie is about a kid who ends up being tutored by an author and in school, he enters a contest but is disqualified because his writing is "too good." The author, Forrester, comes and backs up Jamaal (the kid) and he actually ends up winning. There were a lot of neat, helpful, hints for writing better and faster.

Saturday, Dec. 11 - Today I worked from 8 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. in customer service and it was about average, but then got a bit busier. When I finally got off, Kevin and I went to see the Northwest Warriors home game against the South East Panthers. The game was held at East 91st Street Christian Church which has been our home court for several years. For some reason they decided to play the games in reverse order starting with varsity, then junior varsity and lastly junior high. Kevin and I did not get there until the last half of the junior varsity game, but we won the varsity and junior varsity games. Most likely we lost the junior high game. We left when there was about three minutes left in the game because we had to get back home. On the way, we stopped to get some buns for dinner and we finally got home at about 5:30. We ate dinner very quickly and changed to be ready for Christmas Expressions which was tonight at church. We ended up leaving at about six and got to church about 15 minutes later. The members of the choir warmed up and then lined up to be ready to walk in at the start of the performance at 6:30. The performance went very well even though it lasted a good hour. I invited Jaci and her friend Amber and her fiancée Chad, and they all really enjoyed the performance. I think that was the best we have ever done it. After the performance was over, there was a time of fellowship and singing of Christmas carols. What a great night!

Sabbath Dec. 12 - I got up at 8:30 this morning, showered really fast, and woke up Kevin who also showered very fast. Somehow everyone managed to be ready and we left at about 9:10. I do not know how we did it, but we were able to make it to Sunday school on time for once in several weeks. The sermon was really good and Pastor James Faris explained Mark 5:1-20 titling it “What Great Things Jesus Has Done For us” The only response from the sermon is to marvel; when you have seen what God has done, the only thing you can do is be awestruck. What is the response God asks of me? I must go home and tell all my friends what God has done for me. I must tell, not merely what God has done in general, but for me specifically and personally. After church, when we got home, Johanna and I were picked up my Mr. Ames and Jaci to go to the Carmel High School’s Christmas Spectacular choral presentation. It was very well done and I am very thankful that the Ames thought of inviting us to go with them. The first half was a combination of dance performance and singing. The second half was entirely singing and was done by all the choirs put together. It was an incredible presentation and I may try to go next year too! On the way home, Mr. Ames was wonderful enough to even get us some dinner at KFC, a restraint that I can not ever remember eating at before. The food was actually pretty good. After we ate, Mr. Ames dropped Johanna and I off at home. We were home for about 30 minutes then we left for the evening service. The message tonight was also very good; Mr. Johnston preached from 2 Corinthians 3 and titled the sermon “Who is adequate for this ministry?” After the evening service, CYA had its biweekly prayer meeting. It was a very good time, as it always is! Then we drove home after getting some gas for Michael’s car which was about empty.

Monday Dec. 13 - I slept in until 11:30, showered, got ready to go to work and left. I have been trying to get to work on time, but I got to work today one minute late. I worked in the office from noon to four and it was very crazy. Jeff’s one hour lunch did not help any. I finally got my break at 3:15, and then I worked another 45 minutes and I was off. I decided to stay there and read my book that I need to finish for Thursday because I can concentrate better when I am not at home. I also wanted to wait until Jaci got her break so we could talk for a little bit, but that was a secondary reason. I stopped by Target on the way home and got a couple things for Christmas and I got home at about 5:45. After dinner we left for BSF and we had another great lecture this time on Hebrews 11-13 (Faith, and how to apply it to life. True faith is revealed by the way I live my life.). When we got home, I practiced my piano, and went to bed.

....More later.....

Merry Christmas all!

2004-12-25T00:38:00.000-05:00

Just make sure you remember the real reason for Christmas - the celebration of Jesus' birth!
May you all have a absolutely wonderful time with your families in whatever you do! God Bless.

I really am alive....

2004-12-24T01:06:00.000-05:00

I know most of you probably think I've been wiped off the face of the planet.....contrary to popular belief, I'm still here! :-)
I can't believe how it's been almost 2 weeks since my last post, but with a busy life and at least 40 hours for the last couple of weeks at work.....I end up with not too much spare time. Plus I suppose I kind of forgot about posting, I'll have to fill you in on what's gone on.
For now, I'm headed to bed because I worked from 1pm to ~11pm today and I have to be in tomorrow at 8 until 4:30! Two long days in a row......
Good night all!

Update...

2004-12-11T22:47:00.000-05:00

Here's an email I sent out to some of my friends and I figured I'd go ahead and put it on here too!

"Hey everyone!

I know, it's really been quite a long time since I wrote last. Everything to me just seems normal, but to you, a lot has probably changed. They say when you are always around yourself, you don't notice the changes, but others do.

So, on to my update...

I really don't know where I left you the last time, but I'll begin with the most influential thing that has happened recently. November 21-23, Eric Filson and I went on a camping/hiking trip to a part of the Hoosier National Forest south of Indianapolis. We hiked in, found a spot to stay, set up camp and then spent the night. Monday we walked around a little and then spent "1.5 hours" (actually over 2 hours) in time alone with God. That was a truly awesome time and God showed me some really convicting and challenging things from His Word. Psalm 62:8 ("Trust in him at all times, O people; pour out your hearts to him, for God is our refuge. Selah") especially challenged me to stay close to God. Also during the time, we read a bunch of the book "The mark of a Man" by Elizabeth Elliot. If you want to know more about the awesome time, read this post from a couple weeks ago. As a result of that time with God, I have been able to be very consistent with my Quiet Time since then! Praise God!

Another wonderful thing is the Bible Study Fellowship (BSF) study from this week. The parts that hit me the most were from the lecture on Hebrews 7-10. The application lies in Hebrews 10:22-25, and I will hopefully live that out in my life. ("22let us draw near to God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water. 23Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful. 24And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds. 25Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another–and all the more as you see the Day approaching.")

Another great thing is that recently I have been getting almost 40 hours a week at work, but the downside of that is that I don't take advantage of the time I have at home to the best of my ability and end up wasting a lot of time. The big advantage is that I can be saving more $$ for either future schooling or going back to ALERT. Keep praying for my continued witness at work - both verbally and also simply by my actions.

One big prayer request right now is that I would be able to decide about going back to ALERT in January (or even at all)- I really want to but it seems to not be working out possibly. :-( There are a number of things to consider - (enough $$ to pay for it, being done with my orthodontics (braces come off on the 20th!), deciding if God really wants me to go back, etc...) I need to decide by the 20th and let them know.

Right now, it seems as if the future as I had seen it is changing...I'm still planning on starting at IUPUI and then transferring up to Purdue to get an international agronomy degree and then intern at ECHO, but the timing of what when seems to always be getting pushed further back. Thankfully I know God knows what He's doing!

Something else that's been on my mind a lot recently is: What is love? How do you express God's love to others and "love your neighbor as yourself" but without suggesting a different type of love? What kind of love is it that we are to express and how? How do you love a fellow believer as a brother or sister? How do you show Christ's love to an unbeliever? Maybe you have answers to some of these questions. This is certainly a topic I'm sure many struggle with, I sure do!

So in summary, praise items:

For the awesome trip with Eric and the Fellowship with God.
For the lasting results from the "fire" I've begun to kindle again in my heart to fellowship with God daily.
Consistent QTs since the trip.
Good BSF study.
Lots of hours at work.

Prayer items:

That I would keep up the zeal for QTs and prayer as result of the hike.
That I would take advantage of witnessing opportunities at work.
That I would continue to get many hours at work.
That God would give wisdom concerning going back to ALERT or not and the future in general.
That God would give understanding and guidance in the area of "brotherly love."
That I would continue to improve how effectively I'm using the time God has given me.

Well, I guess I'll stop there, I think that's long enough. :-)

In Him,

Brian"

This is funny!

2004-12-08T21:40:00.000-05:00

I was looking at the list of places from which people have linked to my blog. One of those places was a google search for: "pounded chicken" and "south america"
My site comes up 8th of 26 results!

So when I saw that, I decided to see what happens if I searched for: "Brian Fulk"
I found that my site comes up 1st of 142 results!

That's a rather pointless pice of trivia, but I still find it humorous!
~Brian~

Hmm, what shall I post about?

2004-12-07T23:58:00.000-05:00

I know, a quick overview of the last couple days will work...

Sunday: Morning Service - Dr. Blackwood preached on Mark 4:11, 21-41.
His main points were:

Too many Christians do not really plan on growing even after they have been a Christian for years…..they are still being spoon fed what the Scriptures mean. 5, 10, 15 years later do you pray any better? How have you improved in the last year, do you pray the same or have you matured? Every year, the more Scripture you know, your prayers will mature

There are 3 stages of growth in us:

1 Blade Stage

2 Green (corn in the) Ear

3 Mature Ear

Application:

Where are you?

3 applications

1. Basic principle – it’s what Jesus does in us. It’s God, and God alone. We can’t cause maturity by ourselves. We still must put forth effort – eagerness, but he alone is responsible for the results

2. Our Christian growth is a lifelong Constant Conscious growth. There is a conscious effort to grow. Rom 7. Let not sin reign in your body. Christian growth can’t be taken for granted. There are those struggles to Read, Pray, Do what God wants, Share the Gospel, Share what’s written on the dollar bill “In God We Trust”

3. Dependence on the nearness of God to ourselves. Especially when you are older, you really begin to understand how important it is to know that God is right there. Christ will not sanctify us in spite of us, but God will sanctify because of us.

So, that was annother wonderful sermon! After going home and getting lunch, those of us in the choir went back to church for the last rehearsal before the preformance on Saturday the 11th. It's going to be really good, and we didn't even go through the whole thing (but we have before). After the evening service and annother great sermon, there was a group of about 15 that got together and we sang some Psalms together for about 1/2 hour! It was so much fun!

Monday: The best thing of note was the BSF (Bible Study Fellowship) meeting tonight. We discussed Hebrews chapter 7-10 and then listened to a lecture on the same section. It was really good, and I even printed and posted the most important verses: Hebrews 10:22-25. Those verses tell us what we are to do: Hebrews 10 ^"22let us draw near to God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water. ²³Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful. ²⁴And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds. ²⁵Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another--and all the more as you see the Day approaching." After we all got back from BSF, I started working on some different stuff and then I had an absolutely wonderful time talking to Jaci. Too bad time can't just pause while you talk, instead it seems to speed up. :-)

Today: I worked from 8am to 1:30 pm. I actually got up early enough today to be on time! It's actually a bit of an accomplishment considering anytime I'm scheduled in at 8, I'm usually about 10 minutes late. Part of that is because I got a written warning about it last weekend....the first of that sort since I've worked there. How come I can't be there on time? I'm just lazy because I only live like 2 minutes away! So work was pretty normal except for the lights blinking a bunch of times and then the intercom wouldn't work (that made things interesting). I got home and unfortunately, I really didnt' accomplish much but waste time. I seem to be an expert at that! I did do my piano, which is good considering i was supposed to have a lesson tomorrow, but that got canceled. Life wouldn't be fun without last minute changes would it?
TTYL
~Brian~

I finally gave in...

2004-12-06T00:48:00.000-05:00

Ok, I'm not going to use it very often except for commenting, but I finally decided to get a xanga site. It's here: www.xanga.com/bearer_of_Christ
So, if you have been waiting for me to get one, I have at last gotten one!
This is still my primary blog, I'm not going anywhere; I like Blogger better!

~Brian~

Why do I do these things anyway?

2004-12-04T13:27:00.000-05:00

-- name: Brian

-- Birth date: 11/05/84

-- Birthplace: Indianapolis, IN

-- Hair: Blonde!

-- Eyez: Blue

-- Righty or Lefty: Righty

-- Location: Indy

LAYER TWO:
-- Your heritage: I don't actualy know for sure, some German and Scottish though.

-- The shoes you wore today: White 'n blue Asics (running shoes)

-- Your fears: Not many, the future to some extent.

-- Your Favorite Color(s): Blue and Yellow.

LAYER THREE:
-- Your most overused phrase on AIM: Would I ever overuse a phrase? It's got to be "LOL"

-- Your best physical feature: Hm, guess my eyes and or face in general? I really don't know.

-- Your bedtime: Whenever I get there, usually pretty late, about 2 a.m. or so.

-- Your most missed memory: Memories are a funny thing, sometimes you remember them and sometimes you don't. Right now I cant think what could possibly be my most missed, other than before I started school when I could "legaly" play all day. :-)

LAYER FOUR:
-- Pepsi or Coke: Recently, neither. Generally I like Coke better.

-- McDonald's or Burger King: McDonalds, but again, neither recently.

-- Single or Taken: Single for now, till God brings the right person along, at the right time. :-)

-- Adidas or Nike: Nike, only because they usually fit my feet better, but it's been years since I've had either. Now I prefer New Balance - where else are you going to get a 14B?

-- Lipton Ice Tea or Nestea: Neither.

-- Chocolate or vanilla: Depends.

-- Cappuccino or coffee: Don't drink either.

LAYER FIVE:
-- Smoke: No!

-- Sing: Of course! God gave me a good voice, why not use it?

-- Take a shower everyday: Yes, Why not? 5 minute showers....I could take a couple a day. LOL

-- Have a crush: Um, maybe.

-- Do you think you've been in love: Yes, at least once, and one of those is with God, hopefully that one will last a good long time!

-- Want to go to college: Yes, planning on IUPUI, then PURUDUE!

-- Like(d) high school: Not particularly.

-- Want to get married: Yes, but only if it's God's plan for me.

-- Believe in yourself: On a good day, yes.

-- Get motion sickness: Nope.

-- Think you're attractive: Not really.

-- Think you're a health freak: NO!

-- Get along with your parent(s): For the most part, yes.

-- Like thunderstorms: Yes! Lightening is soo cool!

-- Play an instrument: Piano and can't forget the voice box. LOL

LAYER SIX:
In the past month...
-- Drank alcohol: No.

-- Smoked: No.

-- Done a drug: No.

-- Gone on a date: Don't do dates.

-- Gone to the mall?: Nope.

-- Eaten an entire box of Oreos: Even for me, that's a lot of Oreos.....no!

-- Eaten sushi: Yuck

-- Been dumped: No.

-- Gone skating: No.

-- Made homemade cookies: No, but I did help Kevin with them the other day.

-- Dyed your hair: No, nor do I plan to anytime soon.

-- Stolen anything: No, stealing is bad.

LAYER SEVEN:
Ever...
-- Been trashed or extremely intoxicated: Nope, not in my plans.

-- Been caught "doing something": No.

-- Gotten beaten up: No. The closest would be a friendly brother to brother disagreement.

-- Shoplifted: Once or twice, but that was when I was about 5 and "I didn't know any better," but I had to take it back and make it right.

-- Changed who you were to fit in: No, but I'm almost allways the odd one though.

-- Numbers and Names of Children: Um, 3-5 or so. No idea on names right now, though over my life, I've thought of some good ones.

-- Describe your Dream Wedding: Hm, anything that God is honored in, probably at church, with my family and friends.

-- How do you want to die: However God decides. Idealy in my sleep or something.

-- Where you want to go to college: Purdue.

-- What do you want to be when you grow up: Depends on your definition of "grown up" lol. When all is said and done, a missionary in South or Central America, using the agriculture knowledge that I will hopefully learn from Purdue.

-- What country would you most like to visit: Nicaragua! To see all my friends from the (4) mission trips that I've done to there.

-- Blue or Green: Blue.

-- Best hair color? I like blonde or brown, but anything's fine with me.

-- Short or long hair: On me - short (the shorter the better to some extent).

-- Height: Me? I am roughly 6 feet.

-- Best weight: What kinda question is this? Preferably something in general relation to the size of the person (basicaly average / normal)

-- Best articles of clothing: Well, I really don't care, anything that fits well and keeps me warm. :-)

-- Best first date location: A date? And what is that anyway? LOL

-- Best first kiss location: Um, at the front of the church on my wedding day.

-- # of drugs taken illegally: Zero!

-- # of people I could trust with my life: Not very many, maybe 1-2; Ultimately God.

-- # of CDs that I own: Music CDs? About 35, plus about 5 or so computer CDs.

-- # of piercings: Zero.

-- # of scars on my body: A whole bunch! Some more obvious than others.

-- # of things in my past that I regret: I have to honestly say that I really don't regret anything, except the way I applied (or didn't) myself to my years in high school (homeschooled). But as Romans 8:28 says: "And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose."

*The End* Yay I finished it! :-)
~Brian~

Time Flys!

2004-12-02T23:53:00.000-05:00

Wow, it's already been since Monday and I haven't posted.
This week has been rather hectic and considering I have nearly 40 hours at work, a lot of my time has been spent there.
I'd really like to tell you all the multitude of things I've been doing this week, but I had to pull an all-nighter last night to get my stuff done for Mr. Pulliam's class. The result = I'm tired, and i'm going to bed! Especially because I have to be at work tomorrow morning at 8a.m!

TTYL

Well start answering them... :-)

2004-11-29T02:11:00.000-05:00

1. When did you first "friend" me?

2. Why did you first "friend" me?

3. What posts of mine do you like to read the best?

4. What would you like me to write about that I don't?

5. Do you think we would be friends in real life?

6. How often do you read my journal?

7. What do we have in common?

8. Will you post this in your journal so I can answer?

Found this on someone's blog and well, I decided it's interesting enough....and no, you don't really have to put it on yours unless you want to. :-)

It's past my bed time :-D .... gotta go.
~Brian~

Hiking trip...

2004-11-27T23:48:00.000-05:00

Ok this is going to be long.... just to warn you :-)

So...way back on Sunday...

Right after the morning service was over, Eric and I got our stuff into his car, changed clothes and then left for a ~2 hour drive to Hoosier National Forest that is SE of Indianapolis. We decided to try out Hickory Ridge Trail. Eric has not been there before, and neither had I, so it was going to be new for both of us! We got to the trailhead at about 3pm and got all ready to hike. Eric, for the fun of it brought along a scales so we could weigh our packs before we started out. His weighed 68 lbs. and mine "only" weighed about 60 lbs. So we strapped up and hit the trail. We hiked for two hours and finally found a place that seemed to be a good spot to stop. Looking around, we found a spot to set up camp. After we had everything set up (tent, sleeping arrangements etc) we had dinner - noodles and garlic bread. Once we had cleaned everything up, we got in the tent and read several chapters of "The Mark of a Man" by Elizabeth Elliott - (a very challenging and yet encouraging book for young men especially). I fell asleep at about 9 p.m.

Monday:
I woke up at noon (15 hours of sleep!!) and then Eric and I decided to get breakfast ready - breakfast burritos with egg, cheese, veggies, salsa etc... Those were some of the best I have ever had, and that on a camping trip!! After breakfast (or lunch, whatever you call it), we decided to take a bit of a walk along the trail to fellowship with each other and to see some more of the wonderful creation that God has made us! Along the trail, we saw some pretty funny sights - an old Chevy with a tree growing through it, and a horse saddle screwed to a weirdly shaped tree! We got back to camp at about 3 p.m. and then decided to spend 1.5 hours alone with God in prayer and reading of the Scripture. It ended up being over 2 hours! It was such a refreshing time, I need to do that more often! I think it's a good start to getting the fire in my heart going again! I read some great passages - Psalm 69, John 1, Galatians 3. They showed me some things that....well....are lacking in my life, and that saddens me quite a lot to realize that. Also I tried something that Eric suggested - writing a letter to God, it was a great experience of searching my life. So after that AWESOME (I don't use that lightly) time, we went into the tent and decided to write Joel (a guy my age that is at the Navy boot camp right now) a letter and then we read a bunch more chapters from the book "The Mark of a Man" before we had dinner. For dinner, we had a wonderfully filling selection of "mashed" potatoes, cream of mushroom soup, and stuffing. Wow that was a wonderful meal! After cleaning all that up, we went to the tent and read some more from the book until about midnight when we went to sleep.

Tuesday:
We got up about 8 a.m. and each did our Quiet Times before we had breakfast. This time it was pancakes! To think I never expected to have pancakes on a hiking trip! We could only cook one at a time so it took a while! :-) But we had plenty of time to spare! After we got everything cleaned up, we started packing up. We got the packs all ready, and hit the trail. We went out a different way than we came in, and ended up running into some private property which we went around, but that meant traveling over some hills that weren't actually part of the trail. Finally we made it to the road and after a mile more we were back at the car!! After celebrating with some cream soda (one of Eric's traditions), we weighed the packs again - his was 43 lbs, mine was 46 lbs. That's a lot of food and water that we went through!! After loading up in the car, we drove back, hit some traffic, and I ended up getting to work just on time at 6 p.m. What a trip! I hope we can do something like that again sometime!

Praise the Lord for:
Great weather - even if it did rain at night a couple times!
Safety in hiking and driving.
Wonderful growth in God and with each other.

*EDIT*
I forgot to say that on a couple occasions, Eric and I as we were hiking along the trail, stopped and listened to nothing / silence for maybe 5 or 10 minutes. It was really cool. No birds, no cars, no wind, no rustling, no people, no animals, no nothing. That's something you don't get to experience every day (its a shame though) and you are just awestruck. I'm amazed at how much noise we are always hearing! Good thing God made our ears to stand up to all that!
*End EDIT*

Cool Quote!

2004-11-27T22:59:00.000-05:00

"I think we dream so we don't have to be apart so long. If we're in each other's dreams, we can play together all night."

~Bill Watterson, Calvin & Hobbes~

Found this on a friend's IM away message, isn't it great?

An update is an order but...

2004-11-25T01:01:00.000-05:00

Well I have this thing called work....and well I have to get some sleep so I can be at work (on Thanksgiving day) at 9 in the morning.
I figure I'll at least give you all a link to the pictures of the trip, and I promise I'm going to tell you all more about it, but it may be a day or two. Sorry!

So here's the link to the pictures.
There are three albums: the "good ones," (ones I think turned out pretty good) the "blurry ones," (they should have turned out good, but they didn't) and all the others (these don't really fit into either category!). All told there are 129 pictures - would have been more but I only brought one memory card with me so we ran out of room!

~Brian~

Prayer:
For me that I'd continue to apply the many things that God showed me while I was on my little trip... - again, I'll tell you later. :-) Stay tuned!

Hooray! We survived!

2004-11-23T18:01:00.000-05:00

So, I just got home and we had a great time, But I have to go to work...
More later!

Quick review and update...

2004-11-21T01:19:00.000-05:00

Alright, so after going to bed at about 7 yesterday morning, got to sleep until 11:30. I got up at that point to get ready to go to JK and Chrisitna's wedding at church. The service started at 1 and we got there in plenty of time. The ceremony itself was somewhat shorter than normal for a wedding there; it only went an hour. It was very nicely decorated with a fall theme, and it seemed that everything went quite smoothly. After the service, the reception was held in the basement and it was very fitting in decorations with that which was upstairs too. (Obviously there was a lot of planning ahead of time!) Now they are happily married and you could pray that God will work through them now as a couple to further his kingdom around the world.
When I got home from the reception at about 6 p.m., I began to pull some things together for the hiking trip that Eric and I are leaving for this afternoon. I finally got everything packed (my backpack is significantly heavier than when I was at ALERT, why, I don't know) and then went to bed.
So, this hiking trip..... We will leave this afternoon and drive to our destination - a trail or park in Southern Indiana (Eric was the one choosing the location so I don't know where we'll be yet :-). After hiking a little while to wherever we will have our campsite, we will set up camp and spend the night. In the morning, we will eat (of course!) and then leave our camp and hike around on Monday, spending time with each other, alone with God and in prayer etc... I hope God can use this time to help grow me to be more consistent with reading the Scriptures daily. Monday night we will hike back to our tent and spend the night there. Tuesday morning, we will eat, break camp and hike back to the car. We will then drive home and that will be the end of our wonderful hiking trip. :-)

Please pray for:
Good weather - no rain and good temperature as well.
Safety - in driving and as we hike.
Wonderful growth both between us and God.

Signing of....

One of those "I'm tired" moments...

2004-11-20T06:56:00.000-05:00

Ok, so I did work all night, starting at 10 p.m. last night until 6 a.m. this morning. It was certainly a totally different experience and when I'm a bit more coherent, I'll try to write up a brief discription of the night. In general (I was the night cashier) it was very slow after midnight and so I helped the night stock a whole bunch. All told, I probably had less than 50 customers the whole night!
Well, I'm going to go to bed and get some sleep before I get up to got to JK and Christina's wedding later today! (tomorrow) :)
Good night all!

Some notes from Michael Lefebvre's lecture

2004-11-16T23:58:00.000-05:00

This is just a summary of my notes, please read them! I don't know how much sense these notes will make, but I hope they make some sense! It was an absolutely wonderful talk and I would highly reccommend trying to get a copy of the tape if you are interested
~Brian~

"Eden Zion, and the World" – “Real Estate and Redemption” or “The Geography of Missions in the Bible”

Blessing, Seed, Land were the 3 main themes of covenants God gave.
In the creation account, Genesis 1:26-28; 2:5-15, God reveals himself to us
Things that God reveals to us:
His Creativity
His Productivity
His Orderly
His Goodness

Eden

Genesis 2:5-15 - Man’s purpose in Relation to THE GARDEN.

A need – verse 5a
Agriculture is not as yet ongoing. Needs ongoing management
A Reason – Verse 5b
1 No Rain, (God’s ongoing involvement)
2 No Man Verse 5b
A provision – Verse 6
“A mist”, Rain/mist the evaporation cycle
Man – life
A place – Verse 8-9
God himself planted an example – the garden of Eden.

Place of Garden - It’s arrangement

The garden is in Eden, but is not the whole of Eden.

Genesis 2:9 – In the East (eastern part of the OT World, OR Eastward is better translation – Garden planted in the East part of Eden)

The water flows into the garden and then out into the rest of the world. The very arrangement of the land pictures and facilitates man’s ability to go out into the world.

Biblically, Eden seems to be equated to Canaan, Garden of Eden is equated with the Jordan River Valley.

THIS place as the divinely appointed platform for man to “Go in” and to “Go out”

The whole world is supposed to be an ongoing reflection of God

The purpose of Adam continues

The appointed place continues

Eden = Zion

The Evidence of the Psalms

Psalm 36, Psalm 65,Psalm 133

The Evidence of the Prophets

Ezekiel 47, Isaiah 51:3, Lamentations 2:6, Ezekiel 36:35, Joel 2:3, 3:18, Micah 4:18, ETC...

The Evidence of Genesis

Gen 3:24 – Adam was sent out of Eden on its EAST side

Gen 4:16 – Cain was sent further East away from Eden

Gen 11:2 – Tower of Babel built in Shinar (Babylon)

Genesis has a general movement of people falling away from God, and a physical movement east, east, east….

Gen 11:31 – Abram’s family moves WEST, into Canaan. This is the first indication of moving west.

Eastern movement away from God, and then Westward movement back to God.

Summary

Zion = the place appointed for confirming man’s standing with God.

Implications

Continuity of God’s plan

Purpose in Eden ----> Temple of Zion ----> Cross in Zion

The nature of Missions

A need, even before sin God had given a need (Eph 2:10) “…we are his workmanship…prepared beforehand…” Keeping things in order; Calvin’s Institutes 3.10.6

Using Land – Texts in scripture

How to handle “land texts” – there is a drive all through the Bible, that there is a purpose of the land. Scripture is focused on this land and is a prototype for the rest of the world. Psalm 48 – Zion the greatest of all mountains Do we handle this text honestly and right? Specific location has importance

Eden = Zion = The Church

What we have looked at is a Theology of LAND in the Scriptures.

As we go out, we continue in that same heritage as Adam, Abraham – to glorify God in every detail. Week by week, reflect God’s glory in an ongoing way, standing in a right relationship with God forever.

Two good days in a row!

2004-11-16T23:53:00.000-05:00

I got up today just in time to be at work at 8 a.m. I worked in the office until 2 p.m., and it was just a little bit busier than normal. Most of the reason it is getting busier is because Thanksgiving is coming up. When I got home I worked on cleaning up some stuff in my room and on my desk. One thing I worked on especially was one of my "file piles." Once that stuff was mostly cleaned up, I started doing some school. After dinner, I took Kevin to ASL (sign language) class. I also took Johanna and Sterling to Steak and Shake to be picked up by their carpool to go to choir. Next, I went to listen to Michael Lefebvre’s lecture on “Real Estate and Redemption.” The lecture was very detailed and demonstrated a very in depth understanding of the topic by Michael. I’m very glad I was able to go! Now I’ve got all sorts of school stuff to finish!

One full day!

2004-11-15T23:26:00.000-05:00

Today, I got up at 9:30 a.m. and got ready to go to Dr. Hughes (my Orthodontist) to get an X-Ray taken to take with me to my appointment with Dr. Bussard (oral surgeon). I came home after getting the X-Ray and ate breakfast, then I went to Dr. Bussard’s office up in Fishers. I waited there for about 45 minutes, thinking they would call me up. I guess I was supposed to sign in and then they would know I was there. I finally got to see him at about noon, even though the appointment was scheduled at 11! He looked at my mouth and the X-Ray and told me that there’s plenty of space to do implants (on my front two teeth that are missing) and gave an initial estimate of about $5,000 - kind of expensive! Now I know that I can get my braces off in December! Now, all I have to do is decide how to pay for it and when to have the surgery, which doesn’t really sound like too much fun. After the appointment, I stopped by the Gander Mountain store to buy one of the new Nalgene bottles which are very cool. I then stopped by home to eat lunch really quickly and then I went to work at 1 p.m. I worked as a cashier for most of the day but I had to go into the office a couple times to turn around some tills. The 2 office people who were working didn’t know how to do the tills, so I got to! I got off work at 6 and then raced home, gulped down some dinner and ran out the door for BSF. Tonight we discussed Hebrews 1 and 2 about encouragement, facts about Jesus, culture, and angels. After BSF, my discussion group had a time of fellowship and we each told about how we have seen God work in our lives. It was a really neat time. Now that my wonderfully full day is done, I think I’ll go to bed.

~Brian~

P.S. If ya want to pray for something for me, pray that I would be wise with my use of time - less time surfing blogs, IMing etc. I have lots of stuff to do.

Yesterday Evening's Sermon Notes

2004-11-15T22:42:00.000-05:00

Pastor Johnston
“Knowing and Doing the Will of God”
2 Corinthians 1:12-2:4

This is a very big topic, especially in college age young adults, but it doesn’t stop with college, it goes on through the rest of life.
Here in this passage Paul tells us about discerning of God
Everything is dependant on the character of God.
...
The Bible does not really present the way to discern the will of God. Instead, we are to walk in the will.
...
Knowing God’s will means that we walk in God’s will – our life is in the will of God.
Verse 18 – he who says he abides in God, will walk in God’s way. We don’t have to twist God’s arm, find verses in the Bible, go to conferences etc… those will probably help, but are not really the way that God reveals his will to us.
The best way to find the will of God is now, by doing the will of God step by step.
God calls us to walk in his way – Psalm 86B - a great application of the sermon.

Yesterday's morning sermon - Dr. Blackwood

2004-11-15T22:37:00.000-05:00

Mark 3 - "Jesus Called 12 to be with him"

6 Characteristics that must be evident in the life of a disciple / requirements to be a disciple.
1. A kind of person who does what Simon, Andrew, James, etc. had already done – leaving their occupation to follow Jesus. Their skills were still necessary. Mt. 6:33 Seek the kingdom first
2. He continues to listen to the teachings of Christ, Personal study of Scripture, memorization, John 8:31 Don’t let anything distract from God’s word
3. He has a consistent relationship/fellowship with God – Prays daily for others
4. A disciple is a person who just loves to be around other believers. 2 Cor 5:17 – all men will know you are a disciple because of the love you demonstrate to others
5. One who openly identifies with Jesus Christ. Others will want to know that same Jesus that you know. “so shall you be my disciples”
6. One who lays down his life for Jesus Christ. “hate his mother, father, siblings, otherwise you can’t be a disciple.” Not one who just knows the will of God, but does the will of God.
Challenge: Will you be one of his Disciples? Will you participate in his “long range plan for evangelizing the world?”

If yesterday was wierd, today was even worse!

2004-11-13T23:23:00.000-05:00

....one wacky day folows after another.....
So today I went into work at 8 this morning and was a cashier supposedly until 1p.m. They decided however, that they would rather me get off at 11 and come back in again and work 6-10 as a bagger (the late bagger called in for some reason and there would have been no one after 8:30). The result was that I worked 3 hours this morning, and another 4 hours tonight - a total of 7 hours and I was only scheduled for 5! Two extra hours, horay!
When I got home (the first time) I ate lunch and then went outside (it was such a beautiful day, even if it was a little bit cold). I started by cleaning up some stuff in the barn, and then cleaned all the dead stuff out of the garden. I then tilled most of the garden and re-planted a whole bunch of Iris plants that I have growing (if you want some I'll give them to you for FREE). By that time, it was time to get ready for work again! It's really weird going in to work 2 times in the same day!
So when I got to work, I started by cleaning the restrooms [Fun!], and then collected the trash from a whole bunch of trash cans throughout the store. I then took a break and when I got back, I was the only one for the rest of the night.
Probably the most fun I have ever had at work in my whole time there, is something that Mr. Kiser had me do. He had me take down the sales advertisments in the front windows, and then put new ones up! What made it so fun was that the top of the windows is about 8-9 feet high, and to get to it, you have to climb over the lines of carts and balance on a 4" ledge! It was a blast! Once I had finished, it was already 10 and I got to go home, for the second time in a day!
Before I left Jaci, who was also working tonight, called Marsh to have them ask me to drop her coat by her house on my way home. I was more than willing to do that. :) I won't say anything about her being good at forgetting things.... This is only the second time (and counting) that I've brought something to her that she left behind at work! It's cool living so close to work, and so close to someone who also works there. :-)
That's about the extent of my wacky day!!

Now I'm off to bed.
~Brian~

P.S. Did anyone notice that I spelled my name wrong on the last post? (yes I did it on purpose, just to see if anyone would notice it) :-)

What a weird day

2004-11-12T23:59:00.000-05:00

So after I find out I'm not working, I spend the rest of my day working on all sorts of different things. About 4:30, I get a call from MARSH - "Do you want to work 5-9?" I said "Sure!"
So on a day when I was lamenting loosing hours, they give them right back to me!
What coincidence! Hey it's things like that that make life interesting, and you can look at it and kinda laugh a little bit! :-)
Well I should get to bed so I can get to work on time tomorrow, assuming that they don't cut me tomorrow :-)

~Brain~

P.S. How come no one's commenting? I must have gotten really boring all of a sudden!

I'm So excited!

2004-11-12T23:58:00.000-05:00

I'm finally getting my money from EBAY that I lost in an auction in August!!
I won a camera for $250 and sent the money, but the seller never sent the camera. I filed a complaint and all that stuff, and tonight when I got home from work, I read my email and one of them was from EBAY!!!

I won't get the full amount, but anything (in this case $175) is better than nothing!

Praise the Lord that this was finally resolved!!

I like my employer but...

2004-11-12T13:36:00.000-05:00

For two days in a row, they have called and told me to not come in.

Yesterday they just told me that they didn't need me to cover an extra part of someone's shift, but I still got to work my originally scheduled shift.

Today's a different story - I was supposed to work from 1pm-5pm and they called me at 8:30 this morning, telling me that they don't want me to come in at all today!

Ok, I know I'm selfish, I like my hours. Why did they have to cut me? Sure I have other things I can do, but that's irrelevant. There are people who are working that haven't been there even a month and I have been with the company for 3.5 years! Surely I have a little bit of seniority?

They said they had to cut hours because they were over budget on hours or something. Forget the budget! Oh well, life goes on. Besides it’s only 4 hours! You think I can deal with that? I hope so.

Please don’t start a pity party, but do pray that they will give me more hours. (Next week I’m scheduled for 31 hours! Yay!)

End of Rant.

May the rest of my day go better……

~Brian~

I was just doing my Bible Study...

2004-11-10T23:51:00.000-05:00

Today I skimmed the book of Hebrews and one question asks me to give phrases of how the writer encourages those to whom he was writing who were in hard times.
So next, the study asks:
"When you are discouraged because of difficult cirmcumstances, what could others do to encourage you most?"

So I ask the same to you. What encourages you the most? Why?

~Brian

P.S. After you all answer, I'll post my answer. :-)

For the fun of it....

2004-11-09T23:57:00.000-05:00

PERSONAL
1) Single or Taken: Single, and I will be untill / if God changes that.
2) Sex: Male
3) Birthday: November 5th 1984
4) Sign: I don't care.
5) Siblings: 2 older brothers, 2 younger sisters, 3 younger brothers. (total = 2 sis, 5 bro)
6) Hair colour: Blonde
7) Eye color: Blue
8) Shoe size : 14 B (narrow = very hard to find, but thanks to New Balance, I can get shoes in my size!)
9) Height: ~6'

FASHION STUFF
1) Where is your favorite place to shop: Like I really shop anywhere?
2) Favorite outfit: Anything that fits and looks good. (definitely not my work uniform) :-)

THE EXTRA STUFF
1) Do you do drugs: NO way!
2) What are you most scared of: I try not to be scared of anything, but that's only because I know God is in charge.
3) What car do you wish to have: Well, I'm happy with any car that runs without having to be in the shop all the time, but a Honda Accord would be really cool.
4) Where do you want to get married: Probably a church...
5) How many messenger buddies do you have on right now: ~80
6) If you could change anything about yourself, what would it be: Actually I'm pretty thankful for the way God made me!

FAVORITE.
1) Subject in school?: I'm supposed to have a favorite? Science, Piano and PT are good :-)
2) Animals?: Dogs I guess.
3) Color? Blue and yellow

HAVE YOU EVER
1) Given anyone a bath? Yup, my sibs a bunch of times.
2) Smoked? Never!
3) Bungee jumped? I wish.
4) Fought the law? Nope
5) Made yourself throw-up? Yuck!
6) Gone skinny-dipping? Again... no.

FIRST THING THAT COMES TO MIND
1) Red: The blood that Jesus paid for my sins with.
2) Cow: Lunch?
3) Socks: Shoes?
4) Greenland: Cold

HAVE YOU EVER
1) Been so drunk you blacked out: Never drank, and don't plan to anytime soon, reguardless of when I turn 21!
2) Put a body part on fire for amusement? That would be stupid.
3) Been in a car accident? Yes, once. Make that twice. I was driving only in one of those, and it was not my fault.
4) Been hurt emotionally? Who hasn't?
5) Kept a secret from everyone: Of course!
6) Had an imaginary friend: Not that I remember
7) Wanted to hook up with a friend: Actually....Yes
8) Cried during a movie? Yes
9) Had a crush on a teacher? No, that would be gross! (my teacher has always been my mom - homeschool)
10) Ever thought an animae character was hot? No.

MORE FAVORITES
1) Shampoo: Head and Shoulders
2) Hair Colour: Blonde / Brown
3) Day/Night: Night, but it depends.
4) Summer/Winter: Summer!! Bring on the sun!
5) Fave Films: Lord of the Rings!
6) Fave Ice Cream: Chocolate chip cookie dough.

RIGHT NOW, WHAT ARE YOU
1) Wearing: Do, I have to say?....my work uniform - tan pants and a white MARSH polo with a blue MARSH sweatshirt on top.
2) Thinking about: Just that I should be going to bed soon, I have a short night before I have to be at work.
3) Listening to: Lord of the Rings soundtrack, but iTunes is on random...

IN THE LAST 24 HRS, HAVE YOU
1) cried: No
2) ate: Absolutely!
3) slept: Yes, thankfully!
3) Cleaned your room: No, but as a whole, my room doesn't need cleaning up.
4) Done laundry: Nope.
5) Driven a car: Yes.

DO YOU BELIEVE IN
1) Yourself: Uh, I guess so.
2) Friends: Sure.
3) Santa Claus: No, never did either.
4) Destiny/Fate: No, I believe on the providence of God.
5) Angels: Yes!
6) Ghosts: No!

Ok, so that was a little longer than I thought it would be, and no, you don't have to do this on your site too. :-)
Off to bed...
~Brian~

Leaves, class and cake!

2004-11-06T23:48:00.000-05:00

This morning I got up at about 10. Johanna, Sterling and I went over to the Chabs (elderly neighbor) for 2 hours raking up leaves and bagging them up. We raked almost the whole back yard and part of the front, ending up with about 22 garbage bags full of leaves! When I got home, I took a quick shower then Kevin and I were off to History class. At class, Dr. Blackwood gave a lecture about the 7 cities in Revelation and then gave an overview of the Gospel(s). While we were there, a really nice lady who is also taking the class, gave us some of the best chili or soup (it was even better because I didn't get a chance to eat breakfast or lunch)!
When we got home, I cut Sterling and Adriel’s hair (only the 2^nd time in my life to cut someone’s hair!) and then Mom cut mine. I'm sooo glad my hair is finally short again - the way i like it. It's so much easier! :-)
After a quick shower (to get the hair off - no I don't make a habit of taking 2 showers in a day), we finally got to eat dinner at 8 pm! We were doing my birthday for dinner (yay! that means I get to pick what we have!). We had "pounded chicken", brussel sprouts, and spinach salad, oh, can’t forget the cake and Ice cream! I got a couple books and some money from my Grandparents (thank you so much!), and Michael gave me a pitch key!
Afterwards, I was finally was able to check my email - it's been 2 days since the Internet stopped working - and read blogs and update mine!
So I'm off to bed now!

~Brian~

P.S. I really don’t feel any older, but I guess I am!

Yay! I'm 20! Now what?

2004-11-05T23:58:00.000-05:00

I have this weird feeling, you really don't feel any older, but yet, you are. I'm no longer a teenager and well, It's kinda cool to look back over my "long" life and see how God has brought me from where I was, all the way to where I am now! Be that through Church, Friends, Sabbath School, Teachers, 8 mission trips, and well there's so many more things in my life that make me who I am now, but it's ALL because of GOD! Praise the Lord!
For my birthday, we really didn't do anything because I worked from 8 am - 4:30 (at least I was supposed to be there at 8! I accidently slept in and didn't get there till 10!) I don't know why I worked on my birthday, but oh well, I need as many hours as I can get. After work, I came home for a little while before going to the Bright's house for a CYA (Covenanter Young Adult - College age) activity. We watched a movie called "Amadaeus" about Mozart. The main point of the movie is that this other composer who lived at the same time, didn't like Mozart because God had given Mozart more tallent than he received. Basically what it comes down to is the other guy is fighting against God, who is represented in Mozart, and in the end he looses (duh). I had invited Jaci from work, and I'm really glad she was able to make it, and she enjoyed it and said she's interested in coming to future CYA events too. :-) I finally got home about midnight and went to bed!

Pray for: Jaci and her family -- going to CA for a wedding this weekend, please pray for safety and a good time. Me -- that I would live this next year to God's glory in all I do. Josh -- Continued healing for his ankle.

I get the feeling i'm tired....

2004-11-04T23:53:00.000-05:00

Ok, so procrastination does not pay off!
I got up at about 10am on Wednessday, and did some school stuff and worked at MARSH from 2-10pm. Once i got home I set out to finish all the assignments due for Mr. Pulliam's writing class Thurday morning at 11am. I had 3 fairly large papers to write (2 500 word papers, and 7 journals that equaled about 2000 words) on top of that i had to read the book i was supposed to write one of the reports on. The result was that i got to sleep for about 45 minutes before class! after class, I cleaned Mr. Chab's (elderly couple that is a neighbor of mine) gutters and then i went in to work at 330. I worked untill about 10pm and i'm finally home and I think I'm going to go to bed and get some sleep! Being up for 40 hours straight is not exactly good for your wellbeing!!

~Brian~

PS Being tired doesn't help my type or spell any better either! Sorry for the typos!

Lunch, elections....

2004-11-03T23:30:00.000-05:00

Ok, so after all your wonderful suggestions, I decided to go to Carabbas (Italian restraunt) but it didn't open till 4 p.m. So instead we went to Maccaroni Grill (also Italian) that was right across the street. The food was really good! Since it was my "birthday" they gave me this really good huge piece of chocolate cake with chocolate iceing, it was delicious! On the way home from lunch, we stopped at the place for me to vote. I did my duty and came home. Thanks Grandma and Grandpa!
For the rest of the day, I watched the results of the election as they started to come in. Finally at about 1:30 am, I found out that Bush was almost guaranteed to win, so then I could go to bed in peace!! Not only did BUSH win, but Daniels won the governor's race too! Now the US House, Senate and President are Republican, as are the Indiana House, Senate and Governor!! It's wonderful news!
I have so much stuff to finish for writing class on Thursday, so I better stop there! :)

~Brian~

PS Happy 18th Birthday Anjali - since you couldn't vote, probably the one biggest present you could get is that BUSH and DANIELS won the election, even though you couldn't vote! :-)

Where to?

2004-11-01T16:49:00.000-05:00

Ok, my birthday is on Friday and my grandparents are going to take me out to lunch. (this is something they have done with my family for a really long time for our birthdays) I can go anywhere I want within reason. I have no idea where to go though!

So, does anyone have any suggestions?
Some place with good food would be ideal. :)

That's scary weird

2004-11-01T16:44:00.000-05:00

I was just checking my blog here really quick to see if there were any new comments, and I checked the counter and it was at 911.
Isn't it weird how as a result of "something", just seeing those numbers sends shivers up your spine?

Recital, hayride...

2004-10-31T23:41:00.000-05:00

All right, I don't have too much time, but I'm going to post anyway. :)

The piano recital that I had yesterday went great, even though I stumbled a little bit in the middle part, I was amazingly able to keep going! Even with that mess up, that was probably one of the best times I've played that piece - Chopin Waltz in D flat, Op. 64 #1.

After the recital, we (my family, Jaclyn Ames - friend from work and neighbor, and I) came home and got ready for our church hayride. When we got to the farm that was holding the hayride, we were just in time for dinner. After a nice meal, we sat by the fire and talked for a while until there was space on a hay wagon. After going on two wonderful rides, we decided that was enough. Since it was somewhat cold out, we figured one good way to warm up was to play some games. We played link tag, sharks and minnows, and cat and mouse. Well that was about the end of that and poeple started going home. There was a homeschool family that we know that was there and after talking to them for about a half an hour, we came home.
I had a lot of fun and I'm especially thankful that the Koss family was willing to host it!

Driving

2004-10-28T17:35:00.000-05:00

OK, since you all started the debate, what are your opinions about driving and avoiding getting cought by the cops?
Do you drive the speed limit?
Do you go as fast as you want and slow down when you see a cop?
Do you get caught and just manage to make it out with only a warning?
What about radar dectors?

So, what are the differing opinions?

Also, though it's hard to believe, I only need 150 more hits to my blog and I'll have a thousand since September 10! Amazing!

Annother interesting fact, I'll be 20 a week from tomorrow!!

A cool thing that my brother found

2004-10-27T13:47:00.000-05:00

Well it's a website/plugin for iTunes so that what you play gets posted to the web, it's kind cool. The home page of the site is here.
My page that shows what I've played is here.

Let me know what you think, I think its really cool!
I'd tell you more about it, but I have to go to work.
~later

I don't have much to say....

2004-10-24T15:50:00.000-05:00

Hm, I guess I'll start with what I did yesterday.
I somehow managed to sleep in until about noon, when I got up, and madly got ready to go. I showered, ate breakfast/lunch, packed a dinner, and got all my stuff ready for class this afternoon and work tonight.
At class (Ancient Church History) Mr. Pulliam gave a really neat presentation about the kings of Judah in the Old Testament times. They are great examples and can be redily compared to the people in politics today. Their lives have a lot of ideas and examples that we would be ashamed to admit we don't do. That was a great challenge to me and I'm very glad he shared. For the next hour or so, Mr. Calkins gave an overview of how to do research on the internet for information needed for biographies, reports etc. Since I'm by no means computer iliterate, I followed him all the way through. After class, I got in the car and drove to work. Somehow I managed to drive a standard transmission and eat at the same time. It wasn't easly done. :-)
I worked from 6-10 p.m. and as always on a Saturday night, it was slow. I hate it when it's slow, especially when I'm working as a cashier. There's nothing to do and you can't go home, so you kind of just stand around and wait for customers. Oh, and the time drags on and on and on.... If it's busy, the time flys by, and in no time, it's time to go home! Oh well!

Today, we had an interesting run-in with the authorities on the way to church.... Dad was driving, there's this big hill we drive down, and there was a "friendly" trooper sitting right at the bottom. He clocked us at 62 in a 45 mph zone. Yes, we were speeding, but comon! We were going downhill, in a 12 passenger van, and no sooner do you go down, then you have to go back up the other side, so you would slow down then... Oh well, at least I wasn't driving! (But if I was, I wouldn't have been going 62 either.)
The sermon by James Faris was great. He began a new series on Mark, starting with chapter 1 (duh) and he explained the basics of the book, for example: Mark focuses on 2 main questions throughout the whole book: Who is Jesus? What did he come to do? He also talked about how John the Baptist was sent to proclaim the comming of Jesus Christ.
Well I gotta go to choir practice...so I guess I'll stop there.