Fair Haven Camps

Well, it's been a long time since I've updated this thing. I figured I would write a post at how I am working this summer at Fair Haven Camps in Maine. How did I end up here? Well, that's a long story, but in short, God brought me here. I didn't know anybody when I decided to come and I drove out here from Upper Michigan by myself. It's been quite the adventure being a counselor for teens. I enjoy it a lot, but of course there are many challenging times as well. I have had campers that have had ODD, ADHD, PTSD, Autism and other mental issues as well which all present some difficulties, but overall, it's been super rewarding.

Currently, there is one week of camp left, and I have had 6 weeks done and I will be driving back shortly. I'm pretty excited to get back home, but I will definitely miss the many camp friends that I've made here with the other staff.

There is one main obstacle from me getting home right now and that is having a car that works. It is a really complicated issue that I won't try to explain here, but anyways, we're currently looking into what to do with it and it needs to be fixed in one week from now in such a way that it can make it back to Upper Michigan... so we have to make sure it is indeed fixed.

When I take the time to stop and think about it though, I realize that God is in control of everything and that I don't have to worry about it. I know that whatever happens, He will provide for all of my needs and I will praise Him no matter what happens. So many times in life, trials come and things don't go as we plan them, but time and time again, God brings me through them all while I grow in His likeness.

Hopefully I will get posting on a more regular basis again, but I don't find much time. At camp here, we only get to use laptops on the weekends and our hour off, but I use my hour off to sleep or call people on my cell phone, so my laptop is only used on the weekends where I catch up on my email and facebook checking etc.

God's Amazing Provision in Trials

The following I copied and pasted with a conversation I had with a friend over Skype. It's a really cool story of how God worked in amazing ways last night when a typical trip to Hungarian falls turned into a real adventure indeed. Sorry for all the awkward formatting with time stamps.


cookingdoggy(cookingdoggy is me):So last night a bunch of my Cru friends wanted to go to a series of waterfalls up here... it's really cool and picturesque
[4:45:55 PM] cookingdoggy: however you spell that
[4:45:59 PM] cookingdoggy: it's call hungarian falls
[4:46:24 PM] cookingdoggy: anyways, I had to go to the evening service at my church and I did and right when church was out, my cru friends left to go to the falls
[4:46:36 PM] cookingdoggy: (they don't go to my church and don't go to any other evening services so they weren't with me)
[4:46:57 PM] cookingdoggy: and so I invited my high school friends at my church to go too, only they had to eat first which took a while and then they said they would come
[4:47:12 PM] cookingdoggy: we finally head out about half an hour later than the others or even longer than that...
[4:47:24 PM] cookingdoggy: and my high school friends went in 2 vehicles
[4:47:54 PM] cookingdoggy: one group went first (my car), and the other group were gonna go pick up some other friends and meet us there
[4:48:13 PM] cookingdoggy: well on the road to the waterfalls, there are two turn-offs, one with a gate and one without
[4:48:18 PM] Timothy Wallace begin_of_the_skype_highlighting     end_of_the_skype_highlighting: ok
[4:48:34 PM] cookingdoggy: and so I went up the the usual crusade one that apparently my high school friends didn't know about
[4:48:43 PM] cookingdoggy: with a couple of my highschool friends in my car
[4:48:54 PM] cookingdoggy: then we waited a bit but didn't see them so we didn't know where they went
[4:49:06 PM] cookingdoggy: we decided to finally get out and walk down the trail a bit
[4:49:24 PM] cookingdoggy: now this is going to be hard to keep track of the rest of this until you have a good sense of what it looks like
[4:49:31 PM] Timothy Wallace: ok lol
[4:49:46 PM] cookingdoggy: so the main road is sorta parallel to the the waterfall/river but a distance a way from it
[4:50:00 PM] cookingdoggy: we were at the north entrance and walked west towards the waterfall
[4:50:07 PM] Timothy Wallace: ok
[4:50:44 PM] cookingdoggy: once we finally just about got to the water, there was a fork in the road and my friends who were with me didn't want the others to get lost so they turned around RIGHT before we got to my cru friends where they were
[4:50:58 PM] cookingdoggy: I was like... "They're right here, why don't you meet them first"
[4:51:10 PM] cookingdoggy: but they wouldn't, and I guess that was ok
[4:51:20 PM] cookingdoggy: so they went back towards the car to see if they showed up there yet
[4:51:32 PM] cookingdoggy: meanwhile, there was a further north waterfall that my friend wanted to show me
[4:51:46 PM] cookingdoggy: so I went with him and saw it and it was sweet...
[4:52:10 PM] cookingdoggy: then i went back and looked for my friends but they weren't there at the car so I figured they walked along the road towards the other entrance to find them
[4:52:18 PM] cookingdoggy: so I walked back towards the river to find them
[4:52:21 PM] Timothy Wallace: lol
[4:52:41 PM] cookingdoggy: oh wait... right before I ran to the car, I walked south a bit and found the rest of the cru friends again
[4:52:48 PM] Timothy Wallace: ok
[4:52:53 PM] cookingdoggy: so I ran to my car and then ran back figuring I'd me them as they hiked up the waterfall
[4:53:03 PM] cookingdoggy: or... along side it
[4:53:08 PM] Timothy Wallace: right
[4:53:24 PM] cookingdoggy: well, I did meet them right where I thought I would... my whole high school group, but then all the cru people were gone
[4:53:26 PM] cookingdoggy: i was like... what?
[4:53:29 PM] cookingdoggy: haha
[4:53:45 PM] cookingdoggy: then I went exploring around with my high school friends a bit and showed them some of the cool places
[4:53:52 PM] cookingdoggy: and it was getting darker
[4:54:10 PM] cookingdoggy: at one point, I saw a couple of cru friends seperated from the rest and asked them where everyone else was
[4:54:33 PM] cookingdoggy: they told me that one of my friends named Cory took a slip and slid like 30 feet down a steep hill and tumbled down
[4:54:41 PM] cookingdoggy: he got hurt pretty bad and his arm was fractured
[4:54:53 PM] cookingdoggy: so they told me the rest headed back to the hospital and they were heading out
[4:55:28 PM] cookingdoggy: well, I figured I'd head back and finish up with my high school friends and we got back to my car right when it was getting really dark
[4:55:49 PM] cookingdoggy: I decided that I would drive alongside my other friends as they walked down the road south to where they parked their cars
[4:55:53 PM] cookingdoggy: got everything so far?
[4:56:03 PM] Timothy Wallace: yes
[4:56:04 PM] cookingdoggy: ok
[4:56:19 PM] cookingdoggy: so when I got back to my car, I noted that one of the crusade vehicles was still there and I thought they had all left
[4:56:36 PM] cookingdoggy: well anyways, we got to the other entrance towards the waterfall and got to my friends car
[4:56:47 PM] Timothy Wallace: ok...the high school friend
[4:56:52 PM] cookingdoggy: yeah
[4:56:57 PM] cookingdoggy: i was with my high school friends still
[4:57:02 PM] Timothy Wallace: right
[4:57:03 PM] cookingdoggy: i was "escorting them to their car"
[4:57:25 PM] cookingdoggy: and we got there... but yet another one of my high school friends apparently showed up and must have been looking for us somewhere
[4:57:34 PM] cookingdoggy: so we waited a little bit and started calling him
[4:57:38 PM] Timothy Wallace: ok
[4:57:39 PM] cookingdoggy: his name was Justin
[4:57:54 PM] cookingdoggy: we called out "JUSTIN" really loud and we heard a girl respond
[4:58:10 PM] cookingdoggy: there was another girl and guy there and the guy's name was Justin but it wasn't the right Justin
[4:58:11 PM] cookingdoggy: haha
[4:58:16 PM] Timothy Wallace: lol
[4:58:51 PM] cookingdoggy: but as I was looking for my high school friend Justin, and it was dark at this point... my Cru friend Joe showed up running around and I thought they had left at that point
[4:59:15 PM] cookingdoggy: aparently, this whole time, my friend Cory that got hurt was still on the side of the hill and they were helping him out the best they could when he broke his arm
[4:59:15 PM] Timothy Wallace: lol ok
[4:59:38 PM] Timothy Wallace: so they hadn't left for the hospital yet like the other group thought?
[4:59:45 PM] cookingdoggy: yeah
[5:00:05 PM] cookingdoggy: so then I told my high school friends that I was gonna run up the path north up the waterfall/river
[5:00:33 PM] cookingdoggy: and that I would be back in a couple of minutes
[5:00:42 PM] cookingdoggy: i followed Joe along this trail to see what was going on
[5:00:48 PM | Edited 5:01:15 PM] Timothy Wallace: okok
[5:01:10 PM] cookingdoggy: I got way down the trail and another Cru friend named Andy was looking for a backpack that fell down a cliff that had a camera and a rope in it in the river but he couldn't see because it was dark
[5:01:23 PM] cookingdoggy: well I had a little keychain flashlight LED thingy and I used that to help him out
[5:01:30 PM] cookingdoggy: meanwhile, I heard the other guys helping out Cory
[5:01:48 PM] cookingdoggy: and I decided to try to crawl up the hill to see if I could help them out with some light
[5:02:05 PM] cookingdoggy: we left the bag for the night and they went and found it today...
[5:02:36 PM] cookingdoggy: anyways, so as I was climbing up this really steep hill I found myself on this little patch of dirt that was giving way and there were no trees to grab onto
[5:02:49 PM] cookingdoggy: as I started to fall down the hill
[5:02:58 PM] Timothy Wallace: oh boy
[5:03:17 PM] cookingdoggy: and then I kinda ran into a tree, but wasn't going to fast so I was fine at that point
[5:03:35 PM] cookingdoggy: it was really muddy as it has rained recently but there were leaves on top so it was deceiving
[5:04:20 PM] cookingdoggy: so anyways, I finally found the path that I had been on which was really close to the water at the bottom of the hill and finally found where Cory was
[5:04:47 PM] cookingdoggy: they asked me to find the trail i took to get there because it was easier to get Cory down the hill to that trail rather than going up the hill any farther
[5:04:59 PM] Timothy Wallace: right
[5:05:01 PM] cookingdoggy: so by using ropes and my flashlight, they were able to get down through much difficulty
[5:05:11 PM] cookingdoggy: there were like 5 other guys there too
[5:05:26 PM] cookingdoggy: but one guy's flashlight died and the only other one they had was really dim
[5:05:39 PM] cookingdoggy: so they couldn't see anything without my little LED keychain which was surprisingly bright
[5:05:49 PM] Timothy Wallace: yea they are
[5:06:16 PM] cookingdoggy: and we got down to the path to walk like the quarter mile back along the river South towards my car using my light as a guide
[5:06:24 PM] cookingdoggy: which is like the only good light they had
[5:06:32 PM] cookingdoggy: going very slowly cuz Cory was in pain
[5:06:32 PM] Timothy Wallace: cool
[5:06:40 PM] Timothy Wallace: was he walking?
[5:06:45 PM] Timothy Wallace: or did he hurt his leg too/
[5:06:54 PM] cookingdoggy: his legs were ok which was good
[5:06:56 PM] cookingdoggy: so he was walking
[5:06:58 PM] Timothy Wallace: yea
[5:07:11 PM] cookingdoggy: so I didn't know about that trail either until I used it to find them
[5:07:34 PM] cookingdoggy: we FINALLY made it back to my car and all my high school friends had left as it took like half an hour or more to get back
[5:07:44 PM] cookingdoggy: My car was ready to take Cory to the hospital
[5:07:48 PM] cookingdoggy: and his Mom was up for mothers day
[5:07:57 PM] cookingdoggy: but there is no cell phone signal out at that waterfall
[5:07:57 PM] Timothy Wallace: ha so everyone left in the other car?
[5:08:16 PM] cookingdoggy: well another guy ran to get his other car which was farther away and took the rest of them that couldn't fit into my car
[5:08:25 PM] Timothy Wallace: oh ok
[5:08:33 PM] cookingdoggy: but it was good my car was there so Cory wouldn't have to go any farther
[5:08:37 PM] Timothy Wallace: yeah
[5:08:45 PM] cookingdoggy: and it was good my high school friends left so I would have room for more people
[5:08:51 PM] Timothy Wallace: haha true
[5:09:06 PM] cookingdoggy: we got him to the hospital and finally to a good cell phone spot so he could call his mom
[5:09:09 PM] cookingdoggy: and she met us up there
[5:09:28 PM] cookingdoggy: then he got a cat scan cuz he bumped his head and an x-ray, so it took a while and we left while his mom stayed
[5:09:49 PM] Timothy Wallace: sounds like a crazy night haha
[5:09:51 PM] cookingdoggy: so that yesterday evening for me... but here's the cool part...:
[5:10:23 PM] cookingdoggy: I didn't know about that lower entrance to the waterfall and never would have parked my car there if it wasn't for my high school friends going there with me and that trail would have been unknown to all of us
[5:10:35 PM] cookingdoggy: and they wouldn't have had my keychain light either
[5:10:40 PM] Timothy Wallace: yeah
[5:10:42 PM] Timothy Wallace: hero! haha
[5:10:48 PM] cookingdoggy: so God put me exactly where everything would work out great!
[5:10:57 PM] cookingdoggy: it's really unbelievable how it all worked out
[5:11:05 PM] Timothy Wallace: yeah
[5:11:08 PM] Timothy Wallace: it's cool though
[5:11:17 PM] cookingdoggy: definitely!
[5:11:20 PM] Timothy Wallace: he's got it under control
[5:11:27 PM] cookingdoggy: that He does
[5:11:36 PM] cookingdoggy: now you can see why I kinda wanted to tell you over the phone
[5:11:45 PM] cookingdoggy: cuz it's a long story with a lot of details
[5:11:49 PM] cookingdoggy: but i think i covered it all
[5:12:20 PM] Timothy Wallace: sweet
[5:12:25 PM] Timothy Wallace: well thanks for typing it all out haha
[5:12:30 PM] cookingdoggy: and we just found out while I was telling you this story that he only fractured his arm in a couple of places but the rest of his body is fine other than a few bumps and bruises
[5:12:34 PM] Timothy Wallace: now copy and paste it for the next person so you don' thave to retype haha
[5:12:47 PM] cookingdoggy: haha, i wish I wrote that in a blog
[5:12:53 PM] cookingdoggy: maybe I will eventually


... and I did and that is what you just read. How cool is it that God works through things so well and we so often worry about circumstances out of our control. When things are out of our control, they are in God's control and we have nothing to worry about.

Finals Week and More

It is finals week at Michigan Tech. I took one of my two so far and the next one is Wednesday at 8 AM. Once exams are done, because I will be going on Summer Project, I can't get a job for the 3 weeks of summer that I will be in the UP of Michigan. I need to be down in North Myrtle Beach, South Carolina on May 26th and will be carpooling with people from all over and we're meeting at the twin cities. I just have a huge gap in between now and then.

Now it's a matter of figuring what I'm going to do in this gap. I definitely want to take some more time to read a few books I've been wanting to read and I hope to finish the New Testament in that time. I am currently in 2 Timothy on my read through. I want to prepare for what God is planning for my life through Summer Project.

One way in which I started preparing this morning is through listening to a sermon by Alistair Begg. (If you have the time, I highly recommend you listen to that sermon that I linked to). He is my favorite preacher and I have many of his sermons on my Zune. The one I chose to listen to, or rather, the one God brought to my attention through the random shuffle on my Zune was one I had heard before, but I remember it being really good so I wanted to listen to it again. He talked about the necessity of weakness and how God chooses to work through weakness. The Bible teaches that God's power is made perfect in weakness and when we are weak, then we are strong. Conversely, when we are strong, we are actually weak. He specifically brought up the story of Gideon and the Midianites in Judges 7. In Judges 7, Gideon's army starts out with 32,000 men. At this point, they are probably looking at the enemies great numbers (like locusts in abundance who had camels without number) and thinking that 32,000 isn't even enough.

So what does God do? God says that they had too many people to fight. What?! Too many people? Should it surprise us that God does thing different than we do them? Isaiah 55:9 says: "For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts." We don't understand why God does things the way he does, but we do know that "[...] for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose." - Romans 8:28. Because we know these things, we can have peace that God is in control and has a great plan for our lives.

So getting back to the story of Gideon, God ends up narrowing the 10,000 who stayed down to 300. Many people try to teach Sunday school lessons on why God did what He did the way He did it. They say that we should be the people who were lapping as opposed to the people who were kneeling down because those are the one's God chose. Then they go on to try to draw parallels and hidden meanings that simply aren't in the text and they miss the whole point. God was not narrowing down the number to only those who were most adequate for the job or who were most prepared. Rather, God was simply using their method of drinking water to reduce the number way down to 300. Now Gideon had 300 people to fight a very large army whose number of camels alone were comparable the number of grains of sand, in other words: a lot! Why did God do this? The very simple answer is that God worked through this situation with a man who was weak. Gideon could not have defeated to Midianites on his own with the army he had. Rather, it was 100% of God delivering them and turning the army against itself in great fear. God lowered the numbers of his army so that no one could say it was anything that Gideon did. It was only by the power of God that they were saved. Does that sound familiar? This points to the New Testament to Ephesians 2:8-9 which says: "For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast." It is God alone who saves and God works through our weakness.

If you are not convinced of this yet and want it more explicitly stated, the Bible has that covered in 2 Corinthians 12:9: "But he said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.' Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me."

God doesn't need you to have great credentials in order to serve him effectively. Rather, he desires obedience and a willingness to be used by Him with the power of the Holy Spirit to do His will and that will bring more joy that anything you could possibly imagine. Seeing God work through you is far better than anything else.

So often I find myself taken up with our culture which has nothing to look forward to. In order to remedy this, we've created things like TV, and movies. Have you ever watched TV for any period of time where they didn't say: Coming up at 6, this amazing story, or "Next week, final episode of...". The point is that our world is looking for satisfaction in constantly looking forward to the next big thing.

As Christians, we have eternity with God in Heaven to look forward to! Why do we waste so much time doing what our culture tells us when the Bible is so clear on how to spend our time? Our world is jumping from one pleasure to the next trying to get the most out of it. We are incapable of doing any good on our own and if it were not for the Grace of God, I would be in a hopeless state as that so I praise God for all the ways He has been working in my life, using me in my completely inadequate state to accomplish his ultimate purpose of bringing glory to Himself which is where it all belongs.

This is all Summarized in I John 2:15-17:
"Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world— the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride in possessions—is not from the Father but is from the world. And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever."

I want to close with I Corinthians 10:23: Do All to the Glory of God. “All things are lawful,” but not all things are helpful. “All things are lawful,” but not all things build up.

True Joy and satisfaction in life come from God and God alone. That doesn't meant that we won't have problems, but God will carry us through them if we yield to Him. The true joy that surpasses all understanding is not dependent on circumstances, but rather on the Truth of God we have access to through Christ Jesus!

I Agree with John

I wrote the following paper for my creative writing class. It's all about our I Agree with John outreach on campus this year. Maybe you'll want to read through it.

---

I am very involved in Campus Crusade for Christ on Michigan Tech’s Campus. This year we were thinking of a big outreach to do on campus so we can share with others what we believe. Our focus in this outreach was not to try to say that we were right and others were wrong, but rather tell other people what we believe and invite them to look into it for themselves. I personally believe that nothing should be accepted or rejected until it’s looked into. If what I believe really is The Truth, then what would make me keep it from people? If there really is a heaven and a hell and believing what I believe means eternal life as opposed to eternal separation from God in torment, then keeping this to myself would be the worst thing I could do for anyone.

Having said that, I considered it a privilege to be able to help think of a possible outreach to do so we could effectively share what we believe and give others the opportunity to hear it. I believe the Bible where it says: “Do nothing from rivalry or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.” – Philippians 2:3-4. This just more adequately reflects why I would want to share with others what I believe because I believe it is in their best interest to know what the truth is.

In coming up with the idea, someone had mentioned that in the past, they did sort of a viral advertising event called “I Agree with Dan” about 4 or 5 years ago. It had a big turnout so we started to talk about what it was and how we could change it a bit and be more effective with it. The premise was that there would be a speaker named Dan who would share what the gospel was and the point was to try to advertise using simple free methods on campus.
Thus, “I Agree with John” is what we came up with this year. The actual event was a presentation of who John was and what he said. We were referring to the Gospel of John in the Bible. John knew Jesus best and made plenty of radical claims about His life. He wrote a first-hand eye-witness account of Jesus’ life. We would be having a speaker come up who would effectively present who Jesus was by going through some things that John said about Him. Before the main speaker, we had a couple people share their personal testimonies about how Jesus made a difference in their lives and how before they gave their life to Christ, they found no purpose in life and really messed it up a lot. In fact, one of them was an atheist and the other almost died after getting into drug use and getting mixed with the wrong crowd. Then the main speaker presented the gospel that made such a radical difference in the lives of the first couple of people. Then we opened it up for questions for everyone who was attending the event and had a discussion panel that would try to answer them best. There were definitely some tough questions that were asked that require some faith to believe in rather than things that have definite answers, but they don’t call Christianity a faith for nothing. Evolution is a faith in itself. You must have faith that somehow something started from nothing and just happened to turn into everything that we see today.

Leading up to the actual event, we did plenty of advertising for it. We started the first day by writing “I Agree with John” on the sidewalks and then labeling it with CCC which stand for Campus Crusade for Christ. It didn’t take very long for people to respond with chalking of their own. Many different things started showing up like, “I agree with Darwin” and random things like “I agree with Boyle’s law”. This was a good thing though. People were noticing it and everyone was talking about it and was wondering who John was. Then most people in Campus Crusade for Christ bought T-shirts. These shirts said: “I Agree with John” on them and then repeated it on the back in fifteen different languages. We also setup tables by all the dining halls and in a couple of halls in classroom buildings. People who had the special lime green shirts on sat at the tables with a sign. Anyone who was wondering about what “I Agree with John” was all about could go up to anyone with a shirt on and ask about it. We also actively pursued people about it. For anyone who had a shirt on who wasn’t at a table, it gave them an opportunity to share with others what we were doing. We had the Gospel of John in booklet form with an invitation insert on the inside for the event and encouraged them to look into it for themselves before they accept or reject what we were saying.

We challenged people to read a chapter a day in the Gospel of John until they were done. There are 21 chapters so we called it the 21 day challenge. We passed out hundreds of them all around campus to people.

I found the weather to be interesting. I had never seen it so warm in April ever before that early on. I had been praying for good weather, a mild winter and a short one and that’s what we got. The warmest days of the year up to that point coincided with the days we chose to wear the t-shirts on so we wouldn’t have to cover them up with a jacket. I can’t help but praise God for working through this ministry.

In my institutions class, the teacher really had no idea what this “I Agree with John” stuff was all about. He asked a girl I knew in our class who had the shirt on if she would share with the class, so she got to present the gospel briefly to the entire class.

Organizing and putting on this event is something that was really important to Campus Crusade for Christ on Michigan Tech’s campus. It is one of many ways to fulfill the Great Commission which is to spread the gospel to the entire world. As Christians, our view is that it is our job to be obedient to God and step out in faith in the power of the Holy Spirit who is living in all believers. God is the one who changes the individual, not us, which gives us peace.

In order to put why we do this into perspective, I am going to give an illustration. Let’s say that you are standing in a road. If I believed beyond a shadow of a doubt that a truck was coming to hit you, and you didn’t believe it, there comes a point where I would come and tackle you out of the way to save your life. With Christianity, I believe beyond a shadow of a doubt that there is a God and there is a real Heaven and a real Hell. We are convinced of that and all we are trying to do is point others to what believe is the truth. How much would a person have to hate someone in order to see that “truck” coming at them and do nothing about it? The subject of eternal life is so much more important than our short lives here on earth if eternal life really is the truth. We are out sharing what we believe because we love people and care for people.

“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” – John 13:34-35. Many people who call themselves Christian spend so much time trying to be right and trying to win arguments that they forget our greatest command to love. Biblical love is different than the way our culture usually defines it. Real love is self-sacrificing, patient, kind, and it never fails. More can be read about love in I Corinthians chapter 13, but love really is dying to yourself and putting others interests first.

Would it be easy to say nothing? Would it be easy to just do what the culture of the day says and just accept everything as being neutral? I believe saying nothing is the deepest hate you could have for someone if you believe you have the key to their escape from a hopeless life wondering what the purpose of it all really is. The whole reason I have for writing this paper is to share with you what I believe the truth is and to encourage you to look into it for yourself. Will you take the 21 day challenge?

Big Break '10 and more

Sorry it's been so long since I've written a blog. I just never really got around to writing one. I've been a little bit turned off to writing because I am supposed to be doing it every day as an assignment in my creative writing class. When I am not told to write, it is easier.

Anyways, so Big Break happened since my last post! This was my second year going and it was just as awesome as last year, but in different ways. On the way down, our 26 hour drive turned into a 30 hour drive because one of the vans we went down in broke down. We had two 12-passenger vans and one minivan. One of the 12-passenger's serpentine belt broke. It took a little over 3 hours to get it fixed. You know you're with a group of Christians when your van breaks down in Ozark Alabama, just a couple hours from our final destination, and people break out in praise songs in the parking lot. We were able to bond as a group before we got down there and I think it worked out really good. Plus, there was a Dollar Tree in that parking lot, so we got wiffle ball stuff and ate at the Arby's there right next to us.

Well, after many complications, we finally got down to Florida at night past registration, but it all worked out very well all things considered. This year at Big Break, we did Haiti Relief for those affected by the earthquakes. Over the 5 weeks of Big Break, their goal was to package up 1 million meals which feed 6 people each meal. Our week, we packaged up so many meals that they made us stop early so the other weeks would have some meals to package up too. We put together over 400,000 meals and the organizations we were partnered with said they had never seen so much work done in so little time. We shattered world records for most meals packaged per hour, but that's not the point. The point is that we were able to provide for those in Haiti and have fun while doing it. We also used it as an outreach opportunity, to go out on the beach and take some people onto the property that wanted to help and hopefully share the gospel with them.

I personally never found anybody to take in, but they said they would do it the next day with their friends. Later that evening, we talked as a group sharing about what God has been doing through us and our stories of sharing the gospel with people on the beach. I never had any amazing conversations at that point, and was a little frustrated, yet joyful that God was working. I just wanted to see some fruit for my labor. I told our group that for those in the same situation as me that it's not about how many people we see come to Christ, but about our obedience, and stepping out in faith. We leave the results to God because it is God who does the work. It simply wasn't their time yet, but perhaps they were moved closer to God and it got them thinking.

After our sharing time that night, I went out on "Commando Cru" which is what we call the optional evening outreach on the streets. Well a group of us from Michigan Tech went out to Sonic in the rain to see if anybody there would be willing to talk. We did talk to a couple of guys, but I wasn't as personally involved in those conversations. After we got back, it was like 1:30 in the morning and I wanted to go to sleep and it was cold and rainy, but then I noticed Alex Baril and Ryan Hess go up to someone and talk to them who was sitting by himself by a vending machine.

It turns out he was really open to talking with us. He had just broken up with his girlfriend a couple of weeks before then and she broke up with him and if it was up to him they still would have been together as they had been for multiple years. So, that was a rough time for him and his roommates were upstairs drunk getting in fist fights, so that's why he was down in the lobby at 1:30 in the morning. We began to share the gospel with him. He said he was Catholic, but hadn't gone to church in like 4 years because he was so busy with other things. He kept trying to convince us that he was a good person and he believed in works-based salvation. We shared with him that we weren't perfect at all and had messed up in many areas ourselves, and then he tried to tell us that by going out that late and talking to him, that we were good. We continued to tell him that we weren't good enough. We had all broken the 10 commandments and Romans 3:23 says that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God and Romans 6:23a says the wages of sin is death. So we all deserve eternal separation from the favorable presence of God. At this point he was really wondering where we were going with it and said Ephesians 2:8-9 that says it's by Grace that we're saved through faith and it's not of our own doing or good works so that no one can boast. It's through faith in Jesus and he began to light up when we shared with him that Jesus' death on the cross paid the penalty for our sins: 100% of it and nobody can come to God without him. We told him that if we believe that that is true and confess it with our mouths, that we are saved. We are redeemed, and have hope through Jesus Christ alone and that living a life for Him, because He bought us at a price, would give the most fulfilling life ever imaginable. That gap he had in his life created from the breakup of his girlfriend could be filled with God who will last forever!

He began to get really excited and couldn't believe we'd be out there that late to share this with him and he wanted our Knowing God Personally booklets to share with his friends which is a basic outline of what we had gone through. He called his roommate down so we could talk to him, but after explaining what happened up in the room, they had to get going. Once his roommate got down there though, he first told him, "These guys saved me!" Now it wasn't us, but rather God working through us to change his heart, but to hear him say that and seeing that he had changed was absolutely amazing and by far my favorite story from Big Break among many many others.

Right before he left, we asked him his name. We had never exchanged names yet. He said, "You guys know me better than any of my other friends, and you don't even know my name!" Then he said he was Tyler and we said our names. The things he said were so encouraging! Oh, one thing I almost forgot about... Tyler had gone the previous day to do some of the Haiti relief stuff and he said it made him feel better about himself. When we introduced ourselves as from Campus Crusade for Christ, he immediately identified us with those relief efforts, so God used that in his life to prepare him to hear what we would be sharing with him.


Ok, so Big Break was awesome, and if you want any more stories, you just talk to me some time and I'll share more. Moving onto plans for this summer. At Big Break and IndyCC this year, I was really encouraged to go on a Summer Project. I told myself that I didn't have the financial means to go on this trip so I just looked at it as something that would be impossible to happen. Then, I kept hearing that I should pursue one and decided to look into it and think about it a little bit more.

I realized that the money part should not stop me from going. If God was calling me to a Summer Project, then He will provide me with the money. After looking through them and all over on the website http://gosummerproject.com I felt God calling me to apply and see what he does with that. Well, I applied for a few different places and I plan to write another blog post on what happens with that, but more has to occur before it's interesting. I am definitely praying about it a lot!

Well, that's a brief update on a few of the things going on in my life recently and I hope to blog a little bit more often for those of you who actually read this. God Bless!

A poem for an Atheist

I am in a creative writing class this semester. My teacher is an atheist, but apparently has a decent amount of Biblical knowledge. I think he's been turned off by hypocrisy of the "Christians" he knew. He didn't see them emulating Christ as we should as Christians. We have to keep a writers journal of creative writing every day and he challenged us to write a limerick, a sonnet, among other poetry types.

Now poetry isn't really my preferred avenue of communication, at least not typical formal types, but I figured in all of these poems, I would try to put a Biblical focus on them so if he ever reads them, he'll at least be more exposed to God in some way. I was thinking back to a story of mine where God showed me the answer to one of my questions, and after about an hour, I was able to put the story a little bit into sonnet form.

By the way, the sonnet is referring to Luke chapter 12:22-34, so you should check that out. Here it is:

I wonder what it is that I should eat.
The cash I have is for gas on the road.
Should I pass on gas and walk on my feet,
or take a chance that my car might get towed?

I read my Bible and what should I find?
In the gospel of Luke, I saw the Light,
on the subject at hand, so intertwined,
my answer was stated, so clear and bright.

I then gave my worries to God above.
He will take care of me, Why should I fret?
My Lord who is Sovereign is Lord of Love.
In choosing to trust Him, there's no regret.

Lord, help me to serve you some way, I pray;
Make me your servant to someone today!


I don't know if he'll ever see this poem, but in doing the assignment, I got a chance to meditate on God and how we truly can trust Him. My friend Devin also just posted a blog about not worrying and trusting God, so it was really neat.

Lessons in Trusting God

On Monday, in both my cell group (small group Bible study type thing) and in men's leadership Bible Study, we talked about different goals we all had for the new year. In both I mentioned that I really wanted to trust God more with all aspects of my life. I know that God is in control, so essentially, I don't want to be worrying about things when they don't go the way I plan them.

Well today, today was quite a day. I really had to trust God and I was getting a little overwhelmed at times. I couldn't believe what was happening, yet God brought me though, I generally stayed calm and trust God with it anyways. I still have a long way to go. I was getting a little anxious at points.

So you're probably wondering what happened. Well it all started this morning when I was getting everything ready to go. I had to do all the usual morning routine things and then get all my snowboarding stuff in my car for my snowboarding class later in the day. Well, all that seemed to go pretty smoothly and I was driving down to Houghton to get to my 9 o'clock class wondering which parking lot I should attempt to get into. I was about a quarter of a mile away from the Quincy Mine area and all of a sudden my car started slowing down. The accelerator pedal wasn't doing anything. I wondered what was going on. Since I couldn't go any faster, I pulled off to the side of the road and turned off the car. As I was pulling off, my oil light went on. I didn't dare start the car again in fear that I would kill the engine if there was no oil in it.

I proceeded to make a couple of calls. On the second call, I decided to call Chris Morgan. He knows a thing or two about cars and his wife-to-be Erica lived really close to where I was. I called him and asked him what he was doing. He said he was just driving to class and then I told him why I asked. He was actually picking up Erica when I called. He was within like a minute of me. Then, he said he could come and pick me up, so he did. Oh, I forgot to mention that my cars hazard lights weren't working the last time I tried, so I fidgeted with the button and found out it actually could work, but then it shut off after a bit, so I had to pull it a certain direction. Anyways, so Chris comes and picks me up with Erica and then we dropped off Erica at her class. Christ didn't have anything he had to do for an hour, so we went to the gas station nearby and picked up 3 quarts of oil to bring back to my car and check it out. We thought maybe (since my car had just been worked on a few days before) that the oil filter fell off because they may have put on the wrong one. Well, we looked under the car after putting in the new oil and nothing was leaking, so I started the car. It seemed a little bit rough, but started getting back to normal.

So then right as a cop pulls up to find out what's going on, we pulled away and I was going to drive to the dealership that worked on my car recently. I got about half a mile down and my car started kicking a little bit, so I pulled off to the side of the road again and asked Chris was he thought. He was following me in his car. I then tried calling my dad again and this time he picked up. Now I thought that when my car was just fixed that they gave it an oil change too and my dad thought they were going to, but they did not. That explained why the oil might have been low. I thought there would have been nothing to worry about right after an oil change. I asked my dad what he thought and then he called the dealership and then called me and told me what he said. Then I called the dealership and he told me what my dad told me and we decided after running my car a bit more that it would probably be ok to drive it to the dealership in Hancock a few miles away. I told Chris he should go to his meeting at 10 he had, so he left. I knew if something went wrong I had other friends to call. Well, I made it to the dealership and explained things. They said they'd look at it and I called Nate Kroodsma and he picked me up.

I decided to put all my snowboarding stuff in his car in case my car wasn't done by the time the class rolled around. We drove to Tech and when I got there, I missed 2 of my classes. I knew God had a plan in it though, so I didn't bother worrying about it at this point. I emailed my instructors explaining what had happened and they were ok with it. Nate gave me his keys so I could get my snowboard out of the car later on.

Well, about 15 minutes before my class later on, my dad called and said the car was done. I asked him to go pay for it (I'll be paying them back), pick up the keys, and come back to Tech. Then after my class, I would go to him and pick up the keys and get a ride up to get my car from a friend.

Alright, I'm not even kidding. As I finally got some time to relax, just now, a fire alarm went off in Wads, so I had to stop writing, go and stand outside in the cold, and then walk back in. It's been a non-stopped day.

Alright, so to continue... I ended up getting a ride from my friend Jason King who was in my snowboarding class up to my car. I got up there and told him I would meet him at his apartment later on. I then realized I hadn't eaten yet and it was after 2 o'clock, so I went briefly to Taco Bell to grab a cheap bite to eat. Then I realized I needed to go to Walmart to buy a certain type of notebook for a class. I went up to Walmart and they were all out of what I needed. They had tons of the kind of notebook I was looking for the other day, but not what I needed this time. So, it was a wasted trip and time was running out to get ready for my snowboarding class. I then headed back to campus and when I was almost there, I realized I hadn't gotten my book I needed for an assignment in a class and if I didn't stop at the campus store right then, it would be closed after I was done with my class.

I then went to try to park near the store, but all the parking lots were filled. I was about to park in a spot that wasn't a normal spot which would give me a ticket, but I was literally running in and out to get the book. However, a public safety officer was right next to me handing out tickets, so I couldn't even park there. I was running out of time and decided I would just have to do without the book.

So, then I started heading over to my friends house to carpool to the ski hill for the snowboarding class. OOPS... I forgot to go to my friends car and actually put the snowboard in my car, so I headed back the way I just came, really tight for time at this point. On the way there, everyone in front of me was stopping for all the college students to cross the road when the cars have the right of way. Oh well, I knew I shouldn't worry about it. If I was late I was late. It happened on the way back too. I got to Nate K.'s car, transferred my snowboarding stuff to my car, and then went to my friends apartment, went inside, put on my snowboarding stuff and we left right away for the hill. We got there on time, it was a good snowboarding class and then I got back. I decided to come into the Campus Cafe so I could check my email and do some homework. I then decided to start writing this blog... then the fire alarm went off and I had to come back to finish it.

So, what does one make of all this. It was a non-stopped busy day where nothing that I wanted to happen, happened the way I wanted it. I spent all but 3 dollars in my wallet on oil that was supposed to go towards gas in my gas tank. I drove around all over. I missed 2 classes, and I haven't been able to sit and think all day.

Let's look at the flip side. After all that could have gone wrong, my car could have been toast having run out of oil, I could have missed snowboarding. I could have not had a cell phone and been stranded on the side of the road for a long time. I could have not had a ride up to my car after it was fixed, I could have had to spend a lot more money than the relatively small amount at the auto place and the oil.

All in all, was it a horrible day? Absolutely not. It was quite the adventure, I got to see my awesome friends give up some conveniences to help me out and go out of their way for it. I got to see what great friends I have, the cost was fairly small, I now know to be checking my car's oil more. My teachers told me it was fine I missed class with the reason I gave them and I got the assignments. I have another friend who is going to email me the assignment out of the book for my class that's due tomorrow. Can we trust God with everything? You bet. He knows everything that's going on. His plan is the best. I don't know what all He has in store for everything that happened, but I know Romans 8:28 which says:

"And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose."
-Romans 8:28

We don't always know right away what God is doing, but knowing that He is in control and has my best interest in mind, I can rest in that assurance. Praise God!

Romans chapter 5

Wow, it's been quite a while since I've posted on this blog. For a little bit I've found myself stuck in a sort of rut that I couldn't seem to get out of. I was wondering why I wasn't feeling a closeness to God that I had felt before. For one, I was dwelling on my sin and feeling hopeless and for another, I wasn't reading God's Word as though it was food I needed greater than physical food. I had no hunger for the Word, no thirst for that endless fountain of living water.

Recently, I have finished reading through all of the gospels and the book of Acts. Now I am reading through Romans. Today in particular, in fact just a few minutes ago, I read Romans chapter 5. If you want encouragement, Romans chapter 5 is a great place for it.

Before reading on any farther, I'd love it if you would read Romans chapter 5. It won't take too long. If you have no Bible near by, BibleGateway.com works great!

Now right off the bat, in verse one, you get some encouragement!

Romans 5:1 - "Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,"

Now a verse that starts with Therefore means that there was important information to keep in mind written beforehand. Lets look at verses 4:23-25:

Romans 4:23-25 - "Now not for [Abraham's] sake only was it written that it (being his Faith) was credited to him (as Righteousness), but for our sake also, to whom it will be credited, as those who believe in Him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead, He who was delivered over because of our transgressions, and was raised because of our justification.

I just love the added insight that that gives. The Bible wasn't originally written with the chapter breaks where they're at now, so sometimes people break into a chapter without realizing there is good info in surrounding text.

Now, I am not going to go verse by verse through the whole chapter, however, I would encourage you to look through it on your own and let the Holy Spirit speak to you in a way I never could. However, I do want to look at a few more. Verses 3-5 say:

Romans 5:3-5 - "And not only this, but we also exult in our tribulations, knowing that tribulation brings about perseverance; and perseverance, proven character; and proven character, hope; and hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.

So now, even the trials we go through should be looked at in a positive way knowing that it brings hope and hope doesn't disappoint.

Now I'm going to skip ahead to what really impacted me in a new way, even though I've heard it plenty of times. When I was younger, I used to wish that I could take the place of Adam in the garden and choose not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. I like to think that I would be able to resist that temptation. It seems so easy to point at Adam and say how horrible he is. Then I looked at Romans 5. When it talks about God's love being demonstrated towards us in Christ's death on the cross, which also brings us salvation, it also goes on to say in verse 17:

Romans 5:17 - "For if by the transgression of the one, death reigned through the one, much more those who receive the abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ.

and verse 19:

Romans 5:19 - "For as through the one man's disobedience the many were made sinners, even so through the obedience of the One the many will be made righteous."

As a born-again believer, I have been justified (God declared me righteous through the blood of Jesus) and am now free from sin. Whereas before being saved, all I could do was sin. I was totally depraved until the Holy Spirit of God began a work in me (which He will be faithful to complete!). This means I am no longer a slave to sin and can now live for God; so, going back to what I was talking about with Adam... I now have the righteousness he had before sin entered mankind. I am able to say no to temptation, yet do I? Sometimes. Not all the time. So essentially, I make the same mistakes. I sin just like Adam committed that first sin.

So why do I say all this. For one, I really want you to read through Romans chapter 5 and absorb the truth in it! It's rich! I also want to encourage you to evaluate where you stand with God right now. If you are not saved from the wrath of God by the blood of His son, Jesus, please talk to me about it sometime. Also pray to God that He will save you from your sins. For those reading who are saved, just look at your life and what you need to change to grow closer to God. Embrace the free gift of Grace and press on toward the prize!

I am certainly not perfect. I have my many flaws in many areas, but God's grace is greater still and I am free to live for Him, my Creator, Savior, and Lord of all. May God richly bless you as you pursue His Living Word!

Scriptural Application

This morning I was having a hard time keeping my mind on God and off of my sinful desires. Nobody ever said the Christian walk would be easy.

I have been having such a great past couple of weeks. The many many ways God has been working both through the lives of others and through my life have been indescribable and I'm going to try to stay away from mentioning them all to keep on task with the point I want to make.

With all the things God has been doing and how much I've been realizing it, I knew it was due to the time He has allowed me to spend in His Word. This morning in particular, I was struggling a lot keeping my mind pure, and I knew I had to dive into the Word, the Bible, and use it as intended in Ephesians 6. It talks about The Word of God being the sword of the spirit. A sword in battle is your weapon and also works defensively. It's the one piece in the armor of God that can be used as a weapon. I had to attack my feelings and longings of the flesh (my old sinful self), and I knew I could not do it on my own.

So I knew that the book of Second Peter had some relevant information in it for what I was going through in particular. I opened it up and started reading in chapter 1.

I CANNOT believe how completely relevant it was to my life. Almost every verse in that chapter stuck out to me in the current situation I was in. Let me start going through it a bit.

2 Peter 1:1-2 is more of an introduction, which has value and I encourage you to read it on your own to think about that. I read on to the next paragraph which is verses 3 and 4 which say:

3His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. 4Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature and escape the corruption in the world caused by evil desires.
- 2 Peter 1:3-4

So in verse 3, where it says "His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness...", that really emphasizes that it is not in my own power that I can overcome sin, it's through God's power. That is an encouraging start. Then in verse 4 it says we can escape the corruption in the world caused by evil desires. I like to read it backwards and say how do we do that? It is by His own glory and goodness through which He has given us his very great and precious promises which we have to stand on! This was awesome to me!

Now I want to look at verses 5-7:

5For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; 6and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; 7and to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, love.
- 2 Peter 1:5-7

This never stuck out to me so much as this time. For the reason of escaping the corruption in the world caused by evil desires, which I was having, it says make every effort to add to your faith goodness. Well, I have been trying to add to my faith goodness, and then from goodness, knowledge. I've been in the Word a LOT this week because God has really been working on me and may all the glory to go Him for it! The Bible is knowledge, so I've been adding to my faith knowledge and to my knowledge self-control. Now this past week, as a result of being in the Word and building up knowledge, I have become more self-controlled thanks to God. Now the hard part comes in. It says and to self-control, perseverance. Wow. Now I had just been talking to someone online about how perseverance is not something you learn overnight... in fact it's impossible to really learn it because you have to persevere to learn it and that takes time. It was at this point I realized I really needed to persevere. I needed to say no to the sinful desires I had and turn to God and count on Him to deliver me.

What comes after perseverance? It says "and to perseverance, godliness". I want my life to be characterized by godliness. I want the glory of God to shine through me and if I want that, I do not want to give into my sinful desires which takes away from perseverance which takes away from godliness. These all build on each other. After godliness, then brotherly kindness. I need to learn to persevere and grow closer to God so I can share Him with others and show my brothers kindness that comes from God that I could not have on my own. Finally, after brotherly kindness, comes love. God is love.

In my cell group tonight, we talked about how the world defines love and how the Bible defines love and they are very different. Everyone usually thinks of love as doing nice things for others or romantic love based on feelings. True love comes from God and God alone through Christ. God demonstrated His love toward us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Christ died for us. God's one and only Son, Jesus Christ died for us. He became the sin for us who knew no sin that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. It's all through Jesus that we have any hope. So this is how God shows us His love. We are called to love others as God loves us. Wow. Let that soak in for a second. True love is selfless, kind, does not envy, does not boast. True love is shown in a willingness to lay down your life for a friend.

So, to give into my sinful desires that might bring me brief fleeting temporary happiness but ultimately lead to destruction and emptiness, would bring me away from God who is love. Love never fails. It's in the Bible in I Corinthians 13 which I would highly encourage you to read on your own.

Let's go on to 2 Peter 1:8-9

8For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. 9But if anyone does not have them, he is nearsighted and blind, and has forgotten that he has been cleansed from his past sins.

A possession of the increased measure of the qualities talked about earlier will keep us from being ineffective and unproductive in our knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. I want to be effectual and productive for Christ, so I need to be putting off the old sinful desires and putting on the New self created to be like Jesus in true Righteousness and Holiness. Then it goes on to say in verse 9 that if anyone does not have them, he is nearsighted and blind. This is truth! If you want immediate pleasure now, then that shows nearsightedness. Sometimes I forget that I have been cleansed from my past sins. I need to look towards who God wants me to be and focus on the true joy I find in Him!

Now to move onto verses 10 and 11.

10Therefore, my brothers, be all the more eager to make your calling and election sure. For if you do these things, you will never fall, 11and you will receive a rich welcome into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
- 2 Peter 1:10-11

Therefore, in other words, because of what was previously said, we should be all the more eager to make sure of our calling and election. It is fully up to God to draw us to Him and I am so incredibly grateful He has called me. Then it says "for if you do these things, you will never fall." Well. I think that's pretty straight forward. If I focus on God, stay in the Word, learn to Love others through self-control and perseverance, then I will never fall. It's when I lack these things when I stumble.

Then comes verse 11. "and you will receive a rich welcome into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ." Wow! Look at what we have to look forward to. We can have an eternity of life in Christ praising God in Heaven and it will be a rich welcome. Now in light of this, do the sinful desires still seem worth it? I would say 100% not.

Please keep me in your prayers. Pray that I may continue to strive towards the prize, that being Christ Jesus, putting aside all my sinful desires and fully seek after God so I can be an effective witness of His return to call his children home!

The joy of my Salvation!

This weekend was up there as one of the best weekends of my life. Mike Baumgartner wanted to visit his home, but had no car. He lives in Iron River which is around a couple of hours away, and I personally wanted to go on a little road trip with someone and visit them at their home, so I told him I'd be willing to drive him home whatever weekend he wants as long as he wouldn't mind me staying there with their family over the weekend. Well, this weekend, he took me up on the offer so we went to visit his house and his family.

One thing I really like about Mike and Matt Baumgartner is their passion for God. We did some other things like ping pong, playing settlers and hiking around in their yard on the beautiful day outside, but most of the time, we were focused on God digging into his Word and just talking about Theology and about God in general. I really appreciate it and love it. I wish it would happen more around here at Tech. It's something I need to make an effort to do.

So, along with so much time with God and focusing on Him, their mom also made some REALLY good food, so I was well fed and I had Mike's bedroom to myself and I really felt at home and enjoyed the company of his whole family. Their dad also fixed the muffler on my car which was falling off, so it was awesome. I also got to help them out in the sense that I vacuumed a lot of their sanctuary at their church and it was a joy to help out after all they did for me.

Over this weekend, we also visited Matt and Mike's Sunday School teacher/church deacon's house to play settlers with him and talk to him about theology and God. His name is Nathan and he's a REALLY knowledgeable man in terms of Biblical knowledge, so to hear his insight on questions that Mike and Matt had was really good. I got a lot out of it and really enjoyed the fellowship.

In one of the mini-Bible studies we did with just Matt, Mike and me, we talked about what we would be discussing in Sunday School the next day to be prepared for it and to see what we could get out of it so we could provide some insight when we got there too. It was one of the coolest times in Bible study I've had in a long time and I got a lot of out of and I think these random Bible studies need to happen more.

So overall, my weekend was nothing short of amazing and God-filled and even the car ride talking with Mike both ways was sweet. When I got back to Houghton, I hung out with some people and then went to Vespers and then had a good talk with Titus on the way back to drop him off. When we got to McNair we were talking in the car about life and God and we talked for quite a while which I think both of us really enjoyed.

Then later when I finally got home which was already like 12:30, I ended up talking to my parents about my weekend. Usually I'm just so tired and it's so late that I just go to bed, but I wanted to talk about my weekend, so I did. Then for the first time in my life, I really talked about what God's been doing in my life in some detail and talked to my dad about different ways to interpret the Bible and what he believes, what our church believes and what I believe. I never talked about that before, but God's really been doing a work in my life, so I opened up to them and they really enjoyed talking to me since I usually pass by and go in my room and shut the door. I ended up talking to them until about 2 AM or so and had to quit because I had to wake up at 6:40 in the morning. I then looked at homework I had to do. The night had only just begun. So, I worked on my homework until about 3 AM when I finally got to bed, so I got about 3.5 hours of sleep last night.

Now this morning was quite a difficult morning with so little sleep, yet I knew it was good for me to have talked to my parents whether it was late or not and God helped me to get up and make it to class. Somehow I'm still pretty awake (coffee helps too...). When I went to get the coffee earlier on, I spend that time between classes to read the Bible and pray and it's awesome to see what God's been showing me in that hour every day.

Today, I read John chapters 11 and 12. Now in the Campus Crusade weekly email, they have a Bible verse and this week had an excerpt from John 11 and I thought it was really good and exciting to see the story of Lazerous. Luckily, I just "happened" to be there in my personal study. I'd been going through Luke and now I am going through John and they're amazing! Just reading how much Jesus cared for Lazerous that he actually wept! Jesus truly loves us! There was so much more I got out of it as well and I prayed for about 15 minutes which was amazing just to open up to God and talk to Him and praise Him for the wonderful things He's been doing in my life lately. It was one of the best personal devotion times I've ever had, so God's so relevant and actively working in my life now. It's so exciting to see and I want to share that excitement which is why I am writing this.

There is so much more I can say with details, but I think I pretty well covered it and nobody is going to want to read page after page worth of material in every detail in my life. I guess if you want to talk about it or want prayer for anything, please feel free to talk to me. I love talking to people! God has really brought to me the joy of my salvation! Thanks for reading, and until next time, God Bless!

Everything good comes from God!

WOW! So God has been doing an amazing work in me lately. I cannot fully describe it, but He's brought me closer to Himself. The Lord brought me to speak at TNT about how He's been answering prayers in my life. I was extremely nervous and it was a huge step out of my comfort zone, but God enabled me to do it. I wish I could have expressed with more enthusiasm the wondrous things that God has been doing in my life.

One example has been two posts ago about how God provided me with a new car. There have been other prayer requests lately I've had that God has answered right away. My green folder with all my school assignments... Well, I lost it and prayed about it having NO idea where it was and in my inbox I got an email saying it was found and where I could pick it up! I couldn't believe the quick answer to prayer! Then I had an exam scheduled on thursday which is the day of TNT... I've never missed a TNT since my first and I didn't want to ever miss one. Well, I prayed about it and God had the teacher change the date to Monday instead of thursday! Is God not amazing. So many times we put God in a box and put a limit on the kinds of things He'll do or we think that what we want to pray for is so insignificant that He won't really care.

God wants to be intimately involved in our lives, we just need to have faith that God will answer our prayers. He doesn't always answer them the way we want him to either. Sometimes we'll ask for something and we'll get something completely different. Sometimes we'll get nothing we wanted but everything we needed.

I place my hope in my eternity and it allows me to fight off sin on a daily basis. I'm far from perfect, but God is perfecting me until the day of His glorious return when He'll take his children home!

To relate to the title of this post, to sum it up, God has been revealing to me that EVERYTHING good comes from Him. Nice weather comes from God. Bad weather is a reminder to praise God all the more when weather is nice. Good grades come from God. He enables us to study. Christian fellowship that builds us closer to each other and God... comes from God. Not getting hurt on any given moment or good health: it all comes from God.

James 1:17
Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.

There it is in the Word of God. You can believe that and take it to the bank!

God is AMAZING and answers prayer!

Alright, so the coolest thing happened yesterday. My mom was working at the bank, and overheard one of her co-workers talking to a customer. The customer, an elderly lady, said that she bought a new car and had to get rid of her old one. My mom heard her say a few things about the car and that she wouldn't expect to get more than 1000 dollars for it. So, my mom decides to ask about it and go see it briefly. She said it looked good at first glance and asked the lady for her number.

Now my car is essentially falling apart. It still runs, but there are so many problems with it that it probably will not last much longer. So my mom was looking for me to potentially buy this car. Well, she called me and I was interested in checking it out. We didn't know how much she was going to say it was. So, my mom called my dad and me and we got a time together with the lady selling the car to take it for a test drive.

When we arrived at her house, she let us take it for a spin by ourselves so we could talk about it and comment on it on our own. It's a 1994 ford taurus, so it's pretty old, and it has 128,000 miles on it, which isn't too bad. There's very little rust and has power windows, power locks, air conditioning and cruise control, which makes it better than my current 1995 rust-bucket neon. We went inside to talk to her and she said someone had looked up the Kelly Blue Book price for it and it was valued at 1300 dollars. (I checked and found it to be lower than that, but it was 1055 bucks, so it's somewhat close). Anyways, she said she'd be fine selling it for $950. She invited us in to look at some paperwork on the car and to just talk to her for a while. She ended up saying she would just make it 900 dollars even because it needs an oil change and we'd need to get it licensed, etc.

Well after thinking about it, I don't actually have that much money and I'm trying to avoid taking out any loans while in college, so although it seemed like a good deal I was reluctant. My parents thought I should get it because my car is getting really bad. So, I said I'd like to think about it for a bit and we told her we would get back to her by this afternoon today. She said that would be fine. So, we went home and I came down to houghton. I felt stuck between a rock and a hard place on whether to buy it or not. My car does still run, so I didn't want to pay that much even though it was a good deal. So, I decided to pray about it and pray hard. I asked God to show me that if I should get this, He would have to give me a strong sign... I was hoping it wasn't that my car broke down so I would have to get it out of need.

Well, when I was down hanging out with friends at Cyberia Cafe, my mom called me. When I picked up, she sounded excited and said, "Well Nathan, I think God is working in this situation" so I got excited and said, "why, what's goin on?" Then my mom told me something that God and God alone could explain and cause to happen. She said the lady had called her back and said that on the new car she had bought, she really needed the money to pay the taxes on it quickly and that it would cost her a little over $500 and that we could have the car she was selling for $575! My mom couldn't believe her ears when she was hearing this. This car is worth $1055 and she was offering it to us for $575!

Now I don't know what you think, but things like that don't just happen! We had just called her and told her that we wanted to think about it. We never said no, and she simply called and greatly reduced the price of the car.

Simply put, God answered my prayer and told me to buy this car. To not buy this car would be foolish. Plus, I can actually afford that much without taking out a loan, and I'll have a little bit of money left which should last me until I get a job that I'll need to start looking for. Isn't God simply unbelievable. God truly watches over His children and hears their prayers and takes care of their needs!

Now whenever I drive friends around, the suspension will be better in the back seat and they won't have to ride in pain, so it makes it much better for carting people around too! God is amazing!

I've been thinking...

First of all, God is so good! Lately I've been doing a lot of pondering. God is in control of everything, so why do we worry about anything. If we are truly focused on God and doing everything to His glory, then what could actually be bad? Sure there may be difficulties and trials, but God has not promised us freedom from those here on earth.

I guess lately I've just been feeling like I have this rich inner world that's waiting to explode. I want to show people what's going on in my mind, but it takes some time to explain it. I'm introverted and recharge on my own or one on one in conversations. I love deep conversations with people, but I want them to have a positive focus. Sure, if someone is going through a rough time, I want to hear them out and try to help them. For those following God, there is always a light at the end of the tunnel.

There are many times when people are talking in large groups and I want to speak up, but something holds me back. Maybe I feel like what I have to say, not everyone is going to enjoy, so I feel like I'm wasting people's time? I don't know, but I think I need to step out of my box a bit and try some public speaking at Campus Crusade sometime, or at least speak up in my rather large cell group (Bible Study + tons more stuff). Maybe the Holy Spirit is leading me to speak and I'm ignoring it.

Please pray that I'll be able to manage my time well. I really want to build relationships with new freshmen this year. I want to encourage people. A little bit of genuine encouragement someone gives to me usually carries me through a lot, so little things that I can say to others or show them that I care, which I do... those things are what really make a difference. It's about being personable, a good listener, but also a good friend who tries to be there for people, whether it's offering them help with something, or praying for them. That's the kind of person I want to be. What's great is that being this kind of person is impossible on my own. I know I can't do it by myself, but God is Great, and He works all things together for good for those that love Him. Putting God first in your life solves a lot of problems. I have a long way to go, but having such great friends who are there for me to hear me out and encourage me, helps me out a lot.

Thanks for reading. There's a little peak at my thoughts for ya.

South Dakota Trip/Brothers wedding

So...It's been a long time since I've posted. I have been pretty busy. Not so busy that I couldn't have posted, but I prioritized other things over this. Well since my last post, my brother is now married and I went on a trip to South Dakota.

We went down there for my brothers wedding with a bunch of old friends of mine. There were 5 different cars and ideally we'd all stay together on the freeways and everything... well, it wasn't meant to be. Some of my friends like to drive really fast and my parents go the speed limit, so the ones that did drive fast just went wherever they wanted and decided to catch up with us whenever. It was ok, it just frustrated my mom a bit that they couldn't just go the speed limit and stay together as a group. Well, on our way there, my friends tire I guess almost fell off on the freeway, so he pulled over to the side and then right before that happened we had planned on meeting at a cracker barrel. Well my family ended up going to the cracker barrel (which was 7 miles out of the way, but it's where people wanted to go, so I guess it's ok). In the meantime, they got their tire fixed and we all made it down ok.

While down in South Dakota, we went to see Mount Rushmore and the badlands and some other cool sites here and there, so that was pretty cool. I was the best man at my brothers wedding, so I was sort of stressed out because of the speech I had to make. (I'm not much of a public speaker.) Well, the wedding was interesting I guess you could say. On the way down, the flower girl threw some roses at the very last second at the end of the isle. Then the matron of honor who I was escorting down the isle tripped a bit on the stairs... it wasn't too bad though. Kelsey, the bride, when she was coming down the isle was crying, and then my brother started crying when he was reading his vows to her and he had to pause for like 30 seconds to be able to speak. Then when I gave the preacher the rings, he dropped one of them and it rolled along the floor like 10 feet away. When they had to light the unity candle, they couldn't get the thing lit for like 2 minutes... then the matron of honor told them to tip the candle back and let the extra wax flow out and then it finally lit. From that point on out, things went pretty normally. It was a good wedding though. They got married and that's what really matters. The other things become fun memories. I also got to wear a tux for the first time in my life (I hadn't even worn a suit before believe it or not.)

At the reception, the people were already halfway through eating when the wedding party arrived which was sort of odd and they ran out of plates for the wedding party, but found some paper plates in the back for us to use. I was going to give a toast at the end of my speech but by the time we finally made speeches, everyone was already done drinking so there was nothing to raise really plus they were plastic cups. I ended up just saying congratulations at the end and another friend gave somewhat of an awkward toast.

Well, to make a long story that could have many more details short, I am really glad to finally be back home and hanging out with friends in Houghton. I love my family, but traveling with them for a week and a half is a lot of time with 'em.

So now I'm back in Houghton, sort of exciting to be starting the school year just to get back into things with Campus Crusade and to see everybody come back up! The classes I'm not looking forward to so much but it all comes with the territory.

One last thing to note which was awesome is that because I had so much time in the van, I decided one day to finish reading a book I'm supposed to read for Cru called the master plan of evangelism, so I decided to finish that while in the van. I also read the book of revelation for the first time which was awesome to see the power of God and encouraging from the Christian perspective knowing that the terrors in that book, I am saved from. I also ended up reading first Peter through Jude, so essentially First Peter through to the end of the Bible is what I read cuz I had so much time. It definitely helped my relationship with God and understanding who he is. I really like the practicality of Peter in those two small books.

Before reading that, my relationship with God was struggling a bit, but now I'm back on track a bit and it'll be much easier with Cru stuff starting up so I'm excited to get back into things.

I believe I've said enough for now. If you want any more details about anything, just let me know in person and we can talk. Have a great and Godly day!

Awesome Day! 2 days from my birthday!

Alrighty, so I had a great day yesterday and today! I got to hang out with a bunch of friends last night until late. We did some fun things... some things I won't mention, but fun. I also got to say a couple more goodbyes which is really sad. Everyone is leaving for the summer... and by everyone, I mean a bunch, but quite a few are staying as well. Davy Jones in particular I may never see again along with his brother and his brothers girlfriend who came up who I got to know a little better. Leslie is also leaving for the summer among other people.

Before it got dark, I went on a bike ride with Kyle Goetz in Houghton and across the bridge, around to chutes and ladders and back to HTC. Then I went to Pizza Hut with the family and then went back to HTC for another bike ride. The second bike ride was rough after the day before that day (two days ago), I went on a 4 hour hike that was quite exhuasting for my out of shape body. The second bike ride went down by the canal almost all the way to chassel and back.

Today, I woke up and was sort of sick to my stomach, so I wasn't able to go to church, but it's not the flu. I must have just eaten something that didn't agree with me. Anyways, I slept a little longer until like noon. Then I decided to read my Bible. I haven't been doing it like I should, so I got some really good time in with God. I read Psalms chapter 9 through chapter 19. I then read a topical Bible book thing I have. Then I read a voice of the Martyrs devotional.

Together, those three things made me realize that God delights in His children when they are walking in His ways. We truly can do all things through Christ who strengthens us. In one of the Psalms I read, it mentioned how Christ is a mediator between the father and us and even though we still sin, we have Faith in Christ who died for us. I like to think of it kinda like God is a train and we are tied to the tracks by the ropes of our sin. God is just and won't tolerate sin. However, God sent his Son to be sorta like Superman to go in front of that train and stop it from destroying us. The only thing about analogies is that they are never quite right on, because Christ went through GREAT pain to pay for our sins and superman only has to push. God knows that we're born into sin and we need a blood sacrifice, so Jesus is there to take on all the wrath of God for us.

Knowing this, we need to really follow Christs example and live a life that pleases him. I have also thought about the fact that the greatest love you can have for someone is to die for that person. I want to be that kind of person willing to lay my life down for a friend. This is exactly what Christ did. Even though He is perfect and He is God, he humbled Himself by becoming man to die for us so we could be saved. If one of my earthly friends payed such a severe price, a bloody death on a cross after being beaten, and it was all for me... I would live the rest of my life with a whole different mindset. The best part is that Christ rose again 3 days after He died according to prophecy in scripture, so we serve a living God. Christ died for us and He is risen again. We owe Him our lives of service and by doing that, we will get a great reward in Heaven. It pleases God when His children honor Him and serve him. Living in sin is like nailing Jesus on the cross every time.

Why is it that we do such things? Well, we were born into a sin nature, but if we have faith in Jesus, then we are born again. We have put off the old self and put on the new self which is created to be like Christ Jesus (This is found in Ephesians somewhere...). We can now live for God with hope. Christ will return and I want to be on His side.

This whole thing is really refreshing to me. Who knew you could get so much out of reading the Bible for like half an hour/45 minutes? I need to do this more often. I do not have joy when I don't.

As a birthday resolution, I'm going to read the Bible every day. I don't want to waste my summer away pleasing myself. I want to live for God and share His love to others!

This post is already pretty long, but I strongly encourage you to go read Psalm 16. It shows David's confidence and joy in God because he is living for Him. We can do great things for God when we are living for Him and following Him and there is NOTHING better!

Day 2: part 2 - Excitement!

Well, now I have more time to post but God just showed me something REALLY cool! I was wanting to take my power converter on the trip down to Florida because people are going to want to probably charge their laptops so we could watch movies or whatever else like charge cell phones. However, for the longest time I was unable to find my power converter. I had just got home and decided to pray that God would lead me to the power converter so I wouldn't have to waste time looking for it for a long time. Well, God showed me that I should look in the porch. I didn't want to look outside in the van or in my brothers car anyways. So, I went in the front porch, looked to the right and there it was.

I have no idea how it got there and I could not find it before, but because I prayed about it and asked God to help me find it, He pulled through! Now some of you reading this may think that it is such a small thing. Well, we are asked to pray for everything and if we cannot be faithful in little things, how are we supposed to be faithful in big things. God is showing me that he cares about even my smallest of needs.

This also reminds me of another time this year that cannot be explained any other way other than that God's had was fully in control of the situation. Earlier this school year in the fall, I had parked in the Rosza lot and had parked in a place that wasn't actually a parking spot because the lot was full of cars and I didn't have time to park up at St. Al's and get to class on time, so I just parked it there temporarily. Well, I went to class and heard from a friend that a lot of people were getting tickets lately for parking in the wrong spots, so I began to pray about the situation trusing that God's will would be done and that it would be His will to keep my car free from a parking ticket, because it would go on my dad's bill (it's registered under his name). Well, I came back to find that every single car all around me had tickets on their windows... Well, what about mine? Mine had no ticket. I couldn't believe it. I was surrounded by cars with tickets who had parked there both before and after me and everyone but me got one. Could this have been because of prayer?! You better believe it! Sometimes small things like this really excite me.

With these things in mind, I know that if we are praying about Big break as a large group and all fully submitting to God's will, then He is going to do something great down in Florida in the lives of those down there on Break as well as in the lives of us going. I'm so excited to share the gospel with others! I just need to pray for the courage as I am naturally a shy person. If I do not share the gospel, it's like telling others that I'm ok with them burning in Hell forever. That's something I need to keep in mind!

Well, I need to get working on some homework for tonight and need to sleep to finally get better from being sick, so come back more to read more later!

- Nate Anderson

Day 1: A seed planted and so much more...

God has been working in my life a lot lately. I don't really know where to begin. For those of you reading this, this will be like my journal, so it may be kind of private, but I think people can learn from other people's mistakes and grow from other people's lessons. I will also be able to look back on this and learn from my own mistakes and triumphs.

Through Campus Crusade Bootcamp, God has laid it on my heart to be sharing the gospel more. For everyone I do not share the Gospel with, it's like I'm saying that they're not important to me or that I am too selfish to show them how to be saved. It's hard for me to grasp sometimes that those people who do not come to Christ are going to Hell... how is it that we can just ignore them and walk by them without telling them what life is all about and that there is a reason worth living?

With this in mind, I decided to FINALLY take a step of faith. It was certainly difficult. For me, conversations often start on facebook... lately they have been happening more and more in terms of valuable conversations.

Last night, I used one of the Campus Crusade for Christ (CCC) freshman survey forms and brought up the idea of it to one of my friends to see if he was interested in taking it. He said he would in exchange for help on a homework question which I was happy to help with. I then went through 20 questions of the survey with him. I found out he is a Catholic, who does not go to church while here at Tech and he is 75% sure he is going to Heaven. I know with an answer like that, then he is not sure what he believes (as well as I could also tell by answers to other questions). I proceeded to continue asking him all the questions and he seemed pretty open about them which I am grateful to God for. I had been praying that the Lord would soften his heart and prepare him to hear what I had to say. I then told him about the 4 spiritual laws booklet that I wanted to share with him the next time we could meet in person which was today. At 11 o'clock AM, we dove right into it and after reading the whole thing, it shows a prayer at the end about recieving Christ as your Savior. I asked him if it expressed the desire of his heart. He looked at me very strangely and said: "I guess...". Well, I told him he should pray it then, either with or without those words as long as he meant it. He looked at it for a bit in silence as though praying and then said ok. I finished it up with him.

In the end of that conversation, it didn't seem to really sink down into him. He didn't seem to really show any change and didn't really believe me. However, it is my duty to explain the gospel clearly, which I did and God needs to do the changing of his heart. I invited him to TNT which stands for CCC's Thursday Night Thing: our large group meeting. He said he would think about it and didn't shun me at all for what I believed by any means. I guess I tell you all of this to say that Eric needs prayer. That is his name. I will continue to pray for him and bug him about going to TNT. I think he really needs body evangelism by seeing the work of God through fellow believers who truly believe and act on that they believe.

This brings me to a side. I am SO thankful for my CCC friends! If it were not for them, I would be living a luke-warm Christian life like I had been during all of high school. A lukewarm Christian life is useless to God. If we are comfortable, we are doing something WRONG! We need to be persecuted. Through persecution, our true colors show. People can see a taste of what Christ did on the cross for us by our suffering for Him. So, my Campus Crusade friends have really helped me grow closer to God and I enjoy continuing that growth as well as the opportunity to get to know them better and at deeper levels.

Sometimes I think I take it too far. I truly enjoy their friendships but I usually want to hang out so much with people that they get sick of me bugging them about it when they're truly busy. I'm busy too, but I just slack off on my homework too much (at least recently). I want to help them to grow and I want to learn from them, but I am not always good at seeing subtle hints that tell me to lay off and they get frustrated. I understand this and it's something I need to pray about.

I really enjoy social get-togethers, especially small group things. Large group things are great if there are small groups within the large groups as well. I'm a moderately introverted person and I'm also reflective. I do really enjoy hanging out with people though, I just don't like it when things become so shallow. 2nd Timothey 2:16 says: "Avoid godless chatter, because those who indulge in it will become more and more ungodly." This verse has really been speaking to me lately as I look back at all the times I talk about useless things that may be sort of fun at the time, but in the end when I am held accountable before God, will I have done something of real worth? In my high school, I believe that was just the problem. Everyone indulged in godless chatter about unimportant things and never anything serious. Their sarcasm and pride were the reasons I never grew. If I could go back, I would try to change that, but I've moved on now and cannot go back.

I still live at home so I still see my high school friends at church. I would like to tell them these things, but they wouldn't take it the right way. I'd try to show them that God has truly been working in me and I'm not saying it to be prideful and "Holier than though" attitude... just the opposite. I would want to tell them this because I care about them and they need to start living out their faith.

Well this certainly is a long one, but I suppose that is good for a first post and I had a lot to say that was nice to write down. If anyone reads this and makes it all the way through, congratulations! haha. I need to start working on my World Cultures.

Please keep me in your prayers if you can remember that God will continue using me and that I won't ever turn my back on him and live a shallow "comfortable" life.


Some cool verses for thought:
II Tim 2:19
Nevertheless, God's solid foundation stands firm, sealed with this inscription: "The Lord knows those who are his," and, "Everyone who confesses the name of the Lord must turn away from wickedness."

Micah 7: 7-10
⁷ But as for me, I watch in hope for the LORD,
I wait for God my Savior;
my God will hear me.

⁸ Do not gloat over me, my enemy!
Though I have fallen, I will rise.
Though I sit in darkness,
the LORD will be my light.

⁹ Because I have sinned against him,
I will bear the LORD's wrath,
until he pleads my case
and establishes my right.
He will bring me out into the light;
I will see his righteousness.

¹⁰ Then my enemy will see it
and will be covered with shame,
she who said to me,
"Where is the LORD your God?"
My eyes will see her downfall;
even now she will be trampled underfoot
like mire in the streets.