August Blogger Awards

It's my time of the month again. Oh grow up. It's time for the monthly BBC blogger awards. Here are the 6 posts that my mood decided to magnify.

Kirk's Near Death Experience
Dana's Roller Coaster Video
Jon's Treadmill Video
AP Wants to Change "A" World
Jo's So Long to So Long Self...(Part 2)
Becky Cook's Husband Returns

Just to clarify, the criteria for 'blogger of the month' is a decent # of posts of relatively strong quality. But since none of you meet those standards, I pretty much just pull a name out of a hat. And that hat gave me... Just Your Average Jo! (by the way, I was just trying to make her mad with this paragraph, her blog was very good this month).

January: Elizabeth S
February: Paul T
March: Steph I
April: No Award Given
May: Andrew B
June: Aaron P
July: Heather D

Tim Cook

UPDATE!!! TIM HAS POSTED!!!

One year ago, Tim Cook posted on his blog. It was his 3rd post. Was it his final post? I am giving him 30 hours (till the end of August 30th) to post again. If he does not post, he will be deleted from my link list (and therefore cease to exist in my mind).

So who knows what Tim is up to? Last time I talked to him, he was planning on getting married this past Saturday. Did anyone go? Has anyone talked to him in the past month or so? Can anyone get his attention before the clock strikes midnight?

Also, feel free to take this opportunity to tell a story about Tim!

Shows that Start with M

Here are all the shows that start with M that I have watched more than twice. Why? Who knows

MASH I don't mind watching it a couple times a year
Mad About You I thought this show was quite funny
Malcomb in the Middle I can't decide if it's OK or annoying
Matlock Just OK
Mr. Dressup Strangely addicting to kids
Mr. Bean Okay in doses
The Munsters For about a year I watched it a lot
Muppet Babies One of my favorite cartoons of all time
The Muppet Show Not as good as muppet babies
My Boys Pretty funny. Sports oriented and good characters.
My Name is Earl It's decent, especially compared to other current sitcoms
My Pet Monster Pretty good actually

Best of the M's = Mad About You

Alphabet Match-Maker

Below are the results of my Alphabetical Matchmaking system

Aaron H & Alison L
Aaron P & Amy S
Audrey C & Chris M
Aza B & Corey T
Dana W & Damien G
Dave L & Elizabeth S
DJ S & Heidi B
Geoff H & Heidi S
Jessica B & Josh M
Joanna H & Kirk P
Kris G & Kristie I
Laura M & Matthew R
Marie H & Mike S
Megan B & Robin W

The following girls 'suffer' for lack of remaining 'men'
Missy M
Rachel C
rachel v
selinda i
steph i
tammy c
tina b
trish k

Disclaimer:
I am not totally sure on everyone's 'single' status, so the results are somewhat subject to error. Other than that, however, the system is about perfect. I have taken a few liberties in my definition of 'eligible'

Congrats

To Joe & Karen Wells :)

I think about 50 of the BBC people on my link list are married now, which means there are about 50 of us yet to be married. Let's all hook up and get this over with.

Matthew 16:19

I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.

A lot has been made out of the keys. Keys, to me, simply represent authority. Binding and loosing aren't common words nowadays, but I believe they imply disallowing/allowing certain behaviors. Unfortunately, I think there is a poor translation here (though I don't know greek, I am going by what I hear). He's not saying that whatever Peter allows on earth will be, subsequently, allowed in heaven (and its opposite). That would be a very strange thought, to me. He's saying whatever is allowed in heaven can be enforced by Peter in the church. This can be seen by the 'have been' footnote in the NIV.

Jesus says basically the same thing (minus the keys) a couple chapters later, but there he is speaking to ALL the Apostles (not just Peter). So, I think the phrase is about church discipline (as seen by the Matthew 18 context). The debate comes from deciding whether the 'authority' is Peter, subsequent Pope's, or your local pastor, etc. Drury was thinking a lot about such things last year if I recall.

Matthew 16:18b

and the gates of Hades will not overcome it

Once again, I've encountered 4 common interpretations of this line. Sadly, I had simply never thought deeply about this before and always assumed the first view.

1) The attack of the enemy will never overcome the church
This is the interpretation I was taught somewhere along the way, but it really doesn't seem to fit. Gates are defensive, not offensive. The church is being built up, not diminishing. I suspect this view has become prominent alongside dispensationalism.

2) The defense of the enemy will never be strong enough
This view is basically the opposite of the previous view, but I think it fits the message of the Gospel better. The passage should possibly be translated 'the gates will not prove stronger than it' (the church). In other words, wherever the Gospel goes, it will grow. This is visibly true and exegetically sound.

3) The grave can't keep those who have Peter's kind of faith
This view says spiritual warfare isn't in view at all. Hades means the grave, not hell/satan. It's simply saying that not even death can conquer a person of faith.

4) The grave won't be able to defeat Christ
This view keeps the focus entirely on Jesus (not the church). Hades, the grave, wasn't going to be able to stop Jesus' mission from finding success. His kingdom would overcome.

What do you think?

Matthew 16:18a

And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church

Obviously, this is where we see great variety of interpretation. There are 4 leading views of what Jesus was communicating when he said this:

1) "This Rock" was Peter
This is the Roman Catholic interpretation and. I'll admit, if this were the only verse in the Bible, I'd take this view. It has 17 supportive citations in the Patristic writings. But I reject this for the following reasons. First, moments later Jesus called Peter 'satan'. Second, soon after the disciples continued to argue about who would be the greatest. Third, Peter himself didn't seem to take this view (1 Peter 1:10, 5:1). Fourth, the other Apostles didn't seem to take this view (especially Paul/James). Fifth, the early church didn't either.

2) "This Rock" was Peter's Confession
This seems to have been the majority view in the early church. It has 44 citations in the Patristic writings. Personally, I am not overly persuaded by the arguments for this view. Actually, I don't know many arguments for this view. I simply know a lot of people believe it.

3) "This Rock" was the Apostles
This view doesn't have many followers, but it seems legitimate to me. I think Peter was speaking as a spokemen, so when Jesus spoke back to Peter he was really speaking to all the Apostles. This interpretation has 8 supporting citations in the patristic writings. And Ephesians 4:11-13 might lend it some support as well.

4) "This Rock" was Jesus
This view seems to fit best with the rest of Scripture (ie. 1 Cor. 3:11, 1 Peter 2:10). It has 16 supporting citations in the Patristics. It seems to me that Peter interpreted 'this' this way. After all, it was Jesus' identity that was the subject of the passage.

What do you think?

Matthew 16:17

Jesus replied, "Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by man, but by my Father in heaven

For the next few days, I want to think about Matthew 16:17-19 with you. As I studied this passage last week, some things came to light that I had never thought about before. I guess I'd never deeply studied that passage because it, honestly, reads like it supports Roman Catholicism. So I avoided it I guess because I don't live in a R.C. oriented area and was never asked about it.

This 1st verse isn't very controversial, but one thing should be pointed out. "This" (that Jesus was the Christ), had been declared to Simon son of Jonah by man. Probably numerous men. In fact, the very first thing told to Simon about Jesus was that he was the Christ (John 1:41). So what does it mean that man hadn't revealed this to him?

I think it means that God had now penetrated Simon himself. He no longer just heard from others who Jesus was, he believed personally in the indentity of Jesus as the Messiah. I don't think this was a sudden revelation. Simon was probably just being the spokemen for the other disciples who had jointly agreed on this.

Your thoughts? Or shall we continue?

Entering Blogdom 2

Alright, Jo was the winner in round 1. Maybe this one will be a little more difficult. Can you guess who's post this is???

So I'm back in the game...Definitely a cheesy line. Back on-line adding to the already huge amounts of worthless things on the web. But you know what? That's ok, there's always room for more garbage in the landfill of life. Why Blog you say? Why not? Actually I was re-inspired by a colleague of mine, Dr. Mark Brewer. (his Doctorate is honorary & check out his blog, www.abookmark.blogspot.com ) And so this one goes out to him, Brew you are part of my crew, maybe sometime we can eat some stew on the Rivere de Lui. Ok so I won't be getting hired to write greeting cards anytime soon, but at least I still have good ol' Bloggy to turn to when I want to subject the rest of the world to my non-sense!

Conditional Love

One of the thoughts I had as we studied through Hosea the past 3 Sunday nights was about conditional love. It's easy to imagine that everyone must think unconditional love is awesome, but that's clearly not the case. Some people come to love conditional love. Conditional love can be earned. It can be managed. It must be. Simply put, conditional love gives us something to do. Something addicting. Something that can become destructive in our lives.

After training our hearts toward conditional love, I can see where unconditional love could be considered repulsive or even boring. Repulsive because it isn't ours (in the sense that we haven't paid for it). Boring in the sense that there's nothing to do in order to keep it. I can understand better, now, why it takes some people so long to grasp and appreciate unconditional love.

I really enjoyed our 3 hours of discussion on Hosea. God spoke to me a lot as I pondered it throughout the month. Here are my handouts:

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

A Shutup Surprise

Tonight my little sister and I were at the church trying to finish a photostory for this year's Vacation Bible School and pretty much everything was going wrong. I was getting pretty frustrated and easily annoyed by every little problem. My sister did something that provoked a 'shutup, you're so annoying'. Just as I said that a woman from the church startled us from outside my office. She had seen the lights on and was checking to see if anyone was actually at the church (it was almost after 10). I feel like crap now! Actually, this is the 3rd specific event this week that I've been convicted about. Circumstances have revealed my lack of patience, my lack of evangelistic thinking, and my proneness to being too easily annoyed.

UPDATE: Today I went to this lady and apologized to her for my rudeness to my sister and told her that I had apologized to my sister as well. She said she hadn't even heard me say anything rude! Classic.

Shows that Start with J

Here are all the shows that start with J that I have watched more than twice. Why? Who knows

Jeopardy Still my favorite gameshow The Jetsons Decent cartoon Jimmy Kimmel Live Funnier than Leno. Even with Letterman. Not as good as Conan Joan of Arcadia I started watching this show b/c it was on HDNet. Some well written themes Judge Judy My mom's favorite, but I tend to hate judge shows Just Shoot Me Below average comedy

Best of the J's = Jeopardy

Shows that Start with I

Here are all the shows that start with I that I have watched more than twice. Why? Who knows.

I dream of Jeannie- Strangely addicting some weeks I Love Lucy I very rarely laugh at this supposed classic comedy I'm With Busey Very oddly funny show that got cancelled quick Inspector Gadget Pretty good cartoon Invasion Watched 2 or 3 episodes and hated it

Best of the I's = I Dream of Jeannie

Iron & Wine

Currently, my favorite songs to listen to are by Iron & Wine. Here's my current top 10 songs:

Such Great Heights (Iron & Wine)
Naked as we Came (Iron & Wine)
Trapeze Swinger (Iron & Wine)
Be My Escape (Relient K)
Breathe (Anna Nalick)
Over my Head (The Fray)
Mad World (Michael Andrews)
We're going to be friends (White Stripes)
Who Am I (Casting Crowns)
I Can Only Imagine (Mercy Me)

What have you been listening to?

Entering Blogdom

I thought of a new game. I will copy/paste the FIRST POST (or at least 1st for their current blog) of a BBC BLOGGER and the first person to GUESS WHO wins. Obviously I'll 'x' out anything that is too who specific. Okay, here's the first one...

So I've been having trouble with iBlog lately -- won't post at all. I got tired of looking for and waiting for a solution, and I've been wanting to re-design my site anyway, so here's the result... or at least the beginning of the results.

I'm using Blogger now. Still figuring it out. Not sure if I like it or not. We'll see. For now, at least, it gives me somewhere to post thoughts and stuff until I get the whole site re-designed.

Anyway... I'll say something more intelligent some other time. In the meantime, if you want to read my old blog, click on the link in the column to the right.

Guess who

Choo Choo!

It's VBS time again, so all week I'll be helping with the Gospel Express. I'm in charge of 'train games' and 'audio-video' (just like last year). Today went pretty well I thought. Only a handful of kids cried! It's been mentioned that some of you have no idea what my church looks like, so here are some pictures. Picture 1 we call the sanctuary. Picture 2 we call the learning center. Picture 3 we call the old building.

Oh My God Gosh

My sister's friends are funny. I am often their chauffeur. They know I am a pastor (although one of them pronounces it pasture), so they try to adjust their behavior accordingly. The most common alteration is their attempt to not say "Oh my God". They still say it, but then they quickly switch God to Gosh and it ends up "oh my God-gosh". Not sure why I find that so amusing. In other news, here are our mini-golf scores:

Matthew---56, 47, 53, 47
Lauren-----65, 57, 60, 47, 55
Amanda---72, 75
Brandon---57

Discovering Patience

This week I'm realizing that I'm not all that patient. I guess it's no surprise. In a world of instancy, one's patience often remains in infancy. My favorite comedian Steven Wright jokes that when he puts his instant coffee in his microwave he almost goes back in time and that he has a microwave fireplace that allows him to sit down by the fire for an entire evening in only 8 minutes. With time, letters have turned to e-mails and then into IM's (even the titles of our methods get shorter).

In such an age, I'm thankful for a week like this.

Your Favorite Movie

I want to know everyone's absolute favorite movie. No lists. 1 Movie. No exceptions. My favorite Movie is "Meet Joe Black"

Unfortunate Events

Jim Carrey's flic, A Series of Unfortunate Events, doesn't look like something I want to see, BUT...it did get me to thinking and I have decided, upon careful consideration, to post a long story about my history with girls (note that I did not say 'my love life' since some of these were mere crushes and others were extremely immature forms of love).

However, to protect those females who may not wish their names to be blogged about, I have made an executive decision to describe each of these relationships using symbolism. Names will be changed. Traits will be exaggerated. Circumstances will be twisted. All this will protect the innocent (and guilty!), but it will also (hopefully) make each story more interestesting to anyone who actually reads all this as well!

You may even be able to figure out some of the clues


Once upon a time there was an extremely shy young man named Klark Cent. He liked an extremely beautiful young woman named Lois Lane (GIRL #1). He was too nervous to talk to her, but one day she talked to him:

'Why is your first name spelled with a K instead of a C?...and why is your last name spelled withh a C instead of a K?'

The young man tried to think of a witty response....

'Ummm.....well.....it's a clue!'

The young man realized that didn't make any sense

'Ummm...no, well. It's not a clue. My parents had to spell it like this b/c the name Clark Kent is copywrited.'

Lois laughed. She found his nervousness charming. Plus he was adorable. But she was pretty shy too, and waited for him to make the next move. The young man realized it was his turn. Over the next few weeks he planned and plotted. Finally he came to a decision: He would hang out with Lois's younger brother. This would show Lois that he was a SUPER guy, a family man. It would allow them to get to know each other indirectly. Klark played football with Lois's brother. He talked with him, laughed with him, joked with him, took him on a trip to Cleveland, etc. Klark believed his plan was working perfectly.

But Klark had no conclusion to his plan. Opportunities arose and departed un-utilized. After a while, Lex Luther posted Klark's true feelings on his website for all the world to see. Klark was so embarressed. He gave up. His first big crush was over. He vowed never to love again. This lasted a few weeks.

Embarrassed by his shyness (isn't that a funny thought), Klark Cent changed his name to Charlie. His relational life was over despite the fact that he was only in middle school. He was down in the dumps over losing Lois Lane.

But then the energizing announcement was made: Willy Wonka was giving away a lifetime supply of relational happiness to 5 lucky people. To win, you just had to buy Candy bars and look for a golden ticket within. Charlie was excited until he started thinking. Over-thinking has always been one of Charlie's big problems. He calculated the odds. He wasn't willing to make the investment necessary to win the prize. And a golden ticket certainly wasn't going to fall from heaven.

Then one day at school a friend of a friend handed Charlie a Candy bar. He opened it nervously before class started. Low and behold....a GOLDEN TICKET. Charlie read the wording of the ticket to be sure it was real: 'You are the lucky winner of a relationship. To claim your prize simply look back three rows and across two aisles.' Charlie slowly turned his head until the smiling face of a sweet young girl (GIRL #2) glided into view.

But Charlie was skeptical. Some 'prizes' are scams dressed in disguise. He needed protection from humilation, so he called his lawyer who advised him to sign a 2 week relational happiness contract. After the completion of the 2 week period Charlie could re-evaluate his decision and make a bigger commitment. Charlie's lawyers received an odd look from the sweet young girl, but she agreed to the timid terms.

At the end of the two weeks, Charlie decided not to renew the contract. Nothing against the girl, but relational happiness wasn't too fun in middle school. When Charlie wanted to talk about sports with his friends, the sweet girl wanted to hold hands while she talked to her friends.

Charlie gained some confidence from knowing that some girl had given him this golden ticket. Perhaps Charlie needed confidence more than he needed a girlfriend. Charlie was no longer in the dumps

As Charlie and his confidence grew, some girls occassionally took notice. A couple of them asked Charlie to sign up for a science class. Charlie didn't really care for science, but he liked the idea of girls asking him to join things.

The science class was all about mixing things together to bring about a desired effect. Charlie watched as one of the girls (GIRL #3) tried day after day to create a love potion. Eventually Charlie decided she was never going to give up, so he decided to help her out.

Working as a team wasn't so bad at first, but then things got very complicated. One day Charlie and the girl were working on a particularly delicate potion. As Charlie added the final ingredient the beaker exploded and gamma radiation spread throughout the room causing mutations to occur in all individuals present. Charlie turned into a young woman named Betty Ross. The young girl turned into a giant, green, bad-tempered, Incredible Hulk.

Betty tried his hardest to keep the hulk happy (funny sentance I know). When she (the hulk) wanted to vacation in the North Pole, Betty took her there. When the Hulk wanted to vacation in the South Pole, Betty took her there too. Needless to say, they were racking up quite a few frequent flyer miles on the bi-polar express.

Betty knew he had to end the relationship. And he knew it wouldn't be pretty. But he did it. The Hulk was sad, then angry, then sorry, then furious, then she wanted ice cream, then she threw writing utensils. Pretty much what Betty had anticipated.

Over the next months the mutations slowly wore off. Betty became a man again.

We first found our hero as an emerging superman, but just when Lois Lane was in reach timidity outfought temerity for the throne. The golden ticket and the relentless hulk gave Charlie some confidence, but they left Betty a confused transgendered soul.

The radiation was losing its affect, but Charlie/Betty wanted to speed the process along. He admitted himself into a clinic up North where he believed he'd find the help necessary. At the clinic people paired up and tried to help each other with their problems. Charlie watched patiently as people chose their partners. He didn't expect to be in high demand, being transgendered and all (yeah, I know this story is really weird, but I can't turn back now!).

One day, though, a young woman (GIRL #4) took a special interest in Charlie. He wasn't exactly sure why. She had a boyfriend. She was smart and attractive. He hadn't even shown any interest. But there she was, wanting to pair up. Charlie was not opposed.

But Charlie didn't realize being a pair was so complicated. Apparently saying yes to 1 relationship was saying no to 200 others. The young woman made Charlie aware of all the clinics rules. They were many, complicated, and enforced with disappointing looks. In particular, Charlie hated the early bed time rules.

One can go mad obeying the rules all day. Charlie read through the rule book often to try to find some loophole, but to no avail. Apparently, however, Charlie's version of the rule book was far from perfect. The young woman was able to find loopholes whenever she wanted in her version. It was odd to Charlie that the very same girl who enforced extra strict rules on him was also willing and wanting to avoid the most basic rules with him.

One night they were out and it started to rain. It rained for days. The rains came down and the floods came up. A whirlpool developed. The relationship circled towards the center. And I'm not a huge fan of this part of the story, so let's just say the relationship died.

Charlie woke up drenched and dazed and confused. Relationships weren't working well for him so far. I mean, sure, he had learned valuable lessons...1. Don't try to date Lois Lane if you're not ready to be Superman...2. Don't try to date the Hulk if you're not willing to be pushed around...and 3. Don't try to be a girl if you're...well...a guy.

So Charlie decided to leave his life of searching for a soul-mate. He decided to join the CIA. In the CIA he'd be too busy to go through another relational debacle. He was so excited. Until that first meeting. He was sitting quietly when she (GIRL #5) walked in. They had girls in the CIA??? He didn't see any other girls. Only her. But 1 was enough to devestate his plans.

As the reader would expect, Charlie and mystery girl number 4 were occassionally sent on missions together. He was given the alias Vaughn. She was given the alias Sydney. Their first mission was to pose as students and pass tests, so they studied together. The missions became more complex though, and pretty soon they found themselves posing as a couple that wasn't dating when, in reality, they were. They were glad when that mission was over.

Charlie was very happy. Not only was he now serving his country in the CIA, he had found a great partner to work with. The future looked bright...until...Charlie was hit in the head by someone from the CIA's enemy: SD-6. He lost his memory. He forgot how good things had been with Sydney. The SD-6 agents told him he was an unsatisfied agent. He foolishly believed them. They gave him a replacement partner (GIRL #6). But as the months went on his memory began to return. He escaped SD-6 and returned to the CIA headquarters. And there he saw Sydney and the past hit him like a brick.

Sydney was reluctant, but Charlie was persuasive. He wanted to be Vaughn again, but to her, he was just Charlie now. Charlie had the CIA place her on missions with him....but the spark never really returned. Charlie graduated from his position as an agent to a desk job with an office to himself.

But from time to time you could see Charlie glancing out his office window....looking to, once again, find such a spark as had left.

It wasn't long before Charlie realized that his office had no exterior walls. He peered through his 1 window into 1 large room. Was 1 room enough or did Charlie need to see the world? Years passed before Charlie chose the latter option. By this time he had saved up billions of dollars. He used some of his money to buy a ticket to the other side of the world. Perhaps this would be the truly golden ticket. The other side of the world used an other language. Charlie was given a new name, Bian Fu Xia, which translated to "Bat-man". After some initial successes (GIRL #7), however, Charlie returned home to his lone window.

Having been Batman reminded Charlie of what it was like to have a secret. He remembered a wonderful secret (GIRL #8) he'd had back when his 'Betty Ross' mutation was wearing off (but before she/he became a Stepford Boyfriend). Fortunately, it was the kind of secret that was just outside his office window. Unfortunately, he was paralyzed by circumstances. Charlie had no idea if their was potential with this girl (who we'll call, ummm, Cat Chick) or not.

So Bat-man waits for Cat-chick. He waits for circumstances to change outside his window. His paralysis doesn't stop him from thinking through the ceiling to the heavens. Perhaps one day He will learn to fly again. Until then, he dreams of Cat-Chick and the Sky.


Which #'s do you know? :)

The Milton Never Knew

Milton is 6 years old and lives in Guatemala. He enjoys chess and drawing pictures. He wants to be an accountant. He lives with his father, mother & 1 year old sister in a mudbrick house.

Cell Phone Exchange

You know when Christians pick the sin that they don't struggle with and then make others feel really condemned about it? Well, I'm going to do that now, ok? Having a cell phone is a serious sin and you should all feel guilty about it. They are stupid and they are ruining the world. So I am 'calling' for all cell phone users (and here comes the guilt-invoking part) to cancel their plans and sponsor a hungry child instead. The costs are about the same (the kids are about $30 a month) and the rewards are great. Not only do you get to not have a cell phone (!!!!!!), but you also get to invest in a child's life!

Tomorrow I will introduce the official child of The Matthew Never Knew

*please note the slight sarcasm

The Barbie Song

My mom always talks about this Barbie song I wrote for my lil sister many years ago, so I decided to post it to prove that I have no shame over having written a song about Barbie Dolls.

We are the Barbies of America
We like to sing and play cool games
We are the Barbies of America
We are in the Barbie Hall of Fame

Look at my Hair!
Look at my Hair!
LOOK AT MY HAIR!

Nightmare

I had a very terrible dream last night. I'll try to type out as many details as possible:

There was a war
I was in the warzone
I was in a plane with 3 experts
We were not yet in the air
The plane had cool technology
Bombs were exploding near us
Finally, we took off
The 3 experts were Japanese
But they had studied in America
Upon landing, I was given a task
I was told aliens had part in war
The aliens were ranking people
They were giving people an illness
I was told to investigate this
I had to euthanize many of the ill
I had to work fast or be caught
So many aliens were around
I was learning about the enemy
I had important information
One lady was half-dead
Her hose had lost pressure
I had to fix it to finish her off
She was ranked 1,000,000
She was Edith Bunker
The hose made too much noise
An Alien heard me
I was quiet as it walked by
I woke up

Shows that Start with N

Here are all the shows that start with N that I have watched more than twice. Why? Who knows

The Nanny Below average Ned and Stacey I thought this show was very funny and cancelled too soon Newlyweds: Nick & Jessica I thought this was pretty funny sometimes Newsradio Very funny show, a second tier sitcom

Best of the N's = Newsradio

Friday @ Camp

After my all-nighter landed me at breakfast, I slept for an hour and a half before the camp's final service. Then it was lunch time and people headed home. I was one of the last one's to leave. After saying goodbye to Aaron and his dad, I cleaned out my room and loaded the car. We left around 1:20. We stopped to play mini-golf on the way home. Then I returned the two teens I was transporting to their homes and my sister and I pulled into our own driveway right at 5pm. Here are some random recaps

Great camp attendance for our church once again
Great sermons and studies from pastor symonds
Great ping pong action, I ended on a hot streak
I ended up with only 32 glasses of chocolate milk
I provoked a crazy few hours of joking about cows
I lost 10 years of maturity and had 7 dumb crushes
I had 1 un-dumb interest
I kept the 1 all nighter tradition alive

God spoke one key message to me throughout the week:
Faith isn't trusting God to _____
Faith is trusting God

Thursday @ Camp

Well, it's Friday morning. I just pulled my traditional Family Camp all-nighter. Let me see if I can remember yesterday. I made it to breakfast again. John's morning Bible study was good. I slept a good portion of the afternoon. At supper I tried to finish 5 glasses of chocolate milk. Bad idea. But I did manage to make it to evening rally which was very good.

I didn't lose in ping pong today at all (except for 1 game left handed)

At night we played a lot of card games. It was hilarious to watch each person fall asleep in the lounge one by one and start saying crazy stuff. In the end, only 2 were left. Us being the last two is also somewhat of a tradition, a tradition I enjoy very much.

So it's breakfast time. I don't think I will be able to break the chocolate milk record though. I actually don't want to see chocolate milk anytime soon. When I get home I'll post a final camp post and then I'll do the July blogger awards.

Wednesday @ Camp

I made it to breakfast again. I had French Toast, scrambled eggs & sausage. My current chocolate milk count is 22 glasses. I'm trying to break my previous record of 36 from last year. I played a ton of ping pong today. I can't remember all the scores. I won more than I lost, but I couldn't beat Nate today.

After supper Aaron started watching 'The gods must be crazy' and we both fell asleep and missed the 1st part of the evening rally. I would have felt bad, but I read all those Beulah recaps and you guys hardly ever go to service :)

Tuesday @ Camp

I missed breakfast today. Bummer. I woke up around 8:30. My sister and the crew wanted me to play non-table-tennis. We decided to do a double elimination tournament, but we didn't have enough time to eliminate anyone today. Here were the results:

Matthew 6 Lauren 0
Nate 6 Phil 2
Lauren 6 Brandon 4

After that I went to John's Bible study on being still before God. Then lunch. Then I was locked out of my room all afternoon because Aaron and his dad went driving and I had left my key in my tennis shorts. But I played some ping pong and took my adorable niece for a walk in the crick. Here are the ping pong results:

Lost to Nate 21-17
Lost to Nate 21-17
Defeated Nate 21-18

If you've noticed, my side of the score has improved every time against Nate, so now I consider myself the king of things in these parts. The everning service was moved to the cafeteria because it's like 100 degrees out and the sanctuary isn't air-conditioned. It was about moving outside our comfort zone. Kinda ironic. Then we played some more table tennis. I defeated Aaron & Phil a couple times each and lost to a stranger named Tim. But strangers don't count. So I've really only lost to Nate.

Monday @ Camp

Surprisingly, I made it to breakfast today! Breakfast foods are so delicious, but I rarely get to enjoy them. I bought a new Bible after breakfast. It has very wide margins on each side. I'm going to use it for my sermon outlines. John's morning seminar was about doubt. Lunch was too soon.

In the afternoon I watched some remote control car racing. That was cool. Then I sat in the air conditioned building with Amanda (she demands to be mentioned) for a couple hours till supper. After supper I waited till service which was also good. Then I chatted a bit with some BBC friends before some ping pong. Here are my matches.

Defeated Phil 21-9
Defeated brother-in-law Derek 21-12
Lost to Nate 21-9
Lost to Nate 21-10
Defeated Aaron's dad 21-11
Lost to Nate 21-12
Defeated Aaron 21-17