Here's the dealio

Ok, so changes are a happenin' in my life right now. As some of you probably know, I have been looking for a job in Riverside for like 2 months. Well, I finally found one...but it's back in Sacramento. So, I moved home this weekend. I am sad that I am leaving Holly and my friends there, but at the same time I know without a doubt that Sacramento is where I am supposed to be right now, and so that puts me at peace. Seeing the Lord provide this job was just an amazing blessing and a reminder of His provision. What am I going to be doing at my new job you might ask...I'm not really sure. That's a to be continued thing. I should know next week though. Anyways, that is the latest scoop.

ESV Bible Prize

So, there is this great drawing for a calf-skin ESV Bible on the "A Boomer in the Pew" blog. Check it out and check out the rest of the blog as well! Here is the link. http://www.boomerinthepew.com/2009/02/win-a-calfskin-version-of-the-esv-study-bible.html Enjoy!

Life

Hey all you few people who actually read my blog. It's been a long time since I've written anything, so I figured I would take a few minutes and update my blog. Let's see...

Probably the biggest thing is that I moved back down to Riverside. It has been so great being able to be close to Holly and see her and spend time with her almost everyday. She is such a huge blessing in my life and going through daily life with her again has just been so great! We had a fun valentine's day together. It was just simple and laid back. We went to Huntington Beach and just chilled for a few hours and then came back and made pancakes and eggs for dinner and watched a movie. It was great just being able to spend the day with her. :)

I am still looking for a job down here though. I hear we are in a recession or something that is making it hard to find a job. I've filled out more applications than I count and yup, still no job. I'm just continuing to knock on doors and fill out apps and trusting the Lord to provide. It's hard sometimes when nothing seems to be happening, but I know that He is faithful and more than capable of providing me with a job in His timing. I've also learned that His timing is usually not my timing, so I'm just waiting on Him to move in His time.

I also had an interview at Fresno State for their physical therapy program there. I'm still waiting to hear back about being fully accepted yet or not though. I'm also waiting to hear back from Sac State and Northridge State about whether or not they want me to come do interviews or not.

As far as life goes these days, I think that is pretty much it. Well, I hope that satisfies all you who have been waiting with baited breath for my next post. All one or two of you. :)

Hiking with Friends

This Saturday I got to see my really good friends Ethan and Rissa from Cal Bap. Holly and I and Rissa all went to Ethan's house in Fresno and we worked on a puzzle for a while and then went out towards Yosemite and hiked for a couple of hours. It was so much fun. It was so great to see both Ethan and Rissa again. Here are some pics from our adventure that day.

My Favorite Thanksgiving Foods

First and foremost my favorite part of the thanksgiving meal is the golden, flaky goodness that is a crescent roll. These hold a special place in my heart and stomach.
Next on my list of thanksgiving favs is the mashed potatoes. The white, fluffy wonderfulness of these bad boys is just amazing. Cover them in some gravy and man oh man, how can you resist?
Let's be honest here though. What is thanksgiving without stuffing? Now, some of you might say, what is thanksgiving without a turkey, but I would submit to you that the pilgrims didn't have turkey on their first thanksgiving. They did, however, have stuffing, mashed potatoes, and Pillsbury crescent rolls. That is why I feel it is necessary to always have these 3 foods at every thanksgiving meal in order to preserve correctly the tradition of thanksgiving. So there you have it folks. My 3 favorite thanksgiving meal foods.

Mmmmmm

Lemon Bars. I'm kinda a fan. Baking season is upon us. I'm glad my mom loves to bake. It makes me very happy. Baking season hasn't begun in earnest yet, but my appetite has been whetted. I am excited. Oh how I love the holidays!

Hoodie Time

I love the Fall. We have all these trees behind our house that you can see from the kitchen and they are so amazing. There are bright red ones and orange ones and and yellow ones. It is just so cool to see all the amazing different colors. Also, I get to wear sweatshirts now and slippers and make a fire in the fireplace. I think my favorite part of Fall is that my mom starts to bake a lot. She makes pumpkin bread and banana bread and lots of yummy deserts. All sorts of goodness. And I also get to put my flannel sheets on my bed which are soooo comfortable. Pretty much Fall is amazing.

November 4th Election

VOTE TOMORROW...PLEASE!!!!!!

Great Prayers

In the past week I have been challenged anew to look at the way I am praying. It has been good to examine prayer and to continue learning how the Lord would have me pray. Being a man of prayer is something I hope to be characterized by and continue to grow in throughout my whole life. Right now I am reading Good to Great in God's Eyes by Chip Ingram. In it he gives 10 practices that great Christians all have in common. One of those things is that they pray great prayers. So what, exactly does praying great prayers look like? What are some of the characteristics of great prayer?

First of all, they are deeply personal. Great prayer flows out of a passion to know God. The more we love the Lord, the more intimate our prayers become. Great prayers also come out of being broken. When we are broken, we pour our hearts out to Him. We give Him everything and expect everything from Him because we realize at this point that we are and have nothing. We realize that from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. We base our prayers on who He is. Great prayers also champion God's agenda. People who pray great prayers understand God's will for this world and pray His will be done and wish to see His kingdom come.

Great prayers take God seriously. They call upon God's promises and believe them to be true. They believe the nature of God to be full of truth and to be true to His promises and so they call upon that which He has promised to do. Great prayers also require great courage. They "require great courage because they boldly insist, in spite of natural reservations, on what God has said about Himself." When Abraham calls upon God to save Sodom and Gomorrah for the sake of a few righteous he keeps asking God to save them based on the merit of God's character. He knew God would live up to His character and so called upon God to do so. "Great prayers ask the improbable, expect the impossible, and receive the unthinkable."

There is of course much more to prayer than just this, but it has been so good for me to remember who it is I'm praying to and to call upon Him to do the things He has promised to do. I want to know the Lord better everyday, so that my prayers will reflect that relationship. The prayer of faith is rooted in the life of faith. Do we believe? Do we pray great prayers for His glory and our joy?

GRE, Work, and Life in General

Today I took the GRE. For all those inquisitive folk who may be wondering what that is, it is basically the SATs for grad school. It is filled with many big words which even someone of my immense knowledge and vocab had no idea what they meant. It also has lots of fun math problems, which, even if I didn't know exactly how to figure the problem out, I at least had an idea of what it was asking...more than I can say for some of the vocab questions. Anyways, I ended up getting a 650 on the math and a 560 on the vocab sections and someone has to read the two essays I wrote and grade them. If anyone out there can tell me what a good GRE score is that would be awesome, cuz I have no idea if I did well or not.

I am still looking for a permanent job, although I have found temporary work for the past couple of weeks. I have been working with a geologist whose goes to my church up at an old gold mine building big filters to filter zinc out of the water up there. He is a great guy to work with and for, so it has been a lot of fun. I don't know how long the fun is going to last though, so I'm still praying God allows me to get a job here sometime.

As for life in general, it is good i guess. These past two weeks it seems like most of what I do is work and sleep and just find enough time to get those little things done that you have to do every day. I'm glad to be busy though and making money instead of sitting around all day on my butt. I have also been busy following the election and the debates and stuff. Today I was saying how Obama is such a weasel and my brother Trevor said that he has a much more endearing term that he refers to him as...he failed to say exactly what it was (we were at the dinner table and I'm going to go with it wasn't appropriate at said place and time). All in all I don't like watching the debates because they are so boring and full of lies and half truths, although I thought the saddleback forum was great. Anyways, go McCain!! Well, I gotta go grab my laundry. Peace.

The Scoop

Well, I am still on the job hunt, but I do have work for next week at least. A friend from church owns his own business and needs some help next week and so he offered to have me work for him. I don't have any idea what I am doing, but I'm just glad I get to work. Praise the Lord. Maybe it will turn in to a permanent job or maybe I get to keep looking, but I'm thankful for how the Lord is providing next week.

In other news...well, there isn't really any other news. My life continues to remain pretty uneventful. I'll be sure to keep you updated though when exciting things do happen.

From SE Asia to Now

My friend Rachel pointed out to me the fact that I haven't blogged in quite awhile, so I'm going to remedy that situation now. The highlight of my summer was hiking Half Dome with my brother Trevor and my good friend Holly and her sister Jill and brother John. It was quite the hike...16 miles round trip. It was a ton of fun though and there were more "your mom" jokes than I think I've ever heard. And the view from the top is amazing!! The picture on the top is of us on the cables at the top of the dome and the one below it is at the base of the cables (props to Jill Strand for that pic).


So, that was like the acorn shell version of the story that would take a whole coconut shell to hold. Since Half Dome I have been searching for job with limited success. Not exactly sure what the Lord has for me, but I'm hoping He feels so inclined to make it clear here pretty quick. Life is slightly uneventful when you don't have a job or school to go to, so thus this blog is a little lacking in excitement and great adventures. I hope that doesn't disappoint. Welp, I think that is it for now. Tootles!

Interesting Time of Life

Well, I've graduated, I've gone overseas and shared the gospel, and now the time has come for me to move on with life post-college. The only problem is...I don't know where to go. Yup, pretty clueless right now. Not gunna lie either...it stinks...well kinda. It stinks cuz I feel so helpless but I take comfort in Paul's words from 2 Cor. 12:9-10:

"And He has said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.' Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. Therefore I am well content with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecuations, with difficulties, for Christ's sake; for when I am weak, then I am strong."

So, in actuality I'm not that bad off. All I have right now is the Lord, and that's not such a bad place to be at...in fact, there is no where else I'd rather be but in my Father's hands. James says that we are perfected through trials. In Psalm 32 David says that the Lord will instruct me in the way I should go. Jeremiah 29:11 says that the Lord knows the plans he has for me. After that he goes on to say that they will seek the Lord and that they will find Him when they seek for Him with all their heart. Lamentations 3:22-25 says,

"The Lord's lovingkindnesses indeed never cease, for His compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness. 'The Lord is my portion,' says my soul, 'thereforeI have hope in Him.' The Lord is good to those who wait for Him, to the person who seeks Him."

I know that the Lord is faithful. He has proven it time and time again in my life. Deut. 7:9 says,

"Know therefore that the Lord your God, He is God, the faithful God, who keeps His covenant and His lovingkindness to a thousandth generation with those who love Him and keep His commandments."

So, though I don't know what I am supposed to be doing right now, the Lord does. And my God is a great God and I know nothing is impossible for Him and my "problems" aren't problems for Him. Therefore I rest in the knowledge that the Lord will guide me and lead me on level paths and that in my weakness His power will be perfected. In know that through this He will be glorified and in that will be my joy. So, I wait on Him, as patiently as I can, and pray that I would know Him more clearly and glorify Him more greatly through this time in my life.

Here is my prayer:
Let me learn that the cross precedes the crown, To be low is to be high, That the valley is where you make me more like Christ! Let me find Your grace in the Valley Let me find Your life in my death Let me find Your joy in my sorrow Your wealth in my need That you're near with every breath in the Valley.

SE Asia Recap

Well, it has been five days since we got back in country. It is good to be back home. We had a beautiful view of the CA coast as we were flying in. I saw half moon bay and the golden gate bridge as we flew over the bay area. I was so happy to be home that I jumped and clicked my heels for joy at LAX and got a couple of funny looks for it. I brought home with me many memories and a stomach bug...a nice combo right. It is those memories that I want to reflect on now though.

The trip was hard, but good. The team dynamics were hard for me. I love my team to death and they are all amazing people, but it was hard being with them 24/7 for 3 weeks. I just had a hard time relating with all of them. It was also hard for me to find time alone and just spend good time in prayer and fellowship with the Lord. The trip was also good though. We had amazing translators who were so much fun and made our time so enjoyable. We taught them how to play jenga and sequence and we played these all the time with them. I have now officially played the longest and shortest games of sequence possible and I am the jenga master.

We did many many different things on this trip. We did a couple of different sessions of VBS with different churches. We taught english and we helped with a church youth retreat up in the mountains. We witnessed to muslims on the beaches for a couple of days. We encouraged the missionaries and they encouraged us. We did a little bit of sightseeing as well. We got to go see the largest buddhist temple in the world (which supposedly is one of the wonders of the world and also which you can supposedly see from space...after seeing it I don't really believe either of these claims though:)) I also got to ride an elephant and saw the biggest spider ever (both of which you can see in my picture post).

I also had the neat opportunity one night to work with and encourage this boy and his family. The boy had been in a bad accident and was in a wheelchair. I was able to talk with his parents and just see what exercises they were having him do and stuff and then was able to give them a couple of stretches and exercises for him to do. They kept on asking me how long did I think til he would walk and I told them I wasn't qualified to answer those questions, but I think it was still encouraging to them to have me there and work with him a little bit and just talk with them and affirm some of the things they were already doing with him. It was nice to have my major come in handy for something. :)

Well, that's kinda the trip in overview. Thank you to everyone who was apart of supporting me through money and prayer. I appreciate it so very much! The gospel was made known in SE Asia. Puji Tuhan (Praise the Lord)!

SE Asia Picture Post

Hey Guys. I wanted to post some pictures of my trip. I will follow soon with a recap of the trip once I have a chance to reflect on it and gather my thoughts. Pictures are worth a 1,000 words though right.

This is us up in the mountains at a church youth retreat

This is the team at the beach doing some witnessing...it was rough, but someone has to do it :)

One of the towns we went throughMe scaring the crap out of two little girls as the lion in our daniel and the lion's den skit we did for the kids at VBS

Teaching the kids english at VBS

One of the families we stayed with

Jesus's name was proclaimed to unbelieving muslims on this beach

Biggest spider I have ever seen in my life...this picture doesn't do it justice...it was literally as big as my hand!!! Why on earth would God create that?

I not only got to touch this elephant but I got to ride it...how stinking awsome is that!!!

Super Encouraging

I had a really neat experience the other night. We went to the mall (just the 5 of us bule bule...no translator) to do a little shopping and get some dinner. We also decided to see the new batman movie and so we had like an hour to kill before the movie started and so I was just chilling outside the theater in the mall and this indonesian guy comes up next to me and starts talking to me. At first I can't understand what he is saying because it is super loud, but eventually we get to talking and I can understand most of what he is saying (he spoke pretty good english). We first just kinda made small talk about school and stuff and then out of no where he asks me if I am a christian which was funny because I was going to ask him the same thing in a minute. Well, I say yes, and then I asked him if he was and he said yes. Then he asked me my testimony and I shared that with him and then he shared his with me. Then we started talking about sin and being what they call a KTP (Kaw-Tay-Pay) christian, which is someone who professes Christ but has no fruit and doesn't live like a christian. He asked me if I thought such a person was a christian and stuff. Then he told me he was at the mall with some other people from his church witnessing. It was really neat and really encouraging to get to talk with him about that stuff and it was also great to know that the local people are doing evangelism as well. So, the Lord is at work here in Indonesia and it is SO COOL to have been able to see that!

Fishers of Men

So, I hope you can all appreciate the cleverness of my blog title by the end of this blog. On tuesday we went to a city on the coast and did some "street witnessing." We traveled most of the day and arrived at the beach at about 4pm. We broke into 3 groups and walked along the beach talking with people we ran into and making conversation with them and then directing that conversation to a presentation of the gospel. It is pretty easy to get people to talk with us here because I'm pretty sure about 90% of the people here have never seen a white person. They always stare at us where ever we go. It is kinda funny. Anyways, tuesday brandon and I and our translator were able to talk with a couple of university students who were muslim and a lady and her son who were both muslim and were able to share the gospel with them.

Wednesday we did the same thing. We went to 3 different beaches and broke into 3 groups again and just walked up and down the beaches talking with people and sharing the gospel with them. Tuesday and Wednesday were both neat experiences. It was a little stretching for me beacuse that isn't my personality to just talk to people and share the gospel and then leave never to see them again, but I'm also really glad that people who have never heard the gospel have now heard it. God's Word does not return void. Oh, and just in case anyone was wondering, the Indian Ocean is cold even though we are in the tropics. Go figure.

The next couple of days we are going to be teaching english at a local school and doing who knows what else. Saying plans are tentative here in Indonesia is being pretty generous I think. Please continue to pray for my team and me as we finish out our last few days here. We are leaving thrusday morning. Pray that we would finish strong and stay focused on our tasks here.

The Beat Down

Craziest morning ever! Ok, so here's what went down. We are doing VBS with this church and we pull up to the church and we all pile out of the van and there is this guy sitting on the sidewalk outside the church. He seems harmless enough. We all go inside and are just saying hi to the kids and stuff when the guy outside starts throwing rocks at the church. At first he was like out on the street throwing them but then he got a lot closer. Well, he ended up throwing one through the window and so we get all the kids away from the windows and they are all like huddling in the corner of the room and the rest of us are kinda just sitting there while the pastor is calling the police. The pastor's wife also locks the front door in two places. Well, next thing we know the guy has kicked in the front door and is standing there with a crazy look in his eyes. The pastor's wife runs and slams the door shut and anthony helps her hold it shut against this guy and I go and grab a couple of pieces of PVC pipe to hit the guy with in case he gets in. Meanwhile Brandon takes the girls and all the kids upstairs and Becca and Andrea sing with them and get them calmed down. Well, after a couple of minutes of banging on the door the guy stops and apparently wanders back out to the street, but by this time all the neighbors realize what is going on and they take this guy out. Anthony and I look out the window and we see people throwing rocks at this guy and one guy has a board in his hand and starts beating the guy with it. Next thing we know the dude is unconscious on the street with like 30 people around him waiting for the police to show up and take him away. Talk about a sense of community man. Apparently though that is how they roll here. The people we are staying with said that they had a pair of jeans stolen and the people in the community found out who it was and almost beat the guy to death over a pair of jeans. It seems to keep the crime level down pretty well. Anyway, back to the guy. Anthony and I both think the man was demon possessed because he was way stronger than he should have been. He was about 5'2" and half starved and yet he managed to kick the door in when it was locked and he just looked crazy and he attacked us and the church for no reason, so there is definitely spiritual warfare going on here. Good did come of it though because all the neighbors were hanging around the church and heard us singing and talking about God and stuff, so that was awesome. What seemed bad may really have been a huge blessing. So, just keep us in your prayers as we do not struggle against just flesh and blood.

Tomorrow we are going to be traveling again to another city and doing some street witnessing. We are all excited about this opportunity, but please be praying for the Lord to open the hearts of the people that we talk to and for the preaching of His Word to change their lives.

Bule Bule

That’s what they call us here: bule (boo-lay). It means white man. Our time here has been very eventful already. Dain had to go home because of an infection, Andrea had to go to the hospital a couple of days ago (but is out of the hospital now and is doing much better now), my stomach is torn up, and Anthony’s stomach is beginning to bother him as well. All in less than a week. Despite all this though, we are loving it here. The people are wonderful. They are very very kind.

The past 2 days we have been on a retreat up in the mountains with a church here. It was a really good time. It was a little hard to determine the spiritual atmosphere there since we couldn’t really understand what was going on all that well all the time, but I do believe we were able to impact the kids. During the time there we were split into teams and did activities and went hiking and showed the kids how to play frisbee. We also introduced them to smore’s. They seemed to like them. I definitely ate like 3 and payed for it this morning. My stomach didn’t appreciate that much food with how it is feeling. Oh well...it was worth it. J

Tomorrow, we are going to be doing a vacation bible school for two days with a local church here. Pray that that goes well.

The people here definitely don’t see many white people. We get stared at all the time. Today I had some guy come up and get like 5 inches from my face and just stare at me for a few seconds and then walk away. It is pretty funny, but definitely testing my personal bubble. They don’t really have personal space here, so that is taking a little getting used to.

Prayer requests: Health. Our team is definitely not very healthy as I wrote earlier. Please pray for the Lord’s healing grace upon our bodies. We need it. Focus on God. We are really busy and I am having a hard time finding time to spend alone with Him which I desprately need and want. Pray that I will be able to find that time, and the time that I do have with Him will be blessed and fruitful. Terima Kasih (thank you).

We're Here

Well, I finally made it to SE Asia. We got in at like 6pm last night. I'll be happy not to see another plane for 3 weeks. :) Tomorrow we are going to church, and then after that we will be going to another city to do a youth retreat. Please pray that we will have fun with the kids and be able to show God's love to them. That's it for now...