My Time In Kenya

Ah, the joys of summer. Time for a quick catch-up (not ketchup) time, a'ight? So, first I went to Kenya for two weeks. It was warmer and wetter than last year, which I thought would be a plus until I woke up in the middle of the night to "ZZZZZZZZZEEAAAAUUUWWWWW" flying by my ear. I wacked myself in the head many a time trying to get those mosquitoes, or "maussies", as Gavin Audognotti, my roommate while I was there, called them.

I preached/taught three times. The first was on "Superpowers Through Christ", where I focused on the right heart and mindset when you go about prayer and working in the supernatural. One guy came up to me later and told me that it would change his life.

I preached at our youth event on "Christianity on the Offense", where my main comparison was a soccer analogy. Unfortunately, I didn't think to repeat the analogy, so I ended up sounding a bit off. I also accidentally said, "Offensive Christianity", which confused the translator.

The only message I had completely written out and prepared was about being heard by your authority. When you write a message at three in the morning the day you're leaving, most of the words just might end up being more God than you. I taught it for sunday school, but most of the people there were teenagers, who, like me, get bored pretty easily.

Oh, I almost forgot; I'm a celebrity in Kenya. Every kid at the G.C.C. (the place that houses all the AIDS and HIV kids) and the school nearby recognized me and yelled out my name as soon as I got there.

While on safari, I ran into some punk tribesman that thought they could jump higher than me. I beat the first Masai, but then they sent out their best, and frankly, I didn't wanna embarrass them with my skills.

If you wanna hear more, I'm making another scrapbook-type thing with Publisher, and that will have whatever journal entries I had time to do.

Back From Keny

One of the greatest new things I learned while in Kenya was about the life cycle of the hippo. Their whole lives are just swimming and eating. They die because they're too fat to get out of the water to eat more, so they die of starvation.

That's the dream.

BurfDoy

I had a great birthday, mostly spent hanging out with Jordan. Here's a tiny piece of it.



I've been typing up Kenya sermons for like an hour, trying to make them look good, but it's tough. Even though I have the lessons down alright, I haven't even thought of prime examples from my life to throw in, which is what makes it go down smooth.

"The first shall be last" is a fun justification for procrastination.

INCOMING BIRTHDAY!

Senior's Night Out is tomorrow- MY BIRTHDAY IS ON FRIDAY- One more Kenya meeting on saturday- I leave for Kenya on sunday.

God has been blessing me a bunch financially, both personally and for Kenya. I'm doing a lil' online work, and since I work cheap and fast, people like me on there.

Tonight at Paradigm, God showed me stuff to pray for during pre-service prayer, and I started getting convicted during worship, so I wrote it down, then Pastor Nick preached on it. Oh prophecy.

Oh Dreams

I haven't been updating much 'cause summer is lazy/busy...

My One and my brother are dating. Weird? Yes.

Then I had a "real" dream last night, which is where I learn what my subconscious is thinkin' about. From what I remember, Josh Newman, Pasha, Jordan, Elinor, and I were all in a van with an African guy driving. I remember wanting to tell Newman about Elinor and Preston dating, but we couldn't find a time when everyone wasn't around. Then I made a comment about it to Elinor, and she got a lil' mad.

I learned from this that I need to give my brother's new relationship to God and not think about it, find time to hang out with Newman, and go to Africa to have an African drive me around in a van.

My Friends Now

My friends are so good! I hope that I'll always be able to have days like today. Just sitting around at the park, occasionally flying kites, trying to make kites out of Target bags, comments about the bicyclist soul-searching in the pond, people riding the wave that is my tum-tum, etc. And the humor is so good and basic. Ah.

Thanks for the input on the prophecy. I think it might be referring to how some teachers (not just Mr. Harber, but also very trusted teachers, like Mrs. Horan) were advising me to approach something other than the medical profession, since my grades in math and science have never been exceptional.

By the way, I have $1,300 for Kenya so far, with more hopefully in the mail. I found out today (apparently not for the first time) that I'm supposed to have prepared a twenty-minute teaching for the youth on saturday, then another one to help Angela with the sunday school the next day, also for the youth.

Junior High Is WAY Mature Where It Counts

Regarding the TAPPS Competition:
My pipe-smoking duck unfortunately got 7th out of seven contestants in graphite drawing. My broken-mirror one didn't place at all. But my Kenya one did, and I also got 2nd in Current Events. I can't go to state in Current Events, but my art can. But my Kenya one probably won't make it very far over there. My water one didn't make it at all.

Small groups was so good tonight. Shayna wasn't there, but we still managed alright. We talked about the gift of faith, which took up all of our time, so we didn't move on to any other gifts tonight. Afterwards, though, the Villageezy girls (Jackie, Bree, and Bianca) convinced me to talk to them about demons and such. Through this, I came to learn that they had trouble with demons after small groups moved into their house. Good thing I talked to them, eh? Anyway, I told them what I could within an hour, and then had to return a RedBox dvd (The Rocker is a great movie). They are so incredibly spiritually mature and open than most high schoolers. They told me that I had patience, but I think I would lose self-control if I was in a high school small group. At least these guys talk about their life, and aren't afraid to speak up about things that are important to them, rather than a group of teenagers who "don't like to share" about their lives, or what's going on with them. The only time I experienced ANY frustration with my small group is when I messed up and didn't prep for it with Word time.

Visions

In the Paradigm service tonight, Lance talked for a lil' bit about visions and things that God has spoken to you, and if you've been following after them. My mind brought back the vision I had a few months before going to Kenya. I saw myself praying for someone, then feeling a shift underneath the clothing, like bones moving into place, and my eyes widened in surprise. In response to this, I had prayed for hands of healing while in Kenya, but did not see this fulfilled, though I had believed that it would be. This put God and I on bad terms for awhile, but I came to terms and dropped it. One thing new I noticed tonight was that my eyes widened when I felt the change. That means that I was aware of the change.

Maybe it could be translated in a different way. I dunno.

OTHER NEWS

I was texting with Katie the other day about what she had been doing at JBU, and she said at one point, "You're gonna love it here." I replied with, "You're sounding like I'm gonna be going there for sure."

The funny thing was, my spirit was open to the idea of JBU. BU has been my focus, but now JBU is not off-limits. It makes me wonder...(AND ASK GOD FOR ANSWERS!!!)