Monday: Halloween at the Joshua building was pretty fun. I had decided to be Poly Bleeker from Juno again because I had the costume and it was easy but this year I was determined to find a Juno. I wasn’t so sure though how the staff would feel about a Joshua girl dressing up as my pregnant girlfriend so I decided to ask my friend Galo to be Juno. He agreed but had no clue what to wear so by talking to the girls and my little costume skills I made him the orange striped Juno shirt and got him a skit to wear. Sadly though, we weren’t dressing up for the whole day. So that morning we got up and went to class as normal but that day class wasn’t quite normal. Since Rich and Jen were still gone in Thailand and Rich normally taught Israel prep Monday, we did something a little different. We got the watch this really great movie called Masada. I was made in the 70s or early 80s, I think, so basically it was out dated and cheesy. That’s all we did for class that day it was pretty swell. During our free time all the guys went on a hike together through the Sequoyah forest and we had a cool time of bonding and getting to hear one of the guy’s testimony. When we got back free time was over and it was time to dress up. Galo and I walked out together to make our appearance. Everyone really liked our costumes and we spent a good hour taking pictures of everyone in their costumes. Galo ended up changing out of his costume before dinner though because he felt uncomfortable about everyone grabbing his fake belly and boobs. That night the leads were allowing us to go trick or treating around Hume but I couldn’t go because I had another paper to work on that was do the next day. So I was up till 1:45 finishing my paper.
Tuesday: The only thing I can kind of remember about Tuesday is that I turned in my paper, during my free time I went to the tumbling wall with some friends at high adventure, and then that night I helped Cooper lead worship.
Wednesday: I had morning k.p. with Ryan and it was his birthday. Then word went around the building, that at dinner we were all going to dress up like Ryan and give ourselves red beards like his, even the girls. That day for class when we normally have Rich teaching us theology we had Chad instead. It was an awesome class that day. We talked and discussed a lot about God’s identity and character. It was so exciting and made me so glad God is the amazing, indescribable, and loving God He is. That day at lunch it seemed like every table just continued the discussion we were having in class. We had our last book discussion for Mere Christianity and now we are on to The Ragamuffin Gospel. During free time me and a group of my friends went down to the lower Joshua field and played a game of ultimate. My team had four people and the other five but we still creamed them. Most of the game was actually pretty close but it ended 7 to 4. It was quite successful. So at dinner when we all met up everyone had their red beard and most of us were wearing jeans, flip flops, a hoody, and a shirt with some sort of tiger on it because Ryan is always wearing this one favorite tiger shirt of his. I actually barrowed Jorey’s stuffed animal tiger and duct taped it to my shirt. It was pretty great how surprised Ryan was. After dinner that night I got to help lead worship again but this time with Chase and Andy. I have really been enjoying help leading worship. I just hopping that at some point this year Matt can come up and lead with me. After our evening meeting was over my roommates and I went to ask chad about Jacobs rooming situation since he had lost his roommate last week and one of us was going to move in with him. Later that night I found out it was me. I spent the rest of that night moving in. I love my new room and roommate. I now have more room for all my stuff, my own desk, a queen size bed, and I’m the first room in man hall. Wednesday was a good day for me.
Thursday: We had our last meeting with our speaker for this week and it was really good. He spoke a lot about how to reach out to none believers and how the church today is getting too comfortable and not doing that so well and how we can change that. I had sweeps later with Jacob and Austin down at maintenance. It wasn’t too hard but not super fun either. When we got back to the building we got ready for dinner which was a themed dinner. It was kindergarten night so we all dressed like kindergarteners and all the leads dressed like teachers. For dinner that night we had chicken nuggets, smiley face fries, pizza, mack and cheese, and for dessert we had dirt and worms. After dinner the leads wanted to keep the fun rolling so we all changed and then set up the dining room for a huge game of Bunko. It was a super fun and ridiculous night.
Friday: It was the first official day for our class Mob War. My class started this pretty complicated game of a family mob war and all the rules were finally established so we started Friday. Shockingly right after breakfast and a few minutes before devo time I was murdered. I couldn’t believe it at first. The fact that we had only been playing for maybe an hour and someone had already paid a hit man to assassinate me bummed me out at first but then I realized they must have thought me and my family to be a threat which was cool. Later that day another student was killed and by this point our deaths were known around the building and everyone was stinking paranoid. It was pretty funny. Being dead made my weekend a little more enjoyable though because I wasn’t so scared of everyone trying to kill me. Our deaths only last three days though and we’re never allowed to speak of our deaths. The rest of Friday was pretty good. We only had one class that day and it was life skills. We learned gun safety and then we were told that we going to get to shoot on Monday. I’m looking forward to it. My work assignment for the weekend was server for the Father Daughter conference that was going on down at main camp.
The rest of the weekend was pretty basic. I just worked and studied for Philippians. I feel ready which is good since the test is tomorrow. I’m sure on my next wir I’ll share all about how I did. This is I’m going to write for this this week though. The end.
This past weekend was the men’s conference, which meant there were a lot of cool activities going on and I was lucky enough to get programs. On Friday both Galo and I got to work at the shotgun range. We pushed the buttons to launch the clay pigions and worked this thing called the rabbit, it threw clay disks and made them roll and bounce on the ground like rabbits. At the end of the day our boss, Scott, actually let us shoot for quite a while. The next day I was working at the boat house for a little while, the only thing they had for me to do was move some golf carts around camp. I had never driven any form of a car of cart before so it was a fun and new experience for me. When I was pulling them into the snack shop parking lot I had to back them into a spot but since I had never done it before I had a little trouble. After about five or six tries my friends who were sitting at the snack shop table stopped laughing at me for a second and actually came over and helped me. But for the next two that I had to move I was able to do it on my own. After I had finished moving them all, the guys in the boat house had nothing else for me to do so I caught up on some of my reading. Johnny picked me up after I had taken my lunch break and took me over to the archery range. At first they just had me sitting behind a desk to explain any information about archery or the archery compotation to the men that stopped by. Most of the men that showed up had been at the range the previous day so I didn’t much to do since no one nedded anything explained. I went back to my reading until they started a little compotation and they needed one more person in the bottom skill level for it so they asked me to step in. That was the first day I had ever shot a bow and arrow. It ended up being a lot of fun and lasted the rest of my work day. I finished second to last but it was still a fun day. The third day we were done with the activities so we were then just cleaning them up. There were quite a few of us working programs that weekend so we finished really early and were off by twelve. I had dicided to take advantage of the rest of that day for fun. Galo, David and I went on a walk around the whole lake. None of us had done it before so it made it a fun adventure for all of us. It was really cool getting to see all the different sides of it and also see the front and back side of the dame. Something I haven’t said yet but is true about that whole weekend was that it had some of the best food we’ve eaten at main camp. That night we had pizza and fried zucini sticks. It was quite wonderful. We went to church after dinner and then after church a big group of students and Hume staff got together at Buck Rock which is a three story cabin in main camp. We went there and played a game of Murderer in the Dark. It was ridiculously scary but was also ridiculously fun. That was most of the highlights from last weekend.
This past week seemed to fly by pretty fast and I’m having trouble remembering what exactly. I believe on Monday we had our regular morning classes and then during our free time a big group went down and played a big game of ultimate frisbee. My team did well but lost. It was still a fun game though. That evening we had Mark Strous as our speaker. He is on the board of people that put together the NIV. He was teaching out of the gospel of Luke. He focused in on Jesus’ parables and his main idea or theme of the week was how Jesus came to seek and save the lost and how sometimes as Christians we keep the lost at and arms-length and think that in some way we are better than them. He was a good speaker. From what I can remember nothing super exciting or out of the ordinary happened on Tuesday or Wednesday. We had normal classes and Mark spoke in the evening. On Thursday though, Mark taught in the morning, we had lunch and then I had my last day of SWEEPS for the kitchen. When I showed up for SWEEPS and I asked Kelsey what we were doing she told me she really didn’t have anything for us so we ended up going over to the archery range and shot for a couple hours. When we got back and I steped in man hall there was abuch of guys standing around the door and they told me to read the note that was on it. It was from Andrew one of our brothers. It was him saying good bye and that he loves us, was greatfll for the time he had with us, and that he was going to miss us. I didn’t understand why he was gone and was really sad and kind of upset for a little while but then I found out that he was aked to leave because he had been speaking and acting inappropriately towards some of the girls in the program. It was a really big bummer to find that out but I was glad to know why. That evening Justin and I took a walk to get coffee and hang out. After we did that we headed over to our pause family’s house. The girls got there a little bit later and for the first time our whole family was able to be there at the same time which was really cool. We had a really good nigh full of good food, fun games and quality hanging out and relaxing time. I love spending time with my pause family. I know I’ve only spent two night with my pause parents but I feel like I’ve know them for a while with how well we all get along.
Now to start talking about this weekend, so yesterday which was Friday we had our Elements of Bible study class and then Life Skills which we normally have with Kip but he out of town so we had it with his wife. She is super artsy so yesterday she was teaching us to reuse stuff to make fun artsy stuff. She taught us how to make a bunch of different kinds of journals, jewelry, and paper. I think the paper was the most exciting thing for me. I thought it was super interesting how you can recycle paper and make it into new cool looking paper. I’m definitely considering making my own paper and then putting it into a journal I’ll make as well. I spent some time later that day to work on my skills paper for Elements of Bible Study then went down to main camp for dinner. After dinner I hung out with a couple of guys and around 8:30 we went over to Buck Rock to play another game of Murderer in the Dark. Again it was super awesome. We ended up getting back to the building just in time for curfew.
Today Chace, Andy, Chris, Cooper and I left the Joshua at 8:30 and went down the hill to spend the day in Fresno. O my way down since I had my phone and service I got there opportunity to call my mom and dad. It was really nice getting to catch up with them since it had probably been three weeks since I had last talked to them. Our first stop on our adventure of the day was Starbucks. It was so nice drinking coffee that was not Seattle’s Best from the G-store. We spent about 2 hours there having coffee and breakfast and working on our work as Chase up dated stuff on his computer. After Starbucks we spent a little time walking around the River Park shopping area and then we went to lunch. I had realized the one thing that I had not had since I’ve been at Joshua is Chinese food so we went to Panda Express and I know that’s not real Chinese food but I still really like it. Our next destination for our trip was Yoshi Now. It took a little while to get there and we ended up in some pretty ghetto areas but we made it there safe. Yoshi Now was better than I ever imagined. We probably spent an hour and a half there looking through everything. I ended up only buying this one really old San Jose Sharks hoodless sweatshirt. It’s a little small but totally worth it and it only cost four bucks. Some of the other guys got a few good things as well. I think Chris walked out with the most though. We checked out a couple more thrift stores afterward but none of them were as good as Yoshi Now. I can’t wait till I get another chance to go back. When we were all thrift store shopped out, we decided to go get In N Out and of course it was good as always. We headed back up the hill after we ate and on the way up since we didn’t have music or anything like that to entertain us, Chris, Cooper and I played this game where you shack your face back and forth really face and take a picture while doing it and see what you get. I must say the faces we made were pretty gross. That was pretty much our day down in Fresno. I would say this was a really good weekend.
This past week we went to Hartland, which is another Christian camp that is about an hour down the hill from Hume Lake. We went there to serve the camp by helping them clean all their cabins, kitchen, offices, bathrooms and the camp grounds itself. Even though that sounds like a lot that wasn’t even the biggest job the Joshua students did there. The job most of our time was spent on was clearing brush from the forest along the roads to prevent forest fires. That meant a whole lot of cutting down trees big and small and then sending them through the chipper.
The whole car ride down to Hartland I was so excited to be spending my week outside doing some work and helping out this camp. I’m going to say again how excited I was to be outside because I had just spent my entire weekend in the dish room at Ponderosa Dinning working from early morning to late in the night. I was tired of being inside and was glad to be getting away from the indoors. When we got there we found out that we were going to be in a cabin with the same people that we were with for Wildwood. I was really happy about that because most of my closest friends were in my cabin. After we found out our cabin situation we found out our work assignments for the week. I was not very happy at all when I found out what my assignment was. I was actually pretty upset. I got assigned to work in the kitchen. I didn’t understand why I was put there. Even though I was working with some of my close friends, Tristan, Amanda, and Zoie, I was still in a really bad mood. I really tried not to show that I was mad and tried to just do what they wanted me to do but Tristan saw that I was angry. He told me it was a chance to work on my character and I asked him what he meant by that and he said it was time to learn to do something even when I don’t want to do it. That didn’t change my attitude very much at the moment. As I kept working that day I couldn’t seem to justify my anger in my head and I kept trying to think of why God wanted me in the kitchen. Ryan and Meghan came to see how we were doing as we were working. I guess it was pretty obvious by this point that I was not happy so Meghan asked me what was wrong and I wanted to be honest with her so I told her that I was not happy because I had spent my weekend in the kitchen and I just wanted some time away from it and be outside but I also said I’d be fine. I couldn’t really tell how she felt about what I said because she and Ryan just walked out after that. As the day went on I tried not to focus on my anger and have fun with my friends who I was working with. When dinner finally rolled around we were off and everyone joined us in the dining area. When they all started coming in I could see that everyone looked so exhausted, dirty and sweaty. I started to feel a little more grateful for my job but I felt like I was still missing out on some fun bonding time working outside. But as I was talking to my friends who worked outside they were telling me how they couldn’t even really talk because of all the loud equipment. Then I felt really grateful for my job. After dinner that night we had our evening discussion before some free time and at the start of this discussion Allen read the verse that says Christ came to serve and not be served. All the students chimed in about that and shared some other verses. That time of discussion was very convicting and completely changed my view on the week. I realized that that week wasn’t about me having fun, bonding or be comfortable. It was about me serving others out of a selfless heart. Something really cool that a student brought up in the discussion was the fact that in everything we do it is worship to God. He point out that even in the smallest things like moving some sticks to another pile of brush, is worship because it was for the glory of God that he did it. Also during the discussion Meghan spoke up about how multiple students that day were tell her how unhappy they were with their jobs and how that kind of hurt because she really tried to put us in places that she thought we’d do well in and that we might be able to bless the camp in. After the discussion I went up to her and apologized about complaining and I explained to her how God had really changed my perspective on the week. She was really glad to hear that. The rest of the night was filled with a lot of fun. Hartland had a snack for us up in the dining hall so I spent some time in there eating cookies, drinking coffee and hanging out with friends. They also opened up their gym where they had a volleyball court basketball court and a rock wall that had four stages of difficulty. I first climbed the first three stages of the rock wall which was really fun but actually challenging. Then I played volleyball for a couple hours and then moved on to a game of three on three basketballs for about an hour. It was a really fun night but it pooped me out.
Tuesday had a much better start than Monday. I went in looking forward to serve. Tristan and I worked most of the day together in the fridge. We were cleaning the shelves and organizing what was on them. It gave us quite a few hours to really talk about some deep stuff without any interruption or worry of anyone else hearing because we were in a fridge. We also swept and scrubbed about every inch of the kitchen. We actually surprised our boss with how fast we were getting our jobs done that she had us go work with some of the other crews. We first went around the camp picking up garbage and then we went and worked with one of the brush crews. It was nice getting outside and using my hands to cut down trees and throw around some logs. After work we had dinner and then some guy/girl time. My brother Chris shared his testimony and it was really eye opening to hear his story and where he was coming from. It was a pretty powerful time for the guys. After the guy/girl time was over they had snack and coffee for us again but that night I decided to go back to my cabin to finish my reading for book discussion the next day. Unfortunately my kindle broke as I was just about to read so I had to borrow my friends. That was pretty much the end of my night.
On Wednesday morning the idea that everything we do for God is act of worship kept ringing in my head so I pulled Tristan aside after breakfast and we started our day off with prayer. We prayed that we’d all be serving out of selfless hearts and ones that were joyful in the fact that we were doing this to bring glory to His name. It was probably the best way I think we could have started our day. Hartland had my group and me helping in their coffee/snack shop. We spent most of our day in there scrubbing everything down, mopping, sweeping, dusting, and vacuuming. This may sound kind of dumb or cheesy but at one point in the day Tristan and I were scrubbing the grill and I got a grease stain on my favorite pair of jeans and I was pretty bummed at first but then I realized I didn’t get this little stain on my paints while scrubbing some stupid old grill, I got it while serving God. So now every time I see that little stain it reminds me of what we did at that camp to bring glory to God. It’s not anything super big or significant but I thought it was kind of cool. Later that day while we were still working in the coffee shop we heard over the radio that one of our students working with the brush crew may have a possible back injury. This information shocked all of us so our boss gave us a little break to listen in on the radio. We ended up finding out from the radio and our friend Hannah who was taking picture over there right before it happened, that a tree was being thrown down the hill and the student that threw had made sure that no one was down the hill but at the last moment Amber stepped forward and was struck on the back of the head and then hit on the shoulder. Hannah told us they thought it may be a broken collar bone and concussion if not worse. We all took some time on our own to pray for Amber but when I was praying I knew God was going to protect Amber and was looking after her so I was praying for Justin who is my pause brother and also the student that dropped the tree on Amber. I knew that Justin had been going through a hard time and especially when it came to being around girls so I was really worried that he was going to take all the blame on himself and close himself off more. So sat outside for a while praying for Justin and then each student that was effected by this. I would really like to write more about this week but I am out of time so hopefully I’ll be able to post more about it later.
On Sunday my family came to visit me. I was up in the library trying to work on my third skills paper for Moody when I heard my mom’s voice say, “there he is,” I look down and see my sister Brooke and my mom standing in the great room. So went running down the stairs to say hello. I was really glad to see them but I was also sad to find out that Paige got sick so she and Brad stayed home. After we talked for a bit and I introduced them to some of my friends in the building and then gave them a tour of it. By the time we were done it was lunch time so my family, myself, Isaiah and Tristan all squeezed into my dad’s car and went down to main camp for lunch. After lunch my family and I went out to the front lawn and took the classic Hume picture right in front of the lake. Since my parents hadn’t ever been to Hume before we decided to walk to the cove and enjoy the nice weather. When we got back from the cove my family wanted to celebrate my birthday with me so we went over to the snack shop where I opened some presents and ate cheese cake. There was also a group of French people having lunch over there and one of them really did not like Hume’s ducks because he yelled at it, “You American Duck!” and then threw at peace of bread at it and started laughing. It was pretty funny. My family and I were trying really hard not to laugh to loud. We went back up to the building after our little celebration and wanted to play ping pong but someone hid the paddles so we couldn’t but we ended up pulling out the dice and started playing game very similar to farckle. We only played for a little while though because my friends came up to us and invited us to go down to the Well in Fresno, which is a church, so we decided to go. This gave me a chance to ride down the hill with my family and hang out. My family and I got coffee and then went to In-N-Out. It was SO good. I had a really fun time just hanging out with them in the normal world down the hill. After dinner we met back up with the guys at the Well. This church was actually really cool and I was really excited to see Brad Bell speak live because Hume’s church is Brad teaching through a video feed but this time I got to see him speak live or so I thought. Apparently he only spoke in the morning so the showed the video from that morning. It was still a really good lesson. After church was over I said good bye to my parents and sister because I was getting a ride back up the hill with some Hume people and I didn’t them to have to take me back and then send them back down the hill again. Once they were gone I went up to the guys and found out that they didn’t have enough space in their car for me but that there were some girls from Hume that could take me back up. So the guys headed back to Hume as I hung out with Jen who was my boss from my first weekend, Danielle who was my boss at the snack shack, and Abby who is one of the backers at main camp. I thought that we’d be headed back up to Hume right away but we had to run some errands first. We went over to a Wal-Mart and then a doughnut shop. It was actually really fun getting to hang out with them and get to know them more on a friends’ basis. We ended up getting back a little late but it was all okay. That was the first day to the start of a pretty good week.
This past week has been pretty basic but has had some fun times as well. On Monday Rich gave us some time in the morning to work on Philippians which was nice because I recently found out our first test on it is coming up soon. I also found out we may have to write it out for the test so that’s going to take a little more time to study. Then we had Israel prep which Rich taught and it was really cool and exciting, like always. After class and lunch was over Megan and Ryan had me go pick up the mail with them and as we were going Megan told me that they were going to switch me into a new pause family. I was a little bummed at first but then she explained to me why they chose me to switch and it actually made me feel a little honored that they saw certain qualities in me that made them think I’d be the best to switch. Once we got back to the building, a group of my friends and myself went down to the lake and got two rowboats. In one boat it was Tristan, Cooper, and Galo and in my boat was Brooke and Jordan. The only bad thing about that was that we had a broken oar and a boat full of people that could hardly row because of it. It took us a little longer to meet up with the other boat at the rock but we made it. When we got there I realized I was the only one wearing my swim suit so everyone was tell me to jump in. I ended up jumping and it was actually really nice so I did it again but tried to splash one of my friends the second time. No one else wanted to go in with me and then everyone started complaining about how cold it was and I was the one that was wet. So we decided to go back but this time Galo switched with Brooke so that he could help us row back. We got back a lot faster that time and as I was helping pull us in I found a really cool pair of sun glasses lying on the flour of the lake so I gave them to Galo for helping us get back. After that fun adventure we decided to get some food from the snack shop. I got fries and the wonderful fudge brownie and pepper mint shake with a shot of espresso. It was truly great and then Tristan let me try his and I would have to say it was equally as good. His was a vanilla shake with chai and a shot of espresso. Later that day our speaker wasn’t able to make it so Rich and Tom, who was the husband of our couple this week, gave us our personality test back and explained to us how to interpret them. Mine pretty much seemed accurate and it definitely gave me some stuff to work on.
On Tuesday we had our Moody class where I found out I have another paper that’s due this next Tuesday and then Old Testament class. Since I didn’t have SWEEPs on Tuesday, which is a job you work at main camp the whole month either on Tuesday or Thursday during free time, Chad asked me if I wanted to have a one on one. He said we’d meet at two so I planned on it but I also had to go down to main camp real quick to grab some money. I head down with a group of people to the g store and want to hang out with them longer but by the time we got down there and I got my money I had to head back up the hill. When I got back up just in time for my one on one, I found out that Chad is in a meeting and he can’t meet until three. Bummer. So I hung out with some people in the great room until then but he ended up getting out of his meeting at 3:30 and then asked if we could do it on Wednesday. It was a bummer but not that big of a deal. That night our speaker made it and we found out it was Mike Anthony who is the president of Hume. He shared a bit about himself/ his testimony and then started in on his lesson for the week, which was about spiritual gifts. He was really great and I was looking forward to hearing him the rest of the week.
On Wednesday we normally get to Grill our evening speaker in the morning but Mike felt like teaching that morning. I really enjoyed his lesson and actually felt challenged to look into what my spiritual gifts are. Then we had theology with Rich and he shared two videos with us that were super funny. They were both music videos by this Jewish a cappella group about their holidays. They were very entertaining and informational. Then we had our last book discussion on Spiritual Leadership. I think I might read it again because it was a good book and had a ton of good information that I feel like I’ll need to absorb again. Chad and I got to meet up after book discussion. We went down to main camp and walked half way to the cove as I shared my testimony with him. It was really nice having the time to share that with Chad. He challenged me to find my God given passions this year and not let things stand in the way of me pursuing them. My talk with Chad took up most of my free time so when we got back we went straight to dinner. After dinner we got to Grill Mike since he spoke in the morning. During the time we were asking him questions he kept getting really emotional and started to cry. It happened four times but it didn’t bother anyone because the questions were about God, his family and his relationship with them so when he started to talk about them you could just see the passion and love he has for them. He actually made a few of the students tear up including me. It was an awesome time of just hearing his heart. Hearing him speak about his family made me so excited that I get to see my family on Sunday.
Thursday morning Mike finished his lesson. He left me felling very inspired to search with God’s help to find out what my spiritual gifts are and to use them to their fullest potential. He was a wonderful speaker and Tristan and I kept talking about wanting to stopping by his house and hanging out with him. Though I’m sure he probably doesn’t have a whole of free time being the president and all. Since it was Thursday that meant I had SWEEPs so after morning discussion was over Amanda and I got ready to work and we were actually assigned to work in the Joshua kitchen. We got to reorganize the huge kitchen fridge and cut fruit for Friday’s breakfast. It was really cool getting to spend that time with Amanda because we haven’t really spent that much time with each other yet and I found out she’s in my new pause family. That night after dinner we got to all go in the classroom and watch this super cheesy video about these two guys and this family that discovered the real mount Sinai. Despite its cheesiness it was actually really cool to see how they just used scripture to find out where the real mountain was.
Now on Friday the day started off pretty normal I had breakfast, devo time and then my Moody class. But since I had the day off I decided to go down to Fresno with Rich and help him pick up a van for Joshua and run a couple of errands. But those couple of errands ended up taking all day. We first went to a mall to pick some stuff up from an apple store. It was pretty weird being in a mall after being in the mountains for a month. After that we took the van to get an iPod jack installed into it and when that was happening Rich took me to a Mexican restraint for lunch. After lunch we picked up the van and drove around for about and hour looking for a place to get it realigned but didn’t find anywhere so we decided to get some coffee. Then we did a couple more things that I’m sure you probably don’t care about reading. Though on the way back up we did stop for pizza at Bear Mountain and it was so good because my roommates and I have been craving pizza everyday. We ended up getting back to the Joshua building around 7:45. It was really nice getting to spend that time with Rich just getting to know one another. Later that night a huge group of the students got together in the dinning hall and played Murder in the Dark. It was the first time a lot of us had played but it was really fun and also terrifying. We played until we had to be out of common areas. It was a really good ended to the week.
Basically everyday from Monday to Wednesday I spent my entire free time working on my Jonah paper. It wasn’t too bad spending my time that way because it seemed everyone else had to as well. Though there were a few times when the guys were going to play ultimate frisbee or some other game and I had to turn down the offer. I’m not looking forward to having to do that again. Jeff was our speaker this week and he was really great. I took a lot away from his lesson.
His lessons gave me plenty to think about and stuff to work on in myself. Chris and Anna were our couple this week and I got to spend a little bit of time talk and hanging out with them. I wish I had more though. They seemed like really great people and I would have like to get to know them better. I’m hoping they have another opportunity to come be our couple again but I don’t know if that’s how it works.
On Thursday Jeff gave his last lesson in the morning and when he was done we were free to do whatever until lunch and then after lunch we were free until dinner. It was really nice having all that time to relax since the past few days were spent working. During the free time I had finally decided to let Kristin cut my hair and it ended up turning out really nice. Then at 5 we all got together dressed up nice and fancy for the etiquette dinner. It started later than expected so we spent an hour or so taking picture together in our nice clothes. Honestly that may have been my favorite part of the evening. When we finally started we got in our pairs or dates that the staff had pre-put together. My date was Nicole which was actually pretty cool. But the rest of the evening seemed to move a little slow. We had this guy who was trained in etiquette lead us through how to do everything proper on a date. It was kind of fun at first but ended up being kind of exhausting. My table was also very quiet, no one really felt like talking much which didn’t help it go any faster. I guess the last thing that made the night seem not so grand, was the food and I only say that because it was a little too sophisticated for me. Every dish was something fancy and French. I ate basically everything but it was not my cup of tea.
Friday was my birthday. I woke up that morning not even thinking about it. But when I got down stairs I realized my friends definitely remembered because everyone was telling me happy birthday and then at breakfast they sang to me and let me go to the front of the line. Later that morning we had our moody class and the life skills. In the moody class Allen gave us our Jonah papers back so that we could correct some things before he grades them. Then in life skills kip actually gave us a lot of helpful tip on how to survive in the wild. After class we found out our work positions for the weekend and I saw that I was put in the snack shack. It was some pretty exciting news since one at Joshua has worked there yet and I was the only one scheduled to work there for this weekend. The first day there was a lot of fun. They taught me how to make milkshakes and use the cash register. They actually let me run the front by myself too. It was cool getting to do that because I’ve never really had a real job before so that was a completely new experience.
On Saturday I didn’t have to be to work until 11 so Tristan and I walked down to the g-store and got some breakfast. We took it over to the tables by the volleyball courts and had a pretty cool talk. I ended up working till 2 without a lunch break because my boss forgot to give me one so she had my friend Paul, who I met working at the snack shack, make me whatever I wanted. I had a big daddy burger and fries. It was quite satisfying. I didn’t have to be back to work until 4 so I walked around, talked with some friends and wrote in my journal. When I got back I found out that all my friends had come to see me at work when was on my break. That day I must have made over 40 shakes and when I was making one it had quite a bit left over in the shake cup so I poured it into another white cup so I could try it later. It was the greatest shake ever. It was fudge brownie and peppermint with a shot of espresso. It tasted just like a peppermint mocha from starbucks but in shake form. I worked until closing that night and I found out that it was my last day there because they were going to be closed on Sunday. I really enjoyed getting to know the people I worked with and the job itself.
The start of my second week was definitely nothing like my first. On Monday morning I was unexpectedly woken up at 4:45 am by Ryan. He .threw a bag at me and told me to start packing and that I only had 15 minutes. The bag came with a list of everything I needed so I franticly ran around my room making sure I grabbed everything on it. When I got down stairs I found everyone one else with their bags packed and wondering what was going on. Though it turned out quite a few people knew exactly what was going on and Rich was too happy about that. He sat us all down in the great room and asked us how he found out how we heard about what we were doing. Since no one was stepping us to say anything and I could tell that this was bothering the leads, I stepped forward and confessed that I had heard from many of the girls in the building that we might be leaving for Wildwood at 4:45 in the morning. I told them that the girls had heard from some staff at main camp. It turned out that the information the girls got from the staff wasn’t even reliable and it turned out the girls just made a luck guess. Rich ended up saying it wasn’t even the fact that they knew that made him mad it was that they felt they had to be in the know of everything. He told us how Joshua is a place where we’re going to have to give up that control and need to know everything and we need to submit to those who God put in charge of us. When we finally left we were driven about 15 minutes away and dropped off on the side of the road. It turned out to be the star of a path to wildwood. We hiked for about a half an hour in silence just praying to God that we could leave behind any sin or distraction and move forward into a week of change. Once we finally reached the camp we found out what cabins we were staying in and then we had breakfast. After that we then had some devotional time. I spent mine in this beautiful little clearing in the middle of a bunch of trees on the side of a hill. They said our week a Wildwood was all about bonding as the Joshua family so after devo time we split up into groups to go off and do team building exercises. My team was made up of two cabins and our first team exercise was the high ropes course they have there. It was actually more frightening and fun than I thought it would be. When we were done with that we had some free time so I went back to my cabin and took a nap. I spent the rest of the free time hanging with some friends. That night my cabin had KP but we didn’t have much to do. All I really did was make some lemonade and help prepare the pazookies for later that night. After dinner we all went down to the fire pit where Sam Miere spoke again. Sam always seemed to speak on something really interesting I actually hadn’t learned yet. That night he spoke about the significance of direction people traveled when they defied God and when they followed him. Once he had finished we all headed back up to the eating area for pazookies but there was a catch, the leads weren’t going to let us have them unless we performed for them. So they class got together and for some random reason decided that we’d sing and dance to “Baby Baby” by Justin Beiber. I guess it was good enough for the leads because they ended up giving us the pazookies. It was kind of frightening how quickly my table finished ours. Since we had just finished filling our bellies full of ice cream and cookie I thought it would be a fun idea to go star tripping in the middle of the field. Star tripping is a game where you stare up into the sky and focus on one star and then you spin around for about 30m seconds and after that 30 seconds someone shines a flash light right in your face and it nocks you to the ground. It was pretty fun until my friend Brooke went one to many times and stared to fell sick and then got a bloody nose. Once we got her sitting down and cleaned up things were okay. That kind of ended the night so we all headed to bed. That was just the start to an awesome week.
This is a review I had to write for my first week and I have to write one each week. So I plan on posting them each week. I hope you enjoy.
This first week of Joshua has been amazing. I enjoyed how the first few days were just orientation because it really gave us a chance to settle in and get to know each other. So far I really love the whole class. Everyone is even greater than I expected. A big prayer of mine before I got up here was that as we said good bye to our families at home we would be able to say hello to our new family here. God has really seemed to answer that prayer because almost everyone in the Joshua building already feels like a close friend and I know as the year goes on we will only grow closer.
Since these the first few days felt like we were just hanging out things really seemed to kick into gear starting Wednesday. I guess I’m saying that also do to the fact that I didn’t really start writing in my journal until Wednesday. So Wednesday was actually a really good day. It started off with some awesome sun shine cake made by our two wonderful cooks, followed by some devo time spent reading Philippians, and then my favorite class so far this year Theology with Rich. Even though rich used totally out dated videos and songs in his lesson that were quite funny, they really did get his point across and help me learn some pretty cool theology terms and concepts. After his class we got to take a tour of all the departments we will be working in this year and honestly the two I’m looking forward to working in the most are activities and food service. I guess the next most eventful thing that happened in my day was after lunch when I decided to walk up to the Joshua building and then go back down to the gym. But once I got down to the gym I realized the key my friend from a former Joshua class gave me a key that didn’t work for the gym even though she told me it did. Then I decided to do a ridiculous thing, I ran back up the hill. I did have to stop a few times but the important thing is that I made it. When I got back I saw that there was a group of people that had a real key to the gym and were going to go down but I didn’t think I was going to go so I jump on the computer. And of course once they left Tim comes up to me and asks if I want to go to the gym and I didn’t want to make him walk down there by himself so we decided to go down. But the funny thing is, is that when we got there no one was there. We found out later that that group decided to run around the lake before we headed to the gym. So Tim and walked back up the hill, which means I walked up and down that hill 3 time, a total of 6trips. I quite tuckered out by the time I got back so I took hour nap. The rest of the night felt pretty normal. Davis led so awesome worship, Sam spoke, and then I did my chore. But the night wasn’t really over yet. It seemed almost the entire Joshua class got together and played a game of around the world. It was pretty epic. The last thing that happened that night was cooper came and hung out with me and my roomies. He is definitely going to be a good friend through this year.
Thursday started off with morning KP which meant I got to get up at 5:45 but by the end of breakfast I realized it was totally worth it. Working with Ryan and Kelsey was super fun and it was nice having my chore done first thing in the morning and not worry about getting it done later. Instead of having class like we normally would in the morning Sam spoke. The one thing I think that really amazed me in his lesson is that scripture totally tells us how God is the Lord of Armies and his armies are his angels and his angles are literally the stars in the sky. It kind of click in my head that in the passage that talks about how God know every star by name it’s because each one has its own identity because it’s an angel. After his lesson we had an opportunity to grill Sam and his wife. It was fun to get to hear their stories and learn from them. I think the lunch we had that day was my favorite of them all so far. We had broccoli cheddar soup in bread bowls. It was quite fantastic. And you would think this was a start to a good day but then I had a very stressful free time spent entirely on trying to apply for Moody classes. But once that was all done and finished the day got much better. We got to meet our pause families and I literally got families, I got two and they are both awesome. I have the Johnsons and the Fosters. We went over to the Johnsons and had smores and dough boys in their back yard. It was really cool getting to know these families and some of my other Joshua siblings I had really talk to yet so I can’t wait to get to spend more time with my families.
The next few days all seemed to blur together and that’s probably because we started our first day of work on Friday. My first job was serving in the Ponderosa Dinning. It has been a pretty great job. The first day of it we only served dinner but the next day we had all three meals and it was pretty intense. By the end of the day I wanted to pass out. Then today when I got to work I could definitely feel the effect of a day and a half worth of working. My lower back has been killing me all day but I had to push through it. I must say that I’m glad I got to experience a full weekend’s worth of actual work. This first week of Joshua has been better than I ever could have expected. I’m definitely looking forward to everything else to come in this year.
Hi everyone I’m sorry it took me so long to post anything. Things have been pretty crazy and exciting so I been kind of distracted, but I’m here now.
These first few days have been amazing. I feel God has definitely been answering all the prayers I had before I arived here. One of the bigest prayers I had was for all the students here, that as we said good bye to our families at home, we could then say hello to our new family here. I definitely feel we are family already. Through the time we have had to get to know each other, worship together and learn together, real and deep relationships have been made. I thank God so much for that. Everyone has been great. I can just see in their hearts their love for God and each other.
In these few days I feel like we have gotten to experience so much already. We ate at the staff eating hall the first two days and luckily it was any longer. Lets just say everyone is much happier eating at the Joshua building. We also had orientation for the first three days and it was actually exciting to hear what I got myself into. Though on the third day as we finished orientation we got to have our first book discussion on A Tale of Three Kings. It was really cool to hear what the other students got out of it and how it resinated with them. I didn’t speak up too much in that discussion but know that will change. We also had our first speaker of the year speak on Monday night. His name is Sam Meier and he has been wonderful. He some how taught things I once found boring and showed me the real meaning and that I was just looking at it from the wrong perspective.
Well this is all I can really post for now because ewe have a 15 minute limit on the computers. i should be posting again soon. thanks for reading and God bless.
