Here I sit. In the airport. Not on the beach. Not in the sun. Not with my feet in the sand. Just here. Exhausted. Aloha means goodbye.
For the past couple weeks I’ve been on vacation. First stop: Los Angeles to see my Dad and where he lives. LA is sweet and I definitely want to go back and spend some more time there. I didn’t even hit the beach while we were there! I’m going back.
Kauai was freaking awesome. Probably the coolest place I’ve ever been. Or hottest. You get it. It’s the perfect temperature. All the time! A ton of humidity, but that cool breeze that feels like you’re in a convertible makes it all better. We spent most of the time on the beach. Or on a beach, because we went to plenty. Fish were really cool. Surfing was really cool.
And family was really cool. I got to see family that I haven’t seen in 3, 4, 5, 6 years. We had about 15 people staying in the pretty average size beach house for a good portion of the week. It was pretty cramped and chaotic, but we handled it.
My Dad and I took a hike towards the end of the trip which was so sweet. It wasn’t that long, but the terrain was real tough. We spent about 6 hours on it. It led us to a sweet secret beach. If we took it out further we would have found a sweet waterfall. I wish we went more.
So now it’s time to head home. I’m actually on the airplane right now heading back to Rochester. If my calculations are correct (I’ve been in 6 different time zones in the last day), I’ve been awake for 28 hours so far. Hm. I should get some sleep sometime. Doubt it. I miss my friends and we want plates tonight! So one more hour (iawfwowrhg my ears just popped. OUCH) and I’ll be home. Home sweet home.
p.s check my facebook album for more pictures I took on the trip!
p.s. Some United airlines guy is sitting next to me. And practically sleeping on me. Anyone have a shovel?
Year two staffing NYLT course three. Another awesome awesome course. If you don’t know what NYLT is, it a leadership camp aiming to grow young men into leaders. National Youth Leadership Training. How it works is that we teach them skills in various ways, where they get a chance to use in camp, and then bring back to their home troops. There, they apply what they learn to teach others. It’s also a blast to staff. We had so much fun. I could tell a million stories, but you wouldn’t be able to understand any of them. You just wouldn’t. But here are some pictures to boot. If you are wondering what the fake blood is all about, I was the victim in a realistic first aid situation. While they were all doing a bogus activity on the porch, Spencer and I come out of the woods from behind the porch, yelling for help. I fall, then they are shocked, then they put me onto the picnic table. They used different first aid techniques, some correct and some incorrect. (They tried to tie a tourniquet.) They asked me every question in the book to keep me calm. I was up there for like 10 minutes. It was a success. Smitty asked me to be Senior Patrol Leader next year. Real excited for that. Along side me? Spencer!
Almost immediately after I got home from Colorado, my Mom and I departed for New York City to visit Grant and go to the Joyce Meyer Conference. Brian Houston from Hillsong also spoke. Delirious did a concert Friday night and Hillsong led worship all weekend. It was so amazing. Although Hillsong is not United, and Marty Sampson looked “bonked out of his mind” (quoted by Larry Moore), it was great. Brian Houston is my all time favorite speaker. If you want any of the notes from the conference, just ask! It was my first time in the city, and it was crazy! Driving around there is just worthless, because you’re not going to get anywhere any time soon. Walking around down town was also my all time favorite. I stayed at Grant’s the whole time. And if you didn’t know, somehow he made his way back up with me for a couple weeks!
You know when you’re going about your everyday life and something strikes you that you should blog about? (That something is usually God.) And then you either forget about it, or don’t have the time to blog? That happened to me about a million times since my last entry. So I’m sorry for not posting, even though I don’t think too many people were worrrying about me. Colorado was a lot of fun. I got to see my Dad, and do a lot of fun things out there. Megan came out with me for the last week to meet my Dad and we had some fun then too.
After 15 days, it is time to go back to my home. Rochester. It’s been fun, but I miss family, friends, and tfh. Megan’s coming home with me too. Soooo if you don’t want us to crash, pray!
Yesterday I went white water rafting with my Dad and his friend from work, Jim. So fun! We went on the Arkansas River outside of Colorado Springs. It was like a two hour drive to the place, and I was doing it on four hours of sleep. But boy did that first wave wake me up. Our leader’s name was Talmage, he was pretty cool. We were also with a couple from the Army. The first half was slow, so you could kinda of get used to it. We broke for lunch half way through. It started to rain a bit and got real cold out, and the water felt even colder. But you totally forgot about that after a wave or two! The rapids went from levels I-V. The water level was pretty low though, so it wasn’t as fun as it potentially could have been. There was a few that were killer though. Definitely doing it again!
Here are some of the professional pictures, I’ll add some of our personal ones once I get them. (p.s, you may want to click on it to zoom in and look at our faces!)
Today was about my first opportunity to check out another church (besides podcasts) since starting going to The Father’s House. Ever since I started to serve there, there seems to be no time to check out other church’s. Today I went and checked out my Dad’s church, Faith Bible Chapel. It was a pretty cool place! I’d been there once before but never really go the swing of things and didn’tengage in worship or the message. Last time I was there I saw a few people up front, and a lot of people in the very back. (They have about a 2,000 seat sanctuary.) It was pretty different this time. There was a lot less people this time but most people were engaged in worship. They played a lot of songs you’d hear on Klove, and they played Majesty by Delirious. I liked that he also did some original songs he wrote himself.
They announced tonight that Stan Sinclair, who is the current worship leader, is stepping down because he got hired by John Tesh, who used to host Entertainment Tonight and is in the Christian Music Industry. What an amazing experience. The current Youth Pastor Jason Clark, who often leads worship too, is stepping up as the worship pastor. Incredible! They are both so good. Jason does stuff with Integrity as well.
While I was thinking about all that, it reminded me a lot about when Gary moved. So when I got home I checked his Myspace Blog, and found out some good news! He has got a band together and is all funded up, and he’s recording a CD at the end of the month! Everybody pray for a show at TFH! But no really, everyone buy the cd. It has to be good, come on it’s Gary.
Pastor George Morrison’s message was on change. I really needed to hear it too. I know that change is a good thing and I actually really like it, but I still have a little fear for it. I know that after graduating there is going to be a lot of change. Going into college will bring forth a lot of change. Moving into ministry will be a lot of change. Becoming what I’m going to be? Change is inevitable! It’s going to be following me all my life.
Wow I still here fireworks. Check out Mark Batterson’s independence day post. It’s amazing how our nation was founded by people not afraid to change and move forward who had faith in Jesus Christ!
Today was the last day of school. Awesome I know. This year went by so fast, I can’t believe its over. But it always seems when something good happens, their is still some disappointment.Final exams! I have 5 exams to take during exam week. Two days of English, the Math B exam, Chemistry, and US History. The only one’s I’m worried about are the Math B and Chemistry. I’m going to try to get into some habits this summer. I’m not going to sleep in too late, because I don’t want to waste away all the summer. The first thing that comes is some quiet time. I’m also going to exercise a lot this summer. As I blogged about last, I’m going to read a lot. I want to get through at least 10 books. I’m also going to be away a lot this summer. In July from the 3rd through the 18thI’ll be with my Dad in Colorado. Megan’s coming for a week too! Then from August 1st through the 11thI’ll be at NYLT. NYLT is a leadership course I staff over the summer with the gang.
What are you guys doing over the summer? Any goals?
