Kelly's Journal

2012-02-16T13:25:00.003-06:00

Well, I believe it is either week 6 or week 7 of layoffs. Time flies by very quickly! God has been faithful in providing for all of my needs abundantly! I have been able to pick up some work doing odds and ends, including snow-shoveling, drywall,, & moving jobs.

I've also been able to get some studying time in as well. I was really encouraged going through Jerry Bridges "Trusting God, Even When Life Hurts". Sarah & I have also been attending the Sonship class at my church in La Crescent, which has been incredible. God has been showing me how desperately in need of Christ I am. I tend to think of myself far too highly, and very unrealistically. I tend to think that I've got it pretty well together, I know a lot, I'm full of grace, a strong Christian on fire for God, going to be a missionary in unreached place, etc. In reality, I am still very selfish, prideful, careless with my words, easily angered, lustful., and the list goes on! I am so desperately in need of Christ every moment of every day. Even this week I am realizing that I have zero game when it comes to dealing with people in a loving, encouraging way. I need the Holy Spirit's power every moment. Toward that end, I realize that I need to be actively pursuing the things of the Spirit, i.e. prayer, studying the Bible, fellowship with other believers, etc. I also need to be very careful with the things that can dull my sensitivity to the Holy Spirit, such as movies, games music, etc. In Christ alone, there is hope!
I've got some neat ideas that I am considering for this summer. One of them, which is extremely likely, is speaking at Lake Lundgren Bible Camp again on the subject of unreached people groups. Another is doing a trip to Thailand to help build a house for women coming out of the sex trade. I'm also interested in taking a "Wilderness First Responder" course. I also heard about a bike ride across Wisconsin that goes on in July, which would be really fun & a good opportunity to connect with lots of other Christians. I'm also poking around Craigslist looking for a Geo Tracker 4x4. Sarah & I have talked about getting one if we get married & go down to school in replacement of our two cars. I really like the idea of having a little 4x4 with more seats than my truck.

The pictures here are from last weekend's camping trip We survived outside during one of the coldest nights this year! We skied into Blue Mounds State Park with backpacks full of gear and camped for one night. It was a blast!

God Our Provider

2012-01-09T19:19:00.006-06:00

It's about 40 degrees outside right now, which is quite a heat wave for January in La Crosse, WI! After spending my work day siding a duplex, sloshing through mud & climbing all over scaffolding, I decided to go for a run. It's a very beautiful night, and I had a great run, breaking by far my record for the route. I got back and laid down on my front porch to cool off and regain my breath. As I laid there and looked up at some of the stars, I was struck by how thankful I am that I can trust God to be my provider. He loves and cares for me as a father!

I had been thinking some about how we are starting to run out of work at my company until spring. Even though I have bills to pay & I will be laid off, I am not worried. God always provides, whether it's through a job, unemployment, or a gift. God has always supplied my need in abundance! He is a faithful God! I am so thankful for all that He has provided! A lovely girlfriend with a heart and passion for tribal missions, a supportive and loving family, a wonderful church body, many good friends, a job, a truck, opportunities to share the gospel, good food, warm clothes, a nice apartment, the list goes on! Praise the Lord, our Provider!

Change of Scenery

2011-09-11T16:06:00.001-05:00

I'm sitting in my partment in West Salem, Wi. My truck is parked out on the street. I'm working for G-Mack again. Sarah and I are basically starting over from the beginning in our relationship. I'm not going back to school this year, and because of how the program works, I won't be able to enroll again until fall of 2013. And there seems to be cheap towel threads in all kinds of random places in my apartment, hahaha! In the midst of all these changes, I have joy in Christ!

There have been several interesting twists to my plans over this summer. The biggest twist is that I will not be going back to school this year. Instead I will be working full-time doing carpentry, establishing a strong relationship with Sarah, and a strong relationship with my church. As I earnestly sought the Lord over the past 4 weeks before making this decision, I felt He was strongly leading in this direction. I feel that the relationships with Sarah and with my home church are important enough to stay behind and nurture for this time period. In the big picture, my goal is for these two years to be fruitful preparation for the missionary task that God has called me to. And as I felt Him leading in a direction that I really didn't want to go, He was faithful in giving me the desire for this path, and a heart for the people He's called me to minister to and with right now. He is an ever-faithful, loving, sovereign God. I am very excited to see what He does with these next two years!

A life striving to glorify Him is where joy & fulfillment & peace are found. That is my prayer, that I would strive to glorify God in everything I do, knowing that I am nothing without Christ, and I can do no good thing without the work of the Holy Spirit. I want my life to be marked by obedience, confession, and repentance. I want to live according to Romans 12:2 "And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and pleasing and perfect." "Lord, strengthen our hearts to this end, fill us with Your Holy Spirit, that we may glorify You in all that we do. Thank you for Your faithfulness in transforming us! Thank you that Your Son paid the price for our sin! In Christ's name, Amen"

Swimming

2011-08-11T17:49:00.010-05:00

Last week I got to spend the afternoon with the youth at my church going swimming at a lake nearby. I lacerated my hand a couple of days before, so I wasn't really able to swim, but it was nice to be in the water and hang out with the kids from youth group. It's a real blessing to see the way that God is growing them and working in their lives.

How God placed Chambri on my heart

2011-05-10T07:00:00.000-05:00

Note: I'm going to begin posting some of my old journal entries and pictures from PNG. God's really been placing the Chambri people on my heart, so I want to share more about them with you!

3/15/09

"We're crusing downriver toward Chambri Island! We're in a dugout canoe with a 15hp motor. Chambri Island is in view right now. The total trip time is 2-2 1/2 hours. We've been going almost an hour & a half. As we initially started out the canoe was rocking around a bit, which was pretty fun! My eyes got real wide under my sunglasses & I started laughing. We've been traveling through straight-up jungle. The river ranged from very wide to quite narrow. We've only gotten stuck once. I'm starting to get used to the feel fo the canoe now. The 6-hour trip to Blackwater should be pretty sweet. A village is in sight on Chambri Island!"

Settling in for the final 5 weeks

2011-05-08T17:15:00.005-05:00

We've got 5 weeks of school left! I'm excited to be done for the summer. I'm looking forward to being with my fiance over the summer, spending time with my family, building things at my old carpentry job, spending time with my home church, hanging out with the youth from my church, going on adventure trips, and everything else that summer entails! It's been a great year, and it's flown by fast. God has taught me an amazing amount over the past year. I'm so grateful to be blessed with this time of learning and growing!

Being a very task-oriented person, I've got quite a few ideas for how I want to spend the last 5 weeks here. I'm going to be speaking at Lake Lundgren Bible Camp on the 3rd week of July, so I think I'm going to try to prepare my messages for that. I'm also planning to continue to bike, run, and use the bowflex. I'm thinking of taking another crack at a 100 mile ride. I've also got some reading I'd like to do. I've been working through a book on home repair that has TONS of info in it. It'd be nice to get that done before the semester is up. I've also really been enjoying doing some inductive Bible study! I'm doing 1 John right now, and I'd love to be able to finish that, which I picked to get "warmed up", and then work through Romans. I'm also continuing to go to the jail and preach on Wednesday mornings. Needless to say, I've got plenty to keep me busy!

In all of this though, one of my biggest concerns is to continue to spend time in the Word of God and in prayer. I realize that my standing with God has not changed if I miss my devotions in the morning (because of the righteousness of Christ). But, if I do miss my time with God, I feel like I am starving spiritually. I'm trying to get up earlier so that when I have to start work in La Crosse I will be able to spend time with God before work. Christ is my joy!

The pictures I included are from a couple of weeks ago when I was up in the San Antonio area doing some adventure stuff while we had the week off. It was a very refreshing time!

Chronological Bible Storytelling

2011-05-03T10:25:00.002-05:00

I was putting together some stories for one of To Every Tribe's missionaries in Papua New Guinea this morning, and I was thinking that it might be cool to post them on my blog. One of the classes we have here at CPCP is called Chronological Bible Storying, and it teaches us how to prepare Bible stories in a simple format for teaching to tribal peoples. It's been an incredible learning experience, and I'm excited to use this out in the field. We did a lot of our teaching in Gavamas, PNG this past February with stories like these. The people are able to rememeber them and spread them around the village. God's glory is being spread through the Gavamas region! Enjoy!

Job (A story of a man named Job)

Job was a good man who had 7 sons and 3 daughters. He was very, very rich. He had many, many animals. Job feared God and turned away from evil.

A day came when all the angels came to present themselves to God, and Satan came with them. God asked Satan if he had seen his servant Job. He told Satan that Job was a good man who feared God and turned away from evil. Satan told God that Job feared God because God had blessed him and made him rich.

God let Satan test Job. On a day when Job’s sons were feasting at the oldest brother’s house, a great wind came and blew the house down, killing everybody inside. Job’s animals and servants were killed, and his camels were stolen. The only servants who were left alive came and told Job all that had happened.

Job said “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked I shall return there. The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.” Through all this Job did not sin or blame God.

Jesus took the curse of sin

The first man and woman sinned, and because of this, everybody sins. God put a curse on mankind because of this sin. Every single person after Adam sins. Because of our sin we will go to hell.

All of man has been cursed. God had a plan from the beginning to free us from this curse. He sent His son to die so that we would not have to go to Hell and be forever separated from God. Jesus Christ came down to earth, and he was 100% man and 100% God.

Jesus took on our curse. He took our sin and paid for it on the cross. He took our curse and died so that we wouldn’t have to die and be forever separated from God.

Because of Christ, we can be free from this curse if we believe in Him.

A Week with My Fiance

2011-05-02T12:49:00.004-05:00

My fiance came down on April 22nd, and was here until the 30th. We had a really great time! I had classes all week, so she was able to sit in with us on those. We went to the beach a bunch of times, both to swim and then to camp with friends. It's nice having an island like South Padre 25 minutes away!

On one of our bike rides around Los Fresnos we discovered a little lake that had an alligator swimming in it! We sat in an a dead tree over the water and watched the gator for probably an hour. We also saw a lot of other wildlife, including snakes, turtles, and lots of birds. We are both are definitely in our element when we doing outdoor adventures!

Sarah and I also got to make a rough calendar for the summer while she was here. It looks like we'll be moving into the La Crosse area on June 19th. She's going to be living with a couple from my church, and I'm going to be back with my good friends, the Ganzemillers. I am going to be working with my old company, G-Mac construction, getting more carpentry experience. We are both looking forward to summer!

Our class this past week was on team development, and it was taught by David Depew. It was a very practical class that I think will have a big impact on us as we begin to form a team. We feel God is calling us to the East Sepik region, and quite possibly the Chambri tribe. Please continue to pray for us as we seek God's direction. We still have a lot of time before things of that nature will need to get decided though!

In my free time I am enjoying biking, running, lifting weights, and reading. There is a lot that I have yet to learn regarding building houses on the mission field, so I am also trying to do some basic reading regarding house construction and tools. This morning I was working through some of the "New Complete Do-It-Yourself Manual" by Reader's Digest. I'm enjoying learning new things, and it's exciting to know that these sorts of skills are invaluable on the mission field!

Great trip into Media! (We didn't die!)

2011-03-28T18:38:00.006-05:00

Our trip into Media Luna was really good. God opened doors for us to have Bible studies several different times. We also got to do a larger Bible study with a more evangelistic twist. Our team invited lots of people to this larger Bible study. It was neat to see God bring people in & encourage them in His Word.

I hopped up on the roof of our house there in Media and got measurements. We're planning on putting a new roof next month. Jim, Gabe, and I also got to work on a map of the village, which was fun.

On our way back we had to tow AJ's suburban (with a bunch of us in it) because of a leak in the water pump. We got a taste of the sovereignty of God on our way back as were were in a position to get into a very bad car accident & God spared us. Although I'm quite sure I would have no regrets in going to be with my Savior, it was nice to make it home without injury! Praise God!

By the way, in case you didn't already know, as of January 31st I am engaged to the lovely Sarah Wilkosz! Praise God!

Back from PNG and Spring Break!

2011-03-22T11:38:00.002-05:00

I know I need to do a post about our latest Papua New Guinea trip, but I haven't started working on that yet, and I wanted to post something in the meantime. Last week we had fantastic teaching from Jerry Bridges. He spoke for all of last week on "The Dynamics of Spiritual Transformation". It was very, very encouraging and sanctifying. Praise God!

We're heading out to Mexico this afternoon, and we'll be gone until Friday. Pray for us as we go into Media Luna. Pray that God would give us humility and love, and that we would be bold in preaching the gospel and lifting His name on high. Pray that the hearts of the people would be opened. Pray that God would keep us safe and healthy. Pray that we would realize more of His goodness and grace through the course of this trip. Pray that we would have many opportunities for building relationships, sharing the gospel, and teaching. Pray that we would eagerly make use of those opportunities!

The picture that I posted is from this past Monday when I was baking cookies for our dinner with Jerry Bridges. One of the fantastic things about being a student here is that we get to have dinner with our speaker on different nights of the week. Our group, the 4 singles and the Taylors, had Mr. Bridges for dinner on Tuesday. We were truly blessed by the week that he spent with us!

Storying & Security

2010-12-08T16:32:00.008-06:00

Over the course of the last few months, we've had the opportunity to learn basic storying skills so that we will be able to better teach people who learn orally. This past Monday we got the chance to tell all of our stories in order from creation to revelation. Each of the students and the staff had 1-2 stories to tell. It was really a great time worshipping God by telling His redemptive story. We are also doing that presentation for the church that most of us attend. I'm very excited about these new skills!

The rest of our week has been spent in learning about safety & security. We've learned a lot about risk assessment and personal safety. We've learned a lot of information that could end up being very helpful out on the mission field, especially if we end up in hostile areas. As we've talked over some of these matters regarding risk vs gain, we are keeping in mind that no risk is too great compared to the advance of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Closely linked to that is the fact that we want to assess and do what is most strategic for the advance of the gospel.

Gabe and I also got the chance to speak at the local jail this morning, which was really good. It's a great opportunity to stay sharp as far as preaching the gospel. It was really neat to see the fruit of that ministry evidenced this morning by guys truly worshipping God in song. It was amazing!

Praise God for the work that He is doing in teaching me through so many different experiences! Continue to pray that we as students here would eagerly seek to glorify Him in every area of our lives. Christ is everything!

P.S. The picture that I posted is of Gabe and I on our trip into Coicoyan, Mexico. Gabe and I are planning to be on a team together with his wife and the Wilkinson family. We are planning to work in Papua New Guinea.

War and...Rest?

2010-11-22T10:42:00.003-06:00

I'm in San Antonio at the moment on Thanksgiving break. It's proving to be a very good rest after doing front-line missions work amidst the Coicoyan people in southern Mexico. We had a really great trip. It was personally very sanctifying. God really used the trip as a catalyst for drawing me closer to Himself. God is doing a work in those people, drawing them to Himself. We did 4 days of dental and medical clinics, and we saw over 500 patients. God really used that clinic to beginning opening doors in the hearts of the people.

I drove up to San Antonio with Gabe on Friday night, and then I've been at the Wilkinson's ever since. Matt and I had a couple of really great opportunities to share the gospel on Saturday. They were doing a pancake breakfast event at their apartment complex and a guy came up to me and started talking about not having peace and joy anymore because he wasn't following God. God definitely was preparing his heart to hear the gospel and to be encouraged in that.

Later that night Matt and I were approached by a guy asking for gas money. We ended up talking to him for an hour or so, sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ with Him. We were praising God as we got back to the car for the opportunity that He had given us. I laughingly said to Matt "Man, how many more people are we going to have cry out for the gospel today? Normally you have to approach people, but we've just had people crying out to us!" Praise God!

In a sense, I feel like all I've done is change battlefields. I was making war in Coicoyan, Mexico on the front-lines, and now I'm back in the States sharing the gospel with those that God puts in my path. God has been teaching me more and more that this Christian life is a constant war. I need to be making war against my flesh. I need to be putting to death selfishness, deceit, lust, pride, fear of men, anger, and all other sin. I need to be striving to glorify God in every area of my life. I need to boldly love those around me. I need to boldly preach Christ. I need to boldly put sin to death. No, this life isn't easy. It is a constant striving. It is war. Praise God that He has called me to constantly strive to be more like the Wonderful, Holy God that He is!

When I was in Coicoyan I was looking forward to this time in San Antonio as a rest from the front-lines. I have found that I find the most rest, the most peace, and the most joy when I am serving him boldly. Praise God!

Joy in Christ...all the time?

2010-10-08T10:32:00.001-05:00

I decided last night that I was going to head over to South Padre Island this morning and have a little adventure. I got up around 5:30, made some coffee, grabbed a banana, my Bible, and a towel, and headed out the door. I didn't even bother to put shoes on, although that's a pretty common thread since I've started living in south Texas! I drove out to the island and walked along the shore, praying as the the surf crashed and the first morning rays begin to show. It was a fantastic time of reveling in the beauty of God's creation and getting my focus back on praising Him. It seems I am constantly fighting for joy in my life, a joy that can only come from Christ. Every day it seems I am looking for joy in other things and coming up empty. I have to constantly pray that I would look only to Christ for joy.

The theme of my prayer this morning was that I would have joy in Christ. I want to actively pursue Him and fight for joy in Him with everything I've got. One of the ways this is accomplished is by prayer. I know it sure isn't by anything I do!

School is going well. The classes and fellowship have been really encouraging. This is quite the haven of rest compared to the jobsite. This has been very beneficial to my walk with Christ!

Adventure

2010-09-12T20:51:00.001-05:00

Fight hard!

2010-09-11T11:24:00.008-05:00

Rode 20.1 miles this morning after sleeping in until 8:20 or so. Planned on riding out around 6:00, but I ended up staying up until 1:30 AM last night. It's been a pretty good week so far! I've really enjoyed the orientation classes that we've gone through. It was particularly encouraging to hear the different stories of God's work in people's lives.

The fellowship has definitely been one of my favorite aspects of living down here. We're constantly talking about God and practical Christianity in our apartment. We've meshed pretty well so far. It's unusual for me to not be laughing or joking with one of the other guys. It's been very fun.

God's been teaching me a lot about keeping focused on Him and fighting hard for His glory in every aspect of my life. It's not enough to just be attending missionary training school. I want to honor and glorify Him in everything I do, whether it's being diligent in classes, fervent in prayer, being a good leader in my relationship with Sarah, applying Scripture in my life, everything! As I spent time in prayer on my ride this morning, I was really thinking about how God has been placing in me this concept of fighting hard for God's glory in every aspect of my life. He is truly gracious.

We made it alive!

2010-09-10T11:11:00.005-05:00

A lot has happened since my last post! Mike and I drove from Illinois all the way down to Los Fresnos, Texas. It was a pretty awesome trip. We drove 12 hours the first day, in addtion to the 2 hours we had to stop to let the car cool down. We made it to Tulsa, Oklahoma that night. Our plan was to sleep at a DNR campground with my little tent, but there was a severe storm watch that night, so we ended up sleeping in my car at a Wal-Mart. I climbed up on top of all my stuff in the back, and Mike reclined the passenger seat. I slept great, but Mike was cold. God was faithful in keeping my car alive and running quite well.

The next day we drove to San Antonio Texas, where we stayed with a couple from Matt & Leanne's church. The next day we had lunch with the Wilkinson's, and went swimming with them. It was really great to see them again, and I particularly enjoyed the interactions that I had with the couple from their church.

We left San Antonio around 2:45, and pulled into Los Fresnos right around 7:30. It was quite the trip! It was awesome spending time with Mike. All in all, those few days get my thumbs up.

Ride Hard!

2010-08-26T19:41:00.003-05:00

Besides studying, I spent my day on a bike ride with Jill and the Johanson's. We rode 15.8 miles, which was mostly paved trails, but we did sidetrack to do a bit of singletrack. My hybrid survived the intense singletrack that we did, which involved piles of logs, rocky downhills, and other really cool obstacles. It was good to get some outdoor adventure in! My bike is definitely going to need a tune-up when I get down to Texas!

I didn't get quite as much reading done today yet as I would have liked, but I did get about halfway through a book called "A Vision For Missions" by Tom Wells. It's a very God-focused book that gives a basis for doing missions. It seems to answer very well the question of "Why do we go out and be missionaries?" It's a good read, and relatively quick, at least compared to David Brainerd!

As I've been reading these different books, I've been encouraged in my walk with Christ. I've been examining areas of my life to see what is glorifying to God, and what could be done better. I'm definitely enjoying that aspect, as it's drawing me closer to God!

Knee-Deep

2010-08-25T17:39:00.002-05:00

The last couple days I've put a good amount of hours in doing the summer reading for To Every Tribe. I found the book "To Every Tribe with Jesus" most interesting, and very helpful even for my walk with God now. I'm also finding "The Life and Diary of David Brainerd" quite interesting, and very God-focused and encouraging. That one though, I find rather long and monotonous. For the most part I am enjoying the shift from working full-time in the construction industry to studying full-time. It's definitely nice not to hear all the swearing and perverse talk, but at the same time there's a lot of opportunity to let my guard down and lose that war-time mentality.

I got to spend some time fellowshipping with guys from Village Church of Barrington, my parent's chuch, last night while playing floor hockey. Mike and I drove out there in the Acura. He didn't want to take my car because it doesn't have a CD player. I had forgotten how much fun hockey was, and I definitely enjoyed the contact part of it. It was fun to get to shove around the different guys from the church, in love of course!

2 1/2 more days of schoolwork, and then I'm taking a break for the weekend. Jill, Josie, Mike and I are all driving up to Wisconsin and picking up Sarah. Then we're going rock climbing at Devil's Lake and spending the weekend with her family. Looking forward to it!

By the way...

2010-08-24T17:52:00.002-05:00

2 weeks ago today, I asked a wonderful young woman by the name of Sarah Wilkosz to begin a courtship with me! We've known each other since we were REALLY young, but we just started spending more time together doing different adventure trips in group settings this summer. At some point I'll post the whole story here, but I figured a quick update would be nice.

Back in Crystal Lake

2010-08-23T15:53:00.002-05:00

My trip back to Chicago was another adventure, involving a date with Sarah and then having my car start overheating. I'm back safely now though, and I am enjoying time with my family. I have a bunch of reading to do before heading down to school, plus some detail stuff to finish up. Other than that, I'm looking forward to relaxing and doing a little bit of adventure stuff!

Another chapter is almost over...

2010-08-19T21:26:00.008-05:00

My time here in La Crosse is almost over. Things are changing. My daily routine is changing from putting in a hard days work to putting in lots of studying at school. I'm changing from being in a rough construction atmosphere to an atmosphere of Christian fellowship. I'm moving to a totally different geographical location. I'm leaving behind family and many friends. I'm leaving behind the security of being 4 hours from home. I'm even leaving behind Jimmy Johns. The shift is very bittersweet. I'm sad to leave all of this behind, but I'm very excited to move on to the new chapter in the story that God is writing. All these things may change, but the one constant is God. He will never change, and no matter where I am or what I'm doing, I can always strive to glorify Him with my life

I'm very excited to see how much God has taught me during my time in La Crosse. He's taught me to be humble, to be selfless, to be a man of honor, to have courage, and to look at every moment of every day as an opportunity to glorify Him. I'm excited to move on to spend time at the Center for Pioneer Church Planting. I'm excited to learn more about God, the Bible, and missions. I'm excited to have the privilege of devoting my time to those three things. I'm looking forward to a unique season of growth in my walk with Christ.

The summer has been great. I've learned tons about carpentry. I've built a relationship with my local church, of which I am now a member. I've had the opportunity to witness to guys, especially at work. I've had the opportunity to disciple some of the young guys at church. I've had fun doing adventures and fellowshipping with my friends. I've crawled through caves, hiked bluffs, I've spent time with my family, I've done some geocaching, I've shot my fingers with nail guns. And, to top it all off, I even started a relationship with a girl! On Tuesday, August 10th, I asked Sarah Wilkosz to begin a courtship with me. I'm very excited about that!

As the year has progressed, I've questioned the path that I'm following, that is, the path to becoming a missionary to Papua New Guinea. I question why I go. I question why I would go somewhere where I don't feel comfortable. I question why I go somewhere so far from everything that I know. Because of God, and His work in my life, I have a resolve. My resolve is to serve God in the unreached places, to stick it out when the going gets rough because Jesus is worth it. I will go somewhere and I will care more about God's glory than my own comfort. Praise God, because that is an attitude that I could not have on my own. All praise and glory be to God, the Author and Perfecter of our faith.

Life in the real world

2010-08-02T22:29:00.002-05:00

They know.

One of the biggest regrets I had when I was laid off in March was that the guys on the crew knew that I was different, but they didn't necessarily know why. I came back to work at G-Mac with a mission to strive to honor God and lift His name up on the jobsite each and every day. I wanted the guys that I work with to know why I'm different. Now, most of them do.

On days like today, when I feel like I'm really struggling to keep focused on God, it's really hard to see the progress that's being made. But when I look back, I can see clearly how God has glorified Himself through me in the workplace. Relationships have been built. God's name has been lifted on high even when it was hard. The gospel has been preached on several occasions, sometimes resulting in disdain and mockery. The battle of striving to glorify God each and every day continues!

We did it!

2010-08-01T22:43:00.002-05:00

Mike and I have successfully circumnavigated Lake Michigan. The trip went very well. I spoke at a church in Saginaw, MI, and had the opportunity to be used by God to fire people up about glorifying Him in missions. It was neat to see people embrace the idea of reaching the unreached in Papua New Guinea.

We had a great time with our good family friends who attend that church. We had the opportunity to go camping and kayaking for 2 days, which was great. I turned over a couple of times, but Mike did way better, so I jumped off of my kayak and flipped his over. It was really fun to be able to spend a week with him. We've been best friends for the longest time, but we don't get to see each other very much anymore.

After our adventures in Saginaw, we drove up into the U.P. and had lunch with the Hobson family. Mike made quite the impression there. After lunch at Hiawatha Camp, we hopped in the car and drove down to Lake Lundgren Bible Camp, where I spoke at a month ago. We spent a day and a half there, which was awesome. It was fun to get to see everybody again.

I just got back home from my parents house. It was a nice drive up with the windows down and the sun setting in front of me. All in all, it was a great 10 days off!

They Know

2010-07-13T22:20:00.002-05:00

I saw one of the guys I work with when I was driving in downtown La Crosse last night. He saw me as well, so I said something to him about it this morning. There was a couple of us there, so he said that he saw me staggering out of a bar in downtown La Crosse, which was stretching the story just a bit. Ok, maybe more than a little bit, because I was actually just driving home from the library. Anyway, the other guys laughed pretty hard.

So, why blog about something as trivial as that? Because, there is a reason for their hearty laughter. The reason is that they know that I would not be stumbling out of a bar. They know that would be very out of character for me. God has graciously glorified Himself through me by allowing me to be a good example to these guys. One of the biggest regrets I had when I thought I was leaving the company in March was that the guys knew that I was different, but they didn't necessarily know why. Since I started working for G-MAC again, I've had many great opportunities to lift Christ up, and share my testimony. They know I'm different because I want to honor God with my life. A few of them know the story of God's work in my life. A few of them know that I want to care more about the glory of God than I do about myself. Praise God!

They Don't Have Shoes

2010-06-29T21:25:00.002-05:00

I am a rather unique person, who often thinks of random things to do for fun, or as a challenge. If you've been reading this blog for any amount of time, you know this full well. There's a bluff real close to the job site that I'm working at, with an old road going to the top. Sometimes I walk up there on my lunch break, and sometimes I challenge myself to walk as far as I can without shoes. It's fun because it reminds me of New Guinea, and it's nice to get out of my shoes after working for half a day.

Anyway, to make a long story short, God used this little challenge to grow me a little closer to Him today. As I stated in my last post, I've been noticing more and more how concerned I am with myself, when I should be more concerned about God and others. My thoughts and actions are focused on myself and my comfort, instead of God's glory. As I was walking down the bluff and my bare feet started to experience the pain of gravel and asphalt, I realized how pampered I am. I spent the rest of the time walking down the bluff praying for those who don't even have shoes. It was yet another small lesson in taking my eyes off of myself and putting them on the needs of others. I want to be more concerned about glorifying God by being compassionate than being so concerned with my own comfort. I was reminded of an acronym for joy that my mom taught me when I was a little kid, and with that I will end this post. I want this to be the order of the things that I focus on and pour my life into.

Jesus

Others

You

Wartime Mentality

2010-06-28T21:52:00.002-05:00

I've spent a lot of time thinking today. My job at work today was to put blocks in between studs all day long. This requires very little thought, so my mind tends to wander to other things. Then, once I got home, I went on a bike ride, which gave me even more time to think and pray. Something that has been on my mind lately is how focused I really am on myself. My flesh wants to be comfortable. It wants satisfaction. It wants happiness. It wants earthly things.

The problem is, I am a new creation. I don't serve the flesh anymore. I had a good time discussing a lot of things with my new friend Dwayne Gibbs this past weekend, and one of the things we talked about was Christians getting too comfortable. He encouraged me to have a wartime mentality, a mindset of warring against all that would seek to keep me from glorifying God and making His name great.

I've really been mulling that over in my head for the past day or two, and I was able to spend some time praying about it while I was on a bike ride today. It was nice to get back on the bike, especially right at sunset. It was a nice, cool night, and the time spent in prayer was very refreshing. God is good!

I was once again brought to the point of truly desiring heaven again this evening. It's so neat to have that God-given perspective of seeing everything around me as so temporal. I truly desire to be closer to God, and that is what I want to strive after, with all of my heart, soul, mind, and strength.

Wartime mentality, eh? What does that mean for you in your life?

Ask 'Em!

2010-06-05T10:30:00.000-05:00

Am I truly concerned about glorifying God? What about my life demonstrates that? Ask the hard questions!

Left Wanting

2010-05-25T22:08:00.002-05:00

It's the end of the day, and as I look back it seems to be wanting. I worked hard and got stuff done, both with G-Mac and with raising support, but where was God? When was I concerned more for the glory of God than my own personal interests? I was not bold today. I cared too much about what other people thought and too little about the God who has saved me. I pray that tomorrow would be a God-focused day.

Praise and Proper Perspective

2010-05-24T21:55:00.005-05:00

I'm sitting in a room with air-conditioning, surrounded by empty fruit snack wrappers, and there's a can of pop within easy reach. It's nice to be able to relax after a good hard day's work. Today I was complimented on how good of a job I'm doing, which was nice to hear. But that's not what it's all about. I want to see Christ lifted up and God glorified by my actions each and every day. Who cares if I'm praised by the guys I work with? I want to have a proper perspective on my life and on the time that I've been given as I go about my daily life. I do have a higher calling. I have been called out of the darkness and into the light. Jesus Christ is Lord of my life.

Caving and Hiking

2010-04-26T22:13:00.001-05:00

The last two weekends have involved caving and a lot of hiking. The first two pictures are from a belly crawl in Wye Cave, located in Iowa. The last 2 pictures are from a little hike that I went on with Josh, Ruth, and Kerstin. We went back there yesterday and did a couple of geocaches. We're definitely having fun in the outdoors!

Brake Inspection and 16 1/2 Miles

2010-03-17T00:22:00.004-05:00

I woke up late this morning because I can. I'm not working right now, so it's been nice to sleep in. Anyway, I rolled out of bed and got the coffee started. I had a great time with the Lord this morning. I wrote down a bunch of verses out of Romans 6 to memorize later. I am realizing more and more how Christ is the only source of true joy and peace. By the grace of God I am drawing closer to Him each and every day, partaking of that joy and peace.

I had my usual fare of Hot Pockets this morning. It seems that I will never get tired of those! After lunch and a couple of phone calls I cleaned all the dirty clothes and other debris out of the car that I'm using. I went caving twice this past week, which was amazing. The 2nd time was at night and involved tribal drums that I'm 70% sure were something spiritual and unnatural. It was a very interesting trip! There was a lot of playful banter that went on, especially between me and Ty. I belted out FF5's "Master of Disguise" also. It was a pretty gangsta night! Anyway, I had a pile of dirty clothes and gear in the back of the car, which I cleaned out.

After cleaning out the car, I carefully drove it to Farm and Fleet to have a brake inspection done. After 3 or 4 walks around the store, or roughly an hour and a half, the mechanic told me that it was an accident waiting to happen. I thanked him for his help, took the parts list, and drove the care to the church. I knew the brakes were shot, Dan just wanted to get an inspection so that he knew exactly what parts to buy. Kyle gave me a ride home, as I'm going to leave the car at the church until we can get the brakes fixed.

After I got back Alex and I decided to go for a bike ride. We turned right on 16 and hopped on the La Crosse River State Trail. We rode all the way to Medary, which gave us a total of 16 1/2 miles. It was a perfect day for a ride. It was a very flat ride, except for the hill right before the neighborhood entrance.

It was a great day! God is good! The picture is a blast from the past...

My Little Buddy Isaiah

2010-03-11T22:41:00.000-06:00

Caving tomorrow!

2010-03-09T22:08:00.002-06:00

I'm tired, but that's ok, because I'm going caving tomorrow. I just got back from Wal-Mart and the gas station. Wal-Mart was to get some oil for my car and granola bars for tomorrow's lunch, and the gas station was to fill up my car for the trip tomorrow. Alex and I are driving down to Maquoketa, IA to check out some sweet caves. I'm hoping to get wet, muddy, and a bit claustrophobic.

Half-Day

2010-03-02T22:01:00.002-06:00

Neither of my alarms went off this morning, which is typical of the last week or two. I was about 35 minutes late for work. Tim and I were the only two guys working at this jobsite. He told me this morning that we might only be working until 12 because he wasn't sure what else to do because we didn't have all our supplies. Sure enough, I finished what he gave me to do around 12, and we packed up and left. Greg, my boss, called me about half an hour later and wanted to know what the deal was. After all was said and done, Tim's getting jacked and I'm working with Al tomorrow. I used my afternoon to clean my room, get organized, and make some lists. My room is pristine now, enough to make the Ganzemiller's literally shocked when they saw it. The five of us went to Old Country Buffet for dinner, in honor of Kirsten's birthday. We played Call of Duty after we got home. Alex and I won. I never did get around to cleaning up my bike. Man, after all this organizing everything just feels cleaner!

Time Off

2010-02-25T22:14:00.001-06:00

Well, I can say without a doubt that I've figured out what to do during one of my days off!

No Cave

2010-02-06T23:27:00.006-06:00

Josh Danielson and I tried to go caving this morning, but it ended up that the cave entrance had been blocked off by the city. We searched around for roughly 2 hours. We found two spots that may have been the entrance. One was a hole that we were able to tunnel into about 5 feet. I was able to belly crawl my way in until only my boots were sticking out, but it was pretty well blocked off. The other possiblity was just completely blocked off. I was only 75% sure we were going to be able to go there anyway, so I already had a plan B.

We ended up going to Wildcat Mountain State Park, which was pretty cool. I talked to the rangers about caves in the area, and after a little research they were able to give me a list of references to check. We checked out the overlook, the ice cave, and then a trail called "Old Settler's Trail". It was pretty neat. We got about 4 miles of snow-hiking in total. It was neat to see all the cool rock formations that God created. It was pretty cool!

Abner Kravitz (and Gladys too!)

2010-02-06T19:50:00.002-06:00

Abner is one of my favorite characters of all time!

Awesome Weekend!

2010-01-25T06:08:00.001-06:00

I went up to New York last weekend to spend some time with Katy. It was a blast! She didn't know that I was coming, so she was quite surprised! Here's the story:

Thursday seemed liked the longest day of work ever! I was over at the August Prairie jobsite. I put in shoulder's for the last half of the day. There was a storm with all kinds of freezing rain that started around 5:00 PM. I saw two accidents just on the way home. I drove up to the Ohnstadds and got there around 9:00. I was doing fine as far as driving until I got literally a minute from their house. The street next to their's was a sheet of ice, and I ended up in the ditch. It wasn't really bad, just enough to where I couldn't get out, so Joel came over with a tractor and pulled me out. My purpose of going to their house was to put me closer to the airport. Their house is about an hour from the airport, whereas the Danielson's house is about 2 1/2 hours from the airport. We stayed up until midnight talking. It was a blast!

Friday morning I woke up at 3:30 and headed out to MSP. Everything went quite smoothly, except for the fact that I forgot that my knife was in my backpack. I remembered as I was standing in security, so I dumped it in the garbage. I loved that knife like my own son!

My flights were pretty uneventful. I had about 2 liters of coffee that morning. Between that and being really excited to see Katy, I was pretty wired! Fahsha, Jen, and Danny picked me up at the Buffalo airport. Katy called me on the way back from the airport, hoping to leave a message because she thought I was at work. I told her that I didn't end up working. We talked for a little while, and then we pulled over to get some lunch, so I told her I'd call her back. I waited until we were about 2 minutes from their house, and then I called her back. She was still recovering from the surgery on her eyes, so she was sitting in the house with special tinted goggles on and a blanket over her head. As I was talking to her on the phone, we arrived at their house. I walked in and she was sitting on the couch. Everybody was like "Katy, who are you talking to? Isn't he supposed to be at work? He's not working? What a bum!" At that point I chimed in and I was like "Guys, leave me alone!" Katy freaked out, ripping the blanket off her head and putting her hands over her mouth. She was totally surprised! It was awesome!

We had fun that afternoon going over some of our old blog posts. That night was Bible Study at the Case's, so us teens just kind of hung out. Danny, Jenny, Jacquie, Abby and I did donut's in Jacquie's car. It worked a lot better when I found out that she had front-wheel drive and we started doing them in reverse. It was awesome!

Saturday morning Fahsha woke me up nice and early so that I could go with him and Katy to Canada. She was getting her eyes checked from getting PRK done. Fahsha and I share at least 2 passions: Theology and Coffee. We laced our conversations with theology and stopped for coffee twice on the trip! It was cool.

After we got back Katy, Jen, Danny and I all went to Lantz's and tried to embarrass Abby while she was working there. We ate lunch there too, which was pretty good. I got a sub. It wasn't as good as Jimmy Johns, but then again, what is?

We went to a party for Katy's grandma that afternoon, and then the fun really began! The Case kids, Jacquie and I went to Letchworth for a night walk. That was pretty cool. It was cool to go hiking in God's creation at night. After our walk we went slid down the sledding hill without any sleds. It was pretty crazy! We got going fast! After the excursion at Letchworth we tried to go for pizza, but everything was closed. I got Hot Pockets to make up for it.

I left early on Sunday morning. I flew out of Buffalo, and then had a layover in Chicago, drinking coffee all the way! Once I got to Minneapolis everything was great until I realized that my key didn't open up my car doors, it just went into the ignition. I had to get a towing company to break in, which cost me like $45. Not cool. Besides that, it was a fantastic weekend. Saturday was the best day in 2010 so far!

Radical Idea

2010-01-17T14:44:00.003-06:00

It worked rather nicely! I had to stir it a bit, because there was some powder on the top, but other than that it worked perfect.

Switching Cars

2010-01-17T14:33:00.002-06:00

I switched from Mr. Weigel's van to Pastor Dan's car this afternoon. The van was nice, but the car is stick, which is more fun!

The Last Canoe Ride (Philippians 3:8)

2010-01-16T16:57:00.001-06:00

I read through Philippians this morning for my devotions, and one of the rather familiar verses triggered a memory from my trip to PNG. I shared this memory with David Sitton, the president of To Every Tribe, after I got back from New Guinea. He encouraged me to share this story with people when I talk about my trip. So far, I've shared this story with a lot of people in person, but I haven't posted anything about it on my blogs. It really is a neat story of God drawing me closer to Himself. So, here goes:

My trip to Papua New Guinea was absolutely amazing! It was really a privilege to have God work in and through me. My trip was amazing, but not because I had fun the whole time. There were some fun aspects, and I really did enjoy the trip, but eventually all the fun went away. Life is really hard in New Guinea. The food is monotonous, the area where we were at was 6-10 hours away from civilization, I had more responsibilities than I've ever had in my life, I had to mediate big problems between people in the "church" on Chambri, I was lonely, I was hit with culture stress pretty bad, and I had to deal with a lot spiritual warfare. And that's about half of the major stuff!

But, after all the romanticism was stripped away, God enabled me to see why I was truly there. I remember that point in the trip very distinctly. It was one of the last few days that I had in New Guinea. I was on my journey from Chambri to Wewak, which we ended up breaking into 2 days. The morning of the second day we woke up up at 4 am. Even though I was still pretty groggy, I realized that it was raining pretty hard. We decided to gather our things and wait until the rain subsided. We only had to wait about 15 minutes before it let up. We grabbed all of our baggage and made our way to the canoe, trying not to slip in the mud. I was tired, and ready to be on my way home.

We got in the canoe and started heading down the Sepik River. It was actually a bit chilly for that climate, so I put on my long sleeve shirt and tried to relax. Then, it started to rain again! We had a 25 horse on the back of our large canoe, so we had a little bit of wind whipping around us too. I pulled out my poncho and put it on, tucking in all the corners and edges so that I was almost completely enclosed. I was sitting with my knees up against my chest and my arms wrapped around my legs, trying to stay warm and dry. As my head rested on my knees I thought "Wow, this isn't any fun at all! Do I really want to do this with the rest of my life?"

By the grace of God, after all the fun and romanticism was burned away, a hard core of resolve to serve God no matter what was left in my heart. I spent about half an hour praying to God. It was one of the best times of prayer I've had in my entire life. I prayed about whether New Guinea was the place for me or not, among other things. I decided right then and there that I wasn't going to choose a place because it felt right or it was fun. The gifts that God has given me seem to be equipping me for work in a place like New Guinea. With that in mind, I decided to continue onwards with my ministry in New Guinea, whether it was fun or not. It's not about me having fun. It's not about me having adventures. It's about God and His glorification. It's about spreading His glory to those who have yet to hear the gospel.

That's why I choose to go to the hard places. That's why I refuse to back down even when the going gets rough. That's why I want to serve God full-time in missions. And this resolve is not something that I could have possibly come up with on my own, nor is it something I can stick to on my own. I am a sinful creature, and I will continue to sin. God has done this work in me, for His glory alone.

So, what about you? Have you thought about whether or not your life is glorifying to God? Do you realize that we are vessels created for His glory? Are you willing to suffer for the sake of Christ? Are you willing to die to yourself and live for Christ?

Let us strive to glorify God with every moment of our lives!

"More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish so that I may gain Christ" -Philippians 3:8

2 of my favorite ladies

2010-01-10T07:55:00.002-06:00

Donuts with the van

2010-01-09T19:33:00.001-06:00

Me and my lovely girlfriend

2010-01-09T15:59:00.000-06:00

Paul Washer's Testimony

2010-01-08T08:25:00.003-06:00

I was listening to this testimony from Paul Washer last night, and I really enjoyed it for 2 reasons: #1, it is very God-focused. This is a true testimony. It testifies to the work that God has done in Paul's life.

#2, It really encouraged me that when Paul was asked how he does what he does, in regards to boldly preaching the gospel and praying and such, he responds that it's because of what Christ did. Christ died for us. Isn't that enough reason? That hit me right between the eyes.

At first it was a little uncomfortable to hear a grown man cry like this, but this is some serious stuff. Check it out!

http://playmp3.sa-media.com/media/23082359255/23082359255.mp3

Sledding!

2009-12-21T21:07:00.000-06:00

Me and Isaiah

2009-12-19T11:15:00.002-06:00

This is me and Gabby's kid Isaiah. We were posing for a picture, but then I started tickling him. I thought it turned out cool!

13 Below

2009-12-15T20:35:00.005-06:00

It was 13 below when I left for work this morning. It warmed up to about 6 or 8 above though! I spent the day building walls and then cleaning up the basement of the jobsite.

I'm starting to get the whole driving stick thing. I stalled today in the driveway though, and I just started dying laughing.

I found my bank today. I kind of took the long way around, but I still got there and made a deposit.

There's a party with the youth group tomorrow. I gotta find a white elephant gift before I go. But, I cannot just find any gift! Lydia, Kyle's daughter, has challenged me to find a gift that is better than her's. To the death!

P.S. The picture is from when I was up in NY cooing pieces of a roast on the fire.

2009-12-10T18:56:00.000-06:00

ROFL

2009-12-05T18:23:00.004-06:00

This picture was taken up at Letchworth when I was in New York. I'm the one in the red, and I'm rolling on the ground laughing because I started acting like Gollum. This part of the woods looked just like a scene from Lord of the Rings. It was pretty amazing.

I woke up at 7:35 this morning and realized I was going to be late for the men's breakfast. I changed my clothes, grabbed my winter work gear, and headed out the door. I ended up forgetting my Bible and my study book. I enjoyed the conversations and teaching that went on at the breakfast. It was cool.

After breakfast I went with Mr. Gansmiller to his sister's house. She's got a wood-burning stove, and she needed to get a bunch of wood down from the hill and stacked by her house. We drove up the hill in a pickup truck style go kart type thing, and then hauled all the wood down load by load. It was a good time of fellowship and hard work. Alex and Andrew came after a couple of hours too, so that was fun. We finished up and had some pop and cookies and a frozen dessert. I went to get some of the frozen dessert off of my plate, and it shot off my plate and onto the floor. It was pretty funny. Kurt and I were laughing pretty hard. Life is good.

A Few Random Photos

2009-12-04T21:48:00.006-06:00

A Wonderful Discovery

2009-12-04T21:38:00.003-06:00

I made a pit-stop at a KFC on my way home from Thanksgiving, and I decided to get something to drink. I looked up at the menu, and I see that they have "Mega Jug" as one of the drink sizes. I was like "Oh yeah! That’s what I’m getting!" So, I did, and I filled it up with Mountain Dew. The only downside was that it was a bit awkward to hold as I was driving.

The last week and a half or so have been really good. I worked half a day on Wednesday last week and then headed down to my parent’s house for Thanksgiving. We did a big Thanksgiving dinner down at my Grandma’s, which was great. The next day Mike, Mel, Aunt Annette, and I all went Black Friday shopping. Yeee-haw!

I drove back on Sunday night and then started my first full work week. The week went really well. The guys that I work with are nice, even though they cuss like nobody’s business. They’ve been really good about teaching me stuff. I’ve done a lot of hauling lumber around and stuff like that, but I’ve also got the chance to learn new skills and tools. It’s good hard work, and I’m enjoying it!

I’m getting better at driving stick, and it’s a lot of fun! It snowed yesterday and today, so I got to peel out on some of the turns on my way to and from work. I went to youth group on Wednesday, which was fun.

I just got back from putting gas in my car and buying a Full Throttle drink. I got the Full Throttle at Home Depot, and I paid for it all in pennies!

There are two things that God has been teaching me recently, and they kind of go hand in hand. He’s been teaching me to put others before myself, and also to sacrifice my desires for what is right according to His word. I’ve been spending a lot of time in 1 Peter, which is chock full of good stuff to apply to our lives. I’ve enjoyed it very much.

Well, tomorrow I’m going to the men’s breakfast at the church, and then I’m going to haul wood with one of the guys from the church. It promises to be a relaxing day.

The Girl on the Far Right

2009-11-22T18:13:00.003-06:00

My trip up to New York yielded a bit more than I had planned! I ended up talking to Katy's parents about beginning a courtship relationship with her. They said that they would talk and pray about it, and then get back to me soon. I was awakened on the morning of November 19th by Mr. Case calling me with an affirmative answer. Wow, what a wake-up call! I gave Katy a call later that afternoon and asked her if she would begin a courtship relationship with me. She was completely shocked, in a good way! She was totally speechless for like 20 seconds, so I took the opportunity to tell her that she could take as much time as she wanted. She was finally able to articulate words again, and ended up saying yes. Both sets of parents are excited about this, which is pretty cool. Pray that God would continue to give us wisdom and that He would be glorified through this!

By the way, if the title didn't already give it away, Katy is the girl on the far right.

Working on getting photos...

2009-11-20T11:18:00.002-06:00

I left my camera hooked up to the computer all night, so the battery is completely drained. Believe it or not, I didn't leave it out of pure forgetfulness. Josh, Lydia and I all decided to have a big nerf war last night right after I finished on the computer. It was a pretty epic war, with me and Josh teaming up against Lydia. We were bumping Hawk Nelson the whole time! After about an hour of that, Josh and I went outside and shot at pop cans and bird feeders with airsoft and BB guns.

I got a chance to practice driving stick yesterday with Kyle and pastor Dan. I practiced with Kyle for like 10 minutes, and then he took over and drove to the church. Then I drove pastor Dan over to his house and picked up his wiper blades. He's hilarious, and he was really good at instructing me in driving stick.

I got a chance to hammer out some Gospel Tour stuff yesterday, and I also planned out what I want to start studying with my Inductive Study Bible. I'm going to start working on 1 Peter, which I'm pretty excited about.

I just got back from driving Kyle to the job site where I'll be working. I got a chance to meet some of the guys that I'll be working with. The carpenter who I'm going to be working with seems pretty cool. I'm looking forward to working hard and getting into somewhat of a routine.

After lunch I think I'm going to practice driving, and maybe send out an e-mail update. I haven't done that for awhile, and there is a lot of stuff that has happened since I e-mailed from Brisbane, Australia.

I Shall Begin!

2009-11-17T23:06:00.003-06:00

After more than 6 months of not posting on this blog, I've decided to begin again. It will probably be a little different flavor than what I've done before, seeing as I've grown a lot in the past 6 months. I spent 3 of those in Papua New Guinea, which drew me a lot closer to God. My goal is to have some fun documenting my daily life for everybody, with a focus on glorifying God by showing how He is growing me closer to Himself. I'm not quite as crazy as I once was...but I'm still pretty crazy!

I just moved up to La Crosse, WI about an hour and a half ago. I'm living with Kyle Danielson, the pastor/ex-carpenter who went to New Guinea with me for 5 weeks. We took like 6 hours to drive up here because we stopped for pizza and a shopping. No worries though, I just slept and listened to my iPod. I still have yet to listen to all of the solid Christian rap Irian gave me. I listened to some tonight though, which was very uplifting.

I actually just got back from a week-long trip in upstate New York last night, so things have been kind of busy. I had a great time with the Case family and their friends up there. We did a bunch of planning for the American Gospel Tour. I'm really excited to see how God is going to use us on that tour, and I'm also very excited to have the privilege to serve Him in that capacity. I brought Mike along with me since he's interested in going on this tour, plus it was fun to have one last adventure before I moved to Wisconsin.

Ok, my head is starting to gravitate toward the computer desk! I think it's time to get some sleep!

Out to lunch

2009-05-09T10:59:00.002-05:00

Going to get some lunch, be back at 11:30 or so. Maybe you'll even get a real post then...

Hmmmm...

2009-05-09T10:21:00.001-05:00

A bit of news...

2009-04-30T16:35:00.000-05:00

Hey Everybody!

I’ve made some decisions regarding college and other future stuff recently, and I wanted to fill you in on those. God’s been doing some pretty cool things in 2009!

To start off, let me tell you a bit about what I wanted to do as far as missions before I went down to Texas this February. This part is very simple to explain, because I had no idea what I wanted to do! To back up a bit, I felt God leading me to full-time missions in February 2008. This meant that I was changing my whole life plan, because at that point I was planning on starting my own small-business with exotic animals. This would have involved getting a small business management degree online. After a lot of re-arranging of priorities according to God’s standards, not my own, I realized that I could never be satisfied unless I was serving Him in full-time ministry. It was really a time of re-dedicating my entire life to Him. I had really shut God out of certain parts of my life, and I realized that’s not how I wanted to live. I want God to govern each and every area of my life, and I want to follow hard after Him in everything I do.

Anyway, I started looking at different options for getting schooling for full-time ministry. I really had no idea what I would actually do in full-time ministry so I just started looking at getting Bible training. I was basically planning on getting a biblical studies degree and then going down to David Sitton’s missionary training school. The only real change to this plan was deciding to go to Covenant College instead of Kuyper College to get the biblical studies degree. This plan didn’t really change at all between February ‘08 and February ‘09, although I was still very curious where God was going to use me in ministry.

Then I went down to David’s school which is called the Center for Pioneer Church Planting (CPCP). I was able to sit in on a bunch of the classes there, both for Bible and missiology. I was very impressed with the solid, reformed teaching. I also found out that the school was going to be changing to a 2-year school instead of just a 1 year school. I had a chance to talk through my plan with David, and he gave me his advice and wisdom about that plan. We also discussed my gifts and talents. The main ones we discussed were these: I’m very hands-on, although I do enjoy learning by reading. I enjoy talking at churches overseas and sharing the gospel, but I don’t know that I want to be teaching full-time. Finally, I really like working with my hands and working hard.

Then we went on the trip to Papua New Guinea. I had many opportunities to discuss ideas and opportunities with David. I actually went down thinking that I would really enjoy the trip, but that I wouldn’t end up there permanently. As David and I got to know each other better, and he realized that I like challenges, working hard, and adventure, he told me about these missionary houses that New Tribes builds. These houses are built with lots of bush materials, but also incorporate things such as electricity through solar power, plywood floors, fans and lights, screens, and e-mail through shortwave radio among other things. These houses enable the missionaries to live quite comfortably in the harsh environment of Papua New Guinea.

I had a chance to see one of these houses when I was in Gavimas. One of the New Tribes missionaries gave me a complete tour of all the different aspects of the house. At this point, I was very interested in what I was seeing. After I got back from seeing this house I sat down and had a long talk with David over dinner. We talked over what my job description could be if I decided to be a missionary with To Every Tribe Ministries (TETM). (They do not yet have anybody to build houses for their missionaries, yet they have missionaries that are going to be graduated and heading to Papua New Guinea in January 2010). I was very fascinated with this missionary house-building idea, so I began discussing scenarios with David. If I decided to go with TETM, I could be their house-builder, and then when I’m not building houses I could be researching new areas. These new areas would be potential places for planting churches similar to what we did in Gavimas. These places could be 6 hours away by canoe, or 3-4 days hike through the mountain-that sort of thing. As you can probably imagine, this idea got me pretty excited, besides the fact that I was already excited about the house-building idea. To sum this part of the story up, I began doing some serious praying and thinking about building these missionary houses.

David has been going to Chambri Island for 20 years now. Because of this, the people have started building a center for TETM. This center has 3 rooms: 1 for guys to sleep in, 1 for girls to sleep in, and 1 big room for cooking, eating, and such. David would like to make a sort-of hybrid house; a hybrid between bush house and missionary house.

David presented me with the opportunity of coming back to Chambri and helping finish the construction of this center as part of a path towards becoming TETM’s house-builder. This was pretty fascinating to me, so I told him I would do some thinking and praying about it.

At this point I was very excited about these new ideas and opportunities that were in front of me. I told David and the Chambri people that I wanted to wait to make a decision until I got back to the States. We still had a week or so before our trip ended, so I kept learning more and more about these opportunities, while still keeping an open mind. I got back home and talked to my parents about these ideas, along with discussing it with other people who would come from different viewpoints as far as college. I listened to wisdom from my parents, my relatives, David Sitton, admissions counselors, and various other people. I also wanted to put some time in between my trip and making a decision because I realized that I’d be on a “mission trip high” for a couple weeks. I spent a lot of time thinking and praying during this time period, asking God to give me wisdom in this area.

After examining the various paths and opportunities I have in front of me, listening to wisdom from those who are older than me and know me well, and doing lots of hard thinking and praying, I made a decision about a week ago.

Of course, I don’t have every single detail worked out, but I do have the main goals hammered out. Here is my plan:

I’m going to be using this next school year to work on an accelerated bachelor’s program. I will be getting a bachelor’s degree from this program, probably in construction. I’ll also be learning to install the specialized parts of a missionary house in New Guinea, such as solar power systems and water supplies. I will also be going back to Papua New Guinea in July or August of this year. I’ll be staying there for 3 months with a partner. We will be finishing up this TETM Center.

Fall of 2010 I will be going down to David’s missionary school. For the next 2 years I’ll be down there getting missionary training. I’ll also be working on my bachelor’s degree online during these 2 years (mostly over the summers).

By the time all is said and done I’ll have my bachelor’s degree, I’ll be fully competent to construct a missionary house, and I’ll have received missionary training from the Center for Pioneer Church Planting. At that point I will be commissioned by To Every Tribe as one of their missionaries, I’ll be raising support, and then I’ll be going back to PNG for good.

I really feel God leading me in this direction, and I am very excited about it! My dad & mom are also excited about these opportunities that God has brought about. I am discovering how fulfilling and rewarding it is to follow hard after God and allow Him to govern every area of my life. Nothing compares to the greatness of knowing Jesus Christ our Lord. I hope this letter finds you serving Christ with your life! I’d love to hear your thoughts about what God is doing in my life!

In Christ,

-Kelly Bryant

E-mail: kellyandhogs@yahoo.com

Open the floodgates!

2009-04-28T18:34:00.001-05:00

This morning began with mom waking Mike and I up around 9. I rolled over and didn’t end up getting out of bed until like 9:45 or so. During that 45 minute period I fell back asleep and had a dream about regretting my college path and wanting to go to Covenant instead. That was definitely weird. To start off the day I made a nice big list of all the stuff I want to accomplish this week. Then I made some breakfast and headed downstairs to make a playlist of music and sermons this week to throw on my iPod. Somehow I managed to get 12 cups of water into the coffee maker instead of 6. Yeah, that’s definitely way too weak! I had 1 cup from that pot and then poured the rest out. I think I was concentrating on this Irish dude that was preaching on the under-the-counter radio. Aye, it was good stuff.

I knocked out my last Biology test and then corrected almost all of my Spanish class stuff. I took a nap for like an hour around 3. Now, I don’t normally take naps, but today is one of my runny-nose days. I seem to have like two or three days a year that I drain like ALL DAY LONG! It’s probably some sort of allergies. By 3 o’ clock I was sick and tired of blowing my nose, so I just went to bed.

I arose from my time of slumber and hacked away at my Spanish stuff. After about an hour and a half of that I hopped on my bike and headed out to Round Lake Library. I saw a coyote on my way out of the neighborhood, which was pretty awesome. I’ve wanted to see one up close when I’m out riding. I wanted to get a few minutes on the internet, but there was so many people there that I would have had to wait. Since I was already going to be racing to get home in time to eat the pizza that dad was bringing home, I decided to just turn around and take my 10 miles. I was pretty happy with the pace that I was keeping on the bike that Mike and I fixed up. I was probably able to keep it between 14-18 mph, which is awesome for this early in the season.

I ate my pizza downstairs on the couch and watched an episode of Little House on the Prairie. Spice paks from Little Caeser’s are the bomb. I’m not even lying, they are! After I watched that I cleaned up and finished up my schoolwork for the night. I spent some time lifting weights after my schoolwork was done. Mike’s been lifting weights, so I figured I better start too so I stay stronger than him. Ian has been lifting for awhile too. He said that maybe this time around he’ll be able to beat me in arm-wrestling. I listened to a bunch of Flame’s stuff today, and there was this awesome song about Jesus being God and man at the same time. It talked about how different religions view Christ, and one of the lines was pretty funny. It talked about how Satan roamed the earth and found the lady who founded the Church of the Scientist. That was pretty awesome. I listened to one of R.C. Sproul’s sermons on Acts tonight as I was organizing some pictures. I’m about to head to bed to do some reading, cause it’s like 12:07 am. Gotta get some shut eye!

Caged...or Fire

2009-04-09T22:17:00.003-05:00

I’ve spent almost the whole day doing school. This is the time of year when I begin to feel like a caged animal. At least tomorrow is Friday. If we don’t have Josh over on Saturday I’m probably going to do some riding and then hang out at the library and do some research. We’ll see how it goes. I had 3 mug-full’s of hot chocolate tonight. Somehow it seems odd to be chugging hot chocolate in April, but hey, it’s chilly. I took a break this morning for lunch and typed up some more of my PNG journal. I also took a break in the afternoon. On this break I was feeling particularly restless, so I decided to go outside. I ended up making a video of myself doing a flamethrower with WD-40 & my adjustable lighter. I gotta be more careful where I do this stuff; one of the neighborhood boys saw me do it and was begging me to do it again! Whoops. I need to get some sleep so that I can finish up Week 2 tomorrow. I want to have the weekend completely off.

School. All day long.

2009-04-04T00:22:00.003-05:00

I did nothing but school all day long. I worked on typing up my journal during little breaks, while jamming out to some rockin' music. While I was doing my school I downloaded like 30 sermon jams and probably 15 sermons. I got a bunch of Piper, Sproul, Harris, and I even got a few of David Sitton's sermons! That'll give me something to listen to on our drive back tomorrow. We had pizza tonight for dinner, which was quite tasty. I pretty much just ran right back upstairs to work on school after dinner. I spent the last hour and a half or so just hanging out with the older Sundt kids. I spent about a half hour doing a bit of research on renewable energy and water pumps. That started adding fuel to the excitement fire. The weekend is here! I only have 1 & 1/2 books to finish over the weekend, so all is going well!

Uh, no. Of course I didn't sleep until 11.

2009-04-02T23:10:00.003-05:00

So yeah, I didn't wake up until 11 today. It kinda stunk, I have (had) a lot of school to do today. I actually ended up working pretty hard and getting a ton of stuff done. I'm pretty happy with how this week is going as far as school. I should have a packed day tomorrow, and hopefully finish up all the school that I brought. That way I can have a free weekend, and only 7 weeks left of school! We drive back to Illinois on Saturday, another 12 hour ride packed with sweet music. Then on Sunday I'll be at my church for the first time in like, forever. I spent my free time today eating lunch and dinner. Ok, ok, I also ended up playing Bunco & Running Pictionary. Hopefully that won't affect my school schedule too much. The only other "big event" of the day was setting my brother's arm hair on fire. That was pretty awesome. He was standing next to where I was sitting in a chair, and he was looking at something on the wall near me. So I reached over with my adjustable lighter and started trying to set the back of his pants on fire. He decided to grab my arm, so I flipped the lighter around, twisted my wrist, and flicked the lighter on, burning off a bunch of his arm hair. What a pleasing aroma!

A Good Day

2009-04-01T23:18:00.003-05:00

I got up at like 7 am this morning, which was pretty awesome. I read my bible and spent some time in prayer, and then I caught up on some blog stuff. After that I ate a sweet breakfast of fruit and danishes. I then headed back upstairs and worked on school until like 5 pm. I've almost put in 10-hours of school today. Mike and I went with Eric to play Ultimate again today. That was a blast! I had forgotten how much I enjoy Ultimate. I really enjoyed it. Mike's watching really random Hawk Nelson videos. They're quite inspiring; I want to be more crazy now. I made a sweet catch in Ultimate right before one of the guys on the other team snagged it. We collided; it was pretty cool. I got owned by a bunch of the guys. A bunch of them can run quite a bit faster than me. I caught a throw that was intended for Eric, but it really doesn't count cause his calf was screwed up. It was fun though. As we were playing yahtzee tonight I made a couple of trips to the kitchen to "fill up my water". I only had 8 cookies! And yes, there will be a bunch of random pictures from my trip posted on this blog.

I need some help!

2009-03-31T23:49:00.004-05:00

So, what do you think, which picture looks better?

Studying...pretty much

2009-03-31T23:31:00.002-05:00

So yeah, I've been studying pretty much all day. Mike and I didn't get up until like 11 am. I worked on a church history book until like 5, at which point the Sundt & Bryant families went on a picnic near a river. That was pretty cool, except for the fact that we were gone for like 3 hours and I had a lot of school to do. I climbed up this 10-foot embankment by way of a tree's root system. It was pretty cool. Jill did it too, which was pretty amazing. I got back and worked on school again for until about 15 minutes ago. It's like 12:30. I figure if I get up at 6:30 I'll have a good 6 hours of sleep. I had to walk all the way downstairs to use the bathroom last night; I miss the porches in PNG, lol. Anyway, at least I liked what I was studying today. It was a bunch of church history stuff, so it wasn't too bad. Tomorrow I need to finish up that book and then do a bunch of other stuff. We're going to play Ultimate again tomorrow, which is pretty sweet. Talked to Ian today and got Peru & PNG sorted out. Logistics, logistics, gotta love 'em! I've been wearing the same pair of jeans for a whole week now. Listening to Hawk Nelson right now. My brother is watching a music video with Barlowgirl and Todd Agnew right now. Todd Agnew looks like a stinkin' creeper! I got a sweet 116 Clique/Lecrae song today called "Fanatics". It'll probably make it to my top 10 songs of April, which is a random idea that I just came up with. I need to do devotions tomorrow; I've been waking up late and then skipping it; bad idea. Well, I need to make a list of stuff I need to accomplish tomorrow and then get to bed. I got a cool blanket when I was in Goroka, so I'm using that. It cost me like 4 bucks. Chyeah!

In South Carolina

2009-03-29T23:47:00.004-05:00

I'm down in South Carolina right now. I was home for like 3 days and then my family took off on a vacation to South Carolina! Pretty crazy stuff. Anyway, right now I'm chillaxin' at my cousin's cabin at North Greenville, his college. I'm "checking it out", although I'm 95% sure I've got other stuff up my sleeve. Eric took us to play Ultimate this afternoon. That was pretty sweet. My body hurt after I got back, but it was a good hurt, like I had just got back from a sweet workout. I'm going to go to some classes tomorrow and then hopefully put in like 10 hours of school. We'll see how it goes. I'm listening to Hawk Nelson's new CD right now. Mike, Dad, and I ran a bunch of errands before we left; we stopped at the Christian bookstore in Vernon Hills. Good stuff, good stuff. I got to drive both the car and the van a lot that day. I especially missed driving the big ol' van while I was in PNG. I had a bit of reverse culture shock today; I had to wear tan pants and a polo shirt and I attended a very large church down here. I like the bush better. I'm 98% sure that I'm going to end up in PNG full time. I had roast beef with all the fixings for lunch today. It was really, really good. I also had ROCKY ROAD ICE CREAM! OH YEAH! Rocky road is my favorite ice cream, and I haven't had it for months. I need to shave. It's funny how I feel, act, and am aknowledged as more grown up since I've gotten back. I can deal with that. Anyway, I should probably hit the hay. It's almost midnight here, and I have a big day tomorrow. I also have to use the bathroom pretty bad.

(And yes, that is a random picture from my trip to PNG)

Emerging from the bush in PNG

2009-03-29T07:04:00.004-05:00

David and I talking about his wonderful plan for my life, lol! Actually, the talks that I had with him were awesome; I'm pretty excited.

Nah!

2009-03-29T06:57:00.001-05:00

No way! Of course not! I DID NOT just blow my nose on a dirty sock!

Check it out!

2009-02-22T19:24:00.003-06:00

If you haven't already, check out my Papua New Guinea blog!

www.kellypng2009.blogspot.com

The Time Has Come

2009-02-11T18:09:00.002-06:00

I gotta head over to the church for prayer meeting. Check out the "Me 2008" video while you're waiting for a real post!

Joylynn and me spelunking!

2009-02-10T19:01:00.001-06:00

Joylynn and me spelunking!, originally uploaded by kellyandhogs.

Check us out! This was an absolutely awesome trip. We got to do all kinds of offshoots with belly crawling and squeezing! We got super muddy!

Me 2008 Slideshow (The year in pictures..and beyond!)

2009-02-10T11:45:00.003-06:00

Workload

2009-02-09T16:05:00.001-06:00

It’s about 3 PM right now. I fell asleep last night without completing my Biology quota, which wasn’t so good. On top of that, I accidentally slept in this morning! Oh well, life goes on. I just finished module 7 of my Biology class. I’m supposed to be studying module 8 and 9 today. Hopefully those won’t take me too long!

My trip is totally right around the corner! This week is super, super packed, so it’s going to whiz by! I still haven’t applied to all my colleges yet. I’ll be done working with Biology by Wednesday, which means I can just start knocking other projects out with the rest of the week. I have so much work to do, it’s not even funny. After today’s biology work is done, it will all be downhill. This life is pretty awesome! Well, I need to wrap up this part of my break. I still need to go over to Jen’s and do my internet stuff like check e-mail, post this, and check my eBay. I also need to deliver a bill to 311.

Right on Time!

2009-02-08T00:02:00.000-06:00

I just turned in my Biology test about 20 minutes ago. The deadline for getting it in was 11:59, and it’s now 12:06. You do the math! What I had calculated as 3 hours of work ended up being about 6 hours of work. To say that my day was pretty crazy would be an understatement! The word crazy seems to be running through my blog quite a bit these days, so I want to clarify exactly what I mean when I use that word. I mean hectic, full of activities, packed with school, packed with details, filled with work, filled with growth, filled with building relationships, just all-around FULL! Even though this is a bit more stressful than a lot of my days in the past few months, I can’t help but love every minute of it! I love learning new things, (which with the insane school schedule I’m keeping, this is inevitable!), growing, learning to manage details, learning to juggle tons of different priorities, but most of all, I love serving Jesus Christ! He has given me such a joy and peace, even in the midst of “sufferings and trials”. I have put those words in quotation marks because the issues and stresses that I experience in my life seem so trivial compared to the joy that I have in knowing that Jesus Christ is my Lord and Savior.

I started out this day by checking out the weather in Chicago and Los Fresnos. We actually had a very, very mild February day, It was like 56 degrees! After eating a breakfast of Mini Wheats, which are awesome, I did the rest of my morning stuff and then headed downstairs for my time with God. After I finished that, I began organizing my desk in preparation for the tasks that I needed to complete today, but I was interrupted by mom calling me upstairs. We ended up going over all of my school stuff, and I laid out a schedule for myself. This schedule is going to be pretty rigorous, but not insane. The best part of it is, we worked it out so that I will be completely graduated by May 31st! Which, is awesome in and of itself, because it will be great to be graduated, but there is also another really awesome facet to that. Since I will be done with school by May 31st, I will in fact be able to go on the Sister Lakes team to Peru again this year! This is absolutely amazing, and I am super looking forward to being back in Peru again and serving with my Peruvian (and American!) brothers and sisters. I am becoming quite the world traveler!

So yeah, my mom and I figured out about that, and then it was time to knock a few things off of my to-do list. Ok, ok, ok, so I didn’t really start working on stuff RIGHT AWAY! I did end up calling Ian before I got started, and we talked for a bit. We’re both really excited about the opportunity to serve together in another country. I DID end up starting on my stuff right after that though! I had a bunch of studying to do in preparation for my baptism tomorrow. My uncle (who is doing the baptism) had given me a bunch of questions to research and answer, which ended up being super interesting. As I was doing this studying, I was just struck with how magnificent baptism truly is, and also how magnificent our God is! After spending some time studying those questions, I called Uncle Todd and discussed these questions with him, along with some of the logistics of the baptism. I’m really excited about this!

Wow, time really flies! By the time I finished the whole baptism thing it was right around 3:30. I threw in a load of dishes and then drove over to the library with Dad. We spent like half an hour there, and then I came back and worked on biology. 6 hours of biology later, here I am! I should probably turn in, I got a big day tomorrow!

I Shaved Yesterday

2009-02-07T16:43:00.001-06:00

Yep, I finally shaved. First time I shaved my gotee since like before Peru last July!b

The Bomb. No, Not Me, A Real One!

2009-02-05T13:27:00.005-06:00

Yesterday was insane! I woke up at 5 am, went for a walk around the neighborhood, and then got crackin’ on my morning stuff. I ended up reading a book about researching until like 8:30. I kinda dozed off a bit, but not for long! Mom yelled down the stairs “Kelly, are you up?” Yeah, that kinda woke me up.

Anyway, after I read the research book I did my chores and then started working on another school project. This one involved listening to 15 Michael Card songs and then reading the scripture passages that the songs were based on. It was pretty cool! I also had to write ½ a page for 2 of the songs. I had pretty much finished this by 2:00 or so. At that point I worked on preparing my small group lesson. We’re working through a Lifechangers study on James right now. The passage we studied last night was James 1:1-8.

After I prepared the lesson I went with Dad and Mike on a couple of errands. I drove, of course! I picked up a couple of cases of Mountain Dew, which is a staple of small group. I ended up picking up a couple bags of marshmallows too, just in case…

After we got home I made some tinder for our bonfire with my new knife. Then I finished up preparing my lesson, gathered all my supplies, and loaded up the van. By 5:15, we were on the way to the Clow’s house. Mike and I got to the Clow’s house, unloaded the van, unhitched the trailer, and headed inside. It was about 4 degrees outside! My mom was worried that we would be cold and not come inside, but I knew that the bonfire I had in mind would keep us warm! After talking to Skyler and showing off our knives, Mike and I headed outside to start the fire. I had de-cluttered my animal area earlier this week, and I had found half a bag of aspen shavings. I set those aside when I was cleaning, knowing that we were going to have this bonfire! We laid those shavings down on the bottom of the fire pit, then put my little cardboard box of tinder on top of that, and then a couple of beams from the swing-set on top of that. Mike lit the shavings on fire first, and then he lit the cardboard box full of tinder. Within minutes we had a nice fire going! It was awesome. Through the course of the night we burnt my ramp and our whole swing-set! Joel and Josh both came, which was cool. We did our lesson, ate marshmallows, had a few cans of mountain dew, and had lot’s of fun burning stuff. It was a great time of fellowship and learning! I was also able to talk to the guys about doing a short-term mission trip together sometime. Josh and Mike really want to do a trip, and Joel said he would definitely pray about it. On a less serious note, we had a bit of fun with our fire after the lesson was over. We set off about 40 firecrackers, some in the air, some in the snow, and some embedded in marshmallows. It was pretty awesome. Josh also made me a present. This present was a can of body spray wrapped in firecrackers. It was a pretty sweet bomb! We threw that in and ran back about 20 feet. It made a really awesome explosion! All in all, it was a pretty sweet time!

After I got back to the house I finished up the Michael Card project and then gathered some food for myself. I made a batch of popcorn and a big mug of hot chocolate. Then I grabbed one of my social studies DVD’s about Turkey and hit the couch. It was about 10:30 at this point. I ended up watching that until about 11:15 or so, at which point I dozed off! It’s not really good to be dozing off with a laptop on your lap! I jerked back awake around 11:30, and then I shoved the laptop under the couch. I also had to clear a space on the couch so that I could actually lie down. The couch had a bunch of stuff that I was packing on it. Yep, its official, my family will be moving while I’m in Papua New Guinea! I have to have all of my stuff packed by the time I leave for Texas! Not only that, I have to keep churning out insane school days, keep preparing for Texas, stay physically fit, AND get all of my college applications in! I know, I know, I ‘m repeating myself from my last post, but this next 10 days is going to be insane!

When I got my new phone I opted to try out VZ Navigator for a month. This gives me a GPS and maps on my phone, which is really cool. It also gives me stuff like the weather. Right now it is 9 degrees in Chicago, -5 with the wind chill. In Los Fresnos, where I’ll be in Texas for 2 weeks, it is currently 58 degrees, with a high of 77 for today. I’ll be getting out of a month of winter by going on this trip, which is only one of two super awesome bonuses. The other one is that I won’t have to help move! Hahahaha! I know, it’s bad, but I can’t help emitting an evil chuckle at the thought!

My Whole Head Was Vibrating!

2009-02-03T22:22:00.000-06:00

This has kind of been a weird day. I didn’t end up getting up until 8:00, and then I sat in bed reading a science fiction book. I know, I know, I should’ve been getting up and working on school, but I couldn’t help it! I ended up working on packing up a bunch of my stuff while listening to lectures for school on my iPod. Gotta love multi-tasking!

I went to the dentist and got a couple of fillings. Exciting, eh? Actually, I had to keep myself from falling asleep in the dentist chair! I didn’t feel any pain as he was drilling, so I had to keep telling myself “HEY! Wake up! You gotta keep your mouth open!” That was my excitement for the day!

I took on a new responsibility today! I took the plunge and added an extra phone line (and phone!) to my dad’s plan. I now have a phone all of my own. With that comes a bill for like $13 a month, but hey, it’s something that I need now that I’m a world traveler!

After getting my phone I stopped by Josh’s house and picked up an iPod. I maneuvered my way through the old neighborhood, waited for a good window, and then ripped the Lexus out onto 31. I blew away this little SUV that was flying down the highway as I pulled out. It was pretty awesome.

Since being home I’ve just been packing and working on school. There’s only like 12 days until I leave for PNG! It’s getting really, really close, and I have all kinds of details to tie up! Not only that, I’m also getting baptized on Sunday! Yep, I’m FINALLY taking the plunge! (Pun intended.)

Well, I better hit the sack! I have a beastly schedule tomorrow, what with school, preparing for small group, and then leading small group. Adios!

Game Night

2009-01-29T18:37:00.001-06:00

So apparently Thursday night is "game" night at the library for kids grades 7-12. The game for tonight is "Rockband". Alas, what is this world coming to?

Classic...Simply Classic!

2009-01-26T19:58:00.002-06:00

I was probably like 14 years old. It was quite awhile ago, I know that much! My personality hasn't changed a whole lot, that's for sure!

Life In General

2009-01-26T19:43:00.002-06:00

Life in general for me right now is just plain awesome! Does this mean that everything in my life is perfect and everything is falling into place? Not really, at least by human standards! But I can honestly say that I have a bigger perspective. I have learned to honor God even in the little things; to do everything to the best of my ability for the glory of God. Between schoolwork, my trip to Papua New Guinea and searching for a college, my life is super busy and super packed with details! But I wouldn’t change any of it for the world! Living this life is awesome, mostly because I am consciously trying to live for Jesus Christ in everything I do. When this is your mindset, there is very little to get upset or stressed about!

…just a little peek into my brain!

Mud? Water? Darkness? Tight Spaces? OH YEAH!

2009-01-26T19:37:00.003-06:00

I finally finished up my math, and I’ve been working on English, Social Studies, and my Peru scrapbook ever since. I’m wearing my “Peru Chef” shirt today, which depicts guinea pigs jumping through a hoop and into a big kettle. It’s pretty awesome.

I went caving this weekend with a group of 23 other people. It was amazing! The people in our van were: Dad, Mr. Douglas, Summer, Jill, Lauren, Brent, Josie, Drew, Joylynn, Josh, and me. We had a round trip of 12 hours, but it went by really fast, which is always good. We left Friday afternoon, drove to the Boy Scout lodge, hung out for a couple of hours, and then hit the sack. We got up at 4:30 AM, drove to Denny’s for breakfast, and then we had a 2 hour drive to the cave. It was pretty cold outside, so once we got to the cave, I ran to the bathroom and then ran right to the cave. I definitely was not concerned about doing any dillying or dallying! The whole caving experience was absolutely awesome this year! As we were establishing groups I crawled down into this little hole that you had to belly crawl through, and I went back about 15 feet. Since there was water trickling through the hole, I was soaked and muddy by the time I got out. Wa-hoo!

About 15 minutes into the cave was another offshoot that involved lots of crawling. I got Joylynn and David to follow me on this one, which was awesome! Joylynn, (who is my cousin), absolutely loved the whole experience. She pretty much followed me wherever I went, which pretty much translates to fearlessness, which was really cool! One of the leaders asked me if she was my girlfriend! That was really funny! Hahahaha!

At the end of the cave there is this offshoot that is super muddy and has a spot where you have to just flat-out belly crawl through mud. It is spectacular! Tim, Joylynn, Ryan, Mike, and I all went on that one. Most of the time the water in the cave is knee high, but sometimes it can be waist high. So by the time I got through with the belly crawling part of this offshoot, I was soaked, super muddy, and loving every minute of it!

After we were done caving, we piled into the vans and headed back for home. The drive back was pretty fun. Josh got the death stare from a guy at Wendy’s when the guy bumped into Josh, so we almost had to throw down, but the guy apparently wasn’t interested in fighting. We could have taken him.

Josh and Joylynn both stayed over on Saturday night, which meant that they went to church with us, which was nice. Mike and I were finally able to give Josh our Christmas present, which was 2 big bottles of Jarritos. I also had to convince Josh that the linguini that we were having for lunch was actually quite good, despite what Mike and Drew said. After tasting it, he agreed with me. Joylynn ended up leaving the same time that we drove Josh home. I drove of course, and I think it was my first time driving in the old town. It was arguably the best weekend so far in 2009. Speaking of 2009 (and beyond), Josh and I laid out a couple of goals for this year. One of them is to bike from Crystal Lake all the way to my grandma’s house in Wheaton. We’re thinking about doing it as a 2 day trip. The other goal is to go camping at Starved Rock this summer. That would be awesome. We also started a bucket list! I think we have two items on that list. One is to take a trip to Thailand together, and the other is to go kayaking in the Everglades. Oh wait, we have 4 things! The other two are go kayaking down the Amazon, and go crocodile hunting in Louisiana. Yeeeeeeee-Haw!

The Archives (My New Hobby)

2009-01-19T17:09:00.006-06:00

As I was cleaning and de-cluttering the house, I found a bunch of old pictures. Normally I would have just dumped them into a box, BUT I had just read an article about scanning old prints onto your computer. So, I did! I actually had fun doing it, and it would be cool to get a whole bunch of them on here or flickr or something. Maybe I'll even make a "Pictures from the Archives" blog!

Me in 1992 (Top)

Me in 1990

Me in 1999

It's Downhill From Here

2009-01-18T16:38:00.001-06:00

Wow, it has been super long since I last posted! I have done all kinds of crazy stuff since I last posted! There is SO MUCH stuff to catch up on! Ok, well let me start with the main reason that I haven’t posted for so long. I have been working super hard on my Algebra 2 class, and I finally got that knocked out last night. It was like 10:30 PM when I got it done, and I played “We are the Champions” pretty loud. Ok, actually it was QUITE loud! Before I played the song I walked over to where mom was working on stuff, grabbed a barstool and my latest module of algebra, got on top of the barstool, and did a crazy victory dance. It was pretty awesome! Anyway, so that’s what’s been keeping me busy!

A week ago Saturday, Skyler came over and we went snow-shoveling. We did like 2 driveways, and we were on our 3rd when Mike accidentally ran over a newspaper with the monster snowblower. The newspaper ended up jamming the whole machine, so we spent the next 4 or 5 hours working on removing the newspaper. I won’t take the time to explain the way that a snowblower works here, but suffice it to say that when a newspaper gets wedged in between a blade and the outer housing, it is not cool! It ended up being a fun “bonding” time for me, Mike and Skyler though! We hacked at that newspaper with screwdrivers, knives, hangers, hacksaw blades, and we even set it on fire! No joke, we actually set it on fire! The 3 of us are natural pyromaniacs, so of course we were very safe in what we did, and I am dead serious. We ended up stopping before my parents got home though, because we were thinking “Oh man, if they catch us, we are going to be in super big trouble!” Eventually, they did get home and my dad came in the garage to help us with the snowblower. So he walks into the garage and goes “I hear you got a newspaper stuck in the snowblower. Why don’t you just burn it out?” NO JOKE, that is EXACTLY what he said! The 3 of us just started dying laughing.

Sunday morning I woke up at 5, took a walk around the neighborhood, but then fell back asleep right when I got back. Then Brent woke me up at 8:22, telling me that we were leaving in 8 minutes! Other than that, it was a pretty cool day. I got a chance to discuss a bunch of random different PNG trip stuff with Pat, which was good. Once I got back home I started working on a bunch of school and also knocked out some of my Peru album.

Monday I think I pretty much just worked on math homework the whole day, but everything is starting to blur together. This is one of the main reasons I want to keep up with blogging…

Tuesday I don’t even remember what I did. Dead serious. I want to say that I bought a couple of iPod parts, but I’m not even sure. Oh, I think I shoveled Jen’s driveway with Mike.

Wednesday I was planning on going to Prayer Meeting at night, but that got canceled because of the wind chill. It was like -7 or something. So instead of going to prayer meeting I just stayed at home and knocked out a bunch of math. I also ended up going to the library earlier on in the day. It’s all starting to come back to me! Before I went to the library Mike and I shoveled 311’s driveway, and then we went over to a big snow drift by Chris’ house. We made ourselves a couple of foxholes and waited for Chris. It was like -7 outside, and I was actually nice and toasty because of all the layers I had on. We scared the living daylights out of Chris…it was awesome!
Thursday I basically did school and then went up to the Round Lake Library. I forgot my laptop power cord, so I was restricted to using the library computers. I spent most of my time there souping up my Papua New Guinea blog. Be sure to check that out!

http://www.kellypng2009.blogspot.com/

Yesterday (Friday) I went through a bunch of computer junk. Then I started up the van and started loading a bunch of computer stuff into the van. My dad and I ended up taking like 15 cubic feet of computer stuff over to Goodwill. Then dad dropped me off at Fremont and I studied and talked to Joylynn & Melinda for a few hours. I got the bulk of my remaining math homework done here. Then dad picked me up and we went and got pizza. We sped home with the hot pizza, and then we watched a movie. About halfway through the movie I got up and walked downstairs to finish up my math. Like I said, I got done around 10:30, and it was awesome!

After I got done with math I pretty much just “partied” until 3 am. I watched movies and stuff. It’s good to finally be done with that class!

This morning I got up around 9:30 and mostly worked on cleaning a bunch of the basement. I got a ton of stuff done! Besides cleaning the basement I caught up on some reading, organized some pictures, and did some writing. I also started to play around with scanning prints of older photos and making them look nice. I did 3 tonight, one of which is when I’m like under a year old, one from when I’m 2, and one from when I’m 9. The one from when I’m 9 is not quite perfect yet, so I’m going to work on it some more. It’s fun!

I finished reading David Sitton’s book “To Every Tribe with Jesus”. There is a fascinating story at the end of the book about the turning point in the Chambri tribe. It’s all the more fascinating to me because I’m going to be in among that tribe in less than 2 months! I am super excited!

1st Post of 2009!

2009-01-05T17:23:00.006-06:00

Mike and I were over at Chuck’s house on Friday night playing Risk 2210. We didn’t get home until 1:30 AM. It was pretty awesome. As part of my Supercharged January I’m trying not to eat any dessert-food or pop. I fought the urge to have any of the fantastic spread of desserts at Chuck’s house. Then I got home at 1:30, and I saw that the kids had left out the pop. So I poured myself a glass and drank it without thinking until I was ¾ of the way through the glass! Oops! Oh well. Then on Saturday I just slept in late and then went to the hood library for a bit. I drove there and back, and the alignment on the car is a tad off, so it kind of feels like you’re driving a hovercraft. That should probably get fixed…

After I got back to the house I had about an hour and a half before Margaret and Danielle arrived. They go to our church and are our good friends. Margaret and I have been good friends ever since we sat next to each other on the plane to Brazil. She’s almost as crazy as me. Almost…Anyway, I loaded the dishes and then headed outside for a bit of fun. Friday afternoon I had filled a coffee can with a whole bunch of (flammable) junk, and then (of course) lit it on fire. A nice, safe little bit of fun. So I was having fun with that when the Duma’s drove up. We had fun eating, swapping stories, and I showed off my pictures from Peru.

Then yesterday we had church, after which a bunch of us boys played basketball in the gym, mostly the Bryant and Ramer boys. John Alimi came to visit our church and then came over for lunch also. I went in John’s car back to the house, and we took a little detour over to Target. He’s one of my dad’s old co-workers, and I’ve know him for years. He’s from Iran, and he speaks somewhat broken English. He became a Christian quite a few years ago. He’s very intelligent, and he has an amazing testimony. He’s a pretty cool guy to be around. He actually speaks better Spanish than English! We shopped at Target for about 45 minutes. I’m not very good at shopping, but we ended up getting Eleesa a cake for her birthday and also a little present for the whole family. We got back to the house and had a great conversation over lunch and on into the afternoon. It was very nice.

Then I went outside to play with my fire can again, this time taking a couple of pictures. After getting a few good pictures, I went inside and read my chronological Bible, all while sipping Passion Fruit Juice (and thinking “Ahhhh, this is the life!”) Before long I decided to work on my Peru scrapbook while talking to Ryker on speakerphone. We basically talked about the holidays (getting pulled behind a tractor), setting things on fire, and shoveling driveways. WE HAD PIZZA FOR DINNER! OH YEAH! We watched an episode of Little House on the Prairie while we ate our pizza. My night was long from over though, as I made myself some parmesan cheese-covered popcorn and hit the couch with a book: “To Every Tribe with Jesus”. I ended up hitting the sack around 10. It was a pretty awesome weekend!

Work, Play, & Corn Dogs

2008-12-30T00:03:00.000-06:00

Today started out a bit bumpy, mostly because I didn’t get up until 8-something. After doing my other morning-stuff, I grabbed a cup of coffee and headed downstairs for my time with God. Tell you what, there is no better way to start the day! I took awhile getting my chores done, mostly because I had rather time-consuming jobs today. I finally started doing school at 10. I pretty much worked straight through until 5. At 5 I took a little break and went outside.

Chuck had let me borrow a couple of throwing knives a couple of weeks ago, but I haven’t been able to throw them because of all the snow. As I was working on school this afternoon, Mike came down and pointed out that all the snow was gone, in the context of throwing the knives. So I strapped on the knives and headed outside for a half hour or so. I got the ramp out and tried throwing the knives into it, but I could not get them to stick for the life of me! Maybe I need a little more practice, or maybe the wood that the ramp is made of is too hard, I don’t know! I can get Mike’s throwing star to stick about half the time. Thunk!

I came back inside and worked on school until 6:35, at which time I changed into my basketball stuff. We had a pretty good turnout at basketball, enough to do 5 on 5. Immediately upon my return I made myself 2 corn dogs, tossed some salad onto a plate, grabbed a Code Red Mountain Dew, and sat down for some more algebra! I’ve been at it ever since, and it’s now 12 AM, so I think I’m going to hit the sack. I think I might go to the library tomorrow, after I get my math done of course. Ha Ho.

Random Sunday

2008-12-28T21:46:00.000-06:00

I got up at 7:07 this morning, despite the fact that I was up until midnight watching movies. I have to start managing my time better, partially because I’m going down to Texas 2 weeks before the PNG trip! Oh yeah! I’m really excited about that! It does mean that I have to work a little harder so that I can still graduate on time, but hey, it’ll be cool to check out the school, sit in on classes, sit in on PNG meetings, and meet the team!

I’m drinking a glass of cola right now, but it has the distinct flavor of passion fruit (maracuya) BECAUSE I finally tracked down passion fruit juice! I have been looking for passion fruit juice ever since I got back from Brazil! Almost a year and a half later, I go into our Super Target on a whim and end up tracking it down! Pretty awesome! As I took a sip, a whole flood of Peru memories hit me! It was pretty cool!

We went to a different church today because our church was canceled for the day. We ended up bumping into Ashley and her boyfriend at this Presbyterian Church in Vernon Hills.

The next 7 weeks is going to fly by so fast! I am super excited about this trip to Papua New Guinea. I am going to be so busy with school that the days should just fly by. At least, that’s what I’m hoping.

A few weeks ago I started writing down goals for 2009. Since then I’ve added quite a bit to the list. It includes everything from taking a lead climbing class to reading Grudem’s book, to going kayaking. All kinds of great stuff! Maybe I’ll put up a sidebar with some of the stuff soon.

I spent part of my day making a slideshow of just about every picture on my laptop that has me in it. I like how it turned out, and I think by the time I was done there was only one double in the whole movie. There are a couple of pictures that LOOK like doubles, but they are different! They are also probably unnecessary, but I wanted to be able to say that I used just about every picture on my laptop! Anyway, these pictures are MOSTLY from the past 2 years, but some go back as far as 5 years. Enjoy! (Actually, this video is taking forever to load, and I'm running short on time. It shall come relatively soon, I promise!)

Christmas Part 1

2008-12-27T15:53:00.006-06:00

My Christmas week was quite fun! Monday (our family’s Christmas Eve) was spent at the library. Seriously, I spent 11 hours at the library! I was studying, doing college stuff, and a bit of fun stuff too. Then I got home around 10, feeling really tired. Then, all of a sudden, I got my 2nd wind! I made myself some popcorn and hot chocolate and sat down on the couch to watch part of THE TWO TOWERS! Oh yeaaaaah! Then Christmas morning I woke up at like 9 ate breakfast, and then Mike, Chris, and I went and shoveled Kathy Cho’s driveway. We thought we had to shovel a couple of other people out, but they ended up not needing it done. So we found ourselves with a couple hours of free time! We immediately hooked up a sled to the tractor, and then Chris and I hopped in. At one point I jumped off the back of the sled, grabbed the back and, and got pulled on my stomach, all while Chris was trying to get me off the sled! It was awesome! Then at one point the twine that attached the climbing (tow) rope to the sled broke, so I just held on to the rope while I sat on the sled. The problem was, Mike took off way too fast, so I ended up hanging on for dear life while his tractor took me for a ride! It was a blast! THAT is how I got so snowy!

Our Christmas was quite nice, although very different from our other times, in that we only really “celebrated” from like 3-5 pm, cause mom and dad were finishing up shopping/wrapping in the morning, and then Mike and I had to shovel at night. We shoveled like 6 driveways that night.

Wednesday morning, the REAL Christmas Eve, I got to just chill around the house, enjoy my presents and watch some more of The Two Towers. That was cool. Then later in the day we went to Grandma’s house. Eric and I dug out the igloo, which was cold, wet, and AWESOME! We talked and worked for like 2 hours. We had some really good conversations about American Christians, holiness, and Christian living in general. That was really cool. By the time we got done I was soaked, and colder than I have been all year. But it was still tons of fun! We made this igloo at least twice as big as last year’s. I had a bunch of pictures from my Peru trip, so I showed those to a bunch of people. I really enjoyed the time spent with the relatives.

Then came my humbling experience! You see, I really like driving our massive 12 passenger van. It’s big, it’s a challenge, and it’s fun. At one point over the summer I drove it backwards all around our church parking lot, even around the drop-off loop. I really have prided myself on how I am able to maneuver that beast of a van. So last night I went to move the van (for like the 3rd time that day) and I backed into the ditch. It took us like a full hour to get the van out of that ditch! It was pretty crazy. I don’t really have an excuse; it was a mistake, that’s all there is too it! After we finally removed the van from the ditch I told my uncle Todd “Well, that was an adventure!” His reply was “Yep, you’ll be encountering a lot of that sort of thing when you’re in Papua New Guinea!”

We ended up not driving back to our house last night anyway, mostly because of the very thick fog. I’ve been doing a whole bunch of writing, reading, and cleaning this morning, and I think I’m going to be heading over to the church and the library in a bit. I’m really looking forward to making use of Kyle’s Christmas gift: Guarana! Oh yeah!

Epic Week Pictures

2008-12-22T10:26:00.011-06:00

Ok, so I know I said I was going to post these on Saturday, but I kinda went exploring instead. Yes, it was cold, dark, snowing, and AWESOME! I hopped a six foot fence behind Dominicks anf found myself in a frozen marshland. Working my way through that towards the neighborhood that I could see in the (near) distance was pretty fun. I also had to walk like 100 yards through 2 foot drifts. I finally made it to Starbucks and got my caramel machiato, only to find out that I couldn't get on the internet. Dad came soon after that anyway, and we went and got pizza. I also stopped by Jewel and had like 233 Peru pictures developed.

Just to ease your apprehensions, the stuff in the little goblet is Code Red Mountain Dew. The goblet just seemed to go with the bread.

Epic Week

2008-12-20T16:24:00.003-06:00

This week has been so packed with stuff; it has been insane! Monday started out at 6 am with a bunch of school, then I cleaned/detailed 3 vacuum cleaners, set up a robot vacuum, and put together a carpet cleaner. Then it was back to my house to do school. I got back to my house, worked on school, and then I went to the library with my dad. We got back to the house, I worked on school for a little bit, and then it was time to head out to the church for a couple hours of basketball. We played basketball from 7-9, and it was pretty awesome. I got smashed into by a guy who resembled a pitbull and a guy who is about 3 times my size. I got home, and yep, you guessed it, I worked on school again! No wait, that was Wednesday that I went to the library. Monday afternoon I went to Target and Dominicks. Yep, I drove the van, and I parked it in some really tight spaces. I love driving that thing! I got all kinds of pop and candy at Target and Dominicks, and I did school until like 11.

Tuesday I woke up late and then headed down to Chicago to give food and scarves out to homeless people. That took most of the day, mostly because it was snowing really bad. It took us 5 hours to get home from Chicago, instead of the normal hour. That was really crazy. I slept a bunch of the way...or tried to.

Wednesday morning Mike and I got up at 5 am and shoveled driveways until about 12. After that I went to Target and Dominicks. I drove the van, and I parked it in some really tight spaces. I love driving that thing! I got all kinds of pop and candy at Target and Dominicks, and I did school until like 11 pm. But before I began my school, Mike and I hooked a sled to his tractor, and he pulled me all around the neighborhood. It was so much fun, especially in the little round sled! Later that night we took Joey for a ride, and then Jakob and I went on at the same time. Then Jakob got 1st degree frostbite, which wasn't cool at all.

Thursday Mike and I slept in almost until it was time to leave for Grandma's, only to find out that it was alright if we skipped decorating Grandma's house in favor of shoveling people out of the massive snowstorm that was imminent. So Mike and I cleaned the house up nice and dandy, and then went outside and hooked up the tractor again. Skyler finally got here around 7:30 or so, and I made dinner. Although I didn't end up making dinner until after talking to to of my good friends, Margaret and Alyssa. All of my family was gone except for Mike and I. My parents were shopping, and the kids were down at Grandma's for the next couple of days! OH YEAAAH! So I made dinner, and then Mike, Skyler, and I watched "Back on Board". It was pretty awesome. I want a surf-riding grandpa!

Then Friday the 3 of us got up around 6:30, started shoveling the 8 inches of snow from peoples driveways around 8:30. We didn't end up finishing until 8:30 PM. Yep, that's a full 12 hours of work, for a total of 11 & 7/8 driveways. What in the world is the 7/8? Our van was in the driveway. We sat around for awhile after finishing up, just talking and drinking hot cocoa, waiting for my parents to get home. Then we took Skyler home, and I collapsed into bed.

Nothing overly special today, I just got up, made breakfast, received the Dickson's into my crazy clean house, paid Jakob and Joel, hurt a little kid by tackling into the snow a bit too hard, eating awesome bread, pasta, and Code Red Mountain Dew.

I gotta get outta here 'cause the library is closing, but I'm walking over to Starbucks to post pictures. And maybe I'll stop by Target first to get some food and presents... It's dark, cold, and maybe even a bit snowy, and it's a mile or 2 there. YES!

Another Nice Walk

2008-12-13T12:30:00.005-06:00

I'm at the hood library right now. I walked all the way here. It was pretty awesome. There's all kinds of ice and snow on the ground, and the wind was screaming like a freight train. Near the end I had worked up a pretty good sweat. I was hoping I'd see a coyote, but alas, it was not to be.

Mike and I watched Prince Caspian last night (after we watched "Fred Clause" with the family) Despite the public uproar about Susan kissing Prince Caspian at the end, I thought it was a pretty sweet movie. Seriously, I had like 17 people tell me that the kiss at the end was so stupid. I guess it was, but that didn't spoil the movie for me. We got finished around 1 am, and I ended up getting up and around by 8 am.

I'm hoping to be done with the grunt work of algebra by this next friday. There's finally a light at the end of the tunnel! It's taken me a lot longer than I thought it would, but hey, it's my hardest subject! The only thing I have to do to complete the entire class is have the quizzes corrected, re-worked and graded. I'm not going to worry about that at this point though, I'm just going to keep pressing on with regular schoolwork. I probably won't worry about finishing algebra until I get back from Papua New Guinea. Unless of course I have the urgent desire to crunch a whole bunch of numbers! I'm planning on spending "winter break" doing a whole bunch of college research, planning, applications, etc. My guess is that I will end up at Kuyper College in Michigan. I'll probably do some sort of Bible major there and then go on to TETM after that.

FINALLY!

2008-12-09T15:24:00.000-06:00

The boys of the loud, foul mouths have left the vicinity of my table at the library.

So what's been going on?

2008-12-09T15:11:00.000-06:00

Well, lot's of things actually! Here's a few: I took a practice SAT last monday, scored quite well in reading and writing, but bombed math. So I put in like 18 hours of math review over Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. Then I went to the library on Friday and took another practice SAT. And I got the EXACT SAME SCORE ON MATH! Oh well!

Besides taking the practice SAT on Friday, I walked up to the library. There was about 2 inches of snow on the ground, and it was roughly 30 degrees out. It was a really cool 6 mile walk. A cool little bit of brain R & R. Pun intended. Then my parents forgot about picking me up, so I had to walk over to Ace Hardware and wait it out, because my mom doesn't want me walking home in the dark. I walked around the whole store (which is a Home Center, so about 3x the size of a normal Ace) like 3 1/2 times, up and down every single aisle. Of course, it wasn't totally boring, since I was talking to Ryker almost the whole time. Our conversation was basically about getting in trouble, being a good influence, and blowing things up.

I took the SAT on Saturday. The test itself was not that hard, except for some of the math, but it's just kinda long. I got up at like 6 am, ate breakfast, got ready, and got to the test site (Mundelein H.S.) by 7:25 or so. The whole testing thing got all wrapped up around 12:30. My mom picked me up, and I only had an hour to relax before I had to go shovel with Mike and Skyler. We worked until 6:30, drove Skyler home, and then it was winddown time. Ok, not quite. Dad, Mike and I went to Fox Lake to get some stuff done at Jewel. Then I got a free Caramel Machiato at Starbucks, then we all got Wendy's, and then we did a massive donut in the parking lot of Home Depot. We finally got home and I hit the couch with popcorn and a Kurt Austin book.

After church Mike and I grabbed the keys to the cars and ran outside. We dropped our junk off by Chuck's van, and then the fun began. There was like 2 cars in the main section of the parking lot, and most of the parking lot was iced over. Mike had the van, and I had the Lexus. We did all knds of power-slides and stuff. There was basically an oval track that we were driving around. It was so awesome! At one point we were racing around this track really fast and doing major powers slides around the curves! It was awesome. And then of course we parked them up front and walked inside looking totally innocent.

That's pretty much the major highlights of the past week or so. Pretty awesome, eh?

Check it out! (I got my hair cut)

2008-12-09T14:17:00.002-06:00

Just Chillin'

2008-12-04T14:44:00.002-06:00

There's a funny story behind this picture, and the funniest part is that I'm not just chillin'. I climbed up into the rafters of this map-building outside Lincoln Park Zoo when no cars were going by. I told Ploy to take a picture real quick, which she did, and then she was like "You look like you're standing up!" So I just burst out laughing and yelled "Well make it look like I'm NOT standing up!"

Random Pics #458

2008-12-03T12:37:00.003-06:00

Mike, me, and my dad transfixed by the meerkats at Lincoln Park Zoo

Joylynn, me, and Mike having fun walking in the rain at Lincoln Park Zoo

Me being a gentleman (of course!)

Me laughing with (at) Joylynn and Ploy trying to sit on the fence

Eleesa and I

Fluffy

2008-12-01T17:51:00.003-06:00

Ok, I just had to post this! This is the nastiest, sickest, weirdest thing on earth! But yeah, that's what happens when I run my fingers through my hair.

SAT Prep

2008-12-01T17:14:00.003-06:00

I'm sitting here at the library in one of the study rooms, taking a practice SAT. I've been here for 4 1/2 hours. Pretty crazy. I definitely have a better grip on the math than I did last time I took this! Mike and I got up at 5 am this morning to go shovel driveways. We worked from 5:30 until 11:30 or so. It was crazy! We did 7 driveways including our own. No snowblowers either this year (so far), just 2 men and 2 shovels! I really enjoyed it. It was a great first work day of the season! Not too easy, not to hard, a very nice balance.

I'm kinda curious what that big huge thud was. If I was at home, a big huge thud would be very commonplace, but here in a library it's a bit more odd. The vending machine here has basically nothing. I opted for raisinets. I'm in this big room with a whole bunch of armchairs, tables, and regular chairs. It's like so deadly quiet that if I make any sort of noise it sounds like a thunderclap. I'm going to walk over to Wendy's and get a burger in a little bit. Then I'm going to walk over to church and play some basketball until like 9. After I'm done with that, I'm planning on going home, making popcorn, and then hitting the couch. I'm going to retire at a decent hour (10:00) today. No need to kill myself.

The picture? That's me eating blackberry pie at Grandma's on Thanksgiving (after cleaning the gutters, oh yeah, nothing like coming in to pie after working in the cold!).

The French Braid

2008-12-01T16:15:00.004-06:00

My cousin Joylynn braided my hair, and I would have liked it (kinda) except for the girly-colored hair ties! It almost makes me look like some kind of ancient Chinese soldier or something...or not!

Are You Real (KJ-52 and Jon Micah Sumrall)

2008-11-21T15:18:00.003-06:00

I really like this song, and every time it comes up on my iPod I think "Man, I need to post this!" So, eventually, I did.

So my stress keeps running through my mind now.
Fell into a mess that I that wish that I could climb out.
I guess I hide it so nobody'll find out,
The way everyone thinks that everything is fine now.

At home things are messed up with mom and dad,
And at school all my friends stab me in the back.
No one is real anymore; I hate the way they act.
There's so many things that I wish I had.

So God if your there do u understand?
Don't you care about anything that's happenin?
It's not fair to put me through all this junk again.
You see that I'm scared, so help me if you can.

So please speak loud and clear 'cause I'm lystinin.
I need to know that you're real 'cause I'm strugglin.
You need to show that your here 'cause I'm stumblin.
Show me that you care this is why I'm saying this

Are you real?
I want to know (I want to know)
Are you real?
Then let it go (you got to let it go)

Are you real?
I want to know (I want to know)
Are you real?
Then let it show (you got to let it show)

It was right then, when everything began to change.
I started looking at these things in a different way.
I saw life through God's eyes and it wasn't the same,
And it was right at the time I called on your name.

Then I saw all these lies that was thrown away.
I recognized that I need you and on that day,
I cried out and seek you, that was when you came.
Now that I see you, I've been through a major change.

And I believe that you're real Ã¢'cause its so plain.
I finally feel I can make it through anything.
It don't matter what they speak or if they hate.
They can't keep me down no more Ã¢'cause I seen your face.

And for now or never will I be the same
Ã¢'Cause I'm staying strong and I won't bend this way.
Now that I know that you're real, it's gonna be ok.
Yeah, you're speaking in my ear and this is what you say

Are you real?
I want to know (I want to know)
Are you real?
Then let it go (you got to let it go)

Are you real?
I want to know (I want to know)
Are you real?
Then let it show (you got to let it show)

See there's a war that's going on outside,
And you can try to ignore and just run and hide.
But everyday more and more people die.
See the battles for souls, we're on the front lines

So many souls, just too scared to fight
They're too worried about what people thinking of their life.
How can you fight if you don't lay down your pride?
And how will anyone see if you won't shine your light?

So many of your friends walking around blind
You got the source that can open up their eyes.
It's y'all's choice what you do with your lives,
But I'm gonna go to war 'cause I made up my mind.

Jesus gave us life when he went and died.
So the least that I could do is give him all of mine.
So how many of y'all are ready to fight by my side?
Ã¢'Cause this is what he's saying right now here tonight.
Come on!

Are you real?
I want to know (I want to know)
Are you real?
Then let it go (you got to let it go)

Are you real?
I want to know (I want to know)
Are you real?
Then let it show (you got to let it show)

A Few Pics...My Laptop Cord is Shot

2008-11-21T15:06:00.002-06:00

Mike and Chris (Mike with Stick of Fire)

Mike and Chris again (Stick of Fire is in full glory)

Chris

The peak of the hill that I fly down to get to the "hood" library