There is one thing that is echoing through my skull right now...
FIND YOUR GROUND AND STAND UP
People that don't believe in anything are white noise, the same noise you hear on the radio when you can't get reception. You can believe in something and still be a hypocrite. But you become a true believer in something if you actually put your life on the line and stand for that belief. Once it comes to that point, it's impossible to fake it. Everything that people see in you and everything that you hold dear to you is tested to see if it's real and if it helps you or hurts you.
But if you don't stand up, you cripple yourself. You keep thinking what you think you're standing on is secure, but you don't know for sure. Then when things start to cave in, you wonder why you didn't see this coming.
Right now, I'm saying that my life currently is proof. I left for the summer again, gave God everything, told him that He has control whether or not things are good or bad while I'm gone, and I didn't look back. I poured out 100% at that camp, and I came home to find that everything that I had left behind actually got better. God had taken what I had given Him and trusted Him with, and grew it more than I could imagine.
At the point when I realized this, the parable Jesus told of the servants and the Ten Minas. It's the complete truth. And I'm glad it is.
Wednesday, August 15, 2007
Friday, August 10, 2007
SP Chronicles #8
Final entry for the SugarPine Chronicles, Log Account 8...
It has finally come. The last week of kids, the final week of Timber Mountain 2007. Barret and me summed it up neatly, I think: glad and sad. Glad that we can finally attain some comfort in our normal lives soon, but sad that we'll be leaving everyone here at SugarPine.
I thought last week was hard on program team. God decided to change my mind and make me a counselor this week, outreach week no less, while doing worship leader duties. I did the smart thing on Saturday and watched movies and slept and spent time with God, so that I would actually be prepared for whatever was coming. All my kids are from Fresno, they're all close friends, they're obsessed with WWE, and they all have an attitude. One of the kids Lawrence was really homesick Wednesday and had the whole cabin stage a fight so that he could get sent home. Instead they got seperated into different cabins. They came back into my cabin yesterday, and tonight I'm just hoping that they sleep peacefully.
The above paragraph is what I would've said if God did not give me His eyes to see. In truth, all that I just typed out is reality, but the entire time they were sluggin around their attitudes and causing trouble, God made me see each kid through His eyes, and helped me see past all their mistakes. These kids I got this week are the kdis that I always wanted to counsel. All of them (except one) are black. All of them love to wrestle. They cause trouble but they learn about God and are trying to fix the screwed up parts of their life with the help of God. He's just given me this complete peace and strength and understanding about anything that's happened this week. And suprisingly, this has been the most relaxing week of the summer, no joke. I don't know how, it just feels that way.
And now I get to go home. It's so sad always to have to leave Roseville and come to SugarPine, and the other way around. Both of these places are my home. And if not for Bridgeway I'd probably be working down here full time. I wish I could. But God doesn't want me to yet, if ever. I just know that I'm ready to come home. This has been a good summer, I do not regret anything of it. I will not make any promises about next summer though, that's too far away. And this concludes my final blog for Timber Mountain 2007. Thanks for the prayer and support guys. God bless.
It has finally come. The last week of kids, the final week of Timber Mountain 2007. Barret and me summed it up neatly, I think: glad and sad. Glad that we can finally attain some comfort in our normal lives soon, but sad that we'll be leaving everyone here at SugarPine.
I thought last week was hard on program team. God decided to change my mind and make me a counselor this week, outreach week no less, while doing worship leader duties. I did the smart thing on Saturday and watched movies and slept and spent time with God, so that I would actually be prepared for whatever was coming. All my kids are from Fresno, they're all close friends, they're obsessed with WWE, and they all have an attitude. One of the kids Lawrence was really homesick Wednesday and had the whole cabin stage a fight so that he could get sent home. Instead they got seperated into different cabins. They came back into my cabin yesterday, and tonight I'm just hoping that they sleep peacefully.
The above paragraph is what I would've said if God did not give me His eyes to see. In truth, all that I just typed out is reality, but the entire time they were sluggin around their attitudes and causing trouble, God made me see each kid through His eyes, and helped me see past all their mistakes. These kids I got this week are the kdis that I always wanted to counsel. All of them (except one) are black. All of them love to wrestle. They cause trouble but they learn about God and are trying to fix the screwed up parts of their life with the help of God. He's just given me this complete peace and strength and understanding about anything that's happened this week. And suprisingly, this has been the most relaxing week of the summer, no joke. I don't know how, it just feels that way.
And now I get to go home. It's so sad always to have to leave Roseville and come to SugarPine, and the other way around. Both of these places are my home. And if not for Bridgeway I'd probably be working down here full time. I wish I could. But God doesn't want me to yet, if ever. I just know that I'm ready to come home. This has been a good summer, I do not regret anything of it. I will not make any promises about next summer though, that's too far away. And this concludes my final blog for Timber Mountain 2007. Thanks for the prayer and support guys. God bless.
Friday, August 3, 2007
SP Chronicles #7
SugarPine Chronicles, Log Account 7...
Second to last week of kids is almost done. I can feel it. 26 hours from now they'll be packed up ready to go, I'll be doing traffic, and that much closer to 26 hours off.
This week by far...the toughest one yet. The first two days we had a couple counselors get sick or injured, that knocked program staff down to three people. And we had to send a kid home, that wasn't much fun either. My high school youth group was at main camp this week, but I only got to see them at nights because of our short staffing (no offense Missy). But as the week progressed, life found its bright points even though it was being difficult. My voice is getting pretty solid even though I knocked out my high range for the rest of the summer. Oh yeah and I finally shaved off my mountain man beard too, I look like I'm 17 again yay!
Besides that, I've been sort of listless. Not in a bad way. I've just pushed all the random distractions out of my head and let God take control as much as I'll let Him. There's been a lot of things that Satan has tried to throw at me this week especially. Lots of things that made me just want to run home, but I know I can't. This place and what I'm doing here is too important. And once again this week, I learned how important prayer is. So don't think that you praying for me isn't working, cause IT IS. Thanks :)
Epilouge: I just found out that I'm gonna be a counselor next week, as well as being the worship guy. DOUBLETIME!..one, two, three, four... (pray for me)
Second to last week of kids is almost done. I can feel it. 26 hours from now they'll be packed up ready to go, I'll be doing traffic, and that much closer to 26 hours off.
This week by far...the toughest one yet. The first two days we had a couple counselors get sick or injured, that knocked program staff down to three people. And we had to send a kid home, that wasn't much fun either. My high school youth group was at main camp this week, but I only got to see them at nights because of our short staffing (no offense Missy). But as the week progressed, life found its bright points even though it was being difficult. My voice is getting pretty solid even though I knocked out my high range for the rest of the summer. Oh yeah and I finally shaved off my mountain man beard too, I look like I'm 17 again yay!
Besides that, I've been sort of listless. Not in a bad way. I've just pushed all the random distractions out of my head and let God take control as much as I'll let Him. There's been a lot of things that Satan has tried to throw at me this week especially. Lots of things that made me just want to run home, but I know I can't. This place and what I'm doing here is too important. And once again this week, I learned how important prayer is. So don't think that you praying for me isn't working, cause IT IS. Thanks :)
Epilouge: I just found out that I'm gonna be a counselor next week, as well as being the worship guy. DOUBLETIME!..one, two, three, four... (pray for me)
Tuesday, July 24, 2007
SP Chronicles #6
SugarPine Chronicles, Log Account 6...
It's safe to say that I've made it through half of the summer, because like the rest of the staff here at Timber, it feels like all the pressure is mounting on us right NOW. We're working with over 100 kids which is thoroughly maxing out the camp in almost every way possible, my voice has lost the ability to reach its high register, it's becoming way too easy and tempting for me to blow off these kids, and I am having a serious heartache for home. And to throw another curveball in, one counselor had to go home today because he got sick bad. Basically he's got some kinda virus that makes him faint randomly in the day, and this doesn't go away for a couple weeks. We were all sad to see him go, keep him in your prayers.
It feels like I'm being attacked from all sides, and at this point God decides to tell me to stretch myself even more and expend more energy. He's been wanting me to really find out who Jesus is, and what exactly he came on this earth to do. It's been very interesting to force myself to sit down for 7 minutes and read, to find myself wanting to read even more when I need to go do something else. I have definetely reached my uncomfortable zone, I'll tell ya what.
I just want to go home. The one week I was home I was actually sick, so I was trying to silently recover on my off time, which wasn't very sucessful. It feels like I've been going forever now. It's so bad that when I came to my house I was uncomfortable because everything was so clean. I'm used to dusty mountains, not clean suburbs. But I really want to go home. I love my youth group more than I love this camp, and I'm missing out on stuff with them and other people back home. If I had a choice I'd go back home Saturday, but I know that God's got me here for a reason and I'm not leaving till He gives me the okay.
This whole summer has been so weird, this is the summer of the sickness, the summer of endurance, the summer of transition for the entire staff here, I love it. But now I just want to go home even for a little while, to completely lock myself in my house and recover for three days and then get sent out again on the frontline. I'm just so physically worn out from everything here, and I want a breather so bad. And as bad as I feel saying this, but I don't want to rely on God half the time, I just want to press pause and breathe. But then God kicks me in the bonono and I tell myself to shut up and do my job, and He always makes sure I follow through with it.
I don't even know, I'm just so tired right now. I'm even past curfew, I need sleep. Keep me in your prayers guys, thanks much. See you Placer County people in 24 days.
It's safe to say that I've made it through half of the summer, because like the rest of the staff here at Timber, it feels like all the pressure is mounting on us right NOW. We're working with over 100 kids which is thoroughly maxing out the camp in almost every way possible, my voice has lost the ability to reach its high register, it's becoming way too easy and tempting for me to blow off these kids, and I am having a serious heartache for home. And to throw another curveball in, one counselor had to go home today because he got sick bad. Basically he's got some kinda virus that makes him faint randomly in the day, and this doesn't go away for a couple weeks. We were all sad to see him go, keep him in your prayers.
It feels like I'm being attacked from all sides, and at this point God decides to tell me to stretch myself even more and expend more energy. He's been wanting me to really find out who Jesus is, and what exactly he came on this earth to do. It's been very interesting to force myself to sit down for 7 minutes and read, to find myself wanting to read even more when I need to go do something else. I have definetely reached my uncomfortable zone, I'll tell ya what.
I just want to go home. The one week I was home I was actually sick, so I was trying to silently recover on my off time, which wasn't very sucessful. It feels like I've been going forever now. It's so bad that when I came to my house I was uncomfortable because everything was so clean. I'm used to dusty mountains, not clean suburbs. But I really want to go home. I love my youth group more than I love this camp, and I'm missing out on stuff with them and other people back home. If I had a choice I'd go back home Saturday, but I know that God's got me here for a reason and I'm not leaving till He gives me the okay.
This whole summer has been so weird, this is the summer of the sickness, the summer of endurance, the summer of transition for the entire staff here, I love it. But now I just want to go home even for a little while, to completely lock myself in my house and recover for three days and then get sent out again on the frontline. I'm just so physically worn out from everything here, and I want a breather so bad. And as bad as I feel saying this, but I don't want to rely on God half the time, I just want to press pause and breathe. But then God kicks me in the bonono and I tell myself to shut up and do my job, and He always makes sure I follow through with it.
I don't even know, I'm just so tired right now. I'm even past curfew, I need sleep. Keep me in your prayers guys, thanks much. See you Placer County people in 24 days.
Saturday, July 7, 2007
SugarPine Chronicles, Log Account #5 (Birthday Week)...
So this week has been very interesting. One of those weeks where I had energy but I had trouble letting out of the box. I soon discovered why: the temperature on the mountain was stedialy heating up. As well as being warm, it was humid. And it caught me unawares on Wednesday. As I was putting away the rock wall, I felt a great pressure on my forehead, so I sat down, and discovered I was dehydrated, which was beautiful. So I took in a couple gallons of water that day and made many visits to the restroom as well. Currently I'm getting over a minor cold, I think me being dehydrated took down some of my immune shields and gave me the cold everyone else has at Timber.
BUT, I turned 19 on Friday. And when you're turning one year older on a Friday/Saturday, it's kinda hard not to have a good week. But this one will stand out in my mind for all time, let me assure you. The cook Eddie and me like to mess with each other a lot. We're good friends, but our way of showing friendliness is to be cruel to each other. So Friday at lunch, Eddie came out with a birthday cake that had some beautiful frosting in it. It reminded me of the scene in Hook when they were having the food fight and frosting was flying everywhere, this should have thrown a warning flag in my mind. So as I'm eating cake and everything, Eddie comes out from the kitchen with his own piece of cake that he's eating. Then he walks right up to me as I'm talking, and slams his cake in my face. Now it has always been my secret, unvoiced desire to have cake flung into my face, but I knew that whenever that happened, what was to follow would be crazy, one of the best moments of my life, and potentially something I could regret.
So as Eddie's running away, I come after him, jump on him and wipe the frosting that's on my face, on his face. Somehow my buddy Ben got involved, got frosting on him, and shoved some frosting deep down Eddie's ear. Keep in mind that the whole time this is going on, our boss is taking a break and having lunch down in Oakhurst with her husband, and we are in a building filled with impressionable kids. But in all honesty I didn't care, it was my birthday, I'll have a food fight if I want to.
So when I'm done cleaning all the frosting out of my beard, I come out to find that there has been an encore of our cake fight, this time in the kitchen. The kitchen staff are flinging my beautiful cake at each other. The guys are the real instigators and are having a good jolly time, while the girls are the current victims and vowing vengence on all the guys. At one point one of the girls run out to get away, and I hold her in one place so she gets a chance to have frosting rubbed all over her face too.
Since Eddie's the cook and the instigator of this whole thing, he took all the blame, and I got off scott free. Two reasons for this, I believe: it was my birthday, and I was a victim of this whole thing. I am innocent. All I did was have fun with it :D. And now I'm home, so hopefully I'll be healthy and back to crazy when I go back up the mountain. Thank you Jesus for R&R
BUT, I turned 19 on Friday. And when you're turning one year older on a Friday/Saturday, it's kinda hard not to have a good week. But this one will stand out in my mind for all time, let me assure you. The cook Eddie and me like to mess with each other a lot. We're good friends, but our way of showing friendliness is to be cruel to each other. So Friday at lunch, Eddie came out with a birthday cake that had some beautiful frosting in it. It reminded me of the scene in Hook when they were having the food fight and frosting was flying everywhere, this should have thrown a warning flag in my mind. So as I'm eating cake and everything, Eddie comes out from the kitchen with his own piece of cake that he's eating. Then he walks right up to me as I'm talking, and slams his cake in my face. Now it has always been my secret, unvoiced desire to have cake flung into my face, but I knew that whenever that happened, what was to follow would be crazy, one of the best moments of my life, and potentially something I could regret.
So as Eddie's running away, I come after him, jump on him and wipe the frosting that's on my face, on his face. Somehow my buddy Ben got involved, got frosting on him, and shoved some frosting deep down Eddie's ear. Keep in mind that the whole time this is going on, our boss is taking a break and having lunch down in Oakhurst with her husband, and we are in a building filled with impressionable kids. But in all honesty I didn't care, it was my birthday, I'll have a food fight if I want to.
So when I'm done cleaning all the frosting out of my beard, I come out to find that there has been an encore of our cake fight, this time in the kitchen. The kitchen staff are flinging my beautiful cake at each other. The guys are the real instigators and are having a good jolly time, while the girls are the current victims and vowing vengence on all the guys. At one point one of the girls run out to get away, and I hold her in one place so she gets a chance to have frosting rubbed all over her face too.
Since Eddie's the cook and the instigator of this whole thing, he took all the blame, and I got off scott free. Two reasons for this, I believe: it was my birthday, and I was a victim of this whole thing. I am innocent. All I did was have fun with it :D. And now I'm home, so hopefully I'll be healthy and back to crazy when I go back up the mountain. Thank you Jesus for R&R
Thursday, June 28, 2007
SP Chronicles #4
SugarPine Chronicles, Log Account 4...
So it's the third week of camp, and I'm pretty much lovin it so far. I got over my homesickness, probably due in part to four of my supercool buddies comin down last week and the fact that Kit's comin down this week :). On Tuesday Barrett and me woke up at 6:15 in the morning to go running, which I have not done for 2 years. And we ran down a hill and halfway down the road to the director's house, and back again (I'm guessing round 2 miles). And I didn't stop much, I pretty much ran the whole way. And when I got back up the mountain I think that I got dehydrated, cause I took about 10 glasses of water in before I started feeling alright. And I was spewing out some random stuff like nobody's business, people thought I was delusional no joke. Now I'm paying for it, I am still sore.
So now let's see, how many days before I come home? I think 9. Yep. I like the number 9. And I think Superman Returns is an idiotic movie. We're watching it right now in the staff room, it's pretty cheesy. Like bad ricotta cheese. It was a waste of money for the most part. A couple good parts, but not that good to pay that much money for. And I have nothing else to say. So goodbye, see you Rosevillians in 9 days :)
So it's the third week of camp, and I'm pretty much lovin it so far. I got over my homesickness, probably due in part to four of my supercool buddies comin down last week and the fact that Kit's comin down this week :). On Tuesday Barrett and me woke up at 6:15 in the morning to go running, which I have not done for 2 years. And we ran down a hill and halfway down the road to the director's house, and back again (I'm guessing round 2 miles). And I didn't stop much, I pretty much ran the whole way. And when I got back up the mountain I think that I got dehydrated, cause I took about 10 glasses of water in before I started feeling alright. And I was spewing out some random stuff like nobody's business, people thought I was delusional no joke. Now I'm paying for it, I am still sore.
So now let's see, how many days before I come home? I think 9. Yep. I like the number 9. And I think Superman Returns is an idiotic movie. We're watching it right now in the staff room, it's pretty cheesy. Like bad ricotta cheese. It was a waste of money for the most part. A couple good parts, but not that good to pay that much money for. And I have nothing else to say. So goodbye, see you Rosevillians in 9 days :)
Wednesday, June 20, 2007
SP Chronicles #3
SugarPine Chronicles, Log Account 3...
It's been a pretty awesome / weird / confusing week so far. I lost my shaver the first week of camp, so I've grown a mountain man beard, something I was gonna see if I could avoid lol. Last week I was having a lot of problems with keeping my voice strong, now it's completely the opposite for the whole staff. The flu has caught the Timber Mountain staff by storm, they're sneezing, dizzy, barely finding any voice to speak with, and it's affected everyone but ME. It's like God took a chunk of energy from everyone and gave it to me, because generally I've felt 100% the whole week. And since I've felt so good, I've tried to max myself out by helping the staff as much as I possibly can, I think that's one of the things God wants me to focus on this summer. But what I don't recommend is canoeing kids over the course of a couple hours, you get really sore after that.
I'm still getting over my homesickness, it's a painful process, I don't think I've missed home nearly this much before. BUT this weekend my peeps Nikie Renee and Kyle are comin up, we're gonna hang out cause we all miss each other a lot, so that's pretty cool. Oooh, something new that came out of this week is what I think is my first ever worship song. I've always tried to write one but it never came out right. I'm about 80% done with it, here's the finished product (so far)....
No answers that I can find
It's time that I opened Your door
I don't want to hide anymore
I've stayed here for long enough
I'll follow the road that You have made
I know that this time it won't be the same
I don't wanna hold back, hold me tight
Guard me through the night
And I, I hold on to this Word
I will not give in like I did before
I will not betray Your memory
I've told you before
But I still can't let go
I still don't feel release from my pain
But I know You can take it, so take it away
Why can't I just believe Your love is free?
So flawed and worthless, why'd you pick me?
You're my hope at the end of the day
You know what I'll say before I even say it
Other than that, God's doing amazing stuff here at camp. He's here and working on us and the kids, and there's never a moment here when I'm really bored, nothing here is really routine, ever. I'm gonna keep updating my SugarPine 07 pictures whenever I get the chance, so check that out too if you want. God bless, adios.
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