MADE FOR WAR

125,600 minutes x 2

2008-04-11T19:19:00.001-04:00

I have been hear for two years. I am currently entering my third summer and just finished my second winter. I was thinking about people that I have met since I've been here and how they have moved and gone to better neighborhoods (most of them) or bigger houses and then I started thinking about all the people that have come and gone to do ministry here in Charlotte and it's been much like the people in this hood. A lot of people have come in to do ministry, stayed for some time and then left somewhere else. Some people didn't have a choice in leaving, summer assignments don't last forever but even beside TWC students this has been a very transient neighborhood with very transient 614 leaders. The people that we ministered to when I first arrived are not at all the same people now. The first leaders of 614 (Rob and Heather) Charlotte are not the same leaders that now (Travis and Leo) and could be changing again after several months. That seems very peculiar to me. Your thoughts? Anyone...anyone...Beuller anyone...

I'm back...again

2008-04-03T19:43:00.000-04:00

I’m back after a prolonged break but I have good reason for taking a break…actually it was a terrible reason but anyway the reason I haven’t blogged in over a month…again is because for some odd reason I couldn’t access my Google account and therefore couldn’t access my blog. I have wanted to comment on blogs and there has been things that have happened that I have wanted to blog about (but I probably don’t remember anymore) I just haven’t been able to. Obviously though on Thursday I had a breakthrough after a couple hours of going through all these different channels I got through.

The last thing I remember being on my mind to blog about was Youth Councils. That was fantastic. Youth Councils is always fun for everyone but I think the kids form our hood were definitely affected more than the others. I can’t say that as a fact but I do know that these kids left with more than just a T-shirt and a few memories of a fun weekend. At cell group that following Tuesday I asked them for their highs and low’s of Youth Councils. I thought I would hear the guys talk about how many girls numbers they got or who they were hollarin at or maybe they would say they liked dancing with Agape (or special guest rap artist) but they all really surprised me. Most of the kids remembered something from one of the speakers that affected them emotionally; it was something where they felt like it had a real meaning in their life. One of the kids told us (I was a witness to it) when Agape sang the song be my dad he just started to cry. He said it was awesome for him to realize that God is his father because he doesn’t know his biological dad and at Youth Councils he couldn’t say anything he just cried. I am still amazed when God can break down walls in a matter of seconds with one simple song that I hadn’t been able to get through for months. I had kids ask me to pray for them about issues in their home issues in their personal life and we had one guy who is a Muslim but at youth councils told Leo he wanted to be a Christian. That is supernatural to me. With everything happening like it was I couldn’t keep my composure anymore, after praying with a few of the guys I went back to my seat and I just started crying for them. After hearing their struggles and the things they were worried or scared of I couldn’t not cry; it was almost too much to handle, but God is bigger than that. Praise the Lord.

On the Shoulders of Giants

2008-02-28T17:29:00.003-05:00

I'm reading a book called "Taking Our Cities For God" by John Dawson; I highly recommend it to anyone that has a love for your city and wants to break those spiritual strongholds and see it set free. As I was reading I decided I would share an excerpt from the book just to remind everyone of our spiritual heritage and a reminder of whose shoulders we are standing on. "The Father of urban missions is undoubtedly William Booth, 1829-1912. He and his Salvation Army pioneered ministry to almost every category of city dweller. They transformed the life of the cities of their day through compassionate attention to the poor, and they boldly confronted evil institutions until they crumbled. In London the age of consent was only thirteen, and eighty thousand prostitutes, many as young as ten, were sold in the streets or kept in brothels. Booth and his army confronted this evil with holy ferocity and fought until it was outlawed. They lifted a standard of blood and fire which is still the greatest challenge to the life of any urban missionary.
I just think it's amazing that The Salvation Army is recognized like that(I don't know how popular the book is) and that William Booth was called "The Father of Urban Missions". If that doesn't light a fire inside you I don't know what will. Be encouraged.

I'll stay and Fight...and blog...maybe

2008-02-21T17:12:00.004-05:00

Well, I had made a new year’s resolution to blog more frequently but that one crashed and burned with in the first week. I am trying to be a little more frequent, but sometimes I forget or just can’t think of anything to write. I sometimes think that I shouldn’t really blog unless I have some deep insight into some scripture or some life issue or something like that. That’s actually funny for me to think about since my last blog was about relating Rice Krispies to the trinity. Then I was thinking about all the people that read my blog that I can’t or don’t really talk to often. They need to know about what’s happening in my life and more often that once a month. So here is a brief update of my life and some changes happening. I say brief now but we’ll see.

If you have keeping up with Rob and Heathers blog this won’t be new news to you. They are beginning a new season of ministry and that will not be in Charlotte, North Carolina. The 614 ministries in Charlotte will continue with me as the director. Our Area Commander and Divisional Secretary have asked me to be the interim urban outpost director and Leo is the assistant director. This does mean I will have to leave my wonderful job at Starbucks (I think I might cry), but I can always visit and maybe try to scam a free drink or two or three. It actually was really surprising to me because I figured that after Rob and Heather left the ministry here would be over, but yesterday I was reminded by Aurora (a close friend, comrade and fellow Martyr) that Rob once said that he dreamed of one day leaving all of this in my hands. At that time I looked around and wasn’t to impressed with what I saw. It was a neighborhood with drugs dealers, addicts, crack houses, prostitutes and families with more issues that a comic book. I knew changes would take place and I wanted to see changes and I worked along side Jesus to see those changes take place and I praised the Lord when I saw them happening. The issues aren’t all solved and all of them may never be solved, but that’s what makes this place so amazing, and now this is a neighborhood with a few less drugs and dealers, less addicts, prostitutes, zero crack houses, families with less issues, and new families with new issues. I love this neighborhood and everything that comes with it and I love that this is what I inherited from Rob and Heather. As they move on to a new phase in their life I will be moving on to a different phase too, but it’s in the same place just a different position. I don’t believe God is prepared (and neither am I) to let the enemy take back the land that is rightfully ours. We have spent two years fighting for souls and for territory and Leo and I won’t let that go with out a fight. "We will wage war with love because love never fails."(Hat Tip MC) Corporal Travis Roberts out.

I'm still here

2008-01-09T16:48:00.000-05:00

I'm going to try to start blogging again...regularly. PRAISE THE LORD!!! WOOHOO!!!

The Trinity and Cereal

2007-10-30T15:20:00.000-04:00

I was thinking a few days ago about The Trinity (The Father, Son, and Holy Ghost) and how some people have a difficult time explaining it and other people have a difficult time understanding, but after some pondering and breakfast, I think I figured it out. Rice Krispies has the answer. The Snap, Crackle, Pop is all coming from the exact same source, but in three distinct different sounds. One sound is not greater than the other and they all work together to create a beautiful symphony. As I remember when I was younger, and I would be eating my bowl of Rice Krispies, it was always said (in commercials and by other people) that the cereal was (anyone else remember that or is it just me) talking to me with those sounds (dramatic pause and waiting for it to sink in). That’s right I don’t sound so crazy now do I? So we don’t have to get into these big theological discussions and debates, and you don’t have to go get a degree to understand it; you just have to simply go to your cereal cabinet and take a look and or listen (which could lead to Schizophrenia so be careful). Rice Krispie Treats on the other hand are way out there in left field I haven’t worked them into my line of thinking yet. Does this make sense to anyone else or is it just blasphemy to compare the Trinity to a bowl of cereal.

Father, Son, Holy Ghost-Trinity
Snap, Crackle, Pop-Rice Krispies

We believe that there are three persons in the Godhead - the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, undivided in essence and co-equal in power and glory.
Maybe doctrine three could be explained a little better if it was worded this way:
We believe that there are three notes in the cereal bowl - the Snap, the Crackle, and the Pop, undivided in essence and co-equal in sound and taste.

This could be a genius idea or it could be the one thing that will forever keep me out of the College For Officers Training.

My Little Runaway

2007-10-03T08:47:00.000-04:00

This past Sunday at Charlotte Temple we had the privilege of hearing two cadets from the training college, in Atlanta, share with us what the Holy Spirit was saying to them. One of the cadets was a good friend of mine and a former co-counselor at Camp Keystone (Cabin #5) Justin Caldwell. I hadn’t seen this guy in five years and then he shows up one day in Charlotte of all places the last place I expected to see him…well, maybe not the last place, and not second to last, but certainly not the first place I expected to see him. It just proved again that you can always just say see you later when TSA is involved because it is always the truth. It was great seeing him again and having camp memories come to mind again… (I’m lost in thought right now)… Justin didn’t deliver the sermon to us but he did share with us his testimony and when and how he was called to become an officer.

It might just be me, but I have heard a number of testimonies from officers and cadets and one thing many of them seem to say is that they ran when they were called. Why do we do that? Why run from the destiny God has for us? It seems like we say God I’ll do whatever you want except that…isn’t that a song “I would do anything for love but I won’t do that” Are we constantly singing that song when we ask God what he wants from us and what he has planned for our lives? We say, “I’ll do anything you want, but this thing over here I won’t do that, but anything else is great,” and then when he calls us to do that one thing we run away. Are we scared, or dumb, or do we really think that God is going to change his mind if we ask again some other time? God isn’t going to change his mind just because we’re stubborn. He eventually reels us back in and tries again and we can either listen or run…again. I don’t know if that’s the way it is for most people, but it seems to be a common theme is TSA. I know that the enemy gets to us, but what does he show us that would make us bolt. I can’t seem to figure it out. Do we not see any glamour in the lifestyle (duh!!)? Do we want more money (what would you do with it)? Do we see a lack of joy in the Army (they’re doing it wrong and that person obviously hasn’t heard our song).

Here’s a thought, it’s not about us. It never has been about us; it’s about the people we need to reach, and we can’t run from it. We have been called and equipped and we can’t fail. It’s seriously impossible for us to fail. If our God is for us how could we fail…honestly how? We can’t. I wonder sometimes how many men and women have run away and not returned. We need to get them back. Think about how much more amazing this army would be if everyone called decided not to run, but they decided to stay and fight. That’s intense.

I'm a big fan of the beach

2007-08-24T16:36:00.000-04:00

I arrived in Florida and now I’m back in Charlotte. I went to St. Augustine for a vacation/my sisters wedding. It was all because Terri (my sister) was getting married, but I did enjoy having a week long vacation in a city that I hadn’t been in just over three years. I realized how much I miss the beach. I spent my first couple of days on the beach with my family. I tackled the waves with my niece and nephew and I felt like I couldn’t get enough of it, the water the sun the sand and just being there with my family was almost incredible. Even as it was getting dark, and I knew I wouldn’t be able to see anything with in the next twenty minutes, I felt like I could have stayed out there all night, but I probably would have gotten hungry after a while.

I realized after a few days that a lot can change in three years. My day and I went to see a Bourne Ultimatum and we got in free because the person in the box office was a guy that went to the St. Augustine Corps while we lived there and if hadn’t said anything to me I would have no clue who he was he looked so different and to top it off one of the other guys that also went to the corps was one of the associate managers. These were guys who were like fifteen and fourteen when I left and now they were adults and looked totally different. I guess change really is inevitable…especially after three years.

The wedding, on the other hand, went on without a single issue and it was absolutely beautiful. The entire ceremony was awesome and the reception was even better where my seven- (almost eight) year-old nephew (Anders) stole the show. Everybody loved watching him dance and run around and act crazy and to top it all off I lifted him up in the air for the garter toss and he made an amazing one-handed catch, then he had to put it on the leg of the girl the caught the bouquet and he wasn’t a bit shy about it. After that he busted some more moves on the dance floor and everyone loved him. Then we all sent my sister and her husband off to there honeymoon. Then I went back to Gainesville (the heart of gator nation) spent a few more days relaxing and then got on the bus and ended up back here in Charlotte. Praise The Lord.

Oh, where is my hair bru...summer???

2007-08-06T16:45:00.000-04:00

I know where my hairbrush is, but has anyone seen the rest of my summer? Seriously I feel like I missed half of it. It’s has been going by so fast I feel like I can’t soak enough of it in. I have been spending a lot more time inside than outside this summer because of work and all that jazz but still it’s almost gone. The last few days have been ridiculously hot and it probably will be for the next month, but it seems like just yesterday I was pulling out my coat and freezing my butt off while I waited for the bus. Leo is already back from his summer assignment and Jesse will be back in six days and Matt will be heading back to Vancouver. The last if summer camps have come and gone and TMI and TYI have just finished. I feel like it has gone by way too fast. Maybe I need a beach. I need to squeeze every last ounce of summer and sun out these next month and a half…wow when I write it like that it seems like I have so much left, that’s why it seems so short it’s not over yet. I think this heat is getting to me. Oh it just started raining, that’s good. I guess I’ll have to get a good summer fix when I go down to Florida for my sisters wedding. For those of you I haven’t told yet that know my sister yes, she is getting married in just a few weeks. That’ll be fun. It’ll be nice to go back to St. Augustine and see some friends that I haven’t seen in a few years, but I’m not excited about taking the bus there or back. I think if the bus trip is worst part of that week it should be well worth it.

For those of you who are fans of Starbucks (even if you aren’t) next time you go consider ordering a PTL (Passion Tea Lemonade) (there’s no coffee in it for those of you that don’t like coffee). PTL is the marking we use for that drink. It makes me laugh every time someone orders that or I see it on a cup because even though I know I need to make that drink Praise The Lord is the first thing that pops into my head. Jesus is being praised at Starbucks and some people don’t even know it. PTL!!!

Thoughts provoked by Tutu

2007-07-30T20:19:00.000-04:00

I have been reading No Future Without Forgiveness by Desmond Tutu. It Chronicles Tutu’s involvement with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) set up to heal the wounds of South Africa after the disbanding of it’s apartheid government. He goes through a number of stories of army personnel and police officers wanting to be forgiven for things they have done. They admit to the things they’ve done just asking for forgiveness from the families of the men and women they killed. Tutu talks about the ability to forgive and he is amazed time and time again when men and women can forgive other men and women for the crimes they’ve committed. The families didn’t want justice to be carried out by having these people put to death and didn’t want to get even they wanted closure and healing, then it made me realize that forgiveness really is justice. It brought to mind Isaiah 58:12 “Those from among you will rebuild the ancient ruins; you will raise up the age-old foundations; and you will be called the repairer of the breach, the restorer of the streets in which to dwell.” When I see repairer of the breach (standing in the gap) I think of fixing things from the way they are to the way they should be which is how I see justice. Forgiveness sets right a wrong; it repairs the breach that has been created between people that should never have been there.

Excerpt form No Future With out Forgiveness:
“There may indeed have been moments when God may have regretted creating us. But I am certain there have been many more times when God has looked and seen all these wonderful people who have shone in the dark night of evil and torture and abuses and suffering; shone as they have demonstrated their nobility of spirit, their magnanimity as they have been ready to forgive, and so they have dispelled the murkiness, and fresh air has blown into that situation to transfigure it. It had filled people with new hope that despair, darkness, anger, and resentment and hatred would not have the last word. There is hope that a new situation could come about when enemies might become friends again, when the dehumanized perpetrator might be helped to recover his lost humanity. This is not a wild irresponsible dream. It has happened and it is happening and there is hope that nightmares will end, hope that seemingly intractable problems will find solutions and that God has some tremendous fellow-workers, some outstanding partners out there.

Each of us has a capacity for great good and that is what makes God say it was well worth the risk to bring us into existence. Extraordinarily, God the omnipotent One depends on us, puny, fragile, vulnerable as we may be, to accomplish God’s purpose for good, for justice, for forgiveness and healing and wholeness. God has no one but us. St. Augustine of Hippo has said, “God without us will not as we without God cannot.”…To offer love and forgiveness is not a sign of mental weakness instead a sign of spiritual strength.” ~~Desmond Tutu Praise the Lord.

More than meets the eye...

2007-07-12T17:44:00.000-04:00

I saw the movie Transformers and it was the most amazing movie I have ever seen in my entire life. It was absolutely amazing. It wasn’t all just explosions and special effects. They gave the Transformers personalities, and that made a huge difference rather than just having these huge machines walking around, transforming and fighting each other, they had human like qualities. The one part of the movie that really got me thinking though was during the fight scene, between Optimus Prime and Megatron, when Meagtron said “Your problem Prime is that you always defend the weak” (referring to humans as the weak). At first I thought to myself well, that’s a good thing, and then after it sunk in I said to myself DUH!! Who else would you defend if you didn’t defend the weak? Why defend the strong they really don’t need to be defended they have the advantage? That’s probably what God was thinking to himself when he told us in Isaiah to “ Seek justice. Help the oppressed. Defend the cause of orphans. Fight for the rights of widows.” (Isaiah 1:17 NLT) That’s who we should help we don’t need to defend the wealthy and the people living in upper middle class suburbia. We need to fight for the rights of the people who have no one else the people who feel like the whole world is against them. It doesn’t make sense the other way around. But I like the way Optimus Prime put it “Freedom is the right of all sentient beings.” Praise the Lord.

It's normal to me

2007-07-05T19:32:00.000-04:00

The answer to the question posted in my previous blog is The Sandlot. The quote is from the movie The Sandlot.

I can remember a long time ago when my friends (in Florida) would talk about certain neighborhoods in our city that we wouldn’t think of driving into unless we had a real good reason or a weapon, and now I live in one of those neighborhoods and it’s become strange to me that people are scared to come here.

I was having a conversation at work with a couple other baristas about the bus and that led to me telling them, yet again, what I was doing and were I was living because and I, jokingly, mentioned that the bus might actually be safer than where I live. Then when they asked why I told them “well, when you have someone unload a clip less them 100 feet from your house that may seem a little unsafe”. I only mentioned that because it happened a few days prior to this conversation. They look at me with mouths opened wide and I was going about my business until I looked at them and they only responded with, “no way!! That didn’t happen”

I said, “Yeah, it happened just a few days ago.”

Still in shock and disbelief they said, “No way, that’s crazy Travis. You’re seriously hardcore.”

I was surprised that they were shocked by what I said. I sometimes forget that what I’m doing is not normal, and I forget that my perception of things after being on the inside is very different from the perception of people who have been on the outside. I forget that I thought somewhat like that once. I was one of those people that chose not to see the need in the area. I stayed as far away as I could and never thought about going in. Now I’m chillin in the middle of it all and feeling as safe as ever. This is a good time for a TWC plug. Take a chance, take a flight, take a year and see what changes the Holy Spirit makes in you and what he does with that change. Sign up for the 2007 of The War College Incendiary session at www.thewarcollege.com.

Now that I think about it the example I used at Starbucks probably wasn’t the best example to describe where I live. There’s much more to it than that. Then I wonder why people are scared to come here. It seems safe to me.

I'm bakin' like a toasted cheeser out here...

2007-07-02T17:33:00.000-04:00

First of all name the movie that my title is from.
It’s summer and it’s hot. We only had our official first day of summer three weeks ago but summer started here long before that. It’s been summer here since…before the last time I blogged. That’s been a while. I just haven’t been in a blogging type of mood for the past…uh…threeish months. Well, I have I just haven’t sat down and decided I was going to until now. Summer has been in full swing for a while and I noticed that there’s not a nice transition from winter to summer here. It totally skips a nice warms spring and goes straight into a hot sticky summer. There are maybe one or two nice days between, but that’s the only relief we get. The same thing happens for winter there’s not a nice transition time; we totally skip autumn and go straight into winter.

Anyway. the kids are all out of school and Jesse and Leo left for their summer placements and Matt Elcome is here from to assist us from Vancouver and has been a huge blessing to us because he knows everything Rob and I don’t about computers and that’s a lot stuff, but more than that he knows how to relate to the kids and has become part of the J.T. hood. So our community house has quickly transitioned into summer hours, so we are on duty from 10:00am to 3:30pm, and some days longer. We learned last summer that setting up a structure and trying to put the kids into that doesn’t work well, so we just open up the community house and let them do there own thing and that works wonderfully. Last night at knee Drill we set up an altar to mark the progress we made since last summer. I had collected a bunch of rocks (mostly chunks of asphalt) and when we put each piece down it was in honor of something that we had accomplished or someone that had been here and helped us. I figured Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Moses, Joshua, Gideon, Samuel, and David all built altars to commemorate things that had happened, victories that had been won, places where God spoke or revealed himself in some way so why can’t we build one to mark victories and accomplishments and provision that God has given us. We didn’t sacrifice and goats or burn any grain but we did build a small altar to give glory to God and thank him for everything he’s given to us. That’s the Animated Inventor at work.

Animated Inventor

2007-04-17T22:44:00.000-04:00

I saw this personal DNA assesment and thought it might be fun. Tell me what you think. Does it describe me? I think it contradicts itself as somepoints. Just move the arrow on the different colors and a you can find out what each one means

I reccomend it. If you want to take one of your own click this link and have some fun(I don't even get paid for that plug). My Personal Dna Report

500,250,600 minutes

2007-04-12T17:01:00.000-04:00

I'm amazed at how fast a year can go by. It seems like it wasn't really that long ago that I was just getting to know the kids in the neighborhood. I can still remember getting of the plane in Charlotte and being greeted by Heather, Rob, and five other kids from our hood (none of whom live here anymore). I was thinking about this past year a few days ago, and I realized just how much has happened since I've been here; not only in the neighborhood, but in my life as well. There have been kids that have moved out and moved back into the area kids who have left that we still have connections with and new kids that have come in and decided we were cool enough to hang out with. In all of the kids that I've met though I have been able to watch them grow so much which is something that I realized I never had the opportunity to see. Because my parents and I moved a lot I never really stayed in one place long enough to see the kids grow up and mature (except my sister but she doesn't count). I have seen kids go from being shy quiet kids who wouldn't say a word to anyone to being kids that I can't get to stop talking for a minute to ask them what they want to eat. There are other kids who convinced me that being obnoxious was a spiritual gift (I probably did that when I was little too) who I can have real conversations with and not have to stop them from doing something thats going to get them in trouble every two seconds. I love this place. I know that I have grown immensely as well. I have matured, developed, and toned my spiritual gifts since I've been here. I have developed more leadership skills and been able to exercise those skills since TWC has started here; I know that I can take charge of a group and lead them effectively rather than hide in the back ground and wait for someone else to do it. I still have doubt and worries that pop up on occasion but thats the enemy trying to get me to stumble and face plant into the ground but it won't work cause I got mad crazy joy like never before. On top of all that I can make a Quad, grande, five pump, nonfat, with whip, White Mocha like no one else. I can't wait to see what the next year has in store for me, whether it be in this hood or a different one. PRAISE THE LORD!!!!!

The Best Weekend Ever

2007-04-02T22:51:00.000-04:00

I know the date on that last post is a little off but that's because I accidentally saved it as a draft rather than posting it on my blog. I don't know how I did that and didn't notice but I realized my mistake a few days ago and just had time to change it today. I just returned from one of the best weekends I have ever had. It started Wednesday (March 28th) when Heather Jesse, Duane, Leo, and I piled in a van and headed to a little town in NC called Sanford, no sons were ever mentioned (does anyone get that joke). We spent the weekend with Capitan Jonathan Gainey and his family which included his wife Capitan Stacy and their children Jonathan, Travis (a great name choice), Thomas and Ella. That Wednesday we got to spend sometime with Thomas and we saw pure add in all its glory coming out of him. He talked and about wanting to see movies and then watching movies then he let some gas out and talked about people that he knows and then some food that he ate and then he went to sleep. It was great, I love that kid...he reminds me of someone I know. Then we stayed up till 12:30ish talking with Johnny about some of the things we was going to be teaching us. He has a wealth of knowledge about Jewish culture and things that they understand that make absolutely no sense to us because we didn't grow up in Jewish culture and he gave us a little preview the day before and left us hungry for more. A craving he satisfied on Thursday

On Thursday (March 29th significance: my birthday) we woke up around 10:00ish talked a bit more and then we went out to lunch to a lovely little restaurant called Mrs. Lacy's. It was very southern and very tasty. Our waitress (Ms. Mary) walked up to our table and spoke with a thick southern accent and gave a good dose of that wonderful southern hospitality. The food was delectable and because someone told them it was my birthday I got dessert for free. Then we went to class which was just as great as Lunch my spirit got a taste of something it hadn't had much of lately. Johnny gave us some insight into the Jewish culture; he gave us the actual meanings of words which gave me different insight on some scripture he talked about the things that Rabbi's, Pharisees and Jesus wore in those days and the significance they held, and the process of going from a student to a disciple and he reiterated that a disciple doesn't just want to know what his Rabbi knows but he wants to be like his Rabbi. Whatever his Rabbi is doing the disciple is right behind him doing the exact same thing and thats what being a disciple of Jesus means. We shouldn't just look at what he did and know about it we need to do what he did; he touched the untouchable and loved people who weren't loved and lived a simple, humble, holy life. That night The Capitan took hold of the grill and we had a party with barbecue chicken and ribs and red velvet cake (wow, I just realized how much I ate there) and I played football with some of the guys outside.

On Friday he taught more on the Jewish culture, but he focused more on the family relationships and marriages and the rituals and the significance of those things (which makes the parable of the ten virgins make so much more sense) and the covenant they made with each other by drinking from a cup. It signified that hey were accepting each others life and they would accept the good with the bad and they would stick by them even when it was hard. Now that I think about it that isn't much different from the vows that are spoken at weddings here in our western culture. Then we went out to lunch (eating again) and we left. Heather, Duane, Leo, and Jesse went home and I went to Camp Walter Johnson for M.A.I.N. Street Ministries and The Divisional Music Festival. I got to hang out with Daniel (DMD) and Christian Simmons for most of the weekend and there always fun to be with. Especially on the drive home; I don't even remember why but we had a blast and I laughed so much. Then I arrived home. Safe back in J.T. Williams hood.

Youth Councils '07

2007-03-19T21:07:00.000-04:00

We just returned from the North and South Carolina Youth Councils. Where we danced upon injustice...the army seems to be doing a lot of that these days. TYI, Roots, and various Youth Councils all have had that theme, and it's awesome. Things that are done in secret are being revealed in the light and eyes everywhere are being opened to the truth that injustice is more than someone not going to jail for committing a crime he or she committed. The kids from our neighborhood had the opportunity to attend youth councils for the first time this year and they loved it; we have a number of people who see the injustice in our neighborhood and want to do something about it, but the most amazing thing I saw this weekend was a family that went to the altar and they all came together and started to weep over each other. They saw to disunity and brokenness in the family and they knew that it's not meant to be that way and they made a decision to change it; A few of them rededicated their lives to God and they decided that there had to be a change in their lives first before they saw a change in their family or the community, and I can already see evidence of that in their lives and I can feel it in the community already feel a lot calmer and subdued. I no longer feel like I'm living in a world where ADD is a way a of life, which can be fun but it can start to wear you down real quick. So, now I have an even bigger family than when I first arrived here in Charlotte. I mean we already were a family, but after youth councils it doesn't seem as dysfunctional, which is good. We are being held together with cords of human kindness and with ties of love. Praise the Lord.

O' Canada

2007-03-08T17:09:00.000-05:00

I just got back form a long trip to “Beautiful British Columbia,” to quote the license plates. It was beautiful. The smell of urine soaked alleys, needles, clothes, and trash littering the sidewalks, constant rain, elevators that sound like they could drop to the basement at any time, and $1 pizza. For those of you who are completely confused, because we only communicate in the blogosphere, (still a weird word to me) or maybe thats the only way you know of me (no I don't really look like Keith Green...now) I went to Vancouver, Canada for a week. Most of you still are probably confused because in my last few blogs I was talking about Starbucks Pins and being a human shield and fireworks and all that stuff. A few weeks after that everyone at The War College here in Charlotte took a trip up to Vancouver for reading week (spring break...during winter). I got a chance to see some old friends and not so old and make some new friends. I got to see the apartments where the phase two students are staying, and I saw the mountains again and I realized no matter how many pictures I take and no matter how good they are those pictures can't compare with seeing them in person (I'll get some pictures up soon...hopefully) even if they are on the other side of the harbor they're still b-e-a-utiful. On Thursday night we had Knee Drill as usual, and Rob was at the mic again, and it was an amazing time of worship; we were dancing and jumping around and yelling and we had a blast, and a good number of Revolution students weren't there (most of them went home or somewhere outside the DTES for reading week), but we had a blast without them. It was almost like a Death and Glory, Martyr, and Holy session reunion at knee Drill and we topped off the night with a trip to Red Robin (BOTOMLESS FRIES!!!). Nine students from the Martyr session was there at Knee Drill and nine Holy Students and six from Death and Glory.
I became a tour guide for the first two days. I took Leo and Duane around the DTES through China town and showed them the Lizards on a stick, and then we went to the high class part of Vancouver around the high rises and the shopping areas and Starbucks and more Starbucks (there were lots of those) and along the sea wall. We went over to GM place where people were getting ready for the Canucks game, we saw all the parts of the city that are way too expensive for us. The last few night we ate at Ken and Melinda house and Aaron and Cherie house, we hung out with there kids and had fun with them. And I went out for Street Combat after I had dinner at the White House (Aaron White and Cherie White for all you Homeland security people who are reading my blog) only to find out that the start time had been changed from at 9:30 start time to 8:30.
I noticed the look of the DTES had changed a lot too. Buildings were missing (obviously demolished) and new and nicer places were being put in their place to get ready for the 2010 Olympics. So close but still so far away. It looks like they are trying to push all the addicted and homeless as far away from the inner city as possible so that they aren't noticed when the Olympics arrive. They'll try to cover up the problem and pretend it doesn't exist for a few months, but when all the medals are won and handed out and they hype is over with and all the tourists are gone the people will still be there and be in the same situation they were in at the beginning. Some people might call what they are doing (hiding an issue) progress but to quote C. S. Lewis “We all want progress, but if you're on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; in that case, the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive”. I just have one question when is it too late to turn back? And What happens if you don't turn back? The consequences can't be good.

Four Pins and Counting

2007-02-12T21:43:00.000-05:00

My Starbucks hat pin count is up to four and more are on the way. Over the past two weeks I've gotten three more pins to stick in my hat. It doesn't mean that I get a raise, and I don't get anything special; all it means is that I'm doing a great and that's how we get recognized is by getting pins to put in our hats, and thats exciting for me.

Tonight Leo saved my life or he may have been trying to save his own, but I'd like to think he was saving mine. The four of us (Leo, Jesse, Pooh Bear [yes that's one of our friends here] and I) we sitting at the house playing Scattegories. We heard some noises outside that sounded like gunshots but we also thought they could have been fireworks. Leo and I peeked outside our window, but we didn't see anybody and we hadn't heard anything for a minute or two, so we opened the door and stepped outside we then heard a few more shots coming from the other side of a fence that divides our neighborhood from another one. Leo wanted to go over and have a look, because we know some of the kids that live over there and we wanted to make sure they were okay. All of a sudden we hear about six really loud bangs and a these screeching sounds coming form over the fence and they startled me but Leo grabbed hold of me and pulled me in the house and in front of him and him pulling me back scared me even more that the bangs. We really had nothing to worry about though because it was just a bunch of fireworks. Then after my nerves straightened up again I looked at Leo and said, “are you protecting yourself or saving me?” Jesse and Pooh Bear thought it was hilarious. I on the other hand am not up for becoming a human shield. Ephesians 6 talks about a Shield of Faith not a shield of Travis. Praise the Lord for fireworks, they were actually very nice.

A Christmas journey and then some more

2007-02-05T20:22:00.000-05:00

I'm back in the blogosphere. Does anyone know where that term came from the blogosphere? It's a strange term. I realized a few days ago that the last blog that I posted was on a down note about the Christmas season and that's not fun to see over and over again. Here is a quick (I say “quick” now and it could be a lie) update on that things that have happened since I last blogged. I spent Christmas at the Adam's house with Mrs. Shirley Adams, Phil, Nicole, Daniel, Chris, and Baby D. We decided to open our gifts at twelve o'clock rather than wait till morning. That gave us more time to eat breakfast and relax until lunch/dinner. Rather than having a traditional Christmas meal with a turkey or ham and all the side dishes that go with it we went to a Chinese buffet so we made someone else do the cooking for us. I stuffed myself till there was no room left and was still (amazingly enough) full later that night. On Christmas night I began the rest of my journey and I hopped on a bus and headed south for the rest of Christmas. I never thought a bus would be full on Christmas day.

After eighteen hours of almost no sleep I got to open even more Christmas presents and see my parents and there new house and I'm starting to wonder if there is something to the fact that every time I have gone to see them for the past three Christmas' they have been in a different house. I watched a ton of football and ESPN, so I got my sports fix. I also go to see a bunch of friends from camp that I hadn't seen in a long time during the young adult retreat at Camp Keystone. I got my dad's old laptop which isn't set up for wireless Internet and for some reason I can't plug it up to our high-speed at the community house, and the screen freaks out every ten minutes that can get annoying. I spent the last few days of my break in Tampa with the Riefers I go to eat Cheez Its hang out with Gabe and Jaime and Mama Riefer and watch even more football. Then I got on a bus and headed north again. A twenty two hour trip this time (a five hour layover in Jacksonville). I'm still not a fan of the bus. Eventually I ended up back in Charlotte and back at my home Jesse and Leo came back home and we quickly got back to work, but not before seeing the Florida Gators dismantle the Ohio State Buckeyes in the BCS National Championship 41-14. That was a beautiful thing to see...for me.

Shortly after that we hit up ROOTS '07. We had the privileged of hearing Aaron White speak and Graham Kendrick and his band led worship and it was powerful. The theme was dance upon injustice and by the last night everyone was dancing and we tore down the injustice sign and danced on it as a sign of things that were happening in The Salvation Army. I was blessed to be able to stay with the officers in 614 Birmingham and it great hearing about there ministry and spending time with there family. After Roots we headed back home and went back to work again both in the neighborhood and at Starbucks. So here we are there is a lot of other things that are happening but that will come in a later blog. I knew this wouldn't be a short blog, but I did try.

It's beginning to look a lot like...something else

2006-12-14T21:02:00.000-05:00

I think about this time last year my blogs included a phrase that I enjoyed using, but I can't here because it's not stupid cold in Charlotte. I'm enjoying it. The last time I blogged Christmas seemed so far away but now it's only...eleven days away. Anyway, I realized something about Christmas this year that I hadn't noticed in the past. I had heard people talk about it, but I either chose not to or wasn't in a situation where I saw it. It's the commercialization of Christmas that I hadn't seen before. I really started to notice it this year. At the mall that Starbucks is in they started playing Christmas music the day after Halloween, I thought that was a little strange then I saw all the people running around like crazy talking about getting gifts and how it's getting so frustrating getting gifts for everyone. Today however, I met someone and in just the few minutes between when I greeted her to when she got her coffee I saw the commercialization as clear as day. She walked up to me and said, “What can you give me that will give me the Christmas Spirit?” I told her what our Holiday drinks were and then her words really sunk into my mind as she decided what she wanted. She decided to try to find the meaning of Christmas in a Venti Nonfat Gingerbread Latte. So she goes around a mall from store to store trying to find “the Christmas Spirit” in the things they have to sell and samples and stuff. BALHHH!! Thats sickening. Has it always been this terrible and I've just missed it the past few years? Even if you aren't a Christian people usually are around family and have friends and that's what Christmas is about for them. It's not about what Starbucks or Macy's or Gap can offer you, but people live in that, and are okay with it. Is it just me or does that life seem to suck. What happens when Christmas is over? New Year is over? Valentine's Day is over? St. Patrick's Day is over? Are people really living from one Holiday to the next finding happiness in those few days and then just surviving until we can get another fix. There's a word to describe that it's called addiction. Have we really turned into a society with a Holiday addiction? Are people really that blind to what is happening to us. I don't like it at all. So I'm thinking we take back Christmas and let people know that finding happiness at Gap and Starbuck's is not okay and should not be normal for anyone.

They Call Me...

2006-11-22T19:35:00.000-05:00

...Mr. Pig...Tater Salad. I have had a lot of nick names in my life, especially in the past two years: Travisay, Travisario, Travisty, Big T, T-scriggity, T-ro, and Sancho Gene Mc Spankycakes (ask Jaime about that one). All of the kids here in our neighborhood know my name and sometimes I want to be where everyone knows my name and people are always glad I came...ha ha ha ha did you catch the song (wow I'm funny)...uhh yeah. There are two little girls who don't know my name...well I think they know all our names but they want to call us something else. I used to be just friend. I would go to the community house to get stuff ready and I would here them yell out, “Hi friend” and I would look over and wave at them and they would smile and wave even more because I looked at them. All of our names have changed to these little girls and they're the only ones who have given us this new name (which I think is a good thing). For these two girls our name is Jesus. It doesn't matter whether there talking to Jesse Jaime Leo or I to them our name is Jesus. We've told them numerous times our real name sand said our name isn't Jesus but they seem to be stuck on that. I'm not going to complain that I am showing Jesus to a five and two year old I love it but I have never actually had anyone call me Jesus before, but I think I like it.

I'm not a fan of the bus

2006-11-13T22:01:00.000-05:00

I just got back (about twenty hours ago) form my trip to Gainesville, Florida (GO GATORS!!). I spent eleven hours on my trip there and fifteen hours on my trip back, but that because I had a four hour layover in Jacksonville. I didn't know that bus layovers could be as bad as airport layovers. The bus depot wasn't even close to a movie theater or restaurant or anything slightly entertaining so I couldn't even go out and find anything to do unless I had a car...but if had a car I wouldn't have been waiting in Jacksonville for four hours. Throughout the entire four days I think the bus ride was definitely a low point, but thats the price to pay to save money...wow half a sentence that's an oxymoron; that's amazing.

I know I didn't tell anyone in the blogger-sphere about this trip so I will fill all of you in now.
About six weeks ago I got a call from my mom late at night (just so you know late night calls from people are usually never good) to tell me that my grandfather (her dad) has passed away. It was news that I had been expecting for the past few weeks but it still hurt to hear. He had been battling Alzheimer disease for the past four or five years and he really had no clue who I was the last time I saw him; which was rough to deal with, because I loved spending time with him, watching football games or listening to the things he had to say and from his lifetime of experience and all his wisdom and I can't do that anymore. So I went down to Gainesville on Friday for the memorial service and I got a chance to see most of my family; some people I hadn't seen since Christmas but other people I hadn't seen for six or seven years (a lot of stuff happens in that amount of time...babies are born and people move to different states). I was thrilled that we all came together, but I wish it could have been for a different reason. So we had his memorial service and honored him and his life that he dedicated to God. After that we spent time together to love and support each other and I wondered why someone had to die in order for all of us to see each other again. I think my grandfather loved to see that the last thing he did was that he got us to have a family reunion. We should have another one...except we'll keep everyone alive for next time.

PTB in Charlotte 614 style

2006-11-03T11:16:00.000-05:00

So apparently noone likes me using another person's blog on my blog, or maybe it was just way too long, so here's my own stuff.

“Some of you will rebuild the deserted ruins of your cities. Then you will be known as a rebuilder of walls and a restorer of homes.” Isaiah 58:12 (NLT)

“And your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt; you shall raise up the foundations of buildings that have laid waste for many generations; and you shall be called Repairer of the Breach, Restorer of Streets to Dwell In.” Isaiah 58:12 (AMP)

Pray The Bible has taken on a much different look here at 614 Charlotte. Usually we have a list of scriptures to speak out and pray through and there's main focus to those scriptures. That can last anywhere from fifteen to forty-five minutes. That is the way I have usually seen PTB done. We walk around a room praying scriptures with one goal: to have break through by praying like Jesus prayed. The past few weeks though PTB has been anything but the usual. There is an abandoned house right next to Rob and Heather's house which is owned by a black fraternity group here in Charlotte called The Omegas. This house was once boarded up (not very well), forgotten about, and empty. Unfortunately, it didn't stay that way. Some of the drug users in our hood needed a place to use during the winter so they could keep warm and other people would conduct their own business in that house. The windows are all broken, it smells, there's mold growing on the wall, there's piles of nasty clothes and needles and trash everywhere, and this is where we had Pray The Bible. We got some gloves, rakes, brooms and eighty billion trash bags (that was just for the inside) and went to work. We cleaned up the clothes the glass the trash and properly disposed of the condoms and needles and took out the carpet. It actually almost looks like it could eventually be a house. It still doesn't smell so great, but that will change too...maybe. We let the owners know what we did and they were thrilled. They said they would get the trash taken away and fix it up and get it ready to be rented. Toady we finished it by picking up all that trash on the outside of the house as a prophetic act of getting rid of all the junk that the enemy has put here. We became restorers of a home, we repaired the breach, we stood in the gap for this house and changed it from the way it was to the way it should be. Praise the Lord.

Gabe's wisdom rather than mine today

2006-10-26T18:05:00.000-04:00

Today I am using a blog from one of the greatest guys in the world, my best friend Gabe Riefer. It's an awesome example of mercy and compassion and love, proving once again that love never disappoints and never fails. (Don't ask me why he refers to Mick Jagger as a reverend)

As I make my way home, dejected and alone, contemplating how horribly I hit and how ghastly we played, a dry feeling in the back of my throat begins to grow. Then I feel it; the rumbling of my stomach reminding me how little I have eaten. Up ahead in the distance I see a glowing yellow light. As I grow closer the light begins to take shape, two arches coming together to form the shape of an "M".
Ah yes, McDonald's. Not only can I quench my hunger and thirst, I can also win large sums of money. Say, five million dollars.
I drive in to the parking ot and begin making my way to the drivethru, when out of the corner of my eye I see a man rise and begin walking toward me. I look at him and he stops. I begin to study him: thin, scraggly greasy beard and hair, worn leathery skin, dirty ripped jeans and t-shirt, and a jacket hanging over his fragile body. But it is his eyes that draw my me in. I see in his eyes, pain and hunger. I wave him over and with each step I see his growing hope.
I ask him if there is something I can do for him. All he wants, he tells me in a slurred Southern drawl, is a little spare change, maybe a dollar or two. My heart, now full of compassion for him, begins to speak for me. I tell him I can go through the drivethru and I will get him whatever he wants. Just a burger and some fries. A drink, maybe a Coke or a Sprite? No soda, he replies. He can't drink soda. Makes him sick. I tell him to give me a few moments and I will return to him as soon as I can.
"Go ahead with your order." Okay, a double quarter pounder with cheese, large fries, a Dr Pepper, two double cheese burgers, and two apple pies. "10. 84, drive around to the next window."
I collect the food and drive back over to where my newest dear friend is sitting, shivering in the cool October air. I remove a cheeseburger from the bag and hand him the rest. He looks at me, astounded that a person could even be so kind. I sit with him and eat my cheeseburger, and he begins to tell me his story.
He was born in a small town in Tennessee. His family was never wealthy, had never been wealthy, and, as he said, probably never would be wealthy. He lived there until graduation, when he joined the Army. Fifteen years he spent in the Army, before he was honorable discharged. He then met a woman, fell in love, and got married. They moved to Zephyrhills, Florida, and had lived there nearly seven years when she kicked him out. See, after he left the Army, he didn't know exactly what he was going to do. So while he thought about it, he would drink. The more he thought, the more he drank, until one day he had spent nearly all of the money they had on alcohol. Not knowing what else to do, he began walking until he ended up around Nebraska Avenue and Fowler. He would find places to sleep at night, most of the time behind restaurants or in alleys. He would eat whatever he could find that was edible from dumpsters or garbage cans, and he would ask for spare change. Any change he received went towards a bottle of beer or Jack Daniels. He was a drunk, an alcoholic, and he had no reservations in telling anybody this. Yes, he admitted, drinking had torn his life apart, but he had no idea how to quit or even what to do or how to go about quitting.
He was a man, helpless and hopelessly lost, ashamed of his past but willing to take responsibility for his actions. I told him to walk in the morning down Nebraska to The Salvation Army ARC. There he could have a warm bed to sleep in, a place to wash and shower, and a hot meal. And he could start turning his life around. He shook my hand and thanked me for my kindness. Then with a tear in his eye, which (being a man) he tried to hide, he said, "God bless you."
That hit me hardest of all. God had blessed me that night. He took my desire to win a meaningless prize (albeit five milion dollars), and replaced it with the desire to help a fellow human get his life back on track.
"You can't always get what you want. But if you try sometimes, you might find you get what you need." -The good Reverend Mick Jagger with some words of wisdom.

614 Starbucks... I like the sound of that

2006-10-15T19:36:00.000-04:00

Grande, Double, White Mocha, non-fat, extra hot with whip cream. Why anyone orders something non-fat and then puts whip cream is something that I probably won't understand anytime soon. Those are the types of orders I hear all day because I work at Starbucks. I love it too. It's definitely a step up (or five steps up) form working at McDonald's in Bangor, ME. I did have fun working at McDonald's (even though I told everyone I hated it) but I just needed a place where I have a little more interaction with customers and it's not a boring routine type job, I almost ended up going back there if I didn't get hired anywhere else. So, after applying at fifteen different places and doing only two interviews Starbucks became was my last hope. I turned in my application talked to the manager and prayed for the best. Two weeks later I'm doing an interview and loving every minute of it...well it wasn't that exciting but I did think about painting my toenails the day before so I would have this constant smile on my face during the interview. Even if I don't get hired I would still be laughing saying to myself I know something you don't know, but I didn't have any toenail polish. Anyway, one of the best things about working there is the girl I was hired with (Bonnie) said she just became a Christian a few months ago. So right there I've got the beginning of a Starbucks cell group. I made everyone here in Charlotte (by everyone I mean Jesse, Jaime, Rob, and Heather) very excited, because every week I get a pound of Coffee for free. So every week we get to experience a new flavor caffeine buzz. The only person that is not a fan of coffee is my room mate Leo. He doesn't even like the smell, ba ha ha ha. I'll get him conver...I mean addict... I mean acclimated to the taste soon enough. Then he'll be one of us, a true Salvationist. So God has definitely blessed me with one of the best jobs I could ever and it's perfect place for ministry. When I help open the store, when there is a slow point of the day, or even after work, I love it. By the way, for Christmas everyone gets a Starbucks gift card and a Frappacinnoin the mail (because that's all I know how to make right now) the ones going to Canada and Bangor should stay frozen, the ones I send to Florida...well, thats a different story. I'll just say I don't want to be there when you open it up.

I miss you Martyrs

2006-10-02T23:26:00.000-04:00

I miss you Martyrs. The Revolution Session of TWC has started up here in Charlotte and when I'm hanging out with them and laughing hysterically (you remember that laugh?) I start to remember all the things we did the first few weeks in Vancouver...before we wanted to kill each other. Everything was gubmnt', we said “of course” after every sentence...some of us still do (Lucy Jane, Linsey). {sigh}The memories. With the new...first TWC session here in Charlotte new memories are being formed and new inside jokes are popping up almost all the time (HOT FORK HOT FORK!!). Leo is my room mate from Arkansas. He actually lived only half an hour away from where I lived when I was in Arkansas. His Junior High football team actually played mine on Thursday night (my team won). He usually carries a knife with him (not hear obviously) and wears sandals with the rebel flag on them which is probably not great attire for this area, but he's working on that. He's great with the kids and is a really active guy like me so I'm not the only one getting beat in basketball by these kids. He's like the little brother I never had and I love him. Jesse is the second TWC student (but she was actually the first one to apply and be accepted and confirm she was coming). She's from Australia and is really awesome to be around, but even more awesome when she opens up and we actually talk about real stuff rather than just trying to make each other laugh. She has no problem connecting with the kids and, she will do whatever she can to make sure they have something for their birthday. She has aheart to make a difference in theses kids lives and that is a beautiful thing. I think I might cry when these guys leave...if they do leave (dramatic music duh duh dun). Jaime Riefer is also here, but most of us know about her, and she's awesome. I love The War College.

We're going to win!!

2006-09-09T10:34:00.000-04:00

How can one single event, that didn't go as well as we would have liked, overshadow all the victories we had in the past? (that's a question I can't answer and I don't attempt to in this post) I know I'm not the only one who has had this happen. Elijah had this problem. He had a huge victory against the Baal prophets and soon after that we was running scared from Jezebel and ready to die. He had his competition against them to see which if there god or his God would answer first by fire on an altar they had each built and he had so much confidence and faith that he had no problem mocking them as they called out to Baal. God showed up and put Baal to shame and then Elijah proceeded to kill all the servants of Baal. Jezebel heard about his and sent some people to kill him but Elijah got away, and then he went into this depression and wanted to die.
Some kids were trying to start a fight here as few days ago. I stayed outside and watched them the whole time trying to diffuse the situation and get them to go home and chill. I had a talk with the two that I thought were more mature and I thought they would go home like I had asked so there wouldn't be a fight. It didn't happen. I went home and ten minutes later I decided to go for a walk for a few minutes to see where they other group was. I found them in the other kids parking lot fighting. One adult was trying to break it up and the every one else was just watching these six kids as they would just at random times run up and hit each other. I jumped in and broke up the fights, out of instinct, and all I heard from some of the other adults was “let them fight; let them go; let them get there licks in; if they don't finish it today they just gonna to do it tomorrow”. When I heard those comments I wanted to take a swing at the person saying it (what a great example that would be). Finally, the one other adult trying to stop the fighting took one of the kids home to talk to his parents; the other people decide to go home or someone that knew them took them home,and it was all over. It ended that quickly, in just few seconds everybody was gone. I just looked like some crazy white man trying to be a hero but I felt like crap. I didn't know why it started or who it started with. I just know that it started at the Community House with two kids (and two instigators) and then it ended with six of them, all getting embarrassed, with nothing but tears streaked faces.
Right then it seemed like every other victory we had in the past just faded away and I couldn't see anything except a fight that I failed to prevent. I just felt like packing my bags and leaving. Where would I have gone? I don't know. Somewhere far away. That would just be another victory for the enemy. I'm going to persevere, look to the future, focus on battles I've won,dig in, and keep pressing on.

Eighty kids in one van...just kidding

2006-09-03T18:10:00.000-04:00

Jaime had a cell group yesterday; tears were shed hearts were changed and four more girls have joined the ranks of Christ's army to fight against dark spiritual forces in this world. Pray that they are discipled effectively and raised up to replicate the Jesus they see in us.

Today we took thirty six kids to CiCi's pizza. I think CiCi's probably either hates or loves us. The funny thing is that we had two fifteen passenger vans and one mini van. Which means we only had one free seat out of the three vans. If all the kids we know here could have come we would have to be braking the law, I'm not saying we would...maybe...to get kids to church though I think there's got to be some grace for that...hopefully from both God and man. Two fifteen passenger vans is a lot of space to fill. That's like almost forty seats, but when all the kids are talking and singing and trying to get your attention all at the same time (they're multi-tasking and don't even know it) it seems like we have eighty kids in one van, which can be tons of fun especially when you're driving...but not the best idea in the world. Whether we have fourteen kids or thirty eight we have fun and I love every minute of it. The thing I love most about doing this is that kids are going to church and having fun, and the fun isn't just in the gym or at CiCi's. That's the Holy Spirit

Back to school back to school...

2006-09-02T23:50:00.000-04:00

The kids are back in school and now we have gone from fun summer crazy cool stuff all day to calm down, lets get some homework done, and then go nuts!! WOO HOO!!!! (woo hoo?? does anyone use that term anymore??). Football season is starting up. That's very good news. Today the Gators posted its first of many wins this season and that makes me excited. This Thursday The Miami Dolphins start and Tampa and Jacksonville start next Sunday...which reminds me I need to go buy some more Chezz-its. Jaime and I are having a debate as to who is smarter. We took a few on-line tests and I scored higher on both of them proving that I am smarter then we took on-line IQ test and she scored slightly higher than me (her score 127 my score126) proving that she is smarter than me, but then again I don't really know how much an on-line IQ and/or intelligence test can prove. I d0 stel thenck i is samrtser then she ares cause me wents tu kolige and gots edumacted. I'm glad it's time to go back to school.

My summer

2006-08-09T15:31:00.000-04:00

I was trying to think of something that has happened recently that's “bloggable”. Maybe something that has good shock effect or a deep spiritual insight that I've had, but then I realized I don't think I really ever told you guys what it is I've been doing this summer. Looking back at my past blogs I wouldn't be surprised if you guys thought that I just sit around the house, play Monopoly, go to the movie theater, listen for gun shots, and wait for the end of the world. Sounds like fun...maybe not. Has anyone ever known me to sit around my house for more than a day and do absolutely nothing (this question is not for my parents to answer)? I think I would go nuts if I started to do that. This summer has been interesting...to say the least. It started out with Rob Heather and I hanging out with kids and keeping them entertained by thinking up random games or playing the games that they know (that's basically basketball and man hunt). Then we had to aussies join us; Anthony and Andrea Castle all the way from Vancouver, BC on their summer assignment. So they joined in and a real summer in the USA South, but I imagine this probably isn't too different form a summer in Australia. Then we had a Summer Service Team join us. Three girls from the USA South signed up to do mission work and were sent here. Debbie is a registered nurse from Kentucky who just finished school, but she wanted to do some mission work before she started her job. Tempress is from Norfolk Virginia. I think she laughs more than I do (hard to believe, I know). Just because of how loud she is and how strange her laugh is it would make the rest of us start laughing. The third team member is Jamie Riefer, enough said. She was able to scam her way on a service team to come here, which is where she was planning on coming after it was over, and get paid for it. To use a quote from Stephen Court “good scam”. We all got together and started a day camp with the kids in the neighborhood (Rob and Heather's idea). So they loaded up on Macaroni and Cheese (aka Kraft Dinner), chicken nuggets, ravioli, hot dogs, Cheez-It's (that was more my idea and for my sanity), basketball's, soccer balls, volley ball's and enough craft supplies to choke a horse. We started at 10:30 in the morning and went until about 2:30 or 3:00 (depending on how long we could keep or minds going at 187mph).
As soon as the kids arrived we would try to split them up and send them to different stations we had setup. We had sports, games, computers, crafts and a few others and it started out well, but after July 4th things satrted slowing down. We kept going on with our normal daily routine but the kids didn't. Kids just started showing up half way through the day and others just stopped showing up. I would love to meet whatever genius thought that kids enjoy having structure. I know we were always told that when I worked at camp and at probably every YMCA and Boys and Girls club. I haven't met any kids that work better in a structured area with a set schedule. Kids don't do schedule's. Whoever came up with that theory was on drugs. I would love him to come here and prove that it works.
The times they did show up on time was when we went to the pool which is only a ten minute walk from here. God Bless the pool. It was ridiculously hot so when ever we had to go to the pool we were in heaven. The kids loved the pool and so did we. For Anthony and I our time in the pool was spent trying to get away from the kids who wanted to dunk us. There were two kids who would spend all there time trying to do it and the they recruited Deb and Tempress to help them. I always came out victorious. I was never dunked (never try to beat a Floridian in his own environment).
The six weeks came and went and the Service Team left back to there homes. So it's back to me Anthony, Andrea, Rob, and Heather doing stuff as it happens. Trying to keep the relationship going with the kids we know and make new relationships with the kids we meet. Jaime is coming back today, but Anthony and Andrea leave in a few days back to Vancouver (where there is no sun). So they will be much cooler ans everyone in Vancouver will probably notice that they have color back in their skin now. Hey, so do I!! Woo Hoo. We also taught the Summer Service Team a very important phrase HALLELUYHWH.

Duck and Run

2006-07-29T14:23:00.000-04:00

It was a normal “Double Blessing Friday”. We went to the pool and had a blast. Anthony and I did fifty push-ups. We relaxed until Shabbat time. We invited Rob and Javi over to our house for a Shabbat meal and it was good. When we had all our ice cream set up and when we were just about to dig in we heard several gun shots just outside our house. I ran to the window (not a smart idea by the way) to see what was going on and I just saw five or six people ducking down and running away. The barbecue that our next door neighbor's were enjoying was done in a matter of seconds and everybody had bolted inside the house or were ducking behind a car. I heard six more shots and a pause then four more. Then I saw a man running away with a rifle in his hand. Once I saw him leave we opened the door to see what was going on a few people jumped in there cars and took off (understandable)and everybody else slowly came out out of their hiding spots. I thought it was a drug related thing because there has been a huge increase of drug trafficking going on here in the past few weeks and a few people were shot at a few days ago over some drug stuff. We talked to a few of the neighbors and found out that this guy was just shooting at random. No one knew him or knew why he was shooting or what he was shooting at, he just decide to shoot because he could. The only person that was injured was a 15 month old baby. She wasn't shot but something hit her on the back of the head and she started bleeding quite a bit. After the police, paramedics, and News crew came and went everything seemed to go back to normal. We ate our ice cream, the barbecue continued and kids went outside playing duck behind the car. THAT”S NOT NORMAL!!!!! Most kids during a barbecue play regular games like Frisbee or pretend school or tag or maybe even cops and robbers. That's not the case here. Kids here reenact what they see happening because that's life for them and they don't know anything different. They think this is normal but it shouldn't be. Kids should never feel like playing that game because it's what they see in any setting, but that's their reality. Reality needs a makeover.
We don't even really know why the guys started shooting. Was he angry, did he not like to see people enjoying themselves, did he hate barbecues, was he testing his new rifle, was the enemy just being a punk and wanting to stir something up while most people in the area we having fun? There doesn't seem to be any rational reason for someone to do that and I don't think many people in our neighborhood care. Someone if not most should care right??

Christians and Monopoly

2006-07-08T23:22:00.000-04:00

A good idea or a recipe for disaster?
If anyone reading this is planning, at anytime in the near future, on playing a game of Monopoly with a group of friends. You may be in for a long long long long long game. I realized last night that when Christian's (or just good friends) play Monopoly unless they understand that the point is to not give someone a second chance that game could last a lot longer than it should. Andrea, Anthony and Javi (one of our friends here in Charlotte) and I all started to play and as the game progressed we were buying properties and making money and making deals and it was fun. Then we started building houses and hotels on those properties and people started to lose money and make money at the same time. Eventually some of us got to the point where we we couldn't pay the rent. That is the point of the game isn't it? to bankrupt the other players? We totally forgot about that and started to lend money and help each other out. We made deals and cut rent in half for each other and we said you can have immunity form rent this time, and it was good. We were enjoying it, until we looked at the clock and the time was 11:30 at nigh; we started playing at 7:00. We couldn't figure out why this game was taking so long, until I realized we were Christians playing a cut throat game in which you needed to be mean and deceiving and show no mercy. We weren't doing that. We were living out Acts 2:44-45 “All the believers were together and had everything in common. Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need”. I said we're living out scripture in this game. Jesus sad if we have two coats we're supposed to give one to a person that doesn't have a coat. Javi looked at all his money and said, “bro, I got eight coats here”. So at about 11:45 we said okay no more mercy. If you can't pay we can't be helping each other out by handing out $500 bills like they're candy. You have to deal with bankruptcy, and we played until 1:30am. The game still hadn't ended. Only one of us had gone bankrupt (Javi). So we finally we had a genius idea. No one in the history of the world had thought of it before; it was brilliant. I couldn't believe how great of idea this was I'm getting excited just thinking about it. We decided to end the game, count up our money and assets and whoever had the most was the winner. Ba ha ha ha ha. I came in third. I only had half the money Andrea had and about $3,000 less than Anthony. The only person I beat was Javi and he was bankrupt. So learn from our mistakes. If your playing Monopoly with friends they can't be your friends for the next four hours (give or take nine hours).

Hitting Rock Bottom

2006-06-28T17:15:00.000-04:00

Rock Bottom, The end of you rope, taking a hard fall. Choose which term you like best to describe the situation.
I've seen what it is like to hit rock bottom (when there's no where to go but up) in the DTES and I've seen what it looks like here. I think here it is much worse and it effects so many more people. The first family I met when I got here was a family of six; four kids and two adults. I love the kids. They are awesome to hang out with and if they were the only four people that I saw a change in at all during the time here it will have been worth it (I am pushing for more though). There dad hits the youngest son some times and neither parents work and the only income they get is from the government. That money isn't enough to support a family with four kids. So they couldn't pay rent and were evicted. They went to stay at a hotel for a few weeks but that won't last long because it also costs money and after that is over they have to go live in a shelter which means the four kids will be put into foster care and we would never see them again. The boys would have to go to a shelter in Gastonia and the girls would go...well, I don't know; but it wouldn't be here, and their mom is okay with this. I'm sure she would have loved it if she hadn't been evicted, but she is okay with the kids being taken away for a while then she would have to try to get them back after a year or two. How is that an okay way for things to happen. Fortunately, Rob and Heather are a couple of genius' and have taken in the two boys to live with them, and they can live in a house and experience a family like it should be. Rob came by this morning and Juan and Javi were surprised when they were eating waffles for breakfast, because they usually didn't eat breakfast. I never thought anyone could be okay with living in such a terrible place both physically and spiritually. I drove them to the hotel that they are staying at and it was just like our neighborhood except it was just a little place off the side of the interstate. There were guys walking around wearing simple black shirts that said security and they asked everyone where they were going, but I don't know which would be scarier: not having or security guards or knowing that the place is a bad enough area that they need a security guard there all the time. What does it take to get someone to realize that they are not living a normal life?

The Last Stand...or is it????

2006-06-23T23:32:00.000-04:00

I saw “X-men 3 The Last Stand”. I was a little disappointed when I saw reviews of the movie saying that it was terrible and it needed more depth to the characters and a better story, but I really enjoyed it. Before I saw it I knew what the story would be about (Jean Grey isn't really dead but she comes back as the Phoenix and almost destroys the world and people are racist and want to either kill all the humans or kill all the mutants) but there were knew characters introduced and stuff that I didn't expect so it was still very exciting.
After the movie I decided that I want to die like professor X did. I don't (for those of you that haven't seen it this won't really make a whole lot of sense) want to be torn to tiny pieces and have every molecule of my body torn apart little by little. He died in a fight. He died trying to stop something that had more evil inside than anything we could have imagined (although since it was a movie it wasn't more terrible than anything we could have imagined because someone did imagine it to put it in the movie...wow imagine that). He died trying to stop a force that he knew was more powerful than he was but he still rose to the challenge. He didn't back down, and when he saw that he would inevitably be destroyed he took his last moment and used it to pass on wisdom to the person he was trying to stop. He spoke to the actual person rather than her other personality. He spoke to Jean saying don't let it (her power) control you. Good wisdom, unfortunately she didn't have ears to hear. It was the same advice Spider-mans uncle gave him “with great power comes great responsibility”. It's true. If we can't control ourselves and our own abilities and use them for the work they were intended for than who is? Who will be controlling us if we aren't in control? Thats a scary thought. I would love to be able to spend my last dying moments passing on wisdom to people I know and people that are fighting alongside of me. I don't want o be in a hospitable bed doing it I want to be up and around I want to be in a fight. I want the last days of my life to be spent fighting ,as strong as ever, the dark forces of this world. I want to be taking down enemy strongholds till there's nothing left of them but a pile of dust. I want to be stabbing the enemy in the eye still when I'm ready to kick the bucket. And with my dying breath shout HALLELUYHWH!!!
Does anyone think it's strange that I'm twenty years old and already talking about dying??

I'm amazed...well...not really

2006-06-06T21:59:00.000-04:00

"Everyone it's okay come out of your bomb shelter's the world is still here." Okay the world is not ending. I'm thrilled can't you hear the excitement in my voice...or in my typing...never mind. I'm glad the world didn't end today because Heather made this wonderful tuna melt dinner and banana bread for dessert and it was delectable. It would have been a shame if I had missed that just because the world was ending.

We all have twenty four hours...hurry

2006-06-05T18:51:00.000-04:00

This made me laugh. I hope everyone enjoys it...or maybe not...

Enjoy your Monday. Because tomorrow, the world could end.

That's if you believe that June 6, 2006 -- or 06/06/06 -- has anything to do with the so-called
"Mark of the Beast." Religious scholars place the idea in the same category as "The Da Vinci Code." The Bible's "666" referred to a person, not a date, says Davidson College religion professor Greg Snyder. His best guess: The Antichrist was supposed to be Nero, a nasty Roman ruler who persecuted first-century Christians. Recently discovered fragments of Old Testament texts suggest the number's all wrong anyway, and should have been "616." Today's marketers can't resist the lure of the triple six. A remake of "The Omen" opens tomorrow, and the latest volume in the "Left Behind" series hits the shelves. So do albums by several heavy metal bands, and conservative commentator Ann Coulter's new book. (She calls the release date a "tribute to liberals.")

And folks of Hell, Mich., are throwing a big party. Not everybody is happy. "Here I am living in Hell, taking my kids to church and trying to teach them the right things," resident Jason LeTeff said, "and the town where we live is having a 6/6/6 party."

God's way is sometimes an unexpected hole

2006-06-03T22:52:00.000-04:00

Does anyone recall a time in the Bible when God used a hole in a wall or in a gate or something like that as a plan or startegy or for anything? I know Ezekiel saw a hole in the wall and dug and found an entrance to a room(Ezekiel8:7), but Ezekiel saw things a little differently then we did. this is coming form a guy who ate bread baked over human feces. Do you really want to trust that guy? He always had weird things happening to him anyway. I don't think he knew when he was in the world and when he was in the spiritual realm most of his life. So that one doesn't count. The reason I ask is because when I first arrived here in Charlotte Rob took me around to see the neighborhood and after I saw all the housing areas he took me by the middle school that's in our neighborhood. Past the school there is the entrance to an over pass for the highway that separates this community from the other. It's not a vehicle over pass; it's an over pass for people to walk on. Namely for kids to cross the road safely and get to school without playing russian roulette with the cars or taking a bus; it's a genius idea I think. Unfortunately, it also provided a great connecting spot for suppliers and addicts. The gate has been closed, chanined and locked since we got here and we haven't been able to open it. A few days after that I was playing Man Hunt (Hide-and-seek) with the kids in the neighborhood. I had a difficult time figuring out how they were getting form one spot to another faster than I was. I was running as fast as I could and had a hard time keeping up until I was able to follow one of them when he was running to a gate and in that gate there was a huge hole. They don't know why it's there or how it got there. They just know that it's there and it is an easy fast was to move around from one area to another in this game. A few weeks later Anthony and Andrea Castle arrive. Rob and I are taking them on the same tour of the neighborhood that he took me on, and we went to the same closed Highway over pass and Rob is speaking in tounges and commanding that the gate be opened in Jesus name and I look at the sides and see a hole in the gate. I'm guessing it was cut it the gate by drug suppliers and/or desperate addicts. We slip though the hole and walk to the other side where we find the gate locked as well but this time the hole was in the top of the gate and no one else was up for climbing up and through it so we saved it for a differnt day, but we now have a way to get into another neighborhood without driving for twenty minutes to get there. It puts a whole new spin on incarnational ministry. Not only are we living with the people we're ministering to, but we are moving form one community to another the same way drug users and dealers are. I love the way God works. When he does something he's not always miraculous; sometimes he's practical, which is why I asked the previous question. Has God ever used a hole in a wall before? Bueller...anyone Bueller...

Men's camp

2006-05-29T23:18:00.000-04:00

So, the last time I left you guys, I had left to pick up Anthony and Andrea Castle from the airport. Well, I lied…actually no I didn’t. We did pick them up and they are here in the house right now. Right now as I’m typing this blog. They have been an absolute blessing to us here. They have moved in to a town house not far from where we are living and are building relationships in that neighborhood. So our forces are taking on two neighborhoods at once.

Rob, Anthony, and I went to Men’s Camp a few days ago. What an experience. We are Men after God’s own heart. That was the theme of the camp. The thing that amazed me the most was that they willing put gun’s into our hands. Pistols, rifles, and shotguns. I didn’t get to shoot the rifles or pistols but I did get to shoot the shot gun. I almost fell over as well when I shot it. We were doing trap shooting. These guys were in a box and we say “pull” and these clay discs shot out and we had to shoot them. I only hit three out of the ten, but I would say that’s good for a first time. Anthony and Rob slept while this was going on. I wanted to get us signed up for the Tug-of-war tournament, but no one else was up for it. So I took my chances at Dominoes (I was knocked out in the first round) washers (I don’t remember my score but it wasn’t good) darts (I got 94 points) and a marathon (2 miles). This is what I was hoping to bring home a first place trophy in. I figured if nothing else I would win the marathon. There were a bunch of old guys and so I was one of the youngest and I think I’m pretty fast so I thought I had this one in the bag. When I realized we had to run at 8:00 in the morning I was less than thrilled, but I was not going to give up because I’m a shoe in for first. So after a breakfast consisting of biscuits and gravy and sausage I was set. I arrived at the flagpole and I start stretching. Then a few old guys show up and then a young guy shows up (he’s working at camp) and he looked like a track star so I figured this would be a close race. Then another young guy shows up and he looks very fit as well, so I’m thinking this is going to be a very tight race. And were off and running. And four of us started out a pretty good pace then one man fell behind. I kept going and pushing and running until after the first mile. We got by the first mile and I couldn’t kept up and I slowly started to fall behind, but I kept going and with a third place finish (12:53); I was three minutes behind these other two guys, three minutes! That’s a lot of time. They came in with a nine minute time that’s fast. I talked to the officer in charge, after I was back to breathing normally, and he said that Tim (the guy in first place) is like an entire track team all in one person. So there was no chance for me to get first place. Later that day I was talked to Rick (2nd place man) and I found out that he was a track star form Africa who runs in all sorts of meets in Kenya and South Africa so there was no chance of me getting second place, so I had to settle for third. I was happy with that. It was a great camp though. We put up a prayer tent and built a cross for people to nail names or requests to. We also got a chance to meet the new TC and we heard an amazing band from Austin, Texas “The Gospel Silvertones” and they were anointed by God. Now we are back home and playing with kids and sweating and getting them juice and having a blast.

I also just want to point out that i am 22 years and 2 months old. In case anyone is wondering.

Con men at age eight

2006-05-17T17:51:00.000-04:00

I realized that my duties here in Charlotte involve being illegal for a just cause. A few days ago one of our next door neighbors was arrested. Her brother came to her house to get money to bail her out of jail but the house was all locked up (why wouldn’t it be). So he asked me to help him check the windows to open them. Unfortunately they were all locked. The locks on the windows in this neighborhood aren’t real great so when we found one that seemed to be the “weak link” we decided that was the target and with a little help form a screwdriver and a butter knife (reminds me of 705 in the Empress) we were able to pry the window open and I crawled through. This is better known as “breaking and entering”. So I unlocked the front door to let her brother in and that was the end…or so I thought. He constantly forgot things in the house so I constantly had to go to a different window (he left this one unlocked) open it and reach in to unlock the door for him. So I am guilty of performing a “b and e” four times within a one hour time period. Later on I was off to pick-up Mason (Cory Harrison’s son) form school. Jeremy anted to ride with me. Jeremy is a very interesting character. Like most of the kids around here he’s always doing things and trying to get out of trouble and treating everything as a joke. He’s a very manipulative person. He asked me to stop by a fireworks shop on our way back. That’s fine no harm in that. He started joking and saying that he was going to steal boxes of fireworks and he’s got big pockets and all that stuff and I laughed at him because he was joking, the only problem was I soon realized we wasn’t joking at all. I pulled a package of M-80 from his pocket and when he realized I wasn’t going to be leaving him out of my sight the rest of the time we were there he just got angry. He tried to scam free stuff form the cashier and ask for free fireworks because he bought something for a dollar. He’s a very manipulative person and will always press the envelope as far as he can to get his way. The strangest part is that he doesn’t feel the least bit guilty for anything he’s done. We got back in the car and a few miles down the road he pulled some other things out of his pocket that he didn’t pay for. I knew that I couldn’t make him take it back to the store because he would just sit in the car and I can’t force him to walk. It’s strange that someone who is fifteen years old can steal like he’s been doing it his whole life. All I could do was let him know that stealing wasn’t cool and not acceptable and I would punish him by not taking him for a ride anymore (he loves riding in a car for some reason). It sometimes makes me feel like these kids are too far gone, there hearts are too hard and no matter what we say or do we can’t change them, but I do know that love conquers all and never fails and there is power in prayer and we are commanded to pray continuously. That is my battle strategy. Now I am going to band and songsters practice and then I’m off to pick up a couple Australians from the airport. Hallelujah.

Here's a rundown

2006-05-14T22:00:00.000-04:00

Here is what has been happening for the past few days. I play with kids, I stop fights, I watch kids throw rocks, stop them form throwing more rocks, and get them snacks and drinks. I am a camp counselor and I have no DYS.
Things that have been out of the ordinary: We finally have a picture of the man with a shot gun on the 614 Charlotte blog. Look and be amazed. Last Saturday I woke up at around ten in the morning and walked over to the Dolby house to get some breakfast, like I do every morning, and Heather asked me if I heard the gunshots this morning. I said, “No” and Heather just stared at me with disbelief. She said, “The house they came from is closer to you than it is to mine and the shots woke me up. It was practically right behind you and you slept through it?” So I currently hold the record of sleeping through the most gunshots. The record stands at six. On Wednesday night this past week I was laying in bed and I heard a man not far from the window yelling for someone I know so I sat up and took a peek to see who it was. Bad idea on my part. The man was urinating in my front yard. I thought of yelling something strange and slightly offensive but he was drunk and I was tried. If I had a camera I would have considered it a photo opportunity and bloggable. I don’t think the blogging world would be too thrilled with it though. Needless to say I tried to go back to sleep as soon as my mind would let me. Today after church and after CiCi’s and after playing with kids and laughing and then putting away all the toys and while everyone was winding down, only then did it decide to rain. It had been looking like it would all day, but it didn’t start until seven thirtyish. All the kids started running home except three. Then the all Hail broke loose. We had hail the size of peas coming down. My response was oh course “OH HAIL NO!!” Then one little girl (Lele she’s 4) decided that would be a good time to run home. She ran out the back door and when we noticed she was gone I looked out and saw her stopped about a third of the way home standing in the rain/hail crying. I guess that’s when she realized that hail hurts. So I ran picked her up and carried/sprinting her the rest of the way home. I felt a bit like a superhero. Then the hails stopped and the rain stopped and everyone else went home. Now the Liquor House (the house next door to mine) is open for business and there are thirty four cars parked in my front yard and I don’t drive a single one of them.

R&R

2006-05-07T21:02:00.000-04:00

This weekend was very relaxing. In a couple of ways I was able to relax without expecting to. On Saturday Heather and I went with Cory Harrison and his family to a drive-in movie theater. I had never been to a drive-in movie before so this was a very new experience for me and it was a double feature which made it even more exciting. First feature was for the kids the movie was “The Wild” very much like Madagascar. It seemed to be a mix of Madagascar, Finding Nemo, and The Lion King all in one. It wasn’t as funny as I had expected, but it was worth seeing. Then we saw Mission Impossible III. It was a thriller. At the beginning of the movie all I could think about was what Cory had told us about Tom Cruise wanting to eat his baby’s placenta. So for two minutes straight I saw Tom Cruise+ placenta. Placenta kept popping into my head; it wouldn’t stop (placenta, placenta, and placenta). Eventually I was captivated by the booms and explosions and fire and shooting and I forgot all about the placenta (I’ve seriously typed that word more in this blog than I ever thought I would in my entire life). I go to be very unhealthy for dinner (not that I have been healthy recently) it consisted of Nachos with Cheese and Jalapenos, and Twizzlers, popcorn and Sierra Mist. It was wonderful. The movies ended at around one o’clock and Heather and I didn’t get home until about 2:30. I slept. I awoke to a knock at my door. It was Heather. Word of advice; always remember to turn on your alarm after you set the time. If you don’t it doesn’t work. All the kids were in the van and ready and I hadn’t gotten out of bed yet so I went into hyper mode and was ready to go in record time. I would doubt that I spent any longer than seven minutes getting ready. The kids thought it was hilarious. So we were off to church and then to CiCi’s Pizza. The Captain preached a very good message on marriage. He emphasized that a marriage should be based on covenant rather than feelings and love. It was a good word. Then we went to lunch (God bless CiCi’s Pizza). Then we went home and all the kids went to there homes and I went to my home and I definitely laid on my bed and was listening to music but I think I fell asleep with my eyes open because I don’t recall closing or opening my eyes at all, but I don’t remember thinking about anything either for a long gap of time. So I’m currently missing two hours of my life and I don’t know where they went. I think I can live without them though. Now I will sleep more.

He's Lost

2006-05-05T20:09:00.000-04:00

I lost Rob and I don't know where to find him. Has anyone seen Rob Dolby I can't find him anywhere, ROB...ROB...where are you?

Culture Shock!!!!!

2006-04-30T21:36:00.000-04:00

Today at Charlotte Temple we had an amazing meeting. Usually we go and it’s not real great. The Captain that usually speaks is not real inspiring and the worship is just going through the motions. This Sunday, however, was very much Holy Spirit led. The worship was very powerful and the band played absolutely wonderful. Captain Gainey had a very good word for the church. The service was very much focused on the youth of the corps. They had a power point presentation of the different things the youth were doing while we were in the chapel and then we had a time of prayer to bless all the people in our corps that are involved with the youth programs. Then Captain Gainey talked about why it’s hard to get children to go to church. First he talked about his time he spent in the Military and had to go over to Germany. He was told that he may lose his wife within the first few months because of the culture shock that happens when you first arrive. He related the culture shock of Germany to culture shock of being at church(they go to churchany. His joke not mine). Most kids today live in a world that is very secular. At school, in music, in homes, and there friends. Usually it doesn’t revolve around Christ. They are constantly getting different messages from music and television friends every other thing you can think of. So when we try to get kids to go to church one day a week that one day is very different from anything else that they experienced that week. We need to have church at home not just in a building on Sunday. Church one day a week isn’t going to build a strong spiritual foundation for the kids. The culture shock of church needs to happen at home. Over the years our culture has changed and Christ has slowly been pushed out of hoes and caged up in a building where he can stay but he’s not allowed to be anywhere else in our lives. He said when ever he hears people talk about the “good ol’ days” and how terrible things are now; he can’t help but think that those “good ol’ days” had a huge influence on creating these “bad new days” that we’re living in. Let’s get rid of the Sunday culture shock and let Christ out of his cage.

One year

2006-04-29T15:59:00.000-04:00

I have had my blog up and running for one year now. So in honor of this anniversary here is one of my first blogs.

I'm sorry I have to do this, but I feel that there is a number of things that we say here at The War College that should never come form our mouths. I am guilty as well. They are as follows...
10. "My apologies." -Travis/Jo-No/Josh/Phil/Xander
9. "Hey, I got a Latte Machine donated!" -Jonathan Berkshire (AKA- JoNo)
8. "Sorry I'm late for Pray the Bible, I had to straighten my hair." -Jenn Burr, phase 2 (she said this last year while she was a student)
7. "You can break into 705 with a knife or a phone card." -Anyone
6. "Hey baby, wanna chug some gravy?" -Josh and Jamie Smith
5. "My hard-drive crashed/computer is fried/laptop broke." -Jamie Smith, JoNo, or Linsey New
4. "Make it a venti cappuccino." -Josh and Phil...well, kinda all of whenever we have money.
3. "I break your mom off in Jesus' Name." -Jaime Riefer, Xander and Travis
2. "I'm going to return my rental car." -JoNo
1. "The wireless is down...again" -Jamie Smith, JoNo, Linsey, SueAnn, Nicole, Jaime Riefer, JoNo, Xander, JoNo, Josh, Phil, and JoNo

Everyone, enjoy!

There will be blogs of the same kinda thing in the future...hollaaaaaah.
Grace,
keithg

It's Jesus or hell

Ahhh Those were the days.

I'm still suprised

2006-04-28T21:01:00.000-04:00

After living in the DTES of Vancouver most people would think that there would be very few things that surprise me anymore. But there are so many things that still happen on a regular basis here in Charlotte that have become normal that shouldn’t be. I woke up on Wednesday and started walking across the street to Rob and Heather’s house for breakfast like I do every morning because I don’t have any way of cooking breakfast at my house even if I had food. It seemed like a normal day except for one guy slowly walking around the area with a shotgun in his had. He wasn’t bothering anyone and it didn’t look like he was looking for anyone. It was like he just decided to go for a walk with his shot gun. When I got to the house I asked Rob if he saw the guy with the gun and he thought I was joking. He laughed and said “no but that would be funny” I said he’s seriously went to the back of our house and the three of us went to the back door to see this oddity. Then I grabbed the camera and snuck into the bushes and snapped a picture of the guy. I don’t know whether to still be amazed or look at stuff like that and see it as normal stuff. Our next door neighbor (Anitavias) was talking with us last night and the ambulance came to see another man in the neighborhood who had a hernia. This was the fifth time the ambulance had been in this neighborhood this week. We could get to know the paramedics and have a cell with them because they come here so often. I asked Anitavias if it was normal for the ambulance to show up here five times in one week. Her response was “I guess so. Why?” In Vancouver I remember it was normal to hear the ambulance fifteen times in one day but Vancouver was a big city. This one area where the ambulance has come in consists of six houses. I was walking to my house on Thursday night and I heard a gun shot and it didn’t sound to far away, maybe in the neighborhood next to ours. This is one strange place.

So as we are bringing light into this dark place I realize this is going to bring to light a lot of chaos going on here. When chaos is discovered that usually brings in more confusion which could make things here much more difficult than they are now. Which means things may start to get darker before they get lighter, but I’m ready for it because God equips the called and he “has trained my hands for war and my fingers for battle”.

I'll have a picture of the amn with the gun soon.

Those southern days

2006-04-22T21:16:00.000-04:00

I spent the last three nights in my new house with my new bed and new sheets and a familiar smell. I had the opportunity to chase a fly around my house with the tube of the vacuum cleaner. It was exciting. First I stabbed at it in the air randomly but hat didn’t work so well so I waited for him to land. He foolishly picked the window sill. Flies don’t really understand glass and window shades and all that stuff so he flew around the inside for a bit, obviously confused (OF COURSE HE WAS CONFUSED) while I tried to sneak up on he but he managed to escape. Then he went to the other window. Maybe he thought he’d have better luck there. That’s where he met his demise. My first attempt was unsuccessful, but I had more stamina and I tired him out. He started moving without thinking and going to places that weren’t helping him at all. So I took advantages of those mistakes, made A few strategic moves and victory is mine. It took me a few minutes but I sucked him up and he will never return. Ba ha ha ha. I win. I’ve been trying to turn it around and make it into an object lesson so that it has some deeper life application like Tara does on her blogs but it doesn’t work for me. Maybe it’s a spiritual gift that she has.

I got some paint the other day for my room. It’s a light aqua color called country cottage. It’ll look real nice. I think once I have it painted that’ll take care of a lot of the smell. A change of smell is always good. That’s why I like candles and incense so much it can change the atmosphere of a room for however long it burns. I experienced a thunder storm today. With thunder and lightning and all that great stuff. It was just like being back in Florida at Camp Keystone again. I loved it.

I just wan to let everyone know that the Tampa bay Lightning just beat the Ottawa Senators 4-3 in the Playoffs. Woo Hoo!!!

Good times in Charlotte mixed with a little re-learning the southern life

2006-04-15T23:06:00.000-04:00

It’s strange when some of the simplest of things is what I should be doing, but it really seems like I’m doing nothing. Anybody else feel that way?? My days here in Charlotte consist of me waking up and running around with the neighborhood kids all day long but at the end of the day I still don’t feel like I’ve accomplished much, but I think that may just come with the territory of moving to a different area. I haven’t gotten into my semi-permanent house yet, so it’s hard for me to have a set schedule right now. I also tend to have a habit of looking for tangible results in ministry only days after starting. It could happen; it just hasn’t yet. I maybe I’m not suppose to see the changes I’ve made maybe they won’t be evident until six or seven years down the road. Anyway, I’m going to be out of commission for a week or two when it comes to running, jumping climbing or anything that put s pressure on my foot, my left foot to be more specific. I messed up my ankle yet again. Let hopping begin. I just would like to get through one year without hurting my ankle; this is the third year in a row that I’ve had a sprain in my left ankle, and it makes number eight for my grand total. Luckily it hasn’t turned funny colors and swelled up like a basketball this time. So in a few days I should be back to digging holes and playing basketball and man-hunt again. This time I’ll be a little more observant of the ground when and if I pay man-hunt in the dark. That wasn’t the brightest idea in the first place. My ankle is a small price to pay for…uhh…I’ll think of something that sounds smart later.

I realized my Bangor and Vancouver days have taken a toll on my skin. My neck was so burnt the other day from being outside. I didn’t even think I was outside for very long. So I got to work on getting my tan back without getting burnt; that’s going to be tricky. I don’t mind the heat though; I’ll take the 89, 91, and 92 degree temps over 12 and 14 degree temperatures any day. One thing I am looking forward to (I doubt anyone else is) are some good ol’ southern thunder storms. I haven’t heard thunder in so long it might scare me at first. I never heard it in Vancouver and I rarely heard in Bangor over the summer (never in the winter). I want some noise!!!

My new house

2006-04-12T22:34:00.000-04:00

I got to see my future house and it smells like The Empress. Great! I finally found something that is familiar to me. I spent a few hours cleaning the cabinets and walls, and cleaning the walls again and again, because I would think I had it clean (it doesn’t really look very dirty) and then I would see a spot that I missed and I would clean that spot and then I would need to clean the rest of the wall all over again because that one spot made the rest of the wall look dirty and I would see another spot that I missed and the cycle began again (another vicious cycle that I’ve noticed). But the walls will be painted so I can just wipe off the surface stuff and call it good. I am usually never happy with just doing surface work because it’s but going deeper is so hard that it just seems like it’s not worth it sometimes, but I think that going deeper in a community on a spiritual level is a little more important than cutting through the deep stuff on the walls. My bathroom has been fixed up though and that it the important part. We worked for a couple of hours and decide that would be good for the day…we don’t want to over exert ourselves while we’re…cleaning walls. The house will one day be ready and I will be living there, but for now I am content living with Rob and Heather. Earlier in the day Rob and I took a walk through the neighbor hood and we saw all the houses that are possible spots for TWC students to live. We also saw other communities that we want 614 to branch out into. We then walked through an area of houses that were all boarded up and basically condemned. No one owned them and they weren’t fit for anyone to live in. Rob and I decide to enter one of them (we didn’t break in, the press wood over the door was already broken off) as I walked into this area it was like stepping into a Vancouver alley. In the alleys of Vancouver there was drug paraphernalia and condoms and nasty clothes that no one would really want to wear and just dirt everywhere. This was all in that one house. So we have the alleys of Vancouver inside the house’s here in Charlotte. I think that might be the norm for Ghetto’s I know that this house is a house that is rundown and condemned but as for the houses who have the drug dealers in them as the father to the kids I wonder if they are essentially living in the Vancouver alley’s?

I'll have pictures soon.

A day in the life in Charlotte

2006-04-11T23:59:00.000-04:00

My first 24 hours in Charlotte was exciting. I got the royal treatment I was greeted at the airport by eight kids that I will be chillin like a villan form the floor to the cellin with and Rob and Heather. I was taken to my home for a few days and (The Dolby residence) and I didn’t g to sleep until midnight because we just wanted to stay up and talk and have fun and just be with each other. The next day I woke up at around ten am and we talked to friends for a while then we went to find me a bed at the TSA Thrift store. Rob makes that interesting. Then we went to the Prayer Room here in Charlotte (it’s not 24-7 yet) and we just soaked it up for a half hour. We ate lunch at CiCi’s pizza (praise the lord for Ci-Ci’s. Good pizza for real cheap). We drove by some places low income housing places that have been closed up boards put over the windows and doors and they’re set for demolition. With a bunch of other places and town houses will be put in there place. The families that were there were given a chunk of cash and were told to relocate which couldn’t have been an easy thing to do. Then we headed out to Wal-Mart and bought a bunch of balls and balloons and other random toys that are going to be used by the thirty different kids that are here in the neighborhood. And then we sat in the house and talked with some more friends for a while longer and it was good. I am so ready to have some fun.

For Bangor

2006-04-10T10:52:00.000-04:00

I am leaving Bangor, Maine. I am off to a new phase of my life in Charlotte, North Carolina. One thing I really love about leaving a place is that is when you find out how much people really love you. I know that I was (and still) loved by people in Bangor but The days leading up to my departure is when it really started to show. Now I’m not talking about all the crying and praying and hugging and all that stuff. I’m talking about the free meals! I got to eat so many meals that I didn’t have to pay for; it was wonderful! One of those meals was two Maine Lobsters (that’s a whole different blog). Out of my last seven meals in the state of Maine I only had to pay for one. I was so thrilled. I actually didn’t care about any of the food (maybe a little). The best going away present I had was on Sunday. I got to listen to two members of the Corps Mary Mackay (YPSM) and Ryan Grant (spiritual and physical soldier) tell of all the memories they have of me and letting me know how much I really blessed them during my stay. The blessing goes two ways. I was so incredibly blessed by the Bangor Corps. I got to see corps officers that didn’t make a single decision in the corps without first consulting the Holy Spirit. The local corps leaders have a passion for souls and are always striving for a more effective way of reaching them. Seeing that kind of unity in a Christian body is a beautiful thing. I love that drive and I hope that one day I will see that passion filter out into the rest of the city. I love the youth that is in the city. Ryan, Chris, Cory, Cody, Charlie, Jerrica, Sam, Alice, Brandon, Tyler, Michael, Joel and everyone else that I can’t remember. I know that one day they will be continuing everything that has been started in that corps and they are the future of the army in Bangor. I will one day be in Bangor again to see everyone there and I know I will be amazed at the Spiritual progress made in that city and I can’t wait to visit see everybody again.
So I leave you Bangor with these words form Paul:
Therefore I, beg you Bangor to lead a life worthy of your calling, for you have been called by God. Be humble and gentle. Be patient with each other, making allowance for each other's faults because of your love. Always keep yourselves united in the Holy Spirit, and bind yourselves together with peace. We are all one body, we have the same Spirit, and we have all been called to the same glorious future. There is only one Lord, one faith, one baptism, and there is only one God and Father, who is over us all and in us all and living through us all. However, he has given each one of us a special gift according to the generosity of Christ. Ephesians 4:1-7 (NLT)

April 1 blog

2006-04-01T19:12:00.000-05:00

April fools!! ba ha hah a ha ha!! No blog ba ha ha ha ha. Oh man that was the best joke ever. Ha ha ha ha. Why are you still reading? Seriously I’m not blogging today it was all a joke…Go away. Jokes over go home. Hey stop looking at me.

It's the 29th

2006-03-29T19:07:00.000-05:00

Today is my birfday…birfday what is birfday?? I don’t know that word oh well. Happy birfday to me happy birfday to me happy birfday to meeee happy birfday to me. I forgive everyone who didn’t remember and never sent me a happy birthday E-mail or card or phone call or present. You can remember next year ba ha ha ha. Steveo remembered. In normal sec fashion he sent me an E-mail with a total of four words and one was grace. It made me happy. I also had a party with like eight little kids running around and that was fun. I got M&Ms, cookies, a miniature dodge ball with superman on it, and Dayquil because I might be getting sick. I also got to see Aurora what an amazingly responsible adult she is. Keep in mind she’s the Youth Pastor here, with eight little kids watching she puts a tiny hole in a helium balloon and inhales the helium and starts talking. It was really funny but maybe not the best time to do it. I don’t know if we will ever see those kids back here again after they go home and tell there parents what they saw here. It was a wonderful birfday party. By the way I’m 22.

V for Vendetta

2006-03-28T18:20:00.000-05:00

V for vendetta was a very interesting movie…actually that was a lie it was a great movie. I wasn’t sure if I would really be thrilled with it because at first it looked like it was all about revenge and payback and that is what the movie Punisher was like and I wasn’t thrilled with Punisher. But I watched this movie and it was really great. It’s a futuristic movie in which UK has become this huge superpower which is now run by a dictator. He is using fear to keep everyone under control and in order (Just to warn you if you haven’t seen the movie yet and want to I’m going to ruin it for some of you). Scientists are able stop this disease that has pretty much destroyed the United States and other places and they have samples of it and they purposely infect almost 100,000 people with it and they all die. So they have that fear to help keep control and they have this elite police group called the fingers to help them keep control and they do it well because people are more scared of them than they are of the normal police. There is also a curfew instituted for everyone except the Finger (I sort of got that the finger name was like the actual people doing the dirty work it wasn’t the head guy it was his fingers…maybe). The dictator in charge restricts books and music and paintings, they are all illegal to have. It’s illegal for someone to have a butterfly collection. It’s strange. I guess people aren’t allowed to think for themselves at all. That is what V (the masked characters name) is fighting for. He wants justice to reign again when it hasn’t for so long. He realizes that it’s fear that has been running this country and he wants it to stop. He realizes that a symbol is only a symbol and it has no power unless the people give it power. So the symbol that has power is destroyed, and the symbol is the Parliament building. It is a sort of skewed way of doing justice but in V’s mind it was all kosher. It made for a great story line as well. The critics Roberts and Atell gave it two thumbs up.

Panicking never works

2006-03-25T11:03:00.000-05:00

I find it strange how one event in day can over shadow almost everything that was good. It started out as a normal Thursday. Rations in the morning, lunch in the soup kitchen, talking with Aurora, waiting for Teen group to start. We were taking a trip to Bald Mountain. A hike up the mountain and back down, easy enough…or is it dramatic music dun dun daahhh). Everything was in order we had drinks we had apples we had the teens we had a van we had keys. We drove to the mountain we ran up…most of the way. It was great. We climbed to the top of the look-out-tower from where I could see my house. It wasn’t the easiest thing to do because we didn’t have a ladder to get us to the first flight of stairs and on top of that some of the stairs are a bit sketchy. I did my Sméagol impression a number of times and Ryan hid in the woods and then jumped out in an attempt to scare Aurora and a couple other people. It was worth the effort. Then we went down the mountain. There was no trouble until we reached the bottom of the mountain. It was a bit of a race. Ryan, Emily, Cody and I were all running down the mountain (not smart in the first place) I was headed straight for the van and I needed to stop. I didn’t want to hit the side of the van with al my weight on the door because then there would be a big dent in it (that may have been a better idea) so I decided to put my hand up and use the window of the van to slow myself down so I didn’t hit the door so hard. Well the window did slow me down for a few seconds and then it shattered. My initial reaction was Oh $@%&#!!! I had never broken a window before in my life ( I actually didn’t think I could with out injuring my hand neither did the guy replacing the window). I can’t remember if I had ever broken someone else’s property before that was this huge, so I panicked (no the best way to handel a situation). I didn’t want the other teens to know that I had broken the window of the van because I thought they would have thought less of me, so I asked the three that were there to lie for me (second bad step). Emily said she couldn’t lie well, so I said don’t say anything. So when Aurora and the other teens came down the mountain and saw what had happened, the story they heard was that the window was already broken when we arrived, so someone may have just decided to break our window because they could. We had a two hour drive back and I was almost holding back tears the whole time. Once we dropped off the last of the teens I told Aurora what actually happened and we headed back to the corps for a Corps Council meeting (so everyone that needed to know was in one place at one time). I told Doug and Deb the actual story (they were obviously not thrilled with the news) and because I laugh so often it sort of seemed like I didn’t realize the seriousness of the situation. I think, at first, I was more disappointed with myself than they were. I was hoping that only the two of them and Aurora would be the only three that knew the actual story, but in a small town the truth gets out fast. Not everyone knows yet but thy will after reading this, and I do need to tell all the teens and apologize to them for lying and asking three of them to lie for me. I guess I just didn’t want to leave Bangor with everyone remembering that I broke a van window, but I am human and as Doug brought out so was David, people don’t remember his faults over the fact that he was an amazing king that’s comforting to know. Someone once said "It's not the making mistakes that we learn from, but how we handel them." Anyone know who that was?? Do you think he broke a window too?

Community involves unity

2006-03-22T17:57:00.000-05:00

Word of advice from me to you: Don’t stop blogging for a long period of time because there is so much stuff to catch up on it’s easy to fall behind. I had the opportunity to preach on Sunday morning three weeks ago. So I did. I guess it shouldn’t come as a shock when God does something that makes everything fit together, but I can’t help being amazed by it. This past few weeks Doug Burr has been trying to build a closer community within the corps family. He wants to stop this surface level knowledge of who everyone is and get deep into each other’s lives (who knows where he comes up with these crazy ideas ba ha ha ha). When God spoke to me what I was to be speaking on it went right along with what Doug has been pushing for. God spoke to me about bridging the Gap between the youth of TSA and the elders. In order to progress and keep pressing on in the fight against the enemy we need to be standing along side each other working together. We can’t fight as a divided army. The elders have knowledge and wisdom that they youth don’t have, but the youth are the ones that will be taking over as leaders, and if we don’t build a foundation for them to base their faith on then when they got to places where they face huge temptation they could easily be torn away from the church and dragged into some other religion, or they may just give up on religion all together, that’s never good. We need to be working to build up the youth in a corps so they take over the leadership and be effective in a corps. We can’t have disunity and still be effective. We can’t fight a battle on our own and expect to succeed when an entire army is needed. TSA will fail if we aren’t raising up effective warriors. A spiritual foundation is not only built by what we do ourselves, but it also comes from interaction with other Christians. I’m not talking about just sitting by someone on Sunday morning. It comes from deep conversation and having a meaningful impact on each others lives. We need to be helping each other through problems and we need to know that there are people that will stand beside us when attacks from the enemy come up. People being brought together in a church setting doesn’t happen by accident, people that look up to you doesn’t happen by accident, and corps officers aren’t sent somewhere by accident. It is spirit led and God ordained. The youth that will be following each generation is not an accident. God has a plan and a role for each person to play in the future in the church. We need to recognize that and set them up for success. It takes cooperation from both sides. If we don’t set up a precedent then the next generation will follow suit, and there will be generation after generation of surface level relationships and that is a scary thought. It’s not something I would want to be a part of. It’s not easy, it does take work but we can create community.

That’s basically my sermon. I thought everything went by really fast. It felt like I started and was done in four minutes. The recording had fourteen minutes of space used up, but it sure didn't seem like it. Fourteen minutes still seems really short but at least I know I probably kept everyone’s attention. I did a much better job of starting this time as well. I didn’t have to leave to find a lapel microphone like I did over the summer. After it was all said and done I felt like my sermon was almost JAC worthy. I know that I’m no Stephen Court, but I have my moments.

My Canadan adventures (dramatic music plays)

2006-03-20T21:19:00.000-05:00

Warning If you don't like to read long blogs turn back now. I’m sure that by now everyone (that is 614 related) has probably heard all about Jenn and Josh’s amazing, spirit led, beautiful, perfect, wedding. If you haven’t yet (you weirdo) talk to me; I’ll fill you in, or better yet talk to Josh or Jenn Ivany…oh man that is so weird. What most people probably haven’t heard is my adventure before and after the wedding. I will tell you my tale…now. It was a dark and stormy night when we set out. If you don’t believe me ask Aurora or Alberta. We were seriously driving through a snow storm. So we all that thought it would be a good idea to not let the Floridian drive. I think I would have done fine. It was around nine thirty at night and we couldn’t see more than ten feet in front of us. We eventually found pout way out of the mess and were making good time headed for the border. There wasn’t whole lot that happened on our way up there except for sleeping, talking and switching out drivers. Alberta had the unfortunate privilege of being pulled over in New York by a State Trooper. I think he thought she was drunk because he said she was crossing the lines a bit. The lines are our friend stay in the line. He thought we were drunk ba ha ha ha. He asked us where we were going and our response was Canada. He then said you do know your going south right? We said, “Yeah, we know that’s how we get to Canada from Maine”. He was very confused and said “you’re going south to go to Canada”? We said yes and let us got with out a ticket or a sobriety test. If you ask Alberta she’ll tell you that he was driving an eighteen wheeler but I think it was just a SUV. I was told by a friend that state troopers in Massachusetts and New York drive a Dodge Viper. This shows how much those crazy Florida people know. We were on our way and after my shift Aurora took over. I put my coat over my head and fell asleep. I woke up right after we paid out last toll in New York before the border. It cost $12.60. How do those people sleep at night? I can understand a buck fifty here two dollars there but twelve sixty. That’s highway robbery. I told Aurora I would have hit the gas and gone. I was going to be in Canada in thirty minutes anyway we’d a been safe. Anyway, we crossed the border at Niagara Falls and stopped to admire the view and it was amazing. I never knew Niagara Falls was so huge it went on for miles. I couldn’t believe how awesome it was I was really tempted got but a video camera, but I’m a poor college student (no matter where you go to college at some things never change). We then stopped at Denny’s. It was really expensive there, so we left and went across the street to an all you can eat breakfast buffet where we didn’t have to pay fourteen dollars for French toast. After all that we arrived at Aurora’s parent’s house, and I got to meet her family and they were lots of fun and then we found Jaime Riefer and that was really cool. The next day we drove from London to Toronto. So picture this on a Canadian highway: Jaime, Alberta, and I all in one car Aurora was in the car with her mom in front of us. Fun stuff happens in those situations. We drove circles around them. Literally we drove in circles…maybe more of a box. First we passed them, got in front, crossed in to the far right lane, let them pass, and got behind them again. We did it like four times, and each time was just as fun as the first. I want to do it again. So Josh and Jenn need to have another wedding so I can go to Canada and drive circles around Aurora. Tell me when you set the date. Actually I don’t think either of them read my blog. So we finally arrived in Jackson’s Point and I knew we were in the right building fairly quickly because I saw Darren Hailes and I heard Tara laugh. You know that really loud laugh that will scare you if you don’t expect it. I heard that and it made me smile. I saw Rob and I didn’t recognize him at first he’s different. It was strange for me to not recognize someone. Then we had the wedding and that was fun. We met up with Sue…Ann and spent a few days with her in Toronto. WE went to The Hard Rock Café and we saw the CN Tower thing. And we went Toronto 614 service and we saw elephants and we almost went into the hockey hall of fame but time was running short and so was money. So we saw the front entrance. It was good. Then we started our trek home. We made a stop in Montreal where I couldn’t understand a single word the signs said because they were all in French and we stayed with Aurora’s cousin…whose name I can’t remember. We got lost a number of times with her in the car. Then we headed for the states. We decide to take route two through Vermont and New Hampshire and into Maine. Now you’re probably wondering why I’m telling you this. You may be sitting in your chair right now saying, “Travis why are you telling me the road you took that seems pointless”. I’m warning you if you have been driving for a really long time and you want o got to Bangor Maine don’t take route two. It takes you away from toll booths and all that business, but it is so long. I didn’t think that road would ever end I just wanted it to all be over. And it was over at sevenish at night. Most of you probably want this blog to be over as well so I will end now. I give you more details of this tale some other time. There will be another soon.

I can Blog again...finally

2006-03-19T19:49:00.000-05:00

Okay guys I’m seriously bogging this time. I’m sitting down at a computer typing and I’m going to push post when this is all done. I finally have found some time to sit down and blob about stuff that has been happening in the mind and life of Travis. I think I just finished my personal longest stint of not blogging ever. Granted I haven’t even had this blog running for a year yet but almost. Besides being busy with work and going to Jenn and Josh’s wedding and other random stuff I think one of the reasons I haven’t been blogging so much is that I stopped doing my rations for a few weeks. This week and last week I have been on task but managed to push them out of my mind and do my regular life without my daily rations. I know it may sound odd but I really think that my blogging ability usually go hand in hand with my rations. I thought I just had writer’s block for a while. It’s really weird that something that should be automatic by now can still be pushed to the side by other stuff in my life, this should not be. I blame McDonald’s. Please pray that I reestablish that discipline again so that I don’t try to “fit it in” my day, but that it's a constant in my life. My spirit is willing but my body is weak. I hate it when that happens.

Sleep is overrated

2006-02-22T17:29:00.000-05:00

I decide it’s a good time to blog considering it’s been over three weeks. This is a quick note to the two people leaving me a comment telling me to suck it up: It must be nice having a car to ride around in when it’s snowing. Besides I wasn’t even complaining I was just trying to be funny and I think I did an amazingly good job. Of course you two wouldn’t know funny if it side swiped while you were driving IN YOUR CAR!!!

The last few weeks have been interesting. I’ve been watching the Olympics which are always fun, working lots of hours and smelling like lots of grease, and plowing lots of ground and seeing lots of breakthrough. Last Sunday night we had a Teen Group sleepover. Aurora and I had a great idea to do a sleepover at the corps. So we did and it was fun. All of the guys had great dreams of playing Halo 2 until 5:00am and then going home and sleeping but it never happened. No one really mentioned Halo2 the entire night. There were a couple other PS2 games happening but no Halo. Aurora had a few things planned which put Halo out of the guys minds for a few hours but it never resurfaced. I was very surprised. The pudding drop/fight started it. We had two people lay on the ground and someone else stood on a chair and drop pudding into the person’s mouth on the ground. As you can guess it got ridiculously messy and Aurora decided to try to put a little bit f pudding on someone else’s face and then the trouble started. Everyone was fair game. Pudding was on everyone’s hand and they were going for the face. Chris Burr and I were the only ones who escaped but I decide to go to a different place to get away and I got caught…my hair and hoodie may never smell the same again. Then we did hide and seek and Sardine’s in the dark for about three more hours, that was tons of fun. Some games we never grow out of. Every guy talked about drawing on the face of the first person who fell asleep, but they were all talk. No Sharpies appeared at any point in the night. I thought about it a couple times but I figured they would remember and this probably won’t be the last sleepover before I leave. Near the end of the night we had decide to entertain ourselves by watching The Olympic ice dancing competition. Rather than watch it I enjoyed laughing at the costumes. Some of them looked absolutely ridiculous. One girl looked like she had the top part of a cake scraped off and put on her as a dress. It was all flowery and bright like a wedding cake. I guess some things seem funnier at three in the morning. It was all down hill after that. Even though we inhaled an immense amount of soda, chips, ice cream, pudding and other not healthy stuff we consumed, eventually we all fell asleep (even if it was only for a few hours) and woke up to the infamous three minute outgoing message on the Bangor Corps answering machine. Although I was wrecked during my whole six hour shift at McDonalds on Monday I think it was worth it. More sleepovers still to come.

You might live in Maine if...

2006-02-08T13:08:00.000-05:00

I have noticed that there are number of things that I have seen happen here in Bangor that I believe only happen in Maine, and i have decide to tell you about it all. Most of this has to do with winter because I’m still really cold.

You might live in Bangor, Maine if…
…you need to scrape the ice off the inside of your car windows as well as the outside.
…at twelve degrees with three inches of snow everyone says hey this is a mild winter.
…there are seven foot tall snow drifts in every store parking lot.
…your teeth feel cold after being outside for only a few seconds.
…the number of cars on the road doesn’t change when it’s a bright clear day and when there’s a foot of snow on the ground.
…when people talk you here an h sound where there should be an r.
…Canadians travel back north to a warmer climate.
…you find a pale pasty white Floridian.
…part of the daily news segment tells you how the snow on the mountain is for skiers.
…you would rather deal with a hurricane than this weather.

Ba ha ha ha…Jeff Foxworhty ain’t got nothin in me.

Super Bowl Sunday!!!!

2006-02-05T00:32:00.000-05:00

Okay so I was wrong in my Super Bowl score prediction but that’s okay because I was right about the winner and that’s all that matters. First of all Sunday morning was great we had a guest speaker by the name of Rob Bell. Doug pulls this guy out to do the sermon sometimes. He talked about discipleship. In biblical times it was a compliment if some one said to you “may you be covered in the dust of your Rabbi”. A disciple follows every move and does everything the same way his Rabbi does so he can be just as good as or even better than his rabbi. Maybe that’s what Sting is talking about in the song “I’ll be Watching You”…probably not. I wonder how many people watch the way our Spiritual leaders do things. How can we ever try to be as good as (or better than) them if we don’t follow the lead that they give. Almost everyone looks up to some one and if we follow the lead of that person eventually it’s going to end up showing that we’re following Jesus and that is what we need to strive for isn’t it? Aren’t we supposed to try to be like Jesus?

After the Sunday morning worship we went hom and then camp back of the mother of all Sports event…SUPER BOWL XL!!!!! Woo Hoo. I supplied every one with cheez-its and Doug and Deb did the rest. We had a three foot long Subway sandwich, tortilla chips with salsa, cookies, Pepsi and a number of other food stuff we didn’t really didn’t need but we ate anyway because it was there. I swung my terrible towel and I rooted for Pittsburgh, and I laughed at commercials and I laughed at Nick and the comments he made and I had fun. It was cool beans.

Just in case anyone hasn't heard yet
Final Score: Seattle 10
Pittsburgh 21

Super Bowl XL prediction

2006-02-04T08:55:00.001-05:00

Just for the record: this is the first bolg that I out up that thas anything to do wiht football. I think that's a great accomplishment for me. As I've been saying for the past two weeks the Steelers will beat the Seahawks. No it's not a wrod form the Lord I asked him and he told me to guess.

Steelers 31
Seahawks 24

Will & Grace

2006-02-03T13:51:00.000-05:00

It’s been a long time since Sunday, (almost a week) but I am finally blogging about what was said that day by Aurora Borealis (Atell). I would have done this earlier, but I decided to wait a few days rather than blog Sunday night. By Tuesday evening everything was just a faint memory. Luckily for me and all my faithful blog readers (however few they may be) Major Doug Burr is a genius. It’s taking every bit of energy I have not to hit the backspace button. He records every sermon so I listened to it today as a refresher course. Aurora was on the program to deliver a sermon to us and she did very well. It was all about Will& Grace. Before you ask the answer is No (maybe) she doesn’t watch too much TV. Our God id a god of grace not will. When Jonah finally got the idea that he can’t run from God, after being inside a nasty fish for a few days, he went to Nineveh and they repented and God had Grace. When the Israelites attacked Jericho (as God had instructed) there was grace for Rahab and her family because they helped the Israelite spies. She was guilty of Espionage and was spared. So does that mean she was like the first James Bond?? God is not a GO of Will which is stagnant and never changing he doesn’t have keep everything the same and never change. He is a God of Grace and a God of love. Hallelujah.

FIGHT ON!!!!!

2006-01-28T21:53:00.000-05:00

I realize this is long but please read it all.

I just finished watching a movie that I hadn’t watched in a long long long time: “The Never Ending Story”. The Power House Teen Center had a movie night held here at the Bangor Corps. I don’t know how many of you have actually seen it recently or remember it that well, but there is apart of the movie where this mysterious Nothing that is sweeping across Fantasia is described. This part really stood out in my mind because of the way things are described, it made me wonder if it was put this way for a reason. In the movie where Atreyu (the hero of the movie) is confronting this beast that has been coming after him for a good portion of the movie and he asks the beast what he knows about the Nothing that is sweeping across Fantasia? It’s leaving behind…nothing; the land is being destroyed into non-existence. The beast (G’Mork) describes the Nothing as “It's the emptiness that's left. It's like a despair, destroying this world. And I have been trying to help it…people have begun to loose there hope and forget there dreams so the Nothing grows stronger”. He is then asked why and this is his response, “Because people who have no hopes are easy to control; and whoever has control has...the power! I am the servant of the power behind the Nothing. G’Mork basically says he’s a demon serving Satan and helping him bring people into this sense of hopelessness and despair and depression so they can be controlled.

I see it as a message for Christians. We have to be guarding ourselves against this sense of hopelessness that comes after us. It creeps in on us at times when we least expect it and when we’re most vulnerable. If we don’t combat against this feeling it will overtake us and take us out of the fight for Christ and render us ineffective. I have seen this oppression take its toll and work on people here in Bangor. That has got to be one of the saddest thoughts in the world: a Christian who can’t fight because they feel it’s too hard, and it’s pointless to try. Yes, there are times in our lives when sadness comes and grieving is, at times, a very good thing, but we can’t stay in that state. We need to fight and work through stuff that is trying to pull us down so that we can do everything in our power to win the battle’s that are we find in our daily lives that are on our battlefronts. When we fight we know we can have victory because Christ made us more than conquerors. We're on the front lines!!

Ephesians 6:13-18 (NIV) Put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints.

I have a question

2006-01-24T17:35:00.000-05:00

I watched History in the making last night when (that's what the guy on TV said) a different political party took power in Canada's government. All that I got from watching CBC was that Conservatives had a larger number than the Liberals. Aurora was not happy but couldn't really explain to me what was happening either. Is there a Candian that could please clarify exactly what happened? That would be great. I thought a new Prime Minister was being elected, but I didn't hear anything about that at all for the hour and a half that I watched...whatever was happening.

Christmas Party!!!!

2006-01-24T17:29:00.000-05:00

I went to The Salvation Army Family Store Christmas Party this past Sunday. I thought it was odd that they waited until a moth had passed to do the party, but it seemed like Christmas all over again when we opened our presents form our secret Santa’s. Unfortunately for a lot of people a secret doesn’t stay a secret for long around the Family Store. We had a summer type theme so most of the people dressed up in beach type or warm weather type clothes. I put on my Florida gear (swim shorts and a sleeveless shirt) and then my Maine gear (two pairs of jeans, two shirts, one hooded sweatshirt, a hat and a parka) on top of that. We played volleyball for a good hour and a half and never bothered to keep score and we ate and opened our presents and left. I enjoyed it, but it didn’t seem like everyone was enjoying it as much as a regular Christmas party. I couldn’t understand why people weren’t talking and having a great time just spending time together like people normally would. Chris (Burr) was counting the minutes until he could finally get out of there but he’s always like that unless he’s snowboarding paintballing or doing anything that has nothing to do with TSA. Everybody just seemed to be waiting for something to happen and it never did so they all went. Maybe they were hoping for another volleyball game or some other game to play but there was nothing so it seemed like an awkward ending to the party. When we got our presents the party was pretty much over. I know most of you have never been to Bangor, Maine much less the Family store but if any body has any insight let me hear it please.

Thoughts from Jeff

2006-01-23T18:18:00.000-05:00

This is just a quick blog. Here are some thoughts that I got from my roommate(Jeff) (not a Christian…yet) a few days ago. These thoughts stemmed from me being very cold. His words: “This winter has actually been much warmer than what it usually is. I know last night I said it was because of global warming but I don’t think that’s it at all I think it’s something more than just that. I think that it’s a sign of the Apocalypse. Armageddon is just around the corner. If you think about what’s happened recently with ht Tsunami is South East Asia, the thirty straight days of rain in Seattle and unheard of number of hurricanes this year…there’s only one explanation for it. I really think that The November 11th attacks and Hurricane Katrina were all judgment from God. I have been in the WTC and it was just filled with greed and power, and then in New Orleans with all the sexual immorality and gluttony and adultery happening, it’s no wonder that God sent judgment on them. Then there’s the war happening in the Middle East and I know that that the Bible has to say something about that stuff. I really think that the Apocalypse is just around the corner. There have been all these unexplainable things happening in the weather, and I think more will be coming along, but multiple fifty degree days in January in Bangor, Maine are just another sign.” I was stunned that all that had just come from a man who has in no way before shown any interest in talking about God and was also just getting over a hangover.

“He replied, "When evening comes, you say, 'It will be fair weather, for the sky is red,' and in the morning, 'Today it will be stormy, for the sky is red and overcast.' You know how to interpret the appearance of the sky, but you cannot interpret the signs of the times. A wicked and adulterous generation looks for a miraculous sign, but none will be given it except the sign of Jonah." Jesus then left them and went away. Matthew 16:2-4 (NIV)

God is speaking to us and to the people that don’t know him yet Hallelujah!!

LOST

2006-01-12T15:59:00.000-05:00

I just finished watching a show that I got hooked on over the summer: “Lost”. It’s a show about these people who were in a plane crash and are stranded on this remote tropical island and they are realizing there is more than just a random normal deserted island; typical Hollywood plot line. I have been enjoying watching this show but it seems that the further they go into this show the more plot twists they throw in. Pretty soon it’s going to be like a ball of yarn that they unraveled and have it going in so many directions it’s going to seem almost impossible to bring it to an end. This last show they showed one particular man’s secret that really is reminiscent to real life situations. He is a recovering Heroin addict. On this island, that everyone is stranded on, they discovered another plane that crashed a few years ago. It’s a much smaller eightish person plane. As for cargo on this plane they find small statues of the Virgin Mary. In side on these statues is hidden Heroin. This recovering addict is one of the four people that found this plane. He decided to take a statue. He hasn’t used any of the drug, but he has it with him. In this last episode the girlfriend of the recovering addict discovered what was in this statue that he has been carrying with him all this time. His explanation is that he is carrying it with him just to have it not to use it. So he just wants to know it’s there? His intent isn’t to use but to have it? Why would you want to keep something around you if you had no plans for it in a place where it serves no viable purpose? At the end of the show it shows him with another statue that he is hiding in a hole in some rocks with about seven other statues. That really show’s how strong bondage can be. This man is thinking ahead to his future when he gets off the island. He has no plan to continue his recovery. He just wants to go home and get back to doing what he knows best. He’s in a situation that he can’t control, and he is reverting back to something that he knows he can do, something he is comfortable with. I do realize that this situation was from a Hollywood script but there is some truth init. No matter where we go temptation finds a way to get into our life. Whether you’re comfortable in your home or stranded on an island in the middle of no where temptation is there and it needs to be combated. “Therefore, gird your minds for action, keep sober in spirit, and fix your hope on the grace to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ”. 1Peter 1:13

Did anyone else realize that if you take one L out of Hollywood it becomes HOLY WOOD. It’s kind of like my souldiers idea. hmmmm...

A journey complete

2006-01-07T15:10:00.000-05:00

My journey back home (to Bangor) started with my Dad waking me up at 4:15am. Although I may have already been up in a way, sleep walking, because I vaguely remember not being in my bed fifteen minutes earlier. It may have just been a very vivid dream, or it could be the fact that I was waking up at 4:15 in the morning. I think most people would feel strange waking up that early in the morning. I had some doughnuts and orange juice (freshly squeezed) for breakfast and I was off to the airport with my dad, two suitcases, and a guitar. Forty-five minutes later I was at the airport. Then the plane ride, not really a bad ride, only one hour. Then I was at Atlanta International Airport for a very long, long, long, long, long, long, long, time. I had a three hour and 58 minute wait for my next flight. Then my flight was delayed another thirty minutes. I slept for a good hour and a half. I had never slept at an airport before. I wouldn’t suggest anyone trying it at all, for any reason or for any length of time. I was very uncomfortable and I kept waking up checking my watch and my computer bag. I got onto the plane and the captain started to tell us why there was a delay. The plane had some maintenance issues. That’s so comforting. They finally get us on board, shut the door, fire up the engines, and then tell us we are on a plane that had maintenance issues. A very sobering thought. The captain assured us that it was fixed and we would by in the air soon (as long as the duct tape holds). We landed in Portland and as I walked out of the airport I noticed that it was snowing. For a few seconds I wasn’t sure what was happening because I had been in Florida where snow is considered a myth to most people there. It’s only happens in movies, in Alaska and to penguins. Bah ha ha ha ha!!! It took me a few seconds but I got over the shock of seeing snow and Captain Frank Nataluk and his family spent a few hours together eating talking and waiting and just chillin (yes, I just said a TSA officer was chillin). Then came the last leg of my trip, the bus ride (duh duh dunn). Not so bad. I got a chance to watch most of the movie “My Best Friend’s Wedding”. When I took a short break form the movie, I over heard a conversation between two people one seats behind me and across the aisle. So I listened (a.k.a. eaves dropping, though I didn’t have any eaves so I probably wasn’t dropping anything). I think it was the word Christ that caught my attention. I heard the argument that they had for why they thought he was a savior (they did believe he existed) and what there religious beliefs were (some weird Tibetan stuff). As I listened in I had my own arguments running through my mind. My brain automatically went into offensive mode and I could think of truths to prove them wrong. I was having a battle with them in my mind and I had the upper hand. I never actually talked to them but I could put up a strong case for Christ had I been bold enough to speak up. I thought that just popping into the middle of a conversation with apologetics flowing might not be a great idea, but we were on a bus so it’s not like they could get away from me. Sooner or later I’ll get them (and there little dog too). It was after the bus ride I realized that hearing that conversation was an attack of sorts on me and it failed miserably. I just got back from a time of rest and reenergizing and that’s the first attack I get thrown at me by the enemy. I can’t believe that’s the best he can come up with. It was nothing. The battle here in Bangor is going to be a route no contest. The war is on and my battle cry is NO COMPROMISE!!!!

A revolution is brewing in Florida

2006-01-01T22:39:00.000-05:00

Happy New Year everybody!!

I just came back from Camp Keystone. We had a New Year’s weekend Camp Staff Reunion. It was amazing. We had our former DYS Major Willis and Barbara Howell as our main attraction. It was wonderful being with them again. There the type of people that you can’t be around without catching some of the fire that they have and then be compelled to do something. Major Howell has a way with words. When he speaks he gets the points across in a way that can make it sound exciting to anyone. I think he could make watching ugly paint dry sound interesting. Two ideas that he talked about (and actually did with us) were openness and accountability. He wanted to know how we had been since he and his wife had left, but he also asked us how we were as far as our spiritual life was. He wanted to know how we were really doing. It was awesome to hear some of the things that were happening in the lives of some of my friends that I hadn’t seen in about a year. I had real conversations and we talked about real issues that we normally wouldn’t bring up, not because we were afraid too; I just don’t think we ever thought about it before. It was great getting back with friends and actually getting to know more about them when I thought I had already known almost everything there was to know. We also talked about accountability. Something that hadn’t been brought up much before, but was very much needed. I’m really excited about what’s happening in the Florida division. I think God has key people set in place that are going to start making changes to take this division further into the Revolution that has already started. I’m very eager to see what comes out of all of this in the next couple of years. It’s going to be good.

For our New Year celebration we watched fireworks stayed out until two o’clock…maybe three, drank sparkling apple cider and Gabe acted like he was drunk for the rest of the night. It was good stuff.
blog#101

Clelebration!!!

2005-12-29T21:35:00.000-05:00

This is blog number 100!!
This Holiday season seems to be going by very slowly for me…I like it. This Holiday season has not been a total happy occasion for everyone. I just got word this morning that my Grandfather (on my Dad’s side) has passed away. We were told the day before that he was in the final stages of his life and he wouldn’t be around much longer. He had been suffering form Alzheimer’s disease for the past five years and it took his life at six o’clock Thursday morning. My grandmother said he this must have not wanted to wake up at six in the morning anymore since he had been doing that for most his life as a teacher. My family has been taking it well and are all gathering together after the New Year for his Memorial Service. It’s interesting how a family that lives so far apart can come together so easily when we need each other. That’s a true family. I never knew him in his younger years. I only knew him as a retired teacher and a grandfather who loved me. I’m finding out more about the man he was know. I asked my Grandmother if she thought he was up in heaven doing what he loved, teaching. She said although he loved teaching more than any other job he was a natural dancer. And’ he probably swing dancing with Sinatra by now. He’s no longer suffering but he’s as young as ever and probably enjoying himself more than he ever had in this life on Earth and that’s a thought that can bring comfort to anybody. But with his death we also found out that one of my uncles gave his life to Christ this past week. After years of denying he called us up and told us that he had become a Christian and had his life headed in the right direction. The count is one uncle saved and two to go. So there are two reason’s for praising God this Holy Season. Halleluyhwh. Have a Holy and Happy New Year.

Happy Holy Day!!!

2005-12-21T16:50:00.000-05:00

Lately in the news I’ve been hearing a lot of stuff about people wanting to be “politically correct” this Christmas season by saying Happy Holiday rather than Maeery Christmas. They don’t want to offend someone that celebrates Hanukkah or Kwanzaa or doesn’t believe in Christ by saying Merry Christmas. Political correctness (if that’s even a word) is trying to please everyone at once by taking out every thing that even slightly assumes that someone belongs to a specific group. It’s becoming ridiculous. I was thinking about the term Happy Holidays and I have decided that I don’t mind anyone using that term. In Webster’s Dictionary the very first definition of Holiday is Holy Day. So essentially when you say Happy Holiday you’re saying happy Holy Day; a.k.a. Merry Christmas. It’s has the same meaning just in a different form. No matter how it’s said the true meaning of Christmas is going to be revealed. I think that's revelatory.

We bow down and worship him now...

2005-12-18T17:52:00.000-05:00

Philippians 2:10-11 “at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those who are in heaven, and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. This was or focal point of our Christmas Sunday service. Though there’s still some confusion as to whether that Christmas Sunday was Christmas Sunday or if this Christmas Sunday is the real Christmas Sunday…no one really knows. That doesn’t really matter though. What does matter is that we had an really amazing time to just meet with God an bow down acknowledge him as God the Father. It was a chance to focus on him and put our hearts above our heads, which is something that we may not let happen enough during this time of year. Bowing is something that shows more reverence and adoration that just taking a few seconds to say a quick praise the Lord and going about your life. Bowing involves exalting Christ and humbling yourself. It puts your entire body into worship; your whole body says what your lips have been saying all along. Why wait. You’ll have to do it eventually “every knee will bow”. When someone says every knee it doesn’t sound like anyone will get out of it, whether you believe it or not. If you have nothing below your knees then you’re already there 24-7 so you’re a step ahead of the game. Whether you believe it now or not everyone will come to that realization Jesus Christ is Lord of all. Why Wait? When is that last time you bowed humbly before our God?

I'll be home for Christmas...

2005-12-16T16:39:00.000-05:00

Well, I'll be at a home for Christmas. I get to see my parents in Naples, Florida where the weather is always nice. Besides that I get to attend a camp staff reunion at Camp Keystone for News Years Eve. Our old DYS Major Willis and Major Barbara Howell will be our special guests. It’s very exciting. So on my vacation I get to get warm see my family see most of my friends and see part of Detroit, Michigan (the airport part). This is going to be one of the greatest vacations ever conceived.

Release the grease...ewwww

2005-12-15T20:43:00.000-05:00

I put on my greasy shirt with my greasy name tag then my greasy pants and my greasy shoes and tied my greasy shoe laces. I put on two coats and stuffed my greasy hat in my pocket and headed out the door. I arrived at McDonald’s. Tired and still worn out from yesterday. I took of my freezing coat and put on a greasy apron and my greasy hat. I flipped greasy hamburgers and chicken until I thought I might throw up. I thought about using them as Frisbees to lighten up the mood in the restaurant a bit but I don’t think the managers see things the same way I see them. I see fun they see money going down the drain…with grease. I looked through a grease newspaper and saw that the Tampa Bay Lightning aren’t doing as well as I thought they would do. They’ll improve. I feel like I have grease on me constantly until I take a shower it’s so gross. I don’t know how people stay and work there as a career. I couldn’t do it and I won’t. What I will do on the 19th of December is get on a plane form Portland, Maine and head down to Naples, Florida. I get to visit my family and friends for the Holidays and spend some time relaxing and getting reenergized for another round in my boxing match me vs. darkness. I’m winning. I am also extremely tired. I have been for a few days so this vacation should be wonderful. It will also get me out of this single digit weather. I have a new definition for stupid cold. Earlier in the month I said it was stupid cold. That’s when it was only 22 degrees outside. I walked past the Penobscot River today and there was no water moving in it. A huge river is frozen. Ice and snow are the top of it.…That, my friend, is stupid, stupid cold. Maybe I should pray for God the Send The Fire in more ways than one. Ba ha ha ha. I know it wasn’t funny but I tried and thats all that counts.

500,250, 600 minutes...

2005-12-02T12:51:00.000-05:00

You know trust is a funny thing ba ha ha ha. It comes and goes so quickly. Just ask Aurora how it can disappear seemingly over night.
Now, onto a different subject…I was working at McDonalds today. It gives new meaning to the term release the grease. I feel so greasy after my shifts. Almost like a greasy hen (That’s sounds like fun). I’ll just try to convince myself I’ve been deep frying in the Holy Spirit. I got to go to Powerhouse all greased up and ready to go. Anyway the real highlight of my night is that I got to go see RENT. It was an awesome movie. I love this movie. It was amazing. All I knew about it was that it is a musical (I like music) and I knew it was about these people trying to pay (been there done(ing) that) rent…hence the name. I have heard other people say that it’s a play all about AIDS and homosexuality. It most certainly is not. It has so much more that that. It’s about real people in real situations with real problems in a real world who need real help. It shows people living their lives and enjoying it even though there being run out of there homes. It shows people with HIV enjoying every moment of life and not letting this disease control them. It shows a group of people coming together and experiencing authentic community, and working together for one specific goal. They share their problems and try to help each other through them. They play off of each other talents and expect nothing in return they live life and love it. They try hard no to show their weakness and problems but they’re always there. Theses people are around us all day. They’re pretty good at hiding their problems (some better than others) but they do exist and sometimes they can’t escape alone. It’s about faith hope and love and love never fails.

What Brian Wilson is alive???

2005-11-30T21:08:00.000-05:00

Aurora and I just got done watching the lighting of the Christmas tree in Rockefeller Center. They made an announcement before hand that would be performing, these include: The Brian Setzer Orchestra, Rod Stewart, Sheryl Crow and Brian Wilson…I thought Brian Wilson was dead. I distinctly remember someone telling me he dies from a heart attack a number of years ago at like age 48. Apparently he’s not dead, unless he was resurrected to play in New York for the lighting of the Christmas tree; it could happen, but I doubt it. He didn’t really look old either. So it may be a while before he kicks the bucket…I wonder how many more people may be alive that I think are dead…JFK…hmmm? Besides just being confused by a lively Brian Wilson I was very pleased with the songs that were sung. For those of you who haven’t been keeping up with the news there is a huge dispute about the words …one nation under God… in our pledge of Allegiance, copies of the Ten Commandments have been taken out of our court rooms and someone recently tried to get an engraving of “In God We Trust” taken off a Federal Building in Washington D.C. For the past few years people have been trying to keep God in Church and out of everyday life and it’s sickening. It makes me absolutely furious when I hear about someone trying to take God out of something else. Well, at The Lighting of the Christmas tree (remember that’s what this is all about) a few of the songs that were sung included Silent Night, O Little Town of Bethlehem, and Joy to the World. It wasn’t frosty the Snowman or Rudolph the Red nosed Reindeer for a good part of it Christ was kept in the performance. Praise YHWH that neither God nor Christ will ever be taken out of Christmas. Christ’s birth and life always has been, and always should be recognized and celebrated during Christmas.

Moving on up, to the east side...

2005-11-28T20:22:00.000-05:00

Well, moving is true enough. I can never seem to stay in one spot. I don’t have a twitch, but I am moving again. All my life being a salvo’s son I had to move. All through Florida then up to Arkansas and Oklahoma and back to Florida again. Then I go to TWC. I get to room 705 then I need to move to room 406 then after Christmas I head to room 108 then to room 402 and then I head out to Bangor I have the opportunity to stay in one room for more than three months I go back to Vancouver and I’m in room 402 then I need to move down the hall to room 406. Then I move back to Bangor. It never ends. I’m in a house right now and enjoying getting stuff moved in but I need to move to the front apartment because me living there by myself isn’t cost effective. Then in April I will be moving to Charlotte. Maybe I can find some consistency in living arrangements in North Carolina. I now know how the Nomads felt; I wonder how they got used to it. One thing I know for sure is I’m very good at moving know. I can pack up any truck and move furniture through any door. I wonder if that’s a spiritual gift?? Maybe I am destined to live a life of constant changing locations. Hmmm…

Happy Turkey Day

2005-11-24T12:34:00.000-05:00

It’s still snowing!!!!
Okay, I get to blog today. Happy Thanksgiving unless you're Canadian and already had your turkey and stuffing and mashed potatoes and the stuff thats there, but you don't know what it is, but you eat it anyway because it's thanksgiving, and corn and rolls cranberry sauce and pie and more turkey and more pie and...I'm hungry. I’m done.

ITS SNOWING!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2005-11-23T19:32:00.000-05:00

IT’S SNOWING!!!!
Those were the two words I yelled when I opened and quickly slammed shut my front door this morning. It was (and still is snowing). I wanted to stay in my house, but I had to venture out in the snow to get to the Family Store to make a little money. Yesterday it was raining; the temperature dropped about eighty degrees, and the rain changed to snow, lots and lots of snow. So I put in my time at The Family Store and went to my next job. Yes I have another job. I work at McDonalds. It’s not the greatest job in the world, but with this job I can make enough money to pay rent, buy food, tithe, use for ministry purposes, and have a few bucks left over for cheez it’s and ice breakers. My first day is Friday a few prayers would be appreciated. Apparently I wasn’t the only person there who took McDonalds as a last resort job. Two of the other guys said they couldn’t find work anywhere else either. I’m hoping to eventually find another job in the next month or two. I have two prospects that look very promising. Hey does anyone remember my presentation on “on the job ministry”? 614 McDonalds!! Sounds like cool beans. Anyway, I got trained up and a uniform at my orientation, and I go in for my first day on the 25th of November, also known as black Friday, the biggest shopping day of the year. So everyone will be doing there shopping and eating fast food and I’m going to be thrown into training that day. Sounds like fun. I will be trudging through the snow to continue the decimation of hundreds of livers and kidney’s and getting paid for it. That’s exactly what happened to the guy in “Super Size Me”. So the snow is covering the ground now and still falling and I got to get home. I’ll blog again when I’m thawed out, and if I don’t get to you tomorrow, Happy Thanksgiving.

Prayer Power needed

2005-11-15T20:20:00.000-05:00

I just got finished with a very interesting cell. It was a time with all of us getting to know each other. I don’t understand how that one aspect can be so easily overlooked. We’ve been having a cell meet every week for the past three months and we are just now getting to know about each other. I hate that. For the past three months we’ve been together and haven’t been digging into each other lives (in a good way). Aurora and I know each other really well but I realized I know only a few things about Alberta and slightly more about Nicole. Please pray we experience authentic Christian community. I also would like for everyone to pray for a job for me and Aurora. I have been looking and applying but I don’t have any bites. This past Sunday the Corps prayed for the two of us and I figured if I could also get everyone else who reads my blog to pray for favor and a job then the managers would have no choice but to hire me. The power of prayer would compel them to say YOU’RE HIRED!!!!! I’ve also realized that one of my main tasks while I ‘m here is to plow the ground. The soil is very rough here and I believe one of my tasks is to break up that hard ground to be soil that can be worked with. So that the seeds that are planted here will not be snatched away or choked out by this world but that it will grow and be firmly planted with deep roots with just the right conditions. It is very tiring. I have noticed that at the end of the day I always feel very tired especially if there has been a lot of warfare and having worries of a job isn’t helping the situation at all. Please pray that I have more energy (who would think that I would need that) and perseverance. Getting into a rut here is very easy and I can’t always recognize it when I do so also pray that I have eyes to see. I just want to end by saying “It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas…”

Saturday's with friends are always better

2005-11-06T20:36:00.000-05:00

My Saturday was originally going to consist of me spending some time at the Corps watching football and eating Cheez It’s. I know it doesn’t sound exciting but I can watch football all day and not get bored with it and the Cheez It’s can make awesome situations even better. While I was on the last leg of my thirty minute journey I was met by Aurora and Alberta. They we’re on there way to visit me. They asked me if I wanted to go to Starbucks and I couldn’t resist a Satrbucks offer, besides the game I was waiting for didn’t start until 7:30. We spent most of the Afternoon at Starbucks. We had originally gone in to get some coffee and go but we saw a Now Hiring Sign and we couldn’t pass up the opportunity, so all three of us filled out an application (which took an unusually long time). The three of us then headed to the mall. It’s a very bad place to go when you’re low on cash and have debit card, but I practiced self-control (fruit). We took a walk around the mall looking at random neat stuff that we didn’t need much less could afford to have. We then headed off. We decided to make a quick stop at Blockbuster to see if there were any good movies out that we wanted to see, and then went to the Burr’s house (they were gone for the weekend) for dinner. After dinner I was busy checking football scores and eating Cheez It’s while trying to guard them so Aurora and Alberta wouldn’t steal them. Yes they tried to. It says on the box in big letters GET YOU OWN BOX! After they were securely stashed away we watched the movie we rented. I was able to get “Sahara”. An awesome movie about these three people looking for a WWII relic and they stumble onto this plot to destroy the world and the three of them have to save the world before it’s too late. It had all the markings of a great movie and it was. Aurora and Alberta got "Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants”. Yes I watched it. I was less than impressed basically these pants make these four girls have wonderful lives. These pants which amazingly fit all four of them and make all of them look good has some magic to make everyday they wear them an absolutely wonderful day. It was a cool beans day.

Job Hunting Fun Fun Fun

2005-11-04T22:33:00.000-05:00

Shhhh…be vewy vewy quiet I’m hunting jobs hahahahhahaha (add the tremor). but seriously I don't like it at all. I don’t remember job searching being this hard…oh wait…I lied, yes, I remember it being this hard. I do know that in St. Augustine there were a lot more places where I could apply and have a good chance of being hired. Here it’s not so easy. Every store is taking applications but not all of them are hiring. Having a van to use today made it a little easier to get around to all the places. I put in three applications, and I have two that I will be filling out tonight and getting them to the stores tomorrow. Please pray for lots and lots of favor. I really need a job because my rent went up to $400 a month and my money in St. Augustine is dwindling fast. If I can’t pay the money then Chaz can’t pay his bills and has to give the apartment to his mother who would definitely kick me out of the house if I couldn’t pay and if I have no house and no money then I have no ministry. I also need help in one other thing. I have an assignment o find another instance in the Bible where someone was transported to another area (beside Acts). I almost positive it happened somewhere else but I can’t seem to find it. If anyone knows where it is can you please help me out, and if I just imagined it tell me as well. In other news PTB started again today. I had been planning on doing it but other things were getting in the way like apathy and sleep. Please pray that I overcome those obstacles and that they don’t hinder my ministry. Does anybody remember a guy named Jonathan Berkshire? Some people may remember him better by the name Jono. Is he still around? He doesn’t return my E-mails or update his blog whatever happened to that guy? I'm almost positive I miss hearing from him. Blessings to you all in Jesus name.

Deeper Life Weekend

2005-10-30T20:26:00.000-05:00

The Deeper Life weekend with the Gillingham’s was beautiful. It wasn’t an extreme, in your face, cut to the heart, fall on your face, everyone is prophetic time. They spoke on mercy and Social Justice. Something the Salvation Army should be and was created to be well equipped to do. We spent some time with them Saturday morning listening to them teach on the mercy that Jesus portrayed and how he met the needs when he saw them. We took action with the Micah 6:8 commission to “do Justice and love mercy and walk humbly with our God”. We went into the Soup Kitchen that the corps is running and served lunch and ministered to the people that came in. Elaine brought up an interesting point about the soup kitchen, she said, “Everyone always talks about getting people here to the corps and doing something to bring people inside when in fact it’s happening every day in the kitchen. The people are always coming in to the corps and we need to be there to bring the Gospel to them.” It couldn’t be any easier than that. We then of course had a debrief those are always fun and we had some time to pray for each other and listen to what God wants to do in our hearts. What he wants to see change in order for us to have a heart that breaks for the lost and hurting people in our city. To have a heart that wants to see a change. We should want to feel what Christ feels when he sees his children so we can see the need and need and then take action to meet that need.

On Sunday Elaine took the preaching position. She spoke in the covenant that all the soldiers signed when we became Soldiers of The Salvation Army. She asked us to recite some of the standards we agreed to live by when we signed the Covenant. No one could, except the agreement to abstain form alcohol and drugs. There is so much more to our covenant, but it seems most people don't really think about it. We may think that other church members don't know that I'm not living up to my covenant. They shouldn't care; it's not a covenant between you and the other soldiers, or you and the church, it's a covenant between you and God. We've all grown accustomed to thinking that being a christian is easy because we've taken the easy route our whole lives. We think that because The Slavation Army as a whole is doing great things we personally are living up to our covenant. To me it seems if you're not striving and working to live like a covenanted soldier then you may not be living like one. Elaine alsom mentioned that as solider we are in a community it should be our job to fight alongside our commrades and keep each other accountable to living up to our covenant. We live in a community as soldiers, and that community should be living up to covenant that it agreed to rather than just part of it. We are a covenanted community lets live like it.

Back in the day God killed people for breaking a covenant with him.

The prayers are appreciated and needed

2005-10-28T19:25:00.000-04:00

Thank you everyone who prayed for me on Thursday. The interview went very well and I will hopefully be getting a call in the next week for a second interview, as long as the first one went as well as I think it did. I had to take a really odd test after the interview. Part of it was math which makes sense but the other part was a test that was for my personality and common sense I think or maybe to make sure I don’t have any screws loose (ohh man I hope I passed). It asked me questions like “would you describe yourself as an enthusiastic person?” or “Would you say that you are almost never mad?” Then it got a little strange with question like “Would say that lying is the only way to get a head in a job or do you see every job advancement opportunity as a cut throat competition?” Then it just became ridiculous “Are there fifty hours in a day?” Can you read well enough to complete this exam?” There are only eight days in a month” It was really strange. It’s kind of disturbing to know that they need to put questions like that in the test. Anybody who doesn’t know that there are only fourteen days in a month should never be hired for a job.

Halloween is coming and that was our theme at Powerhouse. All of the volunteers and most of the teens dressed up in some sort of costume. All I had was a wig that made me look like I had long hair. I was going for the metal rock star look but everyone else said I looked like a pot head (I break that off in Jesus name). Everyone was really creative with the costumes (except me) there were hippies and gangsters, Cinderella’s and someone dressed as a pizza, another was a leprechaun, and we even had an ATM machine that handed out Monopoly twenty dollar bills. We had a cake and a band perform and at the end of it we got to beat the candy out of a piñata. The Gillinghams and Aurora and Jenn Burr are here right now…well not here with me but they are in Bangor. We get to spend an entire weekend with them and siphon some wisdom form them and get some insight into making a successful MMCCXX outpost. I even get to see Jeremiah (not the bullfrog). Please continue to pray for favor at my job and that I hear the Lord’s leading there.

Hey!! This rain hurts

2005-10-26T18:14:00.000-04:00

I was hanging out at the Bangor corps yesterday (like I am everyday) talking and waiting for a couple other people to get here so we could start our cell (they never showed). It had been raining all day long so I had gotten accustomed to hearing the sound of it. Then the sound changed; it was much louder than before. So I says to myself, “self go to the window and see why this rain sounds like it’s going to break a window.” So I did, it wasn’t rain it was sleet. Ice pellets coming down form the sky. I’m just glad it wasn’t fire and brimstone. I couldn’t believe it we got the remnants of Hurricane Wilma in the form of wind and sleet. It lasted a few hours. Then I woke up in this morning to go to work at the Family Store again (I’m the truck driver) and I started my walk in the rain. It wasn’t so bad because I got used to walking in the rain in Vancouver, then I noticed some of the rain drops were hitting my sweater and sticking and some of them were bouncing off my coat. It was sleet again!!! And it was cold. Luckily it was also rain so the roads didn’t ice up. I still had to drive the truck around in the snow and rain and sleet for about an hour until our truck kicked the bucket. It died, checked out, breathed its last, expired, ceased working, it’s broken. It refused to start. I had some words with the truck but it refused to listen so I had to call the store to get someone to pick me up and cancel the rest of the pick-ups/deliveries for the day. I wasn’t too disappointed it was really cold in that truck anyways but then I had to work on the dock of the store which is even colder, but I didn’t have to deal with the rain/sleet. I think this is going to be a long stupid cold, wet, winter. Hey I might have my first white Christmas, Halloween, Thanksgiving, New Year Day, and Birthday. Apparently it stays cold and snows for quite a long time, so I could have snow on my Birthday in March. Yes I will be here in March. For those of you that I haven’t told yet I’ll be staying here until April and then I go to Charlotte North Carolina. If you want to know why just ask God, he’ll tell you. I also had a flashback to Vancouver today. I was walking down the wet street, because it had just rained, it was cold, and I walked by this tri-city pizza place and I could smekll the pizza outside and it brought me abck to XL pizza on Hastings. The best pizza you could get for a dollar. All I needed werew three people offering me pot or crack and I would have felt right at home.

On a quick side note I have a job interview tomorrow at one o'clock please pray for favor.

Two Sundays of bloggable stuff

2005-10-24T14:38:00.000-04:00

Hello, everyone I’m still alive and kicking (holes in the darkness). I know I haven’t blogged in a long time, but I have a semi good reason for it. Actually it’s not really a good reason at all. I was going to post blog talking about the past two Sunday meetings. I heard an awesome sermon by Major Frank Kirk, and then this last Sunday we had an amazingly powerful service. Both were bloggable. Since Doug records all the services I was going to listen to the sermon from two weeks ago in order to refresh my memory but for some strange reason it wasn’t recorded, and neither was last weeks. So this blog will be stuff entirely from memory, and possibly stuff that never happened but I only think they did. Major Kirk’s speak was titled “What we can Learn form disasters”. Usually you hear a title like this and you might think it’s about Faith, or Relying on God, or praising him when everything seems to be falling apart. All of those are great things to do, but there was a different approach used. The Scripture focused on was Matthew 16:1-12 (this is where the Pharisees and Sadducees demand a miraculous sign from Jesus). The main point (I think) was made in verse three “…you are good at reading the weather signs in the sky, but you can’t read the obvious signs of the times!”(NLT) The Tsunami in South India, September 11, hurricanes, Katrina and Rita, earthquakes in Pakistan, the signs of the times are becoming more and more obvious every day; are we recognizing them?

Just this past Sunday was an extremely powerful service. The Holy Spirit hit this church like a fat kid on a box of Cheez-its. The last song we song during praise and worship was one that I have never heard before but the Holy Spirit used it to speak to a number of people this morning.
Break our hearts O God, break our hearts
For this sin in our lives, break our hearts
Break our hearts O God, break our hearts
For the sin in our land, break our hearts

And we cry out, we need your help
Come and heal our land
And we confess we’ve lived in sin
Please show your power once again

During that song Major Debbie Burr was moved to speak about the love that had grown cold in this corps and how it’s had a lack of sincerity in our lives. One of William Booths most famous phrases was put into action and it worked “Try tears”. A number of the people in this church were drawn to the altar in repentance, and more tears fell. God definitely answered our prayers in the song. He broke some hearts for the sin in our lives and in our land. Everything that was done seemed to be in perfect synchronization. We moved with the Spirit and he moved us. Maybe a little more than we expected but well deserved. After Major Doug Burr spoke about caring for the poor we were left with one of William Booth's quotes ringing in our ears "Do something".

Going once...Going twice...SOLD!!

2005-10-15T21:38:00.000-04:00

This past week everybody around here (but me) has been going nuts trying to pick stuff up and get a van to do this that and the other thing to get the annual (two day long) Fall harvest Auction ready(everybody said this year was a lot easier than it has been it the past). The Bangor corps, every year, gets a bunch of donations from furniture stores and other random places around the city (gift certificates, merchandise, and produce, slightly damaged stuff) to put in the fall Harvest Auction. All the proceeds go to the Bangor Corps Youth program (I think). They sell food and auction off a ton of really awesome stuff to help raise money so the teen group can do…stuff (great scam genius). Couches are sold for $400, entertainment centers are sold for $150, mirrors are sold for $80, it was my very first auction and it was so much fun. I was assigned to help run the items to the auctioneer and then show it off too people while he took the bid and then run it to the people that forked over the most money. When I wasn’t doing that I was helping out in the kitchen. I was on grill duty, but I wasn’t really needed because it seemed like they always had someone to do the job instead of me. They don’t know what they were missing; they never tasted the burgers I grilled up at the 614 bar-b-que. So most of the night I was running items, lifting tables, and doing the stuff no one else could/wanted to do. I still had a blast though. I actually bid on a 48 piece dish set and got it for $23. I now have more than two bowls in my house for cereal and ice cream...if I could afford ice cream. Yes I’m still looking for a job but I recently applied at Radio Shack and I think I got a pretty good chance of getting hired there for the Christmas season. If not then it’s going to be a cold, cold Christmas…well, it will be whether I get a job or not; which is why I also bought a wool blanket for $7 at the auction. I was bidding on a three piece leather couch set but it went past $250 and that’s just to rich for my blood. I actually should have stopped long before that but it was so comfortable I had to make a run at it. So I saved $270 but I still don’t have a couch for my bachelor pad. I will get it stocked up and ready for winter though. So cells can be going on and out and people will be raised up to lead other cells and it will be great place to have a Super Bowl party WOO HOOO!!!

It getting colder quick

2005-10-13T15:57:00.000-04:00

It’s getting colder and I’m still Floridian. I don’t know how I will be able to stand this winter. I was fine in Vancouver. But it never went twenty degrees below zero in Vancouver. It hasn’t gotten that cold yet but I’ve been told that there are weeks when the temperature is twenty below. To me that is stupid, stupid cold. I am again wondering why this place is called Vacation Land. I know there are tons of Lakes and it’s a wonderful place to be in the summer but the warm weather lasts for like four months then the rain and cold comes in. So in the next few months if I have a blog that is just burr, burr, burr, burr, burr, burr I’m not totally enamored with the Burr’s. It’s just ridiculously cold here. I remember swimming in Sebago Lake when I first got here but that was only 52 degrees and I got used to it after a few minutes. Then I remember going to Lynn valley Canyon and jumping off the rocks and that was ridiculously cold although I think I’m the only one who realized it. So I’ve been in really cold situations before. I think this may be more difficult than any spiritual; warfare I’ve ever encountered before in my life…or not. It may just make life here a little more difficult, but I praise God that I have a bed and a roof and a few walls to keep me warm.

Does anyone know if this constitutes as grumbling or complaining. I need to now if I need to repent for this or not. Ba ha ha ha ha.

It's getting there/ we're in his hands

2005-10-10T14:55:00.000-04:00

I've been working at my house for the past few days trying to get things cleaned, sanded, and repainted. It's nasty work but it's coming along. The worst part has been a banister that I' ve been trying to clean for the past two days. It obviously hadn't been cleaned since...well never. It's taken a lot of scrubbing and a lot of chemicals. I've also managed to wear out two sponges on this banister. The layers of dirt and grease and grim on it was absolutley disgusting. I've had to scrape and scrub away at it in orderto get to the real wood. The stuff that I'm suppose to be working with, not all the gunk on top of it. I guess that's just another part of living in scripture. When Christ starts changing our hearts he has to clean away all the junk that's been building up over the years so he can can get to the meat and make a real change rather than just a quick surface change. It takes time and can be annoying but it's always a better result.

Yesterday (Sunday) we had a very interseting service. It started out with some praise and worshipand a normal scripture reading and all that, but rather than having an actual message we went quaker style. Rather than having something planned we all sat and listened for what God wanted us to do in that meeting. It was a stretch for some of the members in the congregation but no one was offended or seemed annoyed or nervous. Of course the nervousness may have been hidden by the ones that didn't speak, but then again the Holy Spirit doesn't always have to speak to every singel person, so we got through it wihtout any problems. I think it was definitley a step away from comfort and a little more towards revelatory sunday service's. Sound's like fun.

One of the words that was spoken to a lot of people was Phill Laeger's song "I'm in His Hands"
I'm(we're) in his hands
I'm (we're) in his hands
Whatever the future holds
I'm (we're) in His hands
The days I cannot see
Have all been planned for me
His way is best you see
I'm (we're) in His hands

It's always good to be reminded that God is in control plaaning out all ofoour steps for us and we will never slip through his fingers. Halleluyahweh.

GOOD NEWS

2005-10-03T17:32:00.000-04:00

Check this out nineteen women were rescued from a brothel in the UK. I think this falls under the setting the captives free category. Halleluyahweh!!!!!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/west_midlands/4296412.stm

Acts5:41 Your Thoughts

2005-10-03T16:52:00.000-04:00

“So they went on their way from the presence of the council rejoicing that they had been considered worthy to suffer shame for his name” Acts 5:41

Peter and John were flogged for preaching the gospel. They were whipped. I’ve never been whipped but it’s not something I want to experience anytime soon. After enduring that they went out rejoicing that they had the privilege of enduring the shame of being flogged. I don’t remember the last time I started to rejoice because I was enduring hardship or I had to do something difficult for Christ. I’ve tried to make experiences fun but I don’t recall ever rejoicing. I really don’t remember ever seeing anyone rejoice after experiencing shame or being embarrassed. These guys did. They were flogged and it was meant to be embarrassing for them but they were happy, they were excited about it. How often do we shrink form an opportunity form fear of embarrassment? We don’t even attempt something because we’re afraid of what other people will think of us when we fail. Peter and John preached the gospel, suffered the consequences, that were supposed to be embarrassing and demeaning, and they rejoiced over it. They didn’t walk away hiding their faces or try to hide the pain. They probably showed their scars not caring what other people thought. Whatever it was that Peter and John had, I want. I want the ability to rejoice when I’m facing adversity or enduring pain. I want to thank God for the hard times in my life. I don’t want to fear what other people think if I screw something up. I want to be able to speak boldly about Christ to someone and not fear whatever questions they might have. Whether it was faith or unending joy or just ridiculousness, I want it. Shouldn’t we all want it though? Lets give the spirit of fear and embarrassment a good kick in the @$$. Suffering shame and enjoying it woo hoo!!!! Sounds like a party.

Hey Steve is this considered a revo devo ???

My apologies...it's all good

2005-09-28T18:16:00.000-04:00

I must apologize if I brought anyone down with in my blog from Monday. I was just experiencing some serious depression that night (which is odd for me). I think it was bit of culture shock from being surrounded by community 24-7 and then all alone in a house. It just got to me a bit, and I needed to vent some feelings and it came out in my blog. I praise God for the prayers though; they’re always welcomed. Since then I have been blessed immensely by everyone here. Doug and Debbie and I have gotten things from the Family Store to furnish the house a bit (well at least my room). I have gotten tons of food to cook and stuff to make my house a home. It’s still being fixed but it’s looking better. That is one thing I love about the Bangor corps: They are blessed with an immense amount of stuff in order to bless others with it. I am one recipient of only some of those blessings. I’m back to my normal consistently happy ridiculous self. I love this place and praise God that I am here.

I sort of reverted back to normal Wednesday adventure of driving the truck for The Family Store. It was fun to be doing that again. I would venture to say that I missed it somewhat. It was really quite easy. Couches, recliners, mattress, and chairs; that is all I had to pick up. That stuff is easy. It’s only difficult and annoying when you have twenty other boxes (sometimes the boxes aren’t even there) of stuff that people want to give to you that they could easily take to the store themselves (or throw it away) and you see that a lot of it is junk that will be thrown away. I still think I should get a John Deere hat and forget to shave that day so I have a five o’clock shadow; then I really look the part. I guess my Piping Hot hat (thanks Xander) will have to do for now.

In other news my bachelor pad is looking very nice. I have my dirty clothes strewn about the room and it looks very good. Actually my clothes (not the dirty ones) are still in my suit case. There is still a good bit of work to be done on the house. We will be ripping out more carpet, painting floors and the walls (I thought I was done painting for a time), destroying a hornets nest (yikes). All that needs to be finished before I can start having guests and cells and all that jazz. It will turn out nicely though. I have one roommate in line to be with me in this house and a couple other possibilities. I have found out from the owner (Charlie) that I'm living in Scripture(those are my words not his). The foundation of this house is a dirt foundation so the floors and doorways are crooked and slanted and angled. It’s actually really funny. We’re trying to fix that now by cementing the basement, but if the rains and floods come I’m out of that house; I know how the story ends. So things, here in Bangor, are truckin along with God wearing the John Deere hat, taking the wheel, never hitting the brakes and shifting gears (yeehaw).

Someone send me an update of how things are going in Vancouver.

Plans are broken again!!!!!

2005-09-26T19:51:00.000-04:00

Has anyone ever felt like a puzzle piece that is trying to be put into the wrong place? That is pretty good at describing how I feel right about now. I was in Vancouver doing great, most things were going great. I was comfortable, happy(which could be why situations changed). Stuff was happening, I was seeing results then Bangor hit me. I took a trip to Seattle with Regan, got on a plane, landed in Portland, got on a bus, and came into Bangor. Everything was planned and ready to go until the circumstances concerning my living arrangements changed and I was homeless. Not really homeless we just had to change plans. The apartment I was going to be staying in didn’t work out, so I am staying in a different apartment that really needs a lot of work. I was planning on helping Charlie (Teen center director) fix up this apartment I wasn’t planning on living in it. The shower is almost as bad as The Empress. Nobody planned on this happening so now I have to buy all this stuff (hopefully I can just scam it all from the Family Store) to furnish this house. I don’t have food provided and everything seems to be going bonkers. I am not having fun, and I don’t like it. I'm really irritable right now because I’m hungry, and it’s raining. So I’m getting out all my frustration on my blog. I’m trying to get things straightened out here and hoping that everything with the living situation works out. If everyone who reads this can pray for me a lot that would be wonderful. Everything seems to be held together by one thread and if it breaks it’s all going to come crashing down on me and I can’t deal with that. I’m having community withdraws and I’m trying to see why God is saying all this is a good thing. God is God and I’m not. He is God I’m the man. His plans work mine fall apart. Pray that I have faith to let god be in control and that I have eyes to see a glimmer of hope…soon. Also pray that I would be working towards God's plans and not my own, and for peace lots and lots of peace. I feel so lost right now.

Leaving on a jet plane...

2005-09-23T14:05:00.000-04:00

I don’t know if I’ll be back again…

I never thought it would be so hard leaving. I knew I would be leaving eventually, but I didn’t think I would be so much a part of a community in two weeks time that I would hate leaving and seriously almost cry over it. I almost never cry. I had to have a long discussion/almost argument with God over this. Seeing Craig cry while he’s giving me a word of encouragement form the Lord didn’t help at all. I see am impact and a memory that I made on these guys and they’ve done the same for me. I know you can never get used to leaving people you love but, someone else may need to do the driving to Seattle and to the airport, ‘cause I don’t think if I’ll want to do it. I was okay with leaving two weeks ago but I have loved this new Holy____ session of TWC that I don’t want to now. I know there is a community in elsewhere waiting for my return, but it doesn’t make leaving any easier. I also know that God has amazing plans for me in Bangor, more wonderful that I could ever have hoped or imagine and I can’t wait to get started on those things and see what the Holy Spirit has in store. See ya later Vancouver (in 2010 if not sooner). Keep fighting the good fight in Jesus name.

No Fear

2005-09-20T08:05:00.000-04:00

Before I start I would like to say this is a milestone blog. Number 75!!!!!! (cheering, clapping, shouts, whistles and few halleluyahweh's)

I just got back from "drill". The time we have set aside for all of the War College students to get together and do something physical. It's usually either Ultimate Frisbee or Soccer. I believe they're thinking about dodge ball when winter really sets in. Running on frozen astro turf probably isn't the safest thing in the world. Ba ha ha ha. I'm usually no to crazy about Soccer, but tonight I really enjoyed it. We played against the ESL (English as a second Language) students. I think they may have just started classes (or were terrible students) because they didn't understand a word I said to them. At the beginning some of us thought we would be run into the ground, because we saw these guys play Saturday morning and they looked really good. We have like three guys, in our session, with us who have (seriously) played Soccer before. We mixed up the teams a bit but it was pretty much 614 vs. ESL. We held our ground every well. We did a three game series. We lost two out of three but the game that one game we won it was a shut out. 614-2 ESL-0. It was beautiful. i never thought I was as good at Soccer as I did. It must have been the Holy Spirit playing for me because I have never done as well as think I did tonight. I knew I could run and keep up with these other guys, but I actually made some awesome picks, passes, and sets. I impressed myself. i think if we had Steohen and Danielle Aaron and all of 614 out there we could take them down. if God id for us who can be against us? Lets do it!! Anyway, I think the jerseys may have been part of the intimidation factor they had, but they were just jerseys bought by the school for them and us to use. They weren't really a team or anything. They were still good but they were no David Beckham's.

It's interesting how un intimidating something can be when you see what's really in the core of a threat. Once all the uniformity and outward surface bulk is stripped away and you see what's really behind it all (just a short Asian guy who can't speak your language) there's nothing to fear. How much more intimidating would we be to the Enemy if we had uniforms and wore them into battle...oh wait we already do. We got the intimidation factor in the fights against the Spiritual forces in this world. Lets use it. Tunic Tuesday!!!!

We are Dead to self

2005-09-18T19:16:00.000-04:00

The last two Holy Terror students arrived Thursday night. So they’re all here and absolutely awesome. I don’t know if the Martyrs session started out like these guys are but this should be so awesome. I’m almost disappointed that I’m not going to be here to see it all. But I know that the plans that are set for me elsewhere will be just as amazing as what’s happening here.

This past Friday we had one our first debriefing sessions which is a new idea that the leaders have started in order to beat the information overload and burnout. This first session was a time for all of us to die to ourselves. Some students this year and last year had to lay down some old identities and old labels we were holding on too. We had a funeral for everyone. Everyone came into a small room and we lay down on a black sheet we were then covered by another black sheet. Then we laid down our old identities of the things that we needed to die to in our lives and declared that we were dead to ourselves. Then it was that declared we were alive in Christ. We rose up and came into our new lives. Jeni gave everyone a new name from Christ. It’s funny when Christ shows you some things you need to lay down; it’s sometimes things that you think are essential to your lifestyle and essential to who you are, but Christ shows you how it can interfere with what he has to put in place of that. From his identity you can gain an even fuller experience with him and cause you to be a more effective tool used for his will and his plans. “but God being rich in mercy, because of his great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our transgression, made us alive together with Christ, and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places, in Christ Jesus, in order that in ages to come he might show us the surpassing riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.” Ephesians 2:4-7. Who are you in Christ Jesus?

Week in review...could have been better

2005-09-03T16:55:00.000-04:00

This past week is definitely a week that I will remember for a long time after it's gone, though I may not want to at times. I did a lot of painting, and it wasn't prophetic art either. It started at The Command Center. I primed and then painted the doors, frames and window frames all white...not the most exciting color in the world. That was easy. Then we moved on to the Balmoral Hotel blahhhh. I don't think I could stay a year in a hotel that stinks as bad as that place does. The Empress only stank when our neighbors were getting high (which is why our hotel is also known as the Hempress). The occurrences of that has decreased quite a bit since we have been there. There were three rooms in the Balmoral we needed to paint and when we did that we also changed the smell form rotten cheese and old socks too, paint and old socks...It was an improvement. We also ended up painting the carpet as well but I think it looked better when we finally finished. The hotel managers were planning on changing the carpet for us anyway. Well, I don't know if they were planning on it, but after we asked them, they agreed to change it for us.

After that we had to start cleaning the rooms at The Shaldon Hotel. This hotel is actually a nice slum hotel. Every room has it's own bathroom and shower and there are community kitchens. I don't think TWC students will be doing much cooking, but the kitchens are there. It's more than what the Empress has. The rooms we got were really nice except for one room. This must have been a storage room for the hotel over the years. It was filled with junk. No mattress, a few chairs, clothes everywhere. I don't think anyone was ever planning on cleaning it up they were just waiting to rent the room out to some one and have them clean it out. We had that privilege of doing this Jesus job. All we could really do was bag the clothes and take them and the other stuff worth saving to the basement and throw everything else in the dumpster. Among the clothes I found a crack pipe and a box of used needles. Needless to say the manger was not impressed but oddly enough very surprised. Anyway, that took a few days and I tried to have as much fun as possible but between sneezing and being disgusted by almost everything in the room fun was very scarce. On top of all that we had problems with credit cards, War Van insurance, getting a van towed( shhhh don't tell anyone), and some of the few Martyrs left were sick, but we persevered and made it through the week without having any stressing our selves out to the point of burnout.

After every improvements we've made in these rooms I can't help but wonder if we're making it a little too much to help out the next session. It's not supposed to be easy for anyone. This is the War college not the Tea Party College. That's just a random thought I had.

614 vs the couch

2005-09-01T17:20:00.000-04:00

I never knew a couch could be such a beast. I have moved plenty of furniture in my lifetime but this couch was the first piece of furniture that I spent over an hour moving. It's not that it was ridiculously heavy; it was just a really fat couch. I don't mean just large I mean this couch needs to lay off the twinkies for a few...years. The large love seat was difficult but we were better and smarter, but this couch out up a fight. Aaron, Rachel, and I were able to maneuver it down the hall (that was a challenge by it self). Then came the doorway. If we had two more inches in width it could have been a walk in the park (then again if the couch was one more inch wider it would still be stuck halfway out the door). We twisted, turned, pulled pushed, lifted, and bent this couch every way possible. It wasn't moving. When we originally got it in The command Center we had to put an enormous hole in the wall to make some extra room. The hole was patched up three days earlier, we didn't want it to be a waste of time and a blessing. Finally we sent Robin on a mission to get some tools. The butter knife wasn't working for us. So armed with a hammer and a flat head screw driver we were able to knock the door off it's hinges, get our extra three inches, and slide the couch right on through. It was like we gave the door some ex-lax and it passed a couch...ewwwww. Anyway, it was a walk in the park...on Hastings Street after that. As we carried the couch to it's new home I mentioned to Aaron that in another city seeing this would be really strange, but the people here have seen stranger things, so we fit in...almost. We actually had a guy walk along side of us and give us tips to make it easier to carry. No furniture will ever defeat me!!!! 614 wins!!!!

Then there was seven...

2005-08-25T17:32:00.000-04:00

I just back from a two day unintentional vacation in Seattle. I would love to say it was all part of a genius plan that Jeni, Sue Ann, Linsay, and I invented, but it was all part of a mistake that turned into a blessing...which makes it all the more impressive, I would suppose.

We headed out to Seattle to send off Jeni and Sue Ann the next morning. We were staying at Agnus and Ross Hailes home for the night. We had planned to wake up at 4:00am and so they could catch there planes which left at 6:15 and 6:05. We woke up at 6:00. So we did an emergency evac. from the Hailes residence and headed to the airport in an attempt to...I don't really know if we thought they would then make the flight but we were definetly in a rush to get there. So we arrived in record time of twenty-five minutes (it usuallay takes more than thirty minutes), parked the car, and started walking to the check-in desks, praying for favor the whole way. Jeni was able to get a stand by ticket for the next flight which left in forty-five minutes. Halleluyahweh!!! Sue Ann was not as fortunate though. The next few flights were already over booked by twelve and twenty people (why an airline would do that I still haven't figured out). So rather than waiting at the airport for possibly an entire day she got a ticket to be booked on the flight that left at the same time the next day. We called Agnus to let her know of our perdicament and she said she was more than happy to let us stay another night. So we said good-bye to Jeni and hugged and cried (not me...I don't cry) and watched Jeni run off into the sunset..uh...security check. The rest of us stayed another day in Seattle doing a bunch of nothing. We helped out with the dishes and a puzzle and some laundry but other than that we did a lot of lounging. We broke a mental sweat (well I did) by playing a game of Scrabble but that was as active as we got. We weren't really lazy we just didn't know what we could do for free or really cheap. So we woke up the next morning at 4:00 (I voted for sleeping late agian, but Sue Ann was not a fan of the idea), took Sue Ann to the airport, said good-bye, and drove back to Vancouver. I realzed during that trip that the War Van gets really good MPG. The number here is slowly dwindling (we have the perfect seven left) as the Martyrs are heading off to our appointed assignments and taking some time off before The Holy Terror arrives. I am very excited to see what the Holy Spirit will be doing with this session, I almsot can't wait, though I won't see much since I will be heading to my own appointed place. I know I will probably be having just as much break through there as they are here. It's excititng. Fun Fun Fun!!! I think I'll end this blog with a Quote from Richard Collier's "William Booth The General Next To God" "Make your will, pack your box, kiss your girl, be ready in a week." Sounds good to me.