Here’s a really neat story that I would’ve posted yesterday, but, we were so busy living it that I didn’t have time to post.
Okay, go back a couple years. My family has been doing outreach ministries a local apartments since Brandon was a little guy. The first place we did it at was Oakbrook (right across the street from Riverwalk).
There was a boy (I only say boy because he was a boy when we first met him. He‘s probably like 17 now..) named Jaycob that came most of the time. He got into trouble every once in a while, but overall he was a pretty good kid.
As the years went by, he got a special place in our hearts that only a few of the apartment kids have gotten. Like most of the kids that have come to our various ministries, he moved away and we hardly ever see him.
Now, fast forward to yesterday morning.
My mom got an e-mail from Mrs. Connie, a lady from our outreach team, that said that she had been at the hospital and ran into Jaycob. Apparently he had been in a pretty bad car wreck, but he was fine (considering he had been in a car wreck), but, his best friend Mike, was in critical condition.
Fast forward a few hours. It’s around eleven A.M. we have people coming over for dinner the house is a wreck, and to top it all off, I find a fish-hook stuck in Lana’s kitty’s paw. Baaaad day. After trying and failing to remove the hook, my mom decided to take the cat to the vet.
When she got to the vet, they told her it would be about half an hour. So, she decided to take Jeremiah and Josiah out to eat while they waited. They were going to walk wherever they went and boys wanted to go to McD’s but mom didn’t want to cross the street with them so they went to Long John Silvers (which we hardly ever go to) instead.
While they were there, Jaycob’s step mom comes in. eventually, my mom gathers the courage to go over and talk to her (at this point she wasn‘t *positive* that it was her, she‘d only met her once - about 4 or 5 years ago).
She finds out that, yes, it was his step mom, and she told her that all of us from the “Church at Oakbrook”, which no longer even exists, were praying for them.
I just thought it was kinda cool that God used a little cat with a hook in its paw to get mom to go to a restaurant that she wouldn’t have gone to, so she could minister to the mom (that we don’t really even know) of a boy that we met at Oakbrook Church, all those years ago.
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
Saturday, January 26, 2008
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
Lana
Lana told me that I needed to post, so, I’m going to post about her (not quite what you expected, is it Lana?).
It was a dark and stormy night when Lana entered this world. Was it her that made the world stormy? Or was it the world's dislike of her that caused this dreadfulness? No one will ever know, because none of the nurses or doctors ever lived to tell the tale….
That wasn’t very nice at all. I’m sorry, I won’t do it again.
Let’s see, she was born April 29th 1988, while my dad was in the Army, stationed in Landstuhl, Germany.
I wasn’t born for another four years so I don’t really know what she was like when she was little. *But*, I do know that when she was around three years old, she got hit in the head with a garden rake. She’s pretty lucky that she’s not mentally disabled, because the prongs of the rake went through her skull. My parents took her to the hospital and she ended up getting her head shaved and cut open, so the doctor could clean the dirt out of her brain. Once her hair started to grow back, she had a pretty nice mullet. I have to wonder how smart she’d be if that hadn’t happened… :p.
When she was little, she would tell mom and dad, “You're not my real parents, my real parents live in New York city”. I don’t think they appreciated that very much.
I think I’m gonna skip ahead about ten years to the not so distant past. A few years ago, she went on a nine-week trip to Puerto Rico, to help out at a Christian school. I think that’s also right after she started “Call to Battle”.
The summer before last, she went on another trip to Bogota, Columbia, to teach an English class.
More recently, five months ago today to be exact, Luke came over and asked if she would…. court him? Be courted? I don’t know what to call it, but she's bein’ courted.
This Christmas, Luke came over once again and gave her a ring.
Now, she’s leaving me and starting a new life and I get to go over to their apartment and not spill popcorn on Luke’s carpet and watch LOTR.
Now, just because I can, I’m going to list 5 things that we have in common.
#1, we both love to read.
#2, we both like to sing.
#3, we both enjoy doing outreach ministries at Riverwalk.
#4, we think most of the same thoughts. Which can get kind of freaky sometimes.
#5, most importantly, we both love Jesus with all of our hearts. She kinda loves Luke too
Now, I’m going to *not* list 5 things that we don’t have in common because, well, I'm just not going to.
Something that’s sorta funny is, she never wants to drive anywhere late at night because she doesn’t want to be gone when Luke calls (my parents don't think its safe for her to talk on the phone and drive at the same time....)
I could keep writing, things are coming to my brain but I don’t think she would like me to type some of them.
So, I’ll tell you about her in 7 words.
She loves God and she loves Luke.
There, I did it Lana, I wrote a new post. You happy now?
It was a dark and stormy night when Lana entered this world. Was it her that made the world stormy? Or was it the world's dislike of her that caused this dreadfulness? No one will ever know, because none of the nurses or doctors ever lived to tell the tale….
That wasn’t very nice at all. I’m sorry, I won’t do it again.
Let’s see, she was born April 29th 1988, while my dad was in the Army, stationed in Landstuhl, Germany.
I wasn’t born for another four years so I don’t really know what she was like when she was little. *But*, I do know that when she was around three years old, she got hit in the head with a garden rake. She’s pretty lucky that she’s not mentally disabled, because the prongs of the rake went through her skull. My parents took her to the hospital and she ended up getting her head shaved and cut open, so the doctor could clean the dirt out of her brain. Once her hair started to grow back, she had a pretty nice mullet. I have to wonder how smart she’d be if that hadn’t happened… :p.
When she was little, she would tell mom and dad, “You're not my real parents, my real parents live in New York city”. I don’t think they appreciated that very much.
I think I’m gonna skip ahead about ten years to the not so distant past. A few years ago, she went on a nine-week trip to Puerto Rico, to help out at a Christian school. I think that’s also right after she started “Call to Battle”.
The summer before last, she went on another trip to Bogota, Columbia, to teach an English class.
More recently, five months ago today to be exact, Luke came over and asked if she would…. court him? Be courted? I don’t know what to call it, but she's bein’ courted.
This Christmas, Luke came over once again and gave her a ring.
Now, she’s leaving me and starting a new life and I get to go over to their apartment and not spill popcorn on Luke’s carpet and watch LOTR.
Now, just because I can, I’m going to list 5 things that we have in common.
#1, we both love to read.
#2, we both like to sing.
#3, we both enjoy doing outreach ministries at Riverwalk.
#4, we think most of the same thoughts. Which can get kind of freaky sometimes.
#5, most importantly, we both love Jesus with all of our hearts. She kinda loves Luke too
Now, I’m going to *not* list 5 things that we don’t have in common because, well, I'm just not going to.
Something that’s sorta funny is, she never wants to drive anywhere late at night because she doesn’t want to be gone when Luke calls (my parents don't think its safe for her to talk on the phone and drive at the same time....)
I could keep writing, things are coming to my brain but I don’t think she would like me to type some of them.
So, I’ll tell you about her in 7 words.
She loves God and she loves Luke.
There, I did it Lana, I wrote a new post. You happy now?
Saturday, January 19, 2008
Why do I even bother using titles? They never have anything to do with what I write
It’s been awhile since I posted a “normal, this is how life is” post. So here goes nothing.
Sunday was… um.. church and that’s pretty much it.
Monday was chemistry, and I understood all of the lesson! Whoohoo!! snaps for Tony .
Tuesday, I don’t think we did much of anything other than school and whatnot.
Wednesday, I can’t remember what we did, I don’t think it was anything unusual.
Thursday was Riverwalk church which went pretty well except for when the kids got a little… distracted during the lesson. But other than that it went pretty well.
Sometime during the week, my parents decided to do a bread making demonstration at our church on Friday night.
Well, Friday morning, I find out that my dad wants me to bring my unicycle to church because somebody’s sons were coming and he thought they’d think it was pretty cool.
Ha ha, that’s funny dad, I haven’t really ridden my unicycle in over two years. But no harm was done, I didn’t hurt myself or even embarrass myself at all. It was kind of frustrating not being able to ride as well as I used to but it was fun anyways.
Today, we just cleaned the house and put plastic on the windows ’cause, IT’S FREEZING OUTSIDE!!! I don’t think that the people that built our house had ever heard of a special thing called, “insulation”.
Jeremiah, Lana, and Lily-pie are all sick and it looks like Brandon is getting sick too.
I *really* hope I don’t get sick because I don’t have time to be an “invalid” again.
Right now we’re in the middle of watching “National Treasure” for the thousandth time.
T.J.’s coming over after church tomorrow. It’ll be nice to see him again. I haven’t seen him in almost a week. He’s gone longer without seeing us but it’s kind of different when he ”goes home” after coming over.
I guess I’ll get used to it after a while but I’ll still miss him.
Ooooh! I almost forgot, my mom started a blog this week. Go check it out sometime, I have a link to it on my sidebar. Actually, I'll put a link right here http://pursuingjoy.blogspot.com/
BTW It’s like four months and four days till Luke’s going to be my brother-in-law.
That’s gonna be… different.
For whatever reason I can’t wait till “Fan the Flame” 2008. I’m going to try to get my youth pastor to take our youth group to it this year…. I think I’m done now.
Sunday was… um.. church and that’s pretty much it.
Monday was chemistry, and I understood all of the lesson! Whoohoo!! snaps for Tony .
Tuesday, I don’t think we did much of anything other than school and whatnot.
Wednesday, I can’t remember what we did, I don’t think it was anything unusual.
Thursday was Riverwalk church which went pretty well except for when the kids got a little… distracted during the lesson. But other than that it went pretty well.
Sometime during the week, my parents decided to do a bread making demonstration at our church on Friday night.
Well, Friday morning, I find out that my dad wants me to bring my unicycle to church because somebody’s sons were coming and he thought they’d think it was pretty cool.
Ha ha, that’s funny dad, I haven’t really ridden my unicycle in over two years. But no harm was done, I didn’t hurt myself or even embarrass myself at all. It was kind of frustrating not being able to ride as well as I used to but it was fun anyways.
Today, we just cleaned the house and put plastic on the windows ’cause, IT’S FREEZING OUTSIDE!!! I don’t think that the people that built our house had ever heard of a special thing called, “insulation”.
Jeremiah, Lana, and Lily-pie are all sick and it looks like Brandon is getting sick too.
I *really* hope I don’t get sick because I don’t have time to be an “invalid” again.
Right now we’re in the middle of watching “National Treasure” for the thousandth time.
T.J.’s coming over after church tomorrow. It’ll be nice to see him again. I haven’t seen him in almost a week. He’s gone longer without seeing us but it’s kind of different when he ”goes home” after coming over.
I guess I’ll get used to it after a while but I’ll still miss him.
Ooooh! I almost forgot, my mom started a blog this week. Go check it out sometime, I have a link to it on my sidebar. Actually, I'll put a link right here http://pursuingjoy.blogspot.com/
BTW It’s like four months and four days till Luke’s going to be my brother-in-law.
That’s gonna be… different.
For whatever reason I can’t wait till “Fan the Flame” 2008. I’m going to try to get my youth pastor to take our youth group to it this year…. I think I’m done now.
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
The Post I Wasn't Gonna Write.
Here I am, writing a post I didn’t intend to ever write, I don’t feel qualified to write,
and would prefer not to write. But, I'm writing it anyways, because for some reason, I feel like it’s what I was supposed to write; it’s what God wanted me to write.
Quite a bit lately, Lana and Luke have been writing about love, romance ect. Don’t get me wrong, I think love is great; after all, there’s a whole book in the Bible about love. Well, if love is so great, shouldn’t we all dive headfirst into it?
Years ago, my parents decided that none of us kids should date. It’s never made me upset because at the time that they told us, I was too young to care, and as I got older, it was easy for me to see how awful the dating cycle really is.
My parents told me that each time you have a relationship with someone, you give them a piece of your heart that you can never get back. In this day and age, not dating is a thing unheard of. Some people, if asked, would probably say that if you don’t date, you’ll never get married.
I’m sure there are also people that wonder how you’ll ever meet that “special someone” if you
don’t date (Luke and Lana are solid proof against that one :^).
I remember one of my relatives was bragging one time that he had, like five girlfriends in one semester. Once again, I was too young to care. But looking back, I can see that not only did he have five girlfriends, he lost pieces of his heart five times. People want to give their whole heart to their spouse, not just the crumbled remains of it.
One thing about not dating (or having dating-type relationships) is you can honestly say “there was never anyone else”. There’s no pressure from worrying that you might see an old boyfriend/girlfriend. Obviously, this has never happened to me, but it seems like it would be really awkward.
So what’s the alternative to dating? It’s called “courtship”. One of the best things about courtship is that the parents are involved every step of the way, ready to help and encourage you whenever you need it. When my parents first decided against dating, they didn’t even know what the alternative was called, much less how courtship was supposed to work. Years later, they found a book “When God Writes Your Love Story” by Eric and Leslie Ludy that helped encourage them that it could be done .
Through this book, the Ludys share how they came to realize that dating isn’t the way to go. They share how they overcame obstacles and ridiculing to stay pure. And of course, they
share their love story. I would encourage all of you to read this book if you haven’t already. It’s more proof that you can get married without ever dating.
One more thing that kind of goes along with this is another piece of wisdom my parents gave me (it’s mostly for the guys but it won’t hurt for girls to read it). This is what it is - start saving now! I don’t mean save for a x-box360; I mean save for a house. I’ve got a head start over lots of people since I started saving when I was about ten. Jeremiah and Josiah are going to grow up their whole lives saving. Saving for a house, saving for their futures, and saving their hearts for one person and one person only.
So to answer the question at the beginning, no we shouldn't just dive straight into love.
What should we do then? Well it says in the Bible, "do not arouse or awaken love until it so desires". We should save our hearts until the proper time comes.
and would prefer not to write. But, I'm writing it anyways, because for some reason, I feel like it’s what I was supposed to write; it’s what God wanted me to write.
Quite a bit lately, Lana and Luke have been writing about love, romance ect. Don’t get me wrong, I think love is great; after all, there’s a whole book in the Bible about love. Well, if love is so great, shouldn’t we all dive headfirst into it?
Years ago, my parents decided that none of us kids should date. It’s never made me upset because at the time that they told us, I was too young to care, and as I got older, it was easy for me to see how awful the dating cycle really is.
My parents told me that each time you have a relationship with someone, you give them a piece of your heart that you can never get back. In this day and age, not dating is a thing unheard of. Some people, if asked, would probably say that if you don’t date, you’ll never get married.
I’m sure there are also people that wonder how you’ll ever meet that “special someone” if you
don’t date (Luke and Lana are solid proof against that one :^).
I remember one of my relatives was bragging one time that he had, like five girlfriends in one semester. Once again, I was too young to care. But looking back, I can see that not only did he have five girlfriends, he lost pieces of his heart five times. People want to give their whole heart to their spouse, not just the crumbled remains of it.
One thing about not dating (or having dating-type relationships) is you can honestly say “there was never anyone else”. There’s no pressure from worrying that you might see an old boyfriend/girlfriend. Obviously, this has never happened to me, but it seems like it would be really awkward.
So what’s the alternative to dating? It’s called “courtship”. One of the best things about courtship is that the parents are involved every step of the way, ready to help and encourage you whenever you need it. When my parents first decided against dating, they didn’t even know what the alternative was called, much less how courtship was supposed to work. Years later, they found a book “When God Writes Your Love Story” by Eric and Leslie Ludy that helped encourage them that it could be done .
Through this book, the Ludys share how they came to realize that dating isn’t the way to go. They share how they overcame obstacles and ridiculing to stay pure. And of course, they
share their love story. I would encourage all of you to read this book if you haven’t already. It’s more proof that you can get married without ever dating.
One more thing that kind of goes along with this is another piece of wisdom my parents gave me (it’s mostly for the guys but it won’t hurt for girls to read it). This is what it is - start saving now! I don’t mean save for a x-box360; I mean save for a house. I’ve got a head start over lots of people since I started saving when I was about ten. Jeremiah and Josiah are going to grow up their whole lives saving. Saving for a house, saving for their futures, and saving their hearts for one person and one person only.
So to answer the question at the beginning, no we shouldn't just dive straight into love.
What should we do then? Well it says in the Bible, "do not arouse or awaken love until it so desires". We should save our hearts until the proper time comes.
Tuesday, January 8, 2008
I Invented Aluminum Foil!!
This blog is titled “The Adventures of Sir Tony the Clever”. Well, yesterday in chemistry class, I didn’t feel so clever. We were learning (or attempting to learn) about the different orbitals that atoms have, and learning how to tell what protons went where and all that jazz. Quite frankly, I didn’t get it. Neither did Caleb M., when that happens, you know your group is sunk. Caleb came up to me at the game last night and asked “did you understand what we learned in class today?”; nope, not the orbital stuff.
*but*, that wasn’t all we did in class. For weeks Mr. Herb has talked about this murder mystery that we were going to have to solve. Well, this week we got the Mystery! 18 pages with clues hidden inside. I’ve figured out *how* the man (“Butch Harnik”) was murdered; just don’t know why. Oh well, I’ll figure out sometime.
Anyways, after class and coming home and doing school and all that, Luke came by our house to have dinner and take to us the Patriot b-ball game! I haven’t been to a Patriot game since the game after I finished playing over a year ago. It was a good game; Patriots won both games that I saw (I think they won the first game too, but I wasn‘t there). It was lots of fun.
Earlier today I was listening to “Third Day” or “Skillet” while I was doing my math; and my mom didn’t understand how I could stand that when I was doing school. She suggested I listen to something “lightly classical, with just instruments”, so I turned on a “Cross Movement” song (Cross Movement is a Christian rap group) . HA HA, very funny. Mom that she could feel stress deep inside her chest. That’s when I decided to use headphones ; )
Not much else has happened lately ‘cept T.J. moved out Sunday. And I found out that if you put a plastic case on your cell phone and keep it in your pocket all day it’ll overheat and freeze up, that’s kind of ironic.
Saturday, January 5, 2008
While I'm Driving You Crazy, Should I Stop At The Mall?
Well, this week has been kind of interesting.
We had the Hilds over for new years. They came early Monday and left after dinner on Tuesday, not near long enough for friends that you see twice a year. But while they were here we had time to do plenty of stuff.
After they had been at our house for a while, I realized that Uncle Scott hadn’t seen my drivers permit, so I showed it to him, and he said I needed to go show it to my cousin Brittany (we’re not really related, but our parents have been friends since before we were born, so we might as well be related), ‘cause she didn’t have hers yet.
So I go show her and somehow my Aunt Jackie finds out and says that since I could drive, I could take her to the store (in her Pontiac grand prix:).
Well, it takes us a while to get ready and when we start to head out, we realize that there are six people going (one of which happened to be my “wonderful” future brother in law), her car only seats five.
So, instead of driving her sports car, I got to drive our minivan, *fun*.
Well, let’s just say that Luke has some issues as a passenger….
I *did* get to drive Aunt Jackie’s car on a trip to the store eventually. Let’s just say, Aunt Jackie, your car is pretty zippy.
Us older kids (T.J., Lana, Brittany, Brandon and I) went to A-Z to shop for... something; I really have no idea why we went. After that we had dinner and then they (the Hilds) left.
Later that night some of us went to NBC When we came back, I got some of the worst news possible at the time.
T.J. IS MOVING OUT :( I knew it was gonna happen eventually, just didn’t think it was gonna be this soon. So on top of Lana getting married and leaving, T.J. is moving out. He went over to look at a place last night and went back this morning to pay his first months rent. I think he’s moving in today and tomorrow. Tonight will probably be his last night in our house. :(
I realized the other day, that in a few months, I will be the oldest of the kids at home.
It’s gonna be pretty tough with all the changes about to take place. But at least I have Jesus to lean on when it gets tough. That’s more than some people have.
We had the Hilds over for new years. They came early Monday and left after dinner on Tuesday, not near long enough for friends that you see twice a year. But while they were here we had time to do plenty of stuff.
After they had been at our house for a while, I realized that Uncle Scott hadn’t seen my drivers permit, so I showed it to him, and he said I needed to go show it to my cousin Brittany (we’re not really related, but our parents have been friends since before we were born, so we might as well be related), ‘cause she didn’t have hers yet.
So I go show her and somehow my Aunt Jackie finds out and says that since I could drive, I could take her to the store (in her Pontiac grand prix:).
Well, it takes us a while to get ready and when we start to head out, we realize that there are six people going (one of which happened to be my “wonderful” future brother in law), her car only seats five.
So, instead of driving her sports car, I got to drive our minivan, *fun*.
Well, let’s just say that Luke has some issues as a passenger….
I *did* get to drive Aunt Jackie’s car on a trip to the store eventually. Let’s just say, Aunt Jackie, your car is pretty zippy.
Us older kids (T.J., Lana, Brittany, Brandon and I) went to A-Z to shop for... something; I really have no idea why we went. After that we had dinner and then they (the Hilds) left.
Later that night some of us went to NBC When we came back, I got some of the worst news possible at the time.
T.J. IS MOVING OUT :( I knew it was gonna happen eventually, just didn’t think it was gonna be this soon. So on top of Lana getting married and leaving, T.J. is moving out. He went over to look at a place last night and went back this morning to pay his first months rent. I think he’s moving in today and tomorrow. Tonight will probably be his last night in our house. :(
I realized the other day, that in a few months, I will be the oldest of the kids at home.
It’s gonna be pretty tough with all the changes about to take place. But at least I have Jesus to lean on when it gets tough. That’s more than some people have.
Tuesday, January 1, 2008
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