new news
I’m pretty sure this will come as a surprise to most, if not all five of my readers. As I mentioned in my last entry, I’m going to Brenham this summer. I may or may not have mentioned that I have zero plans for what the days after Brenham hold. Well through a series of “random” emails and phone calls I’ve been presented with an opportunity to go serve as a youth worker at an international church in Cairo, Egypt. The church is called Maadi Community Church and I would serve there from August until May. I would, of course, have to raise a whole lot of money while in Brenham ($6,000 to be exact). So basically right now I’m at the point where I pray about what I’m supposed to do. I know that if the Lord wants me to go, He will provide the funds and I’ll be on the second international mission trip of my life. I’m praying for some serious clarity and discernment for these next two weeks, by which time I’m supposed to have made a decision. This is an open invitation for you guys to pray too! Isn’t that exciting? I know how much Christians love to pray! (tongue in cheek). At any rate, that’s my situation, crazy as it may be.
tha’s straight gutta’
As many of you know, and as perhaps more of you do not know, I’m going to work in Brenham this summer. I’ll be doing inner-city mission work there for ten weeks. For those of you who think “Brenham” and “inner-city” do not belong in the same sentence, allow me to relieve you of your ignorance: 10% of Brenham’s residents live in government subsidised housing; a number that was at one point the highest percentage in the state. That said, I am obviously going to have to hone my ebonics skills before heading out there. Some of my current youth group kids grew up in the hood, and they help me stay up on various street terms. One of my new favorites is “tha’s straight gutta” or “that’s straight gutter.” The latter is there for the Supercinski’s. Anyway, the afore mentioned statement is simply another way of saying, “that’s cool!” or “that’s wonderful,” whichever you might normally find yourself saying. If I think about it I’ll keep you guys updated on my new words I learn throughout the summer, but I’ll be honest, I probably won’t think about it. Something I also won’t be thinking about is the new gutter that some mystery man installed right above our front porch this morning… it is without a doubt the shortest gutter I have ever seen. Straight gutta.
free time
Remember that previous post where I saw Billy Graham and his homeboys? Well after that ceremony was over, I had about 2 hours of free time before a meeting that I decided to spend on campus. And, seeing that I already had my camera, I went ahead and took some sunset campus pictures. Before I took the picture shown above I went ahead and stood atop the MSC (shh…) and took a pretty decent panoramic shot of main campus. I wasn’t entirely pleased with it however, so another trip to the mystery spot is probably in store. After the MSC shooting I rode over to the beloved clock tower just in time for the sunset, and what you see above is what I saw in real life. I’m real thankful for things like sunsets, and things like cameras. Amen? Amen.
Bush, Graham, Osteen and Oliver
On Monday, April 10th I was pretty blessed to be in the same room as all the religious greats of our time: Rev. Billy Graham, the Holy Ghost, Michael W. Smith, Joel Osteen, and President George Bush Sr. Ok, so Joel isn’t one of the greats, nor was a really even excited to be in the same room as him. Why was I able to be in the presence of these legends you ask? Well Bush 41 decided to give his “Excellence in Public Service” award to ol’ Billy. It was pretty surreal seeing those two men standing on the stage in front (way in front) of me. I mean, they’ve seen so many things in their lives, and played very, very important roles in many major events in history. It was pretty touching hearing what Bush had to say about Billy; he even got a little choked up. I think it’s tight when you admire or love somebody so much you get choked up like that. Especially when the person getting choked up used to be the most powerful man on the planet. So that was my cool story from Monday.
About the photo: Billy is standing at the podium, and in the background (which you’ll be able to see much better if you click on the picture) from left to right is: George Bush, Barb Bush, David Carr (Houston Texan’s QB), Steve Case (former CEO of AOL), and Michael W. Smith (international rock icon…).
save the trees!
I would consider myself a sort of pseudo-conservationist, a false-environmentalist, if you will. You see, I deeply sympathize with those who hold strong concerns for our over consumption of our environment. The reason I feel it necessary to tack on the “pseudo” prefix to my title is that I just don’t carry out my convictions too strongly in this area. Sure, there are small things I do, like reuse the same lunch bag all through college (and a similar one during high school), but I just don’t know how much of an impact that is making. And yes, I keep those cover sheets from print offs at the computer labs as scratch paper (and not without persecution from some of those closest to me I might add), but I only print off so many documents. I even utilize the two-sided feature when printing class notes. These are small efforts on my behalf to preserve our environment, but I bet I haven’t even saved a small tree yet. This is the kind of thing I battle with constantly, and it truly is a wonder that I get any sleep at all with such weighty things on my plate.
book review vol. three: Velvet Elvis
I know it’s hard to believe, but face it kids: I’ve actually read three entire books in the past month. Those of you who know what a poor reader I am are still re-reading the first sentence of this blog in disbelief, and will continue to do so until they get tired and close their web browser. So, the Velvet Elvis review will be for the rest of you. I read this book because it came highly recommended from a person whose opinions I respect. It was written by Rob Bell who is the pastor of Mars Hill Bible Church over there in Michigan. The subtitle of the book is “Repainting Christian Faith” and I think the best way to describe it would be to compare it to the writings of Don Miller. Bell says plenty of things in this book that I don’t agree with, but he also says things that are really good. One of my favorites is his discussion on the fact that just because we label something as “Christian” doesn’t mean that it is true; and just because something lacks the “Christian” label doesn’t mean it is not true. So that’s that. Not a bad book, but certainly not my favorite. Go read Irresistible Revolution. It’s way better.
note: I’m sorry that my blog has recently become a boring book review blog. I’ll get to work on that…