favorite stram camp quote

she was asking for her 5'3" youth leader back home in phoenix, az.

two weeks notice

typical chick flick but with some very funny parts. i'm not exactly sure how this ended up on my netflix rental queue but it came so i watched it.

IMHO.

friday5: travels

1. What's the last place you traveled to, outside your own home state/country? san diego/vista/oceanside, ca to work at a youth camp. read about it.
2. What's the most bizarre/unusual thing that's ever happened to you while traveling? part of my group was caught shoplifting at the fort knox of grocery stores in france. they *thought* they had removed the security devices from the cd's. they were wrong. the security folks at the grocery store took them back in a little room. unfortunately, they let them go.
3. If you could take off to anywhere, money and time being no object, where would you go? the great barrier reef
4. Do you prefer traveling by plane, train or car? it depends on how far and what's in between to see. never done the train thing before though.
5. What's the next place on your list to visit? the next place i have on my calendar to visit is gatlinburg, tn for my honeymoon.

power from blood

now i really could light up a room.

no draws

3. running out of clean draws on a rainy day.

of course this really only sucks for those people who don't have a washer and dryer in their house or apartment, like myself, and have to walk out in the rain. daggum.

california wrap-up

thursday night God did cool stuff. after the sound system went kaput and mike decided it would be just easier to yell, the kids focused in on what he had to say. i think the fact that there was no sound system actually helped. it forced them to really listen instead of just sit and hear and pick up the high points. 3 students accepted Christ, 12 surrendered to a call to missions or ministry (more on that later) and 15 others made some other kind of decision. cool.

i got the chance to talk with the ones that surrendered to a call to missions or ministry. most had no idea what God wants to do with them. and that's ok. my call and calling came basically in one fail swoop, so luckily there was a former international missionary whose call and calling came 12 years apart that helped encourage those that didn't know quite what to do yet. it was really cool to see those who just knew God wanted to use them..and now they're waiting to see for what.

friday was the camp-wide trip to sea world. the plan was to be there from open to close, which means 10 am - 11 pm. that's a long time. there's lots to see at sea world but that makes for a long day. i ended up staying most of that time and spent most of the day with mike, kandace and melinda. we had alot of fun. especially when melynda had a huge gullible moment and was worried that the "dad" that fell in the tank and was being flipped around by the whale was going to get eaten. turns out the "dad" was a sea world trainer and very good actor. good stuff.

melinda also has a small hangup about the real shamu not even being alive anymore even though the park continues to name their whales shamu. she still wanted a stuffed "shamu" and when we ended up at the carnival section of sea world i made a deal with her that if she paid for me to play one of the games with her that i'd give her the shamu if i won it. she refused. things got heated and so i told her i'd play her in the game and i'd pay and if i won the shamu i'd keep it. i won it. i knew the race was over as soon as my first ball went in the blue circle, the one worth the most points. of course i rubbed my victory in melynda's face, maybe a little too much, and strutted around the park with my prize. however, when i got back to camp that night, before the girls, i left it on melynda's bed. (awwweee... yeah i'm a nice guy)

saturday was spent cleaning up, packing up and saying bye. mike gave the kids an ending challenge and then we headed out. mike took me down to san diego to spend the night before my flight out sunday morning. we got to see mission beach, which is the stereotypical southern california beachfront with boardwalk and all, and the mission bay area. i'd definitely like to go back to san diego sometime and see more of the sights and get some scuba diving in.

this trip was great for me. it gave me a chance to really think through and verbalize what doing missions has meant to my life. it was also great to be able to spend some time with another usc2'er and make some new summer missionary friends. now if i can talk them into letting me go back next year...