Christmas is Special

My sister Kelsey said something in her most recent blog post about doing everythign special on Christmas.
I was thinking somethign similar. I think it is great that Christmas is so special, but maybe we should take away some of the "specialness" and make it a simple day of focusing on Jesus.
Either way, I think we should also work to make other days special. Why wait for one day to do the things we enjoy, to love the people we love, to eat the food we crave.
Well, "all things in moderation."
but the loving people part is definitely something I think everybody should do more of, and I certainly know that's true for me.
that kind of relates to my thoughts about gift giving. I think gift giving should be done throughout the year based upon actually realizing a need somebody has and giving to fulfill that need rather than at the end of every year buying random things because we feel like we should.
For example, I got socks for Christmas from my parents, and they're great. I need socks. I seem to wear through socks pretty quickly even though I dont wear them often. I enjoy the gifts I got. I didn't get a bunch of nonsense, but I got a few things that are meaningful to me.
If we really pay attention to the people in our lives, we would know what they want and need. If they aren't important enough for us to pay attention to, why would we spend money on something that they probably want to take back? If it truly is the thought that counts, maybe we should be more thoughtful.
All of this stuff definitely goes for me too and most of it is just whatever comes to mind as I am writing, but I think I need to pay more attention to the people I care about in my life. The hard part of this is deciding who to care about and reminding myself of those people, because there are so many people and i can't do something for everybody. anyway, maybe I need to come up with some kind of care system, but something that doesn't make in an obligation.
well, I guess I need to think more about this but right now I need to sleep.
Praise God and goodnight.

Changes

Just so you all know, I made some changes to my blog. You probably noticed. If not, think about it.
God loves you either way.

Structure?

I generally tend to have a negative view of structure. I don't like to have thigns i have to do. However, at other times I realize structure makes some things easier. For example, I decided to kind of chill this break rather than go on some kind of service trip.

I find alot of joy in doing service trips though, traveling with people, serving people, learning and growing in that way.
I know there are many things I could do to serve here and things I need to get done and other stuff, but without the structure it is sometimes difficult to motivate myself to do things. So, maybe i need to be more motivated so I can avoid structure or I need to learn to embrace structure.

Or maybe I need to be able to thrive in either situation. Well, God is helping me with self-discipline and motivation, but I think it will be a long process.
I'm not too worried. I don't really know where my life is headed, but as long as God's in charge it will be pretty good.

Speaking of God, I am reading through the Bible, doing one of the year plans. I started it in October, so it's not as if I am almost done. I am actually in Joshua. good name. but what I was going to talk about is from Dueteronomy.

I dont know if I spelled that right.

Anyway, I was reading about the blessings God would pour out on Israel if they obeyed him and the curses if they didn't and it was pretty intense, a couple of the curses causing good men to eat their babies, and being infected with every single disease.

It really made me think about the fear of the Lord. I think I forget about that often. It was a good reminder.

But then I watched a movie called Joshua which is about Jesus (with the name Joshua which comes from the same name as Jesus) coming back to earth in human form and showing how he would be. It is an interesting movie, but one thing I didn't like about it was at one point the Jesus figure seemed to say we shouldn't fear God because God loves us all.

I guess as long as i can remember I have thought we should recognize God's love but also fear him. I don't know if I have ever completely comprehended the fear part. well, actually, I don't think I ever could fully comprehend any part of God.

Then I was talking to Kassie about it, and just how God can do what he wants and she brought up a story of the earth opening up and swallowing a family, which I don't really remember so I can't give details but it reminded me of Ananias and Saphirra (sp) who were each smited by God in the New Testament.

anyway, those are just some recent thoughts. God is powerful. I am glad he is good.

International Students, Missions, and Multiculturalism

The title of this blog comes from a conversation I am currently having with my sister Kelsey. She asked me about my internship with His House next semester, and I think those are some of the things I will be involved in. I am not sure exactly what I will be doing....

Commerical Break...Hey have you heard of Christmas? Do you like to buy lots of presents for people? Well, maybe Jesus has a different idea. Checkout http://adventconspiracy.org/ for more information.

I mainly did that because I was talking about the title which had to do with my life but wasn't really how I originally planned on starting the post and it reminded me of a TV show when they do a little intro thing and then go into commercials before starting the actual show. Anyway, it turned out good because that Christmas thing has been on my mind and I think it is good to think about.

I haven't written in a while. That's the way I was going to start this post, and thinking about it now, I realize it is better I didn't because that is just really boring and I have probably started posts like that before.

I would say it is because I have been busy with finals and everything but it is probably more because I have been spending time with Kassie. Speaking of finals, though. I am done with the semester!. I just have one more semester to go, and it should be interesting: internship with His House, two family studies classes, hi-lo aerobics class, singing class, finishing up senior research project.

This weekend I am going home to see my brother Joe and sister Kirstin and parents and possibly other family such as Jason Gaffke, Willie Campanelli, etc. And to do laundry which I haven't done in about 2 months, my record so far.

Well, I can write more later but that's enough for now.

Turkey, China, and Snowmen

This has been quite a weekend and the weekend has hardly even started. Well, the break from school started on wednesday afternoon, but I think the weekend is probably always just at the end of the week.
On Wednesday evening, after telling my mom about ten different times I would be at the cottage, we made it there just in time for a 7 o'clock dinner. In fact, my sister Amy pulled in right behind us and even called me on the way to let me know she was behind me and I was driving too slowly.
We had some good lasagna and other stuff Wednesday night. The Black Hole, as I think Ou decided to call Dave for his ability to ingest large amounts of food which then disappears, finished off the food as we sat at the table and conversed about China, CLEP tests, and crazy family, among other things.
The next day, Thanksgiving, was a fun filled day beginning with a breakfast of eggs and sausage and toast (toast nobody ate). Following breakfast, Ou, Kassie and I decided to go for a walk around the lake to the peninsula, the park, the basketball court and back. Ou decided as we were walking on a path through some trees that we were in a horror film and somebody was waiting to attack us, so I fought them off with snowballs. At the campground he decided he would not like to stay in one of the cabins there alone. We made our way to the basketball "playground" as Ou calls it. When I made a snow angel he didn't think the head was big enough and so sat on it to make it bigger.
As we returned from our walk my family was raking snow (there might have been some leaves in there somewhere). So we joined in. After a while, Mom decided to start making a snowman. I joined in. We raked some more leaves and snow and then we all stopped raking and made snowmen and had a snowball fight. It was quite fun. One of the snowmen became more like a totem pole with about 5 snowballs or something. We had a hard time agreeing to a truce in the snowball fight to get a picture with the snowmen before the tall one came crashing down.
We spent the rest of the day eating, playing games, talking, watching movies. We played a card game called hand and foot and realized Kassie is afraid of feet. Literally she used to hate feet but not as much anymore. In the game, though,there is a set of cards called the foot that you are supposed to play with after you get rid of your hand (or first set of cards) and Kassie never made it to her foot. Fun times. She did better at the next card game, which we call Bid. She was winning for quite a while but ended up in second place with Dave and I trying to sabotage her.
I forgot to mention our crazy game of Aggravation in the afternoon in which Dave and Kassie were supposed to be partners. Dave started out not exactly playing as if Kassie were his partner. As the game progressed, though, they came together to win.
Today Dave took my car to work in the morning and Ou went with him back to MP. Kassie and I stayed until later and came back with the fam.
Now, I am home (at the Men's House) alone. A strange feeling for several reasons: I live with 8 other guys, so it isn't often that none are here. Also, I just spent a couple days with three friends and three family members.
Now Dave is here. Bye. I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving. The rest of you weekend should be swell, too.

One man's trash is another man's treasure

Tonight we cleaned our house. While cleaning, I noticed that somebody had put a jaw harp in the trash so I took it out of the trash because it is a musical instrument.
Speaking of which...I didnt really mean to go into this story but it came up. I went to Kassie's house on Sunday with her to pick up her laundry and spend some time with her parents and then grandparents who live down the road. When we went to her grandparents's house, her grandma started showing me a couple instruments, I think because she heard I am into music. She has a beautiful old accordian. I am not much of an accordian expert but this one looked pretty sweet and she got it from a friend for $75 or something. I got to try it out, which was fun. Then she let me try out the organ she is trying to get rid of. That was fun too. I am not great at piano, but it was still cool. Anyway, I basically like to try out any musical instrument I can.
Back to the jaw harp. I carried it with me with the goal of learning how to play it after devos (we didn't really have devos so much because we just cleaned the house mostly). So then I went over to the women's house to visit Kassie and she was upstairs. So before she came down I used the computer to look up how to play a jaw harp, and I think I am getting pretty good.
Maybe I will start playing at church soon. Probably not so much, but it's fun nonetheless.
I need to work on a project and then sleep. Goodnight.

greasy hair

I'm sure you all want to know that my hair is pretty greasy right now. It happens quite often since me taking a shower doesn't happen really often.
That's not really what this post is about, though. I just want to tell you about today. It wasn't anythign fantastic but good enough to write about.
1. Woke up and went to work. did work for the first little bit. had about 15 customers all day. I crocheted a hat at work. I also finished the book Jesus Wants to Save Christians (something like that) by Rob Bell. I played some guitar, read the Bible and did some homework type of stuff also. fairly productive work day.
2. Came home and ate and jammed with Matt Martin, Chris Cadogan, Tim Novak. talked to Aaron Klenke for a while...good talk about God and life.
3. Hot dogs. For those who don't know, we give out free hot dogs and sometimes, such as tonight, free hot chocolate at our house on Saturday nights. tonight was the last Hot Dogs night of the season due to the weather and such. we also usually have lightening going on during hot dogs. tonight I ended up playing about 3 hours of lightening, from 10 when hot dogs started until about 1 after we ran out of hot dogs. It was a good night and I met some sweet people. A few might be coming over for dinner in the near future.
Well, that's about it. I am pretty exhausted. I am about to go to sleep. church tomorrow. sweet. adios.