Ok... Maybe I'll Do a Post

Well,

It has been a crazy busy week (as usual). And of course, I sit here and I'm not exactly sure what to say. I know I built this up as maybe some huge monumental post (it may be) but, I don't know. Well, it all started when I got back from camp. I left camp and immediately drove up to school (meaning my new house that I'm currently living in). Got there around 1 or 2 am, slept and woke up to pack for a Minnesota Boundary Waters canoeing/hiking trip. Did that which was a blast (almost chopped my thumb off) and then got back and jumped right into Cru stuff which turned out to be rough. Yes it was orientation week so I didn't NEED to do anything but of course, I signed myself up to do some events for freshman (oops, i mean first years.... politics...). All I wanted was to first actually move in and not live out of my suitcase and sleeping bag in my own house and more importantly take some time to reflect on my summer (which still has yet to happen). So, relaxing quickly turned into laziness which prevented me from reflection and establishing good friendships with first years in the dorms. This continued throughout mmmm the first 6 weeks of school. Life turned into being centered around sleep rather than God (BIG mistake). I got thrown back into some depression because well, I was just not enjoying life. My grades were slacking, I didn't want to spend any time reading or studying and all I wanted to do was "escape" life through TV and sleep. No doubt I was "happy" and somewhat "content" but obviously, that did not last. Finally, being sick and tired of my laziness and lack of motivation I prayed. I prayed that God would lead me, give me the strength to go throughout my day (all of my classes are in the morning!!! ahh, I'm most awake past midnight!). I prayed that he would pull me out of this "reoccurring cycle of suck" where I would be up late due to laziness in the afternoon, be tired in the morning for class, not pay attention, and then get home and sleep and thus the cycle of suck. My life is not my own. I'm here to live my life and give all the glory to God. Being a slacker is not God glorifying. I'm currently reading through Luke and yesterday I read chapter 4 which depicts Jesus in the desert fasting for 40 days. He is approached by Satan who tempts him to fail, to turn away from the Father, to sin. Jesus prevails and stands strong under the strength and knowledge of God. I'm still struggling with my laziness, lack of effort in school and especially in my prayer life. But it is time to stand up, have faith and live a life for God. What a growing experience.

On another note, I'm going to a new church up here. It started out as a house church with only a couple families attending. It is so great! It feels like home (Fair Oaks Church) because I actually interact with the older members of the church (which is the whole reason of church, to fellowship with the WHOLE body of Christ, Cru is not the WHOLE body). It is reformed theology, which I'm still trying to figure out MY views which is rough where all the guys in the house find that doctrine true. Its really easy to nod your head in agreement. Again, we come back to my laziness and low motivation to actually seek it out deeply. We'll see.

I'm reading two books at the moment (other than my textbooks, one of which I enjoy reading, American History, aren't I in the right major now?). Don't Waste Your Life by John Piper and Why We're Not Emergent (By Two Guys That Should Be) by Kevin DeYoung and Ted Kluck. It is ironic that I've been reading DWYL all summer? I'm almost done though, not too much left then it's on to Miracles by C.S. Lewis or one of Andrew Schwab's books (Project 86 frontman) which should be in the mail!

Also, I calculated all of my classes for the rest of my college years and drumroll please............. I'm going to be here for a full 5 years! I think I have the major with the most credits (my minor is over 30!) but all in the name of teaching kids! SUPER SENIOR!!! And those are actually pretty full semesters averaging 14-15 credits. Crazy, I know. But I enjoy college for the most part. Its so amazing up here at Tech. Hard to put to words...

Another thing I'm hashing out is how to spend my upcoming summer. Do I work at camp again? Try to find some kind of teacher related job? Work down in VA doing tiling? Stay up here and find a job? Do Summer Project? So many directions... I would LOVE to work at camp again, I think thats choice number one unless the Lord leads me elsewhere. Summer Project I've heard is pretty sweet. It would be nice to be down with the folks down in the homeland too. And I've heard summer up here is truly FANTASTIC... Or, I could do something not on my list. Oh man.

I think that I've spat enough thoughts down, I hope you actually understand them cause sometimes I sure don't. Feel free to ask questions and maybe I'll do this more often, no promises though. Although, this took a shorter amount of time then I thought it would. Oh well...

If you learned anything please take this away, How are you living your life? What is its purpose? Ponder that, take care,

Devin

I'm Still Here Cont.

So,

I apologize for not keeping up with this whole blogging thing. I actually want to write a lot of stuff but, I either don't have the time or I choose to do something else... But, a lot has been going on recently and it's just not cool to not* let you in on it. Hopefully I'll have more to write in the next week (this weekend is going to be nuts with retreats, family and school) and I need to study for an exam tomorrow. It shouldn't be too bad, it's American History which is a sweet class but I need to further my understanding of some things. So, be prepared for hopefully a blog of massive proportions. Until then, take care and look for God even in the hard times (hint hint),

Devin

I'm Still Here Pt. 1

Hey everybody,

Wow... It has been a long while since my last post. I don't even know where to begin... Maybe where I left off I guess.

As you all know, or maybe you didn't, I worked as a camp counselor this summer at Camp Barakel in Fairview, MI. I worked from May 26th through August 15th with 2 weeks off in between. It was the most productive summer so far. I was never the kid that worked a full-time summer job and it was totally different and amazing to give my summer to God.

Well with all that time spent at camp I mist have learned something right? You betcha! One thing that I learned about is love. No, not a girlfriend (Bachelor to the Rapture...... for now) but the true love that God demonstrates. I also learned a lot about relying on God for strength, guidance, and my life direction in general. Shoot, I think I learned so much, I just can't think of it all, still need to meditate on it and glean from it.

Something else that God revealed to me has to do with the direction I'm heading in. I'm no longer a Mechanical Engineer, just a Social Science major with intention on Secondary Education. This summer, after one evening chapel God laid it on my heart that I need to have a career focused around ministry. The speaker, who is a missionary in China as a school teacher, was talking about missions. Later that evening I talked with him about it and was looking for some guidance and encouragement. He said that I should definitely pray about being a missionary, if that is what God wants me to do. I should definitely consider finishing school first and getting a degree as most orgs require a college degree. This has been on my mind ever since. Since God hasn't revealed my direction yet to me, I'm really trying to figure out what to do. Whether it be missions work, youth ministry, school teacher or something else, I know that I need to be a witness for Christ. These next years are going to be amazing.

Now that I'm back at school, I kind of got off to a rough start. I'm glad that I'm at least recognizing it but I'm not exactly handling it the best. I was a bit "burnt out" after the summer and I was pretty lazy orientation week and didn't hang out with freshman as much as I planned. And still, my attitude towards school needs improve. I'm definitely better than last semester but still, it's pretty bad. Still putting things off until last minute, not reading my textbooks (its rough when every class demands soo much reading, hooray social sciences, although still better than calc), and I'm still just plain out slacking. If only I put the effort into my schoolwork that I do for Cru, I'd be such a great student.

Cru is going pretty well so far. I'm currently emceeing our weekly meetings, helping out a bit in our bible study (might branch off and lead one if it gets too big), and I'm leading/co-leading our service team. Definitely more involved than last year.

But, I need to stop here for now. Need to do some reading for class. Hopefully I'll finish before the weekend. Thanks for reading and talk to ya later.

Devin

Camp Update #2

Hey Y'all!

Well, I'm currently on my first week off but it wasn't exactly planned. Last week was my 4th week at camp and I was on the West Side of camp which means that I had 3-6 graders. Not exactly my favorite age group but I lived through it. The thing with the younger guys is that they do not listen. Period. I had to repeat myself at least 5 times to get these guys to do whatever I told them. Now, it's not just the "Do this, don't do that" kind of stuff but serious "I NEED you guys to do this". Gets on my nerves... Anywho, it was a really rough week. I had 8 kids total, 2 pairs of brothers, 2 kids that were friends, a cute little 3rd grader that was really chill and then lets call him Bob. Bob was a very interesting kid. Very talkative, the opposite of shy, had ADHD, couldn't eat a lot of what camp was serving and he was my little terror. Bob was very physical starting from DAY 1! He was throwing shoes, whipping towels, yelling, screaming, the whole works. Now, I would talk to Bob and he would realize that he did wrong, apologized and settled down. 5 minutes later, he'd be doing the same exact thing! AHHHHHHHH! Thursday comes around, Bob has talked to some of the staff, lost some privileges and now he's settling down and getting along with the group. Well, Thursday is our cookout in the forest night, so I take Bob with me to get the food so no more fights break out in my cabin while I'm gone. I needed to run back to the room to grab something and then pick up our food. So I grab another kid so Bob can get ready. Bad choice... I come back with my food, ready to throw my shoes on and get going and enjoy an evening in the woods with my boys and I'm greeted by them exclaiming "Bob's spitting up blood!" Great.... there goes our cookout... I run outback and sure enough he's over the bench spitting up some blood. To set up the story, my kids were going NUTS when I left. Almost literally bouncing off the walls. Bob came back from free time with 4 sodas in hand and shared with the whole group.... So, they were playing a game called Free from Prison where some of them would sit in the stalls (prison cells) and bust the doors open, run out the prison (bathroom) and avoid getting shot by all the guards and running to freedom. Well, one of my guys runs out and head-butts Bob right in the mouth, thus causing him to bite both lips and thus spit up blood. I was pretty mad to say the least. But wait! There's more! I finally get all my guys walking out to camp and we get there and I tell my guys to grab some sticks so I can start our fire. Of course, they find all wet sticks and I take 30 minutes to start a good fire to roast our hot dogs. Hooray pine smoke. But wait, there's even more! I get back from our miserable cookout (atleast for me, my guys had fun acting like cavemen) and I take Bob with me to clean up our stuff from the camp out so more blood won't be shed back in the room. I come back and the counselor next to me forgot to pick up snack for his guys so I'm left watching his guys and mine for about 5 minutes. I'm in the other room for about 30 seconds and I hear this " WAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!" coming from my room. Great....... here we go again. Bob comes out of the shower, grabs a towel and whips another kid right on the lips. 

This was all within 2 1/2 hours of time. 

As you can read, my week was pretty rough. How on earth am I supposed to love these kids when they make me so upset. Well, I learned my third week that kids can bring me from wanting me to pound them into the ground, to bringing me to tears because they want to know how to become a christian. During that week, I almost always wanted to pound some of my kids in the ground. After that night, a staff guy took my guys to chapel and gave me 20 min. to get ready and get my head back in the game. I was thinking. These are God's kids, he sent them to me for the week. They are God's children. I needed to love these kids because he does. Even though I turn my back to God, or do some pretty stupid things that probably puts God in the position I was in with my guys. I needed to love these kids. That night, I had to get on my knees and pray " God, MAKE me love my guys." 

I think I now know why we are called the Children of God. 

So, I sit here in my Jeep in downtown Harbor Springs with people walking by and looking at me because I'm a bit out of place. I did take the week off because I was sick and I was not ready to counsel. It was really a tough decision but I did not want to get more sick and I was not going to be an energetic awesome counselor. I do look forward to the rest of the summer and it's going to be sad when it's over. The atmosphere at camp is truly amazing, it is really where God has blessed.

Not too sure when the next post will be but thanks for your prayers!

Camp Update

Hey guys,

I only have a few moments to write but I thought I'd just let y'all know that I'm alive and doing great! Camp has been AWESOME! I just finished my second week of campers and I still have 8 more weeks to go, with one week off for a break. I'm pumped though. Being at camp has really helped me to focus more on God and help me pour out to others. I know that when I get back to school this fall, its going to be so easy to share Christ with my fellow students. But right now, I'm focused on my kids to come. Thats all for now, be praying for me and I'll try to update more as time goes on. 

Devo

The Time Has Come

So here it is. Time for me to man up and take on the challenges that kids will bring me. Sure, it's going to be rewarding and all but I'm scared. I have 2 major fears. One is that I'm going to sleep in and miss stuff and the other is not giving my all to my future campers and they will come out of the week not having much fun. I know that I have my fun moments but I'm not sure that I can dish out ultimate fun-ness 24-7.

The more and more that I try to do it on my own, I fail. How many times does it take me to realize that I can't do it all on my own, I need to rely on the big man upstairs. At this moment in my life, I feel like I need some sort of goal to reach within the next few years, mainly pertaining to my college career. Honestly, I have no clue what to study for. As a kid I always wanted to be in the military doing special ops stuff or a fighter pilot. Then it moved onto an auto technician, turning wrenches my whole life. And then the idea of Engineering seemed so great, the hands on wrenching turning stuff plus some math. Well, it turned out to be more math than hands on. So thats what I started with and after one semester I felt like I was a fish in the wrong tank. I evaluated my strengths and came out with maybe some sort of teacher or something. Bam, social sciences. And that is where I currently stand, taking all social science courses in the fall. But honestly, I am totally lost. What am I going to do with a Social science degree? Yes, I'm looking at education but I'm still unsure of that. And if social sciences doesn't work, right now, I don't know what I'd do. 

I know you're thinking, Devin, what about youth ministry stuff? I'm thinking the same thing. I don't especially feel called to be a pastor but I do feel like I need to have some anchor in some sort of youth ministry field. Maybe God is just using this to make me more dependent on him, I'm not surprised because I've been praying for him to use me in some way. But, it just sucks right now...

Anywho, this summer is going to be life changing. I'm going to be pushed to so many limits. I would describe it as driving your car fast on a curvy road. So pumped yet, scared out of your mind. 

Thats where I'm at and where I'm going. I may or may not get a chance to update this, facebook or upload some pics, but I will try. PLEASE PRAY FOR ME!!! Enjoy the summer!

Struggle

Yo,

I'm out of school, finally and overall, it was a decent year. I did amazing my first semester but then then second semester, my grades plummeted. The reason, because I was too committed to Campus Crusade for Christ. Now, Cru (as we call it) has been truly amazing and through it I have been challenged to always further my faith in God. But, Cru was my life, not school. Right now, I'm going to school, not Cru and I didn't follow through with that this semester. So, I'm definitely going to have to take some steps back, and yes, it is going to be hard. The thing that really sucks, is that is also where the majority of my friends are. When I look back, I pretty much only hung out with that group and hardly anyone else. And as great as they are, I feel like I need to get to know some other people. One outlet of that is going to be through upcoming skate nights that I'm going to start. Here in VA, almost every Friday and Saturday a group of guys (and sometimes gals) meet up and go skate into the wee hours. I want to create that atmosphere up at Tech (Michigan Tech, not Virginia). Also, I love to go four-wheeling and sometimes I ditched one friend who wanted to go out and I hung out with Cru. I'm not going to stop going Cru, I just need to step back and handle what I'm called to be and that is a student.

So tonight I scraped some lady's car with my dad's truck. Nothing major, just scraped some paint off her rear bumper and scratched the front bumper of the truck. Now, I love and hate driving the truck. It's a manual which is cool and crappy. So for parking it, I absolutely hate it. I pulled in and then I pulled out and swung it around thinking I had at least a foot of clearance, nope, scrape.... Man, there goes the money I'm making right now. Now, I'm bummed.  I'm in a depressed mood. Not only because of this but some other things have been on my mind. I'm going to be at camp in 2 weeks and when I'm going to screw up how am I going to handle it? With my record, I'm going to get down and want to get away from everything. Now, I can't do that at camp. I've got responsibilities and most importantly I've got be that great guy counselor to my kids this summer. We'll see, time to cool down and get ready for tomorrow. 

Blah

I don't know what to write but I thought that I needed to write something since it's been over a week. Maybe after finals are done and I'm not doing anything I'll have something to talk about. Sorry...

2 Weeks Left

Hey guys and gals,

Sorry I haven't updated in about 2 weeks, it's been pretty busy, I haven't had time or I just don't have much to talk about, or when something does come to mind, I don't have time to blog it out. But, I really don't have much to bring to the table right now other than talking about some things here and there, pretty much whatever pops into my head. 

Like I said, I've been busy. I do only have 2 weeks left, 1 week of class and then some finals. Oh man, my grades will not be that great this semester but still not horribly bad, hopefully around a 3.0. Which brings me to my first thought, this semester has been pretty crazy. I'll admit I have not put forth 100% effort in classes, probably not even 75%. It's really hard on me when I have so little free time and when I do get a free chance I waste on Facebook or catching up on some TV shows, which is fine until that's all I focus on. A big reason why my grades are slacking is because I don't study often or I just do the minimal amount of work to get it done and not focus on understanding. Which sucks, because I get to exams like today's where I'm mostly clueless on what's going on or I cram for the 3 hours before and half the time I'm soooo distracted. It's like I don't even care. I think that I've been brainwashed to this attitude since I've had it for the past three years of school. I want to do good in school, understand it but whenever I get stuck, I get that "I don't get it! This sucks..." attitude and then nothing gets accomplished. It's rare that I even get a productive mindset to do things sometimes. Next semester is going to be a challenge because I'm going to be off-campus, taking 17 credits, being involved in Cru pretty heavily, got 8ams 3 days a week and I'm myself. My biggest struggle is getting myself motivated to do something. We'll see what happens.....

Next on the agenda of Devin is my family situation. My family is moving back to the "homeland" so I call it since both of my parents are from Michigan. Although, Virginia will always be where I'm from cause I like being a southern boy! My wittle sister is all grown up now and going to college. Scaaary. Central Michigan to be exact. On top of that, my parents are buying a house in Harbor Springs right on Lake Michigan, although no beach property, but right next to the lake. It will be nice being closer to family and I might go and visit more often although it's gonna suck not going back to VA. No doubt, I'm going to visit if an opportunity presents itself.

Summer is really close, and summer means 12 weeks of awesome, exhausting, frustrating, rewarding fun-ness. I'm pretty stoked although I haven't because, yea I've been busy. It gets more real as time gets closer. I guess I'll see exactly what Christian and Paolo (my old youth leaders) go through.

So, I think that may be all for now, kind of tired and I have stuff going on tomorrow all day. 

So it's 3 am....(probably 4 by the time I finish this)

So it's 3 a.m. and I just finished my Engineering hw, hooray! An interesting couple of weeks it has been since I last posted, which I 'm sorry for such a delayed response. Life has been very eventful with school, campus crusade and all the other things life consists of. I've actually had a lot of different things on my mind that I've wanted to blog about, but I just haven't had a good chunk of time or I use that time to relax and sometimes gain consciousness. 

One AWESOMELY AMAZING thing that has happened in my life is the sharing of my faith to my Chem. lab partner, Jeff. This is actually the first time that I've explained the gospel to anyone before. It's pretty sweet because I have been praying for God to use me in some way or form and also that I would suck it up, and share my faith with someone (cause it's something that I lack). Well, opportunity arose and I took it head on. 

A little background on Jeff. Jeff is a first year (freshman but sounds more sophisticated) mechanical engineering student from China. He is a pretty quiet guy and mostly keeps to himself and doesn't initiate conversation often. So, here's how it went down. 

One day after class Jeff and I were walking back from lab to go eat. God was tuggin' at me to talk to him so, I did. I asked him if he had a religion, thinking that he might be Buddhist. He said no. I asked if he believed in God and he said yes, but wasn't really sure who he was. "Would you like to know more about him?" "Yea! That sounds good."

The next night I stopped by his room to meet with him and talk more about who God is. I was pretty scared and nervous to say the least. Since it's Friday we met in a study lounge (who studies on Fridays?) to talk. One of the guys in Cru, Ben, who is disciple-ing me, was going to be there also, was running late. So, I'm on my own with my Bible and our Cru "Knowing God Personally" booklet ( a basic 4 point accepting Christ booklet). I decided to go through the booklet with him, making sure that he understands everything that I'm saying and it was definitely God speaking through me. Ben makes it and long story short, we go through it again and ask him what he thinks. Now, it is reallllly hard to read him, to see if he is taking it all in and understands it. I think that he doesn't get it, but I could be wrong. I ask him if having a relationship with God is something that he wants, "yes, but I don't know what to say?". We show him the prayer in the booklet and he reads it with us, and again, I'm not sure if he means it or understands it. 

The next week Jeff and I meet to read through Matthew. I was thinking of just reading through some chapters, not getting too far. Nope, I read the first 14 chapters. And not just reading them, I stopped at everything that was confusing to him or me. For example, we would come across something referenced in the the Old Test. and go through that. We talked for at least 2 hours. Again, God was giving me the correct words to say. I look back and half the time I don't know how I explained things the way I did. Pretty crazy...

The next week arrives and wow, we have Crusade spring retreat. So I get to thinking, maybe I should invite Jeff. I invite him and he is able to come. I'll tell you what, it is hard to stick with the "boring non-social kid" in a group of people who want to do a lot of fun stuff. But, that's only some evil thoughts trying to bring me down. I was really hoping that something would really impact him this weekend. Something that would really stick out to him and would make him ask questions and dig deeper into this relationship he was building. One night we go through Matthew some more and I really just want to cut to the chase but, I really want to make sure that he understands what is going on because he has no background of God or Jesus or anything other than hearing them. Well, the weekend turned out to be pretty amazing. The speaker that was there was a youth pastor that went to Northern Michigan which is 2 hours from here and both Crusades get together for the retreats, so that's why he was there. The theme was "Still Walking" and was about coming out of a comfortable lifestyle, and get out there on campus and "get you boots on". He reminded me of Christian, my youth pastor back home. But, on the way back home Jeff and I were talking about retreat and I asked him if he was confused about anything. He had a few things that he didn't understand such as who Satan is, what is God's grace and what is guilt. Again, I answered them so that he could understand and again, God was most definitely talking through me. 

And now, I still have yet to meet up with him and go through some Matthew and talk to him. Hooray busy college schedules! But, please be praying for Jeff! What an amazing story it has been, but an even more amazing story of his life to come.

Bedtime, hopefully more constant blogs to be written, take it easy

Devo

Quickie

Just finished reading The Shack and if you have never heard of it or read it, you should. Here's their site if you want some background info: http://theshackbook.com/ . I highly recommend reading it. I don't want to give away much info, but I know that the beginning is a bit slow, but stick with it, it gets a lot more eventful. One more note, if you go to the site, you can read the foreword and first chapter online. It's not the most exciting chapter like I said before, but it gives you an idea of what's going on.

Day.... (So much for that idea)

Hey ya'll, (oops, my redneck is showing)

     Well, to say the least it has been a interesting couple of days. In my last post, I said that I was visiting a camp that I was planning on working at this summer. Well, I had the interview (more like a friendly conversation, no pressure) and it was great. I really feel like that is where God wants me this summer (unless he has some other plans). So, I will be in-charge of 8 or so kids for 6 days a week for 12 weeks. It will be one roller coaster of a ride.

Along with having my interview, I worked at the camp helping out with all the transition work from winter to spring/summer season. The people there are AMAZING. They opened their homes, let me eat their food, and had some awesome conversations. Shoot, I thought I was going to be working 10-5 then heading back to my cabin, making a peanut butter sandwich and having to entertain myself all week long. I brought a book to read. I hardly had time to crack it open, unless I wanted to stay up into the late hours of the night. Again, my time there was just plain sweet.

So, now that I'm back in the swing of things, you know the usual; going to class, putting off homework and studying, the normal college student activities, life is challenging again. Monday morning, I meet with my career center advisor, and it was what I expected and what I didn't at the same time. Let me explain; I took an online personality/job match test thing and expected the guy to say, stick with what's on top off the list. But, I learned that there is some truth to that. We all have aspects and talents that God has placed in our lives. It would make sense to choose an occupation that involves your strengths and not something that doesn't really interest you. What even made my meeting better was that he is Christian and that he understands what I feel. It really made things great. But, I did not receive the answer, the direction I was looking for, which I knew probably wouldn't happen but it still bummed me out. Here I am, asking God where he wants me to go and I'm not receiving an answer, at least not now. But, I've let it drag me down and that got me nowhere so, I'm pressing on. Right now, to me it's come down to either secondary education or exercise science. Yea, nowhere near engineering..... We'll see.....

Time to sleep, since I put off studying tonight, that means I need to do it tomorrow! Hooray procrastination! Who knows when my next post will be and if will be in this dying theme of day (insert number here).

"Give me a revelation Show me what to do ‘Cause I’ve been trying to find my way I haven’t got a clue Tell me should I stay here Or do I need to move Give me a revelation I’ve got nothing without you"- Third Day

Day 3 (kind of)

Hello, 

It's been real busy, again, and it's still busy. I am leaving for camp bright and early and I may not have my day updates on the blog, but when i do get some internet, I will post them (that includes Day 3). Keep an eye out,

Devin

Day 2

It's Day 2. I'm tired, sick, I have other things to do, but it's been a generally good day. I woke up, got ready and stuff and I got my morning quiet time in, which has been an on/off affair recently. It was actually pretty interesting and I dug into what I read. I recently started in Genesis and I read chapters 19-23. If you haven't read the story of Sodom and Gomorrah and Lot, it's pretty interesting. What made the morning even more interesting was that I also read 2 Peter which references Sodom and Gomorrah. Pretty cool when you actually understand what the Bible is referencing.... 

I actually felt awake in classes and was possibly willing to learn??? But, it's also been pretty busy. I haven't had much time to just sit around (which is somewhat a good thing). I had an unexpected conversation with a friend I hadn't seen in awhile. She's been pretty busy with all the life gives her and it was refreshing to talk and see how God has been working in her life. She also gave me some direction regarding my future. Yesterday I talked about where God was leading me and how I don't quite know the answer yet, I kind of feel like I may be getting one.

One thing I'm looking at is possibly being a teacher of some sort. Whether it be high school, middle school, special education, P.E., or something else, I've had this feeling to be around teens. I do have a heart for youth, and reaching out to them in some way. But, I've never really been able to teach people that well, which is kind of trait that is needed to be a teacher, so it freaks me out a bit. Also, it's kind of hard to determine what is God's will and "just a feeling". I don't know,..... we'll see what goes down.

I guess since it's Thursday now.... I have an interview tomorrow at a camp, Camp Barakel, for the position of camp counselor. I'm pretty excited. I haven't been to that camp in over 4 years, and I always dreamed of becoming a counselor someday. Well, as much as I could keep rambling on about the unknowns in my life, I need some sleep. Until a later date and time, 

Dev

Day 1

Well, I have been challenged to start journaling daily in my "freshman boot-camp" class through Crusade. I figure, I might as well blog most days (if not all) just because typing is easier for me. There is a lot running through my head right now so I'm going to try to just focus on a few things. One of the most recent things that I have been struggling with and praying about is the direction of my life. Currently I'm studying Mechanical Engineering. Back when I was searching for colleges, I applied for three totally different schools and got accepted to all three. One school was a focus of auto technician, youth pastor/ things of that nature and engineering. Now, I know that God led me t pick Michigan Tech as the school of choice, but I'm really starting to doubt engineering. I'm struggling with the math aspect of it, and if you know anything about engineering, it's four full years of tough math. Yet, I don't want to "give up" because it's too hard, but is engineering something that I really want to do? That's the problem, I have no idea what kind of career I would like to have. Also, I currently do not know where God wants me to be. At first, this was hard to handle. I started to freak out, I felt that I HAVE to know what's going on. But really, as much as I think that I'm in control of my life, I'm not. Sure, my actions will have an affect, but it is up to God as to how those actions get carried out. I feel like I'm at an intersection with 10 different ways to go. One of them is possibly going into the mission field.

A couple days ago I was praying to God that he would reveal his will for me. Well, immediately, I came across a site, Gospel for Asia. Wow. I love to serve, no doubt about it, but am I willing to give up everything, and spread the word in a foreign country? Tonight, I went to a concert, African Children's Choir, and I get that feeling of "Is this what you want me to do?" When do we get to that point when we really know where God is leading us? That's where I'm at now.