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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