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.