The Chronicles of Matt

Classes... ugh.

2008-09-28T15:48:00.000-07:00

Well, I have now been here for over a week, and the Jumpstart orientation week has come to an end. I am officially a freshman at Walla Walla University, and I will be starting classes tomorrow. At 10am, I have Intro To Music, followed by Pre-Calculus, then A&P at noon. I'm in the process of looking for a job and getting textbooks purchased. Those things are SOOOO expensive! I priced them out at the University Shop, and they were nearly $800. Online I found them for $462. But I can't afford either, so I'm buying some at the University Shop, and some online.

Tonight is the Welcome Back Bash. We will have a bunch of activities and such, and will have the opportunity to sign up for various on-campus clubs. I'm really enjoying dorm life, as I always have. Last night from 11pm-1am I played a game called Battlefield, basically a huge game of tag that covers several blocks, even miles. The person that is "it" is in a car with a spotter holding a flashlight, and everyone else has to reach a certain place that was preassigned without being caught. Pretty much anything goes, as far as running through people's yards, hiding in bushes, etc. But we hope that most people have the respect not to encroach on private property. :-) And if the cops give someone a hard time, they're on their own.

So now I'm sitting in the dorm (Sittner, the main men's dorm). I'm in the lobby where everyone is watching the Dallas-Washington football game on the big-screen TV. It's hilarious how many girls are hardcore football fans.

Anyways, I'm going to go buy some books at the University Shop, then see who I can come up with to hang out with....

And I'm off!!!!

2008-09-19T00:35:00.000-07:00

Well, tomorrow's the big day!! I'm going to COLLEGE! Finally. It's about flippin' time.

Do you know how stressful planning for college can be though?? Do you realize how incredibly MUCH there is to do as far as registration, financial aid, packing, financial aid, laundry, financial aid, and financial aid?? You can probably tell that there has been something on my mind lately, eh?

So today was my last day at work. I got off at about 10:30pm, and I'm headed out tomorrow, hopefully by 6am. I have to get up at 4:30am so I can finish getting packed. I'm going to stop and say good-bye to Nicki on my way through Auburn. My parents are taking me over there, and apparently there is some parent meeting or something they are going to stay for on Sunday. Then I'm on my own again. I'm really actually looking forward to dorm life again. It'll be pretty fun, especially since it's college dorm life. More freedom, ya know?

Keep me in your prayers as I embark on this new journey. I really need to stay strong, and get myself into a good routine. I need to start really working out. Quiznos has wreaked havoc on my waistline. :-P I gained 20 pounds in the 6 months I worked there. But according to my doctor, I am now the perfect weight for my height. I guess I just need to tone it. But ya.... I need a good established schedule for devotions, work, school, homework, sleep, and working out. My schedule is looking pretty full. My classes are as follows.

Anatomy and Physiology- 4 credits
Pre-Calculus- 4 credits
Intro to Music- 4 credits
Survey of Health- 2 credits
Parables of Jesus- 2 credits

Then I also have an A&P lab for three hours on Wednesday afternoons.

Anyways, I need to get some winks before we head out in the morning, so I shall bid you all adieu, and shall continue more when I have arrived at that great place that's so cool they named it twice--

Walla Walla.

So expensive...

2008-09-03T18:30:00.000-07:00

Good grief. They say that college is expensive, and especially private universities-- and they sure aren't lying! My goodness...

I'm really thankful, though, that as of today, Walla Walla has offered me $19,383.00 in financial aid for this first year-- and only about $6,000 of that is in the form of loans. So I will be leaving to officially begin my collegiate experience on Friday, September 19th.

How Many Kings?

2008-08-08T00:16:00.000-07:00

Follow the star to a place unexpected
Would you believe after all we’ve projected
A child in a manger
Lowly and small, the weakest of all
Unlikeliest hero, wrapped in his mothers shawl
Just a child
Is this who we’ve waited for?

Cause how many kings, stepped down from their thrones?
How many lords have abandoned their homes?
How many greats have become the least for me?
How many gods have poured out their hearts
To romance a world that has torn all apart?
How many fathers gave up their sons for me?

Bringing our gifts for the newborn savior
All that we have whether costly or meek
Because we believe
Gold for his honor and frankincense for his pleasure
And myrrh for the cross he’ll suffer
Do you believe, is this who we’ve waited for?

How many kings, stepped down from their thrones?
How many lords have abandoned their homes?
How many greats have become the least for me?
How many Gods have poured out their hearts
To romance a world that has torn all apart?
How many fathers gave up their sons for me?
Only one did that for me

All for me
All for you
All for me
All for you

As I listened to this song, I thought of leadership. I thought of the role of a king, and about the kings that we read about in books. I am in the middle of the movie Troy. It tells of the famous legend of Achilles and the story of the Trojan horse. There are primarily two kings in the story, brothers, both kings in Greece. Menelaus and Agamemnon are their names. They are as ruthless, perverse, and bloodthirsty as they come. Absolute pictures of evil.

At one point in the movie, Menelaus is attempting to persuade Agamemnon to support him in a fight against Troy to take back Helen, his queen. Agamemnon mocks Menelaus by telling him, "I thought you wanted peace with Troy." Menelaus replies, "I should have listened to you." And Agamemnon tells him, "Peace is for the women and the weak. Empires are forged by war." At another point, Paris, the young prince of Troy who ran off with Helen, tells his father, King Priam, "Father, you are a great king, because you love your country so much. Every blade of grass, every grain of sand, every rock in the river... you love all of Troy."

As I contemplated these things, along with the lyrics of the song above, I pondered what it means to be a king, what true greatness is. And how these things pertain to the King of kings, the One who stepped down from His throne for you and for me, to give us the life we didn't deserve. True greatness is found in love. Kingliness is most evident in sacrifice. Power and force have nothing to do with these things.

Our God is an amazing God because He loves us so much. Every individual, with their unique characteristics, is special in His sight because that is how He made them. All the way down to the smallest, most insignificant little child in the back-country of the smallest, most insignificant country in the world... "But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are small among the clans of Judah, out of you will come for me one who will be ruler over Israel, whose origins are from of old, from ancient times." Jesus didn't enter this world a great ruler from a powerful dynasty. He was an unknown baby boy that didn't matter, born in a tiny city in a wimpy country.

Yet He became that one King. The King that did that for me.

Where is the OUTRAGE???

2008-08-06T01:25:00.000-07:00

Ok, so for anyone that is exposed to the slightest bit of secular music on a regular basis, I can almost guarantee you've heard this song, considering its massive popularity right now. I must admit, it's incredibly catchy. But the lyrical content is... appalling. Horrendous? Terribly inappropriate. Disgustingly sinful. The title is "I Kissed a Girl". Sounds innocent enough? It's being sung by a girl, Katy Perry.

I won't even post the lyrics on this blog, because I think then I would have check "Yes" for adult content and warn people that attempt to visit my blog. There is no profanity. It doesn't need any. I'll give a link to a site where you can read the lyrics, if you want to.

http://www.lyricsmode.com/lyrics/k/katy_perry/i_kissed_a_girl.html

But the fact that Miss Perry is singing about kissing a girl, or that apparently she likes it, isn't what gets me the most. What does is something I read when I looked her up on Wikipedia. She was born the daughter of two pastors (would someone please bring something up about female ordination and its effect on the flock-- just so I can't get in trouble for being sexist or anything like that??), and grew up singing gospel music. Her first album was actually a gospel music album.

AND HOW FAR HAS SHE COME???

Singing openly and brazenly about experimentation with homosexuality-- it's repulsive.

The aiming has begun.

2008-08-04T12:56:00.000-07:00

Wow, my last post elicited some REALLY deep comments. I LIKE! This is what I really want to do with this blog. Make posts, get comments, and start discussions. Cuz I love discussions. Don't you?

So I must say that I heartily concur with Mitch. When dealing with relationships, firing before aiming could most certainly be bad news-- and most probably would be rather explosive. I've heard some pretty bad horror stories about dating multiple people at the same time... yikes. And I think it's probably a good rule to make sure that a particular individual is actually the kind of person you would consider marrying AT ALL before you start dating them. But this is very logical and tends to be common sense, right? Haha, apparently not to everyone. Hence the 50% divorce rate nowadays. But I digress.

Concerning Mr. Lyons' comment: wouldn't "Turn" be considered part of "Ready"? If one is ready, then one has turned in the right direction, no?

I think Simon's comment soundly hit the nail on the head. At least as far as my thinking went when I was writing the post. I think we'd all like to be the third person he was describing-- that person that has vision and plans, but is flexible and willing to change when the situation dictates so. Having a basic outline is important, cuz walking blindly forward isn't very bright. No pun intended. And I think that is where the line can be drawn between faith and stupidity. Faith requires action, and that action is creating an action plan, from which I can allow God to hatch His plan for my life, the plan He has created in all His infinite wisdom.

So now that I have replied to the comments I received (and I'm very open, and actually rather desirous of replies to my reply), I shall fill everyone in on the most recent developments in my collegiate pursuits. Andrews has not proved themselves especially easy to work with, prompt to respond, or necessarily communicative from within. A few people have said that it sounds like their left hand is clueless as to the status of their right. That seems to fit the bill rather well. Nearly three weeks ago, the school told me that they had everything they needed for my admission to the university, and they would be reviewing my application in a couple of days. Then two days ago, when I called, they told me they needed another copy of my transcript, as well as my application fee (which I have already paid), and that my application will be taken to committee on Wednesday. Hmm. I find this rather troubling, considering that if I AM accepted, I need to be there next Friday. Not a lot of time.

For this reason primarily, I have recognized what appears to be God's aiming process kicking in, and have had my focus redirected to Walla Walla University. Several realities seem to make clear the fact this an attempt to attend this school, at this point, would be a far more prudent pursuit. It may be a bit more spendy, and at least on the surface doesn't seem to offer an equal level of financial aid, but I have heard many a story that protests to the contrary. In addition to this, it is MUCH closer to home, negating the necessity for the purchase of many plane tickets, and for shipping all of my belongings across the country. I can transfer to Andrews at any time, if the need arises. And above all, WWU doesn't start until September 29, giving me an ample supply of time to tie up loose ends, establish myself financially in a bit more solid of a manner, and achieve all the means necessary for officially beginning my college career.

Anyways, now that ya'll are all caught up, and replied to, and such things, I'm going to bed.

Ready. Fire. Aim.

2008-07-29T22:34:00.004-07:00

Does that make sense you at all? Ready, fire, aim? It seems like something is a little out of order, does it not? I mean, what's the point of aiming after you've fired?

This is a concept that my dad mentioned almost casually, offhandedly, tonight when we were eating supper. He and I had some quality father/son time, and were discussing my probable soon move to Michigan to start attending Andrews University. I was musing over the fact that I didn't have everything figured out about what I'm going to be doing there, particularly as far as financial aid is concerned. But I agreed with my dad, that sometimes it isn't so utterly necessary that all one's proverbial ducks be in a row, especially in a situation like this. What's more important is that I get my lazy little tush over there and envelope myself in an atmosphere of learning and bettering myself, and good will come of it.

If it's God's will that I go there, He'll work it out. And if He works it out, and I don't have all the details laid out perfectly yet, well... He's in control and I can trust that He has them constructed however perfectly so as to fit His master plan.

Ready. Fire. Aim.

For this reason, it behooves me not to get so caught up in the aiming right now. I'm clearly ready. If I spend too much time aiming, the window of opportunity will be rudely slammed in my face, and all hope of firing will be gone. So I must simply fire, and trust that God will direct my efforts as I'm propelled forward.

I'm reminded of a conversation I overheard when I was at Fountainview Academy's graduation a month or so ago. A close friend of mine was discussing a similar dilemma in his own experience, and he said something rather profound. He said that as long as he was moving forward, God could turn him wherever He pleased. But if he was standing still (caught up in the aiming process, perhaps...?), God couldn't redirect him. To turn a car to the right or left, you have to first press the gas. Without forward motion, redirection is impossible.

Ready. Fire. Aim.

Because I am ready, I feel the time has come to fire. I will leave the burden of aiming to God-- I think He's a much better shot than I am.

My question, then, is this: Where else can this apply?

Ready. Fire. Aim.

Where does it not apply?

Cue the bugles-- here are the results!!!

2007-12-28T13:20:00.000-08:00

And the results are in!

Late, I know. But better late than never, right? Always late but worth the wait? Am I hitting a nerve here? Okay, maybe not... anyways.

So I finally got all the results and compiled them and all that good stuff. And here's what we've got.....

Out of all the responses:

55% of females were in favour of the presence of facial hair.
36% of females were NOT in favour of the presence of facial hair.
9% of females didn't care.

Out of all 55% that were in favour of it, every single one said something to extent of "But it depends on the guy, how he wears it, and what kind of facial hair it is."

Almost unanimously, mustaches are OUT. Full beards seem to be put up with. Goatees are "hot". And sideburns, if well-groomed, are quite attractive.

And I also noticed that almost everyone that had a close male family member with facial hair had facial hair preferences quite similar to that individual. And if the family member had no facial hair, than generally that responder fell under the 36%.

So yes, there are the results. Just as I expected pretty much. Slightly more people in the group favouring facial hair. But the "don't care"s kinda balanced it out. And I expected to see the correlation between the family members and facial hair. So ya, that was basically the point of this all. I just wanted to see if I could confirm my theories. :-)

To Shave or Not To Shave....?

2007-11-08T00:24:00.001-08:00

I have a question. There are no hidden motives. No one will be blackmailed with their answers. I'm not hyper-self-conscious (is that a word?). I'm just plainly curious. This topic has intrigued and amused me for some time now. Originally it frustrated me endlessly, until I realized and accepted the fact that I can't please everyone all the time. Then I stopped caring about pleasing everyone, and life has been just grand ever since. :-) But no, in all seriousness (as serious as you can be with your tongue planted firmly in your cheek), here are the four questions. Please answer them honestly. Like I said, there are no strings attached, no hidden agendas.

Girls, answer the questions.

Guys, comment to your heart's delight about them.

But please don't answer/comment on my blog. Send everything to my email address--

plerophoreo@gmail.com

If I get enough answers, I will post results on Wednesday, November 21.

1. Facial hair (on guys, of course): yes, no, or don't care?

2. Regardless of the previous answer, please expound, however verbosely or concisely as you please.

3. If yes or don't care, how much? Or maybe I should say, how much is too much? In other words, full beard? Goatee? Mustache?

4. And finally, does/do your dad, brother, or other significant male/s in your life have facial hair?

Thanks for replying, to those of you that do. :-)

Wow, it's been awhile.

2007-11-02T14:32:00.000-07:00

Well, like the title of this post states-- IT'S BEEN AWHILE. I have been thinking about needing to update this thing for pretty decent amount of time now, but life has gotten just SLIGHTLY more complicated since I last posted on *gasp* August 13th. Man, I haven't posted on here for almost 3 months!!! And I only created this blog all of 7 months ago, so that's almost half the time this thing has existed. Good grief... well, at better late than never, right? Always late but worth the wait? The early bird may get the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese in the trap? Okay, okay, okay.... I'll stop-- and I'll start filling all of you loyal readers (HA!) in on what's been going down in the life of Matt lately.

After a LOOOOOONG and frustratingly tiring search for a job, one finally fell into my lap, quite literally in fact. I actually remember the exact date-- August 27th. Throughout my search, I had finally settled on a career that really seemed to fit what I was looking for: car sales. It just really seemed to hit the nail on the head. So I had begun to squeeze every last car sales job in the Seattle/Tacoma area out of the internet that I possibly could. I sent out tons of resumes to all kinds of dealerships, and I found a few that I was able to actually get in contact with, and scheduled a couple of interviews. But none of the interviews ever got past "So what days CAN'T you work?" As soon as I said "Only from Friday night to Saturday night", they would shake my hand and tell me to have a nice day-- because apparently Saturday is the big sales day in the car industry. So I had begun to accept that fact that SALES wasn't for me, and I thought, "Hmm, perhaps SERVICE would be better!"

I had found an ad for Mercedes-Benz of America that informed me that they were hiring Service Advisors. Thus began a chain of events that lasted QUITE a long time. I spent about 90 minutes going through the online application, then was called a few days later for an hour-long phone interview, followed up a few days later with about 15 hours of online training. I also had to drive about an hour and a half away to do a whiz quiz. And I was informed that once all this was done, I was to be sent to Chicago for a month for training over there. Needless to say, I was putting a LOT of time and energy into this. I signed SO many release forms for so many things, but it all became a US military sort of thing-- you know, the whole "hurry up and wait" deal. So that's what I did. I waited. And waited. And waited. And called. And was told that it was all processing and should be done soon. And I waited. And waited some more. And began to lose hope in it. I began to realize that I just wasn't going to be accepted for whatever reason. I was still holding out hope for it, but was really beginning to DESPERATELY need money, so I started looking for a little easy temporary job, such as delivering pizza. I went and applied at a Papa John's, and scheduled an interview. I returned a week later for the interview, and found out that I was going to have to wait two weeks to be able to go over to North Seattle (about 2 hours from here) for TRAINING. To deliver pizzas! TRAINING! Good grief. I was ticked. I didn't need a job in two months. I needed it NOW!!!

Well, I went home quite frustrated, and picked up the phone book to look for more pizza places. I found another one, and was getting ready to head down apply. This was on the fateful day, August 27th, so I guess you can probably guess what was about to happen-- a job was about to fall into my lap. I was sitting at my computer with the phone on the table next to me, and it rang all of a sudden. I reached out to grab it and somehow bumped it off the table into my lap. I fumbled with it before finally answering it. I heard, "Hey, this is Don Bauer from Mountain Mitsubishi! I got your resume a few weeks ago and I was wondering if you were still interested in a job in sales?!" I was like, "Um, sure, I could be!" And he asked me when would be "the soonest time we could schedule an interview!" Long story short, I went for an interview the next day, had another interview on Friday, was hired that day, and started training on Wednesday of the next week. I trained all day for three days, and started work on Sunday, September 9.

Throughout training and the first week of work, I thought to myself many times (and vocalized the same sentiments to others), "This job was made with me in mind!" In the first week I sold 1.5 cars. And for those of you that are about to make wisecracks about half a car and advanced systems of air-conditioning, it just means that I split the deal with another guy. :-) By the end of September, I had 3.5 cars under my belt, and about $1200. There are two teams of sales guys, Team A and Team B. I was on Team B, but I kinda had my own schedule, since I didn't work on Saturdays. Basically, my schedule looked like this:

Sunday: 11am-5pm
Monday: 12pm-8pm/9am-4pm alternating week to week
Tuesday: 9am-8pm
Wednesday: 9am-8pm/OFF alternating week to week
Thursday: OFF/9am-8pm alternating week to week
Friday: 9am-4pm
Saturday: OFF of course :-)

And since I live about an hour from the dealership, I was spending about 10 hours of driving a week too. Only rarely did I actually work these hours for a full week. I always got there early, and almost always worked late, sometimes until almost midnight. And I even had to come in on my days off on certain occasions. Just for example, in the month of October, I worked almost 210 hours. That's lots. In case you didn't know.

So I continued like this through the month of October. And in the next installment of Car Sales with Matt, you will learn what became of me! :-)

God bless, you guys.

-Matt

Marionettes of Helplessness

2007-08-12T19:44:00.000-07:00

In 1961, when astronaut Gus Grissom tried to avoid responsibility for losing his spacecraft, he said "the hatch just blew." Or so Tom Wolfe reports in The Right Stuff (1979), which four years later became a great movie.

That was an unusual statement 46 years ago, but now we regularly see folks avoiding responsibility, saying, "mistakes were made." For example, Virginia Tech killer Cho Seung-Hui just blew. It wasn't really his responsibility. He was "troubled." He "had issues." Maybe it was President Bush's fault, as Rep. Jim Moran (D-Va.) charged.

It seems that no one had the responsibility to help a young man who had written hyper-violent plays and poems, been declared mentally ill by a judge, set a fire in his room, and so on. Soon after the multiple murders, the head of Virginia Tech's campus counseling center held a press conference and suggested the problem was inadequate "funding for mental health services in the United States."

I mention all this not to bring back nightmares but to contextualize the important observations British psychiatrist Theodore Dalrymple makes in Life at the Bottom. That book was 49,631st on Amazon's sales list last time I looked but should be at the top of the reading list for all who hope to minister to many among the imprisoned and the "underclass" generally.

Dalrymple writes, "Listening as I do every day to the accounts people give of their lives, I am struck by the very small part in them which they ascribe to their own efforts, choices, and actions. . . . They describe themselves as marionettes of helplessness."

He gives examples. One killer said of the murder he committed, "the knife went in," as if he had nothing to do with it. A thief who broke into churches, stole their silver objects, and then burned them down to destroy the evidence, said the problem was that churches had poor security and valuable objects: The combination was impossible to resist. Another troubled person said, "My head needs sorting out."

Members of the underclass frequently plead the innocence of inevitability, but so do those in the upper class. When C.S. Lewis spoke in 1944 to university students who were on the way to becoming England's leaders, he said, "To nine out of ten of you the choice which could lead to scoundrelism will come, when it does come, in no very dramatic colors. Obviously bad men, obviously threatening or bribing, will almost certainly not appear."

Lewis noted that the invitation to do wrong would come in a way hard to turn down—"over a drink, or a cup of coffee, disguised as triviality and sandwiched between two jokes, from the lips of a man, or woman, whom you have recently been getting to know rather better and whom you hope to know better still—just at the moment when you are most anxious not to appear crude, or naïf or a prig—the hint will come."

The slide at that point seems greased: "you will be drawn in, if you are drawn in, not by desire for gain or ease, but simply because at that moment, when the cup was so near your lips, you cannot bear to be thrust back again into the cold outer world." Lewis, describing this desire to be in the "Inner Ring," emphasized, "Of all the passions, the passion for the Inner Ring is most skillful in making a man who is not yet a very bad man do very bad things."

That first decision may lead to others: "If you are drawn in, next week it will be something a little further from the rules, and next year something further still, but all in the jolliest, friendliest spirit. It may end in a crash, a scandal, and penal servitude; it may end in millions, a peerage and giving the prizes at your old school. But you will be a scoundrel." And yet, the scoundrel looking back rarely remembers choosing: His life just blew. Enron just happened.

What's the antidote? The answer to the famous Westminster Catechism question about our chief purpose in life provides it: "To glorify God and enjoy Him forever." Follow those active verbs—glorify, enjoy—and passivity vanishes. Believe that, and the glory of the Inner Ring disappears.

Poem my dad emailed to me.

2007-08-09T11:53:00.000-07:00

If I were sending my boy afar
To live and labor where strangers are,
I should hold him close till the time to go,
Telling him things which he ought to know;
I should whisper counsel and caution wise,
Hinting of dangers which might arise,
And tell him the things I have learned from life,
Of its bitter pain and its cruel strife
And the sore temptations which men beset,
And then add this: “Boy, don’t forget
When your strength gives out and your hope grows dim,
Your father will help if you come to him.”

If I were sending a boy away,

I should hold him close, on the parting day,

And give him my trust. Through thick and thin
I should tell him I counted on him to win,
To keep his word at whatever cost,
To play the man though his fight be lost.
But beyond all that I should whisper low:
“If trouble comes, let your father know;
Come to him, son, as you used to do
When you were little—he’ll see you through.
I am trusting you in a distant land.
You trust your father to understand.

“Trust me wherever you chance to be,
Know there is nothing to hide from me,
Tell me it all—your tale of woe,
The sting of failure that hurts you so.
Never, whatever your plight might be,
Think it something to hide from me;
Come to me first in your hour of need,
Come though you know that my heart will bleed!
Boy, when the shadows of trouble fall,
Come to your father first of all.”
~ ~ Collected Verse of Edgar A. Guest ~ 1934

Job hunt

2007-08-01T18:38:00.000-07:00

So I drove a lot today. Lots of firsts.

First interstate drive.

First long drive alone.

First prolonged freeway drive with a stick.

First time searching for a place I've never been in a car by myself.

First time across the new Tacoma Narrows Bridge.

First job interview.

First rejection from a job interview.

So ya. Long day. I drove over to Auburn and visited Nicki and Niki. I've talked to both of them online, especially Nicki, who I've talked to online MANY times-- and I'd never really met either of them in person. So I met them in person-- after not trusting Google Maps and deciding to find Niki's place on my own, then deciding to trust the map and finding out it was right. Then I barely made it to my interview, due to bad I-5 traffic. Then, as soon as the interviewer found out that I couldn't work Saturdays, she went and talked to management and informed me that EVERYONE works Saturdays regardless, and they can't offer me a job if I can't be there. So I turned around and drove back home.

I guess I can look at it one of two ways: either 135 miles was a complete waste because the reason I went (the interview) lasted all of about 20 minutes, and 15 of that was filling out a job app and waiting for her to talk to management. Or I can look at it as a lot of new experiences that I can learn from, and be happy that I got to "meet" a couple of cool people. :-)

So for now I'll just tell my back and butt that it was all for a worthy cause.

The Signature of Jesus

2007-07-29T13:22:00.000-07:00

Brendan Manning was a young Christian pastor in Zimbabwe. These words, penned by him, were found in his office shortly after he was martyred for his faith. The first time this poem was read, it was read to a group of theology students at Union College. Seventy-five percent of the students signed up for the position that Brendan Manning had left.

The Signature of Jesus

I'm part of the fellowship of the unashamed.
I have the Holy Spirit's power.
The die has been cast.
I have stepped over the line.
The decision has been made-- I'm a disciple of His.

I won't look back, let up, slow down, back away, or be still.
My past is redeemed, my present makes sense, my future is secure.
I'm finished with low living, sight walking, smooth knees,
Colourless dreams, tamed visions, worldly talking,
Cheap giving, and dwarfed goals.

I no longer need prominence, prosperity, position, promotions, plaudits,
Or popularity.
I don't have to be right, first, tops, recognized, praised, regarded,
Or rewarded.
I now live by faith, lean on His presence, walk by patience,
Am uplifted by prayer, and I labour with power.

My face is set, my gait is fast, my goal is heaven.
My road is narrow, my way rough, my companions few,
My Guide reliable, my mission clear.
I cannot be bought, compromised, detoured, lured away,
Turned away, turned back, deluded, or delayed.

I will not flinch in the face of sacrifice,
Hesitate in the presence of the enemy,
Pander at the pool of popularity,
Or meander in the maze of mediocrity.

I won't give up, shut up, let up,
Until I've stayed up, stored up, prayed up, paid up,
Preached up for the cause of Christ.

I am a disciple of Jesus, I must go till He comes,
Give till I drop, preach all I know,
And work till He stops me.

And when He comes for His own,
He will have no problem recognizing me....
My banner will be clear!

Posting again at last

2007-07-13T22:16:00.000-07:00

Well, it's been a long time since I've posted, and a ton has happened-- the reason that it's been a long time since I've posted! I'll have to just give you a quick rundown on the final events in Europe......

We took a bus back to Izmir on Saturday night, arriving at about 5:45am. We bummed around all day on Sunday, then spent basically all day Monday driving. We did an 800 km circuit and visited the sites of the churches of Sardis, Philadelphia, Laodicea, and Ephesus, as well as the hot springs at Hierapolis and Pamukkale. Then on Tuesday we went the beach (the Aegean Sea) near Izmir with our friends we were staying with. We had pizza and ice cream for supper to celebrate Ricky's birthday. Then we left early Wednesday morning for Oslo, flying out about 6:30am. We arrived in Oslo at about 1pm, after a layover in Munich. We took the train back to the school, which proved yet another traveling nightmare. We missed the stop where we were supposed to change trains and ended up heading out towards Stavanger. We finally got to the school just in time to get some supper. For those of you that know Topher, he was there with a Maranatha group, so I hung out with him for the evening as I packed.

The next day started out beautifully and rapidly went sour-- then it got worse. Apparently there had been some miscommunication, and Werner didn't show up to drive me to the train station. Fortunately, Joar was there and he borrowed Robby's car to drive me there. But I just missed the 9:23 train I was trying to catch, and I had to wait for an hour. Then the train took an hour and a half, so I arrived at the airport shortly before noon. I thought I would still have time to make my 1:15 flight-- until I saw the line at the check-in counter. There were (I'm not kidding) nearly FIVE HUNDRED people ahead of me. So I got in line. I mean, hey what else could I do?

So to make a very long story short enough for one post, I missed my flight, got rebooked, spent the night in the airport, flew out the next morning for Copenhagen, spent 7 hours there, then flew home, arriving Friday evening. And it was fortunate I got the ticket I did, because as the lady told me, that was the last day of school in Norway and I got basically the last available ticket to Copenhagen for a few days! So all in all, I spent 19 hours in the Oslo airport, one hour flying to Copenhagen, 7 hours in that airport, then 10 hours flying to Seattle. Then just to top it off, they decided they need to do a "dump search" of all my stuff in Seattle: in other words, dumping all the stuff out of all my bags and looking through everything. Needless to say, I was less than thrilled.

So I got home Friday night, and Steve McMahon showed up at my house later that evening. He spent the night, then we all went to the Washington camp-meeting the next day. Allie showed up in the afternoon with her dad to visit, and we all looked at Turkey pictures. We had a great evening, and I got home around 1 the next morning. Then I spent Sunday and Monday at home, Tuesday was the day that Nathan and his brother Matthew, and Charity and Marion and Sarah showed up, we got the rental van, and Wednesday morning at 11 we set off for Arizona and Immian's wedding. We drove all day and all night, and were coming into LA the next morning. Then we promptly missed our turn there and had to drive all the way down to San Diego before heading east towards Yuma then Phoenix then Tucson. We got the their place at about 9pm, and had lots of reunions with people we hadn't seen for sometime. Then we went to sleep in the Smith's greenhouse, where the tomatoes are grown for Sunizona Farms. The whole weekend was a blast and a half, and it was great to see a bunch of good friends (Patrick, Eric, Ryan, Jeff, Leah, Ceri, Sondra, Vange, and a whole bunch more). The wedding was great, very romantic. :-) And the couple of the hour seemed quite in love, which is a good thing.

Then we left on Monday morning at about 10 and drove to the Grand Canyon, where we did a little hiking around and climbing and picture-taking, then watched the sun set before we left and kept driving. We drove straight up through Utah, and stopped for breakfast the next morning at an IHOP in Boise, ID. Then we continued on until we got home around 9:30pm. The girls got up early the next morning and left, and my dad drove Nathan and Matthew to the ferry so they could go across to Seattle and get a bus back home. I, meanwhile, was hopelessly laid up in bed with a stomach virus that seemed bound and determined to make whatever was my insides become my outsides, through whatever method seemed convenient (convenient to it, not to me!). I dealt with that all morning as my parents packed the Suburban, then we left in the middle of the afternoon to drive down to Hood River, OR, for the Hohnberger Family Camp. Around the time we got to Portland my stomach began behaving and I developed a nasty migraine, so I conked out in the car as my parents set up the tent and my siblings ran and screamed. I felt much better the next morning, but I was really fatigued so I slept all day and didn't go to any of the meetings.

We spent the weekend there, and I was really given a different perspective on the Hohnberger family. I gained tremendous respect and appreciation for the stand they've taken to raising their family to be God-honouring and full of His principles. I left the weekend with new vision for my own future family. I know, time to worry about Matt becoming a Hohnbergerite, eh? Well, that actually doesn't sound half bad if you ask me! I've really learned that all the rumours about them are pretty unfounded. They are human and definitely have made mistakes, but they are totally on the right path when it comes to Biblical families. If only more SDA's could catch that vision.

But this post has grown far too long and it's far too late to continue typing... so I will leave the rest for another day.

Good night all!

Monday, June 18, 2007 10:00pm

2007-07-13T22:11:00.000-07:00

After getting picked up from the bus station and getting checked into our hostel, we got settled in for a bit. We laid back on our beds and listened to a sermon by Jeffrey Rosario about trusting God to lead our future. It was a sermon that he had preached at our graduation, and the second half of it was super inspiring. Then we headed out to poke around and find stuff.

After walking around for awhile, checking a few ATM’s to see if Ricky’s card would work, and looking in the supermarket for supper for that evening, I went into a drugstore to try to find some sunscreen. I found a couple bottles, but they were all massive. I only wanted a small one. They were also about $20 per bottle. The girl working there was trying very hard to figure out what I wanted. She knew that I didn’t like anything I was seeing, and she called for me to follow her to the counter. I did so, and she grabbed a bottle of some of the nice expensive stuff-- you know, like the kind that moisturizes and rebuilds the skin as well as protecting it. She handed it to me, and I was like “No way, this is way too expensive.” She said, “No, a gift.” It took a minute for it to sink in, so to help me she grabbed it, stuck it in a bag, handed it to me, and motioned to the door-- with a shy little smile. I was kinda startled, but I thanked her several times and walked out kinda in shock. Ricky thought it was slightly amusing.

So then we headed to find the beach. We ended up walking about 7 or 8 km in the hot and sticky Antalya climate, most of those coming along the coastline-- only, at the top of a cliff overlooking the Mediterranean instead of on the beach. Finally we gave up looking for it and flagged down a “dolmus”, one of the crazy little town buses that they have in Turkey. It took us about another 15 km’s before dropping us off at the Lara Beach, a long, sandy, beautiful beach. We headed out onto the sand and walked a little ways. Then we stopped and I hopped in for a little bit. The water was nice, but it just wasn’t all I had quite expected it to be. I came back out and Ricky and I talked for awhile, trying to decide if we really wanted to stay in Turkey as long as we’d been planning. We both concluded that we wanted to do our best to find out if there was a way to move our flights up a day, then we began the trek back to the hostel.

After we’d been there for awhile, he came to me and asked me if I’d be interested in a Turkish bath at one of the local hamams, on him. I couldn’t pass up an offer like that, so we headed over to one. THAT was an experience! It started out with us stripping down and wrapping ourselves in towels, then being led into what was basically a really big sauna in a cave with a big flat stone table, where we lay and relaxed for about 15 minutes. Then the guy came back and led us into a small room with two stone shelves coming out of the wall, and a faucet running constantly into a stone bowl built into the floor. We both removed our towels, lay down on the shelves, and he started out with Ricky. He tossed a bunch of warm water all over us, then began to give Ricky a full-body friction massage. When he finished, he had us switch shelves and gave me the same. Then we switched again and he lathered Ricky all over in lots of bubbles and gave him a full-body massage for about 10 minutes, repeating the sequence on me when he had finished Ricky. After all of that, we were led out where he wrapped us in towels and sent us upstairs for apple tea, the customary Turkish drink. Man, did that ever feel GOOD! The rest of the day was mostly taken up with relaxing, bumming, and chatting with friends on MSN. :-)

Friday found us taking a bus out to some nice waterfalls after our traditional Turkish breakfast at the hostel’s restaurant. The bus took about an hour, and the waterfalls were really pretty. It was kinda weird, cuz we were basically right in the middle of town, but the waterfalls felt like we were out in the jungle somewhere. After looking at them and taking pictures, Ricky and I sat and chatted for a long time, then caught the bus back to Antalya.

Sunday, June 17, 2007 10:45am

2007-06-26T15:49:00.000-07:00

My goodness, I need to not be so lazy and update this thing more often. Well at least this past week hasn’t been as full as the first couple of weeks were. I guess I left it off in the hostel the night before-- the DIRT BIKES. Oh boy was that day ever a trip! I’ll tell you about it……

That morning went pretty slow. Ricky got up early (6:45) and woke me up so we could go get some breakfast before he headed out on his mountain-biking enterprise. After some good eggs, he took off for the bike shop and I headed back to the hostel. I had the whole morning to blow, but unfortunately we had to be out of our room by 10:00 so I couldn’t sleep like I had planned. I packed up all of my stuff (Ricky had packed before he left) and moved it all downstairs to await our departure. Once I had finished with that, I had all morning to do nothing-- so what better to do than sit down with a computer and wireless internet and be a complete and total bum? I was going to have to get used to that, as I was soon to realize. I spent the majority of the morning talking to people and researching various things pertaining to colleges, jobs, cars, and the like. When Ricky got back around 2 we headed to the rental shop where we had reserved the dirt bikes the night before. They were 200cc Ramzeys. After renting them for about $15 each, we took off. We got down the road about 500 feet, and Ricky’s bike died. *eyes rolling* I turned around and went back to the rental shop, where they gave us another bike to replace that one-- which I don’t believe Ricky minded, seeing as how this one was virtually brand-new and in terrific shape, unlike mine with bald tires and a gutless motor. So we took off…

After spinning around some of the local dirt roads (which all went nowhere) we decided to spin around the main roads for a bit. It was a beautiful and warm sunny day, and it felt awesome. One on straight stretch as Ricky led the way, we both opened it up and gave our bikes the full throttle-- which meant Ricky pushed 125 km/h and I screamed out at 100 km/h. Either way it felt awesome! Suddenly Ricky saw a side trail that appealed to him and he slowed down and pulled over. We scooted up a nice little trail onto the top of a hill with a bit of a view of the surrounding country. That gave us a taste of powering up the hillsides so we went in search of more, still with Ricky in the lead. We finally found a nice trail that we tootled right up without further ado.

It was pretty fun, and the adrenaline was pumping as we crossed a small creek and sped up the hillside, bouncing from rock to rock, nearly getting ungracefully dismounted time and again. Every time we would stop for a breather, Ricky would look at me with this half-wild look in his eyes and say, “Wow! Isn’t this fun?!” I would agree heartily and we would attack the next hillside. Finally we came to the final hill to the top of the ridge. From a distance it looked like a lot of fun, and I quickly hopped off my bike to get a video of Ricky assault upon it. Well, it became speedily apparent that it was bound and determined to return the favour! As he neared the top, he was slowing more and more and beginning to weave back and forth more and more until he finally tipped over. I’d told him that he was going to crash on this one since I was videoing, and I wasted no time in reminding him of that fact. I think he appreciated my caring remarks.

He recommended that I not try the path he had taken, but rather seek a trail around the side of the hill-- “It’s a lot harder than it looked!”. I followed his advice, but soon found myself in desperate straits akin to the ones he was currently battling. He made it down before I, and started to sniff out a possible trail along the gully going along the hill. I managed to get my bike turned around, and after not a few hair-raising moments I made it back to safer, flatter ground. But now he had disappeared from sight around a corner, so I set out on foot to find him and get a progress analysis from him. Now keep in mind that it was about 95 degrees outside, and there wasn’t a big of shade anywhere unless you were the size of an ant. Even the lizards looked kinda cantankerous. As I hoofed it until he came into sight (videoing at the same time), I was swatting flies and cursing the day they had hatched from their little eggs. He finally appeared with the announcement that he had gotten gasoline upon himself. I asked why on earth he would do such a thing, and he responded that there had been a time when “the bike was horizontally parallel to the ground, but not touching it”, and that he had “been the bumper that protected the bike’s general well-being”. He didn’t really look the worse for wear, but the bike now wouldn’t start. *long sigh*

Well, to make a long story even longer, the bike wouldn’t start and we had to heave and shove and maneuver it down the hill, both of us beginning to feel the effects of dehydration and too much time with the backs of our heads as solar panels. By the time we got the bike to the relatively flat spot, we had to stop for a couple of minutes just to clean the sweat out of our eyes and to regain our breath. Then I tried roll-starting it a few times, but to no avail. So I got down in the dirt and started surveying all of the possible options. The engine wasn’t responding at all, so my first thought was “spark plug”. Nope, it was fine. My next thought was “gas line”. Seemed intact. So my next thought was (I was doing a LOT of thinking) “electrical”. Something must have gotten knocked loose-- that was the wishful thinking side of me. So I started looking at everything that it could possibly be. After some poking and tinkering (between periodic wipes of my now dripping brow), I found a couple of wires that looked like they maybe should be connected. They were, however, in a VERY awkward location, and I could only get at them with the tips of a couple of fingers. After fighting with them for nearly ½ an hour, getting more and more frustrated by the minute, I finally managed to attach them-- nothing. It still wouldn’t start. By then I was beginning to deduce that there was likely a much deeper problem, but I couldn’t even begin to address it because I couldn’t get at the innards of the bike. I needed a screwdriver.

So I left Ricky to push the bike as far down as he could, and set out to go back to town in search of a screwdriver. As I began to pick my way down the hill, I heard the sound of Ricky coming behind me on the motorbike. Then engine wasn’t going, but as I turned around I heard him pop the clutch in an attempt to start it-- and it started!!! My hopes shot up but then immediately plummeted as it died again. He tried it again with the same result. It was then that we discovered that it would start, but when he attempted to use the throttle it would die. I was convinced that it was something with the throttle cable, which was something that I wouldn’t be able to fix. But hey, it was worth a try. We were at the bottom of the hill at this point, so I took off down the road until I came to the main road. It was a divided highway, so I had to go about 5 km in the wrong direction before I could turn around. I did so, and laid the throttle wide open. Remember how I’d only been able to get it to 100 km/h before? Well, on a little bit of a downhill I maxed out at 120 this time. I got back to the little gas station a little ways down the road, and proceeded to engage in a rather frustrating game of charades with the attendants, trying to explain that I needed a screwdriver. When I finally got my point across, with exclamations of understanding they directed me to a little shed a few hundred feet from the station, where I found a young boy and his father. The boy understood immediately what I wanted and explained to his dad. His dad didn’t want me to take the screwdriver, so he told him to climb on the bike and go with me. The boy was about 11 or 12 probably. I found it rather amusing that he was more concerned about the safety of the screwdriver than he was for his boy. When we arrived back to where Ricky was, we found him at the side of the highway with a guy in nice dress clothes. He didn’t speak anymore English than anyone else, but he could tell what our problem was. After some more poking and tinkering, this time with the screwdriver, he found a blown fuse, which he replaced with the extra. But the bike still wouldn’t start.

So he left us after telling us to call “service” to come fix the bike. So we called the rental company (actually the little kid called), and told them the problem. They said that someone would be there shortly, so we sat and waited. After about half an hour of waiting, they hadn’t showed up and it was nearing the time to return the bikes. Not wanting two late fees, I left Ricky and the boy on the side of the road with the understanding that “service” was coming soon. I sped to another gas station, filled up the bike, and took off for Goreme. I arrived and returned the bike with no more interesting encounters. I did take a video while riding on the bike. That was fun!

So I had a little bit to bum at the hotel as I waited. When Ricky hadn’t gotten back about an hour later, I walked over to the rental company and found out that they had JUST gotten to him and that he would be back in a bit. So I ambled around waiting for him to show up, which he did after about 10 minutes. As it turns out, those two wires I had spent SO long trying to get together were the wires that, when connected, prevent the starter from working. So between the broken fuse and the two wires, it should have been a pretty easy fix. Oh well, such is life.

So since Ricky and I were both famished, we headed over to a cool little cave restaurant that was decorated very traditionally (with the exception of the small TV and computer in the room we ate in). We sat on pillows on the floor next to small tables and ate our supper. It was okay food, and we had to rush out at the end because our bus was leaving at 9:15, in about 45 minutes. We hustled back to the hotel and grabbed our stuff and checked out. That was pretty interesting, because she didn’t take credit cards, and I couldn’t afford the WHOLE bill, and none of the ATM’s would take Ricky’s card. After some finagling, she decided that she could take our credit card, charging only a 6% fee. As we were getting all the loose ends tied up, she got a call informing us that the bus was waiting for us. Yay for small towns.

The bus trip was very unexciting, only a LOOOOONG 10 hours, and we arrived in Antalya at about 7am.

Tuesday, June 12, 2007 9:00pm

2007-06-20T15:23:00.000-07:00

We spent a few days in Izmir, getting to know the area and the culture a bit. Very few people spoke little to no English, so things were a bit interesting. We managed to track down an ATM, getting directions from a guy that spoke enough English to say “What is your name?” We found a nice little restaurant that sold some things called “pide (PEE-day)”. They’re basically like a long narrow pizza that is nothing but dough, cheese, and oil-- with heavy emphasis on the last two. Two of them are more than enough to fill you up! There was also a nice little supermarket where we were able to purchase some bread, jam, olive spread, and some veggies, which constituted our meals for the rest of the time we were there.

Our roommate was a really nice guy named Abraham*. He’s an Iranian SDA that is fleeing persecution in his home. He didn’t speak any English and we didn’t speak any Iranian, but we were able to enjoy each other’s presence and took pictures of each other before we left. On Sabbath all the “Michigan” people (the AFM folk) came over to our apartment and we had a nice little church service, granted it was illegal. Afterwards we had a nice lunch and I had a good talk with Daniel’s daughter, who is currently attending Southern. Then John took us out to see a castle built by Alexander the Great, called Kadifekale. In and around the castle is all a Kurdish neighborhood, which provided another new and unique experience. There was a great view of the whole area from up there, so we got a bit of perspective about where we were. Off in the distance we could see Greece, and we heard the call to prayer around 5 in the evening.

On Sunday morning, we didn’t really have anything to do, so I ended up sleeping most of the morning away. We went for a walk for awhile, bought some more pide, and got ready to leave. Our bus departed at 7:30, but we had to get to the little shop where we had purchased the tickets at about 6:15, because they had to shuttle us across town to the main station. After getting to the station, we had to figure out which stall our bus would be at, then we had to find it. We waited for a little bit, then boarded and left. A 13 hour bus trip across half of Turkey is indeed quite the experience! About every 3 or 4 hours we stopped at little rest stops, where we stayed for over half an hour. I finally got some sleep early in the morning, and awoke with the sun at about 5. We were in a flat, and I mean FLAT, deserty area. All around, as far as I could see, it was absolutely and totally flat-- except for one HUGE mountain. For a while we thought it may have been Ararat, but we soon realized that we were too far west. It was kinda cool seeing an occasional shepherd standing with his flocks.

We arrived in Göreme at about 8am, and made our way directly to our hostel, the Köse Pension. We’ve since decided that we picked a great place, partly from our personal experience, and partly because every time we tell someone in the town where we’re staying, they say, “Oh that’s the best place in town!” It’s a quaint little place. We’re staying in a little hut on the roof, and we have a great view of the surrounding valley. We’ve run into quite a few people traveling through here, all from many different countries. We’ve met Scottish, British, Australian, French, Pakistani, Brazilian, and many others. One guy we’ve talked extensively with is a 23-year-old Pakistani with a degree in Business. He has a great head on his shoulders. We’ve discussed politics, religion, sports, economics and many other great topics. We’ve had some great conversation with him about Islam and Christianity and found that we have a lot in common. One really cool thing he said was after we told him in a nutshell what we believe. He said, “So you guys are like the truest of the true Christians. You are the true orthodox Christians.” I thought that was pretty cool. We also had a great conversation over lunch today with a French guy that was the epitome of a postmodernist. We talked about life, meaning, truth, and all the other things that come up in that kind of a conversation.

Overall it’s been a fun experience so far. We’ve hiked around on some of the cool rock formations around here, which included Ricky getting quite a shock from a turtle in the grass. This is a very touristy area, so just about everyone speaks English to some degree or another. Today we went out for a full-day tour of some of the sights around here. The most interesting things we saw were an 8-floor underground city, a monastery built into the side of a mountain, and a nice canyon with a river and nice greenness in the bottom of it. Tomorrow bright and early, Ricky is going to go for a mountain-biking tour until around 2, then the both of us are going to rent some dirt bikes and go toodling around the area. Our bus leaves for Antalya at 9 in the evening, so we’ve got another nice, long, all-night bus trip ahead of us. We’ll arrive at 7 in the morning, and I’m going to waste no time in getting to the beach! So until tomorrow….

Monday, June 11, 2007 6:45am

2007-06-19T15:39:00.000-07:00

I’m now on the bus heading across Turkey. We’re nearing our destination, Goreme, in Cappadocia. We’ve been on the bus for almost 12 hours, and my butt is telling the tale quite woefully. But back to the story…

Werner dropped Mitch and I off at the guys’ dorm, and I ran in to search for my inhaler. Robby was quite surprised to see me there, and came to help me in my quest. After completely emptying my suitcase, the much-desired piece was AWOL. I was becoming rather concerned and quite peeved. Robby brought me some Claritin to help with the allergies, but my inhaler was nowhere to be found. So I printed off my flight itinerary on Robby’s computer and spent about 10 minutes talking to Mitch before bidding him a final farewell and heading up to the school. Robby drove me up because he was going to be driving me back to the train.

By the way, at this time it was about 10pm, and it was as sunny as 7pm normally is in the summer. When I finally caught the train at 11:23, it was just starting to get dusky.

When I got to the school I expected the school building to be locked, but surprisingly it wasn’t, so I ran in and headed up to the computer lab, knowing exactly where to find everybody. Sure enough, I found Emily, Allie, Joliann, Shannon, Alonna, and Alex. I had given my camera to Allie to get pictures off of, and she also had my Italia jacket I had bought (she had to carry something for me if I was going to carry her backpack). Alex needed my camera to get pictures, so after tracking down a card reader, I gave it to her. Since I needed to wait for her, I ran out to the girls’ dorm to get an inhaler thingy that Chrissy was going to let me borrow. I told her that I couldn’t find mine, and she had a light-bulb moment and went to her closet, from whence she quickly produced my inhaler from a coat pocket. I had lent it to her months before when she was having asthma issues. Man, did I feel better! She also gave me the other thing. Allie came down and I borrowed an adaptor from her since I’d left mine in Torre Pellicci. Then I ran back up and got my camera and jacket from the computer room, telling the girls in there good-bye in the process. Then I ran BACK down (I ran up and down a few more times, but I don’t remember why) and told Jadie good-bye in the chicken house (the little house that Jadie, Yvette, Emily, and Alex stayed in). Then I ran in and told Shannon, Allie, and Chrissy good-bye. That was the closest to tearful that any time became, but from what I was told, the tears flowed in abundance afterwards. I was too stressed to cry at the time, though I was tempted to. I scurried back out and jumped into the car with Robby, and we sped off to the train station. He stopped and bought some orange juice, and we sat and waited for the train for about 20 minutes. It arrived, I hopped on, and was off.

That was the longest trip I think I’ve ever taken. It was then that everything hit me. I’d been going, going, going for so long that I hadn’t really had time to think about it; but like I told the girls on the way to Hokksund, that was a long, lonely, and quiet train/bus trip back. It took a little over two hours, and for a time I wasn’t quite sure if I was going to the right place, but at last I ended up at the Lufthavn, the airport. It was a little after 1:30am and the sun was just disappearing behind the horizon, leaving a bright pinkish-orange in the western part of the sky. I walked back into that familiar airport and began to search for Ricky. He wasn’t in the area we had all slept in before, so I walked all over, finally finding him in the exact opposite side of the building. I woke him up and we walked around chatting for a bit. I hadn’t had anything to eat basically all day, so we looked at the two little stores for a while, trying to decide what I should buy. I finally bought some rolls, a couple of apples, and some blueberry yogurt. Airport food is notoriously expensive, and Norway is an expensive country. So that is NOT a good combination. Anyways, I ate and crashed on a bench. Two hours later, at about 4:45am, Ricky woke me up so I could get myself cleaned up and we could check in for our 6:20 flights. I felt totally hung-over and, when I looked at myself in the mirror, I realized that I looked even worse. My eyes were all bloodshot and my face had a bunch of red lines on it, to go with my hair that was poofy on one side and flat on the other. I was completely discombobulated, and it took me most of the day to regain my wits. After checking in and proceeding through security, we split up and headed to our separate gates. Ricky was flying to Munich via Copenhagen, and I was flying to Munich via Frankfurt. Then we would both take the same flight from Munich to Izmir. The whole trip went without a hitch, and we arrived in Izmir right on time.

This was where we both began to get a little bit nervous. We needed to make it through customs, get a multiple-entry visa (in case we were able to make it to Patmos, in Greece), and try to avoid discussing the nature of the work of the people that we were going to visit. We stopped behind a little pillar, shot up a quick prayer and walked to the counter. Two minutes later we had our visa, no questions asked, and were walking to the passport check. Two minutes after that we were through and out into the baggage claim area. It happened so fast that we stopped and kinda looked at each other in disbelief. We were definitely praising the Lord!

After collecting our luggage, we had a short wait as we tried to figure out which person there was the one that was there to meet us. We tried to call Daniel*, our friend there, but Ricky wasn’t quite sure how to dial from within Turkey. Pretty soon a guy showed up holding a sign that said “Ricky” on it, and we knew we had found the right guy. Shannon would have been proud: he was wearing Chacos. J His name was John* and we found out that he had graduated ARISE the year before we did. He led the way to his car, where his 11-year-old son Samuel* was waiting. We got to see some of the sights of Izmir as we drove to our apartment, and he gave us a crash course on Turkish, both the language and the customs. The pronunciations are pretty straight-forward, but the language itself is TOTALLY unfamiliar. It’s sorta like a combination of Arabic and Norwegian. Don’t ask me to explain.

Anyway, after a short drive we arrived at our apartment in downtown Izmir. He took us in and got us settled in, after which we began to plan for our trip. We pored over a couple of maps, and he told us what we wanted to see what we didn’t want to see. As it turns out, a couple of the 7 churches are nothing worth seeing, so we decided to skip them. What would work best would be to hang in Izmir for the weekend and take the Sunday night bus to Cappadocia, spend a few days there, bus down to Antalya, spend a few days there, then bus back to Izmir where John would give us a blitzkrieg tour of a few of the churches. So that’s the plan.

More later….

*Not their real names

Saturday, June 09, 2007 8:30pm

2007-06-18T12:22:00.000-07:00

Well, much has happened so far here in Turkey, but I must catch you all up on what happened before, so I will pick up where I left off-- that is, just after St. Peter’s Basilica.

So after St. Pete’s, it was back to the metro for a trip back past the hostel where we came from and out to the outskirts of Rome. We got off in an unfamiliar part of the city and hiked up the streets a short distance to what Scott had been heralding “a true Italian restaurant”. Seeing as how he wasn’t a “true Italian”, I sort of wondered with what authority he was saying that on. But anyways, we headed inside and took our seats. It was nice enough and clean enough. Then the appetizers came. Then the drinks came. Then the rest of the food came. I was pretty impressed. They just kept bringing food! And they didn’t charge for the water, like every other dumb restaurant had. We had water and Fanta to drink, and the food wasn’t too bad. It definitely filled us up, and they only charged us about 11 Euros each for it. Seeing as how we’d paid that much for one pizza before, we were happy. Happy enough that we sang “I’m Happy Today” for them when we were finished, a la Fountainview. They seemed to appreciate that, and it made us smile.

From there we headed out onto a bus bound for the Appian Way, from whence we were to access some catacombs. The bus dropped us off on the Appian Way itself, and we had a nice, very pleasant walk down the road to the entrance to the catacombs. It was a sunny day, and the temperature was quite moderate. We were taken through a guided tour of the catacombs, a venture that turned out to be rather interesting and informative. At the end of the tour we walked back to where the bus dropped us off, waited for a short time for the bus to arrive, and took it back to the station. The metro was right next to the bus station, so we hopped back onto it and headed back down to the Termini, the downtown location near our hostel. We stood in the middle of the terminal for a bit trying to decide what to do next, and I received a bit of a surprise-- Craig Noles called me on Alonna’s cell phone. I talked to him for a few minutes, then the group was beginning to split, so I got off with him and hooked up with Yvette heading back to get internet. The rest of the group, minus Alonna, was going out for gelatos, but I needed to find out if I could get money out yet to buy souvenirs, so I went with Yvette. We did our internet thing, then started back through town to meet the rest of the group. I withdrew some money on the way, and we bumped into everyone right outside the gelateria that they were purchasing the goods from. We were just in time to be able to mooch off the WFL cash that Scott provided, then I moved along with Jadie, Allie, Emily, Alex, and Mitch to do some souvenir shopping. I bought a dark blue Italia track jacket for 20 Euros, and a few of the rest of them bought shirts and stuff as well, then we walked back to the hostel just in time for worship at 8:30. After worship, I stayed up for awhile talking with Chrissy and Vange in the common room, finally hitting the sack about 11:30.

My asthma and allergies were really giving me some grief, making sleep a state that was nearly impossible to achieve. After laying there for about half an hour or so, I got up and took a shower, one of the few things that would clear the passages. It did the trick for all of about 10 minutes, and once again I was in congested misery. I lay there tossing and turning for a little over 2 hours, until about 3am. At that point, it had gotten nearly unbearable. I was beginning to go nuts, just being almost completely unable to take a full breath. I decided to take another shower, and I ended up sitting under the stream of HOT water and falling asleep. I woke up with a start after about 45 minutes, and tried to leap up. I was really discombobulated, and the slippery floor and my dizziness combined to send me sprawling on the floor. I stood up more carefully, and realized that I was really light-headed and my hearing was pretty much nil. Everything was swimming around me, and it wasn't because I’d been sitting on the tub drain. My legs started shaking uncontrollably, and my hands absolutely REFUSED to function. I was feeling really nauseated, so I shut the water off and booted it to the bathroom in my birthday suit. Fortunately it was 4:00 in the morning and none of the early-birds were up yet, seeing as it is a co-ed bathroom. I never lost my supper, but the feelings all left pretty quickly, and I actually felt better after them than I had before. I was finally able to get a few hours of sleep, and I awoke at about a quarter to 8.

Our train to the airport left at 10:30, and our flight left at 1:00. We packed all of our things first thing in the morning, followed immediately by breakfast and worship. Then we checked out and began the pilgrimage back to the train station. Nothing particularly eventful happened between there and the half-hour train to the airport. We arrived and found our way to the ticket counter with relative ease and fell into the rather longish line to check in. The first fifteen or twenty minutes went rather boringly, then the excitement began. A group of five or six Germans came in behind us, hell-bent on pushing their way ahead of us. As we realized what they were doing, we just subtly spread ourselves across the little aisle, effectively preventing their advance. Scott, Mitch, Vange, and I were bringing up the rear, and we took great pleasure in taking up as much space as possible. Our Germans seemed quite insistent on pushing past us, but we were just as stubborn as they. One lady that came up behind me was physically pushing her body into my back, hitting the backs of my legs with her bags. We needed to be checked in to our flight 40 minutes before departure and that limit was rapidly nearing, so we staunchly stood our ground. We finally got ourselves all checked in, and realized that it was time to bid farewell to our favorite little Peruvian, Yvette. She was going to be waiting for a little while in the airport, and her parents were going to arrive shortly. It began then to hit us that our group was at long last beginning to dissolve. But we didn’t have much time to think about it, because our flight was leaving soon and we had to go through security.

We all headed off towards the long lines, Emily and I toting Allie and Joliann’s things, as they were making use of the facilities. We had to hang back a little to let them catch up to us, then we darted ahead of everyone and up to the checkpoint. Allie had forgotten that she had a full Nalgene in her bag, and the guards wouldn’t let her dump it out in the trash, so between the two of us we chugged the whole thing in less than 30 seconds, then hustled off to our gate. We’d been keeping an eye on our German friends the whole time. They had made it to security ahead of us, but one of them got stopped and searched and we began to pass them. Finally, just before the last of us came through, they finished and sped off towards their gate. Jadie and Alonna, the last two from our group, came through and we hurried off. We got to our gate as the first people were beginning to board, and to our delight, our German friends showed up a couple of minutes after us. Apparently they had gotten lost somewhere along the way. They looked like they could have chewed through an iron bar.

We boarded the plane via a bus that took us out onto the tarmac, something I’d never experienced until Europe. But just about every one of my flights in Europe has operated that way. We were very curious to see where we would end up sitting in relation to the German pals we had made. Ironically, Mitch and Chrissy ended up in the row right in front of them, and Scott was right next to one of the men! Shortly into the flight, Chrissy tried to lean her seat back to sleep, and the German guy behind her flipped out and started punching and kicking her seat. He stuck his knees up against it and wouldn’t let her lean it back. So she switched seats with Mitch, and he forced the seat back. The man hammered on the seat for awhile, finally giving up in frustration and moving to a different seat. After that, the rest of our journey to Norway went uneventfully. We landed at 6pm, and after gathering our luggage, we purchased train tickets back to Hokksund, the town 10 km from Skotselv. I had to return to get my asthma inhaler, so I got to see everyone for a little bit longer, but the time had come for everyone to bid farewell to Ricky.

The day we had spent in Rome seeing the Coliseum had left Allie with bright red shoulders, and carrying a full-size climbing pack on them was rather uncomfortable, so since my luggage had stayed with Ricky, I carried her pack for her. After a short time on the train, we were informed that there was construction happening on the tracks ahead, and we were going to be shuttled off onto a bus that would take us ahead and put us back on the train. This was accomplished without too much excitement. Everyone was in a really good mood, enhanced by the beautiful sunshine, warm weather, and wonderful green hills, quite the breath of fresh air (literally) after the hustle and bustle and pollution of Rome. We were all laughing and joking and having a good time, but there was almost a hint of a shadow as we realized that this was our last real time together. We had already lost Yvette and Ricky, and they were soon to lose me. It was our last time traveling together as WFL’s, and as our whole year had been spent basically doing just that, it was a rather sentimental time. We got to Hokksund, and found Werner waiting for us with the EBS van to take us to the school. We all piled in and after a short trip found ourselves back in familiar territory. More later…..

Thursday, June 07, 2007 9:10am

2007-06-16T02:58:00.000-07:00

Nine country changes in two weeks. Five flights in two days. Sixty-two hours awake with five hours of sleep, two of those coming in an airport. Endless busses and trains, and even MORE walking. This has been Matt’s life over the past little while. And he’s becoming quite weary. This is definitely the opportunity of a lifetime, and I’m seeing why. No one would be crazy enough to do this a second time! I’m so wasted after the past few days. Poor Ricky is going to really have to baby-sit me for the next two weeks.  Anyways, so I guess I should catch ya’ll up on where I am and what’s been happening. As you can see by the dates, I’ve missed a few days. And those were some FULL days. I last left you as we were arriving by train in Rome. I am now sitting in the Frankfurt airport on my way to Turkey. Witness for Life is officially over (*sniffle*). This post is going to be written both here in the airport and in the air between Frankfurt and Munich, because my flight boards in about 5 minutes. But here goes…

When we arrived in Rome, it was raining. We had a 10-minute walk to the hostel that we were to stay in, so we got a wee bit wet. The hostel was called Hotel Des Artistes. Part of it was a three-star hotel, and part of it was a hostel. We were in the hostel part, guys in one room with two bunk-beds and girls in two other rooms. After getting all checked-in and settled and all that, we set out to search for supper. Scott had a particular restaurant in mind, and he boldly led us through the streets of downtown Rome in search of it. After about half an hour of walking, we came up empty. We gave up the search near the Trevi Fountain and decided to find the best-looking restaurant we could come up with. One finally presented itself in the form of a slightly pushy waiter hawking his restaurant’s wares to anyone that wanted to listen (and to anyone that didn’t want to). We took our seats outside along the alleyway and began to peruse the menu. Some of us ordered pizza and others ordered pasta. It turned out that those of us that went for the pizza were the smart ones. All of the dishes were 7-10€ each, which comes out to about $10-14. The pasta dishes were about the size of the average appetizer in the States, and the pizzas were a decent size for one person. Needless to say, we were a bit disappointed and our stomachs were still rather empty. So we walked around a bit more and found a good gelateria, also known as the Italian version of Baskin Robbins. After getting our little treats the group split up, as some of us were rather tired and wanted to return to the hostel, and some still wanted to explore the sights. So Vange, Chrissy, Alex, Yvette, Alonna, and I all returned to the hostel. I walked with Yvette and Alex over to the nearby laundromat so Yvette could do some laundry and so I could check out the prices. Yvette dropped her laundry off and was informed that it was 11€ (~$15) for one load! And I thought $2.50/load in the US was bad! And to make it even more laughable, she was told that it would be ready at midnight (it was 8:00 then)! I decided that my clothes could last a bit longer in their current state.

The next morning dawned sunny and B-E-A-U-tiful. After breakfast and worship, we set out on our trek around Rome. That was probably one of the most interesting days in Italy. We saw the Pantheon, the Forum (downtown ancient Rome), Mamertine Prison (where the Apostle Paul was kept for a time), St. John’s Cathedral (where the pope worships every Sunday), Pilate’s Staircase (the staircase walked upon by Jesus on His way to the cross, supposedly transported by the angel Gabriel from Jerusalem; also, the steps that Martin Luther was ascending on his knees when he was struck with the revelation “The just shall live by faith”), and finally the Coliseum (where the gladiators fought and where the Christians were slaughtered). By the time we had seen all of those sights, it was late afternoon and we were getting pretty wasted. Some people wanted to do some shopping and Shannon wanted to go use the internet. Me being my usual little broke self, I didn’t have money to use the internet, but needed to get on to find out if I could get money (nice fix to be in, eh?), so I was going to follow Shannon to the internet place so I could bum some time off of her. But she was going to go with them to shop first. And since they (Jadie, Mitch, Allie, Joliann, and Emily, from what I can remember) wanted a navigator, I went along and helped them get the places they wanted to get to. After everyone got the stuff that they needed, we headed back to the hostel and the nearby internet. As it ended up, all the computers were full and Shannon hadn’t known that they needed some photo ID to use the computer, so I bummed off of Mitch. As soon as I was done, it was time for worship. When that ended, it was pushing bedtime.

We arose bright and early the next morning so we could head off for the Vatican. It’s good to get there early to avoid waiting for hours in the long lines. We headed out from the hostel around 7:15am and made our way to the metro. After purchasing passes for the day, we headed underground for yet another unique European traveling experience. The metro was quite crowded when we first boarded, and we made it even more so. All these cramped quarters were such that, if we somehow hadn’t known each other that well before, we certainly did now! After probably 15 minutes or so, we disembarked at the appropriate point. A short walk brought us to the line for entering the Vatican. According to our knowledge, it was supposed to open at 8:30am. We arrived about 10 minutes before 8, so we figured we were there in plenty of time. Mitch had worship for us there on the sidewalk as we waited. 8:30 soon became 8:45, and after that 9:15. Before we knew it-- well, actually, we were quite aware of each and every second-- it was 10:30 and the line was finally moving. We got into the Vatican at about a quarter to 11, and had to go through a security check similar to the ones in airports.

That place was PACKED. We got our passes for the day and were let loose with orders to meet at the time of the spirally staircase in an hour and a half. I ended up in a group with Vange, Ricky, Alex, Allie, Jadie, Yvette, Joliann, and Shannon. Ricky split and went into the Egyptian museum, so I was left with the girls. We continued to follow the signs for the Sistine Chapel, upstairs, down the hall, and through one extravagantly-decorated corridor after another. Apparently, each of them was designed by one pope after another, each trying to outdo the last. Around each corner I expected to see the Sistine Chapel, as we were continuing to follow the signs. We were in a group of several hundred people, all gradually making our way through the museum. After probably half an hour, the Sistine Chapel still hadn’t made itself known, but the faithful signs continued. Pretty soon we ran into the rest of the group, so we continued through together. The art in the rooms we were in began getting more and more modern (interpret: stupider and stupider), and I was beginning to wonder if this Sistine Chapel business was all a ploy to get people through the museum. FINALLY, around a corner appeared a large sign with little pictures telling us what was expected in the Chapel. Apparently cameras (and their flashes), video-cameras, and slipping down steps is not permitted. Well, I didn’t have my camera (or its flash) with me, I don’t own a video-camera, and I don’t plan to slip down steps, so I figured I was safe and headed into the very thing I’d gone through all the other stuff for. The noise inside sounded a lot like a HUGE crowd of people trying to be quiet, and not doing a good job. Probably cuz that’s exactly what it was. There were several guards whose entire purpose in life appeared to be shushing people and telling them to stop taking pictures. I saw the famous picture painted by Michelangelo of the creation of Adam, along with the rest of the Sistine Chapel. I was satisfied and left, though not before taking an undercover shot from the hip of Jadie’s mug (with her camera) with the ceiling in the background. We waited for the rest of the group at the top of the spirally staircase, then exited to make our way to St. Peter’s Square.

Once again, it was our lot to stand in a long line to get into an old building to see ancient relics. The heat became uncomfortable enough that Ricky and I scooted our way across the Square to the fountain to dunk our heads in. We went through another security checkpoint and made our way into the St. Peter’s Basilica. That place was pretty cool. I got to touch the famous toe of St. Peter that has been worn away by so many hands and lips (ewww) over the centuries. Being in the largest church in the world made me feel pretty small, as I think it did everyone else. But that was about all it was good for. There was nothing particularly uplifting about the whole experience, other than the experience part. It was pretty cool to see everything though. And hey, now I can say I’ve been there. And for most of you reading (except for WFL’s, past and present), I can say that I’ve been there and you can’t. So there. Anyways, this post is getting really long, and I’m now in Turkey, so I’ll continue it at a later date. Toodles…

Sunday, June 03, 2007 12:40pm

2007-06-15T05:51:00.000-07:00

We have now been in Italy for 5 days, and we have three more days until WFL is completely over. I have mixed feelings about it all. It will be good to close a chapter in my life and start a new one, as this one has overstayed it’s welcome in a few ways. But I will also REALLY miss all these people that I have become such great friends with. Ricky made an observation the other day. He said, “You know Matt, it’s almost like WFL has just been a continuation of life at FV. Even though we graduated, our life didn’t change a WHOLE lot. But with the end of WFL, that era of our lives will really be over. We will be completely moving on, getting a job, going to college, etc.” Anyways, so you’re probably not all that interested in the feelings I’m having right now. You want to know what Venice was like, right? Okay, I’ll tell you.

Our train to Venice had a little bit of excitement right at the beginning. We didn’t initially realize that there were assigned seats with the tickets, so we got on and started to get settled. Then our error was discovered, and we saw that we were two cars from where we were supposed to be. Carrying a lot of luggage through a crowded train with stubborn Italian people isn’t a particularly uplifting experience. Several miles down the tracks, we finally got situated. We arrived in Venice and found our hotel with relative ease. It was the cheapest hotel that Alonna could find, and it was €90/night. For those of you that don’t know how much that is, it’s around $130. I’ve stayed in Motel 6’s that were nicer than that place, but it wasn’t too bad. It had nice soft beds, toilets, and warm showers, so there’s nothing to complain about. Ooohh, and it had wireless too, so we were pretty babied. The wireless was €2 for one hour, which is about $3.50 or so. So it wasn’t too bad. I was able to check my email and see how the sports world is doing, so I was happy. There was an AWESOME huge thunderstorm basically as soon as we arrived. Man, that was some of the LOUDEST thunder I’ve ever heard. It was so cool, and quite funny when Allie squeaked and huddled down into a little ball. We walked down the road (we were still in the part of Venice on the mainland, so there weren’t any canals yet) to a little Italian restaurant for supper, and I ordered (betcha can’t guess!) a pizza. It was pretty good. It had real Italian olives, onions, and tuna. I’d never had a pizza with tuna, so I figured I’d give a try. It was actually pretty good, though all these goofy vegans didn’t really like my fish breath later.

The next day, Sabbath morning, dawned sunny and kinda warm. After some breakfast consisting of crackers with peanut butter and Nutella, or crackers with pesto and tomatoes, and after worship, we headed out to see the sights of Venice. The first leg of our little trip involved our first real experience with European bus travel. We had to take a bus out to the islands, so we waited for it at the bus stop. When it pulled up, we realized that it was already basically full (by American standards), and there was more than just our group of 14 wanting to get on. So we just packed in. I was standing next to the back doors, smashed face-to-face with Mitch. Fortunately we both had our backpacks on the front of us, so we weren’t getting TOO intimate. But every time the door tried to open, it created more and more of an impression on my hips and tailbone. We stopped a couple more times and even MORE people got on. One guy came towards our door, reached in and grabbed the bar and pulled his body right into Yvette, pushing the pile of people back a few inches further and enabling the doors to force themselves closed. After about 15 minutes or so, we arrived in downtown Venice, right next to the ferries. We found the ferry we were looking for and, when the time was right, we piled aboard in similar fashion to the bus trip. We tootled along through the canals until we reached the island we wanted, and we all clambered out. We walked the sidewalks for awhile, just admiring the sights and shops, most of which were full of various glass designs. We stood and watched a guy taking glass out of a furnace and shaping it into little horses. At another spot we took some group pictures while waiting for another ferry. Then we finally made it to the MAJOR tourist area that was PACKED with people. By then the sun had long since disappeared and it was now raining. We split up into groups with radios, and headed to see the sights. I was in a group with Ricky, Shannon, and Allie, and we had a great time. We started out in the main square that contains most of the famous Venetian landmarks, San Marcos Square. There was a huge cathedral with some really cool mosaics, and tons and tons and tons of little alleys (the puns flew about Allie and the alleys) filled with little gondoliers steering their little vessels packed with tourists.

It was pretty cool to see, but after a couple of hours my body was on sensory overload. It really opened my eyes to what Solomon talks about in Ecclesiastes, “vanity and chasing after the wind”. Pilgrim’s Progress talks about the city of Vanity Fair, and Venice fit perfectly the pictures I had always had of that city. So around mid-afternoon, those of us that were ready to head back to the hotel (Ricky, Vange, Chrissy, Alex, Yvette, and I) split from the group and headed back, and the rest of group came back a few hours later. We had some relax and hang-out time in the evening, and hit the sack a little while before midnight. Mitch had some weird health thing that came on really fast, totally wasting him and leaving him with a headache and really upset stomach. He lost most of his senses for awhile, and nearly passed out. It seemed kinda like a severe hypoglycemia, and he seems better this morning. Scott and I talked for a long time about visions that we have for training and raising up the army of youth that Ellen White talks about. It’s nice to see that I’m not the only one that has big visions that seem sometimes too big for me.

I got up a little after 7 this morning as usual. After a shower, breakfast (consisting of a bit of trail mix and some crackers and spread), and worship, we all packed up and headed for the train station. Our train left at a quarter after nine, and we’ve now been on it for 4 hours. We will be arriving in Rome in about two hours. We’ll be heading to a restaurant right away for a much-needed lunch, then we’ll get settled in our hostel. There is supposed to be a laundromat nearby, so we can do some also much-needed laundry. I can’t wait!

More later...

Friday, June 1, 2007, 5:30am

2007-06-14T04:48:00.000-07:00

Man, I’m loving this Italy thing! It’s a total rush!

We climbed Casteluzzo yesterday, and that was COOL! My foot actually felt better with the use, and the exercise, fresh air, and altitude all but eliminated my allergies and asthma. I led the pack up the hill, absolutely thrilled to be hiking in the Alps, all the while contemplating the history I was passing through, the stories that the mountain, rocks, and trees bore silent witness to. Again, I wished I could loose their tongues and hear the tales of history, but alas, ‘twasn’t to be.

I realized how much I’d been cooking along when I got to the top in a little under an hour, and we’d been told it was about a two-hour hike. The view was just absolutely, breathtakingly, stunningly incredible. There aren’t words for it. Coming up over the ridge and looking out at such a scene was a truly inspiring experience. It drew from my lungs several whoops of pure elation. The echoes ricocheted over the hills, pastures, rocks, and streams, bouncing around for nearly 5 seconds. I soon heard an answering “Hallooooo!” from far below-- some herdsman leading his flocks through a grassy meadow. I got as near the edge of the cliffs as I could: laying on my belly with my head hanging over, and I gazed below at the rocks, imagining the scene of the followers of Christ being cruelly tossed over and dying such an awful death. As the rest of the group showed up over the next 40 minutes, many gasps of amazement were heard, and many cameras were busted out. We were all in awe at the scene.

We ate our lunch on the cliff edge overlooking the valleys below, among which was nestled Torre Pellicci. Then as the rain began, Ricky and I led the charge down to the cars once more. I had been wearing my faithful flip-flops the whole time, as I have been for the past few weeks. So I had the opportunity to experience downhill trail-running in flip-flops, in the rain. It was a BLAST! It took us less than 20 minutes to get all the way to the bottom, and we lay in the cars napping until the rest of the group arrived.

The museum that we planned on visiting in the afternoon didn’t open for another couple of hours, and the River Angrogna was calling a few of us. So we hurried to the places we were staying, grabbed our swim clothes, and headed for the water! Scott drove us, us being Ricky, Allie, Yvette, Vange (of course), Chrissy, Shannon, and myself. Shannon and Scott were the photographers, and the rest of us were the brainless. That water was SO COLD! We leaped in, screamed really loud, and leaped back out again even faster. A couple of us appreciated the torture, and decided to jump in a second time and soak for a bit. After some pictures and lots more memories, we all climbed out and headed back up to the car. We drove back into town, and Ricky and I piled out at a stoplight at the turn towards Danielle’s house. We walked the 5 or so minutes back to our hotel, both soaking wet and in our swim trunks, me barefoot and bare-chested, and both holding our towels and clothes. Needless to say, we got quite a few funny looks!

Ricky: “Um, Matt? Maybe you should at least put on a shirt or something…” Matt: “Nah, it’s fine, we’re almost there.” Ricky: “Hmmm. I don’t know if I’ve ever felt this much like a tourist before.” Matt: “Oh well, I’ll never see these people again, and I can’t understand what they’re saying about me, so it’s no skin off my back.”

So after a change of clothes, it was off to the museum. It was kinda cool seeing an original Bible translated by Martin Luther, a tiny-- and I mean, TINY-- Bible smuggled by the Waldensian “merchants”, and the 2.6-meter-long guns used back then. But all the descriptions were in Italian, German, and French, so it was mostly just looking at pictures for us.

Now it’s early Friday morning, and I’m feeling GREAT! My allergies and asthma have officially abandoned me, and we’re heading to Venice today! We have to drive back to Milan, return the cars, and take a 3 hour train to the City of Canals. So we’ll find out what happens when we get there. Ciao for now...

Thursday, May 31, 2007 6:00am

2007-06-12T23:45:00.000-07:00

Italy sure is an interesting country. This is now our third day here, and we have had some really neat experiences, quite unlike anything a lot of us have ever experienced.

After the cars got rented, we all piled in and set out for the drive to Torre Pellicci (which is about 30 miles from Torino). After getting lost several times, we finally made it to our destination at around 8pm. The girls have stayed in the house of an SDA lady named Danielle. She has groups that are coming through stay at her house all the time, and several of the other WFL groups have spent time there. She was born in France, raised in Morocco, and now is in Torre Pellicci trying to encourage the people there to return to their Waldensian heritage. The guys (Mitch, Ricky, Scott, and I) have been in a hotel that is about a five-minute walk through “downtown”. Pretty soon after our arrival, Mitch and I started receiving alerts to the presence of pollen in the area. Our allergies have been driving us both up the wall, and especially more so since my asthma has gone bonkers as well. But after lots of water, hot-and-cold showers, and just flat out WILLING it to leave, it shall soon be gone, I am confident of this.

Yesterday morning, after breakfast and worship, we headed to the school of the barbs in the Valley of Angrogna (literally, “Valley of Groans”), where the young Waldensians were trained to share their faith. We took some pictures and admired the view, then walked down to an old church with AWESOME acoustics that we just HAD to test. We sang several classic hymns, including Amazing Grace, How Great Thou Art, and Until Then. The harmonies ringing from the rafters just thrilled our souls. Add the view of the majestic Alps out the windows, and the realization that we were on the same ground that has been treaded by people who were so devoted to the Lord that they would sacrifice their very lives for His principles-- it was a truly amazing experience. Then Alonna read us a story of a time when God miraculously delivered His people from the papal armies that were set on destroying God’s people for good. Right when it seemed that the Waldensian people were trapped in the Valley of Angrogna with no way out, a fog rolled in, blinding the offenders and enabling the Waldensian armies to descend upon them with swords, rocks, and shouts, forcing them over the edge of the cliffs into the rivers below. Only a few escaped the judgement of God on that day in 1488.

After hearing the story, we hiked up the hill to a location where the Waldensians rolled rocks from. There were some houses up there that were basically built right into the rocks. So of course, we took lots of pictures.

After some lunch at Danielle’s house, we headed out again to hike to one of the biggest caves in the area that was used by the Waldensians for protection and for worship. It could have easily held 100 people comfortably. It was huge! After some pictures and some chatting, we ambled back to the cars and drove back to Danielle’s house. After supper, a few of us that wanted to see another cave walked with Scott up through some of the narrow streets and across cow pastures to the ruins of an old fortress, inside of which was the cave. It was seen in vision by Ellen White, where she described some of the atrocities that were committed within it. Many Waldensians were tortured and killed there, and a tunnel connected it with a Catholic church below. It’s existence had been unknown until about 10 years ago. Basically all that is there is a little central area that you can almost stand up in, with a tunnel that heads away for about 10 feet before a cave-in blocks the rest of the way. The walls in these places could tell so many stories, if we could but loose their lips. But the stories will go unheard as long as this world lasts. Only the return of Christ will bring all to light.

And so ended our first full day in Italy…we will see what today brings. We are going to be climbing Casteluzzo, the mountain off of which many Waldensians were thrown to their deaths for the crime of following the word of the Lord. Between my foot, my allergies, and my asthma, we’ll see how that goes!

Tuesday, May 29, 2007 3:00 pm

2007-06-12T09:45:00.000-07:00

Well, my little multi-country jaunt has begun on quite the interesting note. We all left EBS on Friday afternoon, crammed into the little blue Peugeot bus driven by Werner Rusch, the principal of the school. He drove us down to the Oslo bus station, where we had the great privilege of hanging out for a couple hours while waiting for our bus to leave at about 5pm. Leo and I walked around downtown Oslo for a bit and saw the sights. Then we went and boarded our bus for the 5-hour bus trip to Örebro, a town in central Sweden that is home to just about every Swedish person I’ve met up to now. We arrived at about 9:45pm, and Jonathan, Huldah, Joel, Mikke, Rebecca, and Jonathan’s dad all showed up to pick us up. Joel, Huldah, Rebecca, and Mikke were all up from Malmö, the city in the very southern-most part of Sweden where we went when we first arrived in Europe. They are all working with LifeStyle TV, as well as doing follow-up Bible studies with contacts that came in through the Health Expo we did over Easter weekend.

Anyways, they brought 4 cars to pick us all up in. The two that I will remember the most are the Chrysler minivan and the Nissan Note, which was a rental car. I hopped into the Nissan, everyone else piled into different cars with their luggage, and we headed out. It was just beginning to rain, and that soon became a bit of an irritance. You see, the minivan had some issues, and it just decided to up and die on us. So we got to use the little Nissan to tow the van all the 50 km to Jonathan’s house. What should have been a 25-minute trip took over an hour and a half. We’ll hear more about that little Nissan. When we got to the house, there was some food and some comfy beds waiting for us, both of which I made immediate use of. And that was that for Friday…

We awoke Sabbath morning, and headed off to church. After a bunch of reunions (we got to see Nicklas and Roy, two of the Swedes that were at ARISE, as well as a few other people that we’ve gotten to know), and a nice church service, we had a great potluck. Then the whole group of us waltzed out into downtown Örebro and experienced the culture and the beautiful sunny Sabbath afternoon. There was a nice big park in the middle of the city where we all lay in the sun, played Frisbee, etc. Then we headed back to the church for Roy’s little sister’s birthday party and more good food. After supper we all drove back to Jonathan’s house out in the country. We spent the evening hanging out, laughing, talking, jumping on the trampoline, and just overall having an AWESOME time. We finally crashed a little after 1am, unaware of the excitement that the next day would bring.

Several of us awoke at a quarter to nine to go running, and we headed off down the road at exactly 10am. We ran a good 4 or 5 km, and followed that up with a nice dip in the lake. It was rather chilly, but didn’t hold a candle to Seton Lake on a rainy day in November. After that we had a brunch, sang a bunch of songs for worship, then all piled into the cars to head out on a hike to some “caves”. It turned out that it was just a bunch of HUGE rocks all strewn randomly throughout the forest floor, but they proved quite entertaining. We spent a few hours practicing our mountain goat skills, clambering around inside, above, around, and under all the rocks and trees. Then the excitement began.

Five of us headed back a bit before everyone because we wanted to do a little rally-car driving. You know, slide around a few corners, go a little faster than the rest of the group had gone. The road was a perfect gravel road, and we had some nice drifts going at first. Joel was driving, Mikke was in the front passenger seat, and I was in the back in the middle, with Huldah on my left and Chrissy on my right. We were coming into a corner, and Mikke commented that it was a sharp one and that we should slow down a bit. So slow down Joel did-- but not enough. The corner kept going more than we expected, and he lost control of the car. It skidded back and forth a few times and headed over the edge of the road. There was a clear-cut right at that point in the road, and the shoulder just sloped gradually downhill through a little maze of stumps. We were moving about 60 km/hour when we left the road (about 45 mph), so when the front passenger wheel connected with a stump, the car was flipped into the air, landed upside down on another stump and rolled back over onto the wheels. We bailed immediately and gathered our wits a healthy distance from the pile of wreckage that was no longer much of a car. We assessed our damage and, miraculously, discovered it to be quite minimal, at least as far as we could immediately tell. We flagged the rest of the group down, who then called the emergency crews, and the five of us got to experience an ambulance ride and a hospital stay in Sweden. We spent about 4 hours in the hospital, mostly just waiting for Joel and Mikke to get their x-rays. The hospital wanted to charge us Americans 3500 Swedish kroners (about $500) just to see the doctor, so we passed. As it turned out, basically the injuries were as follows: Joel had a few small cuts on his hand from climbing out the shattered driver’s side window, and a few tiny pieces of glass in the back of his head; Huldah had some bruising and scrapes from the seatbelt, as well as being a little shaken up; Chrissy had some bruises on her knees and side, and was also a bit shaken; Mikke got a tiny piece of glass in his eye that he quickly extricated with no lasting effects, in addition to have some compressed discs in his back. But they didn’t keep him from being out on the trampoline the next day, having a grand old time. I had a cut on the side of my left hand, the source of which remains a mystery to this day. I also had my left foot under the front seat when we flipped, because my legs are so long. I was wearing flip-flops, so the seat really worked the top of my foot over. It is still rather bruised and makes walking pretty interesting and in fact rather painful. But that is totally all right with me, especially as I think about what it could have been. Oh, and all of us had some pretty tight back and neck muscles the next day, particularly Chrissy and Huldah and I, since we were in the back and got the brunt of the roof on our heads. But all in all, things went miraculously well.

We bussed back from Oslo the next day (Monday evening). Our bus left at 4:30, arriving in Oslo at about 9:30. We then hustled over to the train station to take the train to the airport. We found out which train we needed to take, and discovered that it left at 10:20. It was about 10 to 10, so I headed to the food court to grab some grub for supper. The best option appeared to be Burger King, so I mustered up the nerve to spend nearly $11 on a meal. Things are PRICEY there! Once I got back to the rest of the group, we decided to start gathering our stuff and head over to the gate to make sure we were there in time. Alex and Yvette hadn’t appeared from the food court yet, so Ricky stayed behind to wait for them, and the rest of us headed for the gate. We arrived there at about 10:10, and saw that there was a train leaving there headed for the destination that we were looking for (Lillestrom), and it was leaving in about 30 seconds. We got pretty excited right about then, and started booting it down the ramp, figuring that if Ricky and Yvette and Alex didn’t make it then they could just grab the one that left about two hours later. We barely made it aboard, in a flurry of luggage and people. Once aboard, we started to gather our wits and soon realized that we were on the wrong train. There were several trains that all went to Lillestrom, but only one went all the way through to Oslo Lufthavn, the airport and our desired final destination. By coincidence, there had been a train that left from our gate 10 minutes before the one we wanted that was going the same direction we wanted to go, yet wasn’t going all the way. So when we got to Lillestrom, we dashed off the train and down the stairs, and hurried back up to the other gate, where the train we were wanting was to be arriving in about 5 minutes. When it arrived, we boarded quickly, all the while dragging along our luggage. As the train began to accelerate, it dawned on us that we had gotten onto the express train that cost NOK 175 (about $30). We just stood in the little entry area, knowing that the airport was coming up soon, and we just prayed that no one would come by checking tickets. After some cycles through the WC (water closet, better known as the toilet), we FINALLY arrived at the airport. We quickly disembarked, thankful that no nosy ticket-checker had harassed us. But our next obstacle was rudely thrust into our face in the form of a little set of gates that only opened when a ticket for the express train was inserted into them. We didn’t have a ticket for the express train, but we needed to get to the other side of the annoying little flippy thingies that were preventing our advance into the terminal. Right about the time we were getting ready to turn the little annoyances into hurdles and just vault over them, an airport employee showed up and unlocked the gates, motioning for us to pass through, which we did quite rapidly and without further ado.

So we were now in the airport where we were to spend our next 8 or so hours until Scott, Alonna, and Vange showed up the next day. As soon as we found some benches conducive to sleeping, everyone wasted no time in doing just that. I quickly found myself the only one awake, and the duty of watching the luggage and the owners of the luggage fell to me. So I spent the rest of the night pacing around keeping an eye on everything. Some creepy-looking guys came by a few times and stared at the girls, but I just stared at them, and they got nervous and left. Everyone started to wake up at around 3:30 or 4, and I had some time to read my Bible. Scott, Alonna, and Vange showed up at about 6. Alonna dished out bags of trail mix, granola bars, and nuts, as well as little folders with info about the places we were to visit. Our flight was to leave at 7:50, so we all passed through all the processes necessary to getting to the plane. All the proceedings went without excitement, and we were soon on our way through the skies above Europe. Our flight transferred in Munich, where it was POURING rain. We hopped out of the plane on the tarmac and were hustled into busses that took us into the airport. We ran to our next gate, hopped onto another bus and headed out to our connecting flight, again without much excitement. We eventually landed in Milan, Italy at just after noon. After collecting our bags and our wits, and changing some money, we sat down at a little restaurant in the airport and had our first pizza in Italy.

And we are now sitting next to the car rental place, waiting for Scott and Alonna to get everything figured out so we can drive out to Torre Pellicci, in the shadow of the Italian Alps that sheltered the Waldensian people throughout the Middle Ages.

So that is our trip up to now. More to come soon….

Greetings and Salutations from Europe!

2007-06-10T23:59:00.000-07:00

Well folks, it's been awhile! Sooooooo much has happened to me since I posted last. I've been in several countries and have had memorable experience upon memorable experience. Because I haven't had consistent internet access, I've been keeping my blog via Word document, so I can then post one by one when I have wireless on my laptop. So far, in the past two weeks or so, I've typed nearly 10,000 words, so if you guys are ever bored you'll have plenty of reading material. And this way, if anyone comes up and asks, "So Matt, what did you do in Europe?", I can just hand them the link to my blog. :-)

So here's the plan: I will post them one day at a time, with the date that they were typed in the subject line. I'm giving you the heads-up now so, if perchance you really want to read them all, you can plan ahead. Because I don't know for sure if I'll have internet EVERY day, there may be some days that get skipped, but I'll for sure have them all posted by the end of the month. And I'm doing them one at a time so I don't completely overwhelm my readers. :-) Like I have SO many of them... anyways, so ta-ta for now.....

Hmmmmmmmmm

2007-05-22T04:46:00.000-07:00

All righty, before I say anything else..............

I MISS THE UNITED STATES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Okay, that's out of my system. Now I'm good.

Yes indeed. I miss the food. I miss the not-flaky internet. I miss having people that understand me without having to repeat myself several times. I miss being able to understand people without them having to repeat themselves several times. I'm just ready to come home! If it wasn't for the Reformation Tour and my little jaunt to Turkey, I probably would have ditched this place a long time ago. It's all nice and good and everything, but I've had my fill of conservative SDA work-study programs. I'm ready to WORK. No study. Just work. For awhile. Then I'd like to do some study. But for now, just work.

I'd like to get a car. That sounds nice. Having my own car, being able to drive my own places, being able to get out and do things. Having to walk over a mile up a hill every morning isn't doing much for me.

Speaking of walking, I did a bit of it this last weekend. There was a canoe trip planned for the weekend, despite the gloomy forecast. It wasn't particularly well-organized, and there was lots of confusion. Almost everyone here changed their mind about whether or not they were going to go at least once. In the end, several of us went out on Sabbath afternoon, some planning to stay overnight and some planning to come back. I was in the latter group. Well, as it ended up, those that were planning on staying ended up leaving. And I stayed and spent the night. Then the next morning, instead of waiting until 4pm for the group to leave, Allie and I walked the ~14 km back to the school. It was nice to walk on a non-paved road for awhile, without Norwegian drivers that whizz by, nearly clipping your elbows cuz the roads are so darn narrow! And it was a beautiful sunny day, so that made it even better. The sun is setting later and later here. At 11pm it was still bright enough to read outside. By a month from now dusk will be at about 12:30am, and dawn will be around 2:15am.

Well, 'tis almost time for work, so I'd better blow this joint. I'm cleaning the building today, as some strained ligaments in my left elbow prevent me from doing any manly labour. Until next time......

Surviving..........

2007-05-15T22:29:00.000-07:00

Well, life is it's typical self around here lately. Kinda slow, not particularly interesting... every now and then, something really interesting happens and that interest lasts just long enough for me to get my mind off the fact that nothing interesting is happening. Then it kinda dies down, and I'm back at ground zero again.

Nah, it's actually not QUITE that bad. It's just seems like it sometimes. :-) You know the saying, "A watched pot never boils"? Well, I think that applies to life in more ways than just in culinary pursuits. The boring humdrum of life here seems all the more unending when I think about it. So I've found that things go by quicker when I think about other things-- so that's why I decided to write about it now. :-) Actually no, I just started writing and this is what came out.

But anyways.... My good pal Leo showed up this week from Sweden. We (the WFL's) met him in Malmo when we were there for a week at the beginning of April. He came with some of our friends from ARISE, and he quickly became a good friend as well. He came back to EBS right after that for several days, along with Nicklas. They went back to their beloved homeland for about a month, but Leo just couldn't stay away from us WFL's for so long, so he decided to come back and chill with us some more. :-) So he's attending classes and working with us. And he's also my new roomie, so all's good. He's toying with the idea of heading out west to the great (or maybe not so great) USA this next year. I'm trying to be a little devil on his shoulder, persuading him to yield to temptation and just do it. Hopefully he'll see the light... we can only hope. :-)

So WFL is canceled for next year-- a dramatically tragic turn of events. Apparently Scott and Naomi are both a little overwhelmed right now, and not really capable of babying the program, and there weren't enough people already signed up to make it worthwhile, so it's taking a break. Knowing Scott and his visionary tendencies, I'd be surprised if it gets off the ground again. He'll probably have three more programs to take its place by the end of this year. I would love to start a similar program, but with some tweaks and modifications. But I'm a little restricted by current circumstances-- i.e., lack of money, lack of practical life experience, etc. But mark my words: you will be hearing from this brother in a few years. I WILL start some program of some sort, with the purpose of educating, imparting vision, and discipling.

Well, for now, it's almost time for class and I've got some other stuff to do, so ta-ta........

144,000

2007-05-09T10:58:00.001-07:00

So yesterday we had Revelation class with Jason Harral (a TERRIFIC teacher) and we started talking about the Great Controversy and the 144,000. It turned out to be a really really good class. I enjoyed it immensely. So instead of just trying to relate what we talked about to you, I'll just copy my notes from the class. Gimme some feedback on the equation at the end. I'm really wanting to complete it.

The Message from the Church
The purpose of the formation of the SDA church, and the message given to it.

When Satan was cast out of the heaven, along with 1/3 of the angels, there remained doubts in the minds of the angels because Satan had at his disposal tools of which God could never make use of: lies, force, etc.

The character of God is the central issue in this conflict. Satan is attacking His character, declaring Him to be unloving, uncaring, and the Author of a Law that is impossible to follow.

If God were to have destroyed Satan immediately, the power of choice and free will would have been violated. God created His beings with this power, because He IS a loving God. If He had destroyed Lucifer right away, questions would have remained in the minds of the angels forever, questions as to the legitimacy of Lucifer's claims that God's goverment doesn't work.

From its very inception, sin has caused suffering. The suffering experienced at the cross was but a glimpse of the infinite pain in the heart of God that exists as a result of the transgression of His Law. But Satan had the perfect alibi to explain away this pain: "It's God's Law! It cannot be followed!"

At the cross, for the first time, an innocent being was killed. Who killed Jesus? We did. Who inspired us to? Satan. At that point, all doubt was removed from the minds of the angels. When the extent to which the Devil would take this battle was clearly seen, all of heaven was convinced that he was wrong and that to let his method run its course would be to succumb to evil and the eventual destruction of the universe.

The arguments used by the Devil in heaven were far beyond the comprehension of any human mind (Revelation 12:7- "war in heaven". The word for war here is "polemos", from whence we get our word "polemics", or verbal arguments). Were we to be exposed to the full force of his deceptions, we wouldn't stand a chance. God has been protecting us, holding a shield over us, preventing Satan from attacking us with the full barrage of his tempting capacity (1 Cor. 10:13). That shield has lasted from the origin of sin to the present day. No great man of God, no patriarch of history has met Satan face to face. No human has lived for the full expanse of history, so no human has the full picture. For this reason, God protects us and will not allow us to be tempted above that which we are able to withstand through His power.

Now this seems all fine and dandy to us, but how does the Devil feel? He has never been able to fully expose the "errors" of God's government. He has never been able to show the universe what his government is all about. So before this world comes to an end, God will remove His protection from humanity and will permit the Devil's plans to run their course. There will be a group of humans that live through this time and survive the wiles of the Devil, remaining true and faithful to the Lord. The Bible calls them the 144,000. They will overcome sin in the face of overwhelming temptation, showing to the watching universe that they are fit to enter heaven and live there forever.

Picture it this way: there is an element called Element X. Whoever lives in heaven must have this Element X. Element X = absolute turst in Christ and in the merits of His redeeming sacrifice. Element X is a guarantee to overcome sin. The 144,000 will have Element X, and they will be able, through reliance on Christ, to withstand temptations even as extreme as having Satan stand before them masked as an angel of light.

1 John 5:4 says, "For whatsoever is born of God overcomes the world: and this is the victory that overcomes the world, EVEN OUR FAITH." Ephesians 2:8 says, "We are saved by grace THROUGH FAITH." Faith isn't merely believing that God exists. Even the devils believe and tremble (James 2:19). "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." (Hebrews 11:1) Faith is seeing things as God sees them. If we are seeing through God's eyes, we have the full perspective of all the ages since history began, and we have no need for the protective shield that God has kept over us since the Fall.

Element X => faith => action => ????????????

Can someone please make my mind SHUT UP!?

2007-05-07T14:04:00.000-07:00

Good grief, how on earth are you supposed to sleep when your mind is running a million miles a minutes?! It's after 11 here, I went to bed over an HOUR ago, and I'm STILL awake! There's something WRONG here......!

So I guess I'll just write-- er, uh..... type.

So what's happening in Matt's life lately . . . . . ? Well . . . I'm the proud father to an egg, appropriately named Egby. I found this out this morning at the end of our class on Christian Associations. Basically, there's this girl named Erin and this guy named Eli (short for Eliazar-- pronounce it with a strong Spanish accent). They're teaching this class, and the curriculum is the books "For Men Only" and "For Women Only". So Erin takes the guys into another room and teaches us about girls and their minds (GASP! Terrifying, I know. We barely survive.). Meanwhile, poor Eli gets stuck in a room full of girls with the daunting task before him to somehow communicate to them how a guy's mind works. Communicating it isn't the daunting part-- at least, I don't think so. It think the worst of it is having it take 45 minutes. That's a long time! And poor Erin has to squeeze everything INTO 45 minutes. And with Iszak and Marcin (a Swede and a Pole, both of whom could talk the Energizer bunny into the grave), that gets really exciting. But I digress.....

So part of this class that Erin and Eli are teaching us is this highly unusual assignment. They drew names out of a hat to pair us up, then they had each pair pick a raw egg. My....umm..... "partner" is a really cool lady from Bulgaria, Yulia. She and I picked the best egg of them all (of course) and promptly dubbed him Egbert. We call him Egby for short. Our task now is to take care of him until Friday. He must always be with us, except for during work when they open up the teachers' room as "Egg Daycare". Otherwise he must always be with one of us. We wrapped him in paper towels and stuck him in a cup, and wrapped THAT in Saran Wrap. He's not going anywhere unless we choose so! :-D So for tonight Yulia has him. But tomorrow.....

So I think the purpose of this is to get a taste of what it's like to have kids. But I have three younger siblings! I don't think that babysitting an egg is going to teach me much more! But I have been wrong before.... anyways............

So am I the only one that has noticed that my last 5 paragraphs have all begun with "So"? Hmmm, maybe I should work on my writing a bit.......

My life is quite interesting right now. I think that anytime one spends a significant period of time in a foreign country, it's hard to say that one is leading a mundane and morose life. Especially when one realizes that of the next 7 Sabbaths, one is going to spend 5 of them in different countries. That kinda throws a new spin on life. Next week I'll be at the only SDA academy in Norway, Tyrifjord. Don't even ask how to pronouce it, cuz I can't. And even if I could, I can guarantee you wouldn't be able to repeat it. Then the week after I'll be somewhere in Norway-- either on a canoe trip, or maybe here in Skotselv. If I'm in Skotselv, then I'll likely end up teaching, preaching, or doing something of the sort, considering the pattern of the past several weeks that I've been here. Then the week after THAT, I'll be at a little ARISE reunion with the rest of the WFL's in Sweden, near Orebro, at Jonathan's house-- and I think his house is called Tryggeboda (don't ask me how to pronounce either of those either! [And why on EARTH does his house have a NAME???]) Then the week after THAT I'll be in Italy with the rest of the WFL's-- and Scott and Alonna! Yay! And then I shall toodle on over to Turkey with my good pal Ricky, where we shall spend the two succeeding Sabbaths. Then I shall FINALLY return to the good ol' US, where I shall spend my first Sabbath at home since March 24, nearly 7 weeks ago. Hmmm . . . I feel like a world traveler. 'Twill be good to be at home for a while. Catch up on sleep; eat breakfast without having to climb a mountain to get to it; be able to buy something without having to ALWAYS do the math. Anyways, I'm guessing that by now, if you've even read this far, you can tell that it is 11:30 at night, and that I am REALLY REALLY bored. But I guess if I'm going to have a blog then I might as well fill it with meaningless drivel, right?

Doo de doo de du-du...doo . . .

Well, maybe I'll try the whole sleeping thing again and see if it works out . . . . laterz

Another night-time post

2007-05-04T12:12:00.000-07:00

Well, here I sit once more, contemplating life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness as my eyelids begin to droop, and everything begins to inform me that the day is over and it's time for snoozing. Today was another GORGEOUS sunny day. 'Twas exceedingly warm and pleasant, one of those days that just being alive makes you happy to be alive. And that would have been the case with me if it weren't for all the things hanging over my shoulder needing attention (or at least telling me that they needed attention). Man, being a Melancholy can be rough sometimes. They say that we carry the weight of the world on our shoulders, and man, is that ever true! If there's a weight that could be carried, then I usually end up taking the brunt of it-- a weakness of mine that I would do well in overcoming.

Well anyways, enough prattling about things-- although I guess that's kinda what a blog is for, eh? Hmmmm......

So I have a question for all ya'll, particularly those of you that know me well. You likely know my strengths and weaknesses pretty well if you know me, considering I tend to wear them like a Timex (too poor for Rolex). Considering all that, what kind of ministry do you see me going into? What areas do you see me excelling in? What talents do I have that I could refine well to use as tools for completing the work that so desperately needs to be done here on this rotten old planet? Give me feedback-- anything! I'm quite open, and I don't get embarrassed easily, so even if you don't know me REAL well, just give me your thoughts. And this applies for WHENEVER you read this. So if you're reading this several months down the road after I've posted it, answer anyways.

Okay, the drooping is getting to be too much for me to continue to fight. So I will be overcome, and I shall now crash dramatically onto my pillow for my favourite part of the day-- SLEEP!

Laterz folkses.........

Look, Matt's posting again! Yay!

2007-05-03T13:06:00.000-07:00

Man, is the weather ever nice in Norway! It has been toasty warm and sunny here for the past few days-- highs pushing 75-77 in the afternoons! Of course, every morning it is about 36 degrees or so, so it's quite chilly on the 15-18 minute walk up the hill. For those of you that don't know the setting of EBS at all, the guys "dorm" is an old nursing home down in the middle of "town"-- in other words, between the gas station and the post office. The school is about 2 km (1.2 miles) up the hill. So the guys have a nice walk every morning . . . great for waking you up, particularly when it is hovering barely above freezing. Our first several mornings here, the early morning temps were near 20, and it was usually kinda breezy as well. BRRRRRR!!!! It's been too long since I spent a cold winter in BC! :-)

Generally I like to be in bed by 9:30, or even better, by 8:30, as breakfast is at 6:45. Given the walk up the hill, it's necessary that one leave the dorm before 6:30 if one expects to get to breakfast before the food is gone, or at least before the quantities are severely diminished. For a little while, when I was well on top of my schedule, I was in bed well before 9 and up by a little bit before 5. But I've fallen behind again, so I'm usually up by about 5 or 10 after 6, just in time to get dressed, take a shower, pack my things, and toodle off up the hill (not completely in that order). But now, alas, 'tis almost 10:15, and I'm still awake! Horrors! I shall tarry no longer . . . toodles!

P.S. Pray for me before this weekend, if you read this before then. I'm delivering a sermon for the 3rd weekend in a row-- this one being the second half of a two-part series: "The Elijah Message". It's not prepared yet, and I'm preaching it in less than 48 hours, so an extra dose of the Spirit would be great. :-) Laterz....

And for the most recent update . . .

2007-05-01T07:16:00.000-07:00

Hey guys, I guess I'm falling into the same old rut that everyone else that tries to blog does-- not posting for a long time, then coming back and saying, "I'm so sorry I haven't posted anything for a such a long time, blah, blah, blah..."

Well, I'm so far behind now that I won't try to catch up. For what has happened with all of us WFL's since we got to Norway, I will refer you to the blogs of two of my fellow WFL's, Shannon and Mitch. The links are along the right side of this page, and they have kept up quite a bit better.

I shall start just writing from today, and I'll try to get in at least 2-3 posts a week. I've been mobbed the last couple of weeks (and will be for the rest of this week) because I've done the sermon the last 2 weeks and I have one more to do for Sabbath School class this week. So I should really be there preparing for that right now instead of squandering valuable time updating everyone else on my life. :-)

We just got back today from a day at a lake up here in Norway. I got quite a bit of sun (amazing, I know), had a lot of fun with Ultimate Frisbee, and took a quick dip in the chilly water-- though it was nothing compared to Seton Lake. *wink*

Well for now, I shall toodle along and be productive . . . ttfn!

Continuing recap . . .

2007-04-13T03:34:00.000-07:00

Fast-forward three months. I am now at Weimar Institute in Northern California. I have been taking classes pertaining to Hydrotherapy and Massage, and I’ve had the opportunity to shadow a massage therapist throughout part of his day working. Weimar College is an SDA college that was formed to educate particularly with a health emphasis. On the campus with the college is located the NEWSTART Lifestyle Program. People come from literally all over the US to spend the 18 days taking part in the program, learning how to improve and regain their health. They receive massages and hydrotherapy; they attend lectures on how to get and maintain good health; they enjoy eating delicious vegan food prepared by the college cafeteria; and over 15 miles of wooded trails await them, as exercise is a key part of any healthy individual. The program is there to help people “reverse diabetes, restore hearts, relieve arthritis, renew immune systems, shed pounds, lower cholesterol, increase energy, and enhance vital capacity.” It does all of this by following the acronym NEWSTART:

N = Nutrition

E = Exercise

W = Water

S = Sunlight

T = Temperance

A = fresh Air

R = Rest

T= Trust in divine power

Each of the students in the college have an opportunity to practically assist the NEWSTART patients in various ways as we learn how to give a full-body massage, how to give a fever treatment, and the ins and outs of properly administering a contrast shower. In our classes, we’ve learned the various muscles and massage strokes and how they relate to one another. It is amazing how much massage, when appropriately given, can do for the immune system and the overall health of the body. Together with the high spiritual atmosphere and great Christian friends, Weimar is yet another awesome experience that I have the privilege to tack onto my time in WFL. I would encourage you to check out the success stories on their website. They were a huge blessing to me when I read them. Just Google “NEWSTART” and you’ll find it.

RE:capping Matt's Last Year

2007-04-13T03:29:00.000-07:00

Just FYI, I wrote this post as if I was writing back when it all happened, so even though I'm posting it now, you can pretend that I posted it six months ago. :-)

Greetings and salutations to my family and friends!

It may have been awhile since you have heard from me, but that primarily is due to my extensively busy schedule over the past several months. Following my graduation from Fountainview Academy on June 4 of this past school year, I spent the summer working at the school doing various and sundry forms of maintenance work, attempting to amass as much capital as possible to assist me in my scholarly advances for this year. But alas, as Ecclesiastes says, “Then I considered all that my hands had done and the toil I had expended in doing it, and behold, all was vanity and a striving after wind, and there was nothing to be gained under the sun.” (2:11) A few weeks into my summer work experience, a nightmare began with Customs that has not been resolved to this day. Because of some misunderstandings, every American student was not permitted to work for a time, at least until the situation could be taken care of. We were told originally that it would be only until the end of the week, but that soon panned out more and more until I had to leave at the scheduled time five weeks later! And still the Americans were sitting around, desperate for any little bit of work, even for free! Because of that whole fiasco, I lost around $2000 that would have gone toward my school experiences this year. I had quite an enjoyable time being a lazy bum every day, but the unproductiveness (is that a word?) of it all effectively outweighed the fun of it.

After spending a week at home, I set out on one last music tour with Fountainview, and was it a doozy! We left SeaTac on July 30, bound for Dallas, TX, and the ASI National Convention (a yearly gathering of SDA organizations). After two and a half days of straight driving, we arrived in Dallas and spent the next few days practicing like maniacs, attempting desperately to obtain again the musical skills that had spent the summer rusting and growing obsolete. We played multiple concerts that week, including one concert Sabbath morning for the church service that was broadcast live internationally via satellite on the Three Angels Broadcasting Network. After our last concert on Sabbath afternoon, we packed up and drove straight back up to Seattle. I spent one more week at home, and flew out for the commencement of Witness for Life, a one year evangelism training program. We will spend this next year going from one program to another, each designed to refine a particular tool used in sharing your own Christian walk with others. We began in Colorado and Utah learning survival skills and getting to know one another. We made ourselves into human kayaks and floated down a river on our backs for a couple of days; we learned how to tie various knots and pulled a truck through a creek using a pulley system; we hiked up a 12,000 ft. peak; we dangled from the end of a rope, the other end of which was attached to the Corona Arch in Utah; we rappelled down a drain hole in the middle of a lake (don’t ask); and we rented mountain bikes and biked along the Slickrock Trail in Moab, Utah. All in all, I had a terrific time and learned a ton.

After two weeks in the boonies, I hopped on a plane, flew to Detroit, and moved into an apartment in the middle of the third-wealthiest county in the United States, Oakland County in Troy, Michigan. I have spent the last 2 months at A Research Institute for Soul-winning and Evangelism, also known as ARISE. Started and run by Pastor David Asscherick (one the most powerful evangelists in the Adventist church) ARISE exists “to equip, educate and empower effective soulwinners”, and it is doing a fantastic work! I spend several hours each day in class, being trained to witness to anyone and everyone I come in contact with; then I am given the opportunity to put into practice what I have just learned. With my partner, Laura, I have spent three afternoons a week knocking on doors, inviting people to study the Bible with us in preparation for the prophecy seminar that will be beginning on November 4^th. I have had the opportunity to interact with people from a wide spectrum of beliefs, ranging from Mormon and Jehovah’s Witnesses to staunch Catholics, Methodists, and Baptists. I’m even studying with an agnostic progressive creationist who is reading (and really enjoying) a book by a Gnostic. A couple of my contacts have very little Christian knowledge or experience, and my role has been primarily one of facilitating spiritual growth and increase in understanding. It has all had a tremendous effect on me and my own walk with the Lord, strengthening what I believe, and giving me an even stronger desire to share what I believe. God is giving me a vision for what He wants to do with my life, and I’m getting more and more excited every day. I will only be at ARISE for another month before I leave to come home for Christmas break, but in that time we will have the entire evangelistic series, so I would solicit your prayers in that area, that God will pour out His spirit mightily that our goal might be reached: to plant a church in Sterling Heights, MI.

The First of Many?

2007-04-12T13:54:00.000-07:00

Well, I've tried writing in a journal/diary/whatever you want to call it, and it has never worked. I think the longest I ever kept it up was three days. I can never write something if I know that no one will ever read it. I guess my exceedingly practical brain finds it highly impractical to write something if I'm the only one that will ever read it. Might as well save myself the trouble. I've always been great at communicating through writing, as some of my friends can attest to. I can sit down and write a TON in a very short period of time, if the subject is right and I'm in the right (write) mood.

So I guess here goes nothing. I hope that you guys enjoy what you read, and if nothing else that, as you read you will be drawn closer to our Maker and Saviour, and that you can learn from the mistakes that I make. I will be pretty frank and open in this blog, so be prepared!

God bless everyone!