(news-channel-y action-sounding theme music ) Summer Update!

Good evening.  Well, the normal part of my summer is over, I believe.  I spent the first month splitting time between milking mornings* and working at a greenhouse afternoons/evenings** until they ran out of hours for me.  For the last two weeks, I have continued to milk in the morning and worked for my dad in the afternoons.  And now, stuff starts to happen real quick.  This week, I milk mornings and nights Monday-Saturday while my boss and his family take a vacation and attend a wedding.***  One time, I wrestled a bear.  On top of this, I'll be teaching a guitar class at Dordt Discovery Days (a week-long summer camp for junior-high kids), which despite planning and the best intentions, always throughs huge curveballs and leaves plenty of awkward silences while Jordan Vogel and I attempt to implant music and learning in these children entrusted with us for two and a half hours every day.  Not only that, but we perform on Friday night to show all the parents how much**** the children have learned in the last week.  Hopefully, that goes alright and we can survive the week without too much crying and yelling and dirty diapers or whatever it is that junior high kids do.  After that, my family departs for the border of Minnes-oh-ta and Canad-eh for a few days canoe-ing***** and camping among a few of the thousand of lakes.  I'm really looking forward to this after the awesomeness of the father-son 8th-grade cadet trip way back when. 
After returning from that, most likely on Saturday, I'll have the weekend, Monday and Tuesday before I leave for CTI, the centerpiece of my summer.  Stoked!  Carpenter's Tool's International is an organization that sends music teams to other countries, primarily but not limited to those in Central America and East Asia, which give concerts and partner with organizations like Youth for Christ in sharing the Gospel.  I'll spend two weeks in Willmar, MN, training with my new band mates for four weeks in Hondurras.  I'm currently attempting to learn our songs******, and attempting to review the Spanish that I "learned" in high school.  Turns out, I remember some words and stuff, but as far as actually speaking and listening in a conversation goes, I'm in trouble.  We'll see what happens with that.  After I return, I'll have a week before returning to Dordt.  And that'll be my summer.  Crazy.  I'm excited to see what God will do both as our team trains and as we voyage down to Hondurras, and I'm excited to see what God is doing and will do in my every day life, especially after I return.  In the meantime, pray that God will work in the hearts of those we'll encounter, will work in our hearts as we do the stuff we do, that my fundraising will be met, and that the Hondurrans won't run in fear from the palest, blondest, and whitest person ever to enter their country.


* Everyone thinks I milk at an awful time like four in the morning, but I actually start at 8:30.  For some reason, Terry chose to milk at 9 and 9 instead of 4 and 4 which is the greatest thing I've ever heard of for a night-owl like me. 

** The length of my day depended on how much work there was to do.  Usually, I got off between 5 and 8, until the last week, when I was getting off at 3:30.

*** Do not read the next sentence.  It does not contribute in any way to the content of this blog.  This is a test to make sure that you are reading the asterisked items, as they are an important explanatory tool for this blog entry. 

**** or how little.  But hopefully how much.

***** canoe-ing? canoing?  canoeing? canoe7hlmx4ing?

****** 14 of the 18 songs are in Spanish.  Despite playing a musical instrument, which is not bound by languages, I am required to have the words memorized.  I think it's going okay so far, but there's a lot of suelo to cover yet.

EVERYBODY'S DYING

Remember that awful news a few days ago about the baby bird that got stepped on while I was milking?


It happened again.


yesterday.


I didn't witness it this time, but there was a new baby bird, so I quickly picked it up and moved it away.  A minute later it came back, this time out of my reach.  I resigned myself to let it be as it sat on the black water hose.  I never should have turned my back.


After finishing the opposite side of the parlor, I looked back, and the bird was gone.  My heart started beating faster.  When the cow was finally done milking and released, my worst fears were confirmed when a ball of feathers lay where the heiffer's foot once stood.

It's been a rough week.

A Lament

 a whisp of breath
fluttering wings
signs of life
so late in spring

avian infant
still so young
so much life
left 'neath the sun

a summer morn
life begins
and yet so hastily
it ends

my heart's downcast
the reason why
is that the other day I saw a new baby bird just out of its nest and it could hardly fly yet so it was hopping around the milking parlor excitedly until a 1500 pound heifer stepped on it and squashed the life out of it while I watched helplessly
 and it died

video games are dumb

Help! I'm trapped at my friend's house an hour away from home with my friends who are obsessed with Age of Empires 2! It's two in the morning and I'm stuck here because I didn't drive.  And I'm bad at AOE.  And I don't care.  foo

Body Building

While milking in the mornings, the radio in the parlor is always playing KNWC.  First, let me say it was nice at first, but after two weeks of it, it's become a bit ridiculous.  Every morning I hear the same songs played.  Honestly, I think they just change the order and switch in ten new songs or so.  Kinda disappointed when considering how much good music there is out there compared to how much actually gets played.  But the main point of this blog is to point out a couple lines from a song that gets played often enough for me to have most of it memorized.  Stronger by Mandisa.  Another encouraging "life sucks but its ok cuz you have Jesus" songs.  Sure, most of it is good, but the last and main line of the chorus is "He knows that this is gunna make you stronger". 

Really?  Will it make you stronger?  Or will it make your trust in God stronger?  It seems those are the two options.  We could take the world's recommended course of action after hardships and become a stronger person and all that junk.  But to me that seems a lot like sticking an air compressor hose in your arm and pumping it up.  Sure, your muscles look bigger, but does it help?  I think when I'm at my weakest and most-bombarded, I'd rather depend on somebody else who already has the strength to handle it than endure the trial simply for the sake of coming out on the other end more self-reliant and assured of my ability to survive on my own.  When trials come, I think I'd rather have my weakness made evident so my trust goes to someone besides myself.  So, life is hard.  God's muscles or mine?

Sorry Mandisa.  I don't want to be stronger.

I was going to attempt to blog, but then i remembered that my sister's hard drive is plugged into my computer with new music that I don't have yet, so i'm going to do that instead.

Send me Summer

It's summer.  I survived exams and sophomore year, which I realized went by faster than anything else ever.  To be honest, I barely remember much of it.  Which is sad if this is the best years of my life. Anyways, two weeks ago, I planned on working on the farm again because every other job pursuit had failed(or so I thought).  Now, I have two jobs, one full-time and the other part time.  Needless to say, I will be working quite a bit this summer until I leave in July.  There are positives and negatives, but what seems to be overriding all these is the fact that I will finally be able to fill out the "List your most recent three jobs" section of a job application with something other than guitar lessons and teaching a guitar class for two weeks.  Not to mention that I can have references other than my youth pastor on my resume.  Maybe this is too much work just for a better resume, but I really would like to work somewhere else, not because I don't like the farm or my dad (or the flexibility), but because I'd just like to try something different than I've done the last 5 years.  Besides, it'll only be for six weeks, so if I hate it, it'll at least be short.  I think it'll go okay, though.  Have a good summer everyone.

ps - one huge downside - I'll barely be able to play league soccer this summer.  That's usually one of the highlights of my summer.  shoot.