Week 6

This week has been very exciting; we got to hear from BJ Thompson. The main thing that I took away from BJ’s talks was that we need to accept our brokenness. Once we realize our brokenness we can accept that we cannot do it on our own. We can then move towards a dependence on God and seeing our need for Christ as our savior. When we try and do things on our own we demean what God accomplished through sending his son to die.  So by realizing our own depravity we can then move to grace instead of trying to do it on our own and focusing on legalism and our own performance. 

            Now we are working on our paper on growing in gratefulness so that is a awesome experience. Learning to be grateful for everything that we are given and using it for Gods glory.

I also made my final plans for New Zealand; we are buying our plane tickets and bus passes  on Monday so that will be good. I also bought my plane ticket for Australia for the 5 day trip so I am pumped about that. Haven’t quite finished the plan for what I am going to do while I am in Australia, but I am probably going to go to the opera house and the bridge. We are also talking about going to hill song church on Sunday so that will be good. Then we might go hang gliding and stuff. I think the great barrier reef is pretty far from Sydney so it looks like I am going to have to make another trip to Australia at some point in my life. I am going to see if I can find 42 Walabee Way Sydney.  Find it for the Nemo memories. Anyway talk to you guys later.

Week 5

This week has been awesome. One thing that I have been working on all week aside from my usual work is a trip New Zealand. If I haven’t told you guys yet, I am going with like 19 other students to Figi for our study abroad program. We will be building house for a ministry there that mission groups will be able to come and use for years to come. This will be the first time link year goes there and we will set the foundation for next year and the years after that.

            So we have a 5 day break after 2 weeks that some of us are going to Australia so that is going to be sooo legit. My friend Josh Ong is working on what that would look like as far as activities and cost.

            I have been working on the New Zealand trip. I am so excited for it. We will be there after the figi trip during our spring break. The presentation that I made that shows the activities and cost to do different things. I am soooo pumped. I cant wait. If anyone wants to fund some of my activities as a Christmas gift I will post the prices for different things and feel free to do that. It would make this already amazing trip even cooler.

            For example some of the things we have an opportunity to do. Skydiving, Black water rafting, horseback riding, sailing, hunting, and surfing. Just to name a few. There are several waterfalls and nature hikes we plan to go on as well. We will start in Auckland and travel around the North Island of New Zealand. Ill tell you guys more about it later but it is gonna be super legit.

Events to sponsor

Travel Pass ($300)

Black water rafting ($160)

Skydiving ($200)

Horseback riding ($120)

Sailing- If you want to go crazy and charter the boat for our group. ($370) My cut will probably cost $50.

Surfing is $72 for a 3 hour lesson.

The free thing you can give me is prayer. We are going to be doing a lot of ministry while we are abroad and could use some prayer that it wouldn’t be anything that we say or do, but that God would speak and work through us. 

week 5

This week has been awesome. We have had several really awesome speakers. One of my favorites was Karen Chancey. She gave us a biblical overview, which was so awesome. It coincided perfectly with B90X which is the challenge to read the bible in 90 days, so when we were talking about progression in the Old Testament I could really follow along well. Then today we heard from ward Weibe who talked about the Gospels and how they are different and how they are similar, so that was awesome and just added a lot to her overview. He talked about who the authors are writing to at the time which explains why they might have included certain information in their books that the others may have not. It was super interesting. I also finalized some things for logos so we should be getting the software sometime next week and be able to start using it. I am so excited. Ring able to study the words in the Greek and dig into their meanin will be so awesome. I can't wait. I am going home this weekend for the first time so that will be fun. I will wait to post this so my mom doesn't see, because her birthday is tomorrow and I am surprising her. So that is fun :) hannah and Kelsey are carpooling with me which is really fun since we are all from Dallas. This will be the only time I come home before thanksgiving so it will be nice to see my family before heading off. I won't get to see my big sis for a while so that is a bummer but that will just make it that much more special when I do. At black oak grill this week I got to share the gospel with 2 of my co workers. It was so awesome. I was studying for my new city catechism questions and my co workers would ask me about them and I would get to tell them all about Christ and his life and death. It was awesome. Until next week 

Week 4

Well TGIF last week was really fun, we went paintballing at a course in Ozark Missouri, it was a blast, we were playing capture the flag games and eliminations games it was awesome. I did get a little carried away at one point. I was in an epic battle with one of my adversaries on the other team, we were trading shots back and forth as we ducked behind barriers. Then I saw an opportunity as my opponent ducked down. I ran forward and when I was about 10ft away (probably too close) I shot my opponent in the top of the head. It was Alexis…and apparently it hurt pretty bad. I realized that was probably a bad idea right after I shot her in the head. Then as I was checking to see if she was okay, who would come around the corner, but Sarah Emerson, close range about 4 shots to the chest. I got some good welts from that one. Alexis ended up forgiving me, and my welts are now gone, just another successful TGIF I enjoyed with my link year crew.

Friday night I had work at Black Oak Grill, funny story my jeans ripped when I bent over to pick up a napkin, so I had to strategically move around the room without revealing the tear in my jeans. I made it through the night with incident and my boss didn’t notice until the restaurant was closed. Then I went back to Link Year campus and taught some more swing dancing. It was really fun.

This week we had a few different speakers, on Monday we met with our accountability groups and our Jonathan groups, which is like a small group for just guys, so that we can fellowship and encourage each other. Then on Tuesday we had Donyes speak to us about our seven pillars papers, it was an overview of all of them, we will go more in depth on them as we write our seven pillar papers. On Wednesday Amy Simmons came and spoke to us about the way that God had an impact on her life as she went into prisons to speak, she spoke at the white house and wrote two book about the way God has interceded into her life.

Then today we were shown how Logos Bible software works and we are trying to make an elective course for Logos so that we can learn to use it and get a discount on it. I am really excited about it. Tomorrow we are going on another TGIF, I wonder where we will go. 

CCLP/Brian Wang

            One of the projects that Link Year assigned right at the beginning of the program was the CCLP, which stands for the Christ Centered Life Plan. It was a project that we spent several hours working on and thinking about. We wrote about how we would want to be remembered when our life was over. How we would want specific individuals or groups to remember us. The first was how we wanted God to look at our life. The others were our choice of who we wanted to represent. Most of us chose to write how we wanted our parents to remember us, our kids (when we have them) or future spouse, co workers..ect. The purpose of this is to make a plan for how we will be remembered that way. It is not something that will happen by accident. So we made “accounts” which are the priorities that need to be in place for us to achieve our goals. By making “deposits” in those accounts we add value to each of them. For example some of my accounts were. God, Family, Friends, Finances, Giving/Service. So I supported each priority with a Bible verse and then put tangible steps to build value in those “accounts” by doing this at the beginning of the program we can practice good habits or putting these as true priorities.

            Brian Wang talked to us about taking time to really think about the direction of our life. To go somewhere put away the cell phone and be alone with God and really give yourself time to think about our priorities. The Bible verse he gave use was Proverbs 16:9 “ The heart of a man plans his way, but The Lord establishes his steps. While our plans will not always go as we planned them it is clear that God asks us to make a plan. Don Ford talked to us about making plans and he said “ Failing to plan is planning to fail.”

Week 3

Well to continue from where I left off last week. I have now finished and turned in my CCLP (Christ Centered Life Plan). So I think that went well. We also had our first group of people answering apologetical questions, so that was exciting. I do not have to answer mine until October 10^th, so I still have some time to prepare, but I feel pretty ready for them. My three questions are: What is life style evangelism? Since the Bible doesn’t mention masturbation is it still sin? How can I be certain that Christianity is the only way? So I will be asked one of those three questions and random and have to defend my answer. One of the directors will be playing the devils advocate. The only thing we have is a Bible, no notes or phone a friend.  So next week I will be sure to let you guys know how it goes. I am starting work at Black Oak Grill as a server tomorrow. I have been in training up to this point, but tomorrow I get my own tables, so that will be fun. There is a software called Logos Bible that I am planning on getting, it is an amazing tool that helps you study the Bible deeper, digging into the Greek words and the history of the people of the time, so that you can understand why something maybe Jesus did was so unusual and realize how radical he really was. Right now they are working on getting the people in our program a discount, but I am really excited to get it when they work out the details. We are doing a biblical foundations program called New City Catechism. You can look it up online, it is free and you can follow along with what I am doing. We are studying in order, 3 questions per week and tested on them every Wednesday. Next Wednesday we will be responsible for questions 1-6 and then the next week 1-9 and so on. That way we retain our information. We memorize the verse and reference that supports our answer to the question. It is often fairly basic concepts to someone who has grown up in church all their life, but I think it will be very useful when trying to articulate my faith to someone who has never been to church or heard about God. Tomorrow is TGIF (random fun Friday activity) and all they told us to wear clothes that we can get dirty and to wear old tennis shoes. So that should be exciting. My only thought is that we could be caving. I know we are going on a bus to go somewhere, but he probably realizes we will think that so it could easily be something else.