Austin Ochs

This week has been pretty legit. Austin Ochs came and talked to us. He is really cool guy. He told us a little bit about his past and growing up what things were like and if I could say one thing about him is that he does stuff. He will come up with an idea. Often a pretty big idea and act on it. Why not right? I was inspired, what is stopping you. He had an idea to form small groups at his school his softmore year and by the second semester 100 out of the 105 kids in his cool signed up wanting to be in small groups. It was amazing, he a softmore God used in a mighty way. Now he is a part owner of a few companies, his primary company being one called seat king. They build industrial seating, seems kinda boring and pretty basic to me, but the catch is the employees are all in prison. The manufacturing building is in the prison and they get to work for 8 to 15 dollars and hour, to send to their families or buy various approved amenities for their cell. They have started a seminary through that, and nine inmates are a part of it, they are studying and learning and changing that prison. Everyone who comes in that prison is given an opportunity to work and share in joy of Christ. Some are in for life sentences, but are content in the place that God has them, have repented from old sin and are now trying to help others. It is amazing some of the stories that come out of there. Then He is also working on a project in Honduras for hydro electric power. It is pretty cool. It was like an 8 million dollar project that will provide energy for a village they sell the electricy back to the Honduran government to provide energy there. His wife has now come up with an idea of praying scripture over others and started a website that will email you a verse each day as you go through different books of the Bible and you just insert the name of the person you want to pray for an it will incorporate it into a prayer based on the verses for that person. You can also go through it quicker on the website looking at the verses and the prayers they have written from that. It is really cool. Today is my little sisters 18^th birthday so that is crazy. She isnt allowed to be 18, but I knew she was gonna grow up on me at some point. So that is exciting, we will get to be in college together next year at pepperdine. Legit! So pumped. Tonight I went over to the Chanceys and cooked some venison for them and brought Matt Lydia and Xenia, we had a great time getting to know them better and sharing a little bit of our stories. We also had our pancakes and praise deal, which was fun. The song the more I seek you has just been really moving me lately. I cant get enough of it, but the versions on youtube are just ehhh. Live worship with my Link Year family is where it is at. Shout out to Sarah Emerson :D she probably doesn’t read my blog, but that’s ok. Austin challenged us with something I am going to take very seriously. Think of one thing you would do for God’s kingdom, if you had unlimited resources. I challenge anyone reading this to think about this as well. I don’t know what kind of following I have, but I would love to hear what you would do. I believe that God would provide me with the opportunity to gain whatever resources I need, so sky is the limit, lets go, I just gotta come up with a need and a God size idea.

Weird Week

It is weird to think that Link Year is almost over, this week has been unusual. I wasn’t here for class Monday morning, I was still in Dallas flying back. Had a cool conversation with the woman I sat next to o the plane about Link Year and about Jesus. It was awesome that God gave me that opportunity to share with her. She knew about Jesus and had been to church before but she didn’t really open up about where she was at with God. Anyway I’m praying that God will continue to work in her life. Class on Wednesday was with Rich, he runs Joshua Wilderness which is a different gap year program. It is in Hume Lake California kinda near Fresno. They are in a lot of ways very different than Link, partly because of location/isolation, but he spoke to us a lot on his trips to Israel and teaching about Jewish and Israeli culture. That was interesting. Then on Wednesday we had our small groups, which felt weird because that is normally on Mondays, we went through the study we are doing on identity, confronted some issues about times in my life where I am trying to be God is some way, trying to control things, or change people, or not wanting to ask for help from others. Our culture tells us a lot of things about what men should or shouldn’t do and a lot of times it contradicts the Bible and so we have to be careful not to get caught up into what we have always heard and what we are used to, but instead match it with the word. I got a ton of stuff done that afternoon, trying to get some things sorted out for the fundrasier I am trying to do for Fiji missions (Island encounters). Hitting a few road blocks, but nothing I think we cant get around. This morning almost all of the guys got up and we had a time of prayer together. It was really cool, we are going to do this every Tuesday and Thursday for the rest of Link Year. I cant believe that it is almost over. It has been a blast. Choosing between Pepperdine and Westmont probably in the next week or so, by next week I will either be a Wave or a Warrior. Either way I am pretty pumped. I gotta go get some maintenance done, Later.

Brady White

This week we heard from Brady white. He shared with us a little bit about several different topics. He talked to about how passionately he pursued his wife while dating. How he loved her and took every opportunity to show it, but in his first year of marriage that dropped off and she felt like the whole dating thing was just a big show. He told us that to show us how our culture only understand love as a feeling. Reminded me if Joshua straub teaching us how to love better instead if feel better. Love is a commitment. The love that marriage is, the unconditional love, the love that is til death do us part. It is not going to always be rainbows and butterflies. It is hard, his wife spoke to in chapel about their move to Disney as she pursued a job there. The sacrifices they had to make for one another and how she got to impact the lives of kids there was awesome. She told us a story of a little girl who was born without the ability to hear and when doctors found a way to give her hearing, she told them that the first thing she wanted to hear was the Disney princesses. Well Blair got to be on of those Disney princess that sat and had an imaginary tea party in the magic kingdom with this little girl as she heard for the first time.  It was really cool to see how God has used their family up to this point to make a difference in the community God has placed them. This weekend I am home for a college acceptance function. Hopefully this will help shed some light on the college decision I have coming up between Westmont and Pepperdine. I think that God will use me at whichever school I go to but a decision still has to be made none the less. Til next time 

New Zealand/Fiji/USADay 35

And The journey home begins, we got up at like 5:30, got ready and headed to the airport, we were on a tiny plane to start out with. No security, like 18 people on the plane, 8 of them being us. Morgan was practically sitting with the pilots. Then after we got to Auckland we walked to the international terminal, which felt like a long way since I wasn’t feeling well. We had our layover, then flew to Fiji, we had to enter the country to get our bags from Laura Pitman, then we went back through security had another layover and then got on our long flight to LA, I tried to sleep most of the way and was pretty successful, watched a little bit of the movie Taken, but mostly just slept and woke up and went back to sleep. Then We got on our flight to Denver and in Denver Laurel got on a different flight home and we got on our flight to Little Rock, we got to Little Rock and the Moreheads were there to pick us up. They took me to the Doctor to make sure that I was alright, which I was, then they took me back to their house where everyone else had settled in for the night, they made me a grilled cheese and I had some fruit. Then we watched wrath of the Titans before going to sleep. Finally home in the US.

New Zealand Day 34

This morning we got up and went to Taupo, the city of fun if you will. We had a great day planned. We got to Taupo and got in a limo to go skydiving. It was really cool white limousine. We all got geared up, decided what video packages we wanted and got in a plane. Morgan Jon Giovanni and I were in the first group. We took off and I thought they weren’t going to close the door. And I was right by the door so I was a little concerned, then they closed it. It was really cool, as we went higher we could see Mt Doom and the whole lake area, it was intense. Then they opened the door he was alright swing your legs out, so we did then it was 3 2 1 and we were out. It all happened so fast I didn’t even have time to freak out. The first 3 seconds was crazy and indescribable feeling, then we were in free fall, the camera man was getting shots as we fell, and It was pretty cold at that altitude, but it got warmer as we fell. Then we pulled the shoot and coasted to the ground, it was one of the coolest experiences of my life, Im really glad I did it. Later that night we went sailing which was really fun, the wind wasn’t really strong but strong enough that we didn’t need to use an engine or anything. We saw some neat rock carvings ate huge burgers and sailed back. Then we went back to the hotel and got some sleep.

New Zealand Day 33

We got up early and got on the bus and went pretty far drive through the country side where we saw some cows and a few sheep, passed a bunch of farms and mountains. We ended up in this valley where we stayed at Lake Aniwhenua. I was feeling pretty sick so I opted out of the activities there. The group that went eeling though, which is what I would have done got stuck out on the lake, it was kinda an issue, I didn’t hear to much I just know they didn’t catch an eel and it took a long time to get back. I mostly just rested there and tried to recover.

New Zealand Day 32

We got up in the morning went down to meet the bus and starting waiting….and waiting until we eventually decided they told us the wrong time so that they could leave the Americans behind. Oh and I forgot to mention it is raining. So we got on the bus and headed to Waitomo where we went caving. They had us crawl through a box to make sure that we would be able to fit through all of the tightest parts of the cave, it was pretty easy for everyone in our group. Then we put on wetsuits and got helmet and boots and headed out to the cave. The entrance to the cave was probably the tightest squeeze in the whole cave. We saw the glow worms and floated in our inner tubes, the water was freezing though, but other than that the whole tour was pretty chill just walking around and checkin out glow worms. It was really neat, then we got out and took our gear off and got back on the bus and headed to Mourea. That was our cultural night, they preformed for us, songs dance ect. Then we all slept on the floor in one big room, except for our girls, they had their own room that was locked up at night, that gave them some privacy and security.