Fiji Travel/Day 1

Well I made it to Fiji, has been pretty awesome so far. Things were a little crazy trying to get my passport the morning of my flight, but sure enough I made it. Got my passport at about 10:00am and was on my 12:00 flight out that afternoon. We then were on 3 different planes. I was always sitting in an area with Kelsey josh Hannah Morgan. So that was fun. Then we got to Houston switched planes there, it was a quick switch, we kinda had to run through the airport. So this was a decently long flight 4.5 hours of something to LA, really nice plane though. Very comfortable, goo movies to watch. I watched the new wolverine movie and I watched after earth, but I kinda started falling asleep towards the end. Had some panda express in the LA airport so that was pretty legit. Orange chicken of course. They didn’t have the alacarte option so I ordered a triple entrée like a boss. Then we were on a 12 hour flight to FIJI! WHAT WHAT! Long flight but totally worth it. We got to the airport, got some money converted to FJD then loaded up in some vans and headed out to the farm. Apparently there has been a ton of rain in the past week especially on Wednesday. Which halted the final work on our dorms, so our dorms are kinda still under construction while we are in them. one of the girls rooms went to stay at one of the missionaries house Laura. We went to the beach and just chilled for a couple hours. I put some suncreen on but my back still got decently burned, so I am going to be mindful of that for the next few days and wear a shirt more. The beach was fun though, the food here is pretty good. It is a lot of fruits and some bread. Last night we had a chicken soup for dinner. The locals here that I have met so far are really nice. The people who work here in the kitchen and stuff have told me a lot about the island area. We are in the valley along side a decently large mountain range so that is pretty neat. I and some others expressed interest in doing some climbing maybe on our second day. After lunch I went down to the creek to explore, it was a little difficult to get over there because the vegetation is very overgrown. But once I got down by the water and could see where the cows came through to get to the creek. I ended up knee deep in mud at one point which was pretty funny. But I washed off in the creek and then climbed a big “rain tree” and chilled there, read my bible until heading back a little bit before dinner.

Man Week

Well this week has been exciting. It is…Man week, and women week. The guys and the girls have been split up hearing from a different person each day in a different setting. The first day we heard from Mark Harris, I knew his son Marcus from kamp, but he talked to us about what it looks like to be a godly man, a godly parent and the importance of not worrying about what people think, just speak truth. That afternoon Adam Martin and I went and hung out at Bass Pro, talking looking at guns and boots and water shoes, ate some fudge of course. Just doing life together. People use that term here like they grew up with it “doing life together”, I had never heard that before, but the idea is so awesome. I don’t have to sit and have a class session to learn from my mentors, sometimes going out and doing stuff in the real world is where I learn the most and get to know them best. We went to Joes house yesterday, we got to go to the trampoline room. Yes you heard me right, Joe has a trampoline room complete with a basketball goal right infront of it. We had a friendly dunk contest and then moved upstairs into a serious time talking about the way that we view women. How lust and pornography destroys your mind and in you continue to live in that sin it will cause you to not have control over how you view women, which will destroy your marriage and inhibit your relationship with God. Afterward we went down to the lower fields of K-1 and had a wiffleball game in the freezing cold. It was pretty intense. My team emerged victorious, before heading back up for lunch. Jon and I met up with Grant Gaines yesterday and went over Hebrew, we are only on chapter 2 of our study, but it has been awesome so far. Later that afternoon Lydia and I went on a hike, exploring a creek area, filled a few bags full of trash and went and hung out by a waterfall for a while, just talking and getting to know each other better. That was really fun, it was a little chilly though, so I was glad to have put on some layers. Then today we heard from Tim, Brain Wangs brother in law, he was really cool, he talked to us about how all of our actions are just an overflow of our heart. Our circumstances don't cause us to say the things we do, what you put in is what you will get out. 

I am back!

            Another week in the life of a Link Year student. It is good to be back though. Im getting so excited about going to Fiji Australia and New Zealand. We leave in two weeks. I am reading more and more about their culture and language to best prepare for this trip. I also will be doing a denominational study. I am researching Jehovah’s witness. I kinda know what it is but not that much, so I look forward to learning more about it. I will have limited internet access while out of the country. I should have it almost everyday in Australia, but during fiji probably not at all and new Zealand some of the time. We will see. I probably will not post on my blog until after I get back, but I will try and log my adventures extensively to keep you filled in. I got a gopro for Christmas so I will be taking pictures and videos everywhere I go. It should be a ton of fun. We also got funds raised to build a chicken coop. That will be really essential to this community. It will be one of their primary sources of protein. It is weird getting all of my summer clothes out when it is so cold here in Missouri. The weather is going to be so warm. I cant wait. Then when I get back I will be able to see a bunch of my friends at nationals so that will be a lot of fun. This week one of my pastors here in Branson was our Link Year speaker. Ted Cunningham, he came and has been talking to us about a few things, one he is a huge advocate for marriage and he talked to us all about all of the things someone should consider when deciding who to marry and then about how he believes that people of our generation are unnecessarily delaying marriage. He thinks this is a lot of because of prolonged adolescence. Kids are not transitioning into adulthood as early as they should. They need to be becoming adults that make their own decisions when they leave for college, but instead they are coming back home after college either because their parents want them to or to “save money”, but really all it is doing is prolonging their transition into adulthood. He then talked to us about how communication works in a relationship like marriage. Some examples of bad communication and how to correct that and communicate well with your spouse. Also about what personalities are most compatible.

End of the Semester

This week has been awesome. The final week of the first semester. It is crazy to think how fast it has gone by. Brett Jensen spoke to us this week. He was pretty cool. We had a Q&A with him last night after the fort, and got to dig into some great questions. He talked to us today about several things, one off them was consumer Christianity. It is the idea that Christians look for churches based on what is good for them. Do I like the teaching style here, do I like the music there, and when you no longer like the church you just go to a new one. It should be a commitment. Last week I lost my keys :p so I had to get a new key made. But I got it taken care of and life goes on. Hopefully the key will be ready tomorrow so I can drive myself home. Otherwise I will probably just ride with Kelsey or Hannah. On Sunday we had our Christmas party. We brought white elephant gifts and went out to eat. It was really fun, the gift I brought was a pair of socks that had a walrus wearing a Christmas hat on them. I also bought an eye mask with sunglasses on them. The gift I got had some fruit roll ups, gushers and fruit by the foot. I have eaten some of them. It took me back to my childhood days when these were classic snacks. I was looking at something in Luke 8:9 after the parable of the sower it shows the deciples asking Jesus about the parable and he tells them

Luke8:10 he said, "To you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of God, but for others they are in parables, so that 'seeing they may not see, and hearing they may not understand.'

This verse bothered me. It made it seem like the deciples were the only ones who Jesus was really teaching, the rest were just confused. But as Brett was talking today we went to the same parable in

Mark 4 verse 10 it says “And when he was alone, those around him with the twelve asked him about the parables.”

This shows that there were others who wanted to seek the truth in Jesus teaching. So while Jesus did scatter the crowd and many did not understand him. It isnt always about immediately understanding, but about seeking the truth that is in his words.

Thanksgiving break/First Week back

Well a lot has happened since I last blogged. I went home for thanksgiving break. That was so much fn. I got to celebrate thanksgiving on Tuesday with my mom’s side of the family. Unfortunately my older sister sarah beth and cousin Bethany could not be there and my cousin Mary Faith also couldn’t be there. I cant wait to see them over Christmas break. On Wednesday we went out to a friend of ours ranch near Amarillo. It was awesome. We heard some history about the property and got to go hunting. On the last day I killed a 9 point mule deer. It was so cool. The biggest deer I have ever killed and it will be my first one to make the wall. My older sister made it into Amarillo for thanksgiving day. I was so happy to see her. She goes to school in Kentucky so I don’t get to see her as often as the rest of my family. Then over the weekend I had some friends over to my house before coming back up to Link Year. Now I am back in Missouri and man is it cold. It is getting cold in texas too. We got our first snow today which was exciting and if you have not heard we are doing something in the community next week called Project Affordable Christmas. The name exxplanains the basic idea (to make Christmas affordable for people) Please go look at my facebook for more information. Or just google Project affordable Christmas Branson. It should come up in several places. If you would like to support you can go to the kanakuk website and project affordable Christmas is a choice under donations. We will post pictures as we go through and help the families in the community that need it.

Have a great week cant wait to tell you all about it. 

Week 8

Another week at link year and more exciting things going on. This wee Shay Robbins, one of my heroes came and spoke on intimacy with God. I think often during my relationship with God I seek knowledge and wisdom, but the idea of being intimate with God was always hard to wrap my mind around. It was really awesome to talk about the ways that we grow closer to God and begin to share more and more with him about what we are going through in our everyday life. We talked about spending time in solitude with God. No phone no computer no friends. Just you and God, giving yourself time in self examination, while sharing with God the details of your day to day life. To discern that which is displeasing to him and take steps in obedience to cut those things out. 

Next we talked about spiritual gifts and not only determining which gifts but how to use them. Paul writes to Timothy in 2nd Timothy 1 to fan into flame the his spiritual gift. Just because God has given us a spiritual gift doesn't mean we are using it. It is our responsibility to use what we have been given. Tomorrow we have another TGIF so that should be exciting. I am not sure what we plan to do, but it doesn’t start til 9:30 and it is an indoor activity that is pretty much all I know. I am still in the planning process with my group about how we want to do our final semester project, for the most part we are planning to do the same thing, we just need to go out and actually do it.

Week 7

This week was a ton of pretty crazy a bunch of stuff going on. Saturday I took the SAT I think it went really well. Selby helped me prepare for the essay portion. Using literature to support my answers. This week Marvin Daniels came and spoke to is. He works for KAA. He talked to us about some ethical questions that are difficult to answer. If you agreed with the statement you would walk to one side of the room if you disagree you go to the other side. Then we would have some healthy debate about why we chose the side that we did. We had some really good conversations. Some of the topics I have thought about before while others I had to think about and make a decision about quickly. One of the topics was “If we could clone a person, would it have a soul?” I argued that it would have a soul. Another question was about if there was any situation where you think abortion is acceptable. On Tuesday I got some recalls done on my car and bought the tickets for our groups flight to New Zealand. There are currently 9 of us going. I am really looking forward to it. Then on Wednesday my parents came in. I made some quiches and then on Thursday morning we made eggs bacon sausage and waffles for everyone. It was a big hit. Now we are going country dancing so that should be a lot of fun. I have done a lot of swing but not as much country so I look forward to getting better at this.