I haven’t posted in a long while, hey? I suppose I’ve been so busy ranting about the church in class that I haven’t had time to let the internet world know where my head space has been as of late. I also don’t work in an office anymore, so my free time is less.
I am in the process of trying to figure out what the next year will bring me. The Institute is coming to a close and my options are just beginning to come to the surface. I am however hoping for an internship under a worship pastor to gain even more hands on, practical worship experience.
Since I’ve been here in St. Stephen, I have written around eight new songs, and another one is in the works. Two of them are accessible worship songs, some are less accessible worship songs, and the others focus on relationships and family. Once I have better MP3 recordings I plan on posting some of them on my blog so you can have a listen.
In other news… God has really been impacting me with the churches call to take care of the poor, widow and orphan. I do not know what that is to look like in my life, however, my heart continues to grow in that area and I see aiding the poor in both poverty and poor in spirit in my future. I have also become antsy to travel. I have a deep desire to go and live in other places for around a year, just to have the experience under my belt and once I am ready to make roots, move back to Minnesota to remain close to family.
I suppose that is about all I’ve got for now. Check back later, and hopefully I will update you more!
Went to Boston last weekend, to see David Crowder Band. Here are a few photos for you… visit my flickr account if you want to see more!
So I went out to visit my school and took some pretty good photos! Enjoy!
Above; Bar Harbor, ME
Above; Bangor, ME
Above; Ma and Pa in Bangor, ME
Above; Bar Harbor, ME
Above; Ma and I at the Clam Shack outside of Robbinston, ME
Above; Another boat….
Above; My future school
At the clam shack…. blublocker style!
Visit my flickr account to see all the photos!
Alright, alright a lot is going down. Where do I start? How much do I say? I mean, anyone on the internet can read this if they want to. Will that come back and bite me in the butt after the fact? Hm. Here’s an update on my life (since I haven’t had much else to post about).
I leave for my adventure to Canada on August 28th where the first leg of my journey will take me to Indiana. I will drive there in one day and stay with my Aunt and Uncle for a day or two. They have a lot of land and live right on the boarder of Kentucky. There is something lovely about the home they live in. It’s grazing land, but there are woods. It’s open and free, yet it is completely private. My favorite memory from their home is from a few years ago when I sat on their enormous porch, playing guitar in the heat and enjoying the beauty of that state. It’s one of my favorite places.
The next part of my trip will take about 10 hour’s max where I will arrive in Virginia and stay with my Aunt (my mom’s sister) for a day or two. She also lives on a lot of land. She raises her own chickens, has a few horses, and plants and cares for oriental grasses which she then sells to people who do landscaping. I am very excited to visit her and take a day to hang in the foot hills. I also plan on riding my mountain bike somewhere between Indiana and Virginia.
From Virginia my trip get’s a little hazy. It takes about 6 or so hours to get from my Aunts up to Baltimore, Maryland where I have more east coast family… but the drive from Baltimore to St. Stephens, NB, CA is a bit of a haul. I may try and make it up to Boston after Virginia and either squat somewhere for the night or grab a hotel. However I want to get some more mountain biking in around there. I plan on getting to St. Stephens by September 2 so I can get moved in and drive around the province to get my bearings (and do some riding). I do have to say, I am pretty excited about this move out east. It’s a once in a life time type of thing.
I have received four of my five books for my first semester of class in the mail yesterday. The director of ICEWS; Dan Wilt, recommends reading through them and taking down some questions I have about the content in them to bring me and anyone else in the program up to speed on what we will be studying. It’s exciting to feel like I am already starting to study—and it’s only summer! The first two books I am starting with are; For All God’s Worth by N.T. Wright and Emerging Churches by Ryan K. Bolger and Eddie Gibbs. Thus far I like both of them. The latter is a bit of a tougher read because there is a lot of data and meat (it’s almost like a case study over 5 years of the different post-modern-emerging churches) but it is if anything full of wonderfully educational content. The first, by N.T. Wright so far comes across as blunt, real and straight to the point. The writer is being honest about the world, the church and our part in both. I like it.
So, only 63 days until I leave on my adventure to ICEWS
drum roll please…… I would like to announce my acceptance to St. Stephens University’s affiliated program; The Institute of Contemporary and Emerging Worship Studies.
The school is located in New Brunswick, Canada. The program is 1 year, and the certificate recived is applicable to another 3 years at SSU. Class starts September 6!
So hey everyone… I’m moving to the east coast in August!
Filed under: Travel
First of all… just look at these photos… and then imagine living in a place that has all of this stuff…… Maybe you have never experianced this—but have you ever made plans to do something, told everyone about those plans and then backed out of doing them? Well I have. So that is why I am leary of mentioning anything more about these photos. I am however looking into a school, and I really want to go but I am not sure about it. However I will keep dreaming, praying and thinking about it…. untill then I will lovingly stair at these photos.
Filed under: Travel
So I am officially home from Colorado and back at work. For the remainder of this week I will be doing half days and next week I will be officially back full time. The mono seems to be leaving my body. I am not dead tired like I used to be, my right side doesn’t hurt nearly as much (because of my infecious liver) and I have some sort of stamina.
What a great trip. I couldn’t have asked for better travel buddies! MarthaJoy and Nora are rockstars! Now… you can’t start a trip without starbucks. It is essential. So we went to starbucks and of course then went camera happy.
The first leg of the trip was sooo much fun. We went to Sonic (because Nora has an undying obsession with the Sonic Burger) and to the Kum and Go station where I bough lighters. We drove from 6:00am to 8:30pm. The drive was long but when you have two amazing people with you it seems quick. 
We stayed in Parker, CO at my Aunt and Uncles house. They were gone on a cruise for the majority of the time so we had a cute little house all to ourselves. Parker is a suburb of Denver so we were pretty close to civilization, but far enough out the see some of the cooler stuff in the state. Every morning we would venture onto Mainstreet in Parker and get coffee at this little hole in the wall coffee shop. There is also a Lemstone Christian Bookstore that we went to where I bought an amazingly true bumper sticker for angelina (the name of my car, if you didn’t know already…) Here are some photos for you…
After we sat at the coffee shop and decided what to do with the rest of our day we went to Castlerock Canyon Statepark. Uhm…. rock. That’s what i’ve got to say about that one. Such a cool place to be. After we found our spot on the rocks there we sat for what seemed like hours and just talked. Serious talk, funny talk… we covered it all. It was amazing. I feel like the whole trip was a time to really dig in deep into eachothers lives and get to the nitty gritty. We laughed, and laughed so hard we cried (you will see photographic evidance of that later) and just lived. It was the best time—a God time—for us. It was the best way to send Nora off on her DTS for YWAM.
We then ventured into Denver for dinner at Chubby’s. My buddy Jeff whom I went to highschool with moved out to Denver a while back so he came to dinner with us and took us to the 16th street mall which is like Nicollet Mall but uhm, yea… way sweeter. I saw a dude on a track bike and I wanted to steal it. We also went to REI in downtown and it was like dying and going to heaven because it had a starbucks in it! Two of the greatest things in life found in one location. Three thumbs up to that one…
Day two we went into Colorado Springs. We were there literally all day long. We went to church at New Life (who put on an amazing, spirit-filled service), went into lodo (lower-downtown) and sat in the park, went to Garden of the God’s, ate dinner at Applebee’s, took photos in a parking lot, then we split ways and I went to my cousin Jareds band’s show at The Black Sheep and Nora and MarthaJoy took my car and ventured to… guess where… starbucks.
Here are some photos of the band…
We got home in the middle of the night and decided to take a steam (my aunt and uncle have a steam shower thingy….) As the three of is sat in there steaming, Nora said it was “like eating eucalyptus!” Then she pretended to eat the steam. It was funny. That last night before we took Nora to Arvada for her DTS we all slept in the tiniest best, laughed really hard, loved, and were real with eachother. It was like finding yourself. I think I found a bit more of myself on this trip—who I am made to be for Jesus—how the enemy will try his hardest to keep me from fulfilling my destiny in God—how I don’t need a man to be whole—how to be a worshipper—that I am a force to be reckoned with. God taught me a lot, and broke me even more on this trip. He gave me a desperate desire to be holy and pure and refined for Him.
When we were in Costa Rica on the last night we went down to the cabana and toasted, with virgin margarittas in hand “to margaritta’s and great fajitta’s.” We did that on this last trip. We toasted to adventure. To life. To Nora. To friends. To Jesus.
Then we sent nora off…..
Then drove 100 mph toward home! (where i got a warning in Iowa…hehehehe.)
It was by far the best adventure I have been on.
