Thanks Karis

Glad you are going to be my cousin, Ben.

This has got to be one of the greatest cards that anyone has ever given to me. The "I (heart) you" is especially great. All three of the Taylor children made me cards and they were all great, and now I know that I have to keep it in mind that the kids love "fun" wedding parties (none of this boaring slow dancing!).

She Said Yes & The Crazy Weekend

I asked her, and she said yes. On Friday night Michal and I were at our friend's house with her brother and sister-in-law, and her cousin Chris and his family. It was a nice night of just sitting around talking, drinking Wassle, watching the wind blow the fire, looking at pictures of "the old times past" and trying not to show how incredibly nurvous I was.

We left the Baker's house late, nearly half-past midnight, and went for a drive (one of my favorite past-times). We soon found ourselves at the lake, standing in the cold, flooded in the light of my headlights. We talked about what a wonderful evening it had been and how blessed we are to have friends who care so much about us and show us what it means to be godly parents and godly husbands and wives. As we pondered this blessing I told her that this thought led me to a question that I would like to ask and got down on my knee.

That was the start to a weekend of an abundance of joy and an overflow of blessings and best wishes from our friends and relatives. Saturday we decided that it would be fun to reinact our evenings saga in front of multiple groups of people and proceeded to fool our friends and family into believing that they were witnessing "the" event.

I can honestly say that I have never spoken to so many people in one day as I did this past Sunday. Everyone at church was full of "best wishes" and congradulations as well as advice and intrest in when to get married and how to plan the future. Towards the end of the day we were both feeling a little overwhelmed with advice, but we could not be more thankful for the wonderful friends that God has given us. Thank you everyone, and may God bless you has he has blessed me.

This is a picture of me at the Graden of the Gods in Colorado Springs just a few weeks ago. Well, there's really nothing else that needs to be said right now... this is more like a space filler...

Lunch with Mr. Bayly

I have come to the conclusion that it is a better idea, when I want a positive answer, to eat lunch with Mr. Bayly than to eat breakfast.

Today he and I went to Noodle Town , though I am known to not like Chinese food, and he told me that he would like Michal and me to get married sooner than later. This idea is, of course, quite in line with what I would like as well.

There's so much more to say, so many emotions running through my heart, my head, but no words will do them justice and I fear I would simply continue to ramble on. Mr. Bayly continually shows me that he knows me better than I would expect or guess.

Well, I have a few more things to do today, but most importantly I need to consider how I am to "pop" the question (and soon, tonight!).

What am I tired of?

I am reading through Doug Fields' book, Your first two years in youth ministry and just read a letter that his friend Brian wrote him about being tired and quitting. This is exactly how I feel. I have been at this for less than a year, I know that I don't know what I am really doing, but I am tired of being tired.

As Brian said in his letter, I am tired of parents having a beef with me, but instead of telling me they call a dozen other people. I'm tired of people considering youth ministry as less important than other ministries and not giving me the support I need (and I'm tired of buying this lie). All in all I'm just tired. Brian said that he had quit the day before, but then he went home, not having told anyone and read this:

Wherefore, take unto you the whole armor of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand. - Ephesians 6:13

The battle isn't between me and parents. It's not between me and kids, it's not between me and myself, rather the battle is the Lord's. He is fighting, through me, the powers of darkness in this world and my call is to stand.

And stand I will.

Your feet are going to be on the ground, your head is there to move you around, so stand - REM, Stand

Graduation

So, to graduate means to move on to something new right? It means that I will be able to have some kind of possitive impact on society because now I have all these sophisticated tools to aid me. What a load of bunk. Help society, that's what they say they want you coming to their school to do, yet the whole time you're there all you hear is how to promote yourself. What can you do to help others, the message I got was, you can't really ever help someone, what you have to do is make as much money as you can not being a blue-coller worker, and then, if you feel so inclined give money back to the school so that they can decide how to help those less fortunate (also known as freshman). I have been told that the best thing I can do with my life is to not let others tell me what to do. Believe it or not I have not yet gotten my diploma and already I have been getting calls asking me to give money back to the school, they want me to raise funds for an institution that should be run out of town for their neglect. No, I don't think I am what they want a graduate to be. I am four years older than I was back then, I am, honestly, four years wiser. But this wisdom comes not from lessons I learned in the classroom but lessons I learned about the classroom, about society and about the wealth of knowledge that sophicates the potential out of university students. Long live Indiana University (IU).

Sometimes it seems we do things that have no purpose. Writing this plog, not just this entry, but actually this entire series seems to be one such thing. There is rarely something that makes one feel as little accomplishment as writing jibberish for a class that he doesn't even really know how his grade is being determined. I don't recall if I have mentioned this before, but this entire blog is solely for the purpose of fulfilling a class project (though it was begun before the project was ever assigned). It has been filled with very few actual ideas of mine and is rearley worth writing let alone reading. So why would such an assignment be given? Is there a point to poluting the web (or any media) with such waste? It seems bad enough that this kind of waste could permeate my head, it seems inhumain to make others suffer through the random stumbling on to such a post. There is no reason why anyone should be wasting their time reading this blog and so it is not only wasting the small amount of physical space it takes up but also steels what time it can from your (yes you the reader's) vibrant life. For this I am sorry, and in the rare case that you are still reading I here end.

PS Check this out! I know I have plugged it before but it is all new now. You should love it.