Ups and One Down

Hello Everybody,

This week had its ups and one down. We went camping in a random valley on the Northern part of the island this past Friday We stumbled down the switchbacks, in the dark, all the way down into the valley. Only to be met by 20mph wind gusts, which are awesome for starting fires and trying to tie tarps to trees. Seriously, we slept under that tarp, on the ground, and it took forever to put up. When we went to bed it so hot and mosquitoes, ants, and spiders were crawling all over me. It was good training for Cambodia, however, I didn't get much sleep between swatting the bugs, cursing the existence of the rocks beneath me, and trying to fight for room between the two people next to me. That next morning we woke up, grabbed a muffin, and went down to the beach that was just down this hill we camped on top of. We "bodysurfed" for much of the morning. The riptide at this beach is one of the worst on the island. Needless to say, it was really strong and I was beat by lunch time. That afternoon we started to pack up and head back to the campus.

We came back to campus just into time to make a campus wide dodgeball tournament. It would have been really awesome, but I was beginning to feel pretty sick. I still played for the two rounds we survived. As soon as we lost I went to bed, which was at 7:30pm. I didn't wake up until 10am the next morning. After that long slumber though I felt fine. Though, I was hurtin' the night before. I think it was a combination of being really dehydrated, eating junk the previous 24hrs, and not getting any sleep the night before. So that kinda sucked this week, but other than that I haven't had any health problems.

This week the speaker was a young, 31 year old dude named Trent Sheppard.Trent spoke on "The Story of God." He is seriously an awesome speaker. He could tell you a story about anything and you would be so interested. He just has a real gift for teaching and speaking. I was amazed at the humility of this guy. He really blessed us this past week. Funny side note for Nik, this dude is really good friends with Jon and Leah Judge. Anyway, I took away a ton from this week, however, it would take me a bunch of time that I don't have to write to write all of it. So here are a couple of (paraphrased) quotes to think about:

NT Wright - Instead of trying to fit Jesus in to your idea of God, look at Jesus and
reshape your ideas of God around Him.

Mike Yaconelli (Dangerous Wonder) - Christianity, today, is no longer life changing,
it's only life enhancing.

Ignatius - Do not make the mistake that Christianity is believing the right doctrines.

Trent - We are not out to convince the World that we are right and they are wrong.
Humility will change the world. That's what Jesus did.

That's just a couple of things I am still thinking about. I know you don't know the context of these, but I still think they are worth giving some thought to. If you have any questions about this stuff just ask me and I will do the best I can to clear it up for you. Know that it will, more than likely, be the blind leading the blind seeing as I am still chewing on this. Anyway, I will get back to you guys next week. Take it easy.

Dan