I haven't forgotten about my blog

Well I guess it's been quite awhile since my last post. Now it's not that I just completely forgot or didn't want to post anything, I've just been a little busy the last few weeks. Just to make this quick, easy, and painless, I'll keep it short. Christmas was good and the Lord really provided for my wants and needs. The downside of Christmas was that my family and I were sick for about 2 weeks straight. Since getting better I've been studying like crazy because I've been teaching Cults & World Religions at TEPSE. So that has been the thing that eats up my time (in a good way). That's about all that's really happened in my life recently so you should be up to date. :) Hope all is well with everyone and Lord willing I'll be posting more often.

CTU Christmas Party

Well I've had some frustrating trouble with Blogger here so this post is going to be shorter than I had intended. Right now I'm just getting sick of looking at my computer screen, but that's ok it's almost time for bed! Anyways enough of my whining.

CTU (Calvary Truth Unit) my chapel's youth group had our Christmas party last week. It was really a lot of fun and I think everyone thought the same. My parents and I are the leaders of CTU and were of course in charge of setting the whole thing up. My mom and set up the Christmas tree and decorated the house the night before. My mom was really dilligent and wrapped all of their presents. This is the part that I'm proud of, we got all the kids the same thing a couple of books on how to study the Bible and some candy and a group picture. Then we took those and wrapped them in different sized boxes and bags and started a white elephant gift exchange. So needless to say we encouraged the swaping of presents which was accompianed with lots of laughs. Then we made them open them at the same time.

Afterword we talked for a little bit about how we should be constantly looking unto Jesus accroding to Heb. 12:1-3. I had prepared for just a few minutes of talking about this subject but it morphed into somewhere around half-an-hour of discussing how we are slaves of God and that we need to God our all. Lord willing this really sunk into the kids minds, but just for me it was a good reminder that I owe God bigtime. Just because my sins have been forgiven and I'm going to Heaven doesn't mean I can do anything I want and/or get lazy.

Well I've had enough of typing for one day. Maybe I'll try for somemore later in the week. Merry Christmas.
JC

Jesus is Better than Santa

Here is a little article that I found, oddly enough, in a Christian joke book, but I thought it was pretty cool. Thus the reason I’m posting it here, hope you enjoy it.


“Santa lives at the North Pole; Jesus is everywhere. Santa rides in a sleigh; Jesus rides on the wind and walks on water. Santa comes but once a year; Jesus is an ever present help. Santa comes down your chimney uninvited; Jesus stands at your door and knocks. Santa makes you stand in line to see him; Jesus is as close as the mention of His name. Santa lets you sit on his lap; Jesus lets you rest in His arms. Santa asks, “Little boy, little girl, what is your name?” Jesus knew our names before we did. Santa has a belly like a bowl full of jelly; Jesus has a heart full of love. Santa offers “Ho, ho, ho”; Jesus offers health, help, and hope. Santa says “You better not cry”; Jesus says, “Cast all your cares on me for I care for you.” Santa's little helpers make toys; Jesus makes new lives, mends hearts, repairs broken homes. Santa may make you chuckle; Jesus gives you joy. Santa puts gifts under your tree; Jesus became our gift and died on a tree. There's really no comparison. Jesus is the reason for the season.”

Holiday fun!

I don't know about you but I really enjoyed my Thanksgiving week. My parents and I spent the week down in Ohio. The weekend before Thanksgiving we stayed with my Uncle John and on Sunday my dad spoke at Westlake Bible Fellowship and then I spoke to the Awana kids during their counsel time. After all that my mom and I went to my cousin Jen's house where her husband and daughter were along with my other cousins and their 4 boys. Needless to say it was a busy fun filled house. We just did a whole lot of nothing while there. We would stay up late everynight because that was our time alone when the kids were asleep. Here are my cousins on the couch ready for our night of fun

Here I am all alone in the big chair

My dad stayed with my Uncle John until Tuesday when I went and picked him up. Then came the great Thanksgiving day. I have to say my cousin Drew did a fantastic job on the turkey. Everything else just came out great. Oh if only we had some leftovers. :(

After the gluttony producing dinner we occupied ourselves with just hanging out, played some video games, and took some family pictures.Playing some Guitar Hero

A blurry photo of my little cousin Noah giving his best John Lennon impression

The whole family

It was a great time. It was even more fun because almost everyone was there which was a first in a while. Everyone made it except my cousin Mike who is in Iraq, but he did get to call and pray with us. Sorry for the long post but I thought you would like the pictures that I absconded from everyone's cameras. :) Happy Thanksgiving

The First Snow of the Season

Well as the title shows we (meaning those of us that live in my area of Michigan) had the first official snow of the season last night. It was quite beautiful to watch and relaxing. I was going to take a picture of all the snow on the ground (it just covered the grass) but by the time I got around to it most of it had melted. Sorry, I really wanted you guys to see how pretty it was but oh well.

From Half Way Around The World

My cousin, Mike, who's in the Air Force and stationed in Iraq recently sent my parents and I a letter with a 250 Dinar bill. (Unfortunately I don't know how much that is in dollars; if you know let me know.) Needless to say, I thought this was really cool. But it also caused me to think that Mike and the rest of the men and women who serve in our military are really in a different country, different culture, and it's one that's is still very dangerous. These men and women need our prayer, because although things are getting better we are still are at war. So, hope you enjoyed seeing a little bit of Iraqi culture. :)

P.S. I had a friend e-mail that this bill equals approx. 22 cents in US dollars.

To Chicago, Ohio, and home

I guess I’m really not staying very regular with this blog. Lord willing I’ll manage my time a bit better and update this more often. A couple of weeks ago Tom, Kathleen, and I went to the Moody Bible Institute in Chicago to do some PR work for TEP. We set up our display in one of the main buildings, hung out with students, went to some classes, and also went and preached in the open air with Student Outreach. Student Outreach goes out twice a week, Wed. and Fri., and they do some sort of evangelism in downtown Chicago. On Wednesday, the team that I was with did more of one-on-one personal evangelism, something that I’ve done a bit of but still need of lot of work in. The Lord blessed me with a good partner, Adam, and we got into some good conversations. Friday, we did more the traditional open air preaching with the paintboard. Both Tom and I preached along with one of the leaders of Student Outreach, Robert. I really enjoyed getting to know the students there and hopefully building on the relationships that I’ve made. The plan is, Lord willing, to go there once a month and do more of what we did this last trip.

Also this past weekend my parents and I went down to Ohio to visit some family and my dad was preaching on Sunday down there. I have to say I am really glad I went. I was able to spend time with almost all of my cousins, including my cousin who’s going to school in GA and made a surprise visit up for the weekend. I would’ve been really upset if I didn’t go and found out that she was there. Please continue to pray for my Grandma who just had surgery for cancer and is recovery. The doctors say that the surgery went well and that they got all of the cancer out, praise God. But please pray for the continuing recovery.

Right now I'm just trying to get stuff done. It seems that I've had a lot of work creep up on me. So, now I'm just hunkering down and getting it done; that's the plan anyways. :) If you could also pray for my preparations for CTU (our chapel's youth group) and I'm speaking Nov. 2nd and am not sure what to preach on yet. So, please pray that the Lord will give me wisdom.