Please Pray

As some of you may know, my uncle has ALS (Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis). For the past year his condition has been degrading. We believe that he is in his last weeks of life. I am asking you to please keep him in your prayers. He does not believe in God or Jesus Christ and he definitely doesn't believe that Christ died to save him. He is very stubborn and has disregarded our attempts to share Christ's love to him. The thought of him spending eternity in hell makes me very sick to my stomach. I believe God is sovereign and that everything has a purpose but it is still hard on my family. Please pray that his heart will be opened and please pray for our family as we continue to try and reach him in his last days of life.

July 4th!

So, how did you celebrate the Fourth of July this year?

I finished scrubbing the restroom floors for the Preschool at my church! ^_^
Nothing quite so powerful as service as a way to celebrate......

Why I'm glad I watched "I Am Legend"

Hey, I thought I'd post too... just to shake things up a bit. :-) Just to cover my bases, I'm doing well this summer, working at an animal hospital and loving it, seeing my friends, teaching Sunday school to 4 year olds, and reading fun books (the tally now stands at 11).
But now for the real reason that I got on: I Am Legend. Those of you who know me and have watched this movie may be a bit surprised that I watched it. For those of you who don't know me, I hate scary movies; I'm so jumpy even in slightly intense scenes. Granted, this movie is not a horror movie; it has a good story line and a good ending. It's not even technically scary, but it's so intense that it's pushing it. In fact, it's about one step too intense for me, and if I had known what it was going to be like, I don't think I would have watched it. In retrospect, however, I am glad I watched it (as stated by the title of this post), and here's why:
Ok, so I'm sometimes just a little weird. I often think in allegories. This is not just now and then, but quite often. In fact, if I have known you for any length of time, I have probably considered a conversation that we have had, or something you have done, alagorizing it into something having to do with the spiritual life. As I thought about I Am Legend, it struck me that there is a powerful allegory in the movie. Now understand that no allegory is perfect, and you will of course see many short-comings in this parallel, but the power of allegories is that they bring big things down to the level at which we comprehend. So bear with me if you please.
For those of you who haven't watched the movie, a virus had been tailored to cure cancer, but then it mutated and either killed or crazed its hosts. It became airborne and so infected almost everyone in the world except for a very few who were immune.
When I watched this movie, I was completely appalled by the people infected by the virus. They are disgusting, horrible, pitiable, and terrifying. They come by night and kill everything they can get a hold of for food. They posses horrible brute strength without any mental capacity. They are ferocious and merciless. They are terrible monsters. By the middle of the movie, I was sick to my stomach. I was almost in tears, not because any part of the movie had touched me (my sister is more sensitive to that) but because of how much I did NOT want to watch the movie any more. However, I went a head and finished it because one, I had promised my sister I would watch whatever movie she brought home, and two, you always hope that the end of a movie will bring closure and give you something nice to think about instead of the scary parts. After the movie, I was thinking over it, as one tends to do, and the thought popped into my head: "That's me." Guys, that's what we look like before a holy God. We are completely depraved. We were made to be people, beautiful images of the glory of God. But we were infected with a horrible disease that we COULD NOT stop. This disease took over our entire bodies and minds. We lived only in darkness, shunning the light. We did not know wrong from right, only the instinct of self preservation.
There's another part of the parallel. Will Smith plays a research doctor who is the lone survivor in New York city (and for all he knows, the world). He is immune to the virus. He goes around the city collecting food for himself and his dog, and attempting to find a cure for this virus. At the end of the movie he finally does, but in order for the cure to have any chance of helping anyone, he must sacrifice his life. Hopefully no one will accuse me of blasphemy if I observe that these attributes are very like Jesus'. Jesus was perfect. The despicable virus of sin could not reach Him. He could have gone His merry way and helped only Himself. But He didn't. He chose to walk among us, those self same dirty, despicable, disgusting creatures because He knew what we were supposed to be like. He new how beautiful we could be and so came to give us a cure. But this cure did not come easily. Jesus Christ "devoted His life to finding a cure, and... gave His life to defend it."
This parallel comes to its epitome near the end of the movie when Will Smith realises that he has found a cure for the virus. He looks desperately at the crazed, murderous creatures through a pane of bullet-proof glass and shouts, "I can save you! I can help you, just stop!" But of course they can not understand him; they are just animals. They begin to violently thrust their bodies against the glass, slowly cracking and eventually breaking it so that they can come through to kill him. Again, this is us. We desperately needed help. Wallowing in our sins, despicable, terrible, but the most awful part was that this virus had so effected our minds that we didn't know we needed help, and we could not even recognize the Holy One who could give it to us. What a tragedy!
But praise the Lord, Will Smith is not Jesus. Please understand, I do not mean a discourtesy toward the man. I simply mean that Jesus did not have to look helplessly at people that He knew how to save. Jesus is God, and he did not have to cower before our brutish selves. He walked among us, touched us, healed us. Yes, He died to save us, but He didn't stay dead! Jesus saved us from our deplorable, wretched state, and He stands ALIVE to prove it!!!!
Now just in case, I have lost anyone in my ramblings, let me summarize: "I Am Legend" gave me a better (not perfect) understanding of my own depravity, of what exactly it meant for Jesus to come down to be with us. Truly that kind of Saviour deserves all of my devotion! "I Am Legend" has helped me to love my Jesus more, and that's why I'm glad I watched "I Am Legend."

(BTW, props if you actually read all of that!)

My Sin, Oh the Bliss of this Glorious thought,

My Sin, not the part but the Whole

Is nailed to the Cross,

And I bear it NO MORE!

Praise the Lord, Praise the Lord, Oh my Soul.

This blog is dedicated to the amazing Laura

So it's seven weeks into the summer and I feel like I have already done a summers worth of things. I've been to North Carolina and back and to Lima, Peru and back. Both trips were fantastic. I started working at Cessna on May 27th. I'm working in the Material and Process Lab. You know all that stuff I learned in Materials class? I do that and get paid for it. This internship should be the lab for that class. So pretty much I get to break things and hopefully prevent them from breaking on the airplane. I currently have two projects that take up most of my time at work. One I'm working on the tempering and heat treatment of aluminium to hit in certin hardness range. This has been challenging because we're using a very tempramental oven and we need it to be a very percise temperture for a percise amount of time. In the end I have to take Rockwell Hardness tests and compare it to Webster Hardness tests. My second project is working with laser cutting and how it affects the material. You should google laser cutting to learn more...it's pretty cool. So I feel like my job is my life. I go to work, come home from work, eat dinner, and go to bed. Luckly, I am really enjoying my job. I like the people I work with and I am learning a lot.
I'm supposed to be learning to fly as well, but I have yet to have my first flight. I have an instructer and a flight time slot for about three weeks. Every time I'm supposed to fly the weather is bad or there isn't an airplane available. Summers are really busy for the airplanes and the instructers. I guess everyone wants to learn to fly in the summertime. My instructer has be working with me but he is going out of town for two weeks. So, I'm trying to find another instructer, with little luck. Everyone seems to be booked. I know that if I get started this late in the summer i'm not going to finish...or even get to my solo. I'm debating on whether I still want to try and get as far as I can or just say it wasn't meant to be. We will see. Maybe I'll have another opprotunity in my life. It just doesn't seem to be working this summer.
Happy summer!

.......

So, it's June....and I really wish one of the other contributors to this blog would post......

Little Wonders

Aren't God's little creatures so delightful!?! We found this small salamander next to the creek up in the mountains and named it Alec.

Beauty of the Earth

Hurray for beautiful mountains!!

    For the beauty of the earth,
 for the glory of the skies,
 for the love which from our birth
 over and around us lies;
 Lord of all, to thee we raise
 this our hymn of grateful praise.

 For the beauty of each hour
 of the day and of the night,
 hill and vale, and tree and flower,
 sun and moon, and stars of light;
 Lord of all, to thee we raise
 this our hymn of grateful praise.

 For the joy of ear and eye,
 for the heart and mind's delight,
 for the mystic harmony,
 linking sense to sound and sight;
 Lord of all, to thee we raise
 this our hymn of grateful praise.

 For the joy of human love,
 brother, sister, parent, child,
 friends on earth and friends above,
 for all gentle thoughts and mild;
 Lord of all, to thee we raise
 this our hymn of grateful praise.

 For thyself, best Gift Divine,
 to the world so freely given,
 for that great, great love of thine,
 peace on earth, and joy in heaven: 
 Lord of all, to thee we raise
 this our hymn of grateful praise.

Text: Folliot S. Pierpoint
Music: Conrad Kocher; Arr. by W.H. Monk

Spring Flowers

Psalm 92
A Psalm, a Song for the Sabbath day.

1It is good to give thanks to the LORD
And to sing praises to Your name, O Most High;
2To declare Your lovingkindness in the morning
And Your faithfulness by night,
3With the ten-stringed lute and with the harp,
With resounding music upon the lyre.
4For You, O LORD, have made me glad by what You have done,
I will sing for joy at the works of Your hands.
5How great are Your works, O LORD!
Your thoughts are very deep.
6A senseless man has no knowledge,
Nor does a stupid man understand this:
7That when the wicked sprouted up like grass
And all who did iniquity flourished,
It was only that they might be destroyed forevermore.
8But You, O LORD, are on high forever.
9For, behold, Your enemies, O LORD,
For, behold, Your enemies will perish;
All who do iniquity will be scattered.
10But You have exalted my horn like that of the wild ox;
I have been anointed with fresh oil.
11And my eye has looked exultantly upon my foes,
My ears hear of the evildoers who rise up against me.
12The righteous man will flourish like the palm tree,
He will grow like a cedar in Lebanon.
13Planted in the house of the LORD,
They will flourish in the courts of our God.
14They will still yield fruit in old age;
They shall be full of sap and very green,
15To declare that the LORD is upright;
He is my rock, and there is no unrighteousness in Him.

Alum!

Jester is back for the weekend!!!!
Liz is visiting!!! ^_^

and Auk's parents are flying in tonight!!
YaY!

Mexico Trip!

back: Kyle, Andy, Colin, me, Seongmi, Benaiah, David
front: Joel, Naomi, Hank

The team who went to Fresnillo, Mexico over spring break!!

God blessed us so much! I truly wanted to stay, with our whole team. We got along splendidly; I can honestly say we are all friends now. ^_^