A Lot has Happened

Wow! A whole lot has happened since the last time I have written. First things first, I went on a mission trip for ten days to Toronto with my youth group a week after I last wrote. It was a lot of fun and I think it helped ground me and helped me realize where my priorities need to be as I go to college. For five days I helped tutor kids from Somalia in math. I thought teaching how to add, subtract, multiply, and divide would be easy - but I was wrong. I realized it's hard to explain something so simple. Usually you use these functions to explain harder math but how do you explain them. Anyway things ended up alright in the end and I think the kid I tutored learned something after all.

After I got back from our mission trip, I went back to work for two weeks. I'm now finished with work, and while it was helpful and a good learning experience for me, it's nice to enjoy the last few weeks of summer without having to work. The first week of August I went on vacation with my family to Destin, Florida, for five days. We went snorkeling, golfing, and hung out on the beach a lot. It was very nice and relaxing.

During the times I've been home we have finished Velvet Elvis. The single best thing I got from this book was that all Truth is God's Truth. No matter where you hear something that is true, it is God who makes that true. I realized this on vacation. While on the beach in Florida, I was able to finish The Chronicles of Narnia series by C.S. Lewis. If you have read the last book in the series, you will know the part I am talking about. I loved how C.S. Lewis phrased his perception of God's judgement. In the last book, he is talking about the end of Narnia, the fictional world in the story, and when everyone comes to the judement of Aslan. There is a man who has been loyal to the god Tash, again a fictional god in the story. He has served this god his whole life and has been loyal to this god his entire life. In the end, he even is willing to die to see this god whom he has served loyally. When he comes before Aslan, he realizes that Aslan is the true God and he is ashamed because he has served the wrong god because Tash is really everything evil in the world. But, this is the part I like, Aslan says that because this man has served his god out of good and not evil the whole time, he was really serving Aslan and being loyal to Aslan. So he got to go to heaven. I find this representation of God's judgement fascinating and intriguing and I liked it. If you haven't read The Chronicles of Narnia, I suggest you read them because they are a good series of stories and are an easy read.

Discipleship has been going really well this summer. And has kept me thinking about my priorities as I get ready to leave for college.

Thanks for all of the comments and support.

-God Bless-
Jeff