Global Warming

On my way to meet my firend at Rusty's Pizza I grabbed my tape recorder to remember some of my randomn thoughts how hot it was today.

I think that it was in the high 70s/ low 80s today, which for most people that is not hot...but when you are used to the cool ocean air and a nice 70-75 degrees in the Summer time and about 50- 65 in the Winter time (give and take a few degrees here and there), when it climbs over 80 it is just down right miserable.
I also have some speculation about why it has been so hot lately... I think that Global warming comes into play- when I first moved here, some 10 years ago, it was a nice area with not nearly as many people as there are now. I think that this area has boomed because of the cool ocean climate that is usually happening around here. This has caused the need for more houses and businesses which have been built upon the lucious farmland that Oxnard is famous for, and has also brought with it more cars driving around the area...don't get me started on how chaotic the traffic situation is around here... which has in turn caused and increase in greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere thereby making it a lot hotter around here as of late.

Luckily I had my tape recorder becasue without it I would not have been able to ramble on and on and complain that it was hot.

Why.........?

Why is it that when you seem to be in a bad mood everything seems to fight you even more. Today has been a really bad day in that aspect. I spent most of my day at church (5+hours) not that I am keeping track though... I have been feeling really dry in my spiritual life as of late and today just happened to push me over.

I "chilled" out a little bit after sleeping for about and hour and a half but than ran into more trouble, while was trying to start my 3 page paper that is due tomorrow morning at 9:30 am, when my stupid computer had a little trouble warming-up and kept freezing.

You would think that I would no procrastinate and instead get my stuff done early so thing like this would not have the potentail to happen, but that is not like me I like to wait a while before starting things I think it is because I want them to be somewhat perfect... notice that I added the somewhat.

Don't get too comfortable

First of all,this is something that I should have wrote about a month or so ago... Do you ever wonder why when you are in a great place with your job and everything fits into place, why God calls you to uproot and step outside of the comfort zone. Well I have too, especially now that I am in the same boat. My job ended about 3 weeks ago and before it did I spent a great deal of time wrapping up my office and saying my good-byes to the kids and the staff I work with.

This came as a total suprise to me as I found out that I "would be leaving" at the end or March. I thought things were going well and I was comfortable where I was, but I guess God has bigger plans for me. I write this because to many times it seems as though we as Christians get so caught up in being comfortable that we miss an opportunity to minister to those who don't know about God.

Whether it be not inviting people to church because we feel that if we do than someone will sit in our spot or we wont have a place to put our belongings down.

I don't know what it is that makes us feel this way, but I know that having to go completely out on faith is totally getting me to step outside of the comfort zone.

Also it seems as though people in a church setting get so wrapped up in monitoring the budget that they put a "limit" on what God can do. We need to not worry so much about having money to do a particular event but instead on trying to reach those who have not yet come to know Christ, no matter what the cost is.

If we start to think outside the box and go out on faith...than God will provide.

Winter camp: pure exhaustion, but also pure enjoyment

Last weekend, President's day weekend, I and a few other adults took 12 high school kids up to Forest Home for our annual winter camp retreat. It was a lot of fun but it was also extremely exhausting.

Some of the highlights of the trip were the traffic, which was horrible, but it made for a fun car ride with the people in the car with me, the weather, which went from being 60 degrees and nice to snowy and rainy weather all within about a day. Another cool highlight of the weekend was that 3 of the 12 kids that we took up made decisions to start walking with Christ, that in itself was worth the entire trip.

One of the sad notes of the trip was that I had my deodorant, axe body spray, a nice all black LA Dodger hat that was a gift from someone, and 3 tee-shirts were stolen out of my cabin. I think that it was the enemy trying to prohibt me from enjoying the weekened and from being able to see God working through the students during the Night of Worship on Sunday. I think that whom ever stole that stuff needs it more than I do.

So that wraps up our high school winter retreat for 2007!! I look forward to the rest of the year to see God move through those students lives.