Recap

Wowe woo wow! I have only written once this Quarter!

We had our last Core for the year this past week. It was pretty crazy. We drove to the top of a mountain overlooking Bellingham Bay and the San Juan Islands. It was pretty sweet until it started to rain. It was still pretty epic and this year has been great.
Here is The Nash Hard-Core Core on the top f the Oyster Dome Overlook. (its missing me and one other guy) Eating dinner in the dinning Hall.

This quarter has been so fun, skiing at Baker, hiking the Oyster Dome, school, Core, pranking and being pranked, Baseball games in Seattle at Safeco Field, tour of the Lower Baker dam with Prof. Harris and the Electronics class, learning to weld, building electric cars, working for Habitat for Humanity, doing crazy competitions in our house.
All in all, this quarter has been a blast and God has been so present and real.

This Summer, by Gods provision, I am going to be taking a Project Operations Management class here at WWU and working with a Machine shop (Pro CNC). I will be around most the summer so if you are in the area, please swing by for a few days. The North Star (the house I live in) is always open and we always have a few available couches.

Spring Quarter 2010

I must apologize for my long period of silence on this blog. Spring quarter was starting so I was still trying to figure out my schedule for the quarter which is pretty much nailed down now. I am incredibly busy with 17 credits, 3 core engineering classes and 1 math class. On top of that is leading a core and activities with the NorthStar (my house). 

Also over Spring Break I went on an SSI trip (Student Spring Impact). A short term, week long mission trip to the University of Montana. It was incredible and trying to process everything that happened, all the different ways I was challenged and changed on top of starting a new quarter, has kind of overloaded me. All this to say that the last 2.5 weeks has been some of the busiest of my time here at Western. 

Even though it has been busy it has been some of the best as well. Having so little time has made it easier to see God's provision in my life. God has been providing me with just enough time to get everything done and enough energy to do it all. I feel like I have been on a three week high with God and it is so hard to describe how incredible it is. Nothing has been able to keep me down and I see God's hand all over my life and the joy from that surpasses all else. 

I have or will be posting pictures from ssi on here soon. Enjoy.

Canada Zipper

James Tomilinson, Chris King, Tori Swanson, Saylah Leu and I went up to Vancouver B.C. this past Sunday. The Para-olympics were going on but it was much less crowded. They have a free zip-line in the Olympic village that is about 3 stories up in the air and goes about a city block crossing a street, public ice rink and concert stage. The line was super long but we waited anyway and had a once in a lifetime experience!

CCF Winter Olympics

Two weeks ago was the first ever CCF Olympics, in honor of the real olympics just 2 hours north of us. 

Friday night after our service, everyone paraded down to the REC center to compete in various activities from dodgeball to capture the flag and a giant relay race at the end. Teams or "countries" were broken up by region so Nash was its own country. We were the Nash Ninjas and we wore all black (obviously). It was a blast and I lost my voice from all the yelling and cheering. 

(picture is of our Nash community. [Nash is the dorm that I lead a core in] There are 2 guys cores and 2 girls cores)

SSI

Many of you may have received letters in the mail in the last couple of days. For those who didn't receive those letters I will give a rough overview of what they contained.
This spring break I am going on a short term mission trip with the Christian group I am apart of up here at WWU. I am going with about 15 other people to the University of Montana, Missoula where we will be doing campus outreach and supporting the ministry team over there. I am quite excited as well as some what nervous as I haven't ever done a mission trip before. We will be leaving the weekend after final exams (March 20th) and driving to Montana where we will stay until the 27th. Then I get back to Bellingham and Spring quarter classes start Monday the 29th! :(
(speaking of classes, I have to still figure out what I am taking next quarter...I register this Thursday!)

So anyway this mission trip or SSI (student spring impact) trip is happening and our team has started to prepare. Many of the team members are very uncomfortable talking to strangers about Jesus and so there is a lot of encouragement in being bold in speaking about Him that is needed.
I am very excited for this trip and what God will do on it. Please be praying for me on this trip and in the time leading up to it. Prayer for myself and my team that we would be bold and seek Gods voice and for the campus that God would prepare the hearts of those he would like us to minister to. Also please be praying for me that I can raise enough support to fund this trip.
Thank you for your prayers and support (ahead of time) and I hope your February is going well.

I promise I will take pictures and post them here.

Rain

Such a strange winter. February has been blessed with early sun and lots of it. The warm weather and sunny days has brought spring early, or so the plants seem to think but Bellingham is a tricky place. The rain started again yesterday, and it came down with a vengeance. Water started falling from the sky about 2pm yesterday and by the time I got out of my Business law class at 6pm the water was falling in sheets. It was a down pour. With drains unable to handle the water, areas on campus and roadways began to flood. Not anything very serious but when you leave the house in the morning without planning for that weather it is severe.

I had left that morning with my windbreaker (no hood) and my trusty Razor Scooter. Now image getting out of class and you have no hood, jeans and a scooter that has 3 in wheels. I felt like I was fording the Columbia! By the time I got home I was wet, soaked, drenched. My clothes were 10 lbs heavier.

Bellingham, you have tricked me once this year, I will not be tricked again.

Goals

As you may have seen, writings on this blog have been few and far between these last few months and so I asked myself the reason. There seems to be a lack of interest in writing but more importantly it is a weakness I have. I am not very good and maintaining friendships with people I don't normally hang out with. That basically means I don't call friends who are not in the same area as I am. Sad...I know. Thus I have come up with an easy 4 goal system to remedy the situation.

Goal #1:

Be more consistent at maintaining contact with people who I don't interact with regularly.

Goal #2:

Stay in contact with friends from back home.

Goal #3:

Talk to friends and family who are not in Bellingham on a more consistent basis.

Goal #4:

Encourage other people to help me in the previous 3 goals by having them email and call me...(hint)

By following this simple four goal system I will achieve what I lack. And if you call now you could win a free poster with the 4 goal system all for your own. ;)

Okay, so I should really get going with the rest of this beautiful Friday. Sunny and warm and only 3 afternoon classes. Hope your day is going well and may the Lord bless you.

Silver Star

Wow okay...so I have not posted on this in...well a long time. I will not make excuses, just say that the desire to write here has not been strong enough to overcome the other things. Anyhow I have decided to write now but I am not going to become overwhelmed with trying to tell everything I have been doing.
Quick recap, school started this quarter. Its going well although the computer programing class is very difficult. Otherwise classes are going well. Taking engineering electronics, pc programing, business law and moral philosophy.
I'm leading a core in Nash with Will Peterson. It is really enjoyable and rewarding. It also makes me very busy.
Living in the North Star is also going well. I could say pages on the living situation but I don't feel like writing about it now so...I am really enjoying it.

This last weekend was Valentines day and Bryce Mitchell and I went on our second annual Valentine weekend ski trip. We went with two others, Britney Wight and Dan Hancock to Silver Star Canada. It was pretty sweet. There were a ton of Australians there. I skied Saturday but only part of Sunday do to my knee hurting pretty bad.
I would upload a bunch of pictures but I am on a school pc so I don't have them. Here is a link to my face book page where I have photos of the trip.



http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=142586&id=649589526&l=cbd7acd20e



Enjoy