The Language of Love

As some of you know, I recently got back from a mission trip I took to the Dominican Republic. I have taken one other mission trip to Arlington, Texas. They are obviously completely different places, one is all concrete and apartment complexes (Which is Arlington) and one is made up of trees and tin houses (Sad, isn't it?). There is one difference I'd like to point, that being the languages, Arlington being mainly English and the Dominican being Spanish.

I was pretty worried about the language barrier in the Dominican. There were one or two kids in our backyard Bible club we did in Arlington, and that was hard enough, but we, also, didn't have the translators that we had in the Dominican.

Once we arrived at the work site on the first day, I headed up and started working. We were building the second story to a church my group had built a few years ago. In the morning half of churches group did VBS with the kids while the other half worked on the church. My half of the group had the kids on the second and fourth day, so that night I heard all the good stories about the kids from the other group. It may me a little less anxious, but I was still a little worried. I'm not good with kids that speak English, so them speaking Spanish didn't help.

After the first day my group had the kids, I had basically decided that I liked the work better then the VBS. Well, I guess I shouldn't say that I necessarily liked is better, it was just easier.
One of the most tiring things I did all week was playing with those kids. Don't take that wrong, I loved hanging out with those kids, it was just exhausting.

I'm not going into too much details in this post because the emotions of the kids would take pages and pages to explain, if explanation is even possible.

Anyways, what I'm getting to, is that after a week with those kids, I have learned one main thing (along with thousands of little things) and that is: everyone in the entire world has one language in common, the language of Love.

Facebook

For those of you who know me, you probably know that I deleted my Facebook account. I have a few different reasons for taking this action, but the main one being that it became a time waster. When I got bored I would get on Facebook, when I should have been doing homework I got on Facebook. This is a problem for a lot of people. It can be a distraction from lot of things, people, God, a social life. That's right, I said Facebook is a distraction from a social life. If you have a lot of friends on Facebook, you aren't considered connected by default. You could have one thousand friends and not be connected. Facebook is not a leap forward in socializing, it's a leap back. My youth pastor explained this much better on his blog. You can read his thoughts here. Bill Gates father, Bill Gates Sr., was asked what his thoughts were on Facebook, Twitter, etc. He said "I'm really embarrassed. I'm just not into that." He was embarrassed because he wasn't into Facebook. We should be the ones embarrassed for being into Facebook. Now, Facebook can be useful at times, but I still don't like it. It's a change for the worse. You may like it and find it useful to help you connect to people, but I think this could eventually ruin true social lives. If you have different thoughts please tell me in comments.

Just Create

I have another blog that I post my drawings on here. Please check it out. Sorry for the more blurry pictures, I took them with my phone.

UPDATE: I have changed the name to Just Create, but nothing's really new about the blog. Same URL, I may just post more then drawings.

Words of Wisdom

"Give me six hours to chop down a tree, and I will spend the first four hours sharpening the axe."
-Abraham Lincoln

HTL: The Generous Mr. Lovewell

Well, there is not a single line in this song that I couldn't write an entire post about. This song is so incredible that I just want you to listen to the entire song, please! Listen to the words, then think: are you a Mr. Lovewell? Listen to the song here.

Running in Your Walk

I was having a conversation through Facebook with one of my good friends in my youth group. We were talking about how much we had matured in our walk with Christ in the past year. She said something that was really cool. That was "...It reminds me that I have I have not walked, I have ran through my walk." Referring to her walk with God, of course. I began to wonder whether I was running or walking. I decided that what I should be doing is sprinting, not walking or running, sprinting. Why not? When you want to get somewhere fast you sprint, don't you? I know you drive most places, but in a race you want to go as fast as you possibly can. And, no, your walk with God is not a race, but I want to mature as fast as I can, so I'll be more willing to sacrifice all I have for Him. So, are you sprinting on your walk with God?

Plato and The Cave

Plato was a very wise man. He had a philosophy. In your life you were standing in a cave, behind you there was a fire. You see, on the wall, shadows bouncing around. You don't know what is making the shadows, they are just there. Take from this what you will, but he is saying that there is something greater that is making your life, or the shadows in this case. Until someone stands up and turns around, no one knows why the shadows are there. We as Christians should be the ones to stand up and see what is making the shadows. You don's see everything from God's perspective. He sees everything that's happening. You must step back and see the big picture before you start with the "my life sucks" and "why would God do this to me if he loves me?" Just take the time to get up and see what is making the shadow before you make any assumptions.

The way I said this may be a little confusing because I combined a few ideas. I have done this on purpose, I want you to think, not me just tell you something. We don't have enough thinking today. With all the technology now, you could live a regular life without thinking any. It's sad.