College Life Again

Once again, I'm SOOOO sorry for the length of time that it has taken me to write this post. Things have been really crazy and on top of that, due to internet blockers I can no longer access my blog from my computer! AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!! So, I emailed this post to Jason, and he is posting it for me. I will probably do this quite often, as I have plenty to write, but no way of posting! :(

So life has been pretty busy, I got to Shawnee on Saturday, August 22 and immediately started job hunting, actually, I had already applied at several places online. I still have not been able to find a job, so please pray that God will provide one for me soon.

Monday was new student testing and registration. I only had to take one test, and really I didn't have to take that one, I just felt like it. It was a music test, to test out of theory, and I passed really easily. No problems there at all. I am only taking 19 credit hours, which compared to the 21 that I wanted to take is really nothing at all! I'm taking Intro to Education, US History I, Computer Applications, Science Overview (which meets twice a week for 2 hours at a time!), Counseling Youth, and Christian Womanhood. I am also doing an internship in the 3rd and 4th grade at the Christian school for a total of 100 minutes a week, that counts as 1 credit. Pretty much I'll be busy but loving it! :)

We also did several activities, including going to the KY State Fair, Bowling, Roller Skating (which I had NEVER done in my life) and a park to play soft ball and then we went for ice cream...YUM! :)

Thursday and Friday we did outreach. Both days there were 3 separate outreaches into a total of 6 projects in and around Louisville! I LOVED IT! What we did was a Bible club for the children, and even some adults came. On Thursday we had about 64 or so kids. 20 some got saved and 12 were allowed by their parents to come back to the church and get baptized! That was AMAZING! The outreach on Friday was in a mainly Muslim project. We had around 200 kids, and 34 or 35 got saved! We weren't able to take any of them back to the church for baptism because of a lack of transportation. I personally talked to 5 girls about Salvation, but they were really hard to reach because of the fact that they are Muslim and "don't believe in Jesus." Both days I was very saddened by the environment that these children are being raised in. Honestly, I wanted so badly to help all of them have a better life...I didn't want to leave!

This weekend was what was called "Super Summer Sunday" but actually, it was split up into Saturday and Sunday. On Saturday many of the bus routes were run and they had church services and then an outdoor carnival. It was a lot of fun! I worked the carnival on Saturday. On Sunday Dr. Sheldon Smith who is the director of the Sword of the Lord was the main speaker. I know that a combined count of the services Sunday morning in both New Albany and Louisville, and the nursing home services was over 2,000! Praise the Lord! Also Sunday night I played my cello in the church orchestra! THAT WAS AWESOME!!!

A Busy Week!!

This entire week has been absolutely HECTIC for me. With the World History lesson due, and other tests, quizzes and assignments, I feel as though I've been run over by a truck! Many late nights, and early mornings made for an exhausting week.
Classes were normal yesterday. Chapel was really good. Pastor Kurt Skelley preached from Jeremiah 18 about the potter. His main points were: 1. We need a Master, 2.
After classes I went on a walk with Mrs. Phillips and Charlie. We had a lot of fun with "rock races." :) We were kicking rocks and racing them. I won quite a few times!! :) LOL!!

*****Charlie*****

*****The first and second graders were outside enjoying the weather*****

*****A bumblebee was enjoying the weather and the flowers*****

After our walk I went back to my room and worked some more on my World History! I spent hours on that class!! UGH!
Church was good. It was a nice break from World History! :) Bro. Dan Donaghue preached from Luke 15:11-8.
Friday was the big day for World History. I taught chapter 27, which was about World War I and the Great Depression. It was a LOT of material. I didn't finish it! I had to finish it on Monday, but will get to that a little bit later.
The class schedule was change on Friday because we had a split chapel, which means that the girls and guys had separate chapels, the speaker for the guys chapel hadn't gotten in until really late Thursday night, or actually really early Friday morning, so he had asked for chapel to get moved a class period later than what it usually is. So right after World History I had a test in English Grammar! I had not had very much time to study, so I was not really prepared. Oh well.
Chapel was really exciting. Instead of having a chapel service for the girls, we loaded up on a bus and went to the Stony Brook harbor and were able to just relax, take pictures, goof off, whatever we wanted to do. The administration had decided to give us a "mini-vacation" and all of us really appreciated it a LOT!! It was a beautiful day, and we needed the break.

*****Me and Nichole*****

*****Me and Dina*****

*****Me, Arrianny, and Mirta*****

*****I was able to get really close to this goose, I was almost able to touch it, but it wouldn't let me. The city girls, (Nichole, Mirta, and Arrianny) all from Brooklyn were terrified of it!! LOL*****

*****I thought this house was beautiful, I like the style*****

I really wasn't feeling very well on Friday, I was REALLY exhausted, so I took the day off work and slept for 4 hours! It was WONDERFUL! Even after I woke up I didn't do anything except lounge around. I fell asleep between 10 and 10:30 Friday night and slept until 7:30 on Saturday!! I got over 13 hours of sleep! AMAZING! It was wonderful and I could sooooo do it again!
Life got really fun on Saturday. Instead of doing my normal bus route I went with Bro. Barnes and several other college students to another bus route where for about half an hour we knocked on doors, in that time we were able to get 4 or 5 new families that wanted to ride the bus!! :) After that we picked up some bus kids, went to Subway for lunch (yay!!), picked up some more bus kids and then headed for Yonkers, NY for a youth rally. Dina was supposed to sing and needed someone to play for her, so I was asked to do that. There was a slight problem though, it was a Spanish youth rally, I don't understand much more than mucho, gracias, and muy bien. LOL! The rally went from 3 pm until 8 pm!! It was insane! There were 4 preachers, one of whom was Bro. Barnes, so at least I could understand what he was saying!!
I gave up trying to understand, and went outside and talked on my phone for the last sermon. I wasn't the only one who decided to get out, Bro. Barnes and his two sons that came with him also decided to leave! They went for a walk and found a Dunkin Donuts, smart people!! LOL!
The people that had come with us, weren't very happy with us for skipping out on them! :) I say it was their own fault! They could have left too!!
There was a meal that was served after the rally, it was REALLY good! MMM.....the rice was to die for! I love rice when it is cooked right, and nice and tender, but not mushy, that was the way this rice was! AWESOME!!
The ride back was pretty uneventful, although we couldn't find a Star Bucks anywhere, and when we finally found one it was closed! :( We decided to try Dunkin Donuts, cuz they are normally open 24 hours, well, it so happened that the 1 that we did find had closed about 15 minutes before we got there!! What a rip off!! We did finally find a 24/7 DDs and we got our drinks and food and were good to go!
We didn't get home until 11:15 Saturday night. I was pretty tired, but thankfully I had been able to get a lot of homework done, (I did hw at the rally when I couldn't understand a word!)

*****Jamecca taking a big gulp on our way to the rally*****

*****This was on the way to the rally, I thought it was pretty*****

*****Bro. Barnes preaching with an interpreter*****

*****My boredome expressed, a banana peel on the floor!!*****

Sunday started bright and early at 5:15. It really wasn't that bad. :) The bus kids were really wound up, so by the time I got back to church I was ready to kill a couple of kids, and was pretty tired. LOL!
Sunday school was really good. Bro. Randall talked about having patience. He said, "Stop trying to figure out what you are going to be doing in 25 years, and start trying to figure out what you are supposed to do TODAY!" What a good point! It's so easy to try to figure out what God wants me to be doing later, when really, I need to be figuring out what God wants me to do NOW! Bro. Randall also said, "Good things happen to those who wait." Yet, another good point!
The girl who normally works on Sunday afternoons was sick, so she asked me to work for her. I worked for about 1 1/2 hours Sunday afternoon. Then I got out my camera and started taking pictures, cuz there were more tulips in bloom!! :) :)

***************

Choir practice was interesting. As Brother Randall put it, "We have an ADD choir." That was pretty much it, the weather was GORGEOUS and nobody really wanted to be inside singing.
Church was good, Bro. Longhoffer, from Brooklyn, spoke on finances.
I worked for almost 2 hours Sunday night and then took a shower and went to bed. :)
I finished up World History today. :) I must admit, I really do like teaching, it's a good thing that is what I am going to be doing for the rest of my life. :)
Work was ok.....it seemed to drag though, but I think that is probably because it was raining and I really didn't want to be working. :( At least April showers bring May flowers!! :)

Long time.....no post!

I have been really bad with posting this week. I guess I've just been lazy, and haven't felt like doing anything, let alone updating my blog.
Soooo.....I enjoyed having my room all to myself for several days. It was WONDERFUL!! :) It was nice to be able to hibernate in my room with my door locked and pretty much shut out the world. Sometimes I get really tired of all of the drama, and I need a break. Since I am the VPs granddaughter, I generally hear both sides of the story, it makes me want to scream at times! The break was nice!! :)
Classes went well this week, (at least I think they did, I've been in a fog a lot of the time, really tired I guess).
We didn't have class on Thursday, it was wonderful! Instead we went to Queens and did outreach. We passed out tracts and invited people to church. We went in groups of two, and they dropped us off at various places. There was always a group of 2 guys and 2 girls at every stop. They do that for safety. There were so many interesting people, some of them were REALLY weird! There was this one guy who when my partner gave him a tract he gave both of us this really funky look. It was creepy! UGH!!! I also saw a guy walking who had a kid following him, this kid was probably 14 or 15. It was almost as if he were on an invisible leash the way he was following the older guy around. I saw that pair two times. Both of the times the teenager looked scared out of his mind, and he looked like he was crying. I wanted so badly to do something, but what could I do?? Unfortunately, nothing. It broke my heart. I think that will be one face that I will never forget.
There was something cool that happened to us. Karen (my partner in crime for the day) and I were passing out the tracts and a UPS delivery man called out to us and asked for a tract. He lives on Long Island and goes to a Spanish speaking church. However he has some friends who are looking for an English speaking church on LI!!! How cool is that??!! We were able to give him both an English and a Spanish tract. Later when we were on the bus he passed us and honked and waved. :)
I think I gave my poor guardian angel a heart attack yesterday! Karen and I were some of the first people to get picked up from where we were doing outreach. Bro. Barnes decided that he wanted to get a coffee from Dunkin' Donuts. I offered to run in and get it for him. He pulled off to the side and I got out of the bus and attempted to cross the street. I really couldn't see around the bus, and the traffic coming towards me was stopped, so I assumed that it would be ok for me to cross....bad idea!!! There was a bus coming right at me! I think I stopped about a foot from it! No joke! I continued on my merry way and got coffee for him (and me too :}). When I got back into the bus Bro. Barnes was on his cell phone, but the other people on the bus told me that he was SCARED!!! After he got off the phone he told me that himself! He claims that he is going to give me lessons on how to cross the street!! :) LOL! Thankfully God protected me!
During the entire time that we were out on the streets of Queens, with so many people hurrying and scurrying everywhere, I kept thinking of the poem Lonely Voices:

Lonely Voices

Lonely voices crying in the city,
Lonely voices sounding like a child,
Lonely voices come from busy people,
Too disturbed to stop a little while.
Lonely voices fill my dreams,
Lonely voices haunt my memory.

Lonely faces looking for the sunrise,
Just to find another busy day.
Lonely faces all around the city,
Men afraid but too ashamed to pray.
Lonely faces do I see,
Lonely faces haunt my memory.

Lonely eyes, I see them in the subway,
Burdened by the worries of the day:
Men at leisure, but they're so unhappy,
Tired of foolish roles they try to play.
Lonely people do I see,
Lonely people haunt my memory.

Abundant life He came to truly give man,
Bus so few His gift of grace receive.
Lonely people live in every city,
Men who face a dark and lonely grave.
Lonely faces do I see,
Lonely voices calling out to me.
~Billie Hanks Jr.