Say Thanks!

This is a great way to be able to say "Thanks!" to our troops overseas!

That's What Faith Can Do

Everybody falls sometimes
Gotta find the strength to rise
From the ashes and make a new beginning
Anyone can feel the ache
You think it’s more than you can take
But you are stronger, stronger than you know
Don’t you give up now
The sun will soon be shining
You gotta face the clouds
To find the silver lining

I’ve seen dreams that move the mountains
Hope that doesn’t ever end
Even when the sky is falling
And I’ve seen miracles just happen
Silent prayers get answered
Broken hearts become brand new
That’s what faith can do

It doesn’t matter what you’ve heard
Impossible is not a word
It’s just a reason for someone not to try
Everybody’s scared to death
When they decide to take that step
Out on the water
It’ll be alright
Life is so much more
Than what your eyes are seeing
You will find your way
If you keep believing

I’ve seen dreams that move the mountains
Hope that doesn’t ever end
Even when the sky is falling
And I’ve seen miracles just happen
Silent prayers get answered
Broken hearts become brand new
That’s what faith can do

~Kutlass

Lessons From Deployment

When Jason was first deployed I really struggled with the Navy pretty much taking all of his time. I was looking back in my journal the other day, and near the beginning of his deployment I saw some entries where I was pretty mad at the Navy. I'll be honest, I had some pretty bad attitudes about it, which I'm NOT proud about at all! As I kept reading I saw how I began to slowly realize that if I wanted Jason, then I'd have to learn to deal with the Navy, and that the best thing for me to do was to walk closer with God and to focus on others instead of myself. Mainly I had to learn to cherish even more the time that I did have with him, and make the most of it. Did that always take away the ache of missing him? no! But it DID make our time together more precious and times apart less stressful.
Pretty much up until we say our "I do's" our relationship will be this way, because even once he comes back to the states we will both still be in school, and schedules will still vary.
On my own, I would probably throw in the towel and say, "Forget it! I can't do this!" But with God's help I know that what I'm doing is right, and in the end it will be worth it all.

Thankful Reflections

Looking back over this past year I was honestly shocked at all that has gone on this year. This has been the craziest year of my life. I've had the most horrible hurts and pains, physically, mentally, and spiritually. But yet, at the same time I've been blessed beyond my wildest dreams.

As Thanksgiving draws closer, I have really begun to look at my blessings, if I were to "Count them one by one" I'd be writing all day long. So, I'm going to try to focus on big things, and hopefully I won't overwhelm you, although I'm slightly overwhelmed myself!

One huge blessing was my family coming to visit me in NY for Thanksgiving last year. That was a HUGE and amazing blessing, and an amazing surprise. Only God knows just how much I needed my family at that time.

By Christmas break, I was REALLY, REALLY sick, which resulted in a not so fun Christmas break. However I learned so much through that sickness. God taught me some VERY important lessons. As funny as it might sound, I am thankful for the pain and hurt, because through it all, God drew me closer to Him.

To add to that blessing, I'm so thankful that the doctors were able to figure out what was wrong with me, just in time, and I was able to have surgery before my break was over, so I didn't have to miss any school.

My second semester of school brought some very important friends into my life. The McMahons, and Phillips' became like my second family and without them I don't think that I could have survived through my last semester in New York.

Oh, a crazy blessing about New York, and a thing I'm very thankful for, COFFEE! Before college I thought coffee was of the devil, NOW HOWEVER…mmm….it's great stuff! :) I love Dunkin Donuts and Starbucks is pretty good as well.

Coming back from NY I was once again sick, actually, I had been sick since Spring break. I was trying to see a blessing in that, and it was kinda hard. So I thought, and thought, and the blessing I could find was that through all the doctor visits, I got a good dose of Dunkin Donuts, cuz there is a DD about 3 miles from the doctors office! I know…that was crazy!

In June my family went to Antigo, WI for my best friends mom's memorial service. It was really hard and sad, but at the same time it was wonderful to see how Mrs. Pieri's quiet, loving personality was able to bless so many people. It was also nice to see Bro. Pieri, and Faith, and Joseph and spend quite a bit of time with them.

On June 16 my parents celebrated their 20th anniversary! I have to say that I'm VERY thankful for that because without them getting married, well, needless to say I wouldn't be here right now. I was able to throw a surprise party for my parents! Well, dad knew about it (that's because I clued him in on the whole thing), but somehow I managed to pull it off on mom, which was my main goal! It was AWESOME! :)

Also, not intentionally, on June 16 God brought the biggest blessing into my life. Many of you already know this, but I'll put it in here anyways. I sent an email to a Navy sailor who is stationed in Japan, who a friend of mine had been telling me about for quite awhile…actually, bugging me about! ;) Finally because I was tired of her bugging me, I gave in and sent Jason Hunsicker an email…hoping that I would never hear anything back, and also hoping that it would get Amanda off my back. Welllll….neither one of those things happened. Jason did send me an email back and I responded and the rest is history. Now after thousands of emails back and forth, and countless hours spent on the phone we have developed a relationship that goes beyond my wildest imaginations. Wow! I could go on and on…but lest I bore you with the wonderful details of my life, I will move on! :)

Other blessings this summer included seeing my friend LeAnne, whom I hadn't seen since 8th grade, the Pieri's coming to IN for a weekend, Samuel getting to go to flight camp, and then going on a missions trip to Canada.

Then in August I began college at Shawnee Baptist College in New Albany, IN. This is my first year here, but I'm still a Sophomore, which reminds me of another blessing…all my credits from International transferred without any problems. So far this semester has been jammed packed with school and work and trying to cram a few extra things in every once in a while.

The Saturday before Labor Day my former roommate got married in TN and I was able to go to her wedding and also was able to see some friends that I hadn't seen in a long time.

In September my Grandma Drazich visited my family for a few weeks, and one weekend they came down here to visit. It was nice to see my family, and I hadn't seen my grandma since my high school graduation!

October brought some bitter sweet news, Jason isn't going to be able to take me to the Christmas banquet in December, but he is still coming home, just a week later than originally planned. It did work out though that we will end up getting to spend more time together than if he had been able to come home the week earlier.

November also brought a WONDERFUL blessing, my brother got saved! That was the best news that I had heard in a long time!

I guess to sum it all up, this year has been the most amazing year of my life, and I'm sooo thankful to God for all that He has done for me!

True Love

I ran across this article on True Love today and thought I'd share it with all of you! It's really good and was a huge blessing and help to me.

LHC

I had to write this paper for my science class, and I know that Jason wanted to read it, so I just decided to post it for anyone who is interested.

The Large Hadron Collider


The Large Hadron Collider, also known as the LHC, built by the European Organization for Nuclear Research (also known as CERN), is a 27 kilometer ring that runs 175 meters underneath the French and Switzerland border. It is the world’s largest and highest energy particle accelerator, and was built for the purpose of finding out what happened right before and right after the Big Bang. Using Physics, the end goal is to figure out what caused the Big Bang and what the universe was like before, during, and after it; and trying to find out if the Higgs boson is real, or if it is simply a myth. In addition to these, the LHC will also attempt to discover other “new physics,” and try to find missing forms of matter that were supposedly created during the Big Bang.



Scientists, trying to discover how the world was created, are attempting to recreate the Big Bang and figure out the missing parts of the Standard Model, which is how they prove the Big Bang. They are also making attempts to find the Higgs Boson, a hypothesized particle that is necessary for the Standard Model to work, but has as of yet to be found anywhere, or seen acting in the universe, or some other particle that will fill in the gaps and make the Standard Model correct. Some of the key questions that physicists are hoping to answer through the LHC are, “Is the Higgs Mechanism for generating elementary particle masses in the Standard Model indeed realized in nature?” “Are electromagnetism, the strong nuclear force and the weaker nuclear force just different manifestations of a single unified force, as predicted by various Grand Unification Theories?” “What is the nature of dark matter and dark energy?” “Are there extra dimensions, as predicted by various models inspired by string theory, and can we detect them?” “Are there additional sources of quark flaw or violation beyond those already predicted within the Standard Model?”[1] Professor Stephen Hawkings (University of Cambridge) said, “Whatever the LHC finds, or fails to find, the results will tell us a lot about the structure of the universe.”[2]



Operation began on September 10, 2008 when the first proton beams went completely around the main ring of the Large Hadron Collider. However, only a few days later on September 19, 2008 when two of the superconducting magnets faulted resulting in millions of dollars in damages, and halted the LHC for over a year. In all, 53 magnets were damaged during the incident. The plan was to once again begin operation sometime mid-November 2009, but that has been pushed out to sometime in December 2009, with the hopes that the LHC will be up and running by Christmas 2009.





Many scientists and other people are concerned that the Large Hadron Collider will be the end of the world. There are many “doomsday” theories predicting black holes on the earth. A black hole is a spot that has such a large pull of gravity that everything falls in, but nothing can come out. Another fear is of strangelets, which have been hypothesized to be made from quark. Quark is also a hypothesized elementary particle which is vital to the Standard Model. In 2003 and again in 2008 the European Organization for Nuclear Research mandated a study safety analysis to be done, and both of them reported that the Large Hadron Collider was safe, and would not cause any permanent negative damage to the earth. These reports were backed by the Executive Committee of the Division of Particles and Fields of American Physical Society, as well as a peer-review by the Journal of Physics G.[3] There have been several major news media outlets including The Times, The Guardian, The Independent, The Sydney Morning Herald, Time, CNN, and MSNBC that have protested in some way the possible threat to the earth caused by the Large Hadron Collider. In September 2008 Romania’s Conservative Party protested the Large Hadron Collider before the European Commission mission to Bucharest.

Hawking radiation could help to relieve some of the fears of black holes. It is a thermal radiation predicted to be emitted by black holes due to quantum effect.[4] The type of black holes that the Large Hadron Collider could produce is a type that loses matter faster than they gain it because of the Hawking effect. If the LHC can produce black holes, they would disappear almost as fast as they were created, removing almost all of the problems that they could create on the earth.



The design of the Large Hadron Collider is very complicated. The LHC has 1,232 dipole magnets which are used to keep the protons going around in a circle. It also had 392 quadruple magnets which keep the beams focused. Another 1,600 superconducting magnets are used to keep the temperature at -271°C, colder than outer space! The total weight of the magnets is over 27 metric tons (approximately 59,525 pounds)!

The proton beams are put into two bunches and rotated around the circle at set intervals so that the interaction between the proton bunches happens at set times that are no more than 25 nanoseconds apart. [5] The proton beams are accelerated during their rotation through the LHC to as high as 14 TeV, that is approximately 99.9999991% of the speed of light and takes less than 90 nanoseconds for a proton beam to travel once around the main ring. This equals about 11,000 times around the ring per second![6] The data that the Large Hadron Collider produces is astounding! Every year the LHC puts out 15 petabytes of information. To put that in perspective, if someone were to take all the words that are spoken each year by everyone in the world it would only equal approximately 2 to 3 petabytes! According to The Thai Indian article “The Large Hadron Collider” the LHC will at the most reach half of its potential by 2011,[7] which means that the LHC has the ability to produce even more information than it already has produced.

There are four main experiments that are planned for the Large Hadron Collider. The first one is ATLANTIS which is attempting to figure out from where everything came, and more specifically, where mass comes from. ATLANTIS is also trying to find “new physics” to help find the origin of the universe. CMS, the second experiment, is looking for the Higgs boson, and is also trying to figure out what dark matter is, and what it does. ALICE is attempting to find the liquid form of matter, also called quark, or gluon plasma, that supposedly existed right after the Big Bang, but disappeared at some unknown point in time and has never been seen by scientists. The final experiment called LHCb simply is trying to find where the anti-matter disappeared, and why it disappeared. ATLAS and CMS will look for super symmetric particles to test likely hypothesis for the makeup of dark matter.[8]

The world is desperately trying to come up with answers for how the universe began. They don’t want to have to admit that there is a God that they will have to answer to, so instead they turn to science and spend millions of dollars just so that they don’t have to be accountable for their sin. “This I say therefore, and testify in the Lord, that ye henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk, in the vanity of their mind, having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart.” – Ephesians 4:18. As Christians we know that God created the world. “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” –Genesis 1:1 “To whom them will ye liken me, or shall I be equal? saith the Holy One. Lift up your eyes on high, and behold who hath created these things, that bringeth out their host by number: he calleth them all by names by the greatness of his might, for that he is strong in power; not one faileth.” - Isaiah 40:25-26. The world needs to see that without God they will not be able to find any permanent answers. As Christians it is our responsibility to tell them of Christ and his salvation. “But when he saw the multitudes, he was moved with compassion on them, because they fainted, and were scattered abroad, as sheep having no shepherd. Then saith he [Jesus] unto his disciples, The harvest truly is plenteous, but the laborers are few; pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he will send forth laborers into his harvest.” – Matthew 9:36-38



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[1] www.wikipedia.org/largehadroncollider/purpose

[2] www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2710348/Stephen-Hawking-Large-Hadron-Collider-vital...

[3] www.wikipedia.org/LHCsafety/introduction

[4] www.wikipedia.org/LHCsafety/safety_arguments

[5] www.wikipedia.org/Larg_Hadron_Collider/design

[6] www.wikipedia.org/Large_Hadron_Collider/design

[7] www.thaindian.com/newspaper/largehadroncollider

[8] www.cern.com/LHC/why_LHC

Distance