For anyone who would by some strange chance still check this blog after over a year you have probably figured out that I don't really use it anymore. I have set up a new blog to keep all my family and friends updated on my adventures here at the Joshua Wilderness Institute.
http://carpediem122.blogspot.com/

Ok, its only been a year and two days since my last post... not that long...

This school year has proved to be a very eventful one so far. I didn't play soccer this fall so I could work and earn some money for the Europe trip (which is happening this month!!). Work is both eye opening and sad. It hurts to see how far gone so many of the other kids are, if you think about it please pray for their salvation.

Over Christmas break we drove to Montana to spend Christmas with Levi. We drove on compact snow and ice almost the whole time and the temperature stayed below zero most of our time on the base. It was very nice to spend time with Levi.

Basketball went really good this season. We made it to the play-offs, the first time since 2001. So that was fun and I am really excited to see what next year brings.

A couple weeks ago I got my licence and am really enjoying the freedom. There are so many places I have to go for school, work, drama, and everything else so it is a big relief to my parents for me to be able to take myself.

I am actually home with what appears to be the flu so you can be praying that I will get better. I have missed the first two track practices and will have to make those up some how so I can compete in the first meet.

One to dwell on- A friend sent me a text the other day and I think it is a great reminder for all of us: remember to pray, it is a sin not to.

Wow, its been awhile. So instead of telling you all that's been going on in my life recently I am just going to put up pics. A lot of things are missing but these are some highlights. These are way out of order.

day at the ZOO!!!!:

so this is the first sign by some rocks by a fence...

and this sign is by the rocks talked about in the previous sign...nice.

turtle!!!
gotta take care of my eggs...

so these were 3 tiny holes I climbed in. kinda difficult.
carousel!!!!


Romeo and Juliet(dress up day,not for real)
Manchu Picchu!!!
FOR GRANT!!! We all ran a track meet for Grant.(that's what the stickers say)

ouch...

ANNIE!

my deer.(sorry bout the blood. she took a little tumble down the hill.)

who knew capes were back in style?

FBI luncheon speech

mall escapade.


soccer boys.

Have to have my peppermint fix.

Trash cans. Gotta love em'.

Cruella d' Vil

Christians in America

Well, its kinda been a long time... wow.



This is a speech that I did for English class this last Monday because it has really been on my heart lately. If it seems short it is because it had to be 2 minutes. I may expand more on it later, this is a challenge to everyone.







This nation is becoming a very dangerous place for Christians to live. I mean this not in the sense that we are persecuted but that we are not persecuted. Christianity in America is becoming more and more dangerous the more that it becomes so “ok” with every one. When the day comes that people on the street will absent mindedly say “oh yah, I’m a Christian” and can know nothing will happen to them, that is a sad and catastrophic day. We are living in that day! It is great to live in a place were you can pray freely and worship freely and it has many benefits but I think the consequences far outweigh the benefits. As a result of this freedom of religion Christianity has become watered down and people who claim to be Christians look just like the rest of the world. They may say they are just not extreme Christians or they aren’t super good or super godly but they are “ok”. This is wrong! We cannot be luke warm in our stand! Claiming one thing and doing another. What if we lived in a time of extreme persecution, like in the Roman days? I can guarantee that a good majority of “Christians” would no longer claim that. They would slip in with the crowd to save their hide and avoid the atrocious tortures and deaths that were occurring. Christians who refused to denounce Christ or who lived out boldly for Him were burnt at the stake, burned with hot plates of steel, dragged though streets, tied up in a dead animals and tossed to a lion or bull to be mauled, they were pierced, lacerated, whipped, had their bodies disassembled, and suffered so many wickedly evil and unbearably painful things that we cannot even imagine. Let me ask this question of you today. If you had to take a stand for Christ or just live like a Christian with the threat of those few things that I listed, would you? If we were suffering persecution would our persecutors be able to persecute us? Would they have enough evidence to convict us of being a child of God? Do you stand strong enough for Christ that you would be persecuted? Or would they see you as being on their side?


This society is dangerous because people are going to hell every day who claimed to be Christians. Are you misleading others to think that they are saved because they look just like you and you claim Christ? Because you did not live out for Christ or talk to them they never really new what it was to be saved, how sad.



Since the world won’t do it for you, you need test your true colors and test your heart to see where you stand. Don’t be deceived, satan will use any means he can to make us stumble, one of these ways is watering down the gospel and what it means for us to live like Christ

My trip

Well, as said in my last post(it explains a little more about my trip) I just got back from the FBINAA YLP(FBI National Academy Associates Youth Leadership Program). It would take many hours of typing for me to tell you about all I learned and all the fun I had but some pictures will have to suffice. I feel like I just had an amazing life changing experience and am very blessed.(These pics are not in order.)

This is Lydia and I dancing in the airport. This is actually a movie. Good times.

This is on the bus riding to the airport to go home. :(



This is Maartin. He is from the Netherlands/Holland.



Can't be FBI without the shades, I mean come on.

We took a lot of pictures as we were leaving the base.

The four of us hung out quite a bit along with Josh and Ryan.

This Ryan. We were good friends.

This is A.J. He had the fastest time on the Yellow Brick Road.

And Ryan again.

This is Josh. He and I were great friends and ya know why? Cause he was a brother! I was so excited when we started talking and we talked about our churches and they are so much alike! A non-denominational straight Bible teaching church just every thing is same.(Most of the kids I talked to were Lutheran or Catholic or atheist.) We have so much in common. So meeting him had to be one of the biggest highlights in my week. We even got into some discussions with other people. It was so cool. Hope to see you soon brother!

These are monks, crossing the street. Actually really hilarious.

This is our council group. We also had book groups.

This is Josh and I.

My roommate and I are in the middle and my suitemates are on outsides. My roomy was from Alabama.

This is Kevin. a.k.a. Stud-muffin.

This is in the lunch room at the FBI headquarters.

This is my roommate. We had good times.

While waiting to get into the capitol we had the biggest downpour of rain. One of the biggest I have ever experienced. If you went out for 10 seconds you were as wet as just jumping in a pool. It was absolutely crazy. I gotta tell you a story about this. So we are all huddled under these big white canvas things for about 30 minutes waiting to get into the capitol, and I was on the edge that happened to be the angle that the rain and wind were driving at. So I decided to dart about 7 feet to another tent(I took that picture from the tent I ran to). I waited at the edge waiting for a break in the downpour and when that didn't happen I decided just to go for it. Right as I took a step from under the tent the top of it that had been filling up with water had gotten a little to heavy. And so, at that exact moment when I was positioned perfectly being slightly bent over the tent dropped the biggest load of water right on the back half of my head and right on my back. I obviously let out a little yelp. I took the final 3 remaining steps to safety. And to make it worse it just so happened that almost every one in the tent saw it because somehow my little endeavor got some attention. It was like 7 feet for crying out loud! Oh well, everyone saw it and it was hilarious so no worries, how else are great memories made? Although it did get me wetter that everyone else for that time we all soon got pretty even because we had to walk about 300 meters to the security check point in the downpour through 2-3 inch deep torrents of water that were running down the hill we were trying to walk up. Long story short, we all looked like drowned rats.

This is Ryan and Lydia and me at the capitol.

And here is still-slightly wet- freezing cold me.

This is Mr. Nasty. We all wrote whatever we wanted on him and signed our names and stuff and then one of the students got to take him home.(At the end we all got our own Mr. Nasty and had people sign it).

Yah, that's right. I put a magnet on good ol' Marysville.

This is JFK's son... not really but he looks like him huh?

This is a food shot. The food there was not bad. For cafeteria food it rates about a 8-9.

This is Lydia. A really good friend. We have a ton in common and have lots of fun. Love ya girl!

We would hang out in the hallways to our dorms during any breaks we had or before bed. Some good times there...

Well, this is all of us.

This would be me... in my uniform...in my dorm...on the base...yah.

These are three of the good friends I made.






This is the classroom in which most of our time was spent.(I sat in the seat right in front dead center between those two boys, spit gallery...gotta love it.)