I’ve been pretty busy of late, but let me catch you all up
to speed. After my wonderful, peaceful, amazing time with my family over Spring
Break, I had to return to my university, the place of stress and work. However,
this semester I can’t very well say I’ve been all that stressed, because I am
only taking three classes, but still, nothing compares to being home. A week
after I arrived here, I had to find a way to get back home to attend a wedding.
This wasn’t too difficult, though I’m not going to say it was cheap either. I
had to rent a car for the weekend and, since I am still relatively young, being
less than 25 years old, I have to pay a higher price in order to rent a car. I
asked the rental agency if all the cars they had were brand new, and they affirmed
that all the cars there were one or two years old. Figures…when I first drove
the rental I received after the accident, I was mesmerized by the bright, clean
exterior and the spacious interior. Little did I know that it would only take a
few days for me to realize I disliked many of the new automatic features of
that car. Unfortunately, as I found when I rented another car to go the wedding
a week later, all new cars are being programmed with the same ridiculous
features. You see, I tend to want to control my technology, not for my
technology to control me. Yet, having no choice, I dealt with the frustration
and made it home. My fake cousin (part of my family extension) was getting
married, so the next day I went to the wedding followed by a very pleasant
reception. Since we were not actually blood relations to this family, they ended
up being the only people we really new there.
The following week, after the wedding, it was Jesse’s eighth
birthday and my dad’s ___ birthday. Sadly, I was unable to go and celebrate
with them, but I gave them a phone call to wish them the best. They must’ve had
so much fun surfing! Or maybe this picture my dad sent me recently was not
genuine? …
Now I’ll zoom forward to last weekend, since most of the
intermediate time was spent tutoring math, reading, studying, taking tests, and
doing homework. Last weekend I went on a mini-retreat which was to prepare me
for a leadership conference during the end of May. I volunteered to be a coach
on the retreat, and the purpose of a coach is to lead discussions within a
small group and be a Christian witness. I have rarely ever been in a leadership
role and, to tell you the truth, it scares me a bit. However, I know God is
with me and will give me the wisdom I’ll need. I would appreciate prayer for
this upcoming leadership conference. In the past, I have heard that this
conference has seen a number of Muslims and others of different religions being
saved. So, this mini-retreat I went on was specifically for acquainting the
coaches with their responsibilities and to give them an over-view of the
conference. We had several fun leadership and teamwork activities. One in
particular that I thought was rather new and interesting, was a simulated
emergency, where a volcano erupted causing everyone in each group to have a
different injury; including loss of both arms, loss of one arm and one leg,
paralysis from the neck down, mute, and blind. We, as a group, had to go on a
mission to get a couple supplies, have one person healed, and return back to
the starting location. We stayed together by holding onto a rope. The person
who was paralyzed and the person who was missing one arm and one leg needed the
most help, being carried or needing someone to lean on. I, on the other-hand,
was unable to be much help because I was blind. Someone was very thoughtful and
gave me a stick, so the stick helped me feel out the terrain, but I still
needed someone to warn me of steps or roots. It was a very interesting
experience, not having the sense I valued the most. Although, when we gathered
together to un-brief the activity, I realized almost everyone else was able to
use their disability to help others. We had other similar fun activities
requiring teamwork. At one point we walked around that campus praying for the
conference. During this time, I ran across a frog on the side of the path.
Naturally, I could not resist picking it up and thanking God for His glorious
creation. This camp, Camp Caraway, was extremely peaceful and beautiful, the
ideal place to commune with God.
Today was a day I had been feeling a little nervous about
since my big car accident; I was issued a subpoena to go to court as a witness
today. I had to wait an hour for our case to be called and dealt with, but the
judge seemed very reasonable and just when dealing with the other cases, so I
wasn’t scared of him at all. When we were finally called, I was only asked to
confirm that there were no injuries and that the officer’s statement was
accurate. As I told my friend, Reese, who was so kind as to drive me to court
and back, I was a little disappointed. I was expecting to be a little more
involved (similar to court cases on many of the mystery shows I’ve seen). As it
was, I’m relieved it’s over. Now I can resume my inconvenient, car-less (as opposed to careless) life. I
feel bad having to depend so entirely on others, making them have to change
their schedules around me if I ever need to go anywhere. Perhaps I should get
better acquainted with the whole bus system.
