Pumpkin Carving Victory!!

We have achieved great admiration and love of all of our friends here at MTSO. Ryan carved a very kick ass pumpkin to enter into the MTSO pumpkin carving extravaganza. Great fun as had by all and everyone won a prize. We just happened to get best over all!! SUCKERS. Just kidding, everyone did a fantastic job. I will not reveal the secrets of skill just to say it involved power tools.
What a great holiday. About half the children on campus are dressing up as witches and another family is dressing up as Susan, Lucy, and Aslan from Narnia. We will be attending a party as wet Buckeye fans, but it should be a good time.
Everyone stay safe this weekend and have a great time!

Fall here in Ohio

Yesterday was a bright sunshinning beautiful day. The color on most trees were rich and vibrant and although the ground was slightly cool I took a stroll around campus barefoot to snap some photos.
Today is a different story all together. When I left my apartment at 10:30 I was wearing a Mickey Mouse t-shirt and a winter hat to keep my wet hair covered. I spent a few hours workin in admissions and then went out for lunch. It had gotten slightly colder and was starting to rain, so I put on a fleece jacket and took my hat off, hair being dry. After lunch I walked back to the office and thought I was going to freeze to death. Now as of 4:45p.m. it is in the low 40s and raining. It is definatly Fall in Ohio.
I have a feature on my new computer that with one click of a button shows me the tempeture and what it's "looks like" outside. Yesterday the icon had a bright pulsing sun. Today raindrops are dripping onto my computer screen, it's rather depressing.
Regardless I have posted a picture of what yesterday looked like....because it makes me much happier than the appearance of today.
Peace and Blessings on your journeys.

The Methodist Theological School in Ohio

Awhile back Rachel asked me to write about school and I'm finally getting around to it now.
I am in my second semester at the Methodist Theological School in Ohio seeking my call into ordained ministry in the United Methodist Church. I love it here, God could not have put us in a better place. Between classes and organization meetings there exists a beautiful community of people. They come from all kinds of backgrounds and have an enormous varities of interests. I found myself giving a tour today and talking about all the opportunities for families and kids, and the guy looked at me and said, well I'm not bringing a family with me. We kind of laughed about it and I related my experience of being brought into the family here at MTSO. While not every experience here is wonderful and life changing, it provides a real space to grow and learn.
Class wise this semester I am taking The Church's Educational Ministry, Introduction to Christian Ethics, Ministry For/With/By Youth, and Church History. They are all challenging, but with each class comes new opportunities.
Recently for a youth ministry paper I was required to have a conversation with a youth. We weren't given a list of questions or guidelines for the paper, simply that we listen for at least an hour. I got the opportunity to meet the sweetest kid named Steven. Steven really makes me feel great about the future. His sense of confidence, his warm smile, and his incredible work ethic was amazing to me. He has attended church off and on and he told me he likes it "if it's not too long or boring." It's cute, but it totally makes sense. The youth of today were raised with incredible amounts of stimulation present at all times: television, computers, gameboys, radios, etc... To hold any one youth's interest there needs to be a reason to be there that isn't too boring. I'm not going to give any kind of answer to what this is should be, beacuse for everyone it is different, but it's definatly something to think about. He's a good kid and I really believe he will get the spiritual guidence he needs to become a good Christian and a fabulous adult.
My biggest challenge here at MTSO has been discerning into what I'm really being called. There is no doubt in my mind that I'm truly being called to do the work of the church, but where is that call leading me. Someone told me today that God doesn't want to see me just floundering around and that I will get an answer... BUT WHEN?!
I guess that's enough about school for now. Peace out homies!

Super Crazy Weekend

This weekend proved to be an interesting one. At the same time I hate myself because I am seriously behind on all my work and stressed out. But here's how it went. Ryan and I went to a Bowling For Soup concert on Friday night at a bar called Flannigan's. It was an AMAZING concert, they played all my favorite songs, and their new album sounds like it is going to be great. They encouraged the crowd to sing along and they did. Seemed that everyone in there knew all the words. I honestly can't remember what order they played their songs in or which were the best. I just know Ryan and I had a great time, especailly singing "Ohio" in Ohio.
The bar was great too, we ate some food, drank some beer and chatted with some other concert goers. It was totally and over 30 crowd, which makes sense because the band is over 30. It just wasn't expected. This is when I realized that I would rather be in an over 30 crowd, people my age and younger tend to get cocky when in bars and at concerts. Most folks over 30 aren't trying to prove anything to anyone, which makes the show much more enjoyable for others. I spent the entire concert kneeling on a bar stool, which made my knees really sore the next morning.
Saturday, we got up early and went to the Ohio State/Indiana football game. OSU pretty much beat the pants of their opponents, but it still made for a great game. My favorite highlights were Pettrey kicking a 51 yard field goal that was perfect and my mand Teddy Ginn throwing a touchdown pass to Nicol. It was a beautiful day in the upper 50s with plenty of sun beating down on C deck. I know have a quite impressive sunburned racoon face.
After the game I changed into some concert going clothes and went to see the Indigo Girls with Michele and Jesse in downtown Columbus. I really didn't know much about the Indigo Girls and had a vague familiarity with their music, but I truley enjoyed myself. It helped that I was with two amazing girls who made the night wonderful. The opening band was different, but the lead singer was AMAZING and she even came on to sing some songs with the girls towards the end of the concert. The girls played for quite awhile and we didn't leave the concet till after 11. I had volunteered to be the DD, so I drove Michele's Honda around in circles until we found a bar called Wall Street that we got free passes to at the concert. The girl who handed us the passes advertised it as a Lesbian bar, but assured us that straight girls could go to. Teehee, it was fun to watch the look on her face when Jesse asked her if she had to be a Lesbian to go. After Wall Street, we headed to another bar that I had gone to with Michele one other time. It was completely dead and one woman insisted it was because of the Indigo Girls concert, to which we replied that we had been there. She then said that the football game probably had something to do with it, which I replied that I had been to the football game as well. Then everyone laughed at my sunburn.
Around 2 am we decided we needed breakfast and I drove Jesse and Michele on their first ever trip to Steak and Shake. It was yummy, I got home around 4 and slept wonderfully.
Sunday Sucked!! I'm so far behind on all my work and stressed out and really trying to get something done, but what is really happening is that I'm gettign nothing done. I wish I had pictures to post of the Indigo Girls or the football game, but I don't. I've posted a few from Bowling for Soup.
Peace.

I'm not surprised, I know two of them.

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