Returning to Alberta, returning to three jobs, returning to countless friends, returning to study, returning to God (oops), returning to a world full of like-minded, similarly-aged, and "diverse" students. This is the beginning of my junior year (although I am taking five years to earn my bachelor's degree so from now on the terminology is muddled). I spent a summer working forty hours a week in a lumber yard. Out of fifteen people there I was one of three who didn't use tobacco and one of about fourteen who wore Carhartts. It was a unique break from Bible college. I enjoyed driving around on fourteen thousand pounds of steel, moving lumber and occasionally people (fork lifts are a real power trip...literally).
In between forty hours weeks I found time for a couple adventures including road tripping the Oregon coast, going on an overnight canoe trip with no prior experience or much planning, and visiting my favorite (now 13 month old) relative in California. Driving trucks too fast down gravel roads and learning how to ride a motorcycle were also essential elements to the summer.
I alluded to returning to God. Gah, this is rather embarrassing. Suffice to say my health problems have been pretty consistent, which is not too bad, but definitely a painful struggle on a daily basis. There is this easy path to take though. First, you ask God, "why am I sick?"...then, "why don't you just heal me?"...and then like a proper idiot you quit talking to God and avoid logic while thinking, "I hurt like the White House during the War of 1812 (the Canadians burned it down much to our chagrin)"...which leads to "I still hurt and God hasn't fixed it so God sucks so I'm just not gonna deal with it" similar to saying, "my fork lift started making a weird sound and I gave it some gas and that didn't fix it so let's ignore it." Anyways, eventually I get asked to do something like preach a sermon, which makes God rather unavoidable. I realize that he had answers to my questions, namely that I'm sick because us humans are messed up and broke ourselves, but God is working through my pain to transform me and make me more like him...so pretty much I should suck it up like a buttercup and grow (dang, those weeds know how to grow!). I went through this cycle like three times before I got back to school and gave up and refused to ignore God after I didn't like his answers...but it was a bit of a waste of time this summer.
Moving to a less embarrassing aspect of my life...oh, my whole life is. Welllllll, I'm back to work at the library, the coffee shop, and as an Impact Group leader again. The library still smells like old books and is full of studious people (I didn't know such creatures existed before this job). The coffee shop is still a thriving legal drug dispensary and great place to pick on freshmen with my sarcasm..."we don't sell coffee here, just water." Impact leading is an ongoing adventure, I now only have one group member younger than myself. I have two guys who have been leaders in the past, a guy who is the gnarliest forty-seven year old biker I've come across...but also just a gentle and wise man. It's just plain eclectic, but I'm stoked to see what God does in each of us this year.
I don't have a whole lot else coming to mind to mention about my life, but now if I only communicate to you through my blog (like my dear mother) you'll know a tad bit about my life as it stands now.
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