Yaharrr! Youth Weekend is approaching fast! My heart is pounding! Not just my physical one, but my spiritual and emotional ones too! Man I'm pumped!

Scott was working with me on my speaking today. It's kind of strange, I really have to think about each word that I say and convey the exact emotion and power of each word. I can't really just say it. That wouldn't be good speaking. Or effective.

Pleeeaaaasssse pray for me every time you think about me until this weekend is over.

There is a passage that gives me more solace right now than almost any other verse in the Bible. Jeremiah 1.

  The word of the LORD came to me, saying,

  "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,
       before you were born I set you apart;
       I appointed you as a prophet to the nations."

 "Ah, Sovereign LORD," I said, "I do not know how to speak; I am only a child."

  But the LORD said to me, "Do not say, 'I am only a child.' You must go to everyone I send you to and say whatever I command you.  Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you and will rescue you," declares the LORD.

  Then the LORD reached out his hand and touched my mouth and said to me, "Now, I have put my words in your mouth. See, today I appoint you over nations and kingdoms to uproot and tear down, to destroy and overthrow, to build and to plant."

 "Get yourself ready! Stand up and say to them whatever I command you. Do not be terrified by them, or I will terrify you before them.

Ah yes.

Let me just say to you today to forget about the past, God never intended for us to dwell on past failures and mistakes. Look forward instead. To Him. And what He's going to do.

Everything that has happened until now is in the past. Just leave it all behind. God has unlimited grace for people like us.

I am the woman at the well, I am the harlet. I am the scattered seed that fell along the path. I am the son that ran away, I am the bitter son that stayed. I am the angry man that came to stone the lover, I am the woman there ashamed before the crowd. I am the leper that gave thanks, I am the nine that never came.

I know that those are just song lyrics, but I say them with utmost honesty.

In other words, I am confused, unfaithful, unproductive, fearful, rebellious, bitter, jealous, angry, judgemental, wretched, ashamed, adulterous, and ungrateful...by myself.

 Joel is all of the above and more...by himself.

I feel like somehow I have wrongfully earned respect or admiration from people. I am nobody. For some reason God was merciful enough to pull me out of my filthy pit of self-glorified depravity, clean me off, and actually make me vaguely resemble Jesus Christ! oy vey, why has He accepted me?

So anyways, praise God for His greatness and mercy, not anything I appear to do or say.

(Incidentally, we are going to go witness to people tuesday and thursday night this week, so you can come if you want to.)

Colombia is looking up! It looks like I'll go at the end of July for two or three weeks. I will definetely work with the street kids for the majority of the time, which is exactly what I would like to do.

I was talking to Brian Miller last night (he's the missionary I'm gonna visit), and he said that he wants me to pray about being a speaker at a refugee/street kids youth conference! That would be pretty wicked awesome...he wants me to talk about being intimate with Jesus and following His call on their lives and things of that nature. I'm still not sure about it, I'll need to pray about it some more and see if that's what God's calling me to this summer.

If I do it though, I'll have to do it in Spanish.

ay ay ay

He said that they don't really have too many teenagers come down who actually want to minister to other teenagers, so he really wants to take advantage of it.

whop

Prom is this friday...!

yeehaaaaaa!

oh hey, at onething this saturday we're probably gonna pray for youth weekend, so if you're a youth, you should definetely come. We'll pray. For joy. For freedom. For the power of Jesus Christ. For the revival of the Holy Spirit. For an unquenchable furnace. For the Fountainhead. And for you.

ever wish God was completely tangible?

then you could just hang on to Him for as long as you wanted. I hope He'll let us do that in Heaven...that would be so cool...

*sigh