Hey everyone, so I'm feeling inspired to write at the moment, I don't really now why, but here it goes.

So to bring everyone up to speed in as quick a time as possible things have gone like this: I'm now a member of the Verdugo Hills Eccleisa (super awesome), I've gotten a new job (more on that to come), and I'm currently on Truth Corps for the second time (just as awesome, if not more than last time).

So today I was blessed with the opportunity to exhort at the Simi Hills Eccleisa (Woot!) which I had been wanting to do for some time now, plus it the Sunday right after Idyllwild which meant that they had a packed house too!

So my exhortation was on Romans 5:3-4 on the formula that God lays out for working in our lives. First there are trials that we face, things that God puts in our lives to make us grow and reach outside our comfort zones (not always fun, but important). Next, we need to endure the trials patiently, not trying to rush them or look for the easy out, because these are the things God uses to mold and shape us and if we try and dodge them we aren't letting Him work us into vessels fit for his glory. Thirdly, when you patiently endure the trials God puts in our lives we are then able to gain valuable experience through the process, strengthening us as we grow to learn more about how God is working in our lives.

The last part is the really exciting part, because from the experience we gain we are then able to grow an "eye of faith" which allows us to better see God working not only just in our lives, but in the world around us as He works with His angels to prepare the world for the return of his son. If you get the time look at Psalms 83 and just read the first 5 or 6 verses, it talks about how the nations around Israel wanted to wipe them off the face of the earth and now if you read many of the statements being made by Islamic leaders you can see that that is their same aim now. In fact the Hamas Charter states that their aim, "Is to remove the Zionist presence from the Jordan to the sea." Or how they claim, "There can be no solution to the [Arab-Israeli] conflict except for the elimination of Israel as a nation." In some ways it is flat out terrifying, but in others in can exciting because we can see how God is moving the world to a climax whose end will be Christ's return.





Oh yeah I said I'd talk about my new job, well I used this in the beginning of my exhortation this morning so its only fitting that it will be at the end now. Last August I put in an application at the school district by my home and went through the interview process as well as a written test as they made a hiring list. Well after everything was done I found out that I was somewhere in the top ten of the list (they won't tell you exactly where) so I figured I might get something fairly quickly. The first offer didn't come until two months later with me 6 weeks into my fall semester classes, so I was unable to take the interview. A few more calls came in during the semester, but most of them didn't fit with my school schedule and the one that didn't clash with stuff didn't offer me the position after I went in for an interview.

So basically I'd given up on the idea of getting a job working that and had just started looking at other options, but there were none to be had (California's economy is in the tank so that put a damper on job hunting people like myself). So I just decided to try and get more school stuff done while I had the extra time. Well Spring semester started and things with my classes started becoming a little strange, first one my classes got cancelled and I had to quickly join another class that was at a different time, which meant that the class I wanted to take had to go so that I could take the first one. Then by some weird clerical error I was dropped from an English class I was in and when I went to add it again I found out that I shouldn't have been able to enroll in the first place so I was out of luck there.

Well finally after a little creative working of the schedule I managed to still get a full time class load, but now everything was later in the afternoon or even the evening, leaving me with a giant amount of free time in the morning. So I had kind of resigned myself to the idea that I was just going to have to deal when I got a phone call from the district telling me that they had another job opening at Schroeder Elementary School (which just happens to be my old elementary school where my sister goes and I had been volunteering off and on for about 4 years.) So needless to say I went into the interview and the people doing it happened to be an old teacher of mine and one of my sister's teachers who I'd worked with.

I'll just cut to the chase then, I got the job and the day after I found out I was in Brother Jason Hensley called me to see if I would be interested in going on Truth Corps again as the team for this year needed someone to go with them who wouldn't have to do the prep work on such short notice.

And the rest as they say is history . . . . I'll have to do another post just about Truth Corps stuff, but for now my eyes are getting tired and tomorrow Truth Corps starts blanketing Simi Valley with flyers so I better get some shut eye (especially after being up till 2 AM this morning working on my exhortation and doing laundry.)

Well the last couple days were a few firsts for me personally. I got go on my first business trip, up to San Jose, and then was able to go for a Training Session at the Apple Campus there. That's right I go to go where Steve Jobs works and where such amazing products such as the iPhone and the iPod Touch were developed, which was exciting and I got the MacBook that I will be using for work for the next 10 months as well. I'd share more about the Session, but I was sworn to secrecy at the Apple Campus under penalty of termination and I rather like my job so I fill the rest of this post with other stuff.

On other stuff the Simi Hills Study and Sports Extravaganza is in less than two weeks and just before that Geoff Smith is going to teach OC CYC down at the LA Hall so that should be awesome (on both events).

I don't really have much else to talk about (well I do, but I can't talk about it yet), needless to say I want to ask everyone reading this to say a prayer for the Orange County Ecclesia that God will do what is best for everyone in it and keep them strong. I'll be able to fill everyone in on what's going on later, just not at this time.

Until we meet in Jerusalem, God be with you all.

That's right everyone I came to the shocking conclusion this past weekend that I am no longer a part of the young crowd, at least the one I was thinking of myself in.  I've gone from being in the young CYC group to the older CYCers or even beyond them and it was a little strange of a realization for me.

This past weekend was the Youth Summit at the LA Hall, which was an awesome weekend and anyone who didn't or couldn't go should get a copy of the audio when it's available on www.cycresource.com, and talking about everything there, seeing people not much older than me married with their first child was the first notice to me.  But ironically the biggest one was hanging out afterwards an seeing several of my friends, who were older than me (meaning all over 21) and had other people driving them home, standing around drinking beers together talking about the topics from the Youth Summit.

Now I'm not saying it was a bad think for them to do, I mean it's legal for them and they weren't going to have to drive home afterward, but it just sort of clashed against my view of the world a little bit, making realize that instead of everyone having a soda and joking over video games or something wasn't always going to be the thing we do.  I guess what ultimately caused me to be taken aback by what I saw was that when I'm at school I'm used to hearing people talk about going out drinking after work or a party of some kind and always kinda connected the whole scene to something people in the "world" did and wasn't something I would necessarily associate myself with.  However, Matt Jones brought a good point out to me that as long as you're not drinking them down for the sake of drinking and that if you talking about the Truth or a lecture you've just been to that it sorta is the same as when everyone was younger and we all drank some soda after a class.

So I guess you would classify this weekend as a bit of an epiphany for me.  The feeling I had could only be similar to when I first started working at my old elmentary school, helping out in classrooms and stuff and the wierd feeling I had the first couple times I went into the Teachers Lounge, which for a while I didn't hink was right casue I was still in the student mind-set about it.  Now I go in there with everyone else and it doesn' feel strange at all, so I imagine that this thing this weekend will eventually pass and the soda and video games will be replaced with the older equivilant.

I just thought I'd share this with you all and see what you thought, have you ever had something like this where your mindset about something or an activity clashed with what is now "normal" for everyone to do?  Or have you ever had a vivid moment where you could really tell you had entered a different period in your life?  Comment if you want, if not God be with you and keep you safe until we are together in Zion.