festival of life weekend!

This weekend was pretty much amazing, since it was Festival of Life and lots of people from my home district came to visit and do competition stuff.

I saw Erlene from Maine, but couldn't remember how I knew her at first. haha oh dear. That's what happens when all these people I know from different places invade campus at the same time.

I got to see Brian Hull, who's one of the major head people (how do you like that title?) of NYC '07. I talked to him some about YIM, and tried to put him in contact with Missa, who's going on the NYC team this summer. Plus I met Dave Curtiss, who was an excellent speaker. I liked the background into Judaism, and the way he talked about the kingdom of heaven reminded me of Brian McLaren's works. He talked about how Christ has saved us TO do something, not just FROM sin, and that we need to help mend a broken world.
"Jesus living isn't comfortable"
"Your good deeds are the very deeds that plant the trees of heaven."

Most of the high schoolers I didn't know, except for Kevin and Alex, and kind of a few others. So I felt like hanging out with the youth pastor types, especially since this year with quizzing I've basically been doing youth ministry. Someday I think it'd be cool to help coordinate stuff for something like FOL, behind the scenes.

Saturday I did a lot of hanging out with the Mosers since Melissa was coaching the (champion) math/sci quiz team....especially Maddox (age 3)
me: "Are you having fun, Maddox?"
him: (in a glum tone) "Yeah...."
I had him on my back during the worship service, and Melissa noticed that he was closing his eyes. Haha. Then when Dave C. got up to speak, and we were sitting down, Maddox wanted a piggyback ride again, but I told him no, not till after the service. He ended up going to his parents in the pew in front of us, with his lower lip in a pouty face. I guess I broke his heart or something. haha.

It was also super to have Leslie and Roger up too, since they're closer to my age. Leslie and I took the T into Boston on Saturday afternoon, and walked from Park Street to Quincy Market, and near the water a bit too. We bought sweatshirts that say "BOSTON" across the front, and wandered around a good bit, running into people from our district. We took random pictures too. :)

I got to talk to Pastor Kevin for a while, about what he thought about evolution vs. creation, and what he'd tell his kids, and some ENC/Olivet stuff. Mostly he was saying that we don't know what went on at the time of creation, and that God's still creating. He also likes Brian McLaren's synthesis of the Bible in The Story We Find Ourselves In. We talked about how my church is gung ho about missions abroad, but yet we don't do stuff in Chestertown. We shouldn't be thinking that the world is out to get us or whatever. It was really cool to hear that his kids learn about God from him and Joy, and that they have spiritual conversations about stuff. Like their 6 year old asking, "If God loves me so much, why do I have these allergies?" Also something that is cool is that he'll be the guest speaker at Regionals Quizzing! Hooray!

We got back from Boston just in time for me to run to the front of Wolly and help hand out medals. That was fun, and at one point, Brian Hancock just accumulated the extra medals around his neck, so I asked him, "Why do you have those?" Kevin answered, "What, you think he doesn't deserve them?" He gave them back later. :)

Saturday night after the service, I said goodbye to people, and then stood there a while with Jen S, Josh B, and Leslie. We figured out that I was the only one in the bunch not certified in First Aid/CPR, and Leslie was divvying up who would do which part of CPR to save me: "You do this, you do that, and I'll--I'm not doing mouth to mouth."

We ran into Bryan, with Coco the Furby. Oh man. That was crazy. Leslie, Josh, and I ended up hanging out with Sam, Roger, and Leif for quite a while (till about 1:30), as the guys played music (mostly Calibrett0 13 songs) and we took pictures and video for them. It was a LOT of fun.

Now, however, is crunch time, as I have a final project paper due next Wednesday, and I'm only about 20% of the way done. Not to mention, my research and plan took a crazy turn today.