with the recent completion of my summer and my first internship i brought something out of it. no it is not spiritual or a something wise, it is a sore back. i had to go to the doctor today and have him look at my back. it has gotton so bad that it is in constant pain and spreading. my neck has most recently been bothering me. i can’t even look to the side of me without turning my shoulders, so i look really weird at times. along with this pain i have missed out on several opportunities to play golf and tennis. these two things were something that i very much looked forward to doing when i got home and now i cant. to be honest i feel old. not john tishcer old, but old. my body aches and from what i understand it only gets worse. one thing that bothers me when i say this is peoples reaction to me saying this. they always say, “oh you are no were near old, you are young you have nothing to complain about.” so i guess i don’t really know what i am talking about.
on another note, i got my first pedicure today. it was awesome. my feet were gross and had dead skin all on the bottom of them. if you haven’t gotten a pedicure let me recomend you check them out.

here is a email that we got at ciy from one of the kids that attended the tennessee confernce.
i will give a little information first so that it makes sense. this yeasr at ciy we are giving out the lance armstrong bracelets, wel they are like that. they are north carolina blue and they glow in the dark and they say “i am here” on them becuase they go with the theme of the day. so here is the story that we got. it makes all the work that i thought was boring and tedious worth it.

“i attended the tennessee 1 conference this summer and it was absolutely awesome. while i was there, 10 of the teenagers of the 39 that came up from my church were baptized and 11 more adopted children from compassion. it was just awesome. other than to thank you all for your hard work to make ciy possible, i wanted to share something that happened right after we returned from ciy back home.
we were supposed to arrive back home on saturday morning (june 11th), but due to many bus problems, we didn’t make it back until sunday afternoon. we remained in high spirits and were just thankful to be there. we all unloaded, gave our goodbye hugs, and went to our own houses like normal. one of my best friends Kristin Novack gave her life to christ at ciy for the first time. she’d been seeking the fulfillment only God can offer for a long time, so i was so excited for her. she comes from a broken family like i do. parents are divorced and nearlly all of the family are not christians, but we know we have each other. i spent some time with my step father on fathers day, read my bible, unpacked a bit, and called it a night. i got a frantic phone call at 2am that night. she was hysterical on the phone. i could not understandher through the sobbing. she was really upset and i asked her what was wrong. she said “kelsey my dad just shot himself….my dad…he just shot himself.” she lived with her mom jsut a few streets away from me, so she proceeded to try to explain to me what happened, although she was still in shock. crying, she says “why would he do that? he killed himself? kelsey my dad he just shot himself… and now he is dead.” the police had banged on her door just 15 minutes ago and told her that her dad had passed away earlier that evening. Something she could never imagine had happened-her dad had committed suicide on father’s day. i tried to comfort her and keep my emotions to myself and i said “kristin, we’re going to get through this. everything will be alright. i love you and more importantly God loves you. satan sure doesn’t wait long to start attacking God’s new people. but i promise you, we’re going to get through this.” i just let her cry for a while and i called my youth minister. without hesitating he picked me up and we ran to her house to pick her up too. we went to his house to stay because she just needed him. he’s been like a second dad to both of us and it really helped her. when we went to bed that night, i could hear her just crying and crying, so we prayed together and i remembered silence for a while when she leaned over and said “kelsey, your ciy bracelet….its glowing.” i haadn’t taken it off and she could it in the pitched black room when we were trying to rest on the bed around 3:30am, after a ling time of crying. i said “yes, kristi…the light doesn’t go out because God doesn’t leave you..ever…God is always here.” and she finished my sentence saying “even in my very darkest times…” from then on, her bracelet has been a source of inspiration and motivation to persevere and just keep going because she knows that she is never alone. through the tears and hugs a little bracelet provided the most comfort.”

this story was very touching to all of us in the office and i just wanted to relay it on. i think it is amazing how God can use a stupid bracelet that has become a trend to let His children know that He is there.

something about the word free just makes it better. i have under estimated the value of free stuff. this fourth of july weekend i was reminded why free is such a good thing. so i come into town on thusday night and right away i see the benefits of being gone from somewhere for an extended time. one of my first request when i got home was some home cooked meals. this is another thing that i have taken for granted. the beautiful taste of a pork stake from the grill, some corn on the cob and some good fried potatoes with a large glass of milk. nothing better than that. so this kicks of my stay at home. what a way to start. friday i wake up and my sister wants to take me to bestbuy and get me a griffin iTrip, this little thing is awesome. the next day i get some more free food from my dad, he takes me to bandanas. later that night i have a party at my house where i get some free gifts. so i am thinking that this weekend can’t get any better with free stuff. then i start talking to kirk and find out that switchfoot is playing at the fair and they are going. i am not a big fan of switchfoot, but i figure it is free and i will get to see the fireworks, so what the heck. we get there and see some chairs set out and we try and get to sit in them but are told you have to have tickets, so we go back to where we were sitting kirk and amanda go off and buy a funnel cake. they come back with two tickets, so they go up to the seats and i stay back with one of my friends that i have not seen in a little while. they call me about five minutes later and tell me that they have an extra seat saved for me, so i go up there. i am expecting them to be sitting in the back, but they are about six rows from the front of the stage a little left of it. the concert was pretty cool. switchfoot did a good job. one thing i found funny was how many songs they played from their most recent album. they really didn’t play any old stuff, which was probably a smart move considering that most of the crowd has never heard of them until their most recent album. so we leave the fair after the fireworks and we get out of there in about twenty minutes which was amazing considering how long it took other people. the next day is monday and i have a lot to get accomplished. i have to make a video for an application that i am turning in to jr high believe. but i get some more free help from my friend tj and i get the video done in about an hour. later on i leave to go back to ciy, unfortunately gas is not free except for the gift card andrew schultz gave me. so this weekend was a great weekend. i wish i could have stayed longer, especially because i come back to ozark to find people everywhere, showers that don’t work, and a bathroom that services about twenty guys not been cleaned in about two months. so i have come to the conclussion that if everything was free maybe we would have a lot more happy people in the world, but we would also have a lot more lazy people in the world too.

I also got the new mae cd for my birthday, it is awesome.

i love when you are so bored that you want people to give you work, but you want to do cool work. well i am at that stage. we are stuck in the office for three weeks. some of are major things that have had to get done have know been done since monday. so know because the stuff that they wanted us to do for a couple of weeks is done they have decided to give us more busy work. we are know having to do work for the other interns. we have already finished all of that work so know i am waiting for our boss to tell us that we have to go and rearrange the garage or do something stupid like that. i hate being in the office.

on a better note i have started to application process for a job witht the junior high believe department. this will be a year long thing and i will have to take a year off of school to do this. but i look at this as an incredible opportunity and hopefully i will be able to do that.

I also have decided to get my ears pierced. i don’t really know why. a lot of people bet me that i would not do it, but i did it. i remember making fun of those people that had their ears pierced and know i am one of them. i have already been called a fag by my dad and am waiting for my mom to ask me if i am gay or not. but i am ready for it.

i am heading home on thursday night and will be there until monday the fourth. looking forward to hanging out with some people i have not seen in a little while.

yesterday I finished a book by m,ark driscoll called the radical reformission. another great book that i would recommend reading.
he is a minister in seattle at mars hill christian church. this book has given me a couple of new insights about our culture. he made a great point about postmodernism. he talked about how people viewed modernism as a demon and they wanted to cast it out, but when you cast out a demon and don’t replace it with the holy spirit seven more demons come in and take its place. he says that he sees seven demons in our so called postmodern culture:
1) the culture looks at Jesus as a wimp
2) being who you are, but not repenting of sin
3) playing with interpretation of the bible, giving it no authority
4) faith is defined by what against and what for
5) look out for ourselves, try and sell God
6) everyone crearted equal, every opinion is good
7) opinions are only specualtions, and there is no revelation

i found these very interesting and a interesting point of view. my next book i am starting is by arron chambers called running on empty. hopefully i will finish it by wednesday so i can finish tozers pursuit of God.
today we are doing a whole lot of nothing in the office. we are waiting for stuff to get uploaded onto the computers so that we can start to work on damage reports. so this gives me the time to do whatever i want. on the computer here in the office they have photoshop cs, i have been playing around with that and learning from the tutorial. hopefully by the time i buy my powerbook i will have a basic knowledge of photoshop. i am still trying to figure out how i am going to buy my powerbook. i might get a lone or just wait till i have the money.

while i was a conference this last week i was talking with one of the guys who heads up junior high believe and he told me i need to fill out an application to come and work with them touring this fall and winter. so i am in the process of doing that. if i get the job i will have to take a year off of school to be able to work for them. i am kind of excited about not having to go to school for a year. for the longest time i have been in school and have never experienced a year without school. we will see what happens. 19th birthday coming up. 19 is not a really big deal. nothing like 16,18, or 21 it is just another year down. we will see if i get anything cool. i am trying to get my dad to buy or give me his mountain bike so i can start to ride more. i will be home for the weekend of july 4th and am excited about getting a break from ciy.

i have made it through my first week of conference. very nerve racking. its funny how we can fly by the seat of
our pants and still everything flows smoothly. every night has felt gripping and challanging to everyone in the
audience. we have had some very good speakers and foundation red has done a good job.
we have had some interesting things happen. we had a couple who was known as the breeders. the reason we called them that was
because they did things like make out under the ryder truck, tie each other together by the string of their shorts, try and sneek out of
the dorm, and pull each others pants down. it was great.
doing security is probably my favorite thing to do. we go around at night and tell all the kids to go to bed. the best part is when you get
to break up the little freshmen guys getting all the girls numbers. Never really understood that. it has gotten to the point that i have just
started to tell them that they will never see each other again and to just forget about it and go to bed.
another thing that has been very challanging is dealing with the youth ministers, and sponsers. at night after his time, they tell their kids to
go down to the creek and get some stones, or they tell them to go around and pick up trash at 11 o’clock at night. ya that is a good idea to send a
bunch of high school girls down to a dark area to look for rocks at 11 o’clock at night with who knows who is down there.
but other than that everything has gone great. we had a dodgeball tournament on friday and team ciy lost in the seconde round. kind of disappointing. but we did lose to the team that got first.

sense being here and being bored at times i have done a lot of reading. one book that i have enjoyed has been david crowders new book, praise habit. excellent book. i have also read tony campolos new book and was dissapointed. it was just a book of rants and raves about the evangelical church. not worth your time. i have started a new book called one shot, it is about a detective who has to figure out why the man who murder 5 people for no reason missed on one of his shots. kind of confussing but it makes sense when you read it. good book though.

starting another week of late nights and early mornings. can’t wait.

I have arrive, and am settled into my prison like dorm room where there is just enough room for a bed and a dresser.
I still really don’t know exactly what I am doing but I am trying to figure it out. Being here reminds me of my high school
days, I know that was not to long ago, buy it reminds me of high school and how much I didn’t like it. Mainly because of all the
kids that are around. Sometimes I really think that I am closterphobic, I think I spelled that right. For our opening night we did a
thing that was called Encouter with Christ. What we did for that was that we passed big wooden blocks that came together to form a
cross. We passed it through the crowd and then we built it on stage. It was cool to hear the hammering of the cross while the band
played Wonderful Cross. Other than that I am trying to stay out of truble and try not to mess anything up.