My First Post!
- Posted by under Starting to Blog
- Wednesday October 29th, 2008
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I don’t really know what is the best way to begin a blog. To be honest, I never really thought I would be a blogger. Please bear with me as I muddle my way through this process.
I suppose the best way to begin is to tell you a little bit about myself and what I’ve been up to these last few months. I’m a Senior and am double majoring in Economics and Finance and Business Administration. Since June, I have been living and working in Washington, D.C. Over the summer months (June-August) I had an internship at the US Department of Labor. This fall, I am participating in a Semester Away program through the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities. I have been taking classes through the Council and also interning at Congressman Pete Hoekstra’s office.
I love Washington, D.C.! Already, I’ve had many, many amazing opportunities and memories. Here are a few of them…in picture form 
Here is the view of the Capitol from the roof of the Department of Labor. This is where I ate lunch everyday this summer…nice view, eh?
Here is the view from the roof of my apartment building (it’s kind of hard to see, but the Capitol Dome is in the background).
This was after during the White House Welcoming Ceremony for Silvio Berlusconi (the Italian Prime Minister). It’s kind of far away but President Bush is on the right and Berlusconi is on the left.
As I’m uploading these pictures, I’m looking at the time and realizing that I really need to get some homework done this afternoon. I have a campaign analysis project due on the day after the election. However, I will update sometime soon!
I don’t have a long time to write - it’s been a crazy day getting back into the swing of things after fall break. I went home for four whole days…which was marvelous! I hadn’t been home since I came to school back mid-August (which, if you know me, is quite an accomplishment…if I may say so myself).
This blog I was actually going to try and post some pictures. However, the only pictures I currently have available are from apple-picking right before we left for break. A couple of friends and I one Saturday decided to go an orchard in Goshen. The five of us crammed into a small(er) car and drove 45 minutes to the middle of no-where (however, not so far no-where that nobody else knew about it. In fact, the orchard was rather popular that day). We each got a basket from the central location (aka, barn) and headed out to pick to our hearts were content.
We quickly ran into a problem seeing that none of us were much taller than 5′8″ and the apples…well, they were above 5 feet and 8 inches off the ground. So we resorted to jumping and grabbing, often grasping at nothing but air. Periodically we would be successful and land our jump with an apple in hand. Other times, we’d bump an apple and land our jump, hearing a little thud soon after from the apple (which had also landed). Deciding that the success rare was a mere 50-50 if that, we looked for more effective alternatives. Lo and behold! The next aisle over, a family had some long stick with a bucket attached to the end (I’ll call it….an apple picker!!!) We asked to borrow it when they were done and they graciously said yes (apparently the orchard had a number of these, though no one told us about them when we first started out).
To make a long story short, we were VERY successful after we began using this tool (the best thing since sliced bread!) My one roommate and I opted to make delectable treats out of our apples. I made applesauce and she made apple butter (side note - just remember that apples can act as a laxative….)
At last, here are some pictures of our experience:
Sydney Rae
I had such an astounding fall break last weekend. It was so glorious. With a van full of friends, I headed north to Kalkaska, Michigan. That’s near Traverse City or around the tip of the pinky for those who use their hands as maps. This trip was the fruition of much labour on the part of my friend Laura, at whose house we stayed. She had been in contact with John Vermilya, who had been this year’s speaker for Spiritual emphasis week. He is a pastor of a church only a short drive from where Laura lives, so the original plan was to try to host a retreat for the youth group at his church. Unfortunately, things fell through. Fortunately, Laura is both persistent and perpetually optimistic, and a retreat was engineered with her home youth group. God clearly had better things in mind. So it was with that we set out on our voyage into northern Michigan. 
My friend Laura and I have had a long standing, albeit pointless, debate as to whether Michigan or Indiana is the better state. Along with many silly pros and cons, Laura has often sited the beauty of Michigan as a reason for it to be the better, especially in the fall. Well, I could not let that stand. I have often argued that Indiana has its own beauty, and it is quite lovely in the fall. This weekend, many of our arguments were put to the test. What I learned was that autumn is the same in northern Michigan, but there is so much more of it. The drive up was absolutely beautiful. As we went farther North, there was just more and more color, and when the sun finally set, the trees just went crazy in the yellow light. It was incredible. We saw so much beauty on this trip. 
The retreat was so much more than we could have expected. Laura’s youth group was filled with awesome people. Lyndsey and a guy from their church lead worship, then Jess and I shared on the need for rest, especially resting on God. After a bit more worship, Robby shared on wrestling with God, and Lyndsey followed it up by sharing some of her struggles and two songs that she had written. After that, the party went wild with all sorts of crazy people playing crazy games. It was awesome. Unexpected to us, the youth leaders talked to some people in the church and worked it out for Lyndsey to sing in the main service on Sunday.
Yeah. God is good. He worked so much this weekend.
There are so many other stories I could tell, but I will be brief lest this blog become tedious. I have however discovered several new joys such as sock wrestling, scavenger hunts in Traverse City, and fast-paced group games on the Wii. Also, and far more importantly, Laura’s family. They were so incredibly gracious in opening their home to a bunch of college kids. It was such a wonderful family. It is no wonder Laura turned out to be such an awesome person. Also, her mother makes some fantastic pancakes. Even more significant than the pancakes themselves was the fact that another family besides mine actually puts brown sugar on their pancakes. We are not crazy.
What a weekend!
Every August the Bethel College faculty takes a retreat for three days. I was asked to say a few words about the intersection of my faith, my teaching, and my discipline. This is more or less what I shared.
Robby Prenkert
Faculty Retreat 2008
Bethel College
The Intersection of Faith and My Discipline
“our lives as odyssey”
Were this the third day of the semester in World Literature class, I’d be telling you to “jot down some notes about a time when you just really, really wanted to go home. You know, something like it was the fourth day of summer camp and it was still raining, or it was two weeks to spring break, or three weeks into my semester in China…you get the idea. What did you feel, and why did you feel that way, and how did you come to that point of just wanting to go home.”
“Write. Write for a minute,”” I’d say—just enough time to get something on paper.
Were this the third day of World Lit class, I’d encourage my students to volunteer a neighbor and we’d all get to hear a few especially good stories. It’s great fun really. Then I’d do my best impersonation of an English teacher and transition the class like this…
So after we read the first four books of the Odyssey, and we noted that, though he’s mentioned over and over again in those books, Odysseus doesn’t actually make an appearance “on stage” until we get to book five. Those first four books of the Odyssey are about Odysseus’ son Telemachus taking his own “odyssey” to see what he can find out about his long lost dad—who left to fight the Trojan War shortly after Telemachus was born twenty years ago.
If I may digress quickly, those first four books of the Odyssey connect well with my 20 year old students who are all “journeying to make a name for themselves” in the world just like Telemachus; they’re on quests for their own identity, just like Odysseus’ son. Many of them, just like Telemachus, are even making “odysseys” toward their “Father.”
By the way, You do “ “ this a lot as a Literature teacher—anytime you want your students to get that you’re speaking figuratively—that you’ve slipped into metaphor.
Anyhow, the real point of day three in World Lit is this. Having warmed up the class by letting them tell funny stories about times they wanted to go home, I ask them, “so what is Odysseus doing the first time he makes an actual appearance in this poem—in book 5?” And the room grows silent. Finally someone will say… “he’s on that island and he’s on the beach, crying.”
“And why is he crying?”
A shorter silence until someone offers, “because he wants to go home?”
“Right!!! Because he wants to go home.”
The first time we actually see Odysseus in Book 5 of the epic bearing his name he is a captive of the nymph/goddess Calypso (whose name, incidentally, means “I conceal”). She wants to make Odysseus her immortal husband. He has been her prisoner for seven years when we see him for the first time, “weeping… wrenching his heart with sobs and groans and anguish, gazing out over the barren sea through blinding tears.”
For whatever else it is, the Odyssey is a story about a guy who really wants to go home. It’s also (among a host of other things) the story of how he got to the point of really wanting to go home, as well as the story of his journey getting there.
“So what?” you say. Well… you have been there on the beach with Odysseus, yearning for home.
Maybe you didn’t spend 10 years fighting the Trojan war, 3 years adventuring and wandering the seas gathering up riches for a triumphal return to Ithaca from Troy, only to lose all 12 of your ships and all 600 of your men along the way before ending up as Calypso’s prisoner on Ogygia for seven years. But still, the longing for home and all it represents is something we, too, know about.
How did Odyssues get to this point? Has he wanted to go home this badly all along? Well…
it doesn’t seem so. Those first three years after the war ended, he wandered a lot—looting and partying and adventuring, much of which seems unnecessary to many readers. Those three years of wandering include a year long stay as the guest of another sorceress-nymph-goddess, Circe—who provides Odysseus and his men with exceptional hospitality, while they seem to forget about the goal of home.
Odysseus’ family, mother, father, wife, and son, sit home wondering what has become of him. After a year with Circe, she finally sends Odysseus to the underworld of the dead to speak with the shade of the prophet Tiresias. He also speaks to the shade of his dead mother there, who tells him that she died of grief, longing for her son’s return. He begins to get it—he needs to get home. (Sometimes, my little lovers of literature, we’re left to descend into the realm of the dead—we “die” (dare I say, to our old selves)—even as we are wake up to the mess we’re making of things for ourselves and others). More than seven years after that, Calypso has Odysseus “concealed”, imprisoned, at the end of his rope—longing for home.
In the world of the Odyssey, Home becomes a symbol for the ultimate good—the enduring good, the best of the best in life. It is what Odysseus should desire. But what about us, who read the Odyssey through eyes of faith? HOME might represent the Christ who is our home even as it is the home he is preparing for us one day. We long for it. We pursue it. We still haven’t found what we’re looking for.
Yet it is easy to get lost on our way—and some of us, like Odysseus, take the long way home. Sometimes we need a kind of “terrible grace” to shock us back to reality and awaken our desire for what truly matters.
Based on what they write in later assignments, I can tell that my students get the point. They tell me how they have wandered from home. Some of them tell me how they have come back—reading the Odyssey as a kind of prodigal son pre-telling. Some of them tell me how they are still shacked up with Circe or feel stuck and imprisoned by Calypso. Some feel like they’ve eaten the lotus and forgotten all about home. They get it, I think. They start to read this really old book with new eyes, and they also start to read their lives through brand new lenses as well, alert to the perils along their own journeys and at least aware that there is a home that yearns for them even more than they yearn for it.
I play pop songs and hymns for them that riff on this theme:
“Softly and Tenderly, Jesus is calling, calling oh sinner come home.”
“Homeward bound… I wish was…. Home where my love lies waiting silently for me.”
“I am a pilgrim and a stranger traveling through this wearisome land, I have home in that yonder city…”
You get the point already. I likely border on beating the point almost dead.
Literature, in more ways than one, is not rocket science. The nearly endless avenues we might travel connecting literature and our Christian faith don’t require rockets either.
The intersection of my faith with my discipline was supposed to be the topic here. I read stories with students. Sadly, too many of them come from experiences with public school teachers who managed to turn reading stories into a trivial exercise.
I assume they will forget who Nausicaa is, and whether Telemachus visited Nestor or Menelaus first on his journey, and they won’t remember that Calypso’s island was called Ogygia. But they won’t forget that the Odyssey is a story about finally waking up and realizing that you really do, very desperately, want to go home, and that you’re willing to suffer any hardship for this great and enduring good.
I find that my students are eager to connect what we read with their lives. Sometimes they need a little help, but that’s the best thing about teaching literature—providing a little nudge that opens them up to read with brand new eyes—eyes that recognize that our Christian lives are a journey home. And not that unlike one of the world’s greatest stories.
Sushi with Dad
YUM!
Making birthday cookies with my sister Julie for our friend Katherine
Katherine's cookies!
My friends: Katherine, Shelly, Ashley, and Matt at "The Office" party
Back at my high school for a football game
My best friend Ashley and I cheering for the Cats!
A High School Musical 3 cutout while seeing "The Duchess" with friends. Zac was a little crowded so I went with Ryan.
Back to Bethel Sunday night
For me, the first seven weeks of the fall semester always goes by faster than any other seven week period of the year. I don’t know why. I don’t even wish to speculate as to why time flies sometimes and sometimes it doesn’t.
But here I sit, with only one full day remaining in the first half of the first semester, wondering how it can possibly be time for a mid-semester break already. I don’t mind the break at all. I’ll enjoy two days at home with Sydney and Morgan (the daughter and the dog). We’ll play in the yard and enjoy the color. We’ll take a nap each day. We’ll read books and watch Barney. We’ll eat popcorn and ice cream.
I do find these breaks a bit scary. In some of my classes I’m thinking, “how can this be… we haven’t gotten anywhere yet.”
I also try to put myself in the shoes of my students. While this is my seventeenth fall break (4 as a student, 3 as an R.D., 10 as a professor), for many of them, it is their first. First of four. Some of them are now 1/4 of the way through their freshmen year. That’s 1/16 of the way through college. Seven weeks.
I’m mystified by this thing: seven weeks seems like nothing, like such a small period of time in the grand scheme of things. A blink of an eye. And yet for some of my students, a lot has changed. Some found a major. Others found a new major. Some have found new friends that will last a lifetime. Some have begun to truly find themselves. Some may, without realizing it yet, have even found a future spouse. Some have begun to realize that college is probably not for them–at least right now. Some have found that they should have paid more attention in high school. Some have found God, for the first time in their lives. Some have grown–physically (you’ve heard of the freshman 15; some might be 1/4 of the way there already). Some have found the more interactive environment of college classroom to be liberating and have re-learned their love of learning. At least I hope.
Seven weeks is nothing, really. Especially when you compare it to a lifetime or to eternity. On the other hand, when life-shaping stuff is happening like it happens in the first seven weeks of college, seven weeks is everything. Especially when you consider eternity.
2 more days before Fall break!!!! Can you tell I’m excited?? :) This past week has been pretty crazy but good crazy, apart from completing assignments and getting prepared for Midterms, I had been going crazy advertising for paintball. This was organized for international students and I had to put my skills in full gear. After weeks of ever so sweetly “harrassing” friends and encouraging them to come, we had a total of 28 students show up and it was great. Take note: I did not play :). Think I punked out last minute and used my photography obligations as an excuse..hee hee. But it was definitely a riot to watch. And yesterday was such a beautiful day too…I was in great spirits. 
Catch you later!
Today is Sunday. I am so exhausted, but with midterms and exams coming up this week, I’m going to study.
Classes for me include:
MWF- Exploring the Christian Faith; Interpersonal Communication; and Spanish I
T- Written Communications and Psychology (block); and physical fitness
R- Block
I just keep reminding myself that my mom is coming on Tuesday to pick me up for Fall Break, so we can go back home to St. Louis! I’m so excited to go home! I’ve missed my family so much. College is definitely a way of transition from a guarded lifestyle to an independent one, a positive and a negative thing I guess. But, even in my independence, my family will always mean the world to me. My sisters, Julie, 23, and Kelly, 21, are two of my best friends and I can’t keep anything away from my parents. There is no greater intimacy than a family unit. I’m also excited for a little break from school. As wonderful and crazy as Bethel is, it’s going to be nice to get back to normal home life for a while without any homework, which is why I should leave now and go work on that! 
See ya after break!
My family with me at High School Graduation (from left: Julie, Dad, me, Kelly, and Mom)
A younger picture of me with my sisters!
‘Tis the season; not the season to be jolly, but the season to lose sleep, hide in the Everest Rohrer, and walk around like a zomby except for the few precious hours spent on stage for which we have to be filled with boundless energy and look good doing it in front of mass quantities of people. It is production week. Today, we open for The Butler Did It.
Making things interesting, service day was also this week. Tuesday, there were Bethel students scattered about all over the cities of South Bend, Mishawaka, and Elkhart. I was in a group that went to Reigns of Life, a therapeutic horse riding organization. It was really cool. Aside from being around horses, which are among the most incredible creatures God created, we also did work, a lot of it. We raked hay, swept, did general cleaning. I was also one of the lucky few who got to scoop horse poop. It was a good time. I always enjoy service day. Well, it would have been nice to just rest after that before another four hour dress rehearsal, but I had to work still. Great. It was a long day. We did not get out of rehearsal until well after 10:00 that night.
It was a long day.
That is to be expected during production week. Rehearsals do not have an end time. They are over when they are over. Such is life in the theatre. It is so worth it though. Despite the seemingly incomprehensible sacrifices, it is worth it. I take such great joy in acting and putting on a show. Even more than that is the joy of the Lord. I identify so well with the quote by Eric Liddle. “When I run, I feel God’s pleasure.” That is how it is when I do theatre. I feel the pleasure of God when I use the gifts he gave me.
A friend asked me if I was going to be able to rest after the events of this weekend are finally over. Well…I will rest…a bit. But rehearsals for the next show begin Monday. Endgame, by Samuel Beckett. I am pumped to be in the show, and I consider myself extremely fortunate considering that there are only four parts in the show. My roommate, Chester happens to have one of the other four parts in the show: the lead. Between the two of us, we have at least 85 percent of the lines in the show. Needless to say, we will be spending an inordinate amount of time with each other, especially when you consider the fact that we also have four classes and work together. Well, it will make running lines a lot easier. As a bonus for this show, I also got the opportunity to be co-set designer with my good friend Scotty. I am not sure what to expect because I certainly did not expect to be a designer. We had our first design meeting today. It was fun, but it was also sort of overwhelming, and we did not quite feel prepared. It is a whole new side of theatre to experience. The next month is going to be quite an adventure. I look forward to seeing how it turns out.
My brother is a prolific blogger. His blog is the Don Quixote or the War and Peace, if you will, of the blog world. It’s like he’s got diarrhea of the keyboard. I don’t know how he does it; I can’t keep up. It took me 13 minutes just to write these five sentences.
It took me four years to write my stupid dissertation.
So if you ever come here and you don’t find anything new worth reading, chances are my younger and more famous youth pastor brother has probably written something worth your musing. Occasionally he even mentions me. Check him out.
http://www.derryprenkert.blogspot.com/
Speaking of my dissertation, I’m pretty sure, if you were to bother reading it, it would be the most unconventional dissertation you’ll ever read. There are several reasons for that, not the least of which is that most people don’t read that many dissertations, and if you read mine it just might turn out to be the ONLY dissertation you ever read. In the spirit of shameless self-promotion-which is what blogging is all about (isn’t it?)-allow me to entice you with my dissertation’s abstract.
I’m tempted here to copy and paste an example of the typical dissertation abstract. But let’s just say of dissertation abstracts, exciting reading they are not.
Not that mine will be either. It’s just different. And sometimes, I still can’t believe I got away with it.
ABSTRACT
On the Wonder of Mentors Never Met:
A Memoir of a Reading Life:
Part One
D.Litt. Dissertation by
Robby Christopher Prenkert
The Caspersen School of Graduate Studies
Drew University May 2008
This dissertation-a “memoir”-is about R, a man who loves books. The narrative’s central layer explores the ways some of these beloved books have shaped his character, formed his faith, and impacted his life. A further layer of the work is a meta-narrative deconstructing the challenging process of writing a doctoral dissertation about “book mentors,” which eventually makes a case for the value of the subjective in scholarly writing. It is at once a memoir with multiple voices; an involuted, post-modernist “novel”; an elegy on grief and loss; a spiritual and intellectual autobiography; a tribute to mentors and friends, and to books as mentors and friends; and a meditatioin on the effects of writing about all of this.
Acknowledging, questioning, and ultimately affirming the potent influence of his evangelical heritage and Christian faith upon his life, R borrows the vocabulary of that tradition and attempts to find connections between his progress as a reader and his faith journey. He narrates his conversion, baptism, and “second conversion”-which in the Wesleyan tradition is frequently called the “filling of the Holy Spirit”-and tells the story of the important real-life persons who helped to mentor him in the Christian faith. Interwoven with this is the main narrative of the work: the story of the books that mentored him and influenced his growth as a reader and lover of literature. This “reading life” is marked and shaped by its own “conversion,” “baptism,” and “second conversion,” suggesting that this reading journey is mysteriously but inseparably connected to his faith journey.
These books, which include Frank Laubach’s journals on the mystical prayer life, the novels of Vladimir Nabokov, Shusaku Endo’s Silence, and C. S. Lewis’s Till We Have Faces, become his friends, his conversation partners, his mentors in the art of empathy. They teach him about loss, life, and love. In the end, his contribution to their conversation, the book he has written as an expression of gratitude to his mentors, becomes his most significant “book mentor” of all.
Did you catch all that? Layers. Multiple narrative voices. Post-modern self-reflexivity. Deconstructive gamesmanship. Grief. And it goes on and on for like 300 pages. I bet you can’t wait to buy a copy at the local bookstore.
Oh ya. You can’t. At least not until hundreds and thousands of you send letters to all your big publishing company friends saying, “You’ve got to publish this book now! I’m a reader, I’d buy it.”
Meanwhile, back to reality.
I’m not very good at this blogging business, but I’m going to try in the days ahead to give you my very (did I say very) subjective perspective on life here at Bethel College. Where I sit at present writing these words is where I sat for hours upon hours writing the 80,420 words that make up my dissertation.
Let’s just say I have a love/hate relationship with this little corner office, and this little keyboard, and this little chair I nearly wore out my rear-end on while writing that stupid thing.
But I’m glad I did it. It was hard. But I really like hard things. Like working like mad for four years as an undergraduate to try and win a national basketball championship. I don’t miss the glory of the championship. I miss the hard journey getting there.
I don’t miss the glory (I’m still waiting for the glory) of finishing the dissertation. I miss the hard work of writing it.
Maybe that’s why my brother writes so much on his blog day after day. He likes the hard work of filling the blank screen with something like coherent and often amusing thoughts. I admire him for that.
Anyhow, what you have just read is the sort of rambling mess I end up writing when I can’t think of anything to write. One thing I end up writing when I can’t think of anything to write. A blog. Another thing I end up writing when I can’t think of anything to write. A dissertation.
Let me just say that I was very surprised by the number of responses I received after the last post. I thought that the only person (and I was fine with this) who would be reading this blog would be my mom (thanks, mom! Haha!). The bar has been raised. Unfortunately, I still have nothing to offer that makes you want to sit on the edge of your seat. Now that the disclaimer is out of the way….
Yesterday (Sunday), I participated in something that I never thought I would do: a protest. It was a peaceful protest, so don’t worry. I am not chaining myself to trees. In fact, it was more like an hour of prayer for the unborn babies who are killed every day (approximately 50 million have been killed since Roe v. Wade in the 1970s), I just happened to be standing alongside the road holding a sign at the same time. A couple of my friends and I decided to go and see what it was about (the Life Chain that is) since none of us had ever done anything like that before. It gave me chills when we drove by the clinic and the professor we road with told us that on average, 12 babies are killed there every week! And as a side note, the women’s clinic looked VERY shady - as in, I wouldn’t want to go in there for any reason, let alone to have a “medical” procedure done.
While we were standing alongside the road in a human chain to try and draw attention to how many babies are killed and the effects that it has on the women who have these abortions, it was interesting to notice the different reactions of the people driving by. Some would smile and wave or give a thumbs up and honk their horns, or as my friend Brittany said, would give you the power fist in support. We also got the flip side, which entailed thumbs down and even some yelling (though we could never quite catch what exactly they were saying - this may have been a good thing….). There were also the in-between people who would drive by and make no eye contact whatsoever and appeared to just want to get through that section of the road as quickly as possible.
While we were outside observing these different reactions, we talked about how effective we actually thought this peaceful protest was (I wanted to burn something….but yeah….) and we couldn’t really draw any conclusions about it. On one hand, it is probably good in the sense that it keeps the topic “alive” in that, if nobody ever talks about abortion, then the courts and government can do anything and people won’t care because they don’t know. At the same time, I’m not thinking anybody’s opinion was drastically changed as they read our signs (I’d be surprised, actually, if a single person had a change of heart). The important, and probably most effective, aspect of the Life Chain is the fact that these supporters (and I) prayed during that hour standing alongside the road. I never knew this before, but people who are in a Life Chain are praying during the hour that God would change the heart of the nation and make us realize our errors. I thought that this was really cool because that morning at church, our pastor had been talking about how America has turned her back on God and how in 2 Chronicles 7:14, God says that: “If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.” This was fully applicable to what I participated in when protesting abortion.
So on that note…we need to pray for our country and its leaders!
In regards to my protesting career (if you can call it that) - do not worry, you will not see my face splashed across the news or hear about arrest warrants for me in different states. I can promise that much. It was a good experience because it was definitely a stretch for me outside my comfort zone (believe it or not, I’m not really one to draw attention to anything - however, we need to stand against the murder of babies! The Church isn’t doing a very good job at this as a whole…).
Ahhhhh! I just saw the time and realized I have class in 5 minutes - so I need to skidaddle (spelling anyone?). Have a great week!
So I realized I am the last person to blog, but I have been nervous about what to write and where to begin. I figure an introducton is well needed and so here goes… I have been a student at Bethel for 3 years now and this is my fourth. It has been pretty rough being away from home and I have made some great friends here and have had some experiences that I believe have enhanced my growth as an individual. I would like to share a little bit about my island as many people don’t know where it is. As a matter of fact when I came here, the question that I got asked the most was, “Saint Lucia? Where is that?”.
Saint Lucia is a tropical island that forms part of the Caribbean, Eastern Caribbean for that matter. No it is not part of Jamaica or the Bahamas. It is surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea and is nicknamed “Helen of the West Indies” because it switched between British and French control and was compared to Helen of Troy, (a little Greek mythology for you). Saint Lucia is South East of Miami, approximately 1484.78 miles (2389.46 km).
Here’s a few pictures of home, different aspects of it that I miss so much, like wildlife, food, weather, and just the fact that home is where the heart is. If you have any questions about home feel free to ask, I’d love to share. Have some homework to go complete so talk to you later, or like the younger generation says back home “we go cite”!
Are overcommitted people trying to find their purpose in life or what? Being an undecided freshie, I am putting myself out there in more ways than I ever expected! Bethel blogging. Intramurals. Bible Study. Take Ten (after school club) volunteer. Longboard Club (even though I don’t even know how to ride). And most recently, being elected as Freshman Vice President! Mix in school, homework, exercise, life’s relationships, and sleep and you have the perfect recipe of an absolutely insane busy person! I guess that’s the college life for ya. And I am soaking it in. But I think that I’ve been getting so involved lately because I am trying to find out where God wants me to be; what is His purpose for me?
My Shupe 2nd floor Bible Study with Michelle and Justine is rather fitting for such a pondering question; we’re currently reading the book “Purpose Driven Life.” God obviously put me in that study for a reason.
Even tonight, as I was babysitting, and becoming totally enraptured in the cable television I don’t have at school, I was watching Ty Pennington on Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. Giving a poverty-stricken single father family a beautiful new home and office, as well as a year supply of Tyson Chicken, brought tears to my eyes. Not only their expression of joy, their ACTIONS by falling to the ground and being so overwhelmed in the love of humanity made me wonder, how much more could they be completely stricken by the love of Jesus Christ?! Even just watching that show, I felt as though the Holy Spirit were telling me that maybe my purpose is to go and tell them about him? I know we are all called as Christians to go and tell of God’s unfathomable and unconditional love, but we’re all called to GO into many different situations: bringing the Word as a business major, or a music major, anything! Maybe I should consider wholeheartedly becoming a missionary, or at least going into ministry!
These are just some thoughts that have been laid on my heart and I thought I would share them. I guess in connecting all the activities I’ve immersed myself in and the greater call of what I am going to do the rest of my life, God is able to move throughout me to truly help me along in finding my purpose, whether that be a missionary or not!
Is it just me or does it seem like so many things happen in such a short amount of time its hard to keep track. I feel like that is the story of my life here. Life is so crazy that its hard to remember if something happened weeks ago or just a couple days ago. One thing I do know for sure that happened last week was me getting stupid Malaria!!!! Yes, it was bound to happen at some point I guess, but it doesn’t make it any more pleasurable!! Trying to explain would be pointless, because until you experience it there really is nothing like it! Well I guess you just imagine going out on a major highway, laying down in the middle and allowing all the semis to run you over! I hope I don’t have to deal with that again. Praise God the treatments worked, and my body is feeling soooo much better!
My class is coming around as far as self control!! Man I thought I would end up in the psych ward…but they are doing do much better!! It’s amazing how excited they are about everything, it makes it even that much more fun to teach. The other day when we were walking back from PE…I told them that I didn’t want to hear a peep out of any of them…so after we started walking, one of my students ran out of line and grabbed my hand and whispered…”Miss Roberts, what kind of peeps do you mean?” hahahahaha I lost it!!! This week we only had school on Thursday and Friday because of the Muslim holidays and Nigeria’s Independence Day, so that made for a nice looooong weekend:)
Ok one more funny story…in the evenings if I don’t play basketball or tennis I run this trail that goes around our campus. Well part of the trail goes around one side of the track. The other day I starting running but didn’t realize there was a soccer game going on. So, I went a different path that went on the other side of the track so I was not running while the game was going on. It’s a downhill section and at the bottom and it goes behind a set of bleachers and then there is this huuuuuge tree with these massive roots sticking out…well my foot didn’t quite make it over one of them and I totally went flying through the air, superman style with my hands out in front of me like I was soaring!! I go sliding across the dirt as if I was belly sliding into home base, and totally gashed my right knee! I got up and yelled…”ahhhhhhhh what in the world!!?!?!?!” and then kept running! hahahaha I bet the people watching the game were like what just happened?! It needed to be in video tape! Well until next time…LATER!
- I love this picture for 2 reasons…the spelling of “foto” and the goats of course!
- I wonder if this guy has ever seen the movie The Mighty Ducks!!
My roomate Kari! We took her on a little surprise birthday expedition…climbing, crawling and squeezing around some amazing rock formations!
- This was an amazing sunset that turned everything orange!!!
- Releasing our pet toad, that I spent 10 minutes trying to catch in the dark while it was raining with a stinking coffee mug and lid, hahaha…I’m glad they thought it was worth it!!!
- Making our F.R.O.G. shirts…Fully Rely On God!
- Every Friday we do 4 centers! I have great moms that come in and run a station!
Making turtle shells with Mod Podge...while our turtle shells cookies are baking in the oven!!!
- A trip to see real rabbits! Ok not a real trip just a walk behind my house, since my neighbor raises them!
So blogging has begun….
To give fair forewarning, I have never blogged before; nor did I ever envision myself blogging for any purpose. Life is ironic, however, and so here I sit…
What to say…what to say. Blogging is more difficult than you would think. Why would you want to read about someone else’s daily experiences. I could give you a run down from the time I get up to the time I go to bed, but that would put us both to sleep, trust me.
Today is Tuesday, meaning that I have no classes at all (which is brilliant), but do have meetings dispersed throughout the day (which is crummy, because I don’t have a block of time to sit down and accomplish anything). This morning, I did go to the local farmer’s market, which I am obsessed with (if they were publicly owned, I would buy stock in them to counterbalance how much I spend there. Especially with how the stocket market is doing…the price per share would be a steal!). Anyways, I digress. Honeycrisp apples are my new love, and so naturally, I had to go buy some more. I made it back to school in time to run to the DC (Dining Commons) and grab a sandwich and get to my Breast Cancer Research meeting. There’s another topic in and of itself…
This Breast Cancer Research project has been going on for the last 5 years, though I have been involved for only about a year now (since last semester - Spring 2008). We are studying the BRCA-1 gene, which is a tumor supressor and how it is expressed in different cRNA strands (different in that they have been treated with different drugs). I feel like a lot of the information and details are still over my head, but the more I read about it and discuss with the professor (Dr. Cary) and fellow peer researchers, the more I realize what an opportunity this is for Bethel and myself. How good God is!
Speaking of which, being a Biology major, it amazes me that people (especially scientists) can look around at creation and still not believe in a God or Creator. It totally blows my mind. This is just a personal rant.
I just looked at the time and realize that homework is calling my name. I suppose this first entry must end (*note the sigh of relief - haha). Hope it wasn’t a bore…we’ll have to grow together as I learn what exactly is “good” blogging material.
On that note, adios!
