Oh wait, before you read about my experiences, here is a list (always under construction) of what I have learned at college so far (hint--some of these are inside jokes so you might not GET them):
1. It is only by God's grace we aren't all sniffing catnip.
2. How to say "we kill" in Greek.
3. The horrible uneffectiveness of sticky tack when trying to hang up bulletin/white boards
4. You can make roses out of napkins. (Yay Sam!!)
5. Dutch Blitz is actually very well known! (in the right circles)
6. Keep it on the DL! The L stands for DAVE.
7. Playing Dutch Blitz and Fast UNO till 3 AM does something looney to peoples' minds.
8. Putting poisonous plant juice in your eyes makes you more beautiful.
9. Studying integrative studies will get you a date.
10. You can make beautiful shirt decorations with band-aids. (that one's for you Em ;o) )
11. Woolen socks are quite useful for making dreads.
12. Rain causes you to get wet.
13. If you're a girl, stealing a guy's chair means you like him. If you're a guy, stealing anyone's chair just demonstrates the oblivion of the male race.
14. Canoes need at least three people to "stay balanced".
15. Fact of the day: Boys are oblivious.
16. Some people like to pick fights with ... bushes and trees.
17. Singing is a sport.
18. How to use an automatic hand dryer:1. Place hands under dryer.
2. Rub hands together.
3. Dryer will automatically shut off.
4. Wipe hands on pants.
19. How to play "NEVER QUICK".
20. Lean on the tree and you won't fall over.
21. There is an exception to every rule. (including this one)
22. Take the log out of your eye and burn it in your heart.
23. Me, Emily, and Val are AWESOME artists -- or so we thought of these particular works...
24. If you listen to a boy for long enough, he might have something intelligent to say!
25. It's more important to be a fisher of men than a fisher of fish.
26. Sometimes fish jump into your lap.
27. How to play the salt and pepper shaker game... and make a mess for whoever's wiping up tables.
28. Salt is very poetic.
29. Carriages have four wheels. Carts have two.And a few quotes:
1. "God is like a construction worker at a red light." -- Valerie
2. "We all like him! Yeah... that's it!" -- Valerie
3. "Shut up, Pete!" -- Pete ==> see pic to right ==>
4. "Let's go get some fish at Big Al's!" -- Valerie
5. "No, you aren't allowed! I like you too much. It has to be someone I don't like!" -- Me
6. "But we're already saved..." -- Valerie
7. "Every leader is a follower of somebody." -- Me (hey, I thought it was profound...)
8. "Pretty soon everybody will be spelling things with letters." -- Sam
9. "Hey, you're twins!" -- Me
10. "Never take off your belt." -- Sam
11. "That's cutsy!" -- Emily
12. "I'm chapped!" -- Emily
13. "That's it! It's over!" -- DanDave
14. "If everyone would just shift one to the left it would be great!" -- Sam
15. "Is that a C++ horse?" -- Prof Bakker
16. "I'm gonna slap your patties!" -- Emily
17. "Sorry about your luck!" -- Emily and other Middleburg people
18. "G'morning sunshine!" -- Emily
19. "Oootay!" -- Emily (see look Em! Your quotes got on here!)
20. "It would be a perfect bridge to make out on!" -- Anonymous
21. "I sang in unison with Eunice in choir!" -- Val (for the less informed, there is no Eunice in choir... go ahead, try! you can figure it out!)
22. "No matter where you go... there you are!" -- Sarah
23. "I've been up ALL day!" -- Katie (Naomi's roommate Katie)
24. "This is SO cool! The paper clips don't fall out!...." -- me
25. "I smell like a horse, I may as well be one!" -- me
26. "Bring it, Golden Nipple!" -- maybe we'll leave this one anonymous
27. "Hey, oh, I receive your snow!" -- Me, Em, and Val at the first snow
28. "Oh my goodness, oh my goodness!" -- everybody I think
Emily thinks she is Annie...
Ok, now I can get on with my life:
1. First off I think I'll just mention the one thing I remember about Welcome Weekend back in May of Senior year in high school. The friday I was up at Houghton visiting, there was a worship service called Hungry? that I and two other new-found friends of mine went to. God showed up! After the service, I "stole" the leader guy's guitar to play and we three girls got singing Days of Elijah. Turns out we ended up singing it as we skipped all the way back to the dorm rooms where we were staying -- at about 1 in the morning ;o)
2. So anyhow, now one of those girls, Emily, is turning out to be one of my best friends here at Houghton. Let's just say it's scary how much we're alike. On Sunday morning, Emily and I prayed about which church we should attend while at college and a way to get there. We both are seeking a place where we can worship GOD freely without people staring at us or standing out. Sunday afternoon, Emily met a girl with the same search for the same kind of church! AND SHE HAS A CAR! Thank YOU, LORD!
3. On Wednesday I have Biblical Literature from 900-950, so I went up to class at about 855 this past wed. Well, I was so eager to learn, I opened up the door to my classroom to go in and find a seat. I suddenly realized the professor must have started early, as everyone was already seated, listening to the lecture, and there were only two seats free in the corners of the room. Then suddenly the professor said "Um... could you wait a minute?" Oh no!!! I had walked in on the previous class, who was running over time!!! Quickly I apologized and shot out of the room. But it's ok, Emily happens to be in that class and she came out and told me it was ok and that I added some humor to the class. ;o) Well, hopefully I will not act so obviously FRESHMAN in the future!
4. YAY THUNDER!!!! It started to get clouded up the other day so my roomie Tia and I ran to bring her bike down to the bike shed before the rain started. Just as we got inside and climbed 4 flights of steps back to our dorm room, the rain started pouring down. Suddenly, we heard a whole bunch of girls laughing outside and looked to see them running around in the rain! It looked like so much fun... I had just walked back into my room and avoided the rain... but I HAD to go join them! So, off with the shoes -- I ran back down the 4 flights of steps and outside into the rain. (so what? I needed a shower anyway!) So we ran around and played tag as the thunder rolled. Needless to say, I came inside and did laundry. So that's my little story. But hey -- the coolest poetic thing I ever heard about thunder: "...as the footsteps of Christ approach the gates of heaven to return" -- Saviour Machine (at least I think of thunder)
5. The first of our church hopping experiences today... Haskell Community Church. Let's see, there were about... 30 other people there? And about 8 of us Houghton freshman people -- Pete, Justin, Sam, Brian, Sarah, Valerie, Emily and I. Yeah, the people at the church were so excited to have visitors. Like that cute? old lady who hit Emily's butt and told her "Hey, if you aren't doing anything next Sunday..." heh. I have to share the back of the church bulletin:
So anyway... after church, we went to McDonald's for lunch (after a quick detour through an expensive restaurant who is probably still wondering where we went and holding a table for us). Since there were carnations at every table... well, we decided Pete's straw and the carnation needed to be switched. Heh, I wish I had a picture lol. I mean of all the other people in McD's who were looking at us strangely. Anyway, I must go. New updates soon.
6. Our RA has a poster on her door of 5 guys in shorts (have no fear) pushing a car...
7. Well, aside from the good, clean, silly kind of fun, I have to mention that worship times at Houghton have been awesome. There is a prayer and worship service Friday nights called Hungry which basically can run til any hour in the morning. "God shows up," as Emily says. ;o) Aside from that, Emily and Valerie both play the piano, Sam plays the tambourine and the drums, and Sarah and I both play guitar. So... lets see, the five of us plus Pete and Em's roommate, Keri, have been having worship "jam sessions" a lot recently. It's awesome and I love how everyone bonds so quickly when we are all seeking after God. GOD RULES!
1. Don't make a person blush and then point out that they're blushing.
8. We went on the freshman retreat this weekend. It was... interesting, but also a lot of fun. We somehow went even farther into the middle of nowhere away from Houghton -- which I didn't know was possible. Anyway, there were 18 of us girls in one cabin (it was actually more like a house). I didn't sleep too well the first night due to various sounds of creaking metal bunk beds, two of the (anonymous) girls having a conversation in their sleep, another (anonymous) girl singing in her sleep, and other noises outside which I can't place. But that's ok -- there was a thunderstorm in the morning, and it was really neat to listen to and watch the lightening. Well, I missed the canoeing adventure of some of my buddies, including a search and rescue mission for a certain friend of mine. Yeah, Joe. Anyway. Saturday night we had a campfire and I had a neat revelation. See, I struggle with overdependence on my friends rather than on God. But I was thinking and some sayings came into my mind: "New friends are like silver, old friends are like gold" and "diamonds are forever". Everyone had been singing praise songs acapella around the fire. Then someone started the song: 9. For all my horse friends out there, here's my first horse story for you. Turns out the horse I was assigned to knows more than me. I would ask her to do something simple like move over to the rail... and she'd start doing some fancy dressage move! AAH!! Fortunately, I realized the problem, and I'm getting a different horse next week (one that doesn't know quite so much).
11. Sunday nights there is a worship service called Koinonia at the Houghton Wesleyan Church. (Koinonia is a Greek word for "fellowship"). The last song we sang this Sunday was "Trading My Sorrows". As I was singing about trading my sorrows, shame, sickness, pain, etc for the joy of the Lord, I threw down each burden on the floor and stomped on it as a symbol of the victorious joy of Jesus over human problems. After service, Emily started explaining how she was doing the exact same thing! And then Val exclaimed how SHE too was throwing down her burdens! I love the unity of the Spirit of God, don't you?? ;o)
In response to the 40-day fast in America, I thought I would post this outline on praying for the unsaved... Pray that God would:
12. We are the Houghton Highlanders, so the Shen men wear kilts to the soccer games a lot... Last time one recited lines from Braveheart heh it was really funny because he did it so well! Anyway, here's a look at our boys (well, not mine! j/k):
13. Well, last weekend I went to Valerie's house. She has CATS!!!!! It made me realize how much I miss Kitty =( Oh well... We went to the Carousel Mall in Syracuse <--(she lives in Syracuse) and guess who came to shake our hands!? Rick Lazio. He's running for NY Senator against Hillary Clinton. So that was exciting. Maybe I was on the news, I don't even know.
14. I went to the Royal Winter Fair in Toronto, Canada with equestrian people on Saturday!! Wow that was exciting... horses jumping five foot fences and such... and lamb pie which was awesome (Sam claims he was dreaming about it on the way home..or it was good enough to have dreams about anyway)! And that apple dumpling... mmmmmmmmm! Well, I kept myself from buying anything aside from food, despite all the horse stuff for sale there. It was really neat -- we saw three horse driving teams (called a unicorn class because there was one leader horse and two tail horses). They were really pretty, there were some Fresians there among Belgians and others. And then there was the dogs herding ducks... yeah. And the USET won!!! In honor they played our national anthem... the first and last lines. It was pretty pathetic, but anyway, we won. And it convinced Sam to take horsemanship next year ;o)
I hope she's better at reading STREET signs!!!
One of my more studious moments...If you took the same excuses that people use for not going to church and apply them to other important areas of life you'd realize how inconsistent we can be in our logic. For example: Reasons not to wash...
1) I was forced to as a child.
2) People who make soap are only after your money. (what like Amway or something??? -- I added that)
3) I wash on special occasions like Christmas and Easter.
4) People who wash are hypocrites -- they think they are cleaner than everyone else.
5) There are so many different kinds of soap, I can't decide which one is best.
6) I used to wash, but it got boring so I stopped.
7) None of my friends wash.
8) The bathroom is never warm enough in the winter or cool enough in the summer.
9) I'll start washing when I get older and dirtier.
10) I can't spare the time.
by Emily Louise Kinney
2. DON'T PRESS ENTER!!!!
3. Get to the BACK of the line!
Lord, you are more costly than gold,
Lord, you are more beautiful than diamonds,
and there's nothing I desire than more of You."
Jesus is more desireable than anyone or anything. He has no personal space, no boundaries which once passed will make Him push you away. Jesus will always draw you closer to Himself, for His love is perfect and unconditional. And so in a quiet awe I walked through the dark back to the cabin, wondering if I should share God's awesomeness with my friends or not. Finally, I did -- kuz I love you all so much. My prayer this year is that I will be a vessel of God's love to everyone I meet. And that I will love God back with the love He instills in me.
10. Guess what! I went to a GROCERY STORE the other day!!! No, no... I don't think you understand the significance of this. Unless, of course, you go to Houghton... I hadn't been in an actual store (aside from the college store) for about a month. It was exciting! Yeah, that's what I thought -- you aren't as excited as I am about me getting raspberry jam for my grits and (are you ready for this?) CHEESE!!! ok, ok, I'm going now.
lift the veil over them (revelation/enlightenment)
hover over them and protect them
put godly people in their path each day
cast down anything that would exalt itself against the knowledge of God (pride/rebellion)
destroy all known strongholds: patterns, opinions on religion, materialism, fear
bind Satan from taking them captive; bind all wicked thoughts and lies Satan would try to place in their mind
place the armor of God on them
All in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen (let it be so)
Me and Emily ;o)