Jars of Clay
with Leigh Nash and Matt Wertz

Lisner Auditorium, Washington, DC
Mon, Nov 13, 2006 07:30 PM
$25.00

I want to go!!

Jared posted, but you'll find it boring.

The Kim Building is my favorite building.

I am there now!

Trip to Chinatown (I stole these from the RUF website):
A man making noodles (they were good noodles)

Ducks hanging in the window (Julia had duck soup)Julia and I (Hayley, she does Crew, you may have raced against her. She's awesome! She is also a wedding photographer and she is a business major. Yeah, she is a busy person).

Peter (leads worship at RUF) and Chris (leads RUF - dated Debbie McCormic - went to Geneva College). I love these pictures.
This is Julia. She is crazy! I love her. She is so much fun to be around.
We threw a surprise party for our small group leader this monday.
It was so much fun.
We all got there early and decorated and stuff.
Then we had to sneak back downstairs and pertend like we were meeting up for Small Group.
It was great!
I'd write more about it.
But I have homework to finish and labs to write.
Maybe later.

one

What a blessing.

Philippians 1:3-7, 9-11

"I thank my God every time I remember you. In all my prayers for you, I always pray with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus. It is right for me to feel this way about all of you, since I have you in my heart;

And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless until the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ—to the glory and praise of God."

Dear God and Father,

We thank you for your infinite goodness and love to us.

You continually keep us in your word, in faith, and in prayer.

Yet we still fail to walk before you in humility and trust.

We are often proud of our own wisdom, righteousness, skill and strength

and we frget to rely on your power alone.

But you are strong when we are weak

and through our weakness you win daily and gain the victory.

Write into our hearts, by your Holy Spirit,

whatever is abundantly found in your Scripture.

Let us constantly keep it in mind,

and permit it to become far more precious than our own life

and all else that we cherish on earth.

Help us to live and act accordingly.

To you be praise and thanks in eternity.

Amen.

-Martin Luther

Oh, and I walked into church today. I decided to try this PCA church about twenty minutes away from where I live. So I walk in and I am sitting down and in walks Christy Anderson and then I see Rob and Tori and their two kids and the Anderson Parents and the Grandparents. And I was shocked. It was really funny. So I got to see people that I knew. Other then that, it is rather blah around here. I have a really big exam tomorrow and I am sort of letting that make my life miserable. I also have a ton of homework to do. So blogging is at the bottom of my list. If you have written to me. Thank you. I am working on writing back. I really have trying to find time for writing letters, but homework is really crazy right now. Hopefully it will calm down a little bit in the near future.

Love you all.

Miss you all.

As promised - Jared singing the National Anthem.

I think the one of him singing the Lord's Prayer is a lot better.

But I don't have that one uploaded right now.

So enjoy this video.

Hopefully it works.

Here is what I did Saturday.

I went to MARS with Luke, Joseph, Mom, Dad, and Jared.
While Hannah watched my little sister and took her to her soccer game.

Redoing Labs and Physics Homework.

Tomorrow marks the start of another week of school.

I received my first yellow card last night.

I was sort of annoyed.
I have always wanted a yellow card, but never received one.
But last night I did nothing to deserve it.
I have played in many games where I did deserve a yellow card.
But not last night.
I was just running and the guy next to me fell.
GRRRR!
His team thought it was pretty funny that he not only got taken down by a girl, but that he missed a one on one with the goalie. Haha.
I wish I had taken him down, to would have been more fun. :)

Again, this is stolen from Anna. :)
Thanks, little sister.

It rained all day.

I have classes in three different places.

I had to run through the rain.

I was late for two classes.

Because I was late to one of my classes, I think I missed a question on a quiz that should have been a cinch. But we get to drop a quiz, I just wish I hadn't used up my drop on the first one. Grrrr.

But I get to play soccer in the rain tonight!!

And...the grace of our God is ever new.

I am determined to still enjoy school, even if I was a little wet today.

Luke 1:37,38 (NIV)
"For nothing is impossible with God.
'I am the Lord's servant,' Mary answered. 'May it be to me as you have said.' Then the angel left her. "

(NLT)
"For nothing is impossible with God.
Mary responded, 'I am the Lord's servant, and I am willing to accept whatever he wants. May everything you have said come true.' And then the angel left."

We studied this passage last night at RUF and I was really tired and I didn't take notes so I can't really tell you what the lesson was about, but I reread the passage this morning and I was thinking about it and it stuck me and not only does Mary say, "I am willing to accept whatever he wants", but she also says, "May everything you have said come true." I find that it is so easy to say, "God, I accept your will", but it not so easy to say, "I sure hope that comes true, I really want to be tested right now!" Does that make sense? Hmmm, now that I am trying to explain it, it doesn't seem to make as much sense. I was just encouraged this morning to not just say, "God's will be done in the good times, but in the hard times as well because when I am weak he is strong!"

Coming tomorrow or the next day or later in the week...

The link to the video of Jared singing

the National Anthem on 8/25/06.

Woohoo.

This post is dedicated to the awesomeness of the spinning front of the room!

Let me explain.

I sit down in my seat in physics in a good size auditorium and the last class has just ended, my class is about to begin. The front of the room starts spinning (it is like a secret wall in a fireplace or something in a mystery) and it spins halfway around to show the same set-up on the other side, except the professor has been behind the wall during the last class setting up experiments and writing on the board on his side of the wall. So they just spin the other guy out and this guy in and there is your classroom. I think it is way cool.
I snapped these with my camera phone yesterday...


Cool, yes?
And the guy that is in front of me with the ponytail, he's weird. Just thought I would add that in. But aren't all of us that are in Physics. Glad I'm an engineer. :)

And the guy writing on the board, that is my physics professor. He has hair longer than mine. I am going to try to get a photo of my stats professor one of these days. Not Thursday because I have an exam.

Have I said recently that I love it up here?!?

I already have three invitations to meals this week with different people.
What fun.

I miss all my friends and family back home, but I am enjoying my time up here too!

RUF Girls Bible Study tonight.
Dinner first.

P.S. Jared is singing at the Shorebirds tonight.

He says it will be the best ever. :)

Some pictures from life.

The Howard's front door. The front doormat.

The sign on my bedroom door.

Thanks to Anna for the photos.

Friday
I met up with three other people to go down to Chinatown. The one girl, Julia is great. She is a business major, who has a job as a photographer, and she does crew. So we talked the entire trip about things we like and places we had been. She has even been to PEI. How cool is that?!?
I love riding the metro, so it was a totally awesome trip and we got down there and the International Spy Museum is right accross the street from Chinatown. I was thinking, "Man, I really want to go there, but being in DC is really sweet too, so I won't complain. " So we had dinner and it was totally refreshing to be able to sit around a table in public and discuss the things of God. It is so dry around campus. There is no one to talk to or listen to about spiritual things, especially in engineering. So that was awesome. The food was pretty good. I ordered General Taes Pork, but I ended up with Shredded Pork (which is not spicy at all, I wanted spicy! So I dumped all sorts of hot pepers into the dish and then it good to eat). I ate so much just because we were sitting there talking and I kept eating.
Then we walked around the city at night. Okay, I have to say that DC is gorgeous at night! BEAUTIFUL!! Everything is lit up so nicely and the stone buildings all just sort of glow. It is nice. Wow, I could wander around there for months and not get bored. We walked past the Spy Museum and one of the guys was saying how neat it was and I was still thinking, "Man, I have to go there some day!!!" We also walked down to see the Capitol and some amazing Art Museums garden. Great stuff. But we had to leave around 10:00 so that we didn't get back too late. When we got back, I dropped Julia off (well first we found out that you aren't allowed out of the parking garage without a smartpass (this little card that you have to buy inside the station). So we had to park the car again and run back into the station and buy this card, so that we could escape the parking garage. It was all rather amusing and we had a good laugh about it).

Saturday
Jared came up to visit. We ate breakfast with the Howards and then Mrs. Howard dropped us off at the Metro Station. I had told Jared not to tell me what he had planned, so that it would be a surpirse. So we started talking while we were on the Metro and I wasn't really paying attention, I didn't want to get my hopes up, so I had decided to be happy whereever we went, plus we were at least going to DC, which is totally awesome in itself. Anyhow, so we get to the Chinatown exit and Jared says, "We are getting off here." Now, I know that there is only one Museum that is even worth getting off at the Chinatown exit for. But I tell myself, no we aren't going there. And we crossed the street and walked right up to the International Spy Museum. WOW WOW WOW. I was so excited I couldn't hide how happy I was. My face broke into this huge smile and I couldn't stop smiling. It was so much fun. There were so many neat things in the Spy Museum.
*You get to crawl through a big air conditioning duct in one park
*You take on a code name
*There is a Prisoner and Secret Agent display and they sell the DVDs in the bookstore
*There is a phonebook to stand in and listen to messages (Sarah this is what I really wanted to tell you and I forgot. You would have so much fun standing in there and pertending that you were Clark Gable or something. That is all I could think about when I climbed in. It is really awesome).
*One room is a simulation of an atomic bomb. They countdown and then the room shakes and lights up like a bomb has just gone off.
and so much more...

Then we went to lunch at the Old Ebbitt Grill. If you are ever in DC and want to have lunch, find this place. It is amazing. The hostess thought it was adorable when Jared pulled out my chair for me. The food is delicious! The place is beautiful. Wow. Thank you, Jared. Jared decided to start out year anniversary celebration two weeks early. Haha. Next Saturday we are going with My parents and Luke to MARS. That should be neat. :)

I want a phone booth. :)

International Spy Museum
Prisoner Display



enjoy...
I wish I had gotten one in the phonebooth.
But I didn't think of my camera oh my phone until nearly the end.

Tonight I am going down to Chinatown.

There I'm going to kick the gong around.

Highdy highdy highdy HO

lowdy lowdy lowdy LO

ohhhhhhhh

Thank you, Blues Brothers and Luke.

Actually, I am going to go with RUF.
I think it should be fun.
I love DC and any excuse to go ride the metro is cool with me.
And I've finished almost all my homework for this week.

O Love That Wilt Not Let Me Go

1. O Love that wilt not let me go,
I rest my weary soul in thee;
I give thee back the life I owe,
that in thine ocean depths
its flow may richer, fuller be.

2. O Light that followest all my way,
I yield my flickering torch to thee;
my heart restores its borrowed ray,
that in they sunshine's blaze
its day may brighter, fairer be.

3. O Joy that seekest me through pain,
I cannot close my heart to thee;
I trace the rainbow thru the rain,
and feel the promise is not vain,
that morn shall tearless be.

4. O Cross that liftest up my head,
I dare not ask to fly from thee;
I lay in dust life's glory dead,
and from the ground there blossoms red

life that shall endless be.

Mrs. Taylor, here is that song that I love, that we sang in Mississippi.

I didn't realize this (until I was about half a mile down the beltway and I came to a complete stop), but they shut down the beltway this morning because some stupid idiot stole a car and had a standoff with the police right in front of the exit that I get off to go to College Park. SOOOO, my drive today was 1 hour and 10 minutes. I hope that is the record for this year and I don't beat it or come close to beating it this year.

I forgot to tell you all the most exciting news about last night, I joined an intramural soccer team. They play at 11pm on Thursday evenings. How awesome is that!! I am so excited about that. What fun. I don't have classes until 1 on Friday, so the time is good. :) I'll have to do some night beltway driving, but I need to get better at it!

Okay, to the most boring Physics Lab ever, I go.

It is all about Microsoft excel.

Like I need to learn that.

If I don't know it by now, I don't know what would make me learn it.

I only worked with it for two straight years!

Wait, why am I complaining about an easy lab?

Haha.

It's a small world after all...

The leader of RUF went to Geneva College and got his degree in Engineering.

He wears Crocs.

He once dated Debbie Wilcox.

How weird is that!

I really need that Christian Fellowship tonight.

It was a great encouragement.

We sang that awesome old song that we sang in Mississippi.

I'll try to get the words up here tomorrow.

Guess what?

My battery is dead again!

What in the world?

Go ahead and laugh.

I am.

A few observations before I head off to class.

*Never drive from 7:30-9 on the beltway. I don't know how I am planning on avoiding this, but I am determined to find a way. A half hour commute, when it should be fifteen minutes, is silly.
*Life is good. By that I mean Life cereal and life in general. Haha.

So that was only two, but that is all I have for you today. I ate half a cantalope last night. I am going to RUF tonight. I bet that will give me a good story for you all tomorrow. :)

Just sitting at the Comcast Center checking my email and doing schoolwork.

First, thanks and praise be to God for keeping me safe on my trip back to College Park this morning. It was crazy raining the whole trip and now it isn't raining barely at all. It is great. Wha a blessing. I still need to find a good umbrella. Actually, I found one, but I didn't buy it and now I am regretting it. So I asked dear Jared if he would go buy it for me and bring it up to me when he comes to visit. I am not a member of Sam's club or I might consider going and getting it myself.

Second, let me thank the Taylors for inviting us all down to the Labor Day picnic! Woohoo Taylors and good food. I had such a great time at your house. I always do. This time was just as fun. Thank you for letting me spend the night and hang around all day. What fun. Have fun in England Hayley, I can't believe I won't see you until Christmas. How weird. Love you! Stay safe! I'll be praying for you. Update your blog or write to me!!!

And, thanks to my family for all their help this week. I love you all too. See you at MARS!

Last, THANK YOU to Jared for going boating with me yesterday. I know you don't enjoy boating like me. Thank you for giving up your time to make me happy.

My weekend has been really fun so far. I haven't done very much schoolwork and for that reason I probably won't come home that often. I don't like the driving either, but then again, Anna speaks at church next Sunday evening, so... I might have to come back home for that. We will see.

Yesterday Anna came over and had lunch with my family and then we went to Greg's SU soccer game (but he didn't play and the game was tied 1-1). While overtime was going on, I took Anna to the Brown's house for dinner and then I went back to the game to watch the last minute and then I stayed for the tailgate party. Woohoo, picnic food. We sat around and got eaten up by the bugs and talked. Hayley invited me down to the Taylors to spend the night so we went and got my stuff and then headed down to their houes. We watched parts of movies and went to bed around 11 becaues we are getting old. :) Now I am just hanging around waiting for the Labor Day picnic to start. YAY, for holidays and no school and no study sessions at 8 o'clock in the morning on monday mornings.

Luke, Hope, are playing games (TWIX and Monopoly Jr.)

on this nice rainy day.