Seems there was a huge typhoon over here and people died. that sort of thing makes me think i should at least get japanese antenna based peasant-vision, as i didn't even know about it till a friend from americatown emailed me about it. how did he find out? all i knew of this typhoon is that in the 3 minutes it took me to bike to the grocery store i got soaked to the skin- through a jacket, t-shirt,thermal and my jeans/pj pants. i'm still suffering the consequences, though. the my bike seat has a tear in it, and i'm pretty sure it absorbed all 18 gallons of water that fell on it. the rain stopped 2 days ago, and still when i ride my bicycle i end up with a wet spot on my butt.

But enough about my butt, lets talk about the rest of me. last thursday (the 23rd one, not the 30th one) i was suffering the consequences of a poorly run leaders meeting. we shall call such meetings "incandescence", for lack of a current, cooler name, actually spellable by the general public. so, on that thursday, i came home late, slept in late, and generally felt depressed and discouraged and whatnot. this thursday i had more stuff planned, and ran a slighly tighter ship, but i felt the same way at the end of it, only this time i recognized it as a recurring theme from thursday nights, so i didn't take it too seriously. so, i realized, something must change about thursday nights. we have fun hanging out and chatting and stuff, but i had/have expectations about how the time will be used which, i realized on my way home last night, i've never shared with them. and they leave me feeling depressed and unaccomplished because we spend two hours talking about life, school, and friends, and only the last 20 minutes talking from the Bible, but they don't know that i expect that hour one should be social, hour two planning, and hour three spiritual. so of course i'm gonna feel like i've failed if they don't meet my unspoken expectations! cuz they don't know what they are, until they become my spoken expectations. then my wrath and judgement will fall on them from on high if they are distracting.

This sunday marks the fourth JAM since i started here. it feels like i've been doing this forever, or at least more than a month. well, JAM anyways. as you can tell from my last paragraph, there are still some things to be ironed out in other places. the first and second JAMs just exhausted me. that's what happens to me after i'm stressed for a long time. and by a long time i mean 5 minutes. after those first 2 JAMs, i came home at like 8:30pm and crashed on the couch. i was seriously useless for the rest of the night. now that we're figuring out a little about how it works and what not to do and stuff, it's a lot less stressfull. that and i have everyone come a full hour early to help set up, just in case we have any panic! moments, like the overhead is gone, or it's raining so we can't play our outside game. now i just need to get the HS youth group off the ground.

Haha, not soon, though. one of the pastors is in americaville right now getting medical checkups for 2 weeks, so i'm leading worship in church for the next 2 sundays, as well as doing everything else he does, like get there at 7 (shudder). the other 2 pastors are leaving the week before he gets back, so after i lead worship for 2 weeks i'm preaching the sermon. i think the funniest part is that for about 3 days, i will be all the pastor that my church has. if i wanted to call an emergency counsel meeing, i could do that. or if i wanted to cancel church, i could do that. or if i wanted to announce a tent revival meeting for next sunday, i could do that. or if i wanted to ask the congregation to show their church spirit by celebrating "crazy sock-puppet sunday", i could do that. how funny is it that i graduated from college like 5 months ago, not really having any idea what i wanted to do with my life, not knowing what i wanted to do when i grow up, and now i'm in charge of leading worship, preaching, middle and high school sunday schools, middle and high school youth groups, and for all of three days, i will be the most senior member of the pastoral staff around to run church.

Actually, when i put it that way, i don't think i want most of those things. all i really want is time with the kids. which all these extra responsibilities is taking me away from. hmmm...

I'll be on "stress camp" from monday to thursday of this next week, which i think will make up for time i've lost with the kids. every junior class of CAJ spends 4 days hiking around in the wild outback of japan in groups of about 6 or 7. i'm an assistant leader! we pack everything we'll need for all four days in our packs. it's a great time for experientially learning lots of crappy things about yourself, as well as crappy things about other people. but, somehow, in the end, it's one of the most bonding experiences. i'm looking forward to the chance to get to know the kids in my group better. when i went on stress camp my junior year, i was much more excited than i should have been. it started raining the second morning, and didn't stop for like 2 weeks. the leaders in my group were great people, but neither of them had led the thing before. so, instead of walking on trails, getting eachother lost when we took our turns running the map and compass, we walked on roads the whole time with our adult leaders in front, fearlessly leading the way, and shamelessly stealing a potentially amazing learning experience. IT SHALL NOT BE SO AGAIN!! i just found out that i'm going with someone named....tyler collins. i have no idea who he is, or what his theories on stress camp are, but i hope he knows what he's doing.

You who check up on this blog faithfully are invited to pray for me and the other leader and the group of kids that we'll be with. this is a very intense time for some of them, and therefore a time when they will have great potential to grow and mature. so, you can pray for them, and also for me, that i would know what and how to say what they need to hear to push and challenge them mentally, and physically too. and for meaningful relationships to be formed between the kids as well as with me. give me about a week and i'll let you all know how it went!