***************Newsflash!***************

Seismic activity threatens to interrupt driving!

Yes, there was an earthquake here this afternoon, and everything is fine. i watched the news a little tonight just to see how the rest of japan is, and it is fine as well. somewhere in excess of 18 people experienced bodily harm in some fashion, but the other 29,999,982 people who live in tokyo were, it seems, unharmed. i did, however, have a slight experience of panic, which was relieved as soon as i realized that it was only an earthquake. allow me to expound.

I had just gotten in my car in search of the true meaning and purpose of life (and by meaning and purpose of life i mean whole wheat flour), and had proceeded on my way for all of maybe 30 seconds when my car begins to shake. now, my car is not now, nor was it probably ever, a world-class means of locomotion. it is, by nearest estimates, about 15 years old, which is a lot for this country, and has developed some eccentricities that come with age. typically when i stop at a light, i'll shift it from drive to neutral, as it has a tendency to jitter if i leave it in gear. so, i'm stopped, and it jitters, and i shift it to neutral, and...everything gets worse. the jittering has escalated quickly to a shaking, engine-blowing-apart type motion. i was on a fairly busy road (pipeline, for you fraction that knows it) at a fairly busy time, and the thought of causing a major traffic catastrophe was not appealing to me. i shifted to park. no change. i looked nervously ahead at the light. no change. i reach to turn my car off, but don't, thinking that maybe it won't start again. the light turns green, i proceed in the gentlest haste to the nearest side street, where i stop and wait for my car to repeat whatever it was doing. which of course, it doesn't. in the end, i got a clue from the power lines, which were swinging haphazardly, that there had been an earthquake, and was relieved that my car had not been in the throes of death. apparently it was the biggest quake here in 20 years, or something.

So that's that. tomorrow is church day, and for the first time in like 3 months i'm not on the worship team, which is a pleasant change. sometimes it's nice to be able to be led in worship. immediately after church i'm going out to my car, loading up my frame pack, and going hiking for 5 days. i've been working on this trip for a while, and the prep has gotten tiresome, so i'm excited to finally get out on the trail. there will be 2 high school guys coming with, and hopefully we'll get through the week with a minimum of whining or injuries. i've never led anything like this before- the planning and logistics were far more difficult (and expensive!) than i expected them to be. i think that's the new challenge for me as a youth pastor- planning. the hike that i've got planned won't really be that hard at all- we've got about 14 hours a day to hike 11 kilometers a day. on my own i can do about double that. the event itself should be fine. it's the planning that kills me. i have spent literally all day getting ready for this, and that's after i've been working on and off all week to get ready for this. but, the payoff is that by this time tomorrow, i'll be sleeping in the woods after a long day of hiking and hanging out. so that'll be cool. as long as those pesky typhoons leave us alone....

In closing, allow me to say that it's very difficult to type earthquake instead of earthquack, which is how i originally typed the word earthquake every single time, including 4 words ago. earthquackearthquackearthquack.

Ok, I've been putting this off for a while- so much has happened that's really cool that I feel bad just giving the skimpiest details, but if I don't get this down, I'll just keep putting it off 'till there would be so much that all I could write is "some stuff happened". So, instead of allowing it to get to that point....

Going back in time to before my last post, my birthday was AWESOME! It really was. I got like 18 birthday cards, and so much chocolate, and a cake and a pizza party and a shirt and these little goop-fish that you stick to windows, and, also an old-skool (that's right- with a "k") family com a.k.a. "The original Nintendo", only the Japanese one that I get games for at about $2 a pop and play forever- games like Mario 3. I also got...other stuff. I also got publicly humiliated by having my birthday lauded every time I stepped on campus for any reason. It made me realize that, even though birthdays aren't that big of a deal to me anymore, they are to the kids, and them having them should be a big deal. All in all, I felt very loved. Oh, and I also got taken to TGI Friday's twice- to get to one of those you have to go way downtown, and it's somewhat expensive. So it was special.

Then there was camp. I was a little disappointed at myself and the level to which I procrastinated. I mean, this is a little more important than just getting a grade- I have the potential to point these kids in the right direction for the rest of their lives! And the week before I left I had almost no idea what I was going to speak on, then the week of I had a vague idea, then the freakin' NIGHT BEFORE I stayed up till like 2 in the morning pacing around and writing an average of one talk every 2 hours. I actually worked for like 8 hours straight, and it only felt like...well, not that many. It was actually really funny- one of my friends kept mailing my phone, and I was getting really frustrated at her, cuz I thought she was mailing me like every 10 minutes, and I was trying to focus and work really hard. Later, I looked through my phone's logs, and realized that she was writing me like every hour, it was just that I was in a time warp cuz I was dissecting my brains in front of the computer.

And then there was camp. It was actually super tons of fun. I got into a groove of hanging out with the counselors until late, getting up for a bleary-eyed breakfast, then I'd nap until lunch, and go hang out with the kids and play all day, then give my talk at night. I had all but 2 of my talks manuscripted out beforehand. For the ones that I'd written, I would prep for about an hour, just going over it, making all the connections, putting a little power point together with pictures of whatever it was that I would be telling stories about. Then I'd get up and do my best, sweating like a pig and shaking with nerves every time. Once I was already up there the camp director asked if I could make a little devotional for the morning that the kids could do that would introduce my theme for the talk that night- so they would read a passage and answer some questions focusing on forgiveness, then I'd talk about forgiveness that night. I can't just pull these out of thin air! So that was about an hour every night working on that. And then there were those 2 talks that I hadn't written. I would spend most of the day before writing the talk, then that night give the talk that I had prepared already, which played tricks with my mind. All in all, it was a crazy mix of being on vacation and in finals week at the same time. Before camp really started, someone asked me what I would say if the director asked me to do it again next year, and I told them probably not. He asked me again once camp was over, though, and I said most definitely. That high school leader who asked me gave me like the best compliment of my life too- he told me they'd be idiots not to ask me back next year. What a nice guy!

Random side-story: I also had a box that I put out all day that kids could put questions into, things about being a Christian they didn't understand, or questions about me that they wanted to know. My favorite question: "do you thing God will ever let you get married?" the staff about exploded trying not to laugh when I read that one, but to the kids it was a serious question- they really wanted to know. I told them I hoped so.

But really, my favorite part of being there was just building relationships with everyone- the kids, of course, but also the support staff and the counselors. I made some really good friends- staying up till the wee hours debating where Lazarus went in those 3 days that he was dead, watching the most amazing games of bumper pool while chatting with an army brat, throwing people's zori in the pool, being the "ultrabomber", playing water polo on my knees...overall, it reinforced what I already knew about myself- I love being in situations where I'm always "on". I wrote about that a while back- it's an epiphany I had when reflecting on my favorite memories from this past year.

My parents are here for a few days now too, which is fun. My house was a PIT, since I hadn't really had time to do much actual moving in, but had managed to get all my crap into my new summer house. So, my mom, being the angel that she is, cleaned the entire downstairs, did the dishes, washed stuff, and generally made the house livable. And I even had an actual supper the other night- courtesy my loving mother. And my dad's cool too. Don't wanna seem too one-sided. He doesn't clean anything, but he...well, he's good for other stuff.

So there you have it. The abridged version of recent events in my life. Even though I skipped big parts (like the hiking), I'm going to consider my slate clean, and only write about events that take place in the future from now- I'm through with the past. Except I would like to give a shout out to my baby brother:

Brentina the ballerina, train conductor extrordinare, on his 20th birthday, which was July 9th. I was in the woods all day, and there was no denpa on my phone out there, which was just as well, cuz there was no way that I was gonna call you from my keitai, but I thought of you anyways, and had a little freak-out session that YOU'RE FREAKIN' TWENTY!?! HOLY CRAP!! Gone are the days of having teenagers in the potter house. Now we just have to wait 12 years for Kiera to turn 13, and the cycle will wash, rinse, and repeat.