ok, so i'm in america, and i know that i claimed that i was going to be in portland yesterday, but there was a change of plans (mostly andrew kooy's doing) so i will be in portland the night of monday, for at least a few days. if you want to hang out with me, leave me a comment or email me or something, since i have no phone, and i probably don't have your number anyways. and now, i leave for george, WA. should be a blast.

I will post this entry on the SOLE PROVISION that my mother is not to be informed in any way, shape or form as to it's content.

Towards the end of the school year, i was lamenting to one of my middle-school friends that i missed having a motorcycle. the weather was warming up, and it just seemed a crime not to have one. he mentioned, in passing, that his dad has one that he's trying to sell, as they're going to the states for like 8 months. one thing led to another, and pretty soon i was over at his house chatting it up with his dad. the bike is quite old, only 4 years younger than i, and it hadn't started since Christmas. something went wrong, and it was too cold anyways, so he just wrote it off. he originally wanted almost $200 for it, but since it wasn't running, and there was no real way to tell how much i would have to put into it to make it run, he gave it to me, and said "if you get it running, we'll work something out in january when i get back." and he had it delivered to my door.

As with my last bike, it sat there for a while, staring accusingly at me whenever i let one of my idiot cats out, until finally i could stand it no more. i got ahold of some tools, and did a little "exploratory surgery". initial results were positive- it was much easier to work on than my last bike. i had been informed that the carberator was more than likely the culprit, so i removed the offensive item, and tore it down to it's constituent elements, cleansed it vigorously, and replaced it. and all seemed to be in working order. the bike started up almost instantly, which is unheard of in my experience. i got it insured, and drove it back and forth between work and home. and all was right with the world. here's a shot of all being right with the world:

1984 Yamaha SRX 250

So, after riding without any mishap for about 2 weeks, i decide it's safe to go on a little trip with the thing. fireworks are in season over here, so i thought i'd head over to my old stomping grounds and have a look. it's about a 30 minute trip, and about 20 minutes into it i realize i'm hopelessly lost. then about 21 minutes into it, my bike dies. funny how history repeats itself- the bike dying felt strangely familiar. like it happened once with another bike i once owned. except replace "once" with "repeatedly". this time the problem seems to be with the electrical system, with which i have no experience. so, i managed to get home via japan's amazingly complex public transit system, but i was left with a problem- what to do with my bike? i left it in a semi-seedy area of town (at least, i was so informed by a friendly local senior citizen), and the next day was sunday, which means i had to do church. who did i know with a truck? or maybe a van? then i thought about it, and realized that since this bike is much differently shaped than my last one, it just might fit into my very own car. i decided to go with it, and after much driving, prodigious volumes of sweat, and perhaps a little cursing, here's what i had:


You gotta admit, that's pretty darn cool. now all i need is for someone to be driving my car when i bust out the back of it knight rider style. but for that, i might have to work on my muscles. also my german.

At any rate, fixed it up right proper, and took the trip anyways, fireworks or no. i think deathtrap will always be my first love, and if i am ever actually in the market to buy a bike with money, i would have to have some really good reasons to not buy a motorcross bike. this one's growing on me, but the kawasaki will always be my first bike, and as it has passed into legend, it is slowly getting better over time as my mind distorts the memory.

Despite what seems prodigious efforts to keep me from doing so, i did, in fact, survive. barely. you may recall that i went hiking in the "wilderness" of japan back in october. if not, i'll make you a little link here and even leave it underlined for you so you can go back and brush up a little on your "ryan's life in japan: a history". i do this for your own good- there will be a test on this material. consider yourself warned. unlike the hike back in october, i was the sole "adult" on the trip, oragnizing the trip, or planning the trip in any way shape or form. and, as i believe i said in my last post, this has been something of a challenge for me. but, if i must say, i did rather well. there was only 1 or 2 little things that i brought that i did not need, and there were precious few things that i didn't bring that i did need. and those were more like "things that if i had needed would have been really bad, so it's really lucky that i didn't need them." i'll get on to more of that in a bit.

So here it is, the short summary i know you've all been dying for. we were out there for 5 days- from sunday until thursday. i will go through them in an orderly fashion, and will try and keep this short and thus somewhat more managable, and i may even include pictures to keep those fleeting attention spans of yours from wandering off.

Sunday:
Did the church thing. and, seeing as though i'm the only pastor in the country (still! it's been like 2 weeks now! and the place hasn't imploded or anything!), the church thing was a little stressfull- there were the usual slew of things that needed to be taken care of, but only me to take care of them. further proof that the world needs more me's running around. left as soon after church as i could, but still managed to miss the train that i'd been hoping to catch, what with all the well-wishers, doom-sayers, map-lookers, conversation-havers, and i-hiked-once-ers who mobbed me. the guys were excited, but also somewhat nervous, realizing that the 45lb pack they were sitting next to on the trains would be sitting on their back all week. there was really nothing that special about sunday- we hiked for roughly 3 hours, and set up camp just as it was getting dark, which was pretty darn good timing on my part. the weather was hot and muggy like you wouldn't believe, but it was cooler than it had been in tokyo. i taught the guys how to tie up their fly sheets, how to gather wood for a fire, where not to wash out your cooking stuff so as not to atract bears, etc. it rained on and off during the night, but when i woke up from being bitten by an ant on the face, i could see the moon, so i figured we'd be ok. here's us the first morning enjoying instant oatmeal:




Monday:
This day was difficult. the morning started off well with the boys complaining about being up so early (in spite of the fact that i banned all chronometric devices, they guessed correctly that it was about 5 in the AM. but really, we went to bed at like 9, so they have nothing to whine about). packed up, had devo's and hit the trail. we started out from the train station at about 650 meters, and the peak we were trying to hit by the end of monday was like 2017 meters, so, as you could probably correctly guess, the going was mostly uphill. we lunched at a pleasant little hut, which came with complementary water, which was nice cuz we were running out in spite of the fact that we were carrying 6 liters EACH. the farther we hiked the cooler the trail got. most (actually, probably all) of the hiking i've done in japan is in areas that have been harvested for their lumber and replanted with cedar, which, after a few years, they harvest again. now cedar is a soft-wood evergreen, and actually not native to this region at all. as we kept hiking, the woods slowly changed from man-made to a real, actual, japanese forest, with huge deciduous trees, underbrush, and some cool moss. it actually really felt like i was hiking in a forest in the northwest US somewhere. like a lot. it was cool. then the rain started.

It did not start suddenly, but rather slowly, lulling us into a pacifistic "maybe it will stop" mindset, but it gradually got worse and worse. by the time it was raining hard enough that it necessitated rain gear, we were all already soaked to the bone. so we just kept hiking. the rain got progressively worse, and the higher up we got, the more fog we ran into. i didn't know it at the time, due to lack of electricity, computer, internet, and other evils, but a typhoon was on it's way. i saw it on the news on saturday, but at that point it was supposed to hit really south and fizzle out. not so. Here is a nifty link that you'll need to watch a few times to really appreciate. watch the date in the corner- we left on sunday the 24th, which means that we could not have left at a more perfect time to rendezvous with the demon typhoon from hell.

I do have a very cool mental picture of hiking through an area with 1 meter high bamboo, these skinny 5 meter high trees, scattered about, and interspersed were these HUGE deciuous trees that were probably about 4 or 5 feet thick. the fog was to the point that we had very limited visibility, so we couldn't see the tops of the big trees. i've always seen images of china that look like that and wanted to visit them. turns out they were here this whole time. they ended pretty quick, though, and were replaced by these evil rocky saddle things. we would fight our way up for about an hour, get to a flat place to catch our breath, hike around the corner, and the path went up into the clouds AGAIN. we repeated this a lot. we did see a monkey cross our path ahead in the fog, though, which was a first. i'll forever have a mental picture of chris standing a little ways ahead of me on a knife-edged saddle, in the pouring rain, the wind trying to blow us off, and these clouds absolutely whipping by. in my brain i was trying to figure out how we were going to make camp on the rocks with the wind going at 30 mph. by the grace of God there was another hiking shelter at the peak we were trying to reach that day. it was no shack either- some blankets, insulated windows, etc. there was no fire pit, but at least it was out of the rain. here's us that night:


Tuesday:
As is evident from the little sattelite imagery now available at your fingertips, the rain did not stop on tuesday. in fact, there was even some lightning during the night, which made me a little nervous, seeing as though we were in a building on the top of the highest peak for quite a few kilometers around. Not even 10 minutes down our trail chris, who was leading at the time, saw a deer bolt across our path. all told, we had 4 deer sightings that day, but we think one of them was the same deer twice. tuesday was somewhat monotonous- more going up in the rain, lots of mountain streams. actually, i almost had a very serious accident. years ago they had skinny log bridges on parts of the trail, and they had been replaced with high-quality bridges with actual concrete foundation and all that. we walked across many, many of these, which were very nice and safe, except that i slipped on one. they have little 1x1's nailed down in case you should slip forward or backwards, but i slipped sideways. only about a foot, mind you, but what with no hand rails and a 10 foot drop and a really steep mountainside, it was enough to just about stop my heart.

Our trail for the day took us right by another shelter on my map, but it didn't look like it would be free, so i was planning on stopping there for lunch, then pressing on and making camp in the woods somewhere. the day before, we had hiked until all of 3:30pm, which means we lunched at what was probably 10am, so tuesday i pushed the guys a little more, telling them we would stop at the hut for lunch. we hiked long, hard, and soggy, taking as few breaks as possible due to the rain, and bone-chilling wind (and one of the guys didn't bring rain gear, or even hiking pants. i guess when he saw "rain gear" on the list i sent him he interpreted that as "stuff i could wear in the event it sprinkles". he was very cold). at any rate, we get to the hut, look around, and realize that it's been recently abandoned, most likely due to the typhoon. there was someone's actual house connected to the hut, with a TV antenna and all that. the menu on the wall had prices for supper and beer and whatnot. the shelter itself was not locked, so we entered to lunch. the guys wondered very verbally about the chances of us spending the night, and implored me to dig out my chronometer, which i grudgingly did. imagine my surprise when i discovered that it was not lunch time, but supper! it was 5:30pm. most likely we had overslept the morning due to the fact that we slept indoors, because i knew we hadn't been hiking for more than half a day. now i was faced with an ethical dilemma, however: the sign on the wall also clearly stated that it was ¥4,000 (about $40) a person a night, which is a LOT of money. there was a box on the wall for the money, however there was nobody up there to know that WE were up there. the compromise i came to is that we would sleep on the ground in the entryway, and only pay half price, since we weren't acutally using their stuff, just their ground. and also their wood- the wood stove was in the entryway, and we fired that thing up and got supper cooking without wasting any time at all. in about 20 minutes we who had been actually shaking with cold, unable to feel our extremities, had stripped down buck naked and were running around in the rain to cool off. sometimes it's great to be a guy. actually, all the time.

Wednesday:
The morning came with the fire being out and me being chilly. as i lay there in my bag, i realized that i could hear the nearby stream, and wondered why i hadn't noticed last night. as the fog slowly cleared from my brain the answer replaced it- because of the intense rain and wind the night before on the tin roof, we sometimes had to yell just to hear eachother. i reached out of my bag and saw the most beautiful thing i've seen since the exact same thing happened last october- the sky. not overcast, not gray clouds, but blue sky. granted it was patchy, but it had enormous potential for growth, and it did not dissapoint. not only was it exciting, but for me it was actually a relief. the guys didn't know it, but on tuesday we had the choice to take a shortcut and go straight home rather than continue on the hike as planned. i made the executive decision to stay on the original course, and all day tuesday i had beat myself up for it- mostly because i had doomed us all to a night of freezing coldness, especially chris, who had a sub-standard sleeping bag for those conditions. on tuesday morning, though, poring over the maps and thinking about this, i thought of waking up on wednesday morning to not-rain, and the sense of accomplishment from knowing that we hadn't turned back when we could have, but pushed on. in a way, i was pretty much counting on it being sunny on wednesday morning. and it was! i ran out and looked at the view, which was the first time in 3 days that i had been able to. i could see about 7 mountain ranges from me to the horizon. very cool.

We hiked for about 2 hours, then got to the peak we were trying to reach and had lunch, and fixed evan's pack, which was trying to kill itself and take evan with it. after hiking for another good 2 hours, we get to another peak, and it was confusing, cuz this one had the same name as the one we stopped at for lunch...in all reality, the second one was where we were trying to get to for lunch, and i misinterpreted the maps. so, the guys weren't happy with me for lying to them and having gone half as far as i thought we had. i wasn't happy with me either. from this peak the trail quickly degrades to a washed-out, mini-bamboo-covered trail of death. we proceeded on this for a while until we came to a river, where the path disapeared....

There had been a few times that i thought maybe we'd lost the trail, but this time we really did. there was a big clearing around where the trail met the river coming in, but there was no path going out. the trail had been marked by some useful woodsmen with red tape- it was taped around trees, branches, etc. and we couldn't find any. i found a river on the map, assumed (incorrecly, as it turns out) that it was the one we were at, and deduced that since the river runs to the dam, and our trail led to the dam, we could just follow the river until we found the dam. makes sense! so, we bushwhacked down a hillside of DEATH, with rotten falling trees, big rocks, random roots just begging to break your ankles, etc. it was difficult, and the guys weren't enjoying themselves. actually, at one point, evan got stuck under a huge dead tree. i thought it was pretty funny, but he failed to see the humor of the moment. he had slipped coming down, and had been sliding on his butt, and the tree had fallen over at an angle, so there was just barely enough space for evan to get wedged in. he was totally helpless! classic.

So we get down to the bottom, and there's no trail waiting for us. panic! i scour the map for somewhere else we could be, and i'm not pleased with what i come up with. i decide to scout a bit, going next to the river. the river bank quickly became a river cliff, so i was forced to wade across- wet boots are not happy boots. sure enough, we are at the wrong river- there's another river that joins from this HUGE magnificent waterfall-probably like 7 or 8 stories tall. if we hadn't been so screwed i would have enjoyed it more probably. the river we are on DID go to the dam, but it went over a few waterfalls of it's own. the only solution- hike back up to the ridge that we came from. keep in mind that hiking DOWN this thing took 90 minutes. none of us wanted to guess how long it would take to go back up. but, up we went.

At least, about half-way up. then we took a right. according to the map, the trail we were supposed to be on up on the ridge would be losing altitude, so we decided that we would hike level along the side of the ridge in hopes of meeting the trail. bushwhacking is bushwhacking, or so we thought. this was the hardest thing i have probably ever done in my life. evan had been falling farther and farther behind, and what with the daylight fading, me and chris split up about a third of his pack. i got most of it (i'm not trying to be a martyr, i swear). i was leading the bushwhack, and we would hit these patches of short bamboo that were...well, i'm i don't want to insult God's creation, but lets just say that i'm pretty sure this bamboo was post-fall bamboo. it was about 5 feet tall, and grew so thicky you couldn't see more than like 5 feet. maybe. it would wrap itself around your arms, legs, waist, neck, feet, face...it was like being dragged backwards by a thousand miniature demons. there were equal parts living and dead stuff, so sometimes you would grab a handful of it to keep from falling, and it would all just snap, and you'd go tumbling down. or you'd stumble forward, and it would hit you on the cheek and slide up and try and poke your eyes out. i'm not kidding. it was impossible. and i was leading the pack, breaking the stuff up.

The bamboo came in patches, almost like fields. at first they were rare, but as we kept going, they became more and more frequent. finally i told the guys that we were losing too much time and we were going to have to go up and find a way around this stuff, or we'd be trying to do it in the dark, which none of us even wanted to think about. so, i lead the way up a landslide, and after about 10 meters, get to a deer trail and rest. chis is the next up, and as we're standing there, i notice something behind him on a tree.

red tape.

I wasn't sure if i was halucinating it, so i asked chis if he saw it too. good news for me-he did. could this be our trail?! i looked ahead while we were waiting for chris, and sure enough, there was more up ahead. i almost kissed it. we would have been deliriously happy if we had any spare energy at all, but we were all like "ok. we're on the trail. let's go." after about 20 minutes we had to bust out the flashlights, which goes to show how close it had been. we made camp at this antenna thing that was the most random thing ever, and we had some good conversation about God looking out for us, and how when we feel we are at our lowest point, God's still there, and we should never lose hope. i even cut a peice of red tape and brought it back as a testament of God's goodness to us.

Here's us the last morning:



Thursday:
Sunrise on thursday was unbelievable. the morning before we had been way down in a valley, so it was quite light before we saw the sun at all, coming up over the ridge. thursday morning there was nothing to our east- just foothills and a city. i was getting breakfast going, but for some reason my stove woulnd't light for the oatmeal. i opened it up and realized that i should have paid more attention to the fuel for the thing. i just assumed we'd be fine, but it was totally out. which means that if we hadn't used that wood stove on tuesday for 2 meals, we would have run out of fuel 2 meals before- so there would have been no hot food for wednesday morning or night, or thursday morning. which would have been bad, cuz you really need hot water to make dehydrated pasta. just one more way that God was protecting us from my lack of experience. we had granola bars instead, and broke camp. we hiked down for so long i actually revelled in little stretches that we went uphill. we saw 3 deer running away from us in the woods. we finally make it down to the dam, which we could have made it to the night before if the trail hadn't disappeared and we hadn't gotten lost. we decide that we're just gonna walk on roads to the station, as we're all worried about evans' pack breaking more. i figured we'd make better time on the roads, and we did, but it was still really, really far. and all our boots were still wet from the night before, so as we walked on the blistering blacktop, our feet were stewing inside our boots. the guys really wanted to try and hitchhike, but i didn't- i wanted to walk to the goal, to finish, to do the whole thing under my own power. after a while, i figured that we were all suffering for the sake of my pride, so i gave the guys permission to try, and after only like 10 minutes we got picked up! we never got the guy's name, but we nicknamed him jesus (that's spanish), because he saved us. he cranked the AC, and was somewhat talkative, but we were all so wasted we just zoned out. he offered to take us not to the station that we were aiming for, but actually about 30 minutes beyond that to a bigger city that we were headed for anyways (chichibu). he helped us unload, and was gone. after we claimed a table in the promanade, i went and bought ice-cold milk. never tasted so good!

IN CONCLUSION...
I figure we went about 50 kilometers total, which is...about 30 miles, by my estimation. day 2 we went like 16k, day 4 we went about 14k, and the other days we went...not as far. i will most likely never do this again-for a few reasons. 1. it was just too hard. i'm no spring chicken, but i had been training for this for about 2 months, and it was really hard. the 2 guys i was with hadn't trained at all. 2. it was just too punishing. i had all my gear, and i know that it's medium to high quality. chris had bad gear, and evan's bag broke, and 5 days was too long to be out there with bad or broken gear. i will probably do something like a 3 day hike again though, now that i know the area. it was a defining time for me, and it's something the guys will never forget: "the summer my youth pastor tried to kill me", or something.

***************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.

this is it!

today's the day we see just what this camp got themselves into when they asked me to be the speaker. and yes, i was up till 2 am doing last minute stuff, which i am continuing to put off by writing this. i'll let you know how it goes. if you have any spare time to pray for me, that would be great. stuff like not teaching the kids heresy, or not doing stuff that would get me expelled from camp by accident...

(deep breath)

Ok, this time, i have a real reason, i swear.

About a week ago, maybe less, i started writing a blog. and it was a good blog, full of satire and sarcasm and information, but as the blog continued, it began to get more and more cynical and bitter, mostly towards conservative-type Christianity. it really felt good, and i really think i had a lot of pent-up aggression towards that. so i wrote and wrote and wrote, and now i feel much better, but that post will likely never see the light of day, at least in it's entirety. so, now i'm sharing a quick little something that was really cool.

I temp fairly often. and by temp i mean substitute teach. and if you didn't get that, you have not watched school of rock nearly enough times. anyways, i had just finished subbing a middle school class, and it was right before lunch, and i remembered that the cafeteria here has my favorite kind of ice cream bar, so i decided to mosey on in and get me one. there was a bunch of elementary kids in there with all the middle schoolers, and i walk in and pretty much get mobbed by students from 1st grade to 8th, yelling at me, telling me stuff, hanging off me, giving me the crusts from their sandwiches, asking me for money, etc. it was loud.

It was one of the most gratifying moments in my career as a youth pastor.

When i came to this job, this church, this school, i really only knew like 3 kid in the whole K-12. and that really stressed me out, cuz i knew that i needed to get to know them, but i had a really hard time with that. and now, about a week away from the end of this school year here, i get mobbed in the cafeteria by like a hundred kids. i recognize that this sort of gratification, that is, feeling popular, is dangerous and a trap to youth pastors, who feel like they have to be cool, and will use kids to make themselves feel better. and i'm not going to lie and say that i haven't dealt with that a little, but it was just really cool to know that...well, i guess that i am someone to them. i don't really know about them thinking i'm cool, but to know that they know me, and they know my name, and i am someone in their life, is the best feeling in the world.

It's proof that God can use just about anyone to do just about anything.

***WARNING***
This Blog contains mechanically explicit material. Proceed at your own risk

Remember that motorcycle i used to have? that was fun...
So i rebuilt the top end myself, and not only did it actually run afterwards, but it ran better!! before the rebuild, it would top out at about 120km/hr, which is not that great, but i consoled myself with the idea that motocross bikes are built to haul up hills and through forests and stuff, not necessarily go really fast on the straightaways. after i messed around all in the inside, it went a lot faster...but i'm not sure how much, since i chickened out. it was accelerating through 130kph before i lost my nerve. i was wearing shorts and a t-shirt, ok? lets see how brave you are when you have visions of becoming hamberger!!

Anyways, i was almost home, not going that fast, maybe like 90, passing a little scooter, and my engine just clunks and stops. i got the clutch in time, so i coasted to the nearest parking lot, then walked it the rest of the way home, expecting it to be something little. not so, i'm afraid. my first clue was the spark plug:



And i thought to myself "why, something must have attacked my little spark plug while it was minding it's own buisness inside my engine". so, with no further ado, i took off the top end of my motor, and as i do that, the next thing i see is this little tiny thing falling out of the cylinder:



And again, thinking to myself, i thinked "that looks as if it were at one time one of the quintuplet of valves that has lept from it's rightful place with its brothers to wreak havoc upon the piston, cylinder walls and 3 remaining valves." so i took a closer look at the piston, and this is the view i got (and this one's a little painful):

that used to be my piston. and here's the last view of where the valve sprung from:





And there you have it. no more motorcycle for me. i have no idea what caused this. i'd been riding it for about 5 days, so if there had been a timing problem i should have found out about it before i snapped a valve. but, for whatever the reason, the valve made friends with the piston, with disasterous results. it bourced around in the cylinder, destroying my piston, cylinder walls, and the 3 remaining valves.

I still have the bike taking up precious space, which, in this country, could get you thrown in jail. i just can't bring myself to get rid of it yet. about a week ago i was talking to a kid about how awesome it was, and he asked me what i would do if it broke or if it totalled it. he thought i'd probably cry. i told him that if it was totalled, then i would soon forget about it. it's when there's little things wrong that i'm actually capable of fixing that i waste my life out there working on it. and look where i am now. another classic example of God calling my bluff. and honestly, i'm only a little sad. not sad for the $600 i put into it, or the like 200 hours, or the like 38 severe lacerations, but it was sorta a legacy around here. and it was fun driving. like being on an amusement park ride, only driving. but unless someone knows a mechanic in japan that wants to give away a 250cc kawasaki motorcycle engine, and probably put it in for me too, this is it for the bike:

my little '95 KLX250. for sad.....

ps-all these pictures were taken with my cell phone. sweet, huh?
pps- i apologize if this entry was over your head. it is because i learned all this stuff that i don't consider the time, money, or blood wasted. well, maybe a little blood was wasted...

TERROR!!

i am coming to some realizations about how God works. mostly, things that i think i should never do, or things that i'm like "i'll do anything....except that", are things that He ends up being like "here you go, sucker!" i've got 2 stories about that, but the other one will have to wait until i get some pictures. story 1 goes like this-

so i'm sitting at home like 9 months ago, thinking about being a youth pastor, sort of imagining on a very realistic level what it would be like to be here, and i come to grips with the idea of giving a talk every week, but i'm terrified at the thought of being a camp speaker. one talk a week, ok. 8 talks in one week, not so ok. you guessed it- i've been asked to be a camp speaker for the summer. NOT ONLY THAT, however, it's for the current 3rd-5th graders. like kids. little ones. running around being...little and blatant in their kid-ish-ness. i have no idea AT ALL how to teach to that age. what's up with that? why can't God set it up so i can at least speak to middle school, or only slighly worse, high school? but elementary? i do have a few friends in the elementary, but mostly they just see me as their walking, talking, jungle gym. which is a role i'm ok with. but communicating Biblical truths?

i was talking to the pastoral staff over here about this (turns out it was their idea. TRAITORS!!) and they were like "you'll do fine! it's not that big of a deal, they're just kids." then, just when i think i'm coming to grips with it, they start talking about how their kids' lives were changed by elementary camp, and how the entire course of history was changed when they were in 3rd-5th grade by a speaker at a camp. not like i'm freaking out enough on my own without hearing that.

so, consider this a call to all you teachers of elementary kids out there- HELP ME. i was talking to an elementary teacher here, and he told me that i don't need to change the content from what i would talk about to middle schoolers, just change the delivery. i know (courtesy educational psychology- thanks patty!) that kids that age are very concrete thinkers, that they don't get abstract concepts at all. there is no gray area in their brains- things are either right for everyone or wrong for everyone. they have a huge sense of justice- everything MUST be fair. how this all translates to me being a camp speaker is what i'm not real clear on. so, rainbow, becky, becca, various other people who like to think they are smart (and, for all intents and purposes, are), this is me putting the onus of responsibility on your shoulders (and thanks to cami for that great word). really. just a little help would be ok. tricks? stuff that you remember your camp speaker doing that you thought was cool, or amazing, or hilarious, or memorable?

and now, a little poem i remember from elementary school:

spring has sprung,
the grass has ris
i wonder where
the birdies is

it is officially nice and warm and springy over here. to which i say, "it's about freaking time!" spring was all tricky this year, with false starts and fake outs. just the other day it was really really nice, then a thunderstorm hit outta nowhere, and that night it was freezing!! but today was like 25C (75F), and a little windy. i guess tomorrow is supposed to be even hotter! i try and take joy no matter what the weather is like, but it's always easier when it's hot.

in other news, i have discovered yet another reason that being a youth pastor is harder than working at starbucks- hyper kids kicking soccer balls at your face. so, now my favorite pair of glasses are broken (like the glass is actually broken), and my eyelid and eyebrow are sporting a nice set of cuts from the bolts of my glasses (they were frameless). so, for all you peeps out there who think starbucks is harder than youth pastoring...TAKE THAT!!

and cheryl is now gone. she was here teaching english, but her passion has always been youth ministry (although, she went to prison guarding school for a while, which is not youth ministry). she is probably the one person in the world who knows me best right now, seeing as how i've been growing and changing a lot since i've been here, and she's talked/listened me through it. her contract with her english teaching job ended, and they didn't renew, so she had to go back to canada. i knew it was coming for like 6 weeks before, but i had been focusing on asking her how she was doing, what life was gonna be like for her back home, stuff she had learned, etc., that i totally forgot that i was gonna be losing an amazing friend. so, the night before she left (a sunday, no less) i found myself alone in my house, crying a lot. and that night, in a behavioral pattern i'm beginning to recognize as denial, i stayed up really, really late working on stuff that really didn't need to be worked on, basically obsessing over rediculously inane things, and went to bed at like 5 in the morning, without any clear idea of what i would be doing for sunday school, which is bad. and after church we prayed for her some, and i cried a lot more, then she was gone. except i'm IMing her as i write this, so i think i'll be ok. that day was rough-2 hours of sleep, crying a lot, middle school youth group, and a soccer ball in the eye.


life is rough.

geez. leave this thing for a month and it gets all gross and starts collecting cobwebs. and it's not like i have anything super special to share with the world out there, other than to let my few, faithful, and increasingly disillusioned followers know that i have not stepped through an inter-dimentional manhole into a world where frogs sing like birds and life is easy and the wind smells like freshly laundered clothes. i am, in fact, just a lazy bum.

in my defense, i have only recently overcome my problems with my compy. i finally did what i should have originally done when it started acting up- something anyone who ever had any sort of nintendo system learned as a child- blow on it. it's a little more complicated with a computer, but not really. it was taking about 4 times longer than it should have to do everything, so i finally took it apart, blew on all the main components, reassembled, and it now feels like it runs at CRAY super-computing speeds. it had a few hiccups, but it's pretty much been faithful since then. which is good, cuz i was about 3 crashes away from lighting the thing on fire.

and now that my compy is fixed, my motorcycle is broken, although, as of yesterday, it is somewhat less broken, although it still won't start. baby steps.... i won't bore you with the details of what all went wrong, but i will tell you that i'm messing around with the insides of the engine, which is scary for me.

mom and dad potter were here for a while last week, and man was it great! i cleaned the crap outta my house, which i needed to do anyways, but it was good to have that deadline. i drove out to get them, which takes almost 3 hours, even though you pretty much are in the city of tokyo the whole time. and i only got lost once!! my bike broke the exact day they arrived, which was a pain, since i was planning on giving them the key to my car and just driving my bike everywhere. it was kinda rainy anyways, so it wasn't that big of a deal. it was, however, super great to have other people in my house! those of you who live with other people, parents or otherwise, may not understand this, but the amount of time i spend in my house has been consistently going down over the months. i don't even have a computer there, which means i can't even electronically hang out with anyone, let alone actually hang out with anyone in person. i rarely eat any meal at home other than breakfast, and i usually don't get in until like 10 or 11. it's just a lonely place. at least at the office i have a window that people i know walk by, and a computer that connects me to all my friends. even if i am horribly horrible at keeping in touch with most of you, it's somehow important to me to know that i can email or, better yet, IM with you all. i actually have been shopping for webcam/headset thing so it'll be like we're almost having a normal conversation. except i won't see you. jerks. but, i digress. having my parents home was awesome, cuz we actually used my house like it was a house- with the hanging out, and the eating meals, and the turning on heat and all that. it was a little weird- before we would go anywhere, i'd be getting my shoes on and yell out "now did you guys leave any lights on? mom, did you turn the heater off? is the hot water heater still on?" cuz they would have left the whole world on if i'da let 'em. some people. geez. they were (and continue to be) very encouraging to me, and a great source of joy and laughter to me in my life. except they freakin' grilled me about girls.

in some things, i find that intentional ignorance is the best answer. like with girls. if i let myself, i can and have fully obsessed over girls, to the point that no matter what i am doing, i'm thinking about the chances that they will see me, or the chances that we'll run into eachother, or whatever. and it's a pain, cuz it really is distracting. i can't focus on what i'm doing, as i usually do the most important and time-consuming parts of my job in fairly plain view. which means, if you are clever enough to read between the lines, that there is someone, or rather, there are someones that my parents think i should pursue here. and i have, in my view, fairly good reasons for not doing so. these reasons were, in the end however, unsuccessful to convince my parents. the overall result of this little problem, is that i'm now thinking about girls again, which is annoying. i prefer to think that nothing can or will ever happen, let it go at that, and spend as much of my time as i can thinking and obsessing over the youth ministry, instead of dissecting every interaction with people to discern every possible nuance or hidden meaning in our brief and random encounters. and now i'm even wasting time blogging about this. grrrr...parents (shakes fist).

well, my lunch meeting with ryan (not me) is coming soon, so i must go and prepare for this by buying plastic boxes filled with noodles for our consuming pleasure. and perhaps also triangles of rice.

i really need to get outta my office, but i thought i'd leave this little nugget of an update:

one new thing i have: a motorcycle. HUZZA!! it really is quite awesome. if you remember, it once belonged to cami, who left it in the care of some fairly careless people. so, i inherited it, spent way too much money and time on it, had to give it up for a while when i used it as an illustration for a talk on idolatry, but finally and recently got it going. a week ago tomorrow was the official reinstatement of "deathtrap", as the bike is (aptly) named. including all the licensing, registration, a years insurance, and all the repairs, i threw down about $450- which is not a lot for a bike like that, but is still kinda a lot in general.

i rode said motorcycle out to the boonies on monday for a nice little hike, since it was blazingly sunny, and it was my day off, after all. i think me and cami will have to have a conversation when we next see eachother-the challenge of hiking fast and hard can in fact add an element of enjoyment. we argued about that for like 3 years. and he was sorta right. as i was hiking, i was keeping a catalogue of all the wildlife i had seen- one butterfly, 2 sparrows, and 2 woodpeckers. which, if you've ever been hiking in japan alot, which i have, you will realize is both pathetic and a surprising amount of nature to see when out in nature in japan- usually you don't see any animals at all. then, in all seriousness, just as i was thinking about writing this blog entry, complete with sarcasm, something rather large made a rather large noise to the general front and left of me as it bolted.

a deer.

i was in total shock. it happened so fast that by the time my brain was able to match the shape and color of the animal to the word deer the bushes it had been standing in had stopped moving. don't get me wrong- i've seen deer before. in fact, in kyoto they have this park in the city that is overrun with deer, and they'll come up to you and eat from your hand. or they'll eat your hand, if you've misbehaved or offended them. but to see a wild deer in the not-usually-very-wild woods of japan was a complete shock. in the probably thousands of hikes i've done in this country in my life, we usually don't even see a bird. i thought that was cool. and i had to watch my time, since i hadn't brought a flashlight (or anything else useful, really), and i ended my 5 and a half hour hike exacly 1 minute and 30 seconds later than i had planned- i wanted to be back to the road by 6:00, and i was there at 6:01:30, which is also really random. it's not like hiking's an exact science or anything.

as to the possibility or my re-establishing contact with you, things are looking up. my computer was seriously retarded-it would take obscene amounts of time for it to do the simplest tasks. so, not really knowing what else to do, i took it all apart and put it back together- and now it works swimmingly. except any time i try and access either of my CD drives, i experience a rather complete and instantaneous system failure, followed by a rather pathetic attempt to pacify me by rebooting as though nothing has happened, much to my EXTREME frustration. but at least i can surf the internet and write stuff again.

off to bed with me. it was POURING earlier. i was not looking forward to driving my bike home in that, but now it's stopped, and now it's just rather damp.



ps- all satire and personification in this entry is courtesy of the insidious effects of reading terry prachett. thanks for the corruption, ro. and i still don't like him.

apologies-

my compy's being silly. and by silly i mean freakin' retarded. which is why i've been unable to access internet for like 3 weeks, which is why nobody's heard from me and i haven't updated. it's the truth, i swear!! i'm still working in it, so it might randomly light on fire again or something. if you don't hear from me for a while again, have no fear. not much fear, anyways. when things are a little more stable around here, i'll continue with my merry little updates.

So much has happened...


...in the last few days. well, not SO much, but a lot. and when things happen i sometimes think "i'll share these moments with my anonymous online group of stalkers!!" especially since i think you all hate me for updating an average of like once a month. i've really been convicted about communication lately, which is silly, since i have a degree that says that i studied communication and am a com-STAR! but, turns out, i'm not. which i've known for a while, but it's starting to sink in that being a bad communicator=being a bad youth pastor, (thanks pastor TJ for that insight) and i'm not ok with that. my problem now is what to communicate. well, here goes a little something to whet your appetite.

Good ol' incan. we had then incandescence meeting (high schoolers that lead the middle school group) at the bergs on monday, which was awesome- i didn't have to plan food, for starters. and the bergs and i really want the kids to know the pastors of the church the kids work in, so this was the solution. and i meant to talk to the kids about me, and apologize for being a bad communicator, and ask for their grace and help, but i never really got around to it. we talked about how the retreat went, and stuff that we learned from it. i really should have planned a debreif time with questions and stuff, but it was pretty much impossible to meet with them the week after the retreat. stupid sports/play/extra-curricular things. DON'T THEY KNOW THEY MESS WITH ME?!?! so we debriefed a little, then prayed a little, then went into the kitchen for dessert, and the kids had a chair in the middle of the kitchen they told me to sit in. and then they took turns washing my feet and telling me how i encourage them and am a good example to them and all that. (sigh) they have no idea what that meant to me. i'm not really convinced they know what it means to wash someone's feet, but i appreciated the sentiment. i really wanted to switch places with them and wash their feet, actually. i mean, it' s my job to look out for them, to make sacrifices in my own life so they can grow spiritually, to serve them no matter the cost to my body, emotions, time, money, etc. - which is something i try to do, but often fail at. still, it's my goal to live with enough discipline in all areas of life that i am able to spend as much time with them as i can. it's not their job to serve me, which is what i think foot-washing signifies. they (well, one of them specifically that put this thing together) were just looking for a way to encourage me, and that fact alone encourages me more than the foot-washing, although that was amazing. all in all, it was a very humbling experience.

and they gave me like 10 boxes of apollo, which was also awesome and made me want to cry. so many apollo....

and if you guys could actually take the next like 30 seconds to pray for one of my leaders, that would be awesome. her name is lara, and she's been growing a lot. she kinda had a crisis at home a few days ago- her parents are divorced, and her relationship with her mom is kinda rocky right now. and by kinda i mean really. and it's hard for me to see one of my leaders going through this- i worry that it will be too much, and she'll turn her back on God, that she'll just give up. just pray that she will be close to God, and He will give her the strength she needs to be a leader and example to her classmates and the middle school kids. and that her relationship with her mom will get better and they will give eachother a little slack. pray. NOW!!

i'm gonna keep this one short, for my benefit and for yours. so....THE END!

Who have I become? Extrovert?

Wow, turns out, middle school kids are the awesome. coming to KBF as the youth pastor guy, i was actually really scared of middle school. i had friends in the high school, people that i hung out with and could relate to. not in middle school. i remember the first JAM (that's right: Jesus and Me!! i wanted to change it but almost had a mutiny...) i led: i was terrified! i prepared for like 8 hours, had a manuscript of my talk and everything. and i had no idea who all these kids were. now, if i was forced to choose between high school and middle school, i'd go for middle school in a heartbeat. i love 'em!!

I just got back from the JAM retreat. 2 nights, 3 days in gunma-ken, which had like 3 meters of snow. in spite of realizing yet again that i'm not that good of a planner person yet, and the fact that i thought i didn't like snow, and i got WAY too little sleep, it was pretty much the best time i've ever had. really. for a lot of reasons.

Leaving was hell. i had stuff in my car, stuff in the office, stuff i had to photocopy, stuff in the buildings. the bus pulled up and i was running all over the place. and it was snowing. i was the last person on the bus, after literally sprinting all over campus taking care of last minute details and things i had promised to do. nobody got sick on the way up (praise the Lord) AND i didn't have to put chains on the bus. i'm not sure which i'm more excited about. no, i'm more glad nobody spewed. that makes everyone feel gross.

So at night we'd put the kids in the rooms, threaten them with being smited by God if they talked (seriously), and had our leaders meeting, which pretty much consisted of us talking a little about how we thought the kids were doing, what we were gonna do the next day, and how we were doing. that first night i had to prepare a talk, since one of the gal leaders got sick and couldn't make it. so we're done with our meeting, and some people go to the ofuro (gender-specific, of course), other people go to bed, and some of us stay in the lounge. us in the lounge started talking, naturally, and i ended up talking with lara, one of my gal leaders, for like 3 and a half hours. and even though i ended up sleeping at like 4:30am after not really finishing my talk, and getting up after only 3 hours of sleep, it was totally worth it. i'm pretty tight with a lot of my guy leaders, since i have accountability groups with all but one of them, but i've never really gotten to know my gal leaders that well. and the 3.5 hours talking was really cool.

The next morning was my talk, and i did pretty well, i think. i talked about how according to the example of love given to us by Jesus, love requires sacrifice. and i gave them all a nail so they would remember. and i hung out with some of them on campus today, and they have the nails with them and they still remember what they stand for. amazing. i used cami as the example of the perfect man (i do that alot, actually. he's a good foil for me- i somehow feel that if i used myself as the good example the kids would have a hard time relating to me, so i always use myself as the bad example.) i told stories about my past love life, and contrasted it with cami and deidre, and how i somehow end up trying to get all i can from the relationship, and get freaked out when it no longer serves my purposes, unlike cami, who has gone through some serious emotional battering at the verbal hands of dre (does that even work?)(and i think you're awesome, dre. don't take this the wrong way.)

Then we went snowshoeing for EVER. i was thinking like 3 hours, get back, have a big snow-royale-rumble, have supper, move on with the day. a group of high school kids may have been able to complete what we did in the allotted time, but it would have been rough. we were up there forever. and snowshoes work a very strange muscle just below and to the inside of your hips, which feels weird when it's twitching.

Here's some pictures that might be fun to look at:

the snowshoeing adventure. 18 kids, 6 leaders, and a bus driver
Hikari in the snow
Erika Husby thinking
Hans the exercise instructor
Luke Ozaki snowshoeing
Mary, Hikari, and Tashia freezing
Lizzy
Jared the viking
Flyin' Ryan

While trekking along, a group of kids started straggling a bit, so i ended up back with them, joking with them and trying to get them to forget they couldn't feel their toes, etc. we ended up getting completely separated from the main group- mostly because we stopped to play so much. there ended up being 4 of the 6 leaders in the back group, and we only had 4 of the 18 kids. but man, did we have fun! we found a really steep hill with more fresh, deep snow than has any right to be undisturbed. so, we climbed to the top and jumped down. then we dove down. then we started catapulting eachother down. one of the leaders dove as far as he could and went about 12 feet before he landed. it was awesome!! one of my best memories.

I'll spare you the play-by-play of the rest of the retreat. i felt like i was pretty much always off taking care of something, or getting the props together for the skits, or picking worship songs, and rarely got a chance to just be, except for once in the bath, for like 30 minutes. and even then the gals were throwing snow over the wall. punks...

What was the craziest and most unbelievable thing that happened to me from this whole experience is the effect it had on me. i tell people that i'm an introvert, that i need my "me" time. and those of you who have been around me for a while know that it's true- sometimes i just need to not hang out tonight. the day after the retreat was my day off, and i anticipated desperately needing it. but tuesday rolled around, and sure i slept in, but i was really ready to go do the whole thing again. really. i wanted no recharge-alone time. i missed the kids. i missed doin stuff with them, of being the target for every kid within snowball range. i went in to my day off feeling recharged and refreshed already, ready to go out and conquer the world.

One of the reasons is, i think (and i'm not sure how healthy this is...) that i really never had a spare thought for myself that whole retreat. sometimes when i'm stupid, and especially with people i'm leading or with girls that i think i have a crush on, i replay my stupidity over and over again. and, since i'm not really the best leader, i get people giving me suggestions and confronting me, and i've developed a tendancy to internalize criticism, rather than hold it at arms length and try and learn from it. this means that in my quiet moments i'm thinking about me. up at the retreat, i did not have that luxury, and i loved it. every minute of all 3 days was for the kids- either the middle schoolers or the leadership team. even that one time that i had in the bath, i was praying for them, thinking about how to reach them, how they were doing, etc. i loved it. i think it has to do with discipline- how college students with part-time jobs get better grades than the slackers, and how athletes get better grades during their season, even though they are busier. i spent a lot of time feeling like i'm not really doing all that much, which is kinda hard. my daily life involves kids partially- either in one-hour meetings, or on campus after school for a bit, or whatever. the majority of my time is spent on me, though.

I think i'm sorta doing the same thing i did at multnomah- i don't think i'll be able to function if i'm doing too much, when the reality is, the more i do, the better i do it. man, being a youth pastor rocks.

My Excuse: I almost died.
as to it's truth or validity, i leave that to better minds than mine to decide.
ON TO INFORMATION!!!

Things that have changed:
-due to the exorborant prices charged by JCom, my now former internet service provider, my beloved compy is now at the office, and i am wireless at home( in the bad, regression way, not the cool, good way). this change occured when it became abundandtly clear that it was worth the sacrifice- it's like $80/month for internet and phone!! so, no phone, no internet. just my trusty, slowly disinitgrating cell phone.]

-i have a new love in my life!! well, it's a love/hate thing. cami gave me the key to his motorcycle before i came here, and i really didn't think about it much, other than to make sure that the key actually fit. when he left japan he left it in the care of some people who did the exact opposite of care. well, not the EXACT opposite- they didn't beat on it, but they sure as crap didn't take care of it. and sitting outside in the rain, snow, sleet, slush, sun, and coffee, it was slowly being broken down to it's constituent parts. until i rode on one of the kids' little 50cc monkey he has. then i remembered how fun they are. then i went home and looked at my bike. then i took it as apart as i knew how (which meant the seat, gas tank, and side panels) and stared at it some more. now, 3 weeks later, it still won't run, but it started on saturday!! it made me happy, but not really excited, since it still won't stay running. but it's something. considering i've sunk almost $300 into it, it had better do something! actually, i'm not allowed to touch it for a week. more on that in a bit...

-i have lost 3 of my high school boy leaders. maybe next time i'll rope them to something...but seriously folks...so the year started off at 5 gals and 5 guys leading the middle school group. now we're down to 2 guys. it was hard for me to really deal with- 2 of them asked to be let off, and one i had to kick off. it didn't help that the one that got kicked off is also the one that i'm closest friends with. if anyone can make a machine that will allow us to understand the mind of the high school male, let me know.

-i can plan!! somehow, i've always managed to avoid planning things. even at college and whatever, i never had to do any of that crap- i'm always just happy to let someone who likes to do it take the reigns. stand aside, becky wannamaker!! this is ryan 2.0! complete with planning upgrade!! there's a retreat coming up for the middle schoolers on saturday, and while i'm having the leaders that are doing the planning for a lot of it, it's been all up to me to do the groundwork and get all basics laid out. sorta fun, mostly not. there's like a bajillion details to these things! who are the people that love this stuff, and what's wrong with them? i just hope nothing goes drastically wrong...like i lose a kid in a snowdrift, or someone tells their parents that we ate yellow snow for fun or something. eewww....

-the weather!! today was the first just really nice day we've had since like september or something. it's not so much been rainy, but really windy all the time. so it's been nice through a window, but outside's been pretty much miserable. today it was just straight up nice. so i put on my speedo and spent some quality time sunbathing in the park. riiight...

-my furniture!! becuase my compy's gone, i really have no reason to be in my living room anymore, especially since it's freezing. and i've taken to heating my bedroom for like 20 minutes before i to go bed. so i thought "why don't i move my living room into my bedroom?" so i did. and by living room, i mean rocking chair. but now i sit in my little bedroom, slowly (but warmly) axphisxiating myself over a good book. i've also taken to sleeping in a sleeping bag. it's got this great fleece liner that i take out and warm up before i get in. it's the best idea ever!! this way no matter how much i roll around i'll never get out from under my covers. and it's WAY warmer than just my bed and blankets. i get a gold star for a good idea.

Things that haven't changed:
-my perpetual singletude. what with it being "loner hater day", i thought i'd add that 1+0=all the time to do whatever i want, and 1+1=BITE ME. i think i've made my position clear. i all reality, though, the "marriage=death" attitude that i had in college really doesn't serve me all that well over here. i wrote something about this in the past, but the whole living alone thing's been really hard. i don't regret it at all, and think that everyone should deal with it at some point- one of the side effects is you really find out a lot about who you are (this will either make you a better person, or incurably bitter). i sorta wish i've learned this lesson well enough to move on to step two, though. that would be the step where you're not living alone in a huge house. or at least not undating. in my youth group talk last night, i was telling the kids about idolatry, and how i was really lonely and how i had idols that i used to try and feel less lonely, and trying to get them to understand the depths of lonliness that i had experienced, and one of the gals was like "yeah, we know what it's like to be lonely too, ryan". i chuckled silently to myself when she said that- i have no doubt that she has very little idea of what it's like (in the rare event that you find this blog, i love you megan!). i also discovered that according to the rules of the mission that i am missionary-ing through, i am not allowed to date anyone for the first year that i'm here. who knew?! who cared?! thinking about it, i'm sure that there's a huge long list of things that i'm not allowed to do. i never thought about it, and i'm determined to stop in the very near future. after all, you can't break a rule you don't know about!

-john mayer's song "daughters". in the 189 times i've listened to it while making this post, it's been the exact same awesome song, every time. the only person that i know enough about to think about when this song is played is deidre. hope that's not awkward.

-my parents. i was thinking about this today, and i think that when children get old, they should be the ones to brag about their parents. that is, if the parents are brag-worthy. and i really think mine are. i got a valentines card from my mom, along with a letter. then they called me today and we talked for like 2 hours! that's a long time for my dad to be ok with "wasting money" (love you dad!). the truth is, my family members are all pretty much my best friends. and we learned that from our parents. and they were stupid sometimes, and we drove eachother to head-exploding-madness sometimes, but if i'm ever a dad, my goal will be to be one like my dad. and if i find someone who ends up being like my mom, i'll consider myself blessed. granted, it took 5 kids to break them in, but now they're 2 of my favorite people. in fact, i dedicate this entry to them. mom, dad- i love you guys. you are awesome. good job being amazing, loving Christian parents. if everyone had parents like you....well...that would be weird. but probably good.

this has turned way longer than is worth reading. now that i have the compy at "work", i'll probably be doing more entries as a means of procrastinating, which is good, i think.

I wonder sometimes: if there were a test for being a youth pastor that you had to take before they would let you into the International Society of Youth Ministry (or ISYM), would i have passed it? methinks probably not.

So i'm back in my little house on the far side of the world, sitting at my computer at noon with my coat on, and still being able to see my breath, and my mind is still a million other places, but figure that unless i write something everyone will think me dead. or people might start wondering if i've had a debilitating accident involving a box of weasels and meat paste and as a result have lost all my fingers and am unable to type. Have no fear!!

Christmas was an odd time for me. it was great to be back in portland, for the most part. i thought i had prepared myself for all the people wanting to know "how" i am, but i really wasn't. i'd be sitting eating or drinking coffee with someone that i am actual friends with, and someone who's name i don't really remember would come in and say "HEY!!! you're back!!! How're things going over there?" and because i'm a wimp, i would interrupt my actual conversation to tell them pretty much the same thing i told the last person, 5 minutes ago. it started to bother me a lot, so in the end i tried to stay off campus as much as possible. which is sad, since there's still some people that i would have liked to run in to. sorry, friends.

Then justin's wedding, which was the best wedding i've ever been to or in. makes me want to have a similar type wedding. bonus points for my mom saying that if any of us ever have a wedding like that she'll disown us. us guys were sorta 70's themed, with brown-ish leisure suits, and the girls wore some dress things. nothing really "matched" in the martha stewart way, but everything defiantly fit in the "justin and gwen" sorta way. it was low-stress (for a wedding), and low-budget (which helped with the low-stress), but i really didn't feel like anything was left out, or the "poor man's" version of a real wedding. it was fun and nice to be there and help put stuff together for them, which i think is a sign of a great wedding. and now they're sex fiends, so i guess it all worked out!

Then home. the potter house in tacoma (well, it's actually in university place, which was too cool for tacoma to handle, so they seceded, and it's much nicer there now. except that nobody knows where it is). and that's where everything started going wrong. well, not really, just not right. clarification: i love my family. i got to see my older brother doug and his wifey candice for the first time since last Christmas, and i got to see their child, kiera, for the first time ever, as she's only 8 months now. i got to see my parents and give them a hard time about trashing my house when they left, i got to see brent, who is living out part of a poorly defined dream of mine by vagabonding it around europe when he's not going to Bible school, i got to hang out with ro and cami, who i'd seen more recently. but a strange thing happened at that house- nothing. in fact, when i went back down to portland to fly back to japan, me and cami went out to coffee with eachother- we both felt like we hadn't spent any time together. really, we had just never went out and talked. neither of us had taken the initiative.

And that's where i ended up running into trouble. i usually make sure to help out around the house over Christmas, i usually prepare myself to take initiative with my siblings and parents, to do things and have conversations with them deliberately. this Christmas i was on vacation. completely. i did have good times with my siblings, and me and cami had some good frisbee/sharing time, but it really feels like i wasted some of this time, that i could have done more with it. it's not like i see my family that much anymore.

Which got me thinking- my life now necessitates discipline, necessitates being mature, forces me to be someone i'm not. which is good, cuz there's things about myself that i want to change. there's things about myself that i'm not that impressed by, and living here, being an "adult" (whatever that means) really makes me become more of the kind of person that i want to be. i don't mind the person i am now, but he has problems and issues and doesn't really analyze things and is immature, and INCREDIBLY selfish. i think i'm beginning to realize that making a big difference in this world by being a goofy fun-loving guy doesn't really work. i'm not planning on getting serious and boring, but i do want to make a big difference in this world, and the me from college just isn't the kinda guy to do that. he's sorta shallow, to be honest. he changes depending on who he's around, and what's expected of him.

Coming back here to the ministry was hard. not because i didn't want to be here, but i'd forgotten how to do my job. here, i read the Bible like it's my lifeline. my relationship with God is what keeps me going, fulfills me, even when i spend 15 hours writing a talk that rips my heart out and only 5 kids show up to youth group. here i NEED God. i need Him to give me patience when my high school kids suddenly close themselves to me for no reason. i need Him to give me understanding when my kids have really good reasons for not doing things that i think they should do. i need His wisdom when i realize that i'm probably impacting these kids more than i could ever know, and i'm faced with my own inadequacy and inexperience. i need His strength to get me through 4 meetings a day, to get me through sunday, which is a 14 hour work day. here i am nothing without God. i'm faced with pressures everyday that i can only take when God is with me, or rather, when i am with God.

So i think i read my Bible like twice over Christmas break. i didn't really talk to anyone (outside my family) about the youth ministry. basically my relationship with God became too difficult to maintain. and when i came back here, i felt like a fraud. i looked at my calendar and wondered how in the world i was ever able to keep a schedule like this, constantly pouring myself out. i felt like my life was running away with me, and i was barely holding on. like things weren't so much running, they were sprinting, and headed for a cliff. i'm doing a lot better now, and i blame God for that. it's been really good to be back with Him.

I've decided to become who i want to be. first, of course, i need to figure out who i want to be. i know that i want to change the world, to do ministry. i've known that forever. but, even though i went to Bible college, i never really went there for that. i was just thinking how ridiculous it is that i would go to a class like Anthropology, Christology, and Soteriology (or ACS), do as little homework as possible, cram for the tests, and somehow come out of the experience thinking that i had learned something. part of me thinks they should make multnomah really hard to get into, so only those who actually want to learn and make a difference would be let in. but then where would i be? i think i should write a letter of apology to a lot of my professors for probably making them question their teaching ability. but, i digress. in my mind, i want to go to the olympics. if we hang on to the spiritual training/physical training metaphor, i'm demanding that i be put in the game, but almost never practice, or work out, or train. it's no wonder that i feel frustrated by the ministry. i think it's time i started acting like i'm living for God, like He's what actually runs my life, not just when i need Him to. now i'm just rambling.

PLANE FULL OF FREAKS!!

As i was getting on the plane from tokyo to portland, i was suddenly struck by the fact that there was an unusually high percentage of freaks, all seeminginly drawn to this specific aeronautical transporter. "what," said i, to myself, "could draw so many skinheaded, tatooed, mustached, anime-costume-wearing, dregs of society-type people all into one, single, metal tube?" then, like the smell of a truckfull of steaming hops driving by on a lonely road in the winter, the answer hit me. portland. this plane was direct to portland. realizing this, i saw them through new eyes, took my nosering down, and took my seat with a smile. to their credit, and to the discredit of united, the northwest airlines flight attendants were the nicest, politest, and cheery flight attendants i've experienced in a long time, in spite of the hippies and the babies. go them!

Some things change- like the yen rate. that changes. some things on the other hand, don't change. getting off the plane in portland, i was instantly depressed by the fact that, at 7 in the morning, it was barely light, and it was drizzling and gloomy, colder than tokyo has ever gotten yet this year. i should have remembered, but, like the smell of a bad fart, it was something that i allowed myself to forget as the soonest possible convinience. 2 sundays ago it was shorts weather at church. we had to turn on the air conditioners. no joke. here, you have to start your car up 30 minutes before you want to use it to get the ice melted from off the transmission. well, it's almost that cold, i swear.

Being back at Bible college is funny. all my friends want me to go out drinking with them on whatever day they finish their finals. i don't really care about it, but it's something that seems to be quite important to them. i think it's all spite. me, i don't care, for i have the ability, though not the desire, to drink whenever i want. these poor, oppressed children, on the other hand, are convinced that freedom is 80 proof, and can't wait to get their hands on it. meeting old friends has been good, too. sometimes i sit and chat with people that i really don't think care about me that much, and i wonder why i put up with it, why i bothered to get a ticket to portland instead of seattle. then, an actual friend walks in and we chat for 2 hours, then i remember. actually, i thought the trip here was worth it after me and rainbow sat and chatted for four hours, then made supper, then her hubby came home, and we all ate supper together and had communion after. that evening, in and of itself, made coming to portland worth it. to me, anyways. it's no real secret that i didn't approve of rainbow and jeffs relationship. or marriage, for that matter. i even went so far as to ask rainbow to not ask me to be in her wedding, since being in someone's wedding sort of shows your support for the couple. ironically, rainbow taught me that trick. zing!

But, as we both realize now, it does no real good to pretend that someone you were best friends with for 4 years of school means nothing to you anymore. maybe if that school were elementary, or a really stupid military girls school or something, but we went to a fairly normal Bible college, and both basically grew into the people we are now largely through the influence of eachother. so, when i left for japan to do youth pastory things, i was actually sad that i would not be able to go to her wedding, although i still wasn't very happy for her. to be honest, i thought jeff was a complete douchebag, and i thought that every nice thing rainbow said about him was her just trying to cover for him, or make excuses for him or something. you know "he was in a bad mood", "he's nervous around new people", "he doesn't hate you, he just would eat your soul if he had the opportuninty", "he hates all his fiance's ex-boyfriends", etc. etc. the only real interaction i ever had with him was at a single event, and, had the role been reversed, i don't think i would have been much better. so, a big apology to jeff for being a bastard to you, if only in my mind.

Now, however, having hung out with them for the second time, i can honstly say that i think their marriage is a good thing, and i fully support them, and i even like jeff. i don't think he's someone i would have gotten to know under normal circumstances, but it's getting easier and more normal to hang out with him every time we do. and rainbow is just fantastic. and i'm really happy for them. so, chalk that one up to a plane full of freaks.

PLANE FULL OF FREAKS!!: 1
RYAN!! : 0

Look at me!! I'm 2 posts in 2 days!! OH BOY!!!

Sorry about that, but it had to be done. something about union rules or something...

There's different ways to spend my days. one way is to watch simpsons, movies, cartoons, etc. all day, then fall asleep on the couch, head filled with visions of what i spent my day on. then there's doing things that involve, well, doing things. these include (but are not limited to) work.

My job is, for the most part, awesome. i've been realizing more and more that i have the best job in the world. here's the thing- not only do i have to hang out with kids, which is rarely work, and almost always fun, but i have to develop Biblically-based messages and Christ-centered programs. all these things are not as fun for me, but develop me spiritually nevertheless. so, on top of getting paid to hang out with kids, i get paid to have an increasingly deep relationship with Jesus.

The danger is (there's always a danger) that i'm reading my Bible more and more with the "i have to give a sunday school lesson in 2 days" filter engaged, thus, and dangerously, and reminiscent of Bible college, the Bible becomes not an awesome thing to read and get closer to Jesus and understand the nature of God, it becomes an answer key that i rush to at the last minute. and why the last minute, you ask? why is it i always seem to get the least sleep on saturday night? because i procrastinate, that's why. some habits die hard, then there's some habits that don't die at all. and then there's the ones that you do flaming wheelchair-jousting with, but we don't talk about those.

So, if doing time-wasting things are negative points, and doing productive things are positive points, my days are getting more and more balanced. some days are in one extreme or the other, which is to be expected, but on average i think i'm getting better and better. which does not mean that i have all positive points, but rather means, i think, that i'm almost at zero at the end of the day. let's take today as an example:

overslept -1
didn't make breakfast -1
made permission slip for snow camp +1
practiced guitar +2
practiced guitar too long -1
didn't do dishes -1
watched CSI -1
knitted while watching CSI +0.5
bought printable overhead paper +1
worked on sunday school talk in starbucks +1
wrote blog +1
put off choosing games for youth group by writing blog -1

and i think that brings me right up to the present, with a killer score of 0.5!! i am a little sick, which i wish made all my positive points worth more and all my negative ones matter less, cuz really, who wants to work when they're sick!? i should grade myself on a curve when i'm sick. that's it!! bonus +50 for being sick.

LEVEL UP!!