It’s over. Sorry this weblog (Jax STP ‘04) hasn’t been utilized more during the program. I got frustrated with lack of content and put most things related to myself and the Jax STP over on my own weblog. Sorry.
Tag Archive: Posts tagged summer
Sunday, August 8, 2004Group outing last night. Good times, lots of fun. The activities we did actually resulted in me feeling like I got to know a lot of the people better… not in the sense of knowing lots of facts about their lives, but actually DOING things of interest and value with them. (see pictures)
Today we went to Gainesville, FL, home of the University of Florida and did a lot of praying. The basic goal was to pray for the campus, for students, for Christians, for Navs and other campus ministries, and asking God to do some sweet stuff there, draw people unto himself and into relationship with him, and that through that he would just bring glory to himself. Aside from praying, we also spent some time at a staff family’s home eating food and playing around for a bit.
I ate Mac & Cheese & Tuna for dinner. It’s funny how a full bowl will fill you, but still leave you hungry. Hungry for vegetables, fruit, and any sort of real nourishment. It’s all good though.
Tonight I’m trying to prepare a little talk about how I came to Christ and some other things associated with that. I’ll be speaking about this briefly at church tomorrow right before the pastor’s sermon. I’m not nervous, but I probably will be tomorrow.
Phillipians 4:6-7 — “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and supplication, with Thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God and the peace of God which surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and minds in Jesus Christ.”
The six other people (April, Nkem, Katie, Nick, Alissa, and Kara) who worked phonebooks with me didn’t end up getting the housekeeping job. Apparently they’ll all now be stuffing envelopes through a job they got at another temp agency. Pray that God’ll use that somehow to still do his thing.
Today God did a lot of cool stuff and answered a few of my prayers in ways I didn’t expect. Firstly, the phonebook delivery job ended today. I didn’t even take one as a souvenir, unfortunately, because my conscience got in the way. To be clear, I didn’t pray for this job to end.
Last night, I found out that Hardees was looking for another person to hire for the remainder of the time I’ll be here in Jax. Since I decided I’d like to take this job, Nick ended up going with the five women who switched over to housekeeping jobs today. That meant I’d be the only one working today.
I got to work today and it quickly became clear that this was the last day of work delivering from the warehouse we were at. I got put with two people I hadn’t worked with before — Jason and Vicki. It’s very obvious that there’s bitterness and frustration in their lives. At one point we drove away from a nice neighborhood and the both ranted for a couple minutes about how much they hate stuck-up rich people who expect things their way all the time and bleepity bleep bleep bleep. So… tough stuff.
At one point on the way to grabbing lunch, Jason commented that he’d like to hook up with a woman like the ones from Navs who’d been delivering phonebooks up until today. I commented that “they’re probably not your type of women.” In any case, he told me I was assuming things, I apologized for that, in within a couple minutes we were talking about Jesus and how he’d prefer to have a Christian girlfriend and how he considers himself a Christian even though he’s backslidden. Well, anyway, got to share with him a little bit and though I didn’t have opportunity to get the whole gospel out there, I tried to encourage him a bit to read the Word and let God talk to him through that.
A bit later Vicki and I got to talk a bit while Jason was eating his lunch in Taco Bell. It turns out she hitchiked with her last boyfriend for a while and a lot of Christians gave them rides and fed them at times when they would’ve probably starved otherwise. As a result of this, she decided to buy me half a sub sandwhich for lunch and a soda from Taco Bell. Crazy stuff.
Anyway, I’m just kinda happy about how God had the day turn out. Now I’m also off early so I can get some time to work on Bible study before dinner.
Prayer requests: pray that this Hardees job would work out and God would use me for his purposes there (or even a job somewhere else). Also pray that God would keep working in my life to soften my heart and allow him to change areas of my life that I don’t want to change.
One other prayer request if y’all could: I’ve got a friend named Brandon and he’s got a tough situation ahead of him and doesn’t know how it’s all gonna work out. He doesn’t know God or believe in prayer, but I think there’s hope for him in the situation he’s facing. Pray that God would just do something amazing to bring resolution to this situation and just speak into Brandon’s life.
Also, if you could pray for a guy named Justin, a fisherman I met on Saturday at the beach, that God would just work in his life, convict him of his sin, and draw Justin unto himself.
That’s it for now. Latez.
Eight hour work days can be exhausting. The last couple of days have been better for work and not quite as difficult as the first day. I think it’s been ’cause I haven’t had to sit in the back quite as much and the work has been a little more varied — more businesses and less windy roads, I guess. Today Rob (he drives), Nkem, and I delivered about 696 phonebooks. 1 phonebook = white + yellow for Jacksonville (does not include Jax Beaches).
I’ve been very encouraged lately by studying God’s grace and what it is (a free gift lavishing eternal life upon all who believe that Jesus Christ died for them on the cross and rose again as a sacrice that paid the penalty for sin and removed the separation between man and God). It’s also amazing how easy it is to ignore that great gift and continue living a life marred by sin. I know ’cause I still sin and it doesn’t bother me as much as it should. God did so much for me and yet I … well… that’s the point, I guess, I can do nothing to earn it. It keeps coming back to that. Might be something there.
Well, anyway, I need to bust out and grab dinner. My head aches, too, so perhaps I’ll drink lots of water tonight. Workshop later on and meeting with Engle between dinner and then.