still the same

Well, the past several months have been absolutely amazing for me. There's just something about summer that gets me excited sometimes--and it has nothing to do with the heat or the sudden ability to get soaking wet outside without freezing or enjoying cookouts. It does have a lot to do with the bevy of summer activities I sign myself up for, though. This summer, I've attended Christian Youth In Action (a nine-day training program put on by the Child Evangelism Fellowship), gone to Romania, and then gone on to summer camp with my youth group in Ringold, LA.

CYIA was epic, as always--most of my best friends attend, mostly because that's where I met them--and I learned a lot. They basically teach us how to run a five day club, which is a VBS-type program where we take kids and teach them about Christ and missions and the Bible and the Gospel over the course of a week that is usually pretty crazy. I'm doing another five day club right now and, let me tell you, it's nothing short of an adventure.

Romania was even more of an adventure. As some of you may know, I've taken two other overseas trips, to Zambia and China. Flying all the way across the Atlantic Ocean is, while not yet a commonplace happening, isn't quite so much of a novelty anymore. In other words, it's pretty boring. But then we got to Romania. We helped run a VBS for our missions, Tim and Debra Tyler, in Timisoara. On our peak night, Wednesday, we had over 70 kids. It was a huge blessing.

There's something amazing about going overseas and seeing how similar things are. Yes, we have different languages and different styles of living, sometimes even different cultural values and ways of looking at the world. Yet at a fundamental level, all people are the same. They live, laugh, love, die the same everywhere. Not only that, they pretty much worship God the same way. Oh yes, there are different styles of music, and some cultures (Africa comes to mind) get into it a whole lot more than Westerners usually do, but that doesn't change the simple fact that people are people, that when they really love God, they do it with all their hearts, and one of the purest expressions of that love is lifting praises to the Lord of the universe.

Romania didn't "change my life" per se, but it did refresh some things in my mind and show me a few things I need to change in my own life. So, I suppose it was a success. Pache (peace).