Most Wonderful Place On Earth

Have you ever noticed that if you are feeling down or in a bad mood there is usually a thing you can do, a movie you can watch, or a place you can go that will just put you back in a good mood again.

Well I think I've found that place for me. Its been a long week at work and then I had to travel 230 miles to go to manager meetings for a couple of days, and I was missing the Lock-In at church so I wasn't happy. Oh and to make matters worse the traffic was terrible and took me over an hour just to travel 40 miles.

So instead of coming straight to Lakeland, I made an hour stop at the most Wonderful Place on Earth, yep thats right, Disney World. Since I didn't have that much time, only an hour like I said, I went to Downtown Disney. Just being in that atmosphere made it all the better. I got to talk to a family who was from England, and their girls told me about the dolphins they saw in Sanabel Island. I talked to another guy who's first day was today and was working in the Candy Shoppe and he was from China. I don't know there is just something about that place. It might also be the sweets I bought today too. I found shortbread cookies in a tin with Mickey in a kilt, four chocolate covered Marshmellows, chocolate mint fudge, and a mickey shaped rice crispy bar with chocolate ears. So you see a pattern here?

Wish I could have stayed longer but if I had I probably would have spent even more money, but it might have been on something that would have lasted.

Vitamin time

So its that time of year again. First Baptist Church of Fort Lauderdale's 24th Annual Christmas Pageant, and today was the first kick off day.

Now, last year I only participated in the choir concert and the second act (which is the Christmas story to the Resurrection) but I wanted to be more involved this year, so I had auditions today for Opening Scene (which is a lot of dancing). I was supposed to be in choir listening to the music but instead I danced.

Now, I haven't taken dance classes since I was really little and then the odd dance lesson in P.E. from Grades 7 through 10. So for me this is pretty much starting straight from scratch with no dance history to speak of. Too say that it was difficult would be a bit of an understatement. Don't get me wrong, it wasn't so hard that I could never learn the steps, thats not true. I just mean that it will take me some time to learn it. As long as I start off slow and then work myself up to a higher level/speed, I will be able to learn the steps.

So for todays auditions, I really only felt comfortable in part of the waltz steps, and strangely its the only steps I can remember after two hours of auditions. Like I said, if given more time I can get the other steps down so I'm not too worried. I won't know if I made it until end of next week, beginning of the next, so we shall see.

Apart from that I need to start working out more. I think this will have been the most of a work out I have done since my hike in Scotland last year and even that wasn't wasn't as much of a cardio that today was.

I'm looking forward to the challenge that will happen this year since I'll hopefully be more involved this year. It also means I'll probably be more tired also because of work going on also.

I better start taking my vitamins now.

Consumed

So I have just come back from an amazing week at camp and I can honestly say that it went better than I expected.

Let me explain why first. Recently my only experience with a High School/Middle School Camp has been with the Nazarene church up in Lake Placid, FL (and if someone from this group is reading it, then I do apologise). Any ways, it was two years ago and it was probably one of the most unplanned camps I've ever been too. There was way too much free time and they didn't motivate the students in any way. I honestly don't even remember anything about out speaker or our worship band. Is that bad? The last time I was a student in a High School Camp was when I was living in Canada and I CAN remember our speakers and our worship band.

So unfortunately I was going into this years camp with this memory fresh in my mind. Now I already realised, from helping out in the student centre since October and also being on the planning team that this camp was going to be better than the last one that I participated in. I've already seen the love these students have for Christ and its been a long time since I've seen this in students.

Thankfully our speaker John R. Evans was amazing and our worship band Six Days from Sunday was awesome and I don't see us forgetting about either of them anytime soon. Our messages were from Jeremiah and being so consumed by God that no matter what is going on, we can't stop praising God and telling others about him, and constantly seeking his will in our lives.

Now the one thing that I was worried about was my group. In my group of 8 students, I only knew 3 of them well, the other 5 I just knew by name. Now to be honest about myself, unless I know you well I'm not very talkative and can be shy. I would have to say that by Tuesday night I was beginning to feel discouraged. I didn't feel as though the group was opening too much to me or to each other and I didn't feel like I was leading the discussions well but I realised that I needed to just give it over to God. As it usually happens, the next day the group opened up and I got the encouragement that I needed from a couple of my students.

I think one of the most amazing things that happened was on the second to last night. We had a cross walk. It involved each person taking up the cross and walking a few steps carrying it. You don't realise just how much Jesus did for us when he died on the cross. He had been beaten near death and then forced to walk through Jerusalem carrying the cross that he was going to be killed on. Anyways it make for an amazing night.

I don't think this is going to be a camp that I'll forget in awhile, nor do I want to forget. I hope that the students don't ever forget it either. I can't wait to see what happens for the next camp.

I'm not sure how well this is going to read since I wrote it while I'm sick and exhausted but I hope you get the gist of it.