"Fishing" (for people) Trip

¹⁸As Jesus was walking beside the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon called Peter and his brother Andrew. They were casting a net into the lake, for they were fishermen. ¹⁹"Come, follow me," Jesus said, "and I will make you fishers of men." ²⁰At once they left their nets and followed him. ~ (Matthew 18-20, NIV, Bible Gateway)

We are called to be fishers of men. In Matthew 28, known as the great commission, he tells us to go and make DISCIPLES in all the nations. He is with us everywhere we go. It wasn't a suggestion. It was a command.

This command is part of the reason I am still at Arkansas State University. My freshman year I wanted to go home. I wanted to quit. Then I met a group of Christian friends who were also trying to answer that call. I got involved with them and one of the opportunities gave us were these "fishing trips."

That is how I met the group. Two of them came up to me in the cafeteria and began to witness. I had heard it before and knew where they had learned the style from. And in the future, I would be out there with them.

I know God doesn't need us. He could make everyone know the truth, he could take away our free will, but he doesn't. He CHOOSES to use us. He chooses to speak through humans. How great of an honor is that that he chooses to speak through us, sinners, who also have to be saved through the blood of Christ!

We met all sorts of people today. Aaron and I went to tailgate city before the football game to talk to people. The first man that I talked to was saved. Not only did he know the gospel, he told it to me and then he turned back to me and asked me if I knew where I would go when I die :). This was the first person we talked to today and it was encouraging. The second was a group of two guys and Aaron talked to them. He used the same tract as I did, the survey with trick questions. After a few silly questions it was time for the serious questions; they had heard the gospel before. There seemed to be some conviction when you looked at their faces and listened to their voices.

The next person was an older lady. I asked her a few questions and then moved to the serious ones. She said you got to heaven by doing good things. Aaron asked her if everyone went to heaven. She said she never really thought about it. And then I told her the bible says works can't save us and she responded about Jesus. I know know if she believes or not.

After we talked to her we went in prayed. After praying we got up and started again. We started using the million dollar bill and asking "Have you heard the million dollar question?" We were able to talk to one member of the Methodist church. After that we went to the student side of Tailgate city and I talked to what appeared to be a family. I went through the gospel with them and they had heard it before. Again, I don't know what they believe and they are not involved with any churches or anything.

I think my favorite was with an alumni behind the stadium. He and his wife were here for the game and he knew the gospel as well and was saved. He was from Helena and we actually had a conversation about changes. He talked about how Satan had gotten a foothold here and there was a lot more violence and drugs on the campus that when he was a student. One of my teacher's family members plays the piano where someone in his family goes to church. It is a small world!

In total I think we talked to 8 people and/or groups of people. Afterward we went to the cafeteria and ate with two other friends. One I don't know what he believes. The other is Catholic. We were able to discuss religion and different beliefs as well as international and domestic policies. It was a very educational lunch.

I also had the opportunity to witness to one of my good friends last night, and pray for some others. God is moving and I can't wait to see what else he will do on this campus and in this community and in my life.

Presentations

I got to briefly relive my summer today for about an hour. As part of getting credit for my internship at ASU, I had to talk to two FYE classes today, each for about half an hour. It was an interesting experience and a new one.

I have sat in my own Journalism classes when we have had guest speakers. But today I got to be on the other end of that-- I was the speaker. I saw the expressions on the students faces. I saw the emotion, or lack thereof. I was able to take questions if the students had any.

The presentations were about the internship I had this summer. Mine included how I got the internship, what I did, and what I learned from the internship. (Click here to see the first version of the PowerPoint that went with it.) It went a lot better than I expected. I didn't put much preparation into it. All I did was make the PowerPoint presentation and practice a real quick run-through in my room about a week ago. After all, with all of the presentations in Spanish, an English Presentation would be easy. And it was.

But, no matter how easy it is or what language it is in, it never goes as expected or intended. There were things that I said in one class that I didn't say in the other. There are things I wanted to say in both classes but I didn't. There were ways I wanted to begin that I didn't. But it all worked out anyway. It was a great opportunity. It was a lot different from an Oral Communications class.

I remember being extremely nervous in Oral Communications. Today wasn't that bad. I went in to the classes looking forward to it. I looked for the opportunity to put a little bit of public speaking behind me. Who knows how much I will have to do in the future. And being on the other side of speaking, I am able to see how all our guest speakers might feel, or even the instructors.

When we as students slouch down in our chairs and look bored, they can sense it. It doesn't help the professor and in turn it probably makes things worse for the students. I honestly wondered, especially in the second presentation, if anyone was even paying attention. It had been my intention to answer more questions in the second, because they had already listened to another presentation before mine. But only one person asked a question.

So, from the internship I learned just how important some of my classes are. Even though I didn't understand how much I needed some of the information, it turned out very valuable at the internship. And then, from presenting that information today, I learned a little bit more about what it is like for teachers and presenters. As students, we should give them all a little more respect. Ask questions (assuming it is that kind of class). Sit up. Use body language appropriate-- smile, nod... something to show we are paying attention and understand what is being said. It could all make a world of a difference.

20 horas despues

Hoy, esperamos con los Chilenos. Mañana celebramos con los Chilenos. (Today we wait/hope with the Chileans. Tomorrow we celebrate with the Chileans.)

It is so nice to finally hear some good news for once. The Chilean miners were trapped for more than two months, almost 70 days, in a the San Jose Mine. Today the world has been watching the TV as live broadcasts from the site, show us the rescue mission.

It has been about 20 hours since the mission started. Twenty-Seven miners have been rescued leaving 6 miners and 5 rescue workers in the mine. Eleven more to go!

Let's continue to pray for the safe return of all these people to the surface and a speedy rescue.

---

Es muy bien para oír noticias buenas. Los mineros chilenos estaban atrapados para mas de 2 meses, casi 70 días, en el mino San Jose. Hoy, el mundo han sido mirando por el televisión donde muestran viva vídeo desde el sitio.

Hace 20 horas desde el empece del trabajo para resecar los mineros. Veintisiete mineros han sido rescate, y le falta once mas gente en el mino.

Necesitamos continuar a rogar para el vuelto seguro de todas la gente y para el rescate pronto.

Pedestrians in Jonesboro, AR

I had an interesting yet fun hours tonight. It was not an average night by any means. A friend and I took off about 8:20pm and got back to campus at 12:20am. We took a 9.5 mile hike, but not in the mountains or hills or even in the woods. This was a far more dangerous hike. This was a hike across busy roads, down dark roads, and roads without sidewalks. This was a hike from Arkansas State University, down Matthews to Stadium to Harrisburg Road to S. Caraway Road and back to ASU.


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Once we got to Stadium Blvd., the fun began. Many areas don't have crosswalks. Some have crosswalks but no signal lights. Where there are signal lights, as soon as they tel you to walk, they start flashing the red hand to stop. They don't give enough time to cross a road. Of course, in Washington, D.C. we just ignore the signs all together. If there was no car coming we went. I'm not sure how Jonesboro Police would feel about that around here.

I don't even know how many ridiculous things people were doing. Countless cars blew their horns for no reason. Even more had their windows rolled down and started to yell at us. I don't know what they said. It was annoying is all I know. The weirdest was when we were almost back to campus, someone yelled my name.

There were a few times I was walking on the shoulder of the road-- NOT a turn lane-- and a car tried to run me over. Of course, there are almost no sidewalks in Jonesboro so we had to walk through ditches, yards, in the road, and on the shoulder of the road. Jonesboro needs more public transportation but I think they need to work on some major sidewalk and pedestrian improvements first. Even if we had the transportation, there is nowhere safe to walk. Yet there are students and other people around here that have to do it almost every day.

Internet

I thought I wasn't even going to be able to write this blog tonight because it takes so long to load a BLANK page. I don't know if you have ever seen the text editing page for blogger. If not, here is a screenshot.

The following is a Facebook status in which I tagged Arkansas State University-- although I do not know how much good it will do. They don't seem to do anything that makes since.

Video Length: 1 minute 12 seconds. Time to load and watch- Cell phone: 1:12; computer: 14.5 minutes.... CONCLUSION: Arkansas State University - Jonesboro should start charging less for athletic fees, and recreation fees and allocating money in areas we really need it like technology and academics.

 The story behind the status: I was talking to friends today and said I could probably load a Youtube video faster on my cell phone than I could on my computer. I got so tired of it that I finally tried it tonight. Sure enough, the results were not a big surprise. It loaded more than 13 minutes faster on my cell phone! It only took the length of the video, a minute and 12 seconds for me to load and watch it on my phone.

Another one of my friends posted a status around the same time as I posted mine saying she had just lost an entire homework assignment because of the internet.

I do not know for sure about hers but my experiment was performed using ETHERNET, not wireless!

Something has got to change. Classes depend on the internet now! It is the primary source of research. It is one of the main ways teachers and students communicate, especially outside of the classroom. It is how many students take classes. In some classes, videos are a part of the class. They have to be watched outside of class and are streamed through blackboard and/or Youtube.

I use half of the money they charge me for laundry each semester. This semester I pay 50 dollars to be able to park anywhere on campus for 3 hours per day, 5 days per week. I pay 180 dollars in Athletic Fee. I pay 180 in Information Technology, 50 in infrastructure. I pay 105 for Student Recreation and 150 for Student Union. Then another 20 for Student Activity.

If I go to every home football game and buy a ticket, it would cost me about 85 dollars. There are 95 dollars left for basketball (men and women), baseball and soccer. Most students don't go to every football game, much less all the other games. I would rather pay to enter a game than be overcharged.  And where does all the other fee money go? Obviously some of it goes to watering the sidewalks around campus. Some of it (a lot of it) goes into searching for a new president.

Why don't they decrease some of these other fees and put the money into EDUCATION? We need reliable internet. We need reliable computers in the library that do not have viruses or crash in the middle of typing a report. We need new academic space more than we need a new place to work out. Academics should be a top priority. I would rather be known as a university that turns out some of the most educated students in the State of Arkansas than a university who is all about partying, playing and sports.

Technology and the Future

It doesn't matter what I am studying, I will always find something to distract me. Today it was technology and the future. As I sat in the library thinking about some geocaching, I began to think of an idea for a "travel bug" that I could put in my first regular sized cache.

I decided it would be really cool to buy a 2 gig flash drive to use for the bug. On the first part I would put a text document with directions and the purpose of the bug. There would then be folders labeled by Country. Inside each country folder, sub-folders with state names would be created and then further sub-folders labeled by cities.

The directions would be something like this: Please create a new text file and title it with your username and home. In the text file write a little bit about yourself and about the area in which you live, whether it be your city, county, or state.

The purpose: In one aspect this is like a time capsule. It is also a chance for learning about other people and communities. Each time the bug is found a new entry would be saved inside the respective folder and the next people who find it can read it.

Then I began thinking about the use as a time capsule type thing. What if the earth is around for another 5,000 years and someone finds this flash drive. Would they know what to do with it? Computers as we know them might cease to exist. And what about energy?

Even if scientists had found old computers that would still function, would the forms of energy still be the same? Would they be able to run a computer to see the information on the computer or external memory devices?

What will scientists be able to know about so much of our culture and our civilization during this time. That information is stored on thousands of computers. Devices which require power. Devices that require other devices to function. Files corrupt. Water destroys the systems. Dirt isn't good for it. So in 5,000 years, after it has faced all these elements and new technologies have developed how much would be availible to study our history?

The example I will leave you with: 3.5 inch floppy disks. You remember those large square, plastic-covered disks. the ones that you slipped inside a slot on the front of a computer. The things that, if left in the computer, caused a delay in the boot-up sequence. The things that would hold 1 picture if you are lucky with today's cameras. The things that were replaced by CD's which are gradually being replaced with flash drives. When is the last time you used one?

So when all that time passes how will things change? How will they be different? Will they use electricity as we know it? Will they have power chords? Will computers have keyboards or be all voice control? Will they be big or small? How will information be stored? What information will be available about our society for future generations?