Daniel's Mind

Today was valentines day.

managed to:
-get lost on the way to pick up certain girl
-bumble around looking for a parking spot (but found one for free!)
-go see a rather pointless and violent movie
-smash my dinner all over my pants and coat
-get super excited about figuring something out in hebrews only to find it plainly stated the very next verse
-generally make a dan-like fool of myself
-enjoy the heck out the whole experience

I am pretty giddy, unlike many other valentine's days in the past.

And I got a substitute wife

Check it out, it's totally christmas break again! Rochester people best represent, yo. time to shake it up

Oh, to grace how great a debtor daily I'm constrained to be
Let that grace, Lord, like a fetter, bind my wandering heart to thee
Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it, prone to leave the God I love!
Here's my heart, oh take and seal it, seal it for thy courts above

I have been a straight-up klutz and scatterbrain for the past three days solid. An abbreviated list of my exploits:

Almost dropped a tray full of meals onto the lap of a person at the soup kitchen
Bashed a cleaning cart into the wall of same soup kitchen
Was teased mercilessly for using water from the bottom of the sink to clean the mirror. What's the big deal? Okay well that one doesn't really count...
Spilled coffee all over my pants
Bumped into multiple people
Spilled squash mix onto the rolls at a potluck, then nearly dropped the plate
Dropped some desert on the floor. Nobody saw, so I ate it anyway.
Knocked over a flashlight and some tools off my toolbox
Installed a new tire on an aircraft wheel (requiring multiple inflation/deflations) wrong
Took it apart and installed it again without the brake disk, took it apart again.

On the positive, I passed my commercial pilot's license written test

It's been too long since I've been in a good small group. I was asked to lead the men's small group for the College group which I go to. A few people signed up to come, and when it actually came together, nobody who signed up actually came, but three of us have been meeting for two weeks now, going through 1 Timothy, about a chapter a night. It's been great, wrestling through scripture with men of like mind, sharing openly with each other about struggles and weaknesses, as well as victories. Praying for each other and holding each other accountable before the Lord... It's so refreshing, and I praise God for the opportunity.

Wednesday night on the streets, it seemed like spiritual warfare was strong against us. Needs were plain, but it seemed impossible to break the surface in any of our conversations. I hate it, seeing people sitting there, wearing their brokenness, and their need for Jesus all over their faces, pounding on this invisible pane of glass between us. It is a constant struggle to let the results of our efforts be what they are, and simply rest in Him, knowing that we are greatly flawed servants but trusting Him to use us anyway.

Commercial Pilot's license written test on Monday, and a lot of studying between now and then.

There is an ivy that grows along the brick up the left side of my window. I enjoy it quite a bit. The tree outside is turning yellow and losing its leaves, a fact which does not delight me at all. I mean, yellow is okay, but I like the leaves. When they're all gone, it will just be the skeleton of the tree against the rather unadorned cinder block side of a law office next door, and the coldly closed blinds on its windows.

Life is somewhat confusing right now. I am both restless and content, happy and sad, worried and care-free. There's a word for this sort of thing, but it won't come to mind. Even if it did, it probably wouldn't mean a whole lot to anybody anyway.

At the airport, I'm flying alot pretty much every day, in three types of aircraft. The amount of time in the air combined with the number of other responsibilities I have means that the homework and studying side of things is falling behind. Then in the time I have off, I just want to get a bit of sleep, or relax for a bit instead of accomplishing what doesn't get done at school, so things slip through the cracks. It's not that I'm stressed the point of cracking over this stuff, but I like to be more on top of things than I am.

I am a perfectionist by nature, which means that I feel often that if something is going to get done, I have to do it. One of the lessons that God has been working me through for years (and I imagine still has years to go on) is giving these little captaincies of mine up to Him. I'm not such a good captain in most of them anyway.

I'm doing wednesday night outreach at Cup of Cool Water again, this time as lead staff. My two companions so far are freshmen at Whitworth college, Daniel and Christa. Daniel is from Spokane, and wants to become a doctor and serve overseas, and Christa is a theology major who intends to become a christian counselor.

The three of us walked around the city and got to know each other a bit. We met alot of people and talked to them, informing the ones that didn't know us that we are a christian ministry for street kids, and gave out food to people, telling them that we were trying to demonstrate God's love for them. We were able to dig to a bit of a deeper level in several conversations, but I think the real victory of the night was that Daniel and Christa really saw and entered into what we were doing. I think much foundation has been laid for the three to be of the same mind, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind; doing nothing through rivalry or through conceit, but in humility, each counting others better than himself. Also, I think I learned a little bit of what it means to be a servant leader, and I'm thankful that God has prepared me for it, and given grace for the task.

Interesting little side experience... While we were walking along, I noticed a really sweet car, and went over to check it out. Turned out to be a Ferarri- quite the rarity. We saw a gaggle of well dressed men nearby and I went up and said "Do one of you guys own that ride?" and one of them spoke up "Yeah, it's mine. Do you need a ride somewhere? I'm Mr. Davenport". As anyone in Spokane knows, Mr. Davenport is the heir of the very well-to-do Davenport family, and owner of the famous Davenport hotel. I guess that explains it. Gesturing to Daniel and Christa, I replied "Nice to meet you, I'm Mr., Mr. and Ms. Cup of Cool Water". This got the group of bigwigs laughing pretty good, at which point we bid them a good evening and took our leave. I thought it especially interesting that he should be able to introduce himself to anyone as Mr. Davenport, assuming that they know who he is. I think he would have been honestly shocked if we'd said "who?".

Went on outreach last night with the freshly married Noah Sutherland, and we went on bikes, which was interesting. Didn't see many kids around that night, though we did catch up with a few we hadn't seen for a while. Afterward, played a board game with his new wifey April and a couple of her friends, then biked home.
Tonight I talked with my dear sister Esther on the phone for a while, and she told me all about her PNG trip, especially her time in the village we used to live in. She taught a four hour class for three days educating women how to teach sunday school. Apparently, she was generally treated like a returning hero. Needless to say I'm very proud of her =)

I have been maintaining aircraft for three weeks in a row, and this week I get to fly. I hope to finish up my flights in the Cessna 182 RG, and probably start flying a Piper Super Cub, which is a cloth covered tailwheel airplane that looks somewhat like the picture. Same paint, but slightly different windows



School seems about to start up for everyone else, so people I haven't seen all summer are streaming back into town, and freshmen I haven't met before as well. One of them wasted no time and went straight to hitting on a friend of mine. Ruther amusing. Had a good time yesterday playing ultimate frisbee, then finding myself at a wedding reception for a wedding that happened two weeks ago in Virginia... I didn't know either the bride or groom, or any of the family on either side. See, as we were leaving Shilo to go to a cookout, a guy comes up to us and says "we have food for fourty in there, and only twenty people came. Come get some food and sit down a while!" and we didn't really know how to say "forget that, I'm not coming to your dumb wedding reception" so some of us went in and sat down while the others bought food for the cookout. An hour and a half later, we managed to sneak out, but the cookout was all but over. Oh well. Then six or seven of us went to Claire's apartment and talked about missions and theology. Then the guys left. I think there's an unwritten rule... You can't be at girls' house and be the only guy, no matter what. There could be entire crowds of women, but you cannot be there unless there is at least one other guy there. So I left. That's all.

Video: A typical day at the house

My roommates are so sensitive! So what if my foot accidentally touches a Bible? It's not like the book itself is holy... And they have some kind of problem with shaking the left hand too. What's with that?

I went to two weddings today, back to back, one in the exreme east of Spokane, one in the extreme north. Yes, once again, I got sunburnt. The first wedding I went to, I got to see Erica and Sara who on Thursday got back from a trip to Senegal. It was sweet to see them again, even though they are both skipping town for good tomorrow. I also met Laura and Megan who were friends at Moody my freshman year, and have seen very little of in the past few years. Then I met Nate Bagley, who is pretty much the man- he's a legend around Cup of Cool Water, and probably the primary human reason I'm there now. So then I'm sitting with Megan and Laura in the shade, and Erica and Sara come along and sit with us, and Nate and his wife as well. I know all of them, but each group only knows two or three of the other groups. Then this girl comes and sits down who I thought looked awfully familiar, who knew Erica and Sara, and was telling them that she had just gotten married. I thought "That can't be Anneka Barker". But of course it was. Anneka went with Mike Payne/Murano on a mission trip to India years and years ago and we had chilled with her once or twice back when we were freshmen. She was of course shocked that I was even in Spokane, let alone had common friends in Sara and Erica... whew.. lot of fun though. Not happy to say goodbye to the cup girls for good tho.

Then the second wedding was one of my classmates. So naturally all of the school was there. I realized several things. I knew about half the men there, and about 1/20th of the women. Happy to report that Jason find himself very well married. The second thing I learned is that I don't really understand myself very much... I always thought myself an introvert, but in social situations like that, I sure don't act like one. I guess there's alot to learn.

You who are reading this, I just want to say something. Don't stagnate! Toward that end, If you don't have a spiritual mentor, then find one, and ask them if they would be willing to disciple you, and then put in the effort and learn. Then secondly, no matter where you are in your spiritual walk, there is someone who needs to benefit from what you have learned. Be a mentor- seek out a student or two, struggle with them, push them to improve, invest in them, pray for them! We are here for a limited amount of time, and God is bringing each of us along different paths, yet paths that have many similarites. So many people who are hurting have people who can help so very close by, and yet no contact is made. Many who could be growing are not moving because they are trying to be self sufficient. So be there, please, and let someone be there for you.

Sunday evening the Shilo Hills college group and I met to do some more outreach in the neighborhood. Well, four of us did anyway. Less people answered the door this time, probably because it was so hot outside. Oh well. Watched a sermon on how to the Jews we should be as Jews, and likewise to the Greeks so that we may save as many as possible. One key principle was that cultural involvement is not the same as worldliness.

Then I was driving back home and this random car full of guys pulled next to me, with a "Yeahh!!" or two. One of them extended his arm, and I stuck mine out, and we gave each other high fives doing 35 mph southbound on Ash St.

Then monday night, helped the neighbor boys set up a bogus tent, then taught all three to drive stick, which brings my total number of students to... a big number. heh

So then today I picked up a high endorsement and a complex endorsement, which between the two of them allow me to pilot aircraft with more than 200 horsepower and that have retractable gear, variable pitch propellers, and flaps. So now I can fly any single engine land aircraft under 12500 pounds, money allowing. Which it doesnt.

Then I'm driving home from school, and it's super hot, and I'm far enough away from school that I figure I won't get embarassed by seeing anyone I know, so I go ahead and take off my shirt (it was really hot), so it's me with no shirt, wearing those aviator sunglasses, driving a jeep with no doors and no top. Not twenty seconds later, someone beeps at me. Man! I look to the side and realize it's the local FAA representative. Yep. Looking pretty professional, aren't I.

Then Joe and Greg (the neighbor boys) tossed a stone at my window and I came down. Joe wanted to go swimming, and again it was a hot afternoon. So he showed me the path down to the river- there's a killer tree to jump off of into the river, probably 30 feet high. This is definitely going to be the solution to many a hot afternoon this summer.

A flat tire on the road is not a fun thing, but a flat tire on the runway is definitely worse. After joining the diamond club this morning, (d'oh) I went on a maiden flight in an airplane that's new to me. Went up to practice traffic patterns in wind that was gusting up to 30 mph, and considering that I usually land at about 70 mph, those are pretty serious winds for a small airplane. Anyway, I flew up to Deer Park, a little town that's north of Spokane about 45 minutes by car to practice traffic patterns in the new plane. On the second landing, really fighting winds all the way down, the landing wasn't beautiful, but wasn't too bad either. Then as I'm braking to turn off on the nearby taxiway, the left tire just blew out on the centerline of the runway. Couldn't taxi, but my instructor and I managed to drag the plane with much effort off the runway and onto the taxiway.

Radioed my situation in, and arranged for another Moody plane to fly a new wheel in with two mechanics. This ended up taking a good bit of time, so we hung out for a while in the FBO, where old timers are always to be found. This one old timer had a boatload of stories and took us out the the WWII era firebomber based at the field. You don't often get to sit left seat in a machine like that, for sure.

Finally the guys showed up in a 206, and went straight to switching out the wheel. We had the parts, but the jack and blocks were borrowed from a mechanic on the field. Jacking didn't work too well, so we just all got on one side and lifted as hard as we could along the main spar, lifting the wheel off the ground while someone tossed a block under the brake caliper. Did the job, and we had the thing traded out in no time. Finally went home, late, sweaty, dirty and tired, but somewhat satisfied.

My day was long. If you care to find out how long, I'll cover a few quick high points.

- 2:30 am this morning: Got up to put the finishing touches on the sermon for today. Never feel ready no matter how much work goes in. Finished polishing a little before time to leave for church.

- Sweet worship service, time spent pouring hearts out in worship to the King of the universe.

- Preached from the story of Hezekiah, which seemed to go well. Felt definitely led, and believe God used it in people's lives. Popped off a clip of airsoft ammo during the sermon which I was afraid of getting in trouble for but didn't

- Talked to a young couple who liked the sermon and want to start coming to the chapel regularly. They want us to play less old hymns and more contemporary christian stuff. I agreed with that in general, except that I'm probably the only person in the entire assembly who knows any of the newer songs. Decided that skillet might be a leetle over the edge.

- Went to lunch with two old ladies from church who are in their 80's. I do this relatively often. They decided that they need to find me a wife.

- Went straight to Shilo for the college group, was 1 hr early. Laid out on the grass and chilled with two friends who were trying to get inside the building to get some ice cream. Good convos.

- People showed up, and we loaded up in cars, with four total in my jeep, and drove way out north east of town and picked strawberries in a big group. It was lots of fun, and the berries were ridiculously yummy.

- Hung out afterward near the farm store, where there was (go figure) live music playing. Hung out, met a new girl from Colorado, talked to and old friend on the phone named Jodie who we lost to Colorado, Watched some of the more talented among us swing dance to the music.

- Let Sara(h?) drive my Jeep back to Shilo while Theresa and I stood up in the back seat for part of the trip, wind whipping our faces, and making great air conditioning.

- Went to Scroll and Dalex' house while listening to sweet old 90's alternative rock hits. Found out that some of them have not such good meanings.

- Regathered at Shilo. Prayed and went out in groups of two, one guy and one girl, to ask people in the neighborhood if we could pray for anything for them. Some people were interested in coming to Shilo, Went up a ladder to talk to some roofers, and one of them wanted prayer

- Back to Shilo for debriefing and prayer, back to Scroll's house, then home. Here I am. Whew.

This is the Day that the LORD has made, I will rejoice and be glad in it!

Not a soul down on the corner,
That's a pretty certain sign,
That wedding bells are breaking up that old gang of mine.
All the boys are singing love songs,
They forgot "Sweet Adeline,"
Those wedding bells are breaking up that old gang of mine.
There goes Jack, there goes Jim,
Down to lover's lane.
Now and then we meet again,
But they don't seem the same.
Gee, I get a lonesome feeling,
When I hear the church bells chime,
Those wedding bells are breaking up that old gang of mine.

I took two guys from church out of friday (posted about them earlier)- We went down to the river to utilize the rope swing and the nearby jumping cliff, then we went offroading up on beacon hill. That place was hardcore, I thought I was going to roll the Jeep more than once. At the top of the hill, I taught both the guys how to drive stick and let them bomb around a bit while sitting up on top of the vehicle. Better view that way. Only hitch was that we had to change out a flat tire using a jack that didn't have a crank. We had to use a bent up old fork for that. Well, It was bent up when we were done anyway.

The problem was that I didn't think of sunblock, and wasn't wearing a shirt for most of the day, so as you can imagine, I'm several shades redder/browner and more than a few shades more painful.

I'm finally an instrument pilot =)

I moved to a new place with awesome guys, which is pretty sweet. We're all MK's and if you're not one, you can't come in. Okay well maybe that's a little harsh... you can come up if you get a visitor's pass approved. Anyway, it's an old brick building with a nicely refinished upstairs. Downstairs is a financial planner's office, but we're hardly ever here during business hours.

In other news, Monday is my big instrument flight rating test, which is kind of the peak of difficulty in the entire length of my education, from kindergarten to now. If I pass, I can legally fly without looking outside the airplane, like... in clouds. Right. Okay, so that's kind of anticlimactic.

In further other news, I ran the running part of a triathlon on Saturday. By surprise. In jeans. Yea, I gave some city kids a ride to the race early on saturday, and then when they got to the running part, one of the kids, named Skeeter starts to run, and then turns around to come back. I went out and convinced him to run it if I did. It was good stuff... One of the other guys who came, named feather, is a homeless guy who I have wanted to get closer to for some time, and I took him out to lunch afterward. He really needs God, and I hope that I will have the opportunity to assist in having them meet.

Also, my new place has put me right next to two guys who I know from cup of cool water, and then there's two guys who go to my church who are new christians, but are from somewhat rough backgrounds and have a hard time connecting with a church culture that is so foreign to them. With all four of these guys, I hope to build solid relationships as kind of a big brother/father figure and Lord willing, disciple them.

That's all.

Okay, so I've been super, super busy.

And in the middle of that, I finally got a facebook account. I don't even really know how that works, except it's less sketch version of myspace... hmm