My parents are coming out next month because my brother decided to preview here. I am amazed that he would want to considering that I am here. It is not like my brother and I have a bad brother-sister relationship, we have an awesome one. Moving a lot helped us here. When we moved it took us a while to get to know the anyone our age, so for the first couple of weeks we would play and hang out together. I remember a lot of our phases. For instance, the last time we were in Germany, we both were into the "Hardy Boys", "Nancy Drew", and "Tom Swift" books and into playing with hotwheels and micro-machines. Whenever we had cars out, we always pretened that the town included those characters in the books we were reading and were all friend and solved all kinds of mysteries that we made up. I have fond memories of playing/hanging out with my brother. I love my brother a lot, and I miss him while I am here. So I am somewhat happy that he is actually looking into maybe possibly attending LeTourneau. I think he would enjoy it here.

While I want him to come here, I need to remember that he has to enjoy it for himself. I cannot force him to like it here. He has to see the school the same way I did and see why I like the school for himself. I don't want to be overbearing and things like that. I want him to make up his own mind. If this is where he feels God wants him, then so be it. But if it is not, I understand. The best thing for him to do is to listen to God's will and not my will.

I am also looking forward to seeing my parents again. Because I decided to go to school so far away, I don't have the luxery of going home over breaks or the luxery of them visiting me a lot. So it is a real treat when they come out. I am excited that they get to meet all my friends and get to see me play softball (first time for college play). They will be here the weekend after spring break.

My aunt sent me this the other day:

Can you imagine working for a company that has a little
more than 500 employees that has the following statistics:

29 have been accused of spousal abuse
7 have been arrested for fraud
19 have been accused of writing bad checks
117 have directly or indirectly bankrupted at least 2 businesses
3 have done time for assault
71 cannot get a credit card due to bad credit
14 have been arrested on drug-related charges
8 have been arrested for shoplifting
21 are currently defendants in lawsuits
84 have been arrested for drunk driving in the last year

Can you guess which organization this is? Give up yet?

It's the 535 members of the United States Congress.
The same group of Idiots that crank out hundreds of new
laws each year designed to keep the rest of us in line.

Sad news...our Softball games were canceled for tomorrow

I have this 8-10 page paper due next week in Historical Books, and I have just started it tonight.I have no idea to why I wait to almost the last minute. I used to never be like this, but this semester its seems to be the story of my life. To me, it seems that I am always playing catch-up especially on the weekends. I wish I had more time to hang out with my friends. Some people do not see or talk to me as much as last semester or even last year. I have just been too busy. That is somewhat my fault because I have decided to play sports. When playing a sport, you will end up losing some of your homework time in the afternoon leaving you to do it all at night.

Someone asked me way I play sports and why do I go through the aches and pains and what do I get out of playing? I play sports because I enjoy it a lot. I love the game of softball. Some people just don't understand why, but I grew up with baseball and softball. I just cannot get away from it. I can tell if a practice was good or not. A good practice makes you ache afterwards or the next day. A good workout would include your legs to ache. Getting hurt just comes with the game. If you toss too much, your arm will hurt (like mine does now). Playing softball teaches someone a variety of lessons. You learn about teamwork, sportmanship, dedication, perserverance, time management, and the list goes on. Playing a sport has its up and downs, but there is a lot more ups than there is downs. One just needs to play to understand why I play sports.

One bad thing about playing softball is that I don't spend enough time with the people that matter the most. For example, I see my roommate in the morning, and the next time I might see her is sometime after 7:30. I wish I could spend more time with her. That is one of the reasons I get up Tuesday and Thursday early with her, so I can spend time with her and hang out with her. I would also like to spend more time with some of the guy friends I have, but I don't. If I try to spend time with them, my grades drop and I do not want that to happen. I think I should just lock myself up in my room and if anyone wants to see me, they have to come to my room. Go out of their way to talk to me because I go out of my way to talk with them. What about having a two way street?

Just a little note, our softball games were moved to 2 and 4 this Saturday given that we play. The games might be canceled due to the weather. I will let you know tomorrow whats up. If the games are not canceled, it would be wonderful if a lot of you could come out and cheer us on.

Today was a much better day. Thanks to all those wonderful conversations I had last night with a variety of people. God has blessed me with wonderful friends.

We had our first softball games today. We ended up losing them both, but it was still fun. #2 hit a home run her first bat up and also had wonderful defense. #14 pitched an awesome game. #1 was wonderful on the defense. #10 broke up a no hitter. It was a lot of fun. I wish that we could have won, but we will win this weekend. (by the way...we have home games this weekend from 2 to about 6...come out and watch us...we would love for you to)

I was having a conversation tonight about communication. I was wondering why do people have problems communicated with each other. It has been said that communication is the key to success. If that is true, why don't people improve their commnication skills. Any suggestions?

Why can't guys and girls have a good line of communication? I also thought that there was a simi-good one. However, after today, I do not think that even a small line exist. I thought I understood guys, but I guess I was mistaken there too.

I enjoy hanging out with certain guys. They seem to make my day better or put me into somewhat of a better mood. However, the one guy I wanted to talk to, I was not able to. Could he not see that I wanted to speak to him and just have someone to lean on and make my day better? He should know me well enough that he would be able to see I needed to talk. Or was I just mistaken about it all?

Today was just one of those days where nothing seemed to go right. I hope tomorrow is a lot better. Thanks to all those that helped me today and this evening. I really appreciate it.

I am somewhat excited about tomorrow because we have our first softball games in Dallas. YIPPEE!!! I am looking forward to them. I will let ya'll know how they turned out tomorrow night.

I have just started the book "Leadership" by Rudolph W. Giuliani. It is a good book so far. I would recommend it to anyone that wants to learn about leadersip through Giuliani and how he led us through September 11th and the aftermath of it.

Some quotes from it:

"Leadership does not simply happen. It can be taught, learned, developed." (xii)

"Ultimately, you'll know what techniques and approaches work best - those who you hope to lead will tell you. Much of your ability to get people to do what they have to do is going to depend on what they perceive when they look at you and listen to you. They need to see someone who is stronger than they are, but human too." (p xii)

"Abraham Lincoln used to say that the test of one's Americanism was not one's family tree; the test was how much one believed in America. Because we are like a religion, really. A secular religion. We believe in ideas and ideals. We're not one race, we're many; we're not one ethnic group, we're everyone; we don't speak only one language, we're all these people. We're tied together by our belief in political democracy, in religious freedom, in capitalism, a free economy where people make their own choices about the spending of their money. We're tied together becasuse we respect human life, and because we respect the rule of law." (p xvii)

I tried to post this last night but couldn't......

Its been one of those days. Been working all day on a variety of things. Finished a paper due Tuesday. Not really happy with it. If I have time tomorrow, I will look over it. Also finished another paper due the following Tuesday. I am happy with this one. I am working on trying to get all my major projects out of the way so I can spend as much time as I can on one of my Bible papers. However, in amidst all of my busyness, I was able to go to IHOP tonight with a couple of friends.

While we were there, we saw Don Burton (the guy that spoke in chapel on Friday). We talked about what he had said in chapel - I am not for sell. This is true. God has already bought us from sin. How can we be for sell if we have not been put up for sell? God will not put us up for sell. He loves us too much to do that to us. Just think of what God saved us from. He saved us from hell and from Satan. Satan cannot do anything to us because we are bought by Christ's blood. He cannot harm us. However, a lot of us allow Satan into our lives through a variety of temptations. I remember an analogy I learned in high school. Satan is a fisherman and we are the fish. Satan will toss in the line with a very attractive bait on it. This bait can be a variety of things usually it is something that Satan believes will cause us to stumble. We, as fish, are attracted to this bait. Once we take a hold of the bait we notice that we are hooked to the line and cannot let go of it because it is soo good. Satan will reel us deeper and deeper into the temptation. We cannot get out of it by ourselves; we need someone stronger than Satan. We call out for help, and God helps us. He will relieve us of that temptation (sin).

Satan is always trying to cause us to sin and steal us away from God. Satan knows that God has bought us and the only way Satan can get us too follow him is to steal us. Just like burglar steals something he wants because he does not have it. Satan is like a burglar. Are we going to let him steal us away from God? Our answer should be no.

Last night was awesome. My roommate and I were up late doing stuff when it started to storm. Since my roommate and I really enjoy watching storms, we decided to open the blinds and watch it from our seats or beds. It was a great time. My roommie and I were teasing each other about things. We were laughing and having a lot of fun; however, it just did not seem to fit the storm. When you think of storms, you probably will think of fights and negative things. We were having a good time even though outside there lightning and thunder. It just made me stop and think about God and His power and His protection.

As a little kid, some of us were probably afraid of the thunder and the lightning. When it stormed, we probably would have rushed into our parents room and jumped under the covers between them. As we grew older, we maybe would hide in our closet or take a stuff animal and hide under the blankets thinking that it would protect us from the storm. As we entered teenage years, it was uncool to be afraid of storms. So we might just ignored the storm and went about doing whatever we were doing. Now, we like the storms. We sit back and be amazed by the storm.

This is like an anology about our relationship with God. As young Christians, whenever we were afraid, we would run into God's arms and ask for his protection. As we matured as Christians, we began to think that only brand new Christians ran to their Father for protection and decided that we did not need His protection. We could get through the storm by protecting ourselves. With even more maturity, we did not even run or ask God for protection from the storms in our lives. Finally, one day we realize that we need God's strong arm of protection. Because we have God's protection, we are able to somewhat sit back and enjoy the storms of our lives and see how God works through these storms.