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Daily Devotionals. Some people may ask, “Well, how far can I go to be Christian and not have to do a lot of work.” There a lot of people that have said this, not out loud, but loud enough for God to hear it (in their thoughts). There are a lot of times that, maybe even we don’t see it where people that get saved by Christ and then know God at least and go to church and do all of the right things on Sundays, but never completely commit to Christ Jesus. Nobody ever wants to take that extra step to stand out and be proud that they love their Lord God! It’s always one step forward, two steps back with most Christians. They just want the routine and go to heaven and live in peace without having to do any work. I think it was in Acts that it was said by Christ that when these Christians that were following God but not really following Him came up to Him saying that they had done all these things like cast out demons and heal the sick and cherish the poor and yet God turns to them and basically says, “Cool, but I don’t know you.” What He meant by that is that you can go about being a Christian and do good deeds but the biggest focus we should have to have a relationship with Christ Himself! That is the greatest thing we could ever receive besides what He did for us, is have a strong relationship with God. For me, I began to just press into God and spend at least an hour with Him every night just worhsipping Him and praying to Him and also reading my bible! There is nothing better than a relationship with God! He is pure joy and true love and only through Him can we find strength! We can’t do anything alone. That’s why God put a hunger in our hearts to always seek Him out! We will always come back to God, because we need Him! So, I challenge you, that if you do not have a strong relationship with God and you don’t want to be that typical Christian that does all the right things only on Sundays at church service, to just press into God and grow a beautiful relationship with Him and He will me you halfway and you will accomplish many things! God bless!
Every Young Man’s Battle. I recently just received this book in the mail the other day. It had been sent to me by a very special friend of mine that I met at Red Culture’s bible camp last summer. I have been going down to Illinois to visit with them every couple weekends since then and I have grown very close to them and they already consider me family! Getting to the point though, when this book arrived at my doorstep, I had gone up to my room and actually began reading this book. I am generally not the type of guy who just picks up a book and starts reading it. Although I did do that with the New Testament! With this book, I picked it up and didn’t set it down all evening! I was entranced in its teachings and how real this book was. I was and am able to relate to this book completely! I think every young man can relate to this novel! Young men or teens are the general focus of this novel but I think that anybody could read it just as an informative piece of work to understand what exactly teens are going through. This book has an author that comes from the same city that I come from and went to one of my rival schools so instantly I wanted to keep reading because not only did I go through exactly what he went through, but I came from the same background that he came from! This book also gives you a very good insight of what the Bible tells us about sexual impurity and how to go about dealing with it. One of the biggest things that I have taken from this book is that if you want to be completely and utterly sexually pure, then you have to just put your foot down, make a compromise with God that you will, from that day forward, fight to stay constant and pure and sexually moral. Also, to stand tall and just walk with God! That you will follow Him and worship Him for the rest of your life once you accept Him and trust Him with all your heart, body, mind, and soul!
Pan’s Labyrinth. This was a very interestion movie. I had always heard about this movie but I had never seen it before this week. We began watching this film a few days ago in class. I thought, at first, that it was a little difficult to understand since you had to read all of the English subtitles at the very bottom of the screen. That was difficult for me because, for one, I had to look over a lot of people’s heads so that I was able to read them. I ended up just sitting up on top of this bookshelf so that I wouldn’t have to crane my neck just to watch and enjoy this movie. Another reason why I am not really a fan of subtitled movies is because it takes your eye off of the screen. You have to pay more attention to the subtitles and what they are saying rather than actually watching the film. To me, this takes away some of the value of the movie because you are having to depict in your mind what exactly may be going on at that time of the movie rather than just looking at the motion picture and seeing for your own eyes! I mean yes, you are looking right at the screen itself and may be seeing part of the pictures through your peripheral vision but that just doesn’t cut it for me. Anyways, I though this movie was pretty awesome. Being that it is talking about myths and stuff that aren’t real, it did bother me a little just because of my relationship with Christ and Him saying that myths are man-made and that the only thing real here is Christ Jesus Himself. So, in that case it bothered me some but in just the matter of enjoying a movie, I thought it was very well made and the plot of the story was very liquid and flowed smoothly and had some very interesting surprises at random times but never did it actually show you. You had to just know that something was going to happen and then since you were picturing it in your mind, you thoughts sort of put the image in your head by itself rather than showing it in the film. Very well done, I’d say!
BTD5. Or, as some people call it “Bloons Tower Defense 5.” This game is absolutely, super addicting to me! I love this game, but I tend to spend hours upon hours just playing this game! I really like what they did with this new version of the bloons tower defense series. This one, the fifth one now, has had some very extreme changes since the first time I started playing this series back at bloons tower defense one! There has been some major changes to the towers. There are now like these pirate ships for when there are water areas on some of the new maps. The upgrades for these towers have changed too. There is now an aircraft carrier ship on one of the high upgrades. This tower tends to throw out tiny planes that shoot out a lot of darts! Also, take into effect that these towers are “monkey” towers, which I think is pretty cute! Another tower that this series has added is the flying ace. This is basically just a single aircraft that circles the map in a figure eight pattern. This, I think is super cool being that I am a pilot! I love planes, no doubt about that! This aircraft, when it’s fully upgraded, can shoot a constant beam, mix of bombs and darts dirrectly to the beginning start of the line of balloons! This comes in handy when you get higher in levels. They can also spy out the camo balloons. One other tower that they have added that I think is really cool is the Monkey Engineers! These guys are really cool, I think. They can build up sentry guns that help shoot down more balloons. This comes in handy because you don’t have to pay for the sentry guns to be built so then you can build up you cash a little easier and be able to buy better towers to throw onto the map.
The Holy Bible. I could go on for days talking about this, but for time purposes, I’m only going to touch on a few things. I have only been following God for, well almost a year now, come this summer. Since then, I have grown so much in His love and teachings! It has completely changed my life forever. Once I found Him and chose to walk with Him, I have been changed for good! I used to think that there wasn’t a God nor heaven or hell! I used to just think that we wake up, go to work to earn as much money as we can earn, spend what we can, then die after like eighty years and that was life. Boy, was I wrong! God opened my eyes! It was like I was seeing for the very first time! I found that God was the one that I was searching for all along I just didn’t know what I was looking for. I had been looking for something to fill the void in my chest with broken relationships, smoking, drinking, pornography, etc. Then I knew God, and everything changed. I felt like all of those things aren’t nearly important as He is! I found that they were only a crutch to get out of my biggest fear of being alone! But the fact is, we are NEVER alone! God is always there for us at every moment of the day! No matter who you are or what you have done in your life, God is there for you, loves you whole heartedly and will always forgive you! It may not seem like He could ever possibly forgive you even if you sinned like crazy and continue to, but God will always forgive you! He will also give you strength to keep moving forward in His word along His perfect path that He has laid out for you! You may be sinning every day, but through all things impossible with man are possible through God! He is our source of strength in the day that only He can give!
Solos. They are probably one of my bigger fears. I don’t even know if I would call it a fear. I would just call it nerves. I get nervous just thinking about trying out for a solo! I had recently just began trying out for solos being that this is my senior year of high school and I think I should have at tried out for a solo. I had never even tried out for a solo before in my life! Then, just the other day, I had stood up in front of my whole choir of about ninty students and tried out for the solo. I was pretty nervous. I had a ton of verbrato in my voice since I was like shaking from so much nerves and could barely stand. I thought I had done pretty good other than just being nervous so now all I have to do is wait. Although, we only have another week before contest, so they will probably pick out soloists within the next couple days. Maybe even tomorrow! Choir has become a very important thing to me. I absolutely love to sing! I have been singing since fifth grade and I have grown so far in my vocals! I had gone all through freshman year without joining choir due to the lack of interest of other members that had moved on to something else and it just wasn’t all that fun when I was the only guy in the choir. Then sophomore year comes around and I had joined every choir that my school offered and I had grown so much in my vocals in just that year. Then I came to Kennedy High School and learning from Mr. Zieglar, has just been a fascinating experience! Through him I have been able to learn a lot of stuff and become better in my techniques and musical style changing!
Bible Camp. Going into bible camp last summer with one of my friends, I was thinking, “Wow, this is probably just going to be a big group of black women praisin’ Jesus!” I was so mistaken! When we reached Red Culture, we had gotten into our dorms and there was a pool and there was great food and awesome people to talk to and get to know and a zip line, etc. There was a ton of stuff to do. The first night, all of that stuff was fun, don’t get me wrong, but once we had our first time in the sanctuary and started to just worship God, I was experiencing life for the first time, it felt like! I had gone years thinking that all we did every day was just get up, go to work, come home sit in our rooms thinking until we fell asleep, then do it all again the next day and continue to do that until we are six feet under. I had absolutely no output on life, especially when a few months before this was the second time I had overdosed thinking that life was pointless for me. The first time should have killed me but the second time should have killed me three times over, but somebody wanted me to pull through and live and that would be God! I finally felt like I knew from that time in the sanctuary, that God is alive and that there is a heaven and a hell, that God was the one there for me in my darkest moments and I didn’t even realize it. There’s no other explanation than that for me to have survived those suicide attempt, especially the second one since I had only gone to bed that night and woke up the next day, completely healthy and fine! Truly a miracle in my eyes! Since then I have chosen to walk along with God and worship him and follow him. He is true love and only he can give you strength! For years, I had been looking for love through broken relationships and felt empty and lost and hurt and had no strength at all since all I did was try to do everything myself. Being that I never had my parents around, I was used to doing everything myself and helping myself out through rough times but when all that pain and hurt kept building up, I came to a point that there was no way that I would have been able to keep going if God hadn’t led me to go with my friend to go to this bible camp and realize that God is alive. Everything has a purpose to God’s perfect plan and for me, going to that camp and meeting Lori and the Tillman’s was all part of that plan. Without them, I probably would have fallen right back to who I was and not be fighting to build a relationship with God. It’s coming up on a year now since that week of bible camp and since then, with my walk with God, I have fought through pornography, alcohol, smoking, weed, and depression. Slowly but surely, each one of those has become less and less important to me because I feel like there is no need for them. They were a crutch to fill that void in my heart when that void is filled up now with the love of God. He is true love and that’s what I’ve always been searching for and now, all I want is Him! All I want to do is worship Him! Those other things were just extremely temporary fixes to the emptiness in my heart and I don’t need them. They actually make me feel worse because they hinder my connection with God. Since the week that I was saved, all I have wanted to do was just worship God for all that He does for me and what He continues to do for me regardless of my past and also, show Him to all the people who don’t know Him. I want people to experience exactly what I have experienced with God and what He can do for all of us if we just choose to put Him first! I think that is exactly why God has put me through all this pain and hurt in my life so far is exactly for that reason, to show all the other people that are going through the same things, for me to show them that I have been through the same things and know that there is a way out of the seemingly endless pit of darkness and pain. Since then I have been saying, “God is good.. No, God is Great!”
Talent Shows. Okay, so I just got back from a talent show this afternoon and I absolutely loved it! I had gone down in order to see one of my friends that I had met at bible camp last summer. We have stayed in touch since then and have grown to be best friends and also some feelings for one another. But, in the mean time we are staying as just friends because neither of us are ready for a relationship. In the mean time though, what I was getting at, is that I really enjoy talent shows. I had forgotten how much I really enjoyed them. My biggest fear though is nerves but then again, who doesn’t ever have nerves before they get up on stage in front of a group of people? My biggest fear though is when the crowd is small. I somehow do better when the crowds are a lot bigger. Because, for me, when the crowds are smaller, it seems like I can feel everybody staring right at me and it makes me that much more nervous. Although, when the crowd is much larger, I don’t feel like I can feel everybody staring at me and it is easier for me to just look up over all of them and keep the show going. Tonight at the talent show, I could see myself on stage again. I was really itching to go up there and just start singing a song. I love to sing and just the memory of being up on stage and doing what I love to do and just singing for a group of people is just the best feeling in the world to me. My directors have always called it “chills.” Like when you get chills down your spine after a performance that you know was really well performed and you just nailed it and can feel like you have been successful at something and just enjoying and going with the flow of the music.
Born Into Brothels. This was a documentary that we had watched in class a few weeks ago. I thought this documentary was very interesting. This was not the typical documentary that we normally watch. This was more viewed on the children in India. These children are born into the brothels of India. Their parents are all drug dealers or addicts, prostitutes, and just over all, not proper parents for these children. Because these children were born where they were born, in society they are looked down up and looked at as “dirty” or “impure.” Because society views them like this, the photographer, Auntie Zana, had a very difficult time getting these children where she wanted them to be. Zana had worked very hard to get these children into proper schooling at a boarding school. Most of the schools wouldn’t take any of the children though. When she finally found a school that would take them in and educate them, Zana had to go through a ton of paperwork and health testing on the children. All the children had to be blood tested for HIV and they all had to have birth certificates and a ton of other paperwork was needed. This process did not just happen over night. This had taken the good part of a year! I think what Auntie Zana did was amazing because she had said in this film that these children will never get out of the brothels and have a healthy normal life until they get a proper education and are able to get a proper job and career started. Otherwise, by the time they grow to be about fourteen or sixteen, they jump right into the “line.” They call it the “line” because it is their line of work and they live in the Red Light District of India. One other thing that I thought was really cool about what Zana was doing was to get these children interested in the arts. What she had done to keep this going was to have a class of photography just for the students so that they can use their imaginations and express themselves more clearly.
Pancheros. Just yesterday my principal, Dr. W, had come into my AP Economics class to talk about all the students that were planning on going to the AP testing centers this coming May so that they can earn college credit. In the middle of her conversation she had been talking about lunch time for those specific AP test taking students in May. She had given the possiblities of heading to maybe Hy-Vee for their chinese or Arby’s or even maybe Pancheros. Shortly after her presentation, just about when class was going to get over, I had texted my brother and his girlfriend to see if they wanted to go out to Pancheros for supper. My brother sent me back a message saying, “surah,” and his girlfriend sent me a message saying, “I’m already eating there for lunch with some friends today. Sorry brah.” I was pretty excited after that since my brother and I don’t get to hang out that much anymore, just the two of us. So, I get home and start watching my show, “Teen Wold,” and my brother is home playing some of his Call of Duty Black Ops 2. Later that night we decide that we will head out to Pancheros for supper since we were getting hungry and my brother wanted me to drive since he was a little low on gas. We had a little miss communication when he asked if I could pay for his or if he should just go ask grandma for some cash. I told him he should ask grandma but then he only got money for himself and I thought it was just implied that he would grab money for me too! Oh well, right? So, anyways, we end up getting to Pancheros and both my brother and I order our burritos. I get to the end of the line to where I pay for my burrito and then I head out the door, only to realize that I’m walking out empty handed. I run back into the restaurant to grab my burrito very embarrassed and then I go and eat my delicious burrito. I was a little upset because they made me pay another dollar for their mistake of adding one too many scoops of guacamole. It was still a very delicious burrito though, let me tell you!
Aviation 