Day 22– July 21, 2005, Thursday: A verse, a website, and a cat fight

Here is a picture of Jessie and Jonny with their teacher, Miss Mary. They love her. They beg us on weekends to go to class. They have a few other teachers as well, Miss Margaret, Mr Thor, Miss Sara.

This morning I came upon a verse in the Bible that I’ve heard many times before, but never really taken in. It goes like this:

(Philippians 3:8 MSG) Yes, all the things I once thought were so important are gone from my life. Compared to the high privilege of knowing Christ Jesus as my Master, firsthand, everything I once thought I had going for me is insignificant--dog dung. I've dumped it all in the trash so that I could embrace Christ

Now, some of you know me and think that I picked this verse just because it says “dog dung”. You’re partly right, because who woulda thought the Bible actually says that. But being here in this little apartment with college cafeteria type food and a schedule so packed with lectures and lawn mowing and reading that I haven’t had time to surf has drawn me closer to Christ than I have ever been. I am amazed at how little I know about the God who is big enough to speak the universe into existence and yet loves me enough to be completely humiliated with the burden of my sin. I haven’t done God justice; given him the time he deserves. I got so used to just living my life that experiencing God didn’t fit in.

So today I was supposed to study the book of Titus a bit for homework. Garth recommended a website called www.e-sword.net . It’s really cool, it has lots of different language bibles and dictionaries and maps, all for free. I spent all of my free time downloading stuff. It’s a cool site, check it out.

Tonight for our all campus worship time we had Darlene Cunningham speak. She is the cofounder of YWAM (with her husband Loren). She is an amazing lady. She brought her 91 year old mom who is still traveling the world telling about Christ. It was fun to hear her and some stories about YWAM and how they’ve trusted God over the years.

The catfight; I know you’ve been waiting for me to get to it. I wish I had had my camera. These two cats were going crazy in the dark tonight as I was walking to get some fresh water. The big one was just going after the smaller one. Then the small one scampered ½ way up a palm tree. I’m thinking “stupid cat, now your stuck”. But not so. He backed down the tree for a bit and then somehow got side ways and sort of shimmied down the palm. As soon as he got within 5 feet of the ground the other cat screeched and jumped at him. You guessed it, up went the cat, ½ way again. This happened 3 or 4 times until they finally just had at it again and went chasing and screeching away. I guess I am easily amused.

But now I am tired. It’s been a fast and tiring week. I can’t believe week 3 is almost done. It’s flying by.

One more thing. I wore jeans for the first time tonight. I was actually cold and put on pants. I also brought a hooded sweatshirt, but didn’t don that one yet.