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the webpage may or may not be working properly for thhe next day or so, im changing the design, it will all be amazing when i am done, trust me...

here is a test

We have arrived! And 30 minutes early as well. We are all safe and
healthy, had a wonderful time and did dome great ministry work for the
Kingdom. See you tomorrow!

As a reminder we come home tomorrow!!!! If you want to track our flight American Airlines 137 click here.

So the most serendipitous and wonderful thing happened. I am a fan of really old Christian books. So going to Scotland allowed me to find some treasures. I got a very early (possibly even first edition) of Lectures to my Students, a famous book by Charles Spurgeon. I got a wonderful book from the 1800's of "Coventants of the Covenators" which is just steeped in Scotish and Church History. But today April found what might be one of the best discoveries. In Edinburgh I bought a really old and giant bible. The book is seriously 1 foot by 2 feet, and it's extremely heavy. But I always wanted a really Old Family Bible that families would pass down for generations. This one was dated pre-1808 so I bought it. Well today, April opened the Bible to glance it over and noticed a small inscription that said details at the end of Maccabees. (Apparently this Bible has the Apocrypha in it). Written on a page here was all the birthdates of the family. IT WAS A LOGAN FAMILY BIBLE. April's maiden name is Logan and she is a desendents of the Highland Logans from Scotland. This was their family Bible, that had all their history in it. I had told April that I wanted to pass this Bible down to our children, and their children, who would have known that this Bible was from their forefathers, dated in the mid 1700's? That is God at work there my friends

Today was a fanciful day exploring the city. Walking up and down many streets, finding rare treasures in shops. It was a great day. Sure it rained the entire time, and we are all exhausted, but we had a blast. But having a blast takes a toll on you, I am exhausted. So for now, I am going to go to sleep. Tomorrow resumes our ministry days with Wednesday at Airdire and Thursday at Shotts. Friday is the free day at Loch Ness where the team will search for the elusive "Nessie". I feel like I have already found Nessie, because at every shop today there was some cheap souvenir of a sea monster. Those traveling to the Paris extension leave early tomorrow morning, so please keep them in prayers. Also we will be arriving at LAX on Saturday at 2:50pm. We will be at the Tom Bradley Terminal. I am looking for people who are able to drive. So if you have previously confirmed to drive, or wanting to join the driving crew, please send me an email at evan@oceanhillschurch.com

I want to give a shout out to someone we have been working with on this trip. Through nothing short of a Divine appointment by God, the first day we were here we meet a man named Will. A young man who liked to skate. he has joined us every day and has been driving Dakota and his father to all the different skateparks. Well tonight Will topped that, he got Dakota into the Tattoo Festival. Not let me clarify 1 point, the Tattoo festival has nothing to do with get a tattoo on your body. The Scotland Military Tattoo is a huge festival that goes on for 2 weeks. To explain how significant it is, lets say this, you can purchase tickets now for the 2011 festival, thats how early you have to reserve tickets. 100 Million people watch this thing. Will introduced us to a Christian Skate Park that is doing a skate demonstration at this festival. So right now Dakota, Gary, Will, and Pastor Billy Morin are at the festival. Dakota did such a great job today, he was invited to come back tomorrow. And the best part is that the festival is in Edinburgh, where we are going tomorrow! So we will cheer him on. But I wanted to publically that Will for taking off 2 weeks to hang out with us and do things that we would never have been able to do.

Ahhh, some beautiful rest and relaxation. Today we went to the coast and visited the quaint city of Ayr. (pronounced Air) We went to the Irish Sea, some got their feet went, others walked on the sand. After that we went and explored the city. A large portion of the group had lunch in an old church. It is actually a sad process that has been taking place in Scotland. Many churches have failed and have sold their buildings. These beautiful churches, hand built centuries ago with Stain Glass and Steeples are being converted into housing districts, restaurants, and bars. So as we walked into the building, everything liked so similar to one of the churches we worked with earlier, but there were tables everywhere. Jim actually took a photo of me standing at the pulpit, many wont even notice that surrounding that pulpit was 100 people eating their burger and fries.
After lunch we split into smaller groups and explored the city. Some people hopped in a taxi and visited a local castle. My group just walked the streets exploring for any hidden treasures. We had quite a lovely dinner with the best chocolate fudge cake I have ever consumed, and here we are now back at the hotel. Tomorrow is also a free day in Edinburgh, Scotland's capital, and I am quite excited.

So today has been quite a long day, but what a great day it was. We started by going to Harvest church in the morning, it was just like attending Ocean with Holland leading worship and Jim speaking. The church was so hospitable that they took us out to Pizza Hut after the lunch and I think most of the team ate more pizza than they ever had in their entire lives. After Pizza Hut we drove to Shotts, which was Jim's home town for the majority of his life. Up on a hill is Shottskirk. Kirk is a fancy word of church, the church is also known as Kirk o' Shotts. It was such a lovely service, many of the pastors we have worked with throughout the week drove down to be a part of it. After the service we went to the graveyard and paid respect to Jim's family members.
From Shottskirk we went to "The Fort" which is a mall. By the time we arrived everything was closed except the book store. We head inside and on the 2nd floor was a starbucks. I must say my gingerbread octopus was delicious. From Starbucks we went to Elim Fmaily Church in Coatbridge. We had a lovely service and myself and April shared our testimonies. After the service we went to get some Indian food. Yes it was 11 o'clock at night, but anytime is a good time for Curry. So now we are back at the hotel, everyone is asleep after an exhausting day. Tomorrow is a free day and we expect to sleep in and then travel to the beach. We are excited to have a day of relaxation as many of us are exhausted. Keep us in prayer for strength and health, but so far we are all doing great!

Today was Carluke today, a favorite city of many of our team. But alas my friends it is another long day and it is time for me to go to bed. Keep us in prayer for tomorrow, its a long hectic day with many twists and turns, but is also the day i am looking most forward too. The morning we are joining a church known as Harvest (no relationship to Riverside) and Holland will be doing worship and Jim will be giving the message. After that we will be traveling to Shotts to Jim's old church. This is the place where is mother and 14 other relatives are buried. We will be having an old school Conventicle there. Then we will be traveling to Elim Family Church, and having a night of worship. For this worship service all the local churches have been invited. Also a secret to all you blog readers, we filmed a short video tonight at the evening service and it shall be played at the Sunday morning service at Ocean. So if you miss our beautiful faces, go to the service and watch us wave and say a "wee hello"

Since most of you havent seen dakota scooter, I thought I might add a little video to show what we are doing at hte skate parks everyday.

So I wanted to add a few more things that took place today. We are working with Calvary Chapel Stirling, its a quaint church in the center of the city. Stirling, similar to Dunfermline, is a dark city. In fact to get to the church you are forced to walk by a Spiritualist church. The city is really neat though, everything seems to be in walking distance on the cobble stone streets. We spent the day walking the city and handing our the flyers for the skate session and tonight's concert. I dont know if I've shared, but we made 2,000 flyers per city and on average thats how many flyers we go through. One of the cool parts that differentiated today was the concert in city. The local pastor got permission from the council to have street preformers. Billy played guitar, Matt was on Djembe, and JD played his saxophone. We then had other team members handing out flyers while they played inviting them to the concert that is taking place right now as I type.

As you will hear in the following post, many people today went to Stirling Castle. A fortress built in the early 1500s. The castle was enormous and had many amazing facets to it. Then an even smaller and braver select few made the long journey to the William Wallace monument. A giant obelisk upon a separate hilltop.


As I type now, Joanne and Donna are handing out some quilts during the service. Baby Jonathon Macdonald, just received a quilt, as well as his 4 year old sister, Emily. Fioana Macalaster, a friend of the church and a "senior like us" (their words) as well as Gillian the Pastor's wife here. The pastor just shared that the quilt that was selected for them is the same color as their bedroom. The quilts have been an amazing opportunity to minister and share with people.
The other thing we were blessed with was Libronix, a family donated 10 copies of the software. Libronix is a Bible research tool that is simply amazing. Type in a Scripture message and it will have easily 30 different commentaries on the text, it will have dictionaries of every word, it has the original languages, and so much more, it easily makes studying the Word for messages so much easier.

Right now Brett Schorr (our wonderful lighting technician at Ocean Hills) is sharing his testimony. Throughout the week Jim has been bringing up different people from the team to share their testimonies.

Jim has been doing a wonderful job preaching, he has tackled the very very difficult route of preaching a different message everyday. To be honest, I tried to persuade him to preach the same message every night, yes the team would hear it daily, but it would be fresh to the intended audience every night. But he said that he was going to do a new message, new text, every night. Trust me its a toll on a pastor, but he is doing a wonderful job. Holland has also been doing a wonderful job with the band, there has been some amazing and oh so wonderful times of worship.

Please continue to keep us in prayer, many of us our tired. Our schedule is simply this, breakfast at 8:30am, leave the city at 9:30pm, so we are putting in 13 hour non stop days, and its exhausting. But we are all healthy, all doing well, God is being served faithfully. But the band could use prayer as it is strenuous on vocal chords to sing ever day (professional bands would never tackle this difficult of a musical tour) but they are holding strong. Pray that we are drained of ourselves and filled fully with the Spirit.

Also I have been adding photos throughout the week to the photo section. Click photos at the top of the page to go to all the high school photos, and then click the 1st one, cleverly titled "Scotland 2008" for our current trip photos.

So I thought it would be fun to have lots of people post today. We are getting ready to have our night concert in Stirling and there is internet access so instead of the boring old evan updates, lets have some team members do it:

Hello, this is Brett ...
Today while at the castle I got stung by a bee. I also got some coffee at Costa (it's Scotland's Starbucks) and passed out some flyers in the town. Thing are going great and we are getting ready for tonight's concert. Pray for a good turnout of people tonight and for the remainder of the trip.
Cheers!

This is Dillon,
Well today we went to sterling castle it was interesting.... we then headed for the skate park where Shelby walked into the street almost getting hit by a car I grabbed her and pulled her back just in the nick of time .... very scary we proceeded to the skate park where they convinced me to skate so i did, barefoot. All of the locals where wondering if it hurt and if my feet were sore we walked back and went into a clothing store and shopped for a little bit it was fun.

'Ello everyone, it's Shelby...
Scotland is absolutely beautiful...rain and all. Today a bunch of us went to Stirling Castle, the stake park, and Dillon saved my life! Good times. I also had the pleasure of enjoying an apple pie milkshake. It sounds really weird but it is actually pretty amazing. It is a huge bummer that Americans aren't creative enough to think of flavors like that...(31 flavors needs to take notes.) So basically I love it here and the people are great too...
CHEERS'

EY! This is Jenna and I wish you all could be here. Scotland is amazing and there is such a need for for these people to hear the truth. It is also a brilliant country filled with lots of history, Stirling is fantastic and the people here are amazing. Service is about to start so it's time to go, God bless!


And the service has started, so more testimonies later.

Today was ministry in Dunfermline, and honestly it was a difficult day. Everything went smoothly, and we had no issues, but Dunfermline is a very spiritually dark city. We had our skate demonstration and while Jim was interviewing Dakota someone in the crowd started shouting, he shared that he was an "astronomer" and called us out for witnessing to youth aged children. He then proceeded to call the cops on us, but by the time the cops arrived, the event was over, and almost everyone was gone. Jim spoked to the cops and they were completely for us. We handed out lots of flyers and lots of people said they would come tonight, but not nearly as many did as they promised. The pastor shared the culture and history of the community and shared that many people will promise to go places and even accept the lord just to have people leave them alone. However the concert went very well, I spoke to the Pastor afterwards and he was so excited. He has been there 8 years and has a congregation of 12 people, its a very dark city. So having the concert was a huge blessing to them, and something they will not forget. Tomorrow is Stirling, so I shall share about that tomorrow.

Today we were at Bridgeton Life Church in the center (centre) of Glasgow. It was one of the best days of ministry I have seen in a long time. The day started with some staying back at the church to do construction on the building. Bridgeton Life is a new church but is housed in a church built 130 years ago, with giant arched ceilings and stainned glass windows. So there was much work that could be done. The Pastor, Paul, had a goal of us painting one of his children's classrooms. I am excited to say we were able to paint 2 rooms, and it took all day. The first room was tackled by Bryan, Jeremy, and Dillon. The three of them dilligently painted most of the day, Bryan and Jeremy didnt stop painting until after 9pm. Billy and myself started working in the other room, it took half the day to spackle all the holes in the wall. After we spackled, a group of people sanded all the walls, preparing them for paint. It was around 5pm that Esther, Caroline, and Jenna started painting this 30x10 foot room. They too didnt finish until 9pm. My favorite part was they didnt want to get paint on them (they had to paint the ceilings) so they put on trash bags to protect their clothes. The majority of the team took 2000 flyers and tons of tracts into the city. The flyers promoted Dakota and his scooter outreach, as well as our concert in the evening. At 5pm the church put on a giant potluck dinner for us, many of us had authentic Scottish food, but sadly no haggis. At 7pm we began our Night of Worship. The service lasted 2 1/2 hours because God wanted us to keep going. There was times of song, times of messages, Dillon shared his testimony. It was a great, great service. We also began our quilt ministry, and I asked Donna and Joanne to share a story of a person they came acorss that day:

6 Aug 2008, Bridgeton. (quilt
Edgar "John" was sitting in his wheelchair framed by his doorway, with mere stubs from his calves down. JoAnne and Donna approached with Life Church invitationion in hand. John's warm welcoming smile masked decades of pain and lonliness. John shared that his "born again" sister, who is now declared, had shared the gospel message with him, but that she had turned her back on him early on. After chatting and hearing his story he allowed Donna to share the message of God's love and the gospel message of faith in Christ Jesus' free gift of salvation. John was fearful that he;d know no one in heaven as his only friends were drinking buddies and "the Bottle" was his only (we're takinig off now, so you will have to hear the end of the story later...)

So today we wandered the streets of Glasgow for most of the day and it was quite fun. We bought some cool things and saw even more amazing things. I myself purchased the Glasgow Bible, a Bible translated into Scottish. In the morning before shopping we visited a very old church. Part of the church was built in the 1400's and the rest of the church was established in the 1500's. The architecture was amazing, giant vaulted ceilings with amazing arch ways. There was a catacomb under the church with graves everywhere. Some of the most amazing stain glass windows. We took lots of pictures. Hopefully later tonight I can upload some of those photos, my power inverter caught on fire after using it for 15 minutes, so im going to get an alternative one. Matt McKenzie is our photographer for the trip and he is doing a great job, but we kept losing him as he walked with his eyes through the lens, so I had Bryan job be keeping an eye on Matt. For lunch we had fish and chips, most of us really enjoyed them, but Billy wasnt a fan and graciously gave them to Dillon after two bites.

Keep us in prayer, tomorrow is our first day of ministry. We are heading to Bridgeton, which is a community in Glasgow. We will be handing out tracks and quilts, meeting new friends, and inviting people to a skate demonstation and a concert in the evening. Until then....

So it took some time, but we cracked the secret codes to unlock the internet. The username and password are both "student", go figure. We landed safely yesterday after what I must say is one of the more enjoyable flights I have been on, I got to watch Kung Fu Panda, that movie rocks! We made our ways to the student dorms and many of us are reliving our college years. The rooms are large flats with a kitchen and 2 bathrooms and then 6 single bed rooms that break off of them. As I write now we are enjoying a breakfast meal together and getting ready for a devotion from Jim. Our plans for today include going to George's Square in the Centre of Scotland (like how i spelled Center, that was on purpose...) Its going to be a great day, please keep us in your prayers. Also I am going to have some sweet photos soon, Matt has been snapping pictures like there is no tomorrow.

For those interested, here is the Scotland Flight information. We are leaving from LAX on American Airlines 136 and that will land in London. Then in London we will take British Air 1486 to Glasgow, Scotland. Its going to be a long day of travel, so please keep us in your prayers. I will update the site as soon as we land and I can find an internet connection.

Well tomorrow is the day we leave for Scotland. Is everyone packed,
i'm not, but I did finish unpacking from Costa Rica today. But keep
checking back here for the next two weeks for all the Scotland updates
and praise reports.

I'm swamped with Scotland Stuff, but I wanted to quickly post this photo Barrett sent me. Its a shot of our burn pile, wait, where is the pile? exactly...

Many of the photos are now online with more to come!

We are in Juan Santamarie International Airport in San Jose, Costa Rica. Currently it is 6am local time, we are completely checked in and have made it through security. We will start boarding in 50 minutes. Everyone is doing well, no one will be coming home sick, but many if not all will be coming home quite exhausted. Last night was one of my favorite evenings. My first favorite was the Hot Seat night. I didnt have time to write about how well it went, but it was the best time we have ever done it in my opinion, so God has definitely been working through that. Last night we went to a really nice team dinner. All the girls wore their "pretty dresses" and the boys wore pants and collared shirts. We had a lovely authentic Costa Rican buffet. But the real fun started after the meal. There was an authentic Costa Rican dance with 7 dancers and it was fine and wonderful, and then they started pulling people from the audience. Matt Henderson was the first brave soul to dance and it was so precious. He held the dancers hand, but instead of his other hand holding her waist the free hand just sort of float a foot from her body. Chris Frazer tried to teach one of the dancers the robot, but she did take instructions very well. And then there is Madison. Holland and Roxie I am sad to say that she might have met the love of her life in Costa Rica. Just kidding, but watching them dance was hilarious. I almost died laughing watching her dance and Chris teaching the robot. It was a great note to end the trip on. Everyone is behind me now trying to catch the last half hour of sleep before boarding. Please pray that we have a safe flight and a good layover in Mexico City. Also we will be arriving at LAX at terminal 4 (Tom Bradley Terminal at the end) at 5pm this evening. I believe we will be arriving at Ocean Hills at 7pm. "Hope to see you there!"

We have safely arrived in San jose after our 5 hour bus ride from Puerto Viejo. We had a wonderful day, it was difficult saying goodbye to many of our friends but we managed. As for our current plan, its five thirty and at seven we are heading to dinner. Then we have to wake up at 3 forty five in the morning to head to the airport to make our flight. We are taking Mexicna 386 to Mexico City and Mexicana 902 from Mexico City to LAX. You can use flighttracker.com to track the flights. I have to make this a quick post cause I am using the hotels only computer. I will try to make a quick post at 4am tomorrow, but other than that, I will see you guys at 5pm when we land or roughly 7pm back at church. We will have students call on the drive home to give you most accurate time of when we will get back.

Well today was quite fun. We broke into the 3 teams and did totally different ministry projects. Dillon, Ryan, and Dayne went surfing with the long term missionaries here and some of the locals. Chris, Mike, Michelle, Shelby, Heather, Alex, Kennady, and myself went to Cahuita National Park with 5 of the missionary kids. We were told we would experience lots and lots of monkeys and some sloths. We saw 2 monkeys in the distance. The rest of the time was hiking. But the kids had a blast. The rest of the team went to Ronnie's house for the final time, there was lots of painting to be done. So the majority of the team painted more zinc panels (we did 50 of them yesterday) and they painted over the primer they had previously put on. Billy Morin and Bryan built a staircase, yes that is correct a staircase. Now to access their second floor they dont need to use a ladder on the outside of the house. Pretty amazing. I spoke to Barrett, he said all the piles we burned are completely gone, I was so dumbfounded I asked him to bring some photos of them.

Its not raining right now, but its pretty stormy weather. I wanted to take the last 2 students snorkeling that havent had a chance, but it was way to dangerous to go out so we walked all the way out there, then walked all the way back. But better safe than sorry. Some people went to the beach right outside the hotel, the lifegaurds had opened a 30 stretch of beach to play in the water, but after a short time they closed that too due to conditions and everyone had to come in. Although Chris swears he strong enough to out swim te current. Currently we are just hanging out at the hotel waiting to leave for the skatepark tonight. Its not a normal skate session, we have just been inviting some locals throughout the town to a pizza outreach and some skating. Tonight is our last night in Puerto Viejo, so it will be the last time we will be able to hang out with many of the friends we have made throughout the week.

After the skate park tonight we will venture into town for the last time and buy any final gifts for family and friends. I have been asking everyone if they have bought everything for their family, and most have bought their presents, but those who have not will be doing so tonight. But it is after the shopping that is my favorite. We will be doing what I call the "Hot Seat". We give each student an oppurtunity (if they are comfortable) to share what is going on in their life and how can we pray for them. Then after they share we immedietly pray for them, it can be a very healing night. So pleae keep that in prayer.

Tomorrow we have a half day at the hotel, then at lunch we will load the bus and head for San Jose. We will stay in San Jose Friday night and fly home super early on Saturday morning. I am still in need of another driver, currently I have the Warjeko's, Henderson's and April driving home. We meed at least 1 more driver, so if you can drive please send me an email.

See you all soon.

Today was fire day. When we cleared Barrett's property earlier in the week, we had made some giant piles of wood, and when I say Giant I mean 20 feet long, 10 feet wide, and 5 feet high of just wood. Today we had to burn all this wood. No one got burnt in case you were wondering. But we had these giant piles and had to start fires in them, its not nearly as easy as it sounds. It would take 5 people on each fire we would start, each pile would have 5 fires going on it in the end. Eventually the fires got large enough that they had white burning coals on the bottom and would burn anything above them. In fact the fire is still burning now, 9 hours after we started them. Barrett gave me the update that the piles are almost gone, by tomorrow morning they should be completely burned to the ground. Barrett said it would take him and someone else 2 weeks of now stop work to do what we did today. When we arrived it actually started raining, and if it rained it would have prevented us from starting any fires. But I asked Alex to pray to have God hold the Heavens back, and during her prayer it was raining, but the moment she said Amen, it completely stopped raining. And I mean not a drop fell until way after lunch and the fires were completely established, in fact the rain was completely welcomed.
Now when I say rain I mean rain. This was a very quick, short lasting tropical storm that was extremely windy and extremely wet. But during this tremendous storm God did something amazing. We always have our lunch on the back of Barrett's truck and today we had a little more akward schedule with lunch. First 15 people ate, then after they were done the last 5 ate. Well 3 of them were sitting on the tailgate and after eating they felt called to move from the tailgate so they did. Not less than 2 minutes later a 40 foot plus tree broke off of a larger tree and smashed the pack of the pickup. The photos are unbelievable. The good news is no one is hurt and everyone was far from the accident, but it took a while to chainsaw that tree into sections, and then drag them downhill to the burning piles. After it happened we immedietly prayed and thanked God for our safety.
Tomorrow looks like a fun day, we wanted to give the long term staff here a little break, so we will be babysitting their children and some of the team will be going to a National park with them to go see some monkeys. Other students will go surfing with the Men, (while 2 of the long term females will be getting spa treatments) and the rest of the team will be going to Ronnie's house to do some construction there. Please pray for a great day.
Our devotions are going wonderfully, we only have 3 people left to share. So thats it for tonight, until next time.

hello everyone! this is carissa and i am the blogger for the day! today has been a good day. we got up and made lunches by 7:00, i had the pleasure of sharing the day's devotion, and then after breakfast, we headed over the Ronnie and Tammy's house to paint and lay concrete. it was probably one of the hottest days we have had here so far and it made work more difficult and, i should not forget, sweaty...lots of sweat. during todays lunch break, we got to go on a sloth hunt. sad to say we did not find any sloths...and billy was quite mad. after we worked for another two hours after lunch, evan and all the girls got to leave early to go to the skate park. tonight is girls only skate park session and we get to talk, skate, play with all the girls who come. as of right now, we have Miley, one of the missionary's daughters, and a few young boys at the skate park. though there are no local girls for us to talk to, we are still being very entertained by Fabian, a little boy that we met last year, and his two friends. later the boys are going to meet with us and we are all going to go to dinner at one of the top 5 restaurants in Costa Rica, Loco Natural. after dinner we will once again be on our own in groups to explore the town. so up to this point, everyone has been healthy, we have not had any serious injuries. just a few cuts and scratches.
please keep praying for safety and health. and also for no more mosquito bites...we have had many. i have so far 54. so yes it is a tremendous number and at this point i am pretty much the leader in the number of mosquito bites. thank you so much for your prayers!

Well today went very well. Today was half a free day and half a work day. The first half we went to Manzanillo, the next major town south of us, and the last town before panama. We took some locals with us and were able to minister to them on the trip. The surfers went out to Monkey Point and surfed what Dillon referred to as the best surfing of his life. The rest of the group went snorkeling on an amazing reef and hung out at the beach. The afternoon was filled with working at the skate park, moving a large piles of rocks and repairing some damage to the ramps. This morning Matt Henderson shared his devotion and did amazing, between you and me, he has been one fo my favorites so far. Dillon and Shelby are on deck for tonight's messages.
Tomorrow is going to be a sweet day. We have had enough free time and tomorrow we work. One team is going to Ronnies house, the girls will paint non stop and the boys will be finishing pouring concrete and moving some stuff from the roof. The other team is going to Barretts house in the jungle and laying a concrete walkway so the family can get to the bathroom without walking through thick mud. The around two o'clock the girls will be traveling back from both spots and going to girl's skate night. Since there are no boys allowed they will be staying at their locations working though the day until dinner. Its going to be a long hard day, so please keep us in your prayers.
I am glad to say we are all healthy and doing well. This has actually been the healtiest I can ever remember being on one of these trips, so that is a huge answer to prayer. Half the team has some minor scrapes, but they wear them proudly. To be honest, my back has been sore and hurting so please pray for me (I see a back specialist the week we get back) Well thats is all i have time to post now, we are currently exploring town after dinner and i gots to catch the bus!!!
Until tomorrow my friends

Day 4 (Day 5)

I am having quite a few internet troubles, and it is because of this we had no update last night, I am so sorry about that. So let me see if I can update about two days. Yesterday we went to Barrett property and moved lots of things. And when i say lots of things Im talking giant trees. We had to arm ourselves with Machettes and cut branches and them haul these 20 foot trees up a hill to a giant pile that we will later burn. We saw so many amazing creatures that day, beautiful frogs (the non-poisonous one), locusts, and the elusive bullet ant. No one got hurt and we had so much fun. Barrett's property looks so different. The main reason we had to clear everything is a back hoe is coming to clear the large brush so they can build their house, but the company will not bring the equipment unless all brush is first cleared.
The 5 boys i mentioned last post did the surf camp with some locals and had a great time doing it. Afterwards they went to the skate park and did some hard work there. They had to clean the rain gutters that had never been emptied. The gutters were completely filled to the top with leaves and muck. They also tried to move some ramps that had slipt backwards, but that didnt go so well.

Today as I wirte this was our river rafting day. It was crazy we went down the Pacaure river. It is a 18 mile stretch of rapids that takes about 4 hours to tame. The guides were hilarious the entire time, kepping us laughing throughout the trip. No one fell out of the boat on any of the rapids, but everyone except two people (me being one of the two) fell out during the safe calm parts. It was during this time we had the "practice rescues" or just times to swim around. The tour company took some amazing photos and those will be online as soon as I can get an internet connection that can handle the bandwidth.

The evening back at the hotel was a wonderful chicken dinner that the hotel staff smoked all day long, then we had a sweet bonfire at the beach. Last year I was in charge of the fire, and to be honest, it was pathetic. I even had a tank of gasoline, and I couldnt light any of the brush, the gas would burn and then the fire would die quickly. This year I placed the fire making in much more capable hands: Bryan, Billy Holder, Dayne, and Ryan. To light the fire they used 1 match and no gasoline, and it was magnificient. The blaszing fire was 7 feet tall, every jumped over it (just kidding, hahaha). We just played at the beach and it was wonderful.

Now I do not think I have mentioned it yet, silly me, but I required of the students this year to write a devotional and share it. So we have 1 in the morning and 2 in the evening. So far everyone has done a wonderful job. To date the following people have shared their devotional: Chris, Matt, Mike, Bryan, Alex, Michelle, Kennady, and Alyssa. The devotionals have ranged from testimonies to exegitical sermons on a favorite verse. It has been so awesome. I had really wanted the students to share for two reasons, first they hear a lot of me, but secondly and most importantly, often times students feel alone, even if they have many friends. They think they are the only one struggling with something, only one to have experienced something, or only one to have gone through a tragedy. But then they can releate to a story someone shares and see firsthand that there are others that struggle through the same things. It has been really amazing so far.

Well it is very late now, and there is so much more to write, but I wont even be able to post this until tomorrow, so until then...

Update: i added some more rafting pics to the photo section

Day 2

Wow, we did so much work today. We actually did more work than the missionary thought we would be able to. Ronnie is one of the full time missionaries with Alternative Missions (who we partner with) and he, his wife, and their two children moved into their unfinished house last week. The house will eventually be two stories, but currently it is only 1 story with a flat concrete roof that will one day be the bottom of the second floor. The girls focused on painnting, the entire front room ad to get a white primer on the walls to eventually be painted. The boys had the tough work, they arrived and had to move a giant pile of dirt. Then then had to move a pile of rocks and spread them out over a large distance to create a driveway like experience. During this time Ronnie also wanted to fix his well. How the well works is a 20 foot hole in the ground that fills with ground water. Well lots of mud and small rocks got into the filter and the well was not filling up very well. Dillon volunteered to be lowered in and move all the dirt, it was pretty funny with him down that well. The boys finished moving all the rocks and topped the day off with pouring a giant concrete step to get to the front door. When April and I can just 3 months ago the house was so far away from where it is now. It was uninhabitable and a construction mess, but now it is quite impressive. Oh and we found a giant toad size of two fists probably. I took plenty of photos, but the internet isnt uploading them very well.

The evening was filled by a BBQ at the skate park. It was open skate night so many of the students skated with the locals, watched a surf video, made girly bracelets, and played checkers. It was a lot of fun and some quality realtional ministry.

Tomorrow looks like a lot of fun, we will be spliting into two teams, the surfers and the non surfers. Five people Billy Morin, Dillon, Ryan, Dayne, and Matt will be hanging out with locals and surfing. Im not going to say teaching them beacuse the locals will probably school them in the water. The rest of the team will be going to Barrett's new property. Barret (who is also married with two daughters) have just moved into temporary houseinig on their new property. They just finished clearing the area of trees and most brush, but there are twigs and branches everywhere. Our job is to move most of this brush to give access for a back hoe to come in and do some heavy work.

Awards:
I try every night to give out at least 2 awards, a spiritual character award and a funny award. So here they are:

Spiritual: The work of moving the dirt was extremely difficult and hard, literaly the boys shirts came home soaking wet. But Ryan Green worked the entire time, never giving up. By the mid day almost all the boys gave up, but not Ryan

Funny: I didnt award this for being funny, but more of being proud. At the Skate park, Michelle Sharp was brave enough to try skating and "dropping in" for the first time. She did a great job, she did scrape her knee a little, but went home happy.

Prayer
Please continue to keep us in your prayers. Everyone is healthy and resting well right now. I;m up with two leaders, but all students are tucked in their beds, while dreams of sugar plum faires dancing in their heads. Pray for safety tommorow, we are going in the thick of the jungle, you know where all the characters of the Jungle Book live. But it will be fine, Barrett says he has found no dangerous creatures at all.

Here we are at the end of day one. It was a wonderful day, we had a great time orientating ourselves with the city. 16 of us came last year and we have 4 new comers (this is my 7th time). So what we did was had the 4 newcomers do what is known as the Puerto Viejo challenge. They had to explore the city and speak to locals to learn the culture and history of the city. My favorite part was when Alex comes back to the group (all of them late because they had such wonderful conversations) saying, "I love Costa Rica, I love Puerto Viejo". The rest of the team split in half and walked the city, seeing the changes and remembering the good times from last year. Dinner was at Elena Brown's where the majority of us had rice and chicken.

Tomorrow will be our first day of ministry. We are all traveling to one of the local missionaries new house which is under construction. We will be working on the property doing whatever they need. April and I visited the house last April and it was under heavy construction, they moved in last week and to my knowledge it is still under heavy construction. Then in the evening, we will be working at the skate park. It is the youth skate night, so we will have a large outreach with free park BBQ, music, and of course skating. Good things will happen, I know it (cause i've been praying about it.

Please keep us in prayer for our sleep tonight. We traveled for 30 hours or so and many of us our beat. As I write this, everyone is in bed except for 1 room, who just informed me they are getting ice cream. So pray for a good night sleep, continued health. No one is feeling sick, which i am so excited about, but I want to keep it that way. Also pray for our two main activities tomorrow.

PS i only had the chance to put up a dozen photos or so. At the top of this page is a link for photos, click that and select Costa Rica 2008. I will keep adding more photos each day.

We have arrived safely in Puerto Viejo!!!! We just got into our rooms and getting ready to sit down for lunch. After lunch we have an orientation, then a scavenger hunt like game in the town to learn the area, and then close the night with some dinner and worship.

We have landed safely in Costa Rica. We are all doing wonderfully, thank you for your prayers.

Want to stay updated on our flights and how they are going? Well thanks to modern technology you can! In fact you can see exactly where we are. We have two legs for our trip to Costa Rica, our first flight, Mexicana 901, takes us to Mexico City, Mexico and our 2nd leg, Mexicana 387 takes us to San Jose, Costa Rica. you can click on either flight number for real time tracking, runway details, landing time to the minute, and watch our plane fly over the country on google maps! I'll repost it, but our return flights are Mexicana 386 to Mexico City, and Mexicana 902 to Los Angeles. Also dont forget, I will be blogging every day, so check out the website to see what we're up to and how to pray for us!

Here we come to another Frequency Milestone, 200 posts to the website. Wow were a pretty rocking youth ministry that gets things done!

In exactly 1 week, we will be at the airport, getting in line, getting baggage x-rayed, and walking through metal detectors. Remind all your family and friends that I will be once again blogging every day of the trip, keeping everyone updated on how the trip is going, what we've been up to, etc. I've been in contact with Barrett and Amy this week, they are so excited to see, us. We are bringing down some needs for them and the skate park. Also it looks like we will be helping construct houses for Barrett and Ronnie. Both of them and their families are moving to new houses and they need some help. I've been to Ronnie's new house, they have an unfinished building, running water, and temporary electrocity. Barrett just cleared the debris from the ground (by burning it) and they are getting ready for a foundation. Fun things this year. The skatepark is coming along nicely, many who came last year wont even recognize it. We are bringing down some music equipment to install. I got a request that they needed some helmets and skatepads, so I picked up a few. I may have started a war thoguh, I got a Hannah Montana helment, I can just see all the girls fighting over that one

Since Wavelength came so soon after Youth Sunday, I never had a proper chance to do a write up on it. The service went so well, everything was amazing. I posted the Drama we did to YouTube, so fell free to share it with anyone. If you want to watch the entire service, click here.

Thank you to everyone that participated, it was great taking over the main service. Also our SendOne fundraiser did amazing!! We raised more per person than ever in the past. Costa Rica here we come.

I have gotten so many complements about the service, everything from the drama made me cry, to who was that girl that played drums she was amazing? Everyone who participated, thank you so much, job well done!

PS my head is good

All the photos from the houseboat trip are up! Click here if you would like to see over 500 amazing shots of what we did this past week. It was the most amazing trip and I have already started planning next year!

Well, we are all home safely from Wavelength. It was a great trip, six
students got baptized, we all got a deeper understanding of who God
is, and are ready for the summer before us.
Now for a little update on me. I am home safely, but it was somewhat
of a difficult journey. We were about 5 minutes from leaving and as a
group taking a group photo. I was on the bottom deck, six inches from
the water and jumped in. I had checked the water, it was deep enough
and i was doing a belly flop. However, when I went in the water, my
head hit a submerged rock, that I had missed in my pre-flight check.
Oops and ouch. Pastor/EMT Billy ran to me. I never loss consciousness,
but was short of breath and was bleeding from my head. I was carried
onto the boat and was met at the dock by paramedics and taken to the
hospital. The best part was when I was being taken to the boat all the
students on their own got in a circle and started praying. The prayers
worked cause my head never hurt, well maybe a little later, I now have
10 staples on my head. At the hospital i got a cat scan, my head is
fine, no damage to my brain, and my neck is just as strong as ever. My
head will heal in a week, the bad news is I cracked a vertebrae, t-4.
I already had another vertebrae cracked in 2 places (condition from
birth) A doctor told me years ago that it was a miracle I could walk.
But no matter what happens to my back, it has always been God's hands
that hold my spine together. I'm at home now resting.
Thank you for all your prayers, I'll see everyone tomorrow.

Here are the two Costa Rica forms that need to be notarized and returned as soon as possible.

Click here to download the Forms

(They are located on the left hand side)

Don't let anyone ever tell you things don't exist. Here is living proof, not of a unicorn fish, but of a unicorn.

For the complete story, read this.


Thank you Chris Lewis for the link.

So the houseboat trip is so very very close. I wanted to update the site with a few details of the trip, and answer any questions some might have. June 22nd is Youth Sunday. This is the day JHigh, High School, and College take over the main sanctuary and run the entire show. So please join us during first or second service that day, we will be ordaining Matt Bradley, Kevin Mitchell, and Billy Morin that day, Jr High Pastor, College Pastor, and Pastor of Outreach, respectively. It will be a great day, and a BBQ after 2nd service. As for the Houseboat trip, we will be meeting at 9pm at Ocean Hills. So there is plenty of time to go home, pack (if you procrastinate), or have a nice family dinner. So at 9pm be at Ocean Hills, we will sleep at the church and leave before the sunrise on Monday. The next major question is, what shall I pack? Know that the weather will be HOT during the day and COLD at night. Well here it is:

• Bible
• Pen, Paper
• Sleeping Bag and Pillow
• Sunscreen
• Lots of Bathing Suits
• Towel
  
• Shirts
• Girl need a pair of boardshorts
• Toiletries
• Any snacks or drinks to share
• Cash for 2 meals on the road
  

Wow houseboat trip in 3 weeks, i cant wait

This Friday is the Senior Banquet and it is coming along quite nicely. We have a wonderful group of seniors this year and we need to send them out right! So if you are an underclassman make sure to sign up as a server this Friday and treat the seniors the respect they deserve. If you are serving make sure to wear a pair of jeans and a black t-shirt. And not a McKenzie V-neck shirt, but a nice black shirt. And as a server you get to eat all the same yummy food too. If anyone has any questions, just send me an email! To the left is mine and April's graduation photo from Biola. And yes April and I graduated the same year, even though I am 2 years older. I could of graduated college in 3 years, but nope, it took me 7. A lot of people go to college for 7 years. (They're called doctors)

I cant believe it is time for Wavelength all over again! There are so many sweet wonderful things planned for the trip this year and I am so excited. This year we are traveling to Lake Mojave, from June 22-27. We have two new fun items already for this years enjoyment, we are bringing a professional chef to cook our meals. I cannot wait until we can hit the lake. This year the trip is cheaper and costs $250 and it is going to be filled with more fun than a barrel of monkeys. So sign up quick, as we will fill up and its a first come first serve for the limited spaces. Any questions email evan at the church!

im sure at least one of you will be entertained by this...

Just as a friendly reminder about the Frequency Calendar. The calendar is constantly updated and reflects the most up to date stuff for Frequency including upcoming trips and events. I am often shocked that people do not use the calendar more than they do. The Mexico trip was on the Calendar for a while before anyone checked it. I added another link to the calendar at the top of the page to make it easier to navigate to. But the Calendar includes all services, events, trips, Costa Rica/Scotland payments, and fundraisers.

The Senior Banquet is coming back! What is the Senior Banquet you ask? Well it is a special event we hold for the seniors to honor them for all the hard work they have done and the major accomplishment they did by graduating High School. It is a free event for all seniors and their parents, its catered and it is oh so tasty. It is a blast trust me!
But wait, what is the sound of that, all the under class men sadden that they are not seniors... Well they are invited too! I mean someone has to serve the food :) That's right as the seniors, their parents, and the leaders dine, all freshman, sophomore, and juniors will be dressed oh so lovely and serving us some delicious food. Trust me its fun, I remember back in the day serving at 3 seniors banquets before it was my turn to feast. Trust me it will be a great day.
Wait, what is this to my left? Is that the Mexican State Flag? Why would Evan place that here? Well my friends it is because we are going on a mission trip to Mexico. Go back with me in time to a month ago. I stood on the stage and announced the winners of the Weekend would get a free event, well here it is. I will be picking up the cost for any one who was on the Table Tennis Team to go on this mission trip, and I will be announcing the cost for everyone very soon. What will we be doing in Mexico. Well an orphanage is going to be opening very soon and they need some help getting all things ready. And hopefully we will be able to go back and see all the work we did and how it benefited all the kids there soon!

So when is all this happening? Well here is the schedule. Friday May 23rd is the Senior Banquet. After the banquet all students will stick around and we will spend the night at Ocean Hills. Then early in the morning we will pack up the cars and drive south. We will be in Mexico that entire Saturday and return late Saturday night.


Update:Laws have been changing for b order crossing, at the time of our trip the new law requires all people 18 and younger will need a photocopy of their birth certificate and that is it. It does not need to be a certified copy. Those 18+ will need a copy of birth certificate and a drivers license. Or you can bring a passport and that is good for everyone!

You may have noticed the curtain has been removed recently in the Frequency Room. Well thats because we are putting the ultimate final touches on the room. We only moved in last August, its been less that 1 year since we've been there, but it seems like so much longer. But we are finishing all the little things that we never got to. Relocating wires, touch up painting, molding, lighting fixes, and a few more things. When we're all done it will be beautiful in there!

So we had a wonderful little discussion last night on different translation theories. The question arose of in Revelation 11:15 the NKJV (and KJV) has the word "Kingdoms" while the NIV version has written "Kingdom". I promised to do my due diligence and here it is. Of the 8 translations I read, only the NKJV translates it as "Kingdoms". But what is most important to me is what does the Greek say. Below I have pasted the verse in Greek. There are 4 rows, the first two are the Greek Version, the third line is the english translation, and the 4th line is how to intrepret the original greek. For the word "Kingdom(s) we see the Greek word is NFSN. Noun, Feminine, Singular, Nominative. We see earlier in the verse the word voices. NFPN. Noun, Feminine, Plural, Nomanative. That is why in this version voices is plural and not written as "voice". So in my opinion in this instance the word is best translated Kingdom, singularly. However we must remember that in context we are talking about the united Kingdoms of the world. So is one better than the other, in my opinion, nope.