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| David, one of my roommates, his mom came down for the week a few weeks ago, and this is what she had to say in her blog: (kfc.joeuser.com)
A Lot of Cooking Going On Here
By KFC Kickin For Christ
Posted Friday, May 04, 2007 on Kickin For Christ
Discussion: BloggingI
just spent five days hanging out with my son and his girlfriend in
Lynchburg, VA and had a blast. The plane trip went according to
textbook or actually better than expected. I'm now singing the Jet Blue
Praises. I would definitely fly that airline again. My last flight home
was 40 minutes earlier than expected. My husband was able to track my
entire flight and picked me up exactly on time by doing so. I was very
pleased.
It all started a month or so ago when I told David if I could get
tickets for under $200 I'd come down for a visit and cook for his
houseful of roomates. He has has eight roommates in one house they
rent, all runners I might add.
It all started when he picked me up on a beautiful sunny Thursday late
afternoon in Dulles. He drove 3 1/2 hours to get me but it took us at
least 4 1/2 to get to his house. One of the reasons was because it
started to rain. Since his accident he has flashbacks when it starts to
rain which causes him to drive very conservatively which pleases me to
no end. The rain was a factor in that accident. Before the accident I
thought he was too much of a lead foot, but now....what a difference.
The next day, Friday, I headed to Sams Club to load up on groceries.
Josh was in CA running a very big 10K and his brother Jordan was
running the Penn Relays so they were out. One other roommate was gone
for the weekend with a Youth Group so he was gone. I decided then
instead of tripling my recipes I'd double them instead.
The first night we went into the house and I was met with a sinkful of
dishes. The house is what you'd expect nine boys to be living in. The
bathroom was off limits as far as I was concerned. Aly warned me not to
go in the bathroom. I didn't. I'm good at holding it...very good.
There was one boy at the stove making pancakes in what looked like his
pj's. He didn't speak at all. He finished up and left the room not to
be seen again. I asked David if he had told the boys I was coming. He
seemed a bit evasive only saying something about he told a couple of
them. Obviously this boy didn't know. I found out later his name was
Jarvis.
So we three, David, Aly and I cleaned up the dishes, set the dishwasher
in motion, disinfected the bar area and went to work. I made a recipe
called Swift Spaghetti. We also had salad and garlic bread. While I set
the table, only seeing one other boy named Clint, I asked David to go
round up whoever was in the house. He looked around and came up with
just a couple of them. Drew, Clint, Christian, Aly, David and I sat
down for the first meal. I was planning on four nights.
We did have a brownie mishap this first night. I knew that David's
house was going to be not as clean as I'd like so I thought before I'd
go over that first night that I'd make the brownies in Aly's nice clean
kitchen. So I whipped up a double batch, threw choc chips on top and
put in a nice big cookie sheet. Aly had wax paper so I put that over
the raw mixture.....big mistake. I thought I'll just pop in the oven
when we get to the house. On the 10 minute drive over there while I was
holding the pan carefully it started oozing out first on this side, and
then on that side and before I knew it I had chocolate all over the
place including my canvas bag. I was covered, the car seat which I
managed to almost protect did manage to get to spots about the size of
a quarter and it was just one royal mess. Lifting the wax paper only
made it worse with much of it clinging to it. So when we stopped David
said to throw it all out but I'm too cheap. I shifted it around,
cleaned it up the best I could, had Aly spoon the batter off the top of
the paper onto the pan while I held the pan....all of this going on
outside the house on top of the trashcan.
We popped it in the oven and wouldn't you know it...... this was
probably the best tasting batch of brownies I had ever made. They were
raving over them. Who woulda thunk? And David wanted me to toss them.
Let this be a lesson!!
Drew and Christian were very funny and I enjoyed meeting them. I had
met Clint last fall briefly. Drew, a Senior is student teaching at a HS
nearby. He is a Phys Ed teacher. Christian, also a Senior with very dry
humor won the Nationals in the mile when he was in HS. He was on the
cover of many reputable running magazines at the time. He was very
heavily recruited for Liberty only to be a big disappointment when he
got there. He ended up losing his full scholarship mostly because he
just wasn't motivated. He actually hates to run but likes the idea of
it. He's very gifted and could be one of the best runners out there
today. The coach was not happy with this new recruit. Christian tried
to talk the coach in letting him stay on scholarship by saying he was
like fine wine, getting better with age. The coach didn't buy it, took
the scholarship away, and they have not been on good terms since then.
I told them I'd be back the next night as well, hoping to meet the
others. David, Aly and I set off for the movies. We saw Ghost Riders.
Aly hated the move.
The next night, was Chili Mac night. Again, we had to first do the
sinkful of dishes clean up the counters and stove and get to work. This
time, the pancake man, Jarvis joined us. He told me he had no idea I
was coming that first night. It was very obvious by looking around the
kitchen that these boys live on pancake mix. I had also brought bags
and bags of candy, stuffing it into my suitcase. I picked out a nice
big bowl and dumped it all in placing in in the center of the table
when we were finished eating on that first night. For the next four
nights I watched this bowl of candy disappear.
The Chili Mac and Cornbread was a success. I also made homemade
Chocolate Chip cookies. We stayed around the table for a long time just
enjoying each other's company. They guys loved it. They didn't want to
leave. The first night as we sat down I said, "okay who's going to
pray? Who's the eldest?" Christian said he was and he prayed. The
second night we went to the youngest and that was Aly and she prayed.
The third night we went to the tallest and Clint prayed. The last night
I said who's the best looking and they all looked at David and he
prayed.
At the end of each meal, one boy got up to do cleanup. Very willingly I
might add. They loved these family dinners. They said they want to keep
this going.
On the third night we picked up Nate since he came back from the Youth
Group camping trip. I had heard that Nate was a very sensitive guy. Not
in a bad way, like an eggshell person, but just a gentle type of soul.
The first thing he said to me when he met me this now third night
was......"I'm not gay. Don't believe these guys. I'm not gay." He was
very fun loving and I could tell there was a lot of love that passed
between all these guys. I did come to realize you can't believe a
single word they say. They seem so serious but you still can't believe
them.
So I head about the diaper run, the smurf run and the day David ran
right up and over a slow moving car. The diaper run was hilarious. Drew
was telling me the story. They all put on diapers and went on a run.
The problem was that Drew sweats....ALOT. His diaper started to sag
really badly. It was hard to run he said with a sagging diaper. He
ended up with Diaper rash. I looked at my son in amazement. "You did
this I asked?" "No way" he said. While he did admit to doing the Smurf
run, he drew the line at putting on a diaper. The Smurf run was a run
where they all ran around town painted blue. They got some spray paint
and painted themselves silly blue. My elsest son, Bobby who ran as a
Senior with a couple of these boys as Freshmen said this is the boldest
group of runners Liberty has every had. The runners before always
talked about doing these things but this group actually went out and
did them.
The car incident? While they were out on a run David decided to run up
the hood, over the roof and down the back end of this moving car. The
car lurched to a stop, as David kept running, and a big redneck guy got
out. He started screaming 4-letter words and spoke about getting his
rifle out to shoot them all. In the meantime his buddies were trapped
inbetween this guy and David, now running down the street laughing his
head off. The guys apologized the best they could for this, now scared
this guy was going to take them all down. He had muscles on muscles and
he was much bigger than probably three of them put together. Then the
wife steps out of the passenger side and with many front teeth missing
started cussing them out as well. They laugh now, but they were a bit
scared of this duo. They took off down side streets breaking up hoping
to get home alive that day.
They ended up getting reps for the diaper run. They also got reps for
NOT having their ID's on them while doing so. Nobody runs with ID but
when you only have a diaper on......oh well you're going to get caught.
David was really glad he didn't run that day with them.
I also heard the story about the rivalry between Christan and Nate.
Christian is from Ohio and Nate is from MI. During football season it
got really heated. In the house Christian brought in a cat in which he
named Sexy. He loves this cat , but his mom is not happy about the
name. One day while Christian was gone, Nate shaved a big M on the cat
and painted the M on the cat blue. When Christian got home he was not
happy. He was equally not happy the day they decided to spray his room
with the fire extinguisher either. This just happened to be at 1 am. He
left his room for a little bit to return to find it all covered in
white foam. He was literally foaming at the mouth that night I was
told.
On the last night I got a surprise. This time a few of the guys were
waiting in the kitchen for us to come. The dishes were not only done
but the DW was completely empty with a stack of clean dishes waiting
for me. Everything was cleaned up so I could immediately start dinner.
Aly comes into the kitchen a few minutes later and whispered they even
cleaned the bathroom. So David goes and checks it out and was extremely
impressed. He said they even did a good job.
David is very neat. At first he was constantly cleaning the bathroom.
Then he gave up. He told me the tub is disgusting. He wears shower
shoes when he uses the shower now. So this was very impressive. He
couldn't get over it...neither could I.
Everybody showed up this night. They were all prepared and wondering
what we were going to have. On the third night we had baked potato,
carrots (fresh) and baked chicken and more chocolate chip cookies for
dessert. On this fourth night I made a huge batch of homemade macaroni
and cheese with hotdogs dumped in along with more cornbread. We had
David's favorite no bake chocolate oatmeal cookies for dessert.
They asked me if I'd stay another week. When I said maybe I'd do this
again next fall, even Drew who is ready to graduate said he'd come
back. He lives in VA anyhow. Christian said he'd probably stick around
since who knows if he'll really graduate anyhow. Later David told me
how smart Christian really is. He's going to be some sort of Pastor or
Youth Pastor eventually.
Another boy showed up this last night named Tim. While he doesn't live
at the house he's a frequent guest/friend of them all. He's also in the
National Guard and thoroughly enjoyed this homecooked meal even taking
home his own extra pan for the next night. I had so much left over on
purpose so they'd all have another meal when I left to remember me by
and also to be able to have another "family dinner." This boy, has a
sad family life. I wanted to adopt him. I got the feeling he really
needs a mom. I guess he was kicked out of his home at 16 as all the
kids in his family are and he's been bounced around. He went into the
guard to get help with school. He's a hard worker David said, and he
has a sadness about him that I didn't see in the other guys.
They all practically followed me out the door that last night knowing
they wouldn't see me again. I was thinking what a great ministry this
could be. I'm hoping to do this again next fall if all works out. My
son David was very grateful for what I did. He liked having his mom
around not only because we're pretty close, but also because he misses
mom's homemade cooking. It also made him a very popular guy among his
housemates. He said none of the other mom's have done this before. Aly
enjoyed this as well. She gave me a letter on my last day telling me
how she enjoyed the whole week. She's not a cook and I had her help me
every step of the way teaching her a few tricks along the way. She also
left me a voice mail on my home phone so when I got home I had a
message from her.
David drove me the 3 1/2 hours back to the airport on Tuesday
afternoon. He gave me more than one large hug and said more than once
"thank you." I knew what he meant. This is going to be a lasting memory
between the two of us and it was worth every penny to do all this.
Isn't that what Moms are for?
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| Just waisting some time between studying and thought I would write something in here.
Things have been going pretty well. God has been teaching me that there is nothing better than waiting on Him. Pretty much just living a life of total dependence. I started going through my Bible as I read with a pink and orange highlighter and every time it talks about waiting on God I highlight it in orange and every time it talks about something that God does for us I highlight it in pink. (the only other highlighter color I had.) So far I have just started doing it in the Psalms and its pretty crazy to see how much you have to highlight stuff in those two colors! Especially pink! Because God has been teaching me that everything comes from Him; even my spiritual growth. So, while we wait on God He works all these things out in us.
Some books that God has used recently to impact my spiritual growth have been "The Autobiography of George Muller," "Waiting on God" by Andrew Murray, "Humility" by Andrew Murray, "A Life that Wins" by Watchman Nee, and most importantly the Bible!
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| Greek is kicking my butt right now. Actually, not so much the greek, but the stupid english grammer that I need to know in order to translate it.
So I am doing my reading in my greek textbook and I am reading through all these different ways the nominitive case can be used and I get to the end, which was quite a long confusing journey, and the last one is "Nominative ad Nauseum" and this is exactly what it says to describe it:
"Also known as the aporetic nominative (from the greek word aporew, "I am at a loss"), this is the category one should appeal to when another slot cannot be found. The title is descriptive not of the nominative but of the feeling one has in the pit of hes/her stomach for having spent so much time on this case and coming up with nothing."
Simply stunning. That really makes me look forward to the rest of this.
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| "Faith means believing in advance what will only make sense in reverse."
"Sorrow looks down, worry looks around, and faith looks up..."
~Some people
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