10 random thoughts about school

1. I’m really enjoying this semester so far.
2. I think it will be much better than last semester.
3. I don’t really like my two biology classes though (evolutionary biology and environmental studies), which is ironic, considering that’s what I’m majoring in.  I enjoy studying genetics and cellular/molecular biology much more.
4. But I do love both of my education classes.
5. I’ve discovered that I’m going to be at App for three years instead of two and a half because of student teaching, and because of two senior bio classes I have to take that have a billion prerequisites.
6. But I’m okay with that.  My last semester before student teaching I’ll only have to go part-time.
7. I’m really looking forward to being a teacher.
8. I find it kind of weird that the majority of people in my classes will be graduating in May.  I’m so young.
9.  I really wish I would have tried harder last semester.
10. Oh, and not so much school related, but I love RUF, my small group, and my church.  They’re amazing.

My Baptism

“There’s only one thing that makes us right with God, and it’s not water; the only thing that makes us right with God is Jesus.”

On December 13th, my good friend, Elizabeth, her younger brother, Nathan, and I got baptized at our church, Grace Foothills, in Tryon.  It was GF’s first baptism service since it started two years ago, and it was also the first baptism our pastor had ever administered.  It was a really awesome day for us all.

One thing about our baptism that was a little different than what most people are used to was that we were not “dunked”… we were “sprinkled.”  Here is what Grace says concerning their mode of baptism:

Grace believes that Scripture teaches that sprinkling (technically called ‘aspersion’) is the proper mode of water baptism. We sprinkle water on a person and baptize them in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. In the Old Testament when God makes the covenant with Israel in Exodus 24:3-8, Moses sprinkles blood on the altar and then on the people of God. When he consecrates Aaron and his sons to be priests Moses again sprinkles blood on them (Ex 29:19ff). And to cover the sins of the people the priest was to sprinkle blood on the atonement cover on the ark of the covenant (Leviticus 16:15ff.) The prophet Ezekiel looked forward to the New Covenant in this way:

For I will take you out of the nations; I will gather you from all the countries and bring you back into your own land. I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws. (Ezekiel 36:24-27)

And in the New Testament we see the same things in Hebrews 9:10-14 where washings (baptisms in the original language) is equated with sprinkling in the next verses. And Hebrews 12:24 says specifically that ‘We have come ‘to Jesus the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.’

So just a heads-up before you watch the video and wonder where in the world our baptismal font is 😉

Fun Times

From 6:30 last night ’til 11:30 this morning, Grace Foothills youth group had our Christmas overnight retreat. It was pretty awesome. Just had fun hanging out with some awesome peeps, our pastor, and youth leaders.

Around 3:00 this morning I once again came to the sad realization that this was probably the last overnight/retreat I will ever go on with these people. In just eight months, eight very short months, I will no longer be a part of Grace Foothills Watershed Youth.  This kind of makes me sad.  Even if I weren’t moving off to college next Fall, I still wouldn’t really be a part of the youth group though, since it’s just 6-12 grade, but still, I am going to miss GF terribly. Without a doubt more than I will miss anything else.

Oh well. In two more days it will be a year since I started going to GF, so by the time I have to say goodbye, I will have been fortunate enough to have been able to spend 20 months with these guys. I am blessed.