This past week has been really good, minus us losing out in the Maurepas Tourney. Not so good, but we'll have all of our guys back tommorrow night for Centerville.

Like i said i played some basketball games, ate some seafood at Val's with my family and tori and her family. they took the whole crew all the way out to maurepas...very nice and greatly appreciated. We watched Nacho Libre which was pretty good...I thought it was better in the theatre, but it's not really...

WEll this week at school, in my english class our teacher has assigned us to write a five hundred word autobiography about ourselves, obviously...well i decidided that that was a wonderful ministry oppertunity and opted to give my testimony...i then came to the conclusion that i've never really shared my testimony online before so here it is...straight from the digital dropbox...

Where do I begin? There is so much that I want to say. I guess I’ll just start from the beginning. Roughly at the end of my eighth grade year, my parents decided to switch from the Catholic religion to non-denominational. This decision didn’t sit well with me. I liked the Catholic religion; it was easy and the masses were a whole lot shorter. At the mature age of 14 that was all the mattered. In the Catholic religion I had to only be a good person to get to heaven, but in my new church they were saying that I had to have a personal relationship with Christ to get into heaven. “What’s that?” I would think silently. I certainly wasn’t going to ask anyone; I was too cool for that. I remember I use to sit with my arms folded and make fun of everyone. They would raise there hands in worship and I remember thinking they were all hypocrites, just raising their hands because that was what the person beside them was doing. I had a lot to learn.

A few months passed and I began to warm up to this new form of Christianity. I found that, however reluctant I was to admit it, church was actually fun. I began to enjoy going to church. I still didn’t understand everything that took place, and I still had a lot of questions, but I started looking forward to going church, or at least Refuge, our youth ministry.

I guess it was the summer after my ninth grade year that things really began to change in my life. If you know anything about protestant churches, most of them have a summer camp every summer. My new church was no different. It was called “Oasis”, and the speaker was none other than Pastor Dino, the lead pastor of my church. Prior to this summer camp I remember praying that if God was real, He needed to show himself to me in an almost tangible way. I wasn’t settling for anything less than speaking in tongues. I mean I had heard about it and had even heard people speak in it, but I didn’t really believe it. It was definitely something I needed to experience for myself.

So there I was at summer camp having a good time because, well, it was fun. It was the last night of camp. Again if you’ve ever been to a camp, you know the last night is the most powerful; God really shows up strong. Well, Pastor Dino began talking about being empowered by the Holy Spirit. I didn’t know much, but I knew that that meant speaking in tongues and stuff. I knew this is what I had been praying for. As he continued to speak, my hands began to shake and my lips began to quiver. I wasn’t sure, but I thought God was about to reveal Himself to me. As Pastor Dino made his alter call, I found myself standing. I don’t remember walking to the alter, but I definitely remember what happened at the alter. I was standing there shaking and quivering when I felt someone put their hand on my shoulder to pray for me. As they began to pray, I began to convulse. I felt like there was something inside of me trying to come out. I didn’t know what it was, but I surrendered to it. I don’t remember too much of what else happened, but I can honestly tell you that God showed Himself to me, just like I prayed.

That night changed my life forever. God gave me a new, fresh passion for Him. He gave me a passion for my school. God stirred something inside of me that can’t die. Before I had always put my hope in temporary things, but now I found something that would satisfy me for all eternity. Yes I still had ups and downs in my life, but God has stayed faithful through everything. Now some two and a half years later, God has continued to change me. He changed my views on dating and relationships. He changed my views on who I am. He has revealed things about Himself to me and has convicted me on things that hinder Him in my life. He has changed and is continuing to change everything about me. I am by no means perfect or anywhere near what God has called me to be. I screw up more times than I succeed, but I continue to strive to more like Him each day and less like me. I want Him to have complete control of my life. I want my life to be a testimony of His love, and mercy, and grace. I can honestly say that my decision to accept Christ and live a life totally abandoned to Him has been the single, most life-altering decision I have or will ever make.

i hope you enjoyed it...that's all for now... :)

I know i've said this before, but i just don't know how to start off a post. You know? What's a good opening sentence? I don't know. Anyway, yet agian there has been alot of stuff going on in my life. I guess I'll start off in chronological orderish. Well tuesday we had a game. I was so mad i didn't get to play. I had pulled my lower back the day before. On top of that Will and my dad were both out as well. We eneded up losing by 35 i think...yeah not good.

Well wednesday was refuge. Which was awesome. I had to run lights, so i didn't get to jump around and stuff for worship, but it's ok. Adam explained it to me like this. We're providing an atmosphere of worhsip. so yeah. Well the message was awesome. It really hit home for me because i'm one of those guys that likes to think every thing through. I know it's hard to believe, but i tend to overanalize just a little bitty bit. Ok a lot. So it really challenged me to give God my thoughts as well as my actions.

Then Thursday was "Closer'' , which was also very good. Blake spoke on Shadrack, Meeshack, and Abindigo and how they were thrown into the fire. How when they took a stand for God, King Nebakunezzar, or however you spell it,had them bound and thrown into the fire. Blake related that to how the devil tries to bind you with different things to distract you from God's purpose. It was really cool. Each person had to have their hands bound in front of them. Then me and blake prayed for the guys, and Candice and my mom prayed for the girls. After we prayed for them, we'd cut the rope. It was really cool and to top it off they had jason upton playing, "where the spirit of the lord is" in the background. Now this is cool. When i was praying for my friend Shae, in the middle of the prayer wihtout me touching it, his rope fell off. Oh yeah it was God. Then after Bible study i hung out with Tori and her family.

Friday we had another basketball game, which i didn't get to play. We only lost by 12 which was really good considering we had 3 starters sitting and our 7th man. to top it off though Brent, our awesome point gaurd broke his nose, so now he's out. After the game, me tori and cody went watch open season at the rave. It was "cute". But seriously I really enjoyed it.

Saturday i had to work, grrrhh, but it was my last day unless they call me to fill in. Then saturday night we had a service in my school gym, which was really cool. Not too many people showed up, but i don't measure success by numbers. It was cool because my mom, step-dad, dad, step-mom, tori and blake were all their. After t he service I went back to Tori's house and watch run-away bride of all things. but it was good and i've never seen it. so yeah that's been my week..

later
in christ
jordan

sorry this one's a long one... :)

Well there are quite a few things going on in my head right now...so i guess i can tell you i don't know how long this post is going to be because my thoughts are all jumbled...so bear with me if it's kinda incoherent... :) Well firstly, pertaining to my game last thursday, we won...i think by five...it was quite interesting. We played our district rivals at their place and it was intense...so intense that one of our guys ended up being thrown out, suspended from school for 5 days and from basketball for a few weeks i think...yeah that'll kinda hurt us...but we'll make it...me personally, i actually played very well and didn't loose my composure like most people where expecting me to...my teammates said it was on account of someone that was in the stands that night... :) idk..

Friday night was unplugged, which was awesome... it wasn't packed or anything, so we got to hang out without being sardeense or however you spell it... We got to play Taboo, which is one of my favorite games and battleship, though i personally didn't play it... ;) There was alittle drama as can be expected i guess, but it all worked out for the best i think...

Saturday morning i worked and made some moola... Saturday night i went to church and pastor dino spoke on Miracles and stuff..the message was really good...basicallly he said that if you have aproblem, your a canidate for a miracle..and how hte little boy with the fish, wasn't until he gave up what he had...so yeah it was cool...then after the service me and my sister went eat at whole foods mart with Tori, Mr. Dan, Mrs. Vicki, Rhett and Rhodes, Lincoln, J.D. and his friend which i forgot his name but i think it's like two names as one or something...basically it was us and Tori's whole family added one... :) anyway we had a good time... then we went look around at some shops and i saw a pair of jeans that were regularily $70 for $15 and like an idiot i didn't buy them because i thought they were too big...STUPID...oh well...

Sunday i had to work the Creole Festival in French Settlement, which was ok..i had to work the dunking booth, which became remarkably popular as soon as i got in... :( it was cold... but it was cool..all my friends where there plus one...then me and tori went to her house for the Missions bible study that her dad led....it was really good....the basis of it was "obedience" it's kinda like when someone ask you a question and you say, "pray for God's will" it's international...something so simple, yet is sometimes so hard... oh and then my dad had to go to the emergency room bc he had kidney stones...not cool...i hear it's the equivilent of a woman having a baby...but he's doing better... :)

Ok and now for what God's been showing me... Well i guess it kinda goes back to the whole obedience thing...He's really showing me that i should be obedient to His spirit no matter what it cost...I may not understand, but it should be enough that it's God telling me to do it...after all he does have my best in mind... I guess he's also showing me dedication...you know, not getting distracted and stuff...sometimes it's so hard... But i had a really good quiet time tonight and really want to grow closer to Him...like i don't want to be the same person anymore...like i hate going hot/cold all the time...i'm one of those people that will pursue something really intentlly, but then it fizzles out...well i don't want that to be the way it is with God...i don't want to only half way seek Him...i want to run after Him...i want Him to completely change me...to completely rock my world...i pray that He would help me crucify the desires of "my'" heart and give me the desires of His heart...i hate what i love...i don't want to be myself...i want to die to Self and live with Christ...I want to give up everything for Him...i don'twant anything to hold me back from Him...i never ever want to grow complacent in my walk with HIm...it's easy to get "used" to God...when that happens, i think we become unusable...our relationship needs to stay fresh...we can't depend on all the old things we did to sustain us...it's like any relationship; it takes work and dedictation...and it takes sacrifice...

i geuss God is also showing me what real sacrifice is...i have to be willing to let go of anything He ask...i want to let go of anything that is hindering me from drawing closer to Christ...You know we'll never see change until we're willing to sacrifice for it...When someone gives you something...you like it alot for a while, but then you grow tired of it...but something you that you earn and sacrifice for, you hold dearly. You won't ever let it go because you know how much it cost you...that's how it is with us and God...we have to hold on to Him like there's no tommorrow...because we're not garunteed tommorrow....yeah i don't know where that came from...kinda off topic...but i geuss the bottom line is that i love God...I want to be more like Him...iwant mySelf to decrease and for Him to increase in my life...I want His will for mylife more than anything else...so yeah...God is awesome... :)

i know it's kinda all over the place, but ohwell...hopefully you understand most of what i'm saying....

in christ,
jordan

short post for real

Ok so i know, or at least i think, i said my last post was going to be short because i was tired, well this one really is...because i'm tired... :)

anyway i'd like to just say that God is so awesome...it's so cool how he know's what we're going through even if we're scared to tell Him. Remember from my last post how i was dealing with worry over my future and God's will for my life...well tonight at service tweeze hit the nail on the head for me...it was so cool...i just felt like God is telling me to chill out and that if i continue to seek Him and His will everything will be ok...I may not know the end of the road or where it's going, but He does...and that's good enough for me...

well see i told you i'd keep it short...or at least short for me... :)

in christ,
jordan

Distraction meets Trust or something that hopefully sounds smart but probably not...idk don't ask... :)

Well alot has been going on with me lately...i'm kind of tired so i'm going to just put everything outhere... :) I guess what God has really been showing me that i have to trust Him more...you know we always say Lord i give you my future, my desires, my everything, but do we really mean it...? When our future is at stake and our desires are running rampart, do we still trust God with them...Unfortuanetlly for me, sometimes the answer is no...i've been having a lot on my mind lately about alot of different things...and i've gotten really stressed out...I've been worrying and thinking and dwelling on eventualities and stuff...the "what if's" if you will...and it's really not good for my health; the worrying part i mean...theres actually a scripture, and i'm not sure on the exact reference that pretty much says, "don't worry" I"m like hello...come on jordan...so yeah, i've been talking to my parents about it and they believe i'm just overanalyzing things, which is a good possibility... if you don't know me, i am always overanalyzing...I actually think the devil is trying to distract me by using my worry... and what's so hard is that i'm worried about whether this situation is God's will and stuff like that...but i had a good quiet time tonight and God really gave me some peace...i still don't really know all of His will, but i guess i'll never know it...actually mr. dan told me the other day of an analogy he heard concerning God's will...basically it's goes like this, and i hope i don't screw this up to bad, but your in a car...and you can only see as far as the headlights allow...you know there's more road ahead, but you know that you can only worry about that when the headlights show it to you...so basically don't worry about the far far future...we have to trust God to show us what we need to know and believe that He'll guide us through the rest when it comes...

Kinda going along the trust line; i was reading my bible tonight and i remembered the scripture Proverbs 3:5-6 "Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not to you own understanding. in all your ways acknoweledge Him and He shall direct your paths." I've read this scripture before, and even have it committed to memory, but something stuck out to me tonight that i haven't thought about before...it says to trust in the lord with all of your heart, and well we say we do that, but as i was thinking about it and thinking of what's going on in my own heart, we really, or at least me, mostly trust Him when things are going good. We can say in the good times that we trust Him with everything but in the bad we question...why is that? Or when we're scared to voice to God our emotions or feelings because we don't know if they're His will...you know what..God already knows what we're thinking, feeling, and everything! its no secret to Him! It all goes back to trust; when we don't intentionally tell God our thoughts and stuff in essence we're saying we don't trust You God, you couldn't possibly understand...and like i said this is a completley knew thought to me also, so i'm going through it too...

But like i said I had a great quiet time and God is teaching me to simply wait on Him..not get caught up in my own little world of questions and insecurities, but to trust Him alone and to know that he has my best in mind...

With all that's been going on in my head, God has made me very aware of how thankfull i am for my parents and other Godly mentors and friends that help me through these times...thank you God for everything...You are so awesome...!!!! and thanks again friends...:) yeah i know it was kinda corny, but oh well i really am thankfull for ya'll...you all challenge me in more ways than you know....

and that's about it...i'm going to bed now, and i can't wait for tommorrow...yay it's refuge...oh an dthursdday we have our jamborree, or hwoever you spell it...we're playig Holden...our rivals...so yeah it'll be a pretty intense game...but we're ready...so yeah... :)

later
in christ
jordan

NO MORE MYSPACE FOR ME...

Ok so here's the deal...if you haven't guessed i deleted my myspace...yeah i know it's a shocker for me too...but that's just the point...i had become too addicted to it...it was taking up too much of my time and focus...I would get on with the intention of only checking my stuff and looking at a few friends pages, but before i would realize it, i would be on there for well over an hour...not a very healthy habit if you ask me... not only that, but the advertisements on there are not that good...i mean have you seen them...not good...i still don't understand how those pictures can make anyone think of "true love" more along the lines of definite lust...so yeah that was another contributing factor...and then there is of course the very riscae pages out there that have not so good stuff...enough said...for the most part i don't think each of these things in and of themself are that bad, minus the riscae and provactive, but added together, they are damaging to my spiritual life...and i definitely don't want to do that...i want to continue to grow closer to God not farther away...so those are some main factors for why i deleted my myspace...

some other factors are that the alot of the people i talk to on there have deleted theirs or get on sparesly enough to even say they have one...first Telia deleted hers, and i thought "there is noway i could do that"; red flag number one...i must always be willing to give up anything to grow closer to God...so for a about a week i've been thinking of deleting it for that very reason, but never reallly did...then Tori deleted her's, again God challenged me to delete mine...but i believe the devil was trying to trick me for two reasons: first, if i delete mine right after she deletes her's what will people think...to that i say fewee, when God leads, He leads...i must follow. and the second reason i believe the devil was trying to trick me into keeping my myspace by saying it was a "tool" to reach people...you know my space is a testimony...and for the most part it was...i was getting to talk to some people that i normally don't talk to about somethings we normally don't talk about, but what was the price...for me it was always having the oppertunity to use myspace to sin...the devil new that if i kept my myspace, even under the pretense of it being a tool, he coud cause me to sin...and when i measure either me speaking to someone about jesus, some i can tell that to at school, and me sinning, there is no choice...I have to put my spiritual well being over a "tool" i mean it would be stupid for me not too...

so all of that mumbo jumbo to tell ya'll "i deleted my myspace" i hope this helps you understand my thinking and what not...so yeah...my God is awesome...there is none like Him...and I hope and pray that He continues to challenge me, and grow me, and mold me.... :)

in christ,
jordan

I am excited!!!!

Well I am excited for quite a few reason...First let me give you alittle background info...last friday morning i was talking to Tweeze about ministry and college and stuff and just what i was feeling about both...like i said last post, i don't really want to go to college because i want to go into fulltime ministry...anyway i was telling him how my parents thought it would be best for me to get a degree, "just in case" or to "provide for my family" I don't too much agree with the first reason, because i know God will provide for me and as for the second, i don't believe God would call me to ministry and then give me a high-maintence wife that wants all kind of material things...so it seems those two reasons aren't that valid for me...

Anyway i was talking to him and we prayed that my parents would see God's will for my life and embrace it. Well that day at lunch my dad told me that he had already given me his opinion, but the decision was mine because i was a man; yes kinda hard to believe. So i was like man God your awesome. Well it gets better, the next day my step mom, mrs. melee said that my they had all gotten together and talked about it and said that they would back me and believe for me no matter what I chose to do....God is double awesome...I am like super-excited...i can't wait to do elevate and see what God has for me...I can't wait to depend on Him even more than I do now...What's even cooler though, is that i am also beginning to believe that God is calling me to go overseas and be a missionary...i don't know where or when or for how long, i just know it's going to happen, and i can't wait...I want to impact everyone around me for Jesus and I want to impact the world for Him...

Oh and another cool thing that happend this weekend was Tori's birthday party thing...it was really fun...we went eat sushi at HelloSuchi's, which was fanamonal, if that's how you spell it. Then we went hang out on the top of whatever building tsunami's is, which was also really fun. We got to hang out and talk about stuff... :) Oh and i wash pushed in the fountains by my dearest friend Mickey, but i'm not mad becaus ei know i wouldn't have gotten in otherwise...We then drove soaking wet back to tori's house where we hung out til around 1. Which was a miracle in itself because i know if it were my parents they would have made everyone go home long ago...it was really fun, we played video games and hung out...i wasnt good at any of the games, but i enjoyed the company...oh and Tori's little brothers Rhett and Roades are awesome...they're so cute...cough cough anyway i had alot of fun...before i left we had some more positive discussions... :) and that was the night...i got home around 1ish and went to bed...

The only not so cool thing about this weekend was that i had to go to the emergency room because my chest was hurting...the ekg and the heart thingy didn't say anything was wrong with me and he didn't say it was anxiety, but it still hurt...so i don't know....anyway my mom thinks i had an anxiety attack because i had some rather stressful discussions this past weekend...so...but i don't know...good new....i got off of work for two days... :)

and that's about it...I can't wait for wednesday...I think i'm speaking at Healing Hands again and then of course there's Refuge wheich is going to be awesome....then thursday's Closer at the Ohlerkings which is always fun... so yeah that's about it...

in christ,
jordan