Tuesday, October 4, 2011

The Last Blog for Now!


Blogging! Where to start...I have found blogging very interesting. It has made me discover things about myself I never knew. I feel the free blogs were the most fun ones to do they really got people to open up. The things I learned from blogging so far are fantastic. The first thing I learned was how to use blogger. The other thing I learn are things like how to compose a blog and what makes a "good" blog. Prezi was something else I learned to do. Which was a great and fun experience. I believe blogging has help my writing become more creative.  Blogging has been way different then writing paper, we can use pictures and its less stressful. Unlike papers they are not "20" pages long and boring. They are fun and interesting. We got to choice some topic we want to write about. My favorite part so far is that the blogs are not just busy work, they are fun topics to write about.

The Caregiver The Fool and The Creator


The Caregiver is someone who is the ideal parent. They are loving and caring to others. They are the center of a community that is in place to make people feel like they belong. I feel I got this result because I am that friend people can come to and always feel like there is right for them. People come to me when they need help and need someone to just sit and talk to. The fool is someone who going against the norm of life. They are someone who stands up for what they believe in and they points out the fails in the authority. I see myself as a "fool" because I don't like going with the norm. I have always be the one to stand up for what is right even if I'm the only one standing. Pointing out the fails in authority to the authority is something that should be done, otherwise it will never be fixed. The Creator is the one who is always improving their surroundings. They are always seeking  a deeper understanding of self and wisdom. The creator in myself comes out when I'm doing mission work. I am always making the task at hand better and improving the surroundings of the task. I have been one to seek for a deeper understanding of what I believe since I was little. Even to this day I still seek for a deeper meaning in the things I do.

Good vs. Bad

The thing I noticed about good blogs is that they have meaning behind them. What I mean when I say that is they are not just a blog about some random thing. The blogs I found most interesting were the free blogs. You could tell most people put lots of thought into what they wanted to write. I don't think there is a such thing as a bad blog. To have a bad blog it would have to be filled with grammar mistakes and spelling errors. Those things are whats makes writing or in this case blogging bad. I feel that a good blog is something that you are amazed at or makes you think. A blog that is just one line long could be the best blog you have ever seen. If that blog made you think about what it said all day long.... I would call it a good blog. To me what makes writing or blogging bad is error. If its error free who are we to say if its good or bad. I'll leave you with that thought on Good vs. Bad

The name of the game is Mortal Kombat

Mortal Kombat has to be one of my favorite games of all time. The story line behind the battle is really interesting to me. Its also a fun game to play with you older brothers and beat them. I picked it as my favorite not because it has the best story line or the best graphics. I do say its my favorite because I use to play it with my brothers. This game would always bring us together in the same room. We would play for hours laughing and "talk crap" to each other. This Game so one of many time we would hang out but by far it was always the funnest. Like I said it doesn't have the best graphic or story line but it will always be the memory of me and my brothers spending time together. Therefore it will always be my favorite video game.  

Back from the Future

Ten years from now I will be 29 years old. If my live goes perfectly to plan I will be happily living on Hilton Head Island. Ill be working at my old church FPC as the newest Youth Director. I will be marry to my high school sweetheart, with at least one child. Being the Youth Director will be my career, my job will to be a good father and husband. I will be taking the youth group on an international mission trip at least once a year, with many smaller mission trip throughout the year. The youth group would be going to Rock the Universe every year along with attending Montreats high-school youth conference. My youth program will be the best and most happening place around for youth to come and hang out. The new youth building will always be open for them to come and relax. While all this is more or less what I want my life to turn out as, the truth is, it does not matter if I have all of that or not. The perfect life for me is that I'm married to the girl I love and have a great family that I can provide for. Even more important is that the I'm somewhere on this earth spreading the good news of God the father to youth, to the ones that need to know or may already know. The perfect life for me is not anything that is materialistic but its the idea of reaching out Gods love to youth. Therefore in ten year if my life goes perfectly God only knows where ill be, reaching the hearts of youth and teaching them of a love greater then all others and that is Gods love for us.  

Monday, October 3, 2011

The Lightning Thief

Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief.
The reason I pick this movie is I like Greek mythology. Percy Jackson & the Olympians is a great relation between modern day and ancient Greek mythology. The way the writer brought the two together was fantastic. The movie is based on a series of 5 books. Percy Jackson & the Olympians is based on the first book, it tells of a teenager who finds out the he is a descendant of a Greek god. Percy Jackson's keeper relieves him to Percy and tells Percy of his destiny. Turns out the he is to settle an on-going battle between the Greek gods. Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief is the best movie that relates our world today and the world of the ancient Greeks.

The Life Changing Trip


I was excited about going on the Youth Mission Trip to Nicaragua from the first moment Sam mentioned it to some years ago. Mission work has been a passion of mine for years and I’ve helped with our local missions plus our trips to Wheeling, W. Va. in the past. I knew Nicaragua was a place I wanted to go to help. The week before I left, I was at my dad’s shop telling the guys who work for him where I was going. Carlos, who is originally from Mexico, said it was such a good idea because Nicaragua was so poor that people from his hometown in Mexico go to Nicaragua to help the people there!
We had some wonderful meetings together as a team before leaving and Mr. & Mrs. Grimes, along with Kim Young, helped us prepare for what we would be doing. The support we received from everyone back home at our church was great. It was like everyone coming along with us in our hearts.
I know Sam wrote about each of our day’s activities and I’ve seen the postings on the church’s website. What you can’t grasp from just reading the articles about what we did is what the impact of being there with the people does to you. After spending the day sweating profusely and getting covered in grime, you’d think you would be tired of it all. But your mind is so full from the contrasts you see, it’s unimaginable. The country is so poverty stricken but the people are so full of joy. It’s such a lesson in recognizing the blessings God gives. Blessings don’t have to be wrapped up in comfortable surroundings. We experienced so many blessings from the outpouring of love and acceptance we received from the people who lived there.
Each day when I saw Jessica and Mercedes, 2 sisters who were 8 & 6 years old living at Casa de Esperanza (House of Hope), I was greeted with smiles, hugs and laughter. There was such an out pouring of love from the people that any weariness or exhaustion melted away as soon as they greeted you. When I arrived to help at VBS one day after a particularly grueling day of pushng rebar, I thought I was going to pass out from the strain. As soon as I saw the children and they ran to me to play, my cares all vanished. It was like being renewed. I know what I received from the people in Nicaragua was so much more than I could possibly have given to them.
I will always be so grateful to my church family for making it possible for me to experience this mission trip. It was truly a life changing event.

The journey of faith

 Hi, My name is Joseph Taylor. I have been a part of a church family since before I was born. My mom was pregnant with me while she was serving as a Deacon at my church. I have always had people telling me they remember when I was a baby sleeping on my mom's shoulder at the Deacon meetings. It was one of the first things Miss Debbie and I would joke about when she was my Jr. High Sunday School teacher. My church family has been a big part of my growing up. I got to spend time with kids my own age as we camped throughout the years. Adults like Miss Whitney and Miss Kay were always there for me and we got to spend fun times together on All Church Retreats and at church events. I want to share with you as. My journey of faith has been full of challenges and I am honored to share it with you.

My youth group was has been a huge part of my life and I would like to tell you about that journey. Where to start...there are so many things I could talk about. Well the kids are a good place to start, they are not just friends of mine, they are my brothers and sisters. We were not just a group of youth that meet and worship together and talk about God. We are a family, yes under Christ, but even more so just a family. You could ask Page or Becky, even Ruthie and Mary Piper, Amy Kate or Katie and Hannah that outside of youth group I still call them my little sisters. There are some of us that fight and others that start drama but in the long run, this youth group is still a close family at heart. Having all these kids my age who are so close to me has been a big help over the years. Being able to share anything you want with other kids is a huge thing. It helps to have someone else that is “on the same page” of the book we call life at any moment in time. It is really helpful to have these kids close to me that are “on the same page” not only in life, but also in Christ.

Other ways my youth group has helped me over the years is teaching me how my faith is mine and not just something I picked up along the way like another fact of life from being dragged to church. To think back on my faith is easy, it’s always been there. It was really easy to have a faith as a little kid; I was always at the church, my mom worked there. For most of my childhood, my mom was always volunteering for everything and when I was 3, she became the Director of Christian Education. We were pretty much at church 24/7. We even set off the alarm a couple different times on Saturday night while setting up for Sunday School.

The turning point, when I said my faith is not going to exist just because mom and dad were dragging me to church every Sunday, was around 8th grade. Before that during my 6th grade year our youth director, Chris Sarkowski, had left to move to Tennessee for family matters. Chris was not just my youth leader for three year but more like a friend. The faith I had as a little kid had kinda become mine.. by this time, but it had now become hard to care about youth group anymore. The youth group had gone downhill. Most of the youth had stopped going and or didn't care. I was one of a few that stuck with it. I mean there were times I didn't care and wasn’t going to go, but mom would drop me off and “make” me go. We would have sit around play games and stuff but there was always so much drama that it made it worse and didn't seem like a youth group. My faith in the youth group was mostly gone.

Then came 8th grade, that turning point I mentioned earlier. Sam had been hired as the new youth director. I started going to youth group again every week. Some things didn't change. We still played the same games but started having some more discussions. I began to feel like I was part of something important. I had a place to explore my faith. We learned what it was to have faith, not just to believe but to have faith in what we believed. Youth group was returning to a place where you felt God's presence.

There was one week Buck Edwards spoke to us. He had us ask ourselves “how we were Christians”. This question stuck in my head for weeks, I couldn't answer it. The fact that I didn't know how I was a Christian bothered me because I knew that's who I was. I started searching for this answer and I have found it in some crazy ways and even the simplest of ways. I remember one way I found it was through texting Sam at 6 o'clock in the morning when I was on the school bus and asking him how I was a Christian. We talked about it for a little bit, then the sun started to come up and that’s all we could talk about. It was the most beautiful sunrise I had ever seen. You could just see God’s glory in the sky that morning. Sam helped me understand my faith is a part of me. It is who I am and he could see that. He sees me living my faith and can see it in everything I do.

Each summer the youth attend a senior high youth conference at Montreat College in North Carolina. Two summers ago when I was at Montreat, I heard a call to mission. I was almost knocked out of my chair! I had been sitting in small group...which Small Group is a time when you meet with a group of other youth from all over the country. You are not with youth from your back home church. These are new people you've just met at the conference. It was the third day of our small group so we had begun to get comfortable with each other. A group discussion had begun on the sermon topic of the night before. The fact that was brought up was that 620 children, not youth or adults, but just children would die of starvation the hour we were sitting in worship. At this point in the discussion I was pretty much zoning out. I had never been into discussing mission work in third world countries. While I was sitting there daydreaming, not really hearing anything being said in the room, all of a sudden I could very clearly hear the words “GO DO MISSION WORK”. I turned to the guy next to me and asked him what he had said but he hadn't said a word. I had been leaning back in my chair and this voice literally knocked me forward in my chair. The feeling was one I had never felt before. I was confused at first. I didn't know what it was. But by the time I got back to the house from small group, which was only about 10 mins, God had made it clear to me. I remember calling my mom to tell her what happened.

I had decided to take off two years before college and explore this calling. As with most ideas we have, God sometimes changes what we think we will do. I heard about Sam taking a group of youth to do mission work in Nicaragua. This was a perfect way to begin to explore this call and led me to go to Nicaragua with Sam last spring. The mission trips to Nicaragua support the work of Casa de Esperanza, which means House of Hope. Casa de Esperanza is a compound of houses that shelter women and little girls who have been rescued from brothels and who have chosen to live a Christ filled life. These women and girls were forced into prostitution at a young age, by the male members of their families, as their only way of making a living. As you would expect, these women and young girls have a deep fear of men. That trip was incredible, the glory and power I felt was almost unbearable. The realization I came back with was unbelievable. I had witnessed how strong Gods love can be. There was a girl named Jennifer who was afraid of males and wouldn't even go near them. We had only been there 3days when on the last day she laid a cross that she was given in my hand and told me to keep as a way to remember her. To think about how much God must have worked though us to show this girl that we were okay and how much He loved her is amazing. The way His love was shown that week was so off the wall but yet so true. I had found a feeling I had been longing for ever since the 6th grade. This trip showed me there are so many other ways to explore my calling to do mission work besides taking off 2 years.

Ever since I heard that first call I have challenged myself to listen to God in anyway He may be calling me. I have felt a call to youth ministry over this past year and I love what I have found. I feel that this call has been around since my 8th grade year because it has been since then that I've had a strong desire for God to be in my every day life even more than He was. I feel that this call to youth ministry is a perfect answer to how I will explore my call to mission. To think I will be able to show youth the feeling I felt in Nicaragua is incredible. I am excited at the chance to do mission but on a different scale like showing youth how God's love can impact their lives while they are impacting others. When Sam and us youth went to Nicaragua, we went to do mission work. While there yes – we did mission work but the women and girls of Casa de Esperanza did the true work of changing our lives. I think it would be fantastic to be able to show youth that feeling. The feeling that your life can be changed when you are doing mission work that you thought would be changing other people's lives but in reality those people end up changing your life. God works in crazy and off the wall ways...it sure has been a strange way He's helped me see my faith more clearly.

The start of Prezi

Prezi is fun after you get the hang of how it works. It is really helpful for educational presentations. I think the team of people that run Prezi could make it more user friendly. They could do this by making a more detailed tutorial, or even have a better help system. Prezi has it ups and downs but over all it is a great site for students to use for presentations. Unlike power point is has a fun student like design to it. I found prezi to be really fun and helpful, I do plan on using it again.    

Light the Earth

I find this picture amazing and disturbing at the same time. Its amazing to me because the beauty of the lights of earth. The disturbing part of it is that the picture shows how much more energy America uses than other countries. The eastern half of the U.S is brighter then all of Europe. China, which population is much lager than ours, uses way less energy.

The styles of editing

I found that both styles of editing are helpful in different ways. The reading through and "normal" editing is helpful because you find the grammar mistakes and misspellings. Being able to hear the text and fellow along as you read is helpful too. That helps you find ways to make what your saying sounds better or even more proper. For myself I prefer the style of reading through and "normal" editing. I prefer it because that way I know I didn't miss any grammar and spelling errors.

Tagxedo