Will be back soon!

I plan on returning with more stuff soon!  It's been an interesting few months since this summer at Badger Camp, and I plan on updating everyone soon!

I'm Back!

Hello friends and readers,
             I know that it has been a long time since I have posted , but things have gotten kind of busy around here, and I have not had this blog on my mind for quire some time.  I'm really sorry that I was't able to post any sooner, but I will make this post a little longer to make up for not posting for the last three months.  Life has been pretty boring in terms of day to day life, with most days not having much variation on what I do on any particular day.  I know that I have been playing Castleville too much, and have been on my computer doing things that are ultimately not the most productive in terms of advancing myself.  I think that after getting out of school, I was wanting to get some relaxation, and I ended up getting into a bad pattern that stuck for 3 months.  But I have been working on getting better about using my time better, in order to make my mom happy, and to do a better job of being productive during a time when I am waiting to hear where God wants me to go in regard to school and work.



Right now, I am waiting to hear from some schools, and from several different workplaces.  God is really teaching me how to be patient, especially with my mom, since she is the person in my family who I tend to clash with the most.  He is doing great work in me, and I know that He wants me to treat her like she deserves to be treated.  My dad just had a total hip replacement, and is recovering now, so I am helping him out when he needs something.  It's been a good way to stay close with my dad.


Tonight, my angel broke up with me :(   I will say that the 4 months that we were together were some of the best I've ever had.  Thank you Kayley for showing me how a relationship should be, and I will forever be grateful for the time that we had together, I will never forget it!

Thanks for reading,

Tyler

New Years Party 2011

What an amazing New Year's Party it was this past weekend!  It started out great, as my new girlfriend Kayley came over and stayed at my house thursday night.  It was an amazing first night together as a couple, we had mudslides and a cookie monster while watching Baby's Day Out, one of my favorite movies from my childhood, and we both enjoyed it just as much as I did those days.  It was a short night, but a good night.  The next morning we got up, and watched a bunch of wrestling matches and the evil dead 1 and 2.  Those are some great movies, classic horror films!  Then we went to Demenico's to eat as a family, it was a good first dinner with my girlfriend.  Then we went back to my house and left for camp.  It was a fun night, I got to see Mariah, Katelyn, the Holmans, Grant, Scot, and a bunch of other people.  Later that night we played Extreme Mafia, which consists of a group of people gathering together in one room, blocking all sources of light into the room, and then having the narrator selecting an appropriate number of "mafia" whose identity would be unknown to the other players.  Then the light in the room was turned off, and all of the players would wander around in the dark room until they identified a dead body on the flood, which was the result of the mafia pretending to cut their victims throat.  Once this happened, the lights would be turned back on, and then the remaining players had to decide on who they thought the mafia was.  This continued until either the mafia gained an advantage, or the townspeople got rid of all the mafia.  We played several rounds of this game, with Scot unfortunately running into a pole in the room, which was ironic since he was a mafia member, so he used this to get people off his trail.  Then we played pong, which was also quite entertaining, especially since I actually was halfway decent at it this time, which was surprising given my previous track record playing this at camp.  Katelyn and Jon were still the best, as they won all three times they played.  I hate to think how much sugar was consumed doing that!!!!   After that, most people went to bed.
           The next day, however, was another story, as Kayley and I had to get up really early in order to drive back to my house to pick up my white elephant gift, and for Kayley to find a gift at Wal-Mart. Then we got back to a really big breakfast made for us by Sarah.  Then we sat and ate a lot of food, and afterward everyone broke off to do their own thing, with Grant and Sarah setting up the chapel for our New Year's Eve Party, Katelyn and Jon going to buy their white elephants gifts, and the rest of us just hanging out waiting for the time for the party to start.  By 7:00,  the rest of the guests started to show up: Megan and Josie, Tim Ulven and Sarah Hood, Lauren, Stuart, and Evin.  Of course, being camp, naturally things didn't start on time, since camp time is slower than normal time, so  the party didn't really start until 7:45.  But when it did start, boy did we all have a great time!!!  So Grant and Sarah spent a lot of time rigging the chapel to resemble the movie Inception.  They had an elaborate tunnel entrance, chairs set up upside down hanging from the ceiling, floating orbs, broken ones on the tables, nice candles on the tables, and over 100 bucks worth of chinese.  In order to keep up with the theme, each person was given a "token" in order to differentiate between a dream and reality.  Mine was a metal basketball hoop ornament.  So then we sat down to eat all of the food that Sarah bought for us, which was served in three  courses, which required each person/couple to rotate tables so everyone could talk to everyone.  It was a good idea because everyone at the party did not know everyone.  Then we played a camper favorite, bingo, which was a good time.  Then we played mafia with cards, which is the original way to play the game.  I won't explain it, because that takes too long.  After that was the gift exchange, which was a lot of fun.  I ended up with a copy of the movie The Holiday.  (there's a story behind this movie that may or may not be told later.)   Then people either left, went to bed, or stayed up the whole night watching old movies ( grant, sarah, scot, and me).  Then my girlfriend Kayley, Katelyn, Jonathan, Hannah, and Lydia all went to Michigan for a few days.  All and all it was a great time!!!!!!!!!!!!   Next time I will post about my new relationship with Kayley, my angel :)   Thanks for reading this long and rambling entry!

My Christmas Update

Hello my friends what an amazing holiday season its been!  Christmas truly was a great time of year for me and my family.  It couldn't have started any better, because on December 23rd, just hours before Christmas Eve, I worked up enough courage to ask someone who I had been talking to every night on skype for a month and a half to be my girlfriend.  The amazing thing about this is that she had been praying about this for quite some time.  Even more incredible was the fact that one of her friends dad's had said this summer that the two of us would be together eventually.  Well he was right, and I am now in the first serious relationship of my life.  Kayley, I am so glad that I met you and that God has given us the chance to be together.  It is only through His divine power that both of our prayers were answered.  I've been waiting for God to show me that special someone for quite some time, and it makes sense that He would give me the answer the day before his Son came into the world to save us from our sins.  I am so grateful to Him for everything he's done for me.  As for Christmas itself, it was great because I got to see my aunt and her new husband, and my cousin and his wife from Tennessee.  The food was great as always, and in large amounts, because my grandma Lois could easily run a restaurant if she wanted to.  Then on Christmas Eve we visited my grandma Lucy at the Edgerton Care Center and had pizza for dinner.  Then my family had our Christmas, and we opened our gifts, I got some CD's, the new Legend of Zelda game, a new photo album, and other things.   Then the next day we had Christmas and my aunt Lynne's birthday celebration at the Hospital, then we went back to my Aunt's house for more presents.  After that we went home and watched the Packers beat the Bears on Christmas Night.  What a Christmas Day gift.  I will write again after this weekend with my girlfriend and all of my camp friends.  Talk to you guys later!  

Romans 11:22-24
Consider therefore the kindness and sternness of God: Sternness to those who fell, but kindness to you, provided that you continue in his kindness.  Otherwise you also will be cut off.  And it they do not persist in unbelief, they will be grafted in, for God is able to graft them in again.  After all, if you were cut out of an olive tree that is wild by nature, and contrary to nature were grafted into a cultivated olive tree, how much more readily will these, the natural branches, be grafted into their own olive tree.

In Christ, Amen

One road ends, a new one begins...

 Hello my wonderful readers, welcome to another post here on Tyler's Thoughts!!!!  I would like to give a shout out to my great friends in Michigan, Bekah, Katelyn, and Kayley, you guys are all awesome, and I love you all!!!  So I can't believe that I am saying this, but my journey at Carthage College in Kenosha Wisconsin has reached its end, baring any unexpected circumstances.  It has been a three and a half years of both good times and bad times, joy and despair, triumph and failure, and most importantly sinning and being forgiven.  These years at Carthage have been good to me, for the most part, and I have learned many things that should help me to be successful in graduate school.  While all the things I learned in my classes were important, they were all overshadowed by the amount of spiritual growth that God has blessed me with.  There are several things that I credit this to, other than God's power in my life of course.  The first and most important is Inspiration Retreat Center, which I will probably discuss in later posts.  The second would be the sensational choir known the world over as the Gospel Messengers, who I was greatly privileged to have been a part of during my time at Carthage College.  I am greatly blessed to have two "families" outside of my home.  If the first is all of my fellow camp staff, the second would have to be the Gospel Messengers.  I can honestly say that without the Gospel Messengers, I would not have made it through my time at Carthage.  There is just something that is beyond this world that happens when so many people gather to sing praise  to Jesus, and every Thursday night I knew that it didn't matter what had happened the week before, I was going to go to the chapel, and sing my best to give Jesus all of the praise and the glory.   If I was feeling down, I knew that I could always look forward to Thursday night to pick me back up.  The best thing about it was, when I first started singing with the choir, I had probably heard gospel music one other time in my life beforehand.  When I heard the choir singing "Bless the Lord" at the freshman introduction to religious life ceremony three years ago, and was told that the Gospel Messengers were the only non-auditioning choir on campus, I figured, I love to sing, so why not give it a shot?  Needless to say, I was hooked after the first rehearsal, and I kept coming back every week after that.  What makes the Gospel Messengers special is that we do not just sing to impress people, or to make our school look good (which we do, by the way) we sing because all of us in the choir believe that it is of the upmost importance to give Jesus all of the praise and all of the glory by sining his praises so that the world can hear of the things that He has done.  We've sang his praises in at a women's prison, to people in Puerto Rico, to vacationers at Disney, and to many a congregation.  We also have had the opportunity to minister to many people at the annual Carthage Christmas Festival, which I highly recommend you see at least once if you get a chance, because it is something you will never forget.  That's all I've got for now, keep on the lookout for a new post!!!  I'll post on facebook when my newest post is up!!  Peace, and Christ's love with you all,

Tyler

Isaiah 5:1-3
I will sing for the one I love 
   a song about his vineyard: 
My loved one had a vineyard 
   on a fertile hillside. 
² He dug it up and cleared it of stones 
   and planted it with the choicest vines. 
He built a watchtower in it 
   and cut out a winepress as well. 
Then he looked for a crop of good grapes, 
   but it yielded only bad fruit.

Getting into the Christmas Spirit

Hello Friends,
     Greetings to you all again!!!   In regards to the day I got to spend in Chicago a few weekends ago, it was a great time, and I very much enjoyed hanging out with Katelyn, Jonathan, and Kayley.  I'm really glad that I didn't have to walk through Chicago by myself that night, so I'm extremely thankful for my friends being there for me.  I can't wait to see all of my camp friends around New Years!!!!                                               So I pray that everyone had a great Thanksgiving holiday and an equally good time of of school and work.   I write today in the spirit of preparing for the season of Christmas, the season of Advent.  Advent is a time when we look to remember just what God gave to us on that Christmas night!  In the society we live in today, it becomes so easy to forget that Jesus is the true reason for the our celebration of Christmas.  We tend to get so caught up in the gift purchasing, holiday decorating, Christmas card writing, and visiting relatives and friends, that we forget what's most important. As we draw closer to the celebration of the birth of our Savior, I implore us all to reflect upon what God has given us during this season of Advent.  Today at my home church, our pastor talked about how our the hope that God gave us through Jesus Christ is a revolutionary hope that only He can grant to us.  There are many things in this world that we can place our hope in, but the bottom line is that all the things that this world has to offer will eventually let us down, be it a family member, a friend, money, possessions, or the way we live our lives.  There is only one thing that will never let us down, and that is the hope that we are given through the death of our Savior Jesus Christ.  We are called to place all of our hope in Him, and in Him, we will not be let down, as the end result of our hope will be everlasting life with Him.  In Christ,
Amen

Hebrews 6:13-15, 19-20
     When God made his promise to Abraham, since there was no one greater for him to swear by, he swore by himself, saying, " I will surely bless you and give you many descendants."  And so after waiting patiently, Abraham received what was promised...  We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure.  It enters the inner sanctuary behind the curtain, where Jesus, who went before us, has entered on our behalf.  He has become a high priest forever, in the order of Melchizedek.

Last Weekend in Michigan

Hello again readers,  I trust that you had a good last week, cause I certainly did!  The week of classes went well, culminating with a Modern Japan exam, which I felt I did well on.  Then I got to spend the weekend in Michigan with my new friend Kayley, who invited me to a MMA fight.  I had a nice train ride from Harvard to Chicago, and then I met Kayley at the station, and she rode with me from Millennium Station to a station in Indiana, then drove me to her house in Michigan.  We arrived at her house around 8:00 and then we just sat in their living room for the rest of the night watching Wipeout along with Katelyn and the other two sisters, Kim and Kelly.  It was funny to watch some of the people just stand around and do nothing until they made a move when it was too late and got taken out in a hilarious fashion.  Then on Saturday I got some stuff done with my American founding paper, and then we ate at a nice little diner called Jan's with Katelyn before she went to work.  Then we rented the movie Children of the Corn to watch after the fights.  Then we just relaxed at the house until we had to leave.  Then we hung out at a Christian Caffe called Disciples Gathering, and got smoothies and played a game of chess before we left for the fights.  I got to meet some of Kaley's friends, which was nice.  Then we went to the fights.  The first four were over in the first round.  It was pretty cool, cause a guy named Tyler won his fight!  The fights after the first intermission were a lot better, one fight even went three rounds, it was really good.  We should have stayed later, because apparently the girl's fight was the best one of the night,  but that was okay because Children of the Corn was pretty good.  Despite all of the bad reviews, I thought it was a decent horror film, with quite a few jump scenes and a bunch of funny parts, especially a guy that looked like an ugly Ron Weasly.  I'll post more tomorrow about the day at Chicago.

Galatians 5:16-18  "So I say, live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature.  For the sinful nature desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature.  They are in conflict with each other, so that you do not do what you want.  But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under law."