Going Home

clean room
Originally uploaded by iBjorn.

This morning we got to sleep in till around ten. For breakfast I had ice cream on my pancakes too. Then we did our last Devo and the cleaning began. We got the kids headed home pretty quickly and then we finished up on all of the cleaning. It wasn't half as bad as I thought it would be and I got home fairly early in the afternoon. I have pretty much been relaxing since then, but I am going to guys prayer now and will hopefully get some reading done later tonight. Despite all the work this weekend was, it was incredibly fun and the highlight of the winter for many of these kids.

Our Full Day at Camp Stillwood

messy leaders
Originally uploaded by iBjorn.

I got dragged out of bed around 8:30 this morning. I actually got a lot more sleep than the rest of the leaders. In the morning I was assigned to the gym for two hours. We did a lot of skateboarding and I taped some of the kids with my camera and let them watch themselves. Throughout the day we played a lot of games and had some Devos. The most incredible thing though was the messy games. Games like the one where you blow an egg through a tube and the one where you use your mouth to get the Skittles out of the whipped cream. After a while it just turned into a mass food fight. I have never witnessed anything like it. When it was all over, the entire floor was covered with chocolate and shaving cream and potatoes and flour. You could not even walk without falling. The wall was covered with Jello and there was not a person left untouched. So, for the next couple hours some of the other leaders and I kept the kids busy while the rest of the leaders cleaned up the room. Now, we are sitting in the upstairs room with the boys telling stories. Who knows when we will go to bed?

First day of Winter Retreat

where do I go?
Originally uploaded by iBjorn.

I left at 6:30 from school for camp Stillwood by Coltus Lake. We got there before the pick up crew with all the kids. It is a pretty nice camp. From what I have seen so far it is like most small camps, but the buildings have been remodeled with river rock, and the lodgy wood look. All the kids got here and dinner wasn't ready yet, so we played this wrestling game that I like a lot. Dinner was followed by games in the dark and then the Devo. Ross and I played guitar and Chris sang. It actually turned out good and I am excited to do it again. We had a little talk afterwards in small groups. It was incredible, when we broke the kids up, the type of questions they would ask. This Jr. High boy was making four university guys speechless with his questions about God. "How do we know God is perfect?" We ended the night sliding down the stairs on mattresses and Rashaun sat next to me drawing as I wrote this.

The Search for Pure Gold

Kon and I with the Prize
Originally uploaded by iBjorn.

Just like last year, ACTS Seminaries put on their Pure Gold contest. They hid a piece of paper on campus and for a week, Missions Week, they gave out new clues for it each day. The winner would get $1000, $500 to keep and $500 to give to the mission organization of the winner's choosing. Well, last year we spent a lot of time looking for it. We got close, but did not get it. We had a lot of fun with it though. This year Konrad and I made a pact to work together on it. If we were together when we found it, then we would split it 50-50. If one person was off by them self, then we would split it 60-40. We also decided not to make a big deal about it to try to limit our competition. The clues go like this: each day two new word scrambles would be given. Once the words were unscrambled, a designated letter from each word would be part of a final word scramble. Well Tuesday we had some good leads, so we went around looking. Brett walked around barefoot in the dark the whole time. Today though they had some really long words that the unscrambler on the internet that we were using couldn't figure it out. I did some searching online and found a way better one. It found the words with no problem. This one also allowed for as many wild cards as you wanted. That means for letters that you are unsure of you enter a question mark and they give you all the possible words. We did this and discovered a list of words that would work, with streetlamp being the most likely. So I went to class and Konrad went out to check all the streetlamps on campus. When I got back a nice surprise awaited me. Konrad had found it. We were so excited and opened to examine our treasure. I can't believe we actually found it. So tomorrow Konrad is going to go in and redeem our prize. There is a little skill test that you have to pass though to get it. It is the law for lotteries and stuff. It is always really simple, but there is so much pressure to get it right. Now we have to decide which mission organization to give the other five hundred to. We are narrowing it down and should have our decision soon. We want to give it to an organization that is not involved in the tsunami. Not that it is bad, I have been donating too, but there are so many other needs that are now being over looked. We visited the prayer room and prayed about what organization we should donate to. We will see.

Friends Langley Vineyard

church art
Originally uploaded by iBjorn.

Friends Langley Vineyard was the church of choice this week. I heard about it just this week, so I thought it would be fun to check out. Supposedly at one service they had movies playing during the music time. Nothing like that this week though. Singing did last for almost an hour though. And since it is just about their 20th anniversary they sang a lot of older songs, older being 1988-1994. They were also all Vineyard songs, but I knew a couple of them. One thing I have noticed at the two Vineyard churches I have been to is that they the kids just run around during the music time. Some of them are dancing in circles with each other. Others just run around or hop up and down. While it can sometimes be distracting (everyone wants to watch the cute kids), it is neat to have the whole family there to worship and the kids become used to worshiping with the adults. The sermon went on for quite a while too. I found it interesting though that the pastor didn't read any scripture for the whole sermon. He talked about a couple stories and paraphrased them from memory, but he never recited any scripture. This was a little discouraging, but there were still many good thoughts. He also liked to have people raise their hands in response to his questions. This he did repeatedly throughout the service. It also seemed like he kind of went with the flow and didn't really have a very structured sermon. After the sermon there was a call for people to come forward and give some kind of testimony to what had been talked about. One guy came up and gave a quick story. This was also done at the other Vineyard church I had been to. It is kind of neat, because it allows the church members to get to know each other better, and many people can relate to the stories that people share. The ministry time followed and was when things got a little different from what I am used to. Healing for the sick, speaking in tongues and all that stuff. There was quite an emphasis on speaking in tongues. The pastor's son even got baptized, and from the questions he was asked, it seemed that the reason he was being baptized was because he was hoping to receive the gift of tongues. I found this to be very interesting. I did like all of the art that they had in the church though. Especially these paintings they had on the metal posts on the stage. Most of the people there had young children or their children had left the house. There seemed to be a gap missing of teenagers and their parents. There was one older couple there though, but overall a lack of the over 65 crowd.
This afternoon I talked online with Jenny for quite awhile. And I don't mean chatting, I mean really talking. She found this application called Skype that lets you voice chat for free. It works pretty well, amazing considering she was on the other side of the world. You should try downloading it. It works a little better than AIM (AOL Instant Messanger), in my experience, but still not as good as the phone. If you get it my user name is BjornEide, and you can add me as a contact.

Saturday Drive

me driving
Originally uploaded by iBjorn.

Today I finally got to sleep in. I get up at eight every day during the week (which I know is nothing for most of you, but here it is rare). This afternoon I did call Jenny though. I used up my phone card and it only lasted five minutes, but it was still worth it. I didn't tell her I was calling and she had to run down five flights of stairs to get it. I am researching a better method to use besides these phone cards. Hopefully satisfactory audio internet chatting will come around soon. Getting closer to the evening I went on a drive with Brett and Matt. We just cruised down country roads in the dark and rain and ended up in Abbotsford. It allowed for some good conversation.

Pilgrimage to Ludicorp

Bjorn: So Stoked
Originally uploaded by yeahboone.

Yesterday was MRD and it was rad. Boone has a blog post about it. Afterwards we went out and hit up Langley with the guys. Today was really fun though. Earlier this week, Boone and I were talking about how much we love Flickr (the photo sharing website I use). We started to talk about how the company that does it, Ludicorp, is in Vancouver. We suddenly go the idea to go and try and find their office. We instantly wanted to drop everything and go. But we resisted and set our trip for Friday morning.
My roommate has been making fun of me a lot lately for how much time I spend on Flickr. I might even rival my brother in his World of Warcraft playing time. Well anyways, I was telling him about how excited I was for our trip to Ludicorp and he said it was like a pilgrimage. I thought that was funny, a little idolatrous, but still funny.
So Friday morning Boone, his girlfriend Jacqi and I headed out for our journey. Boone and I both had our cameras in our hands and were taking pictures of everything. Poor Jacqi had to put up with our giddiness and the embarrassment of being with the biggest tourists ever. She was a good sport, and good to have along to keep Boone and me on track. Otherwise, we might have done something we would regret.
We found the building and walked right in and rode up the elevator. We had no idea what to expect. We had never done anything like this before. We found the door and just looked at it for a while and took pictures. We lost Jacqi. She was getting embarrassed again and had ridden the elevator down and up again. We came to the decision that we should ring the doorbell. I mean what is the worst that could happen? "Well, what are we going to say?" Boone just readied his camera and I started laughing.
The door opened. Boone shot. And we scarred the living daylights out of the guy who opened it (Cal). Then we kind of awkwardly told him why we were there and he let us in. Our eyes started to gaze around at every nook and cranny of the room, taking it all in as quickly as possible, snapping a picture whenever we remembered to. Well, we tried to explain what we were doing there, and everyone seemed a little frazzled. We really didn't have anything planned. We had only thought up to getting in the door. So we did the only thing we could do, took pictures of each other (Cal's pic of me, my pic of Cal). We told them how much we loved Flickr (or tried to) and tried to get them to tell us their top-secret info. They keep a tight ship. They were good sports though and a fun bunch, considering they had these giddy fan boys (and girl) bust in on them. Looking back we probably could have planned it better, like bringing offerings of gratitude. I guess you learn from your mistakes. It was fun though. And now I am just that much more stoked about Flickr.
When we got back to school I went to class for an hour and then drove back to Vancouver for Youth Extreme. We went to the pool this week and I got to jump of the huge diving platforms again. It was rad. Boone also has a good entry about our trip if you want a different perspective. Much thanks to the Flickr crew for being so nice and for making such a sweet product.

Wednesday Morning Adventure

fort langley
Originally uploaded by iBjorn.

Today I got up at 6:30 to go to this men's breakfast thing, after going to bed at 2:00 last night. I was a little late, so I got the last of the food. Then we sang songs and had a speaker talk. He talked on the importance of having a close set of friends to support you. Then I had a class at 9:00. When that was over, it was so nice and warm out, yet overcast and a little windy. It was beautiful. I love this weather. Everything was soaking wet from days of rain and so there was lots of flooding. I went down to the pond to take pictures and decided to walk around on the path. I met this guy Mike on the path who was doing the same thing. I got quite a few pictures, but when I got back to my dorm room, I felt like going on a longer walk. So I grabbed my Bible and drove down to Fort Langley. I had never been to the fort before, so I decided to stop by. I started walking around it and came to the front gate and it was open. So I just went in and started looking around. There was a class of elementary kids running around and I just started reading signs and looking in buildings. It is really quite a neat set up. You can climb the tower and look out over the wall at the river. They also have a real blacksmith shop and other things like that with people dressed up. Then I went and started looking at some exhibits. After a while this guy came and told me I wasn't supposed to be there, so I got out of there. I had seen a lot of the fort already though. Next I decided to drive across to the native reservations and get some pictures of this cool old church they have. On the way out I had to stop at this roadblock the RCMP (Royal Canadian Mounted Police) had set up. They were stopping cars that were getting off the ferry and I had to go through it to get back to school. The mountie told me to pull over to the side of the road because of the crack in my windshield. I had to get out of the car to get my registration and insurance stuff out of the trunk. I told him I was going to Trinity and he asked me about my major. He also asked if I was visiting someone on the reservation and I said I was just driving around. Then he asked me if I had been smoking pot. I said no, but he said my eyes were red and asked if there was any reason they might be red. I said that I was at the fort and they had been burning branches and maybe it was that. He took me to the front of the car and made me do their drug tests. First I had to lean my head back and close my eyes and tell him when I thought thirty seconds had passed. I must have done badly on that one because he made me do the line-walking test. Then he went back to his car and wrote me up a warning for my windshield. After that I went to these trails that I like in the woods nearby. I hiked up to this quarry and read my Bible for a little while there. Then this older guy with an accent came by. I asked him some questions about the trails and he told me all about them and how he had been walking them for ten years and how they get longer as you get older. After I was there for a little while longer I walked back to the car and got some pictures of this horse across the street. Then on the way home I saw the guy again, on his bike this time, so I got a picture of him too.

Skating on the ice

yo
Originally uploaded by iBjorn.

Last night I went ice skating with Youth Extreme. I took my friend Iain with me, so he could check it out. We did pick up instead of the usual drop off. I took us an hour and twenty minutes to drive to Vancouver, where it would take half an hour with no traffic. I had to make a couple trips in my car to pick up some kids. Iain went in the big fifteen-passenger van. The people that were going to do the devotional were not there, so some of the leaders had to do one with out any planning. Then we just left for the ice skating rink. Oh yeah, I didn't have my beanie, because one of the Sr. High girls stole it from me. Who knows if I will ever see it again. Ice skating was a lot of fun. I feel like I can connect with the kids now a lot more than before the semester. We have gotten to know each other a lot more and it is pretty comfortable now. There are a couple of the kids that like to take pictures a lot with my camera, so I kind of hung out with them for quite awhile, letting them use it. We also played tag out on the ice. The whole thing was a lot of fun, and it is so much easier now that I have built a relationship with these kids and can just hang out with them.

The Scoop on My Classes

slide
Originally uploaded by iBjorn.

Well I am getting into the groove of school again. I have been to all of my classes now, but one, which is a Monday night class. Tomorrow morning I have my C++ class again. That is a computer programming language. The reading I have done so far has been interesting, but there is a ton of it. I think I have to have 170 pages of textbook reading done by tomorrow and I am on thirty-five. I will stay up as late as I can reading. And it is only a two semester hour course. There is another class to kind of add onto it called Object Orientation Seminar. I only have that once a week. After that will be Fundamentals of Music. A lot of the stuff I already know, so it is not that hard. I think it will be good to start from the beginning and learn it all though. Today I had Life and Letters of Paul. That should be very interesting. It is taught be my adviser and I have had him for another class, so I know him pretty well. Our book is called The Apostle of the Crucified Christ. It is pretty new and he thinks it is one of the best books on Paul, so I am looking forward to reading that. My Monday night class is Current Worship Leadership Issues. This will probably be my favorite class. We are reading a book called The Emerging Church that I am really looking forward to reading. I really just love learning about worship and stuff. I am also taking voice lessons, but I have to figure out when those are. Finally is curling. I had the first class today. It was pretty fun, just sliding around on the ice. It will be fun to learn and I just talked to someone tonight who said it was a really fun class. I have read 180 pages in Curling for Dummies by Monday though. So overall, I am really looking forward to this semester because I am interested in all the classes; I just hope I can keep up with all the work. Oh yeah, also, my RD found out that he has cancer right before Christmas. He is on sick leave now and it will be weird because he usually comes around to the dorms a lot and hangs out. So if you could all remember him in your prayers, that would be incredible. Well, I'm off to do more reading. God Bless.

Taking off for School

Taking off
Originally uploaded by iBjorn.

Brett and I made it back to school fine. The roads were not snowy at all, except a little in Lynden. Actually most of the drive there was no snow at all. Looks like the Kitsap Peninsula was one of the few hit with the latest snow. Just north of Mount Vernon, in Sedro Woolley, we were driving along and there was no snow on the ground anywhere, even in the fields. Then we went over this irrigation ditch and the fields all instantly had snow. I have never seen anything like it. It was incredible. The mountains there were full of snow. It was pretty nice. I also got dark real quick. But now I am in my room, completely settled in. It took me a little over an hour to get everything the way I like it. There is no body in the dorms yet, only three other guys in my hall. Brett and I will probably go out and do something. Oh, I forgot all my toiletries at home so I have to go but all that stuff. Fun. I think that is the biggest pain about moving back and forth. I always forget that stuff.

Pat and Ted's Show @ Coffee O.

The audience
Originally uploaded by iBjorn.

Right now I'm sitting in The Coffee Oasis in Bremerton. There is the little show going on and my friends Pat and Ted were playing. They did pretty well and I haven't seen Ted forever. I also got to see a bunch of my old high school friends like Kelsey and her new guy friend Mark. He seemed pretty cool, and I would like to hang out with him more. Right now this band, Some By Sea, is playing, they sound very similar to Bellingham phenomenon Death Cab for Cutie. Oh well, they have a cello so it is kind of neat. I am probably going to hang out with Pat, Brett and Steph tonight, play a Halo 2, one last time before we head back to school around 2:00 tomorrow. This week I have been taking it pretty easy. Getting caught up on sleep and stuff. I have also been playing with my Flickr.com site. If you haven't checked it out yet click on my pics on the right side of the page. My mom has been helping me make cases out of neoprene for my laptop, iPod and camera. They are sweet. I made them out of diving shorts I got at the thrift store.

Mount Bachelor

jenny
Originally uploaded by iBjorn.

For the last five days I have been at Mount Bachelor, by Bend, Oregon. I went with my mom's side of the family. On Tuesday morning we left pretty early in the morning and met up with my Uncle Michael and Aunt Marti in Tacoma. I slept for quite a bit of the ride down and tried to do a little reading, but mainly I just looked out the window. By Corvallis we met up with my friend Jenny and took her with us to go snowboarding for a day. I drove the van over the pass and we got to the Inn of the Seventh Mountain around five. Just before we got there my dad just about hit a deer, he actually nicked its ankle. Anyways, that night we unpacked everything into our two little condos. We had booked our rooms pretty late, so we had two six-person rooms for fifteen people, and they were a couple buildings apart. The rooms had one bedroom, a hide-a-bed and on of those wall-fold-down beds. It worked out pretty good. All the boys and my parents had one room and everyone else was in the other. Our room was the Halo 2 room while the other was reserved as the main living area. We all got pretty hungry and we ended up eating at this Mexican restaurant in town that I thought was pretty good. We were going to go ice skating that night, but they were about to close when we got there, so we went swimming and in the sauna. The night was finished with a quick game of Dutch Blitz and some Halo.
Early in the morning we got up and had breakfast before hitting the slopes. Getting up for snowboarding is never a problem. The night before I can think about how awful it will be and how I would much rather sleep, but in the morning it is no problem. The weather was cloudy the whole day, and I am pretty sure it did not stop snowing once. The morning we spent on the main runs, but they were so crowded that we headed to the backside as soon as lunch was over. We couldn't find Jenny for a couple runs in the morning. We lost her in some trees. But we eventually found each other again. Our lunch was not much of a lunch, a community water jug and some pumpkin bread, but it was enough to get us through the day. The afternoon was a lot of fun and flew by. The snow was much better on the backside and there were virtually no lines. As soon as we got off the mountain though, Jenny and I had to leave to bring her home. She had a flight to Europe the next day. The drive back wasn't that bad at all. There wasn't that much snow on the pass though. We met her dad on the other side of the pass and said our goodbyes. It was about a four hour round trip for me, and I was pretty tired when I got back from a long day. And to answer many of your questions, yes Bjørn has a girlfriend. I know many of you thought it would never happen, but crazy things happen at college. I wish you could all meet her soon, but she will be in Lithuania for the whole semester, so maybe in the summer.
Thursday we took a much-needed break from snowboarding. I was so sore and just flat out tired. My mom got sick and lay on the couch for the entire day. I went with the adults to Sunriver to look around. When we got back we took the kids to this funplex to go bowling. After one game we played in the arcade for a while, which is one of the few times I have ever used an arcade in my life. They always were seen as a waste of money and I was never allowed to play. Maybe sit in the car and pretend. I ended up seeing them in this way even now, not understanding the point. So this was a real treat. And I learned something; they are a lot of fun. The graphics are a lot better and the equipment makes the games quite a bit more fun than a controller at home. I don't know if this is a good thing or not, but at least I now know their appeal. We took all the kids to Arby's, but they didn't have any roast beef, so everyone got chicken. I went with the adults to this nice restaurant in town. It had been around since around 1936 or something. It was very nice and I enjoyed having a nice meal with my uncles and aunts (and parents, of course). I was done after that though and went straight to bed to be ready for snowboarding the next day.
Friday was our second day snowboarding and the weather was not much different. The boys and I stayed on the Northwest chair for the majority of the day. It has the most change in vertical feet of all the lifts, 2400 ft. When you are at the top it is hard to believe that you really snowboard down that far. That top is pretty miserable and cold, but once you get down into the trees it is fun. If you stay in the trees you can find more powder. The first part is steep and then it gradually flattens out. The bottom has nice rolling blues that we cruise through as fast as we can. I always look forward to that part. I got so tired by the end of the day though. I could not go any more and had to stop one run before the others. That night we had our Christmas gift exchange. Before that we played the animal name game where you go around hitting people. I would hate to be the people beneath us. I got a USB thumb drive from my cousin, which will be very useful around campus. It makes it so easy to exchange files. No one stayed up for the New Year, we were all too wiped out.
In the morning we had a free breakfast buffet in the resort restaurant because our hot water had not been working in one of our condos the whole time. We filled up there, finished packing and headed out. I switched of between looking out the window, reading and writing this blog throughout the trip, oh yeah, throw in a little sleeping of course. Our only stop was at Jack-in-the-Box. When we got home we unpacked and then we had to go to the church and set up chairs. I was not to happy about that because I don't get paid for it anymore. When we got back Calvin and I took a sauna and then I finished writing this and getting all of my stuff unpacked.