DStilled

Life and Death: A Long Fornight

April 1, 2005 on 6:54 pm | In Blog | 2 Comments

LIFE: Spring Break for me started on March
4th and went to the 12th. It was a fantastic experience!
The Christian organization that I’m apart of is called Agape,
simply the UVa chapter of Campus Crusade. Cru has a nation
wide Spring Break gathering at Panama City Beach so 1200
students that had break the same week as me all went down
to have fun and experience God work. Three main things happened
while we were down there: 1) Each day we went out onto the
beach or the strip and started spiritual conversations with
people. Some people got rejected, some ignored, but 78!!
people came to know Jesus personally through the steps of
faith that students took! 2) The community of Agape was heavily
reinforced. Four nights we had dinner dates where a guys’
apartment would cook for a girls’ or vice versa. Also, the
mens’ time and womens’ time were phenomenal as far as bonding
and vulnerability. Walls were torn down and encouragement
was aplenty. 3) At least for me, my personal relationship
with the Almighty Savior was deepened. Taking those faith
strides with evangelism were hard but incredibly rewarding.
I’ve never just gone through the Gospel with someone until
this; I’ve always just told people about it in reference
to my own life or whatever. Also, on Wed I read through the
Gospel of John and was amazed once again at what Jesus did,
taught, and who He was. It hyped me up for living the Christian
walk. So like I said, the week was fantastic!

DEATH: As soon as I got back I had three tests,
two of them major ones. I wasn’t really all that prepared
and after a week of eternal matters, things like studying
just don’t seem to, well, matter. But I was ok and doing
what I needed to do until 9:30 on Tue night (15th), I got
a call from my dad who simply said, “Pop died.” My mom’s
dad had been sick with the flu and pneumonia but he had pretty
much gotten over all that. Tue morning he had a massive stroke
that pretty much did him in. I was close to him and the grief
was immediate. But in my head I couldn’t cry just yet because
I had a midterm the following morning. So I studied and just
didn’t think about it. I called a friend and when they came
over they helped me just grieve in a way that was healthy.
The next day I got up and almost missed the test but probably
did ok. Then all of Wed I had to do things and study for
my next big test on Thur. I took and it was yuck. That day
I stayed busy and slept well. Fri morning I got up and drove
468 miles to South Carolina where Pop’s burial was to be
held. When I got there I hung out with a lot of my family.
Sat morning I was albe to see Pop because they allowed the
open casket to be there since I missed the funeral. It was
odd for two main reasons. He wasn’t smiling and I realized
how much he smiled in life so I just assumed that was how
his face was. Also, when I laid my hand upon his head, it
was very cold and hard. It reminded me of how these bodies
we live in are just shells for our eternal soul. Afterward
we had the memorial service and I was emotional but fine
the whole time until that bugle in the background sang it’s
sad song for a fallen soldier. The navy guys folded the flag
and gave it to Granny and saluted. Honor always gets me more
emotional than most things and this certainly was honor.

On a lighter note, I was able to finally do
my teaching. The Education School here at UVa has a few doctoral
students that wanted to perform an experiment for there dissertations
on teacher induction. Basically that means how do teachers
respond when just getting started. So they needed a whole
lot of young people who had never taught before. They turned
to Psychology students who had taken these two research and
statistic courses required for a psych major. About 30 people
were selected and hired ($$!) to teach statistics to middle
schoolers. They gave us a packet with the Standards of Learning
for this age group and said, “Alright, teach.” So with not
much to go on I prepared how to teach graphs, charts, and
such to 7th graders. Well, the first time I was supposed
to teach was before Spring Break. Virginia had a bunch of
snow and the county schools missed four days in a row. So
after spring break I taught for 45 minutes four days in a
row. It was SO much fun as well as cool to get paid for it.
Some of you may know that I was a middle school teacher/mentor
at my church for almost three years when I was back in KY.
I love this age group and I think they had some fun in the
process.

Who is your favorite dead guy? (Jesus isn’t
dead) Mine is Albert Einstein. To answer this and anything
else you’ed like to add, just click on the comment section
and add your own thoughts.

As promised, I have many pictures for your
viewing! I added some under UVa #2, Big Break is UVa #3,
and the my trip down to South Carolina for Pop’s burial is
UK #2. Enjoy perusing!