Mín Englisc Blog

Tonight is Micah's ordination and installation as our pastor. It's such a blessing from God, after several years with no pastor!

Look at this picture, from an official US government site.

Tonight was I reading the book of the prophecies of Jeremiah, including chapter 27, in which he is commanded to wear the yoke around his neck for a period of some years. It strikes me: would we be willing to do this, despite the scorn of society around us, simply because God had told us to?

Pray for me, please, that I might be more content with my situation — I know I should be, and I' praying and trying to do better, but I will appreciate your prayers for me as well!

Another day of classes done, and I've had one session of each class. I don't think that either of my Tuesday classes (especially the Tuesday-only Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallow book discussion!) will be very difficult, making the Monday afternoon philosophy class likely my hardest.
Tonight was the first session at Filberts'. It was good to be there, including seeing Kenzie (now two months old) for the first time since she was a newborn. We received some disappointing information: Pastors Derek Miller (Sterling) and Joe Griffo (Topeka) are both going into the PCA. At least those are two of the three strongest Kansas congregations (along with Shawnee), so they'll likely not be as badly affected as would one of the old and small churches.

My first day of classes went well. I have four Monday — and, for that matter, four similar Wednesday and four Friday classes — Biblical Literature (times 0800-0855), Late Antiquity (0905-1000), Foundations of Christian Thought (1220-1315), and Christian Understanding of Life (1430-1525). My Late Antiquity history course was supposed to be taught by my advisor. In his place, they brought in a new master's graduate; I'm not sure whether he's a stopgap or a permanent member of faculty.

Micah Ramsey preached today from I John 2, my first time back at Eastvale. We had 42 people there — considerably above last year's average. Micah is to be ordained and installed on Friday night :-)

Moved in! Now I need to finish unpacking...but not tonight.

Two things of note:
• Last night, the Texas Rangers beat the Baltimore Orioles in a baseball game. 30-3. Imagine going to a baseball game in which the visiting team scores thirty runs! It's been over 100 years since a major league team scored 30 runs in a game.
• Recently, we've had plenty of rain, thanks to the remnants of Tropical Storm Erin. However, up north, it's been worse: some people we know, two counties north, received nine inches of rain in less than 24 hours, the nearest town was made an island, and the city of Findlay has five feet of water downtown — the worst flooding in nearly 100 years.

I just found out that RAs have been moved around, and my RA-to-be is now halfway across campus. Hopefully I'll quickly become good friends with my new RA :-)

Today was rather quiet. Due to daylong heavy rains (the remnants of Hurricane Erin), we only mowed one lawn. Finishing there was quite interesting: with only a few small bits left, the rain suddenly began — huge drops falling very fast. What was quite annoying is that, because I kept mowing, I got quite wet, and almost as soon as I finished, the rain stopped!
Besides some mowing, most of my day consisted of work on stamps — quite productive, although I discovered that my newly-worked-on computer records of my French collection were corrupted and will need to be redone — and of going to Bellefontaine to finish my college shopping. All that remains, as far as I know, is to go to Bellefontaine to set up an account at a new bank. When I began at Geneva, I picked one bank because it had an easily accessible branch downtown, and only a few months later they closed it. As a result, I'm looking to open an account at a more easily accessible bank (which also has a branch in Bellefontaine) and close out my account at the old bank quite soon.

The airshow went pretty well overall. Isaac had a wonderful time :-) As well, Dad returned from his weeklong Wood Badge programme, an advanced adult leader training event. Among other things, he got to pretend he was a Cub Scout for the first time in forty-two years.
Dad preached in the early service from I Thessalonian iv., on the resurrection and Second Coming. One thing only I thought a little odd: he mentioned the dispensationalist idea of Christ coming again to Earth multiple times in the future. With this idea I am quite familiar; the odd thing is the idea of each of these comings being the Second Coming. Logically, if the next time Christ comes to Earth is the Second Coming, and then he goes and comes back again, wouldn't the next coming be the Third Coming?
One other thing in connexion with today's worship service: something we discussed in my psalms class during the schoolyear is the authorship of various psalms inscribed "Of David", as the Hebrew pronoun doesn't necessarily make it mean "written by David". Our psalm meditation today discussed Psalm 29, which is "a psalm of David", yet speaks of people praising God in his temple. This psalm, therefore, is a good example of where "of David" means something other than "written by David".

With little rain in recent days, we've had little grass growth. As a result, there was nothing to mow today, so we did very little.



Two nights ago, we went to the nearby Indian Lake, where I got this picture at sunset.

I now need to get to bed: we have to get up early, since our troop is serving at the local airshow, and that begins at 7am.

Today was a little exciting; we went to Bellefontaine to shop for college for me, and I got a new tshirt (to replace one that was badly torn a few weeks ago) of the Cincinnati Bengals. Before now, my Allegheny General Hospital tshirt was the only one that I wore regularly that was not given to me or bought at some church event.
I've borrowed Aleksandr Isaevich Solzhenitsyn's ''November 1916'' from the library, hoping to read at least a sizeable portion of it before I go back to school. It's a sequel to ''August 1914'', which I read and posted about during the spring. According to the introduction, some characters from the first book appear in this one, too, including the central character; however, my favorite character is absent.

It's less than a month until I turn 20 years old. Wow.
Today was rather calm, with two lawns mown and not much being read. The troop meeting went well, although we only had seven boys because of a special occasion for one family. It was Sean's last troop meeting, as he leaves for Geneva's orientation in a couple of days. I myself will be leaving in 1½ weeks.
It's hard to know exactly what to do as far as creating all these album pages for my stamps. Not that I've not done it — I have a few hundred of them — but it's been over a year since I did anything of this sort, and it's really hard to get back into the rhythm. I've been working mostly with Canadian stamps today, noting their size so as to have an easier time when I create their album pages.

Today was busier and yet calmer in some ways. For the first time in quite a while, we didn't mow on Monday. Instead, we took a shopping trip into Bellefontaine and visited people from our Scout troop to return some borrowed items. Most of the day I spent either on the computer, working with stamps (beginning to chip away at the vast numbers of stamps waiting to be put on album pages), or reading: I've now finished Watership Down, and today I read the final three books of the Series of Unfortunate Events. Both of these I quite enjoyed.

Lawnmowing was simpler today, with only three lawns to do. I spent much of the day on the computer — not the most productive — although I'm ready to go for tomorrow. Some of my day I spent reading a book that was recently recommended to me, Watership Down. I'm done with the first of its four parts.
Tomorrow is Isaac's Eagle Scout court of honor. Much of Dad's family will be here — although some couldn't make it — and an uncle and aunt on Mom's side are coming from Pennsylvania. Aside from them and from people from around here, he's expecting a friend from Indiana.
I remember my own Eagle Scout court of honor...hard to believe that it was nearly two years ago now. When I was young, I got the Boy Scout magazine, but I eventually dropped it, because it reminded me of how I had long wanted to be a Boy Scout but couldn't be. I never would have imagined myself coming to that night — only two years after I joined, it was amazing how fast my time as a Boy Scout passed. From that night to now is as long as it was from when I joined until then! I remember the spring of last year, attending graduations for the friends from Indianapolis who had come; I wonder if Isaac will attend this guy's graduation, whenever that will be.

Lawnmowing kept us rather busy for much of the day, as we mowed four lawns (including two of our biggest, which we mowed as one huge lawn) between late morning and mid-afternoon. We now have three or four jobs remaining.
Tonight, Isaac had a flight lesson, during which he flew for an hour. When we went to pick him up afterwards, Mom and I were standing at the car while he and Dad completed checkout. Mom looked toward the huge clouds to the northwest and remarked that the distance showed rain. Suddenly, we began to hear a dull roaring sound, as it quickly became louder, and we realised that this was the sound of the rain rapidly approaching us. It was interesting, sounding rather like Andy McCracken's "Storm" group activity :-)
Meanwhile, tonight was the monthly District Roundtable for Boy Scout adult leaders in the county. I didn't pay too much attention, since almost everything discussed is to happen after I go back to school.

Talking of going back to school: I'm really ready for Beaver Falls. Not to say that I don't like being at home: I love being with my family in the area that I know better than anywhere else, the area that, before I went to college, was always my home. However, I'm really eager to return to see people at Eastvale RPC, to my many friends at school, and even — as I was discussing with Katie tonight — the Geneva library, which is far better than anything I have here!

Barry Bonds just hit #756.

Not a ton happened today. Mom and Isaac and I went to Bellefontaine, where we transacted a significant amount of business. Later, I worked on stamps more, comparing my loose-leaf pages with such large collections as Hungary and Poland. Tonight, we watched the San Francisco-Washington baseball game, as Barry Bonds went 0-3 with a walk :-(

Dad preached today from I Corinthians xv., on the resurrection of Christ and of the dead in Christ, and from John xiii., on Christ's prophecy of Peter's denial, of Peter's denial of the denial, and of Christ's response to the denial of the denial. I don't know why, but I nearly fell asleep during the late service. It was bad enough that, when I went to wet my face to wake myself up, instead I began to wash my hair because I wasn't thinking straight.
Attendance was down today: two families had illness, and another couple was out of town.
It struck me earlier: I only have a couple more weeks here before I go back to school. It's hard to believe that its that close. I'm really looking forward to seeing the many people in Beaver Falls etc. that I'm unable to see here. You don't get the chance to see friends from faraway places — especially Cyprus :-) — when you're in the farm country of west central Ohio.

Finally, something of interest...
Mom and Dad got back yesterday evening from their vacation. Along with my uncle and aunt, they went to the Gatlinburg, Tennessee area for a vacation, celebrating their 25th anniversary last month and my uncle and aunt's 25th anniversary later this month. They had a great time, even including the late-night games of miniature golf :-)
Isaac and I had a rather interesting time managing by ourselves. It went well, but it was difficult remembering to get everything done...among other things, we didn't pick the tomatoes like we were supposed to, or take out the garbage — which thankfully isn't too smelly. We got all the mowing done, except for three lawns that hadn't grown enough, as we've gotten no rain all week. For the first time, I picked green beans: not difficult, but annoyingly hard to find all the beans, even the biggest ones, since everything's the same shade of green and the same tubular structure.

Barry Bonds hit home run #755 tonight. Now we see what happens next week, since he likely will sit out tomorrow's game.

Sorry to have nothing of substance to say, but really nothing is going on here.