Psalms 51:10-12

"Create in me a a pure heart, O God,
and renew a steadfast spirit within me.
Do not cast me from your presence
or take your Holy Spirit from me.
Restore to me the joy of your salvation
and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain
me"

Post Christmas...

Christmas is over. My brother and sister in law just bought a house...so i've been helping them work on it some. So right now I run to get base in for indoor as well as work out, sleep, eat, and help work on the house...I am so looking forward to snowboarding this weekend.

Merry Christmas

First off...Merry Christmas everyone!!! I am not a big fan of this time of year, but I figure I have to say it to appease everyone...so there it is.

I have been thinking a lot on my future recently, and I have been talking to people about potential future jobs. It seems like I may have an opportunity to go to Africa to work after I graduate. I graduate in a year and a half...it still seems like such a long way off, but it isnt.

In other news, I am making plans to go snowboarding next week. It should be very fun!

Anyhow, i love you all! :)

Josh

Race

Race this weekend!!!

Interesting...

"And oh how sweet the sound: I know it saved but is it changing a wretch like me? And oh how sweet the sound: I once was blind...but now I just look away." - As Cities Burn

Heart for People

Having a heart that cares for people means that it gets ripped to shreds sometimes. This is the spot I find myself now. Wierd day...let me tell ya.

I love my new CDs!!!!

Ok...so the title is random...

Anyways, this week has been fun. I have been getting settled into the apartment with my other suitemates. I am looking forward to seeing what God has in store for us this year!

The cross country guys are fun! I am looking forward to building relationships with each of the guys on the team this year. I believe God has given us a great team this year and that great things are in store for us this season.

About the title...I bought some cds. Three of the cds are celtic...awesome! I bought 2 cds of hymns and a cd called "Rushing River." Fun cds if you ask me!!

Grace Again

I have been back at Grace since Wednesday for CC practice. The CC team looks excellent. I'm looking forward to this season. The guys on the team are good and it seems like we are going to be a well knit bunch. God is good.

Great times....

This past week has been amazing. On Thursday I went to Chicago to pick up my friend from california. We spent the night in Chicago and the next day. The White Sox game was fun, though I made one foolish blunder. I was asked by a fan if I was a Sox fan, in which I told them that I was not, and that I liked the Cubs. I was a target of their hatred throughout the beginning of the game...until the Sox started to get killed, in which I smiled to myself...and kept my mouth shut.

The next day my friend asked me where the Sears Tower and the Empire State building were at. I pointed out the Sear's Tower to him, and then I pointed to a building that looked almost as tall as the Empire State building, and told him that I thought that could be the Empire. To the readers out there who are not catching the humor in this, the Empire State building is in NYC, not Chitown. He takes out his phone and says "I'll look it up on the internet." He proceeds to look it up and say, no thats not the Empire. I say, ok, its a different building. He shows me the picture on the internet and says, it looks like that. We stop at the park and he continues to look at the picture, then he tells me, "Hey, the Empire State building is in New York." At this point I started laughing...oh man...the games we play:)

Next we met up with an old friend at the Navy Pier, we rode the ferris wheel and got dinner at the Bubba Gumps place (Run Forest run!!!) Next we went to Wrigley Field. Going to Wrigley and taking pictures was much better than any White Sox game. Wrigley is amazing!

That night we headed home and then went a wedding. Its amazing that these 2 friends of mine are married. I went to school with them and everything. I'm still single...I need to get on the ball apparently(sarcasm).

The next day I went to my best friends house. He lives off Lake Michigan. I love just hanging out on the beach and kayaking and such. Great times.

Tomorrow I go back to school for cross country practice. I am a little nervous about it, but I'm sure it'll be fun to meet new people and to see if I can stay in that top 7.

Weekend fun!

My friend Ken from California is coming up tomorrow for a wedding. I have not seen Ken for nearly 2 years. You can imagine I am excited. More to come about this upcoming weekend!

CC practice starts in one week for Grace. I've ran over 600 miles this summer, and I am so stoked to get started with practices...not so much the school aspect of school...but hey, God has provided for me to go to college, so I am grateful for that!

May God bless my readers! I love you all!

Time again...

Its about time I blogged again.

Summer work is over. I worked for Mansanto this summer counting corn...it payed well, Praise God for that!

This past week I went up to visit my good friends Dave, Christy, Cardin, Reece, and Castille Sellers at Lake Ann Camp. It was fun helping Dave out and being able to reconnect with what really matters in life. Thanks you Dave and Christy for your example!

Running has been going good this summer, and I'm looking forward to practice...which starts in a week!

I hope to post on this on a more regular basis now. My most sincerest apologies to my readers who have been hanging for the past couple of months.

Journey...

First off...I ran 50 miles this week. Good stuff. I had some really good workouts. 50 miles down, 650 to go by August 15...just over 9 weeks.

God has really bless my life in so many ways. One of the ways he has blessed my life is by the Spiritual men he has brought into my life. This is a tribute to 5 of those men who as a jr higher and highschool we kids termed them the "God Squad."

The first shout-out goes to Dwight Peterson. He was the youth pastor at my church from Jr High until my sophomore year in highschool. He was then led to BBC to be the discipleship director. I like to think of him as the "leader" of the original "God Squad" since he was the overall youth pastor. He was an in your face type of individual. If he saw that I was sinning...he let me know about it for sure, and he would help me change. He was the man that showed me how to hate sin.

Next comes Eric Bjorkfelt. I laugh everytime I think about him. He always had a smile on his face. He was my camp counselor when I was in elementary school, and the worked in the youth group through my sophomore year of highschool. He loved God and people, and it really showed. I remember I had him in 7th grade Bible Class, and I was a nightmare of a student to him at times. He loved me despite my antics...I remember when I asked him what circumicision was in class in front of everyone...that still brings a smile to my face. He helped me think deep and engage God at an intellectual level.

Russ Davis. Tonight we had a farewell party for my man Russ. He was always had something to laugh about. I remember being a counselor at Jr High camp one year, and listening to a message Russ preached about Holiness...I was never the same after that year. I also remember how hard we worked on wilderness during our trips. He also led an accountability group with a bunch of us guys in highschool. I will truly miss him.

Jeff Rack...he worked with the youth for a long time, and became the youth pastor when Dwight left. He brought in a radical holiness to our group. He was my small group leader for 4 years of highschool and was instrumental in my Salvation. He was huge on outreach. He wanted to show the love of Christ to people in our community in any way he could. We had many good conversations when he took me out of lunch at school to go eat with him. He left a week ago to go on to seminary.

Ron Bouvier...Wow. He was the man. A tear trickles down my cheek as I write this. He is with Jesus now. He loved Jr Highers. In that ackward time of life, he made it cool to be in Jr. High. He poured his life out to us in ways that I have never seen duplicated. Who would make it there life goal to go and pursue the lives of Jr Highers and to teach them the love of God. He was also great at running camps. He coached me in Jr High basketball, but he taught me so much more than that, he taught me what it meant to walk with God. He always said that his greatest fear was that he would be successful in life, but not successful in the things that truely mattered. Bouv, you were successful in what truely mattered in life, and I thank God that for how you loved me. He would always tell this to me "Swaz, life isn't determined by what you want, but by the choices that you make." I am only now beginning to realize the profoundness of that statement.

I feel like these guys would be disappointed in me if they knew what I have done and what I was becoming. After the events of the past couple of weeks I say the buck stops here. I want to be like these men. I want to walk with Jesus like Bouv. I want to love like these men did. Now its by the choices that I make...Russ will be around for a little bit longer, I still have time to get some things off my chest to a guy older than me that I trust...

Mileage and Politics

Hi everyone! Mileage started this Monday for cross country! I ran 10 miles Monday and 10 miles Tuesday. Fun stuff. My legs are really tired though.

Tomorrow starts Bible Club at the park. It should be lots of fun with the kids from Goshen! Pray for that ministry that God will bless us this summer.

My job in the cornfields starts this coming Monday. I hate to say it, but I am looking forward to it for sure.

http://abcnews.go.com/US/PollVault/story?id=3240208
We see that Bush's pole rating amongst Conservatives is down because of his new immigration bill. Maybe he will take the hint and not support the amnesty bill? I suppose its too late now. He and his party are screwed. Good job Bush. The Republicans will need a real man to run for office in 2008 if they expect to get the presidency again. The House and the Senate is already going to belong the the democrats for a long time. So far, I think the guys that are running for the Republicans are weak, and have no shot at winning the White House. This is not to say that someone might not come up to the plate to save the day for the Republicans. Fred Thompson may be that man...

Random bits and pieces of life

Memorial Day...a day where we remember the sacrifice our troops have made for our country so that we may be free. I thank the families of the troops who have died in recent years and my prayers go out to them and their comrads. May God bless all of you!

I ran a 5k race on Monday. It was my first race back after about a month of taking it easy after track season. I ran about a 19 flat. I am very pleased with the time. I plan on running another 5k this saturday with my roommate Michael Jennys. It should be a fun one. We may fool off more than actually race, we will see though.

This Monday I was also blessed to have received a snowboard from my two buddies Cardin and Reece Sellers! Thank you guys :) I will certainly miss you two!

Tomorrow Ben Mattice is coming down for the afternoon. He is my best bud that I do not get to see much anymore. I am looking forward to hanging out with him and catching up on life.

My blog now has over 100 hits! People who come by my site...please comment! :P

It has been awhile since my last post. This is because I was in Cleveland for about 6 days for my brother Sam's graduation from dental school. He is pictured above. I did not have internet connection while I was there so it made it hard for me to post. I am so proud of my brother! Congratulations Sam!!!

I am a little out of shape right now, though getting back to running has been good, after a week off in Cleveland. I feel like lingering injuries are finally beginning to heal! Praise the Lord!

Summer Goals.

I have made several goals this summer. I am a big believer in goal setting. Achieving goals gives a person a sense of accomplishment, as well as helps make a better person as a result of achieving goals. Sharing goals is also important to. Being able to share a goal allows others to encourage a person to achieve his goals. Here are my goals this summer:

1. Running- I hope to run 700 miles this summer for summer mileage. My mileage starts on June 4th and ends on August 14th. I also want to run a half marathon near the end of July or the beginning of August.

2. The goal here is to read through the Gospels this summer as well as memorize the first chapter of First John. First John seemed to be a favorite book of Ron Bouvier...I will miss him for sure!

3. I want to read 5 books. It'll be good to keep my mind active this summer.

Shock

After some confusion, I have been able to get my blog back again...

Today a friend called me to notify me of a death of a guy who had a huge impact on me during my elementary, jr high, and early highschool years. In elementary, he was a camp director and worked at the church with us kids. In jr. high he coached my basketball team and taught me to love God and his Word, which he continued to do for me in highschool. His death comes as a surprise, though he has had complications most of his life. Pray for his wife and his three young kids. Bouv, we will always miss you and will never forget the impact you have had on so many lives.

Swazirunner

Home again

I ran ok in my last couple of track meets, wish I would have ran faster, but thats life as a runner I suppose.

I am home once again after another eventful year of college. I'm unpacking stuff and getting ready for the summer ahead. I have many dreams and aspirations for this summer, one of which is to understand the intracies of blogging on the blogger site and figuring out how I can get more traffic on this site.

Anyhow, when I have more down time I plan to write down some of my goals for this summer on this site, as well as figure out how to get a profile pic on here as well as other things. Expect some changes soon!!!

Swazirunner

Interview/Track Meet

Tonight I have an interview in order to enter the education department of Grace. That should be entertaining. Tomorrow is a track meet at Anderson. I am racing the 1500 and the 3000 (unusual outdoor event). I am definatly interested to see how my times will be now that the weather is nice. Hopefully I will have a profile picture up on the site soon as well as figure out how to join some blogrings. The goal is to have some good discussion topics on this blog soon.

First Blog Post

Hi! I am just starting this blog. I like blogger better than xanga/myspace, because anyone can comment. I plan to put my ponderings and special events on this blog. This could be fun. Leave me comments people!