So the institute was tight this year, that is for sure. Anyone who didn’t go… missed out. Anyone who left early… missed out. Anyone who came late… missed out. And if you skipped out on Mark Mittleberg, then you definitely missed out big time. I liked both of Mark’s presentations. I will tell you one thing though, next year I will be taking advantage of the coffee. Every freaking summer institute I seem to dose off in the middle of a teaching here and there. Luckily this year I didn’t miss anything good, or at least that I am aware of. I got some good notes. Right now its been a few days since thin, and I don’t remember really getting any new convictions. Just a lot of aiding to my recent convictions.

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My biggest conviction right now is this - The state of urgency when reaching out to non-Christians. A big part of this is being selfless. We already have the gif from god. We are already going to heaven. We are sure of our state in the lord. Why should we worry about ourselves then when we aren’t sure of how long we have left on this earth. Are mission is to get as many people saved as we can before we go. We dont really have time to worry about ourselves. But we do, and we cant really avoid that. But a major part of our day should be spent worrying about others. People that are lost, unclaimed by the lord.

This brings me back to the fact that we need to be reaching out like crazy. In ways people are usually scared to do. And no i dont mean going to Iraq or something like that. I am referring to reaching out to strangers. Doug Polluck had a cool clip of this dude that put on some glasses and he saw the truth of people. Like situations there in or whatever. He looks at one guy that looks like a tough guy and his caption says "Just needs a hug". So THIS brings me back to a word retreat we had awhile ago….

At the retreat we played this outreach game. The object of the game was to reach out to Keith. Keith would be playing different characters. One dude he played was some random dude in a cafe. Why cant we do this? Why are we so scared to reach out to someone random in a cafe. I think I am going to try it. Why not? right?

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Anyways that brings me to Vacation. The trip here seemed to go pretty fast. Eleven Hours is nothing. Days go by so fast these days, that goes for weeks. Thats what is sad about vacations. They are awesome. But they dont last as long as regular life. I love escaping the world for a week, dont get me wrong, but when the last days comes, which right now doesnt seem that close, its only monday, but when it does come, it’ll be sad. We have already had some really good times. We have a lot left. I’m excited.

But to tell you the truth, in a couple of days I will probably start missing the people back home. But not now. I am with a pretty sweet part of the body, and there love is strong. I feel loved. I’m content right now.

BYE!