Of Stink Bugs, Travels, Lessons, and Team

Howdy! I choose this word as my initial greeting because I've noticed this is generally how I greet people. I think I've accidentally given off the impression that I'm from the south, but it's just such a more jovial word than most greetings. I mean, what fun is there in "Hi," except that if both its letters are capital they're the same, just one's titled. I guess that is pretty cool, but "Howdy" still has a happier ring. It's for this same reason that I say "Good morning" during anytime of day.

So, howdy, and good morning, no matter what time of day you're reading this.

So I noticed that I miss-placed some of my teammates in the age line up, as well as forgetting myself. So here's a more updated, bugs fixed version of our age line up. Bonnie, Renee, Eryca, Aaron, Karla, Beth, myself, and Bekah. Also, if any of you are wondering why I'm only including first names, it's another safety thing, and some people might even appear as initials. It just keeps things interesting, sort of like a great big guessing game. I believe I also made a comment last week about someone's great laugh, when really it should be everyone's great laugh. As Aaron said, "Laughs are supposed to be funny. If a laugh doesn't make you laugh, it's not a good laugh." And yes, all my teammates have great laughs.

Some other fun things about the team, I taught them our many car games, which have developed into much punching, pinching, and neighing. We play "punch buggy, no punch back," "mini cooper punch a trooper," "PT Cruiser pinch a loser," and "Mustang *Neigh*." Our car trips are now often tense competitions, staring out the window waiting for the next special car to appear. It makes me feel right at home. Also, some of our talks this week were on personality, and we got to see and understand our teammates different quirks, themes, strengths, weaknesses, and characteristics. One method we used for figuring our personality was the four animals method, also known as the four colors, or four points on the compass. Whatever one calls it, it sorts people into four basic personality types, the Lion (the leader, go getter, the one who takes charge), the Beaver (the organizer, analyst, the one who if he or she is going to do it, he or she is going to do it correctly), the Golden Retriever (the people pleaser, the concerned, relaxed and focused on the people as individuals), and the Otter (the partier, the show, the center, and the people person). If you haven't already guessed, my most prominent characteristics are the Otter and Beaver, but which one shows the most depends on the situation.

Some additional thoughts before I get rolling with the outline of this past week, mostly lessons I've learned, been reminded of, and discovered this week. The first is that the idea and philosophy that some people have that "There is No Absolute Truth" is in itself a contradictory statement. If this is in fact a true statement, it proves itself false, because for there to be no absolute truth, no truth can be absolute, not even the truth that there is no absolute truth. Thus, if this statement is correct, it is false, and if this statement is false, there must be some absolute truth, and if there is some absolute truth, what is it? I would be so bold as to say I know it, well actually its more like I know him. You could put it another way and ask "what is the meaning of life?" But again that question in itself is flawed, for the answer to life is not a "what" but a "who"—Jesus Christ. If you don't know him personally, you're really missing out.

The second lesson I've thought about is one I heard in a wonderful one act play I saw a couple weeks ago that was written by a friend of mine. In the play, this boy finds himself in a sort of limbo after being in a car accident. In this limbo he meets his conscience and questions what he had really been living for. Near the end of the play, the boy is discussing with his conscience how life could have been, but how it doesn't matter now that he's dead. But his conscience replies "Life lessons aren't wasted on the dead." To cut the ending short, he woke up from his comma or whatever it was and "lived happily ever after" in a sense. But that line, "life lessons aren't wasted on the dead," really struck me. I've been thinking about that, and I realized that that's maybe why it seems sometimes that those who truly love God, and whom God truly loves get the "brunt" of this life, because they're alive and able to be taught. Why should the missionary who's given up everything be the one to become paralyzed? Or the family that loves The Lord and are his light be the ones to lose a child in a car accident? Why are those who are truly servant hearted and hardworking and who we think deserve everything, are the ones who are laid off and are without a job? Maybe it's that God knows that to teach life lessons to those who are spiritually dead would be "a waste." Why teach a lesson to those who are unwilling to hear or who can't hear? Just remember that life lessons aren't wasted on the dead and try to live in such a way that you're alive enough to recognize the life lessons God is trying to teach you.

The third idea is one I've been reminded of this week. My Dad once preached a sermon on the "missed it by that much" distance versus the "better than" distance. So often we measure ourselves by how much better we are than those who do worse things than we do. "Well most people watch R movies, so I'll only watch PG-13 movies, so at least I'll be better than them." (Not that all PG-13, or even R movies are bad, but comparing yourself to others who do "worse things" doesn't make what you're doing "good"). Instead we should be focusing on the distance of "missed it by that much," where we work at being the best we can. Even though others burn whole piles of plastics, and other species of animals may produce more harmful chemicals than humans, that doesn't give me an excuse to burn my styrofoam plate in the fire. Regardless of how petty it seems, I know it's not good, and little things add up. I probably use about 50 to 75 styrofoam per year at picnics, outings, and what-not. . If every time I just put it off as a small insignificance and burnt it instead of focusing on the little bit of good I could do, I will have burned around 1000 plates by about the time I'm 34. And that's just me. If I chose to to recycle mine, as well as encourage others who are with me to do the same, it would start to look a less "petty" thing. I know these examples may be a bit cheesy, and the original message was more directed to how the church of today acts, but I want to get the idea across that we should really focus on how much more we can do rather than on how much "better" we're doing than others.

*Notice: I have already written what now follows, but lost it do to some technical errors, which is why this blog post is a little late. I'll try to include as much detail and focus as possible, but there may be, at some point, something that only gets mentioned in passing. If it seems like I've skipped something of importance or you would like to know more detail about something just let me know, and I'll do my best to fill it in. Thanks for bearing with me.*

As a preface to the week, let me just say that it's been a bit of an emotional roller coaster for me. Also, some important background information about me you may want to know is that I have a very irrational fear of and intense phobia of stink bugs. Yes, those little brown and green bugs that pose absolutely no threat. Yeah, I'm afraid of those. It may not really make sense, but isn't that what a phobia is, a fear that doesn't makes sense? Well anyway, on Sunday our team left the city to go to a cabin in some Dillsburg forest for a "retreat." I put this word retreat in quotations because for me it was more draining than restorative, and not really retreaty. The reason why? Let's see if you can guess. I noticed something when I first walk into the cabin. Knowing what you now know about me can you guess what so unfortunately caught my attention? That's right, the cabin was too small to hold all eight of us. Not. It was that the cabin had what I would call an infestation of stink bugs. Almost anyplace I could choose to look I would likely spot about seven or eight of the little stinkers in that one area. Now it must be pointed out that we arrived in the afternoon, when the largest number of them are out, soaking up the sun's heat. So yes, it was better in the evenings and mornings, but I still knew they were there, so it only made it slightly better. God did answer prayers, though, and sent us some rain and gloominess on Tuesday and Wednesday which reduced the amount of stink bugs that were out because there was no sun to acquire heat from.

We were at the cabin from Sunday afternoon through the middle of Wednesday. During this whole time I was in a state of stress and tension, always too focused on the stink bugs and their possible interference with me. I could literally (those of you who know me know I don't use that word lightly) feel a physical, emotional, and mental difference—a relaxation and release of stress—every time I stepped out of the cabin. It didn't bother me that there were probably a thousand more stink bugs outside than inside, for it was more the idea of being shut in with them that truly bugged me. It's what I imagine someone with claustrophobia feels like in a large, packed crowd.

Stink bugs aside, the time at the cabin was pretty good. There was a ping-pong table, so we played a lot of Round Robbins and Aaron and I played singles. We had lots of speakers and packed days of listening. On Monday, Dick talked to us about personality, some of which I've already mentioned previously in this blog. One Sunday and Tuesday evening we had different people come and talk to us about culture awareness, culture shock, and culture respect. On the the Tuesday evening we heard from Amy about her experience in Tibet, which she brought a little sample of. You know, I really like tea, I really like butter, and I really like salt, but I really, really don't like them all together. I now know because the experience from Tibet that Amy brought us was Tibetan butter tea. Let's just say I was glad I didn't have to drink the traditional three practically boiling cups of it. Though it was kind of funny, because earlier that day Larry, who had talked to us about what it really means to deny yourself, pick up your cross, and follow Jesus, talked about was how good things, like the yummy nut-bread his grandmother used to make, require a combination of many ingredients. Ingredients that individually are sometimes not so good, like salt, egg, or yeast, or are sometimes really good, like honey and sugar, and sometimes are just neutral, like water and flour. But when you add them all together—the bad, the neutral, the good—they make something so much better than any individual ingredient could ever hope to be. He used this as an example of how in life we need to be willing to take all three if we want to become what God truly wants us to become—alive, pure, glorious, and perfect in him. So even though I liked all the individual ingredients of the butter tea and wouldn't particularly like all the individual ingredients of the nut-bread, I can guarantee the bread was way better.

Wednesday morning we had a silent retreat, where we had an extended time of personal devotion with The Lord. We then cleaned the cabin, packed up, and (finally) left the cabin and stink bugs. I've never been so excited to leave the country and head to the city in my life. When we got back to the apartment, we unpacked and had a chilaxed evening before jumping back into our week. Before bed we watched "Extreme Days" which was pretty funny, and made me miss my wonderful, goofy brothers.

On Thursday, after a bit of a sleep in, breakfast, a group devotional, and lunch we took the bus to Manhattan Bible Church to help with the Love Kitchen's Food Pantry outreach. It's sort of a mini grocery aisle that we helped take homeless people through it and gave them some groceries. I was at the end of the line handing out some long-sleeve athletic shirts that had been donated by some run for cancer. Since we were in a Latino-majority area, I got to practice my spanish. "¿Qieres camisas?" "¿Pequeño, mediano, o dos equis grande?" "No, no tenemos grande." "Solo dos." I think I did pretty well, most of them smiled when they realized I was at least attempting to speak to them in spanish. Afterwards we had planned to help with the after-school program there at the Manhattan Bible School, but school wasn't meeting that day. So instead we stayed a little extra at the Love kitchen and helped prepare some things for the evening meal they serve every night. When we got back to the apartment we had the rest of the evening to chill and hang out together, so naturally we played some Quelf. Now, if you don't know what Quelf is, you should stop reading this blog post, go to my previous one, read it until it tells you to stop, do what it says and go buy Quelf, play a round, come back, finish the previous blog post, then come finish reading this. Ready, stop, and go!

Welcome back to those who took that break to go get Quelf, and congratulations to those who are still reading this because you followed my previous advice and already got Quelf.

Friday morning was pretty low key. I had some personal devotions time, ate breakfast, showered, made a packed lunch. We then headed out to help at World Vision again. This time some of us—Karla, Bekah, Aaron and I—helped at the old warehouse, tearing things down and loading trucks, while Renee, Beth, and Eryca helped at the new warehouse organizing and unpacking. Those of us at the old warehouse got to smash apart some old shelves and desks with hammers, which was obviously a lot of fun. When we were done there, we got a ride back the new warehouse from Jaime so Bonnie could pick us all up from the same location. Just so you know, Jaime is Mexican, so his name is pronounced "HIGH-may." Anyways, Jaime has only been in the U.S. for about a year and a half, but already his English is understandable and impressively good for how long he's had to learn it. On the ride back with him, we were all laughing so hard because he was telling us about odd things about the English language we had never really thought of. "What's poppin'" and "What's shakin' baby." "I'm not your baby, and what's 'popping' supposed to mean." Or "you feel me?" "No, I don't want to feel you, are you crazy. I don't even know you, why would I want to feel you?" That evening we went again to the Times Square Church, which was very good. Though on our way we had our first real sketchy encounter. At the bus stop a man walked up to our group and started mumbling some things to the the girls that I'm pretty positive were not very nice or polite things, as well as pushing the limits of our personal space. Aaron and I stepped in and ask that he stop. He left, but again came back, and again we stepped in his way, and again he came back, and again was sent off. After waiting for the bus for about twenty minutes we were finally able to leave and be on our way. The rest of the trip was good and uneventful. When we got back to the apartment we looked up broadway tickets and made plans to see Wicked on the twenty-fourth. We'll probably be ordering the tickets in the next couple of days. I'm so excited!

Saturday was a stay-home-and-relax day. We cleaned the apartment, Aaron, Karla, and I went for a run, Renee and Beth went for a walk, and Bekah and Eryca went to Fordum Plaza to do some shopping and exploring. In the evening I Skyped Brianna and Taz and we watched the Avengers. I also had the Pumpkin Spice Rooibos tea that Jessica sent me. It was so good I made three cups with the same tea bag. Thanks! I then spent about three hours on this blog, and just as I was about finished, as I explained before, I lost about half of it. So now here I am on Sunday night, updating y'all on last week's adventures.

Some last little goodbye notes. If any of you would like to be on my prayer support list and be updated about prayer request, you can contact Mike at biblebeach@hotmail.com, and he'll add you to the list. Also, I have a communicator, Hope, who helps publicize my blogs and what's going on with me, handles my address requests, and who is pretty much just super awesome. If you have any questions or would like my address you can contact her at constanceh.95@gmail.com. Also, as of my last finacial update, I am at about 70% of funds needed for my trip. If you have any questions about the financing or would like to donate, you can contact Toni at 7sons@fickett.info.

Thanks again for taking the time to read this, for your financial support, but thanks most for you prayers. God is good all the time, and all the time God is good. Loves and misses,

~Asher Fickett~