Sophomore Year

Sorry it's been so long since I've written on here. The last couple weeks have been crazy, but right now I can say that I am done with my second year of undergraduate education! It's been a wonderful year full of God's blessings and guidance and provision. I have met some of the greatest people I've known in my lifetime and am glad to be able to call many of them my friends - even being able to call them my family.

This year, I've been more and more falling in love with the body of Christ. By that I mean the Church - my fellow brothers and sisters in Christ. The body, the Church, is not perfect but it's a beautiful mess. The Church couldn't be perfect because the Church is full of people and people just aren't perfect. But it's such a beautiful thing when Christians can share life together and get to know each other and get to know their Savior together and walk through life with Him and encouraging one another along the way.

It's crazy to see how far I've come in the past 8 months at Point Loma but I've been seeing that every semester, I go in as one person, and come out a different one. In a good way though. As much as we don't like to say it, change is good. And pain is good. Because change can hurt, but it leads to growth and growth is good. People have and will always let me down, but when you put your trust in Jesus, you see that even though people let you down, He will never let you down. And I'm able to push through disappointment, unfulfilled expectations, and problems with other people only because of Him.

God is so good and I'm so glad that I'm at Point Loma Nazarene University. It's not a perfect institution and it's unrealistic to think any college or university is, but it's the one for me in this season of my life. I'm so excited for next semester and God wants to do in my life, my friends life, and in the life of everyone on campus' life.

I see a near revival stirring as we pray and seek. I'm on my knees alongside many others as we seek the face of God and pursue intimacy with Christ at Point Loma. All glory be to God.

That is all.

It's Been A Month

What has happened in this last month?

It would be impossible to describe all the amazing things that have been going on in the last month. But I can try to give you a glimpse.

Within the last month, my roommate got married. It was a really great ceremony and it was super cool. I got the fortune of standing beside him as one of his groomsmen (I liked to call myself the groommate). This all occurred during Spring Break. It was interesting the timing of everything because if you have been following my journey at Point Loma at all, you would know that last Spring Break, a bunch of my friends road tripped up to the Bay Area/San Francisco to hang out and just have fun. Well this year, we (most of the group was the same but with a couple people not able to go and a couple new friends) did the same trip again. But everything was different. It wasn't just to go hang out and lounge around (although that did happen). This time, we road tripped to see our friend, my roommate, get married and begin the next stage of his life. While he is now married and his wife is still in Northern California, he continues to be my roommate for the rest of the semester, which is nice :) I'm glad he didn't leave me alone. But it's sad also because he had to finish this semester of school before he could be with her. It's an interesting dynamic.

It's crazy that I'm at the age where people around me are going to start dropping like flies (by that, I mean getting married). It's that time in life I guess. And it's crazy. But it's real. The craziest thing for me to think about is that some people my age have been in relationships for the last couple years and are moving to the next stage of marriage while I'm over here still single, and loving my life with Jesus. I guess I just don't get it! Love between people is great but compared to the love that Jesus has for me... It's nothing. So right now, that's where I stand on relationships. Haha.

I was going to go on and share more about the last month but actually, I don't really know what else to write about because there's not much else new that's going on. I'm going to school, leading worship at church back home, making new friends, hanging out with old friends, looking for a new roommate next year :(, following Jesus, learning new things, the good stuff.

For now.

That is all.

A Random Little Video

It was really windy and rainy yesterday evening so at about midnight, my roommate and I decided to just film ourselves. This really isn't all that funny but I thought I'd share. Gotta love this screenshot too.

That is all.

It's Been Far Too Long

Hello friends, if any of you still exist. I haven't gotten a chance to stop and write here in this here blog in over a month. Life is good but I just haven't known what to report to you all!

Well how about a what am I up to sort of blog? I'm taking 17 units this semester and my classes are really tough. I've got a lot of reading that I have to keep up with for my Lit class, Old Testament class, and my Cultural Anthropology class. But I'm learning a lot.

In Lit, we've been going through some books that our teacher has been calling "some of the best novels ever written." It's not just his opinion though because they are among the best ranked novels of all time too. I've always wondered though, who gets to decide what makes a good novel anyway? I wouldn't so boldly put some of the books that we've read on a best of all time list. Call me a saint, but I'm not really a very big reader of literature other than the Bible or books about the Bible or the gospel so I'm not one to rate novels anyway. But they're good books nonetheless. So far, we've read Madame Bovary, Crime and Punishment, and a part of The Brothers Karamazov. Madame Bovary was depressing but interesting, Crime and Punishment was dark yet intriguing, and the Grand Inquisitor (a section of the book the Brothers Karamazov) was dense yet thought provoking. We have some really great class discussions in that class that make me think.

For Old Testament, it's been cool getting to learn more in depth about the Bible for the first time from a professor. I really enjoy it and having homework assignments that make me learn about the Word of God, even if they are a lot of reading, is totally okay with me. I'm all about learning new things. We had our first test last week and I thought I did good and much to my surprise, so did the professor. We haven't gotten them back yet but after class on Tuesday, he pulled me aside and told me that I wrote some really great essays. That was really cool because I didn't see him tell that to anyone else and that means it really must have stuck out because he didn't give any tests back yet. I praise the Lord for that! I always enjoy writing about the Bible (as I've done here many times) so it's cool that I can do it in an academic setting as well.

Cultural Anthropology is a really interesting course. It has really made me expand my thinking of the world (globally) and my world (locally). The class is about the study of culture and the differences between them and it's really interesting to think critically about how the way we live in America is actually quite different then how most of the world lives. I'm grateful to be here but so often, as I've been learning, we, as Americans, can be extremely ethnocentric (a term I learned in the class) and think that our way of life is superior to others when it's really not. I've been seeing how different even people on Point Loma's campus are. People come from all sorts of different places and it's a beautiful thing when the people of God come together from various locations and live together.

"How good and pleasant it is when brothers live together in unity!" -Psalm 133:1

In other news, I applied to be an RA next year but didn't get it. It's okay though because I wasn't really sold on the idea anyway. It was just weird to not get an interview because I constantly had people saying, "Orin, you'd make such a good RA!" and "Why aren't you applying to be an RA? You'd be so great!" I wasn't even convinced that I would be but I thought I should at least go through the application process to see if maybe that's what God wanted for me next year. Obviously not, which means even better things are coming :)

So that's what's been going on scholastically. There's more I'm sure, but I'm not really good at writing about myself if I don't have a topic in front of me so that'll have to do for now.

I'll close with these words that were given to me last year and that I meditate on often. I wrote a blog about it a long time ago (see here) and I now keep the note above my bed so I see it whenever I go to sleep. Let this be an encouragement to you as it is to me because it's so true.

Keep seeking Christ.

He sees you.

He hears you.

He knows you.

His love for you is greater than anyone could ever imagine.

Take joy for you are delighted in.

"Draw near to God and He will draw near to you." James 4:8

That is all.

Today

Is my birthday. Big deal. I thought I'd say hello. I'm 20 years old. Weird. No longer a teenager. Anyway, enjoy some pictures: "Dogs as They Shake Off Water"

Semester 4

Well, here I am again at Point Loma for my second semester in my sophomore year. I'm technically a Junior because of credits but I still consider myself a Sophomore. I made it through last semester with a 4.0 by the grace of God so I have like a cumulative 3.9 something or other, I don't really know. Hopefully that gets me a chance for some scholarships because this place is EXPENSIVE!

Anyway, we started classes this last Tuesday. I've got a nice schedule I think. I have a really light Monday, Wednesday, Friday schedule and a heavier Tuesday, Thursday schedule. I think it will be a nice balance where I can get most of my homework done (hopefully) on the days where I have a ligther schedule.

I'm taking Spanish 102, a choir class, a conducting class, Cultural Anthropology, Old Testament, World Literature 203, and voice lessons.

I've got a lot of stuff to go to this semester but I know and I'm trusting that Jesus will see me through. I have to go to some Spanish cultural events for Spanish class, some other cultural events to cultural anthropology and THEN I have to go to some vocal performances for voice lessons and then I've got to go to a bunch of music events for my major too. AHH! I don't know where I'll get the time to attend all these things and the money to buy tickets for all these things but I know that it will work out. I don't doubt that God will continue to be good and lead me/guide me through this next semester.

Well, I guess I should do some homework now. MLK day was today and I didn't really do much productive.

Let's start this semester right!

That is all.

Break is almost over

I am so ready to go back to school. I miss the community. I miss chapels. I miss hanging out in the caf for hours between classes. I miss long talks on late nights. I miss goofing around with my roommate. I miss our prayer group that we had this last finals week. I don't miss classes though... But I'm excited for my new schedule and for what God is going to do this next semester. I miss seeing the ocean from my window. I miss the encouragement that I could receive from being on campus. I miss late night runs to McDonald's for sweet tea (it's really a car ride, not a run). I miss BURRITOS EVERY SINGLE WEEK. I miss not having to tell my parents where I'm going when I leave the house :P Not like I dislike it now, it's just nice not to have to remember to check in because I'm so forgetful. I miss the running jokes I have with some of my friends. I miss my RA. I miss seeing people every day unlike now where I rarely see people I know because I have no friends :P I miss walking around campus and just praying and meditating on the day. I miss shortening words all the time for fun like totes, presh, aws, etc.

I miss a lot of things. But in 5 days, I will be Loma bound again. Dig it.

Oh and I miss people actually reading my blog... What do I do wrong? :(

That is all.