Something I miss

3 years ago at this time, I was finishing my freshman year of college and preparing to head to Estes Park, CO for Colorado LT 2005. Oh man, was that a good summer. I've been flipping through pictures online and on my hard drive from that time, and it has been phenomenal. That summer was so instrumental in my life being the way it is right now. There are people in these pictures that are great friends now that I barely talked to while at LT or before LT. There are people that I've drifted away from but have not forgotten. There a bunch of people who are married or plan on getting married, and there are people who have moved to my school. There are people going back to LT, there are people working abroad, and dealing with the struggles of adulthood. I wish I could post more, but I should probably save you that trouble.

I guess this is really to jog the memory of those of you who went with me on that epic summer. I can honestly look back and say it was one of the greatest times of my life so far. This summer I will be somewhere completely different and my expectations are sadly pretty low. However, when I look at what LT05 was for me, in so much as I barely knew anybody and now I have fantastic friends, I have hope.

So, what is your favorite LT 05 memory?

New Video - LT Survivor Man

Project and good music week and Simpsoms

This project day was a good one (as if any aren't good). We went to Sprague Lake in the morning and hung out talking about our summers really and what God has taught us. We then had a quiet time at the lake. I love that the lake has some hills by it. I can walk 50 feet and be away from any sign of civilization. Fantastic that really is. After the lake, we came back to the Y and we had some more free time where I was able to take care of some business. On the tail end of that we had Lifegroup time. This was an extended time for 4 hours where the guys and the girls split up. We took some time to thrift (note Aaron's sweet jacket) and then just went cruising. Finally, we ate some sweet foods in a restaurants where sweet food exists. Something about a Bighorn Restaurant or something. I'm not sure exactly what it was. but it was good and I had a pulled pork barbecue sammich. So good. That was our day. Totally chill, and planned by our lifegroup leaders and that means I didn't have to do much. It was great. :)

As for the good music week. I guess that entails last Tuesday. Last Tuesday, two great albums came out on the form of Yellowcard and The Rocket Summer. Both cds have been rolling through my iTunes like mad. Go check them out (I REALLY like the Yellowcard offering).

Finally, I saw the Simpsons movie last night at the midnight showing. It was hilarious, although I must admit that the longer it went, the less funny it got. I thought it was best when it delivered one-liners and weakest when it tried to develop plot. There were certain plot elements that didn't feel intensely relevent to me, but so what. Pretty good movie overall, but since I'm used to the Simpsons spanning about 25 minutes, for it to go an hour and a half felt intensely long.

Finally, back to the music (I'm ADD in this post). I've been having a conversation with Jennee about what our top bands are. I said lets limit the list to 5 and see what you get. I'd love to hear your lists, but as for me they are (in no order whatsoever)...

1. Shawn McDonald
2. David Crowder*Band
3. Mae
4. Linkin Park
5. Yellowcard

Longs Peak

It's that time of the summer again. That time when people deprive themselves of sleep so they can walk 15 miles in a day. That's right, we got to do Longs Peak. What an awesome hike it is. You leave from the trail head early in the morning, typically well before the sun rises on the East Coast. We left from 2 am to do Longs Peak in this atmosphere of little sleep, headlamps, and lightning in the distance. You hike about 2 miles before you find yourself above treeline. There you can see the lights from the state of Colorado. Almost literally. You can see the lights from Boulder, Longmont, Denver, and more towns around the eastern part of the state. Up there I took a picture with extended exposure of the cities. Unfortunately I wasn't able to hold the camera steady. But what I was able to do (completely accidentally) was get a picture of people walking past with headlamps. The coolest part is that all you can see is the headlamps looking like bolts of lightning. Incredible.

We continued another 4 miles or so to the Boulderfield. There the sun was starting to peak over the edge of the Earth. In that twilight I took the picture of the base of Longs. It's such a powerful peak. We continued up to the Keyhole to try to catch sunrise.

We were very close to the Keyhole (below) as the sun began to rise. The morning light brings out the most amazing colors in the rocks and I am just floored by it. Finally we crossed over into the other side of the mountain. This is where it turns from a hike into a climb. It's so fun but slow going. We arrived at the summit in still pretty good time. It wasn't even 9 am when we got to the top, even though it felt like the afternoon.

The final picture is our group on the summit. It was myself, Jennee, and Devin. Going back down wasn't the must fun however, as it is so painful on the feet. When we got back, it was bedtime. That was of course after a burger at the 14ers Cafe in Estes Park. We ate there satisfied that we had gone that high up (14,255-14,259 feet depending on who you talk to). I slept from 5-9 and it was incredible. I woke for a bit, did some work, watched a movie, and then conked out again for the night.

It really did end up being an incredible trip and was just as good as I remembered it the first time I did Longs two years ago.

So hard to stay ahead of this

This past The Rock was pretty quality. John Drage talked on the book of Hosea. It is a story of redeeming love. It was really good and the talk was spot on. Ryan also led a phenominal worship set. After the service, we had a U of I hangout time. It was a lot of fun to see people and just say hi. There are some pics from the campfire below. The first one is highly doctored but I think it is totally neat.

Last Sunday I went and saw Tim Lamkin. What a good kid. I just love his personality and that we can talk about so much. We hung out on the 16th Street Mall in Denver and ate lunch. We walked around a bit on one of the hottest summer days this year. It was so much fun though. Since then, I've been enjoying a fairly relaxed week. It's been really cool to hear some of the teachings that we've gotten. They were quality. Greg Van Nada talked on the idea of Openness. It was a powerful message to me on just how we must be open to sharing our lives with people, especially believers. We mustn't hide behind masks. I'll make a seperate post about the rest of lately...

Project and Parade

This past Project Day (our third to last one!!! nUtZ!) we had a fun discussion planned on Spiritual Disciplines. Unfortunately, due to a parade on the Y grounds celebrating the 100th year of the YMCA, we had to cut the discussion. The parade was fun to see though and I think we enjoyed it. After that, we went to Boulder and Pearl Street to do contact evangelism. It went pretty good all things considered. I think the people of Boulder are just weary of people coming to share the Gospel constantly. In any case, we tried to talk to people. Some people felt really good, and others felt really bad. The day ended up with the LT meeting not being where it normally is. It typically is in Hyde Chapel on the Y grounds, but it was being used, so the meeting took place in the Pondo, which is the staff dining hall.

On project day, the guys had a discussion that was fairly involved. In a big way we talked about Territory. Every person has it. It is their 'turf,' the place that they feel most comfortable interacting with other people. When it comes to sharing the Gospel, territory becomes incredibly important. I know that for myself, talking to international people is quite draining, while others thrive on the opportunity. Other people are very strong in other settings like conservatives, or wild and crazy thinkers, or partiers, or a many other thing. So this idea of territory is something we need to embrace in my mind. Really hammer home that you are good at some things and not so good at others. Embrace the places you are strong and let people know that. I have friends that love doing certain things and I want to direct to them people that love the same things. I hope they would do the same with me. HOWEVER, this is not a liscence to stop growing. I believe that you should embrace who you are, but grow towards a more complete personality. Gain interest in new activities and challenge growth into areas you would have never seen yourself in before. Embrace your territory, but push into new ground. That's the sentence to sum it up.

Mummy Mishaps

This Wednesday, I had the intention of hiking the Mummy Marathon. This is a group of six peaks in the Mummy Range in the north central part of Rocky Mountain National Park. We left the YMCA at 12:30 am with the intention of returning probably 20 hours later. We started hiking about 1:15 and we were off. It was pitch black, but as we hiked, the stars started to reveal themselves and made for a beautiful night. As we hiked across the barren grassy tundra, we ran into the eyes of a few creatures. One of which was most likely a bobcat. Soon after that, we went up Chapin Peak. Chapin is about 12,500 feet tall. The view was neat, as we could see the lights from about a billion different cities. Maybe not that many, but you could definitely see Estes Park, Loveland, Longmont, Fort Collins, and Denver. It was pretty breathtaking to be honest. After that, we hauled our way up Chiquita Peak. That was a tough one. At this point in the hike, I was feeling the weight of my pack. I was carrying more than I should've and it was just weighing me down. I was by far the slowest up and I felt just crummy knowing I was the weakest link. The pair in front of Jennee and myself kept rushing ahead because of their sheer excitement for the hike. When we made it to the top of Chiquita, we sat behind a rock wall protecting us from the wind for a while. It was intensely windy and cold up there. At night, with no trees to protect you, the winds are ridiculous. As we headed towards Mount Ypsilon, we started to catch some twilight. As Jennee and I reached the false summit of Chiquita, we got to see the sunrise. It was breathtaking, as you can see. It completely was worth getting up that early. When we got to the summit of Ypsilon, naptime was in order. So we took naps, signed the register of who'd been to the top, and decided what to do next...

This is where the hike got frustrating for me (as if it wasn't enough). I knew that it was going to be rough for me, and Jennee knew even better. With the pair in front going fast, and myself going slow, she was really torn about what to do. I told her that it was up to her what she did. We decided to go back, while the other pair went forward. It was a tough thing for me to do. My pride totally was like, "this is stupid! Let's go!" But I was feeling the sickness of the last week and a half or so and the weight of my backpack. So we went back at a leisurely pace. We ended up back at the trailhead at about 10:30, 9 hours after we started. It was a long day already, but it had just started (at least time wise). As we drove down, I realized more and more how frustrated I was to not do the other peaks. Even now, I look at them from the YMCA and wonder what it would've been like. It ended up being a good decision not to go, but it still ate at me. I'm really learning how to recognize my pride and hopefully tackle it. So I didn't do Fairchild, Hague, or Mummy Peak.

My pride is a HUGE thing for me. Many times, I'll let it control me. It could be anything from school work, to hikes, to leading small groups, to racing somewhere, to competing harder. A lot of my pride comes from my competative side, and I'm not even sure where that comes from. It is pretty odd. It feels like I should not be prideful :) (duh!) I really need to learn what causes it. Even when I don't do something, I can compare and say, "Oh, I did THIS instead." It's ridiculous. I need to just kill the pride, I'm just not sure how. It seems like I really need to be conscious of when I am doing stuff that is prideful and to really take the extreme and stop myself. Even if that means doing nothing to make sure that I can humble myself.

1 Peter 5:5 says, "...All of you, clothe yourselves with humility toward one another, because, 'God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.'"

The English Language

I find the English language to be such a poor tool that we use in poor ways. When we think about an object we are describing and we call it 'that', then we want to say it did something. We want th say "that that thing did that other thing." We use it daily, yet we don't understand the full breadth of it. I find it especially difficult to use to describe God. That is why I think he has given us other tools of expression and art like music, sculpture, painting, etc. We can't even express certain things with the English language, and even if we try to, it takes 3 more sentences than in other languages.

This is why I want to master it the best I can. That way I can communicate the most effectively. Even creating a nomenclature to communicate has been helpful this summer. A few examples exist...

Love Languages: This is a highly recommended book/concept by Gary Chapman. The author is a counselor and he talks about the 5 basic ways we express love to each other . These are physical touch, words of affirmation, acts of service, quality time, and gifts. Now, these aren't the ONLY ways we show love, but when we and someone else know the nomenclature, we can best communicate with each other and better know how to love one another.

Core Values: This is a concept heard before, but for me, refined in Craig Groeschel's book, Chazown. He asks what things made us passionately angry, or passionately joyful. So now I have a list of words that I can expound upon that explains how I feel about things I care about. It's just wonderful to have that.

Programming and Worship: Just knowing how a service works and understanding the words that people use, the concepts they understand, and the actions they take. I love this stuff. I love bouncing ideas off of people and seeing how they feel. It's also good to be able to communicate expectations clearly before a service is about to start.



As you can tell, one of my major core values is communication. I feel very passionately about communicating things effectively. I really want to strive to be the clearest communicator I can be.

The Rock, Transformers, and a Quarter

The picture above you is a picture I took before the fireworks in Estes. Pretty sweet if you ask me :)

As for the actual post...

The Rock was good this week. It was hectic, but I think it went really well once things settled down. The band played a cover version of Higher by Creed. It ended up being very tough for them as the lead singer lost his voice for part of the song and the projector that was displaying a quote kept going in and out. However, the rest of the day was good. It was tough for me to believe that, but many people told me otherwise and I truly appreciated their edification. John Drage talked on the topic of Heavenbound. He basically said that we are all meant for heaven and we need to realize that that is our home, not this planet.

Last night, I did a couple of fun things. First, I went on a hike with Eric, a friend of mine that works in Conference Service. We went to Gem Lake and it was a lot of fun. It was a short hike and the lake was really tiny, but it was really fun to gander at. After we got back, I went into town with Jennee. There we went to see Transformers. We had plenty of time before the movie started, so we went to KenTaco Fried BellKin, which is a Taco Bell and a KFC in the same restaurant. There I dropped a quarter in line and a man picked it up, and put it in his own wallet. I could assume that he thought it was his, but I kinda want to say that I believe that our society just really has ingrained within us the idea that anything that isn't bolted down is ours. It was an interesting moment, however insignificant it was.

Then I went and saw Transformers with Jennee ( like I said we were going to). It was awesome!! Sweet robots fighting and intensely awesome action. It doesn't get much better than robots fighting on the freeway. They even mentioned Faurier Transforms. It was so realistic!!! Oh wow, what a nerdy comment. Although when they mentioned signals processing, they said they should go from Faurier to Quantum Mechanics, which as far as I know, doesn't have a whole lot to do with signal processing. Still a sweet movie nonetheless. It was full of cheese, but what do you expect from organic robots fighting in a galactic war?

Until later...

The last week, a rundown

Sunday I felt a bit sick, and Monday I woke up feeling a bit worse. I worked my typical front desk job in intense anticipation of going camping with the guys from the U of I.

We left to go camping and it was incredible. We camped in the Moraine Park campground and it was a blast. We had an incredible spot where we got to sit on rocks and take sweet pictures, cook meat (and soy), cook marshmallows, and enjoy fellowship. We talked about the fall and school and our church. It was incredible. We really all expressed a desire to be catalysts for people and get people really excited about God. Check this out...Jesus is coming back. That is the basis for our faith. If he isn't returning, then what we do is pretty pointless. Believers also have the Holy Spirit dwelling in them. How exciting is that?! God is in the believer!

Tuesday morning, I awoke from camping under the stars feeling miserable. My sick feelings escalated into an intense hoarse cough. So when I got back to the Y, I just slept all day. Wayne Wager spoke that night on the idea of calling. It was really cool hearing him talk about how all of us are called to God first and to a career second.

I awoke Wednesday determined to hike despite my still somewhat sick feeling. So Jennee and I decided to do a medium lengthed (in my mind) hike. We did Chasm Lake, which ended up being pretty tough for my worn out body. It was 8.4 miles and 2400 feet in elevation gain. But the Chasm was absolutely gorgeous.

We ended up having to turn back right when we got to the lake (above), which is right at the base of Longs Peak. It was a really neat place and luckily we didn't get rained on too badly above treeline. It ended up being really good, although I was spent afterwards.

Thursday brought Project Day. On Thursday, we got a chance to be helpers for Campus Crusade for Christ. They are a campus para-church organization (read: they don't have pastors). It was really cool to serve them because they helped GCM get off the ground. We served them by watching the children of overseas missionaries coming back to the States for a conference. We played games with the kids for 3.5 hours and it was such a great escape from adulthood. I was with the 4-5 year old kids and it was so easy!!! I guess I just get refreshed by kids. I feel blessed by that fact.

We then went to Estes Park, where it once again commenced to rain on our Project Day. This time we hung out in the library, coffee shops, or various other venues spending extended alone time with God. We spent 3 hours working out our own struggles and Chazown. It was a really helpful time for me to look at the things that are important to me and be able to articulate them. Then we had lifegroups and Wayne talked again that night. He talked on the idea that God's Leader is Teachable (ironic?). It was really good to hear and basically he told us that we need to learn and desire to learn.

Until laters...

Top Gun Volleyball

The second Bi-Annual Top Gun Volleyball Tournament occured at the YMCA last Sunday. Many teams from all over came to play the game. Each had it's own unique name and theme. The guys in the second picture were members of Dads on Vacation. Not the sweet shirts and hands deep in pockets. It was a fun event that was almost rained out. Luckily it stayed dry and a team of Ukranians won the whole event. Check out the photos below depicting an action packed outreach event. Matt looks really enthralled by the games (bottom pic).

I'm really glad the tourney went well. Rob Bergman put a lot of work into the day.

Sunday, I also went and hung with Jennee for the day. We went to a cool cafe in Estes Park and then spent time looking at cards at the Hallmark store, lol. It was fun, and then to top it off, we went to the Beaver Meadows Visitors Center for the National Park and watched a sweet video about the park. It was SOOOOO GOOD!

I know these posts aren't very deep, but they're what's been up in my life, so keep on peeking in, and maybe you'll see some cool thoughts.

The Rock - Satisfied

Last week, at the Rock, I decided to take pictures to give you guys an idea of what goes on. The top picture is of John Drage, the Colorado LT director teaching on the topic of Satisfaction. Basically saying that we can't be satisfied by all things not God. The second picture is of the worship time at the service led by Ryan with musical worship. The last two pictures are artsy pictures I took from the worship service we had AFTER the Rock called Souled Out (play on words!). It was a lot of fun. The powerpoint slides for the talk were also incredible and I'll see if I can show it to you sometime. In the meantime, check out the title slide image for this talk and other previous talks on www.picasawebalbums.google.com/ahable2/shared

So much to talk about! And this is a week ago!

So we had project a week ago and a day ago. I've just been sick and feeling out of it and not blogging. I promise I'm alive. Last week we went to Winter Park, which is a ski resort in the winter but a 'theme park' in the summer. There they had the gyroscope thing you see Beth and Wyatt spinning around in and the Alpine Slide you see people going down in the last picture. However, due to the way God made the day, it rained. It JUST occured to me that it was ok that it rained. In fact, it was good and God's will. So instead of going down the Alpine Slide a gazillion times, we all went down once and got caught in a thunderstorm on top of the hill waiting to go down. We had to take a bus down instead of the sleds on the slide. The bus was packed and all it was missing was some produce. We made the most of our day and played some Mafia, which is a great game for large groups. Then we dared to brave the gyroscope and the human maze. Finally, we went back to Estes and ended our day.

More 4th Parade Pics

Edit: what a lame post. Check out www.picasaweb.google.com/ahable2/COLT07
Apparently I can only post 4 pics at a time. So here are some more. Those crazy YMCA staff...

4th of July Parade Pics

Here are some pics from the shortest and most enthusiastic 4th of July parade in America. At the YMCA of the Rockies we have a sweet parade. Here is a look into what the crazy people at the Y come up with.