NaNoWriMo 2005

2005-12-01T10:09:00.000-08:00

Well as you can see I haven't updated in forever. Mosty because I think Blogger is not as user friendly or as widely used as Xanga. So if you want more up-to-date info on the life and adventures of Ahrotahn/Justin then go to: www.xanga.com/ahrotahn
Some exciting news for me and people like me out there (yeah that doesn't make much sense) National Novel Writing Month has come and gone again with minimal injuries. I finished with 53 minutes and 27 seconds left, quite a tight squeeze there. Then i foolishly stayed up with my roomies to watch "Mr. & Mrs. Smith" when i should have gone to bed. I had work this morning and I didn't arrive in good shape. oh well I'm tired of writing. I already wrote 50,000 words last month, how much more writing can you expect from me!?

Chicago Mysterium 2005

2005-07-23T19:07:00.000-07:00

My Chicago Mysterium post won't fit on Myst Blogs, so if you want to read it go to www.xanga.com/ahrotahn

Post Numero Uno

2005-06-22T21:50:00.000-07:00

I'm going to start this blog with one of my latest Xanga posts. For those of you who haven't seen my Xanga it is: www.xanga.com/ ahrotahn

Wow, I'm pooped. I just got back from a five-day trip to Columbus, Ohio. It was a City Outreach mission trip with Rosedale Mennonite Missions. We got to stay at this really big house called the SEND House. SEND is an acronym for Service, Evangelism, Nurutre, and Discipleship. The other people from Lakers that went were Jonathan, and David Maust, Mitch, Jaclyn, and Megan Yoder, and Mischelle Bechler. We also had Korey Canfield from USA and Kendra and Heather from Owengage.
After a 6 hour trip down that started at 7 on Wed morning we met our staff. Adam Maust (they're everywhere!), Anthony, Randy, Betsy, Sarah, Lindsey, and Carmal. They are so funny and awesome. We had some praise and worship and then the girls went to a shelter for women called "Rebekah's Place" where they helped serve supper, and sang with the women there. Us guys went to the "Manna Cafe" where we served some needy people supper. We spoke with a man named Moses who had immigrated here from Africa back in the 80's I think he was from Sierra Leone or something like that. We were done at 8:30 so we walked back to the SEND house. We seperated into little groups- mine was Korey, David, and Kendra- and talked about our missions and prayed then went to bed at 11:30.
On Tues. we had breakfast, Praise and Worship, a drama, a talk from Conrad Esh, then we prepared for the gruelling Prayer Challenge. The Prayer Challenge was a scavenger hunt in downtown Columbus and involved 6 hours of walking. The purpose of the walk was to help us understand the people we are praying for, and it worked really well. We split into 2 groups- mine was Jon, David, Korey, Kendra, and Megan- an started our race. We found out that Michael Coleman is the mayor of Columbus, and Bob Taft is the govenor.
We walked from the Send House towards downtown where all the stuff was. Korey walked up to people right away and got the answers to the questions about the mayor and the govenor. She also got us directions to the Topiary Park which was our first stop. We met Anthony there and sang Amazing Grace while he played guitar. The we went to the Manna Cafe church and learned about its history. President McKinnley went there when he was govenor of Ohio. After that we walked some more and found Randy by the Courthouse. He had us split up - girls in one groupp, guys in another- and we were supposed to find 3 people to pray for. The first guy we approached gave us a very positive response and we prayed for his menotoring program, but nobody else would talk to us or let us pray for them. We prayed again as a group and then went towards the mall. We were given $5 to take a homeless person to dinner and it was getting towards the end of dinnertime. The moment we mentioned it we heard a jingling from across the street and we found Ed. We took him to Wendy's and waited in line with him for the food. He really likes coffee and working in warehouses. He also said he belives in God. It's incredible when you find people in awful conditions and instead of having less faith they often have more. We walked to the City Hall and finally found Betsy hiding across the street. We did a prayer walk around the Police Station. A prayer walk is when you walk arounf a building praying out loud and just praying about whatever God puts into your head. David and I partnered up and we walked around the block then waited for the rest of the guys. We then went to Nationwide Plaza or something like that. We saw Sarah sitting cross the street, knitting. The other group had almost offered her a meal, thinking she was a homeless person. She had her hood up and she was sitting on the bench facing away fromt he street. She gave us each a bottle of water and sent us off in twos to give them away. David and I are apparently very scary because we walked 3 city blocks before anyone would take a water from us. Everyone else had gotten rid of their water so we walked up to a family and exdplained the scavenger hunt, but they wouldn't take the water! They told us we looked like terrorists and left. A cab driver took one and finally another lady took one saying that she wouldn't frink it but she would give it away for us. When she heard what had happened to us she laughed pretty hard. Then we went to North Market and had to run around looking for Adam, who avoided us. We finally cornered him on the second floor and prayed for the different ethnic groups of Columbus. After that we started to go back to the SEND house, stopping at the Faith Mission and City Library on the way.
The next day we had a SEND Dept. promo. It was very interesting, learning about how ethnocentric we Americans are. After lunch I went to Victory Missions with Adam, David, Heather, and Mischelle, while everyone else went to a Somollii refugee Vacation Bible School. I helped count and sort, and saw a bunch of size 44 boxers and underwear. Unfortunately for Adam, who was sorting them, they were stained. Of course I didn't feel to bad for him cause he called my name and said catch, then threw me a pair of pink speedos. That night we had a Somollii meal, sitting on the floor, with no silverware or chopsticks or anything. There were little pitas with ginger in them and big communal platters of rice with veggies and meat on them. It was very good. Then we had some sponge cake with Chai tea, also very good.That night the girls went into the house and the guys went into the carriage house and we talked for a long time. It was one of the best expiriences of my life, and I coud tell by the laughter from the girls later on that they had a strong bonding time as well. After we finnished talking and praying us guys played that word game with the timer thing and then Pictionary. It was the most evil game of Pipictionary ever. We All Play almost every time and we'd go back and forth, nobody moving for almost a half-hour.
Saturday us guys dug up the sidewalk and got the path ready for a new one that the next group will probably pour. Later we walked arounf the hood and handed out invitations to kids for a Bible School. When we went to the park only about 10 kids came, but we had a blast anyway. We played kickball, sang songs, heard a story, played freeze tag til us big fat kids were to tired to run and then we packed up and left. One of the little guys, Montel, was saying that he wasn't coming back if we weren't doing it. I thought that was nice that he thought we were that good, but I encouraged him to come back and told him the next people might be even more fun. While we were doing the VBS another group was going to a Latin Festival, handing out water. Jaclyn said she had fun and the others seemed pretty pleased with how it went, thoguh I didn't hear any specific stories.Later we went to churhc at Vineyar Chruch, which feels more like a mall with its gourmet cafe, and bookstore.
Today we went to an old folk's home where we visited and talked with people. Later on we (had/did/took?) Mass and sang songs. Then we went to the SEND house, took pictures, said our tearful goodbyes and left for home.

I came across the most hilarious thing while I was surfing the web looking for pictures. Do you want to meet a manic-depressive web server?
http://www.columbustour.com/newlook/..images/church.JPG The message is really long, but incredibly funny.

Yodah's Blah-g

NaNoWriMo 2005

Chicago Mysterium 2005

Post Numero Uno