NIPTO, Day 241

Today was a long day. (Another one? I can't remember)

Well. Yesterday was long too. I never posted about that.

School, Urban Vision (Gym, art, dinner, art, homework), ballet (toooo much ab work! haha), jazz, and modern. Whew. It was a long day, but I got through it.
Then I fell into bed.
And had a very hard time getting out of it less than 8 hours later.
Had Spanish... it went okay.
Was in study hall for a long time...
Ate lunch with Julia and Joy.
Sat in on Mom's class, annnnd did school.
Went to the grocery store and sat in the car and read.
Went into the grocery store to pick out yogurt. (Exciting, I know.)
Came home.
Did some stuff.
Ate dinner.
Went to Kaytee's last soccer game of the season.
Talked to Kaytee after her soccer game about her drama and homecoming plans.
Annd now I'm here. Warming up. (Just my toes are cold now.)

Sooooo NIPTO? Yeah.

Joshua 24:1-15
¹ Then Joshua assembled all the tribes of Israel at Shechem. He summoned the elders, leaders, judges and officials of Israel, and they presented themselves before God.


Alrighty. So all the leaders/official people get together and presents themselves to God.


 ² Joshua said to all the people, "This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: 'Long ago your forefathers, including Terah the father of Abraham and Nahor, lived beyond the River and worshiped other gods. ³ But I took your father Abraham from the land beyond the River and led him throughout Canaan and gave him many descendants. I gave him Isaac, ⁴ and to Isaac I gave Jacob and Esau. I assigned the hill country of Seir to Esau, but Jacob and his sons went down to Egypt.
Joshua told the people a story. Well, God told Joshua a story to tell the people. A story about how their ancestors worshiped other gods. But then God led Abraham throughout Canaan and gave him Isaac. And he gave Jacob and Esau to Issac. And so it went.


 ⁵ " 'Then I sent Moses and Aaron, and I afflicted the Egyptians by what I did there, and I brought you out. ⁶ When I brought your fathers out of Egypt, you came to the sea, and the Egyptians pursued them with chariots and horsemen as far as the Red Sea. ⁷ But they cried to the LORD for help, and he put darkness between you and the Egyptians; he brought the sea over them and covered them. You saw with your own eyes what I did to the Egyptians. Then you lived in the desert for a long time.
Then God sent Moses and Aaron. He punished the Egyptians. And he brought them out of Egypt. When he brought them out of Egypt, the Egyptians pursued them. They were scared and cried out to God for help. He put darkness between them and brought them out of the sea. Then they lived in the desert for a long time.


 ⁸ " 'I brought you to the land of the Amorites who lived east of the Jordan. They fought against you, but I gave them into your hands. I destroyed them from before you, and you took possession of their land. ⁹ When Balak son of Zippor, the king of Moab, prepared to fight against Israel, he sent for Balaam son of Beor to put a curse on you. ¹⁰ But I would not listen to Balaam, so he blessed you again and again, and I delivered you out of his hand.
He led them around and they fought people and God helped them win. God blessed them for being awesome. (Yeah. Not really, I'm just tired or something.) He blessed them because others were trying to curse them. And God saved them.


 ¹¹ " 'Then you crossed the Jordan and came to Jericho. The citizens of Jericho fought against you, as did also the Amorites, Perizzites, Canaanites, Hittites, Girgashites, Hivites and Jebusites, but I gave them into your hands. ¹² I sent the hornet ahead of you, which drove them out before you—also the two Amorite kings. You did not do it with your own sword and bow. ¹³ So I gave you a land on which you did not toil and cities you did not build; and you live in them and eat from vineyards and olive groves that you did not plant.'
Thennn they crossed the Jordan. An amazing feat in and of itself. And the people of Jericho fought them. As did the Amorites. And about 6 other "ites."
God helped them win again and again. They didn't do it by themselves, they did it with God. He gave them land that they didn't work and cities that they didn't build. They lived and ate, but they didn't build or plant those things.


 ¹⁴ "Now fear the LORD and serve him with all faithfulness. Throw away the gods your forefathers worshiped beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve the LORD. ¹⁵ But if serving the LORD seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your forefathers served beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD."

NOW. He told them to fear the LORD. Fear of the Lord... I just did a quick search on Biblegateway.com of "fear the lord" and Psalm 39:4 jumped out at me "Fear the Lord, you his saints, for those who fear him lack nothing." 
They lack nothing. Impressive.
God told them to decide who to serve: him or other gods. 
They could choose whatever they wanted. But Joshua said (I think... or this is still God?) "as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD." 
I like that verse. :)



That's all for tonight... more tomorrow. I want to go to bed early tomorrow. We shall see how that works out! Hopefully, I'll be able to blog in the morning/afternoon. I should be able to, but I'm super good at procrastinating. Like I am right now. Because I should be going to bed/be in bed.
Sooooo g'night readers! Y'all are awesome for putting up with my nonsense! :)

NIPTO, Day 216

Today was fun :)

I got up. Got ready. Went to the pool store with Katie's mom before going to her soccer game. Went to Katie's soccer game. Moved to the stadium for her second game (JV first, Varsity second). They lost the first game. And the second. (Which they actually tied if you count how I score... half a point for every field goal (they play on the football field), and the last goal didn't count because the goalie got hurt. Sooo Yeah. haha).
I took a ton of pictures though. 425, in fact. That's 1.5 pictures a minute. For 4 hours. HAH.

Came home... read a book and listened to the bestest Pandora station EVER. (Glee, Broadway (Mama Mia, Wicked, Hairspray, a little RENT) and DISNEY(Broadway and original movie songs).) It's amazing. BTDUBS. I'll Make A Man Out of You just came on and I kiind of freaked out. SUPER awesome song. And here's a video. =D


Ate dinner and then we watched The Cosby Show for a long while.
And now I'm blogging. Because that's what I do late at night... (and often without permission =P).

Acts 27:1-12
¹When it was decided that we would sail for Italy, Paul and some other prisoners were handed over to a centurion named Julius, who belonged to the Imperial Regiment. ²We boarded a ship from Adramyttium about to sail for ports along the coast of the province of Asia, and we put out to sea. Aristarchus, a Macedonian from Thessalonica, was with us.


We. We we we. Luke, who wrote Acts, was with Paul the whole time! It's pretty crazy. First hand stuff here. But it was decided that they should go to Italy. They were handed over to Julius and got on the ship. And a few people were with them. The end. 
You thought this was going to be short, didn't you?! Surprise, surprise. It isn't going to be short. But it's not going to be long either. Just medium.


 ³The next day we landed at Sidon; and Julius, in kindness to Paul, allowed him to go to his friends so they might provide for his needs. ⁴From there we put out to sea again and passed to the lee of Cyprus because the winds were against us. ⁵When we had sailed across the open sea off the coast of Cilicia and Pamphylia, we landed at Myra in Lycia. ⁶There the centurion found an Alexandrian ship sailing for Italy and put us on board. ⁷We made slow headway for many days and had difficulty arriving off Cnidus. When the wind did not allow us to hold our course, we sailed to the lee of Crete, opposite Salmone. ⁸We moved along the coast with difficulty and came to a place called Fair Havens, near the town of Lasea.
Man. They had some crazy sailing conditions! 
They landed at Sidon and since Julius was a kind guy, he let Paul go for a bit and let his friends take care of him for a little bit. 
Then they went back out to sea. And it was really windy. And they couldn't really go anywhere. But they kept on keeping on. 


 ⁹Much time had been lost, and sailing had already become dangerous because by now it was after the Fast. So Paul warned them, ¹⁰"Men, I can see that our voyage is going to be disastrous and bring great loss to ship and cargo, and to our own lives also." ¹¹But the centurion, instead of listening to what Paul said, followed the advice of the pilot and of the owner of the ship. ¹²Since the harbor was unsuitable to winter in, the majority decided that we should sail on, hoping to reach Phoenix and winter there. This was a harbor in Crete, facing both southwest and northwest.

They lost a lot of time because of sailing around. It got dangerous. And they didn't listen to Paul. And tomorrow... they will reap their consequences. ;)


Goodnight.

NIPTO, Day 202

Hey-o! (Definitely picked that one up from Katie! haha)

Today was crazy. I got up, went to the Back to School Bash, came home and did a couple random things, read a little bit of a book, got ready, ate dinner, went to my best friend's soccer game (they won 3-1), went back to said best friend's house and made t-shirts with her sister&friend. I'll put pictures up when they're completely done.
Oh and after we made t-shirts, we just hung around and talked.
That's my day in a nutshell.
Now I'm going to elaborate on the Back to School Bash. Because that was from 9-3. Soooo that's a huge chunk of my day.
Got there, tied string on balloons (there were 144 balloons total... quite a few popped though), went to the sanctuary for praying/devotional/final instructions, went to craft station to help prep stuff there before the kids got there, went into the sanctuary and danced like crazy, talked to kids, was a pretend prophet of Baal, went to experiments (cornstarch&water and Diet Coke&mentos), then went to the bounce houses, stayed there for a long time, ate lunch, talked to Kayt for a bit, talked to Paige for a bit, watched the kiddos play games, went in to craft, but didn't actually do much because I mostly took kids to the bathroom, then went to the closing ceremony thing, was crazy some more, was a pretend prophet of Baal again, and then was crazy even more. It was a good time. But it was very tiring. But definitely worth it!

A'ight. I'm going to do NIPTO because it's uhm... not today any more. It's tomorrow. Sooooo Yeah. NIPTO it is.

Acts 19:23-41
23About that time there arose a great disturbance about the Way. 24A silversmith named Demetrius, who made silver shrines of Artemis, brought in no little business for the craftsmen. 25He called them together, along with the workmen in related trades, and said: "Men, you know we receive a good income from this business. 26And you see and hear how this fellow Paul has convinced and led astray large numbers of people here in Ephesus and in practically the whole province of Asia. He says that man-made gods are no gods at all. 27There is danger not only that our trade will lose its good name, but also that the temple of the great goddess Artemis will be discredited, and the goddess herself, who is worshiped throughout the province of Asia and the world, will be robbed of her divine majesty."

So a silversmith was kind of causing trouble. He made shrines of other gods. But because of Paul, people weren't buying them! Soooo he was kinda angry about that.

28When they heard this, they were furious and began shouting: "Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!" 29Soon the whole city was in an uproar. The people seized Gaius and Aristarchus, Paul's traveling companions from Macedonia, and rushed as one man into the theater. 30Paul wanted to appear before the crowd, but the disciples would not let him. 31Even some of the officials of the province, friends of Paul, sent him a message begging him not to venture into the theater.

The people heard this and got angry. Annnd those people got other people angry. And it all spread. Like wildfire. And the whole city was... "on fire," so to speak. They grabbed Paul's traveling partners and "rushed as one man" into this theater thing that was probably like a public forum type thing where people could talk&stuff. Paul wanted to go talk to them, but the disciples would not let him. It was too dangerous... so they thought.

32The assembly was in confusion: Some were shouting one thing, some another. Most of the people did not even know why they were there. 33The Jews pushed Alexander to the front, and some of the crowd shouted instructions to him. He motioned for silence in order to make a defense before the people. 34But when they realized he was a Jew, they all shouted in unison for about two hours: "Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!"

Everyone was confused. People were yelling different things and other people didn't even know why they were there. How crazy is that?!?!
Then this guy gets pushed up to the front. And the crowd was shouting at him what he should do. He motioned for them to be quiet, and then they realized that he was Jewish. And they shouted him OUT. For a long time.

35The city clerk quieted the crowd and said: "Men of Ephesus, doesn't all the world know that the city of Ephesus is the guardian of the temple of the great Artemis and of her image, which fell from heaven? 36Therefore, since these facts are undeniable, you ought to be quiet and not do anything rash. 37You have brought these men here, though they have neither robbed temples nor blasphemed our goddess. 38If, then, Demetrius and his fellow craftsmen have a grievance against anybody, the courts are open and there are proconsuls. They can press charges. 39If there is anything further you want to bring up, it must be settled in a legal assembly. 40As it is, we are in danger of being charged with rioting because of today's events. In that case we would not be able to account for this commotion, since there is no reason for it." 41After he had said this, he dismissed the assembly.

Crazy stuff, don't ya think?
The city clerk got involved and basically told them what was goin' on. He told them not to do anything crazy. Stay calm. He kind of reprimanded them for bringing the men there without any real reason. He told them that if there were a legitimate reason that they could take the guys to the courts to have it settled. But they needed to break everyone up because they were in the precarious position of possibly being charged with rioting because of what had happened. And because there weren't legitimate reasons for bringing them there, there's no reason that they should be there. And then he dismissed them. Simple as a flick of the wrist. Or something.

Whew. I'm TIRED. And definitely ready for sleep. (Thank goodness for spell check! haha)
Hope y'all had a goood Saturday! (Happy Birthday, Riley! He turns 2 today! Craziness.)

Well. g'night!

NIPTO, Day 145

Hello!
Not much has happened since I last blogged... You know, from last night to this morning ;)

I'm watching the Netherlands vs Brazil game. Katie's watching this game in Germany with her roommate whose family is from the Netherlands. And I like having someone to root for... so GO ORANJE! :)

The Karen girls are coming over later... I think we're going to go swimming, eat dinner, watch a movie... they're spending the night. So Mom will probably take them back Saturday morning. Then we're going to rearrange my rooooom! =D
Can you tell I'm excited to rearrange my room? Probably not.

Booooooooooooo Brazil just scored. :( (this game has a plethora of fouls! It's crazy.)
(I missed the second half of the game, but Holland/Netherlands won! Yay! They play Uruguay soon.)

NIPTO time though :)

Acts 2:29-41
29"Brothers, I can tell you confidently that the patriarch David died and was buried, and his tomb is here to this day.

David's dead. Really. That's all.


30But he was a prophet and knew that God had promised him on oath that he would place one of his descendants on his throne. 31Seeing what was ahead, he spoke of the resurrection of the Christ, that he was not abandoned to the grave, nor did his body see decay. 32God has raised this Jesus to life, and we are all witnesses of the fact. 33Exalted to the right hand of God, he has received from the Father the promised Holy Spirit and has poured out what you now see and hear.

David might be dead, but he was a prophet. And he knew that what God promised, God did. David, hundreds and hundreds of years before Jesus was even born, spoke about his death and resurrection. He spoke about how Jesus wouldn't stay in the grave.
He's telling them a fact: God raised Jesus from the dead and we all saw it. These people would've known all about what had happened. So it just makes sense for Peter to tell them that.
Jesus is exalted to the right hand of God, and he received from God the Holy Spirit. He poured out what they could see&hear: the people speaking in lots and lots of different languages.



34For David did not ascend to heaven, and yet he said,

" 'The Lord said to my Lord:
"Sit at my right hand
35until I make your enemies
a footstool for your feet." '

David never went up to heaven, but he still knew that Jesus sat at the right hand of God. Because God told him so. (so there. hah)


36"Therefore let all Israel be assured of this: God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ."

37When the people heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the other apostles, "Brothers, what shall we do?"

Peter told them that God has *present tense* made Jesus Lord and Christ.
So everyone heard this and they were affected by it. And they asked the apostles what they should do.


38Peter replied, "Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. 39The promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off—for all whom the Lord our God will call."

Peter told them what they can do. Repent. Be baptized to show your commitment. And be forgiven of your sins. When all that happens, we get the Holy Spirit.
This is for everyone. For all who are far off. For all whom the Lord our God will calll. Everyone.

40With many other words he warned them; and he pleaded with them, "Save yourselves from this corrupt generation." 41Those who accepted his message were baptized, and about three thousand were added to their number that day.

I wonder what other words he used to warn them and plead with them to save themselves from a corrupt generation. I feel like I'm living in a corrupt generation. Or a corrupted generation. Or at least one that is easily corrupted. Hm. I guess we won't know what he said. I just think it'd be interesting to know if we're missing something. *shrugs* I don't know!
But everyone who accepted what he said was baptized. Three thousand people. That's a TON of people! Crazy.


Ahhhhhh it turned into another late night of blogging. But whatever.
I have a little piece of news: I might be talking (sharing a "testimony") about NIPTO at LT! So that's kinda cool... just about what it is and how it's changed me.
It really has challenged me to be more like Jesus. I've done a lot more reading. A lot more looking into scripture. A lot more... STUFF. And not useless stuff either. Stuff that helps me figure out more of what God wants for me and for my life. It's pretty great. I'm glad I'm doing this. It's challenging. And sure, there might be nights where I'm up until past midnight blogging/reading, but it's so worth it. And I can tell it's going to be worth it in the long run.

Annnnnd in other news: I'm the person who gets into debates on facebook. I don't know WHY. I like to think that I'm a pretty non confrontational person. But somehow, I get into a debate/argument with someone! Maybe I'll write a separate post on this tomorrow if I have time. But we'll see. I also want to do a little research and write a post on consumerism. Heh. That might be more of a rambling rant, but we'll see how these things go.

I guess I'm going to go to sleep now... so
Tchuss! =P (My German knowledge coming into play!)

NIPTO, Day 125

Hello. I've been thinking. And 125 days is a long time. That's since FEBRUARY y'all. (No. I'm not from the south. I just have cousins who are ;) And I've blogged every day. Or at least within an hour of every day ;) I find that encouraging.

There should be a new round of NIPTO-ers soon :) I'm excited. I hope people decide to do this. It's fantastic. It takes a lot of effort, but so much change comes with the effort. It's worth it.

I watched the Argentina vs Nigeria World Cup game today. Argentina won 1-0. I was rooting for Nigeria. I'm not sure why... but I was. 
The USA vs England game is on... like, NOW! It's one of the only games that's on "regular" TV. Like ABC. Not ESPN. =D (Okay. That's a lie. There's going to be a game on tomorrow afternoon. I forget who's playing... Germany&Australia, I think?)

Garage sale is over... not many people came through today. Yeah. Kinda boring.

GO USA! England scored. Let's go U-S! LET'S GO! I like soccer a lot. :) I think the next month will be enjoyable... tee hee hee.
WOOT! England's goalkeeper majorly failed and therefore, we scored! YEAH.
Ended up a tied game. YAY! USA plays again on Friday afternoon.

We went to a graduation party. We ate. We talked to some people from church. We talked to some people who were neighbors of the guy who was graduating. It was all very interesting. But not interesting enough to actually write more about it. :)P

NIPTO!
Ephesians 2:19-22
19Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God's people and members of God's household, 20built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone.

Because we are all in Christ, we aren't foreigners. We're all citizens, neighbors, with God's people. We're all a big family. We're all part of HIS household. And his household is built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets. And Jesus is the cornerstone. The cornerstone is set and everything else is matched up to that. We're all matched up to Jesus!


21In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord.

This isn't any building. This is a building that works together and has become a holy temple in the Lord!


22And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.

 And we're being built together so that we can become a place for God to live in us in the form of the Holy Spirit.
Does that all make sense? It's kind of an... abstract idea. But it's a really cool one once you begin to grasp it!

I think I'm going to start a post on the "self-discovery" exercise that I did with my family tonight. I'll explain it. You might've seen my status on facebook. That's what was on my mind ;)
Hope you had a fantastic Saturday!