How can I start out a recollection of the days events other than at the beginning, and so at the beginning is where we shall begin. Unfortunately for me I fell asleep with the air conditioning on last night, though at this time it is appropriate to say that I sleep with the thinnest of sheets. With this information in mind you may be able to imagine how frigidly cold I was upon awaking. It was as if a dementor had snuck into my room whilst I slept, this my friends, and you are friends, is a Harry Potter reference.

After my rude awakening I cast lots to decide if I should take a shower, and I prevailed so I did not shower, a fact that is none too shocking I am sure. It is time for an admition of guilt! I did not cast lots. After not showering I went to cell group, where I ate a bowl of scrumptious Honey Nut Cheerios, compliments of DHQ (I think). After said treat we gathered into a circle of trust. Lemard was also eating a bowl of HNC, Ricardo was playing with his toe, Ryan was playing with a cross that he aparantly glued to his Bible during arts and crafts (taught by Kiri and Lindsey), I could see too much of Stephan’s leg, and Andres had a bruise on his knee that mystified and amazed. Had I seen this bruise before? No. Where did it come from? These were the thoughts I toiled over throughout cell group time. As you may have already come to the conclusion I will admit I have a short attention span, which may lead you to a clearer understanding of a Day in The Life of a BOS’er. It is now approaching lunch time, I skip from cell groups to lunch because in the intermittent portion all we succeeded in doing was packing up our Praise Band equipment, which is if I might add very nice indeed, onto a cart. What happened to that cart will soon be explained.

TO LUNCH! Today was a day of most importance for the guys, because it was our day to cook lunch. As is most time the actual cooking portion was left to those of us who have actually lived by ourselves. This was in fact, just Nate and myself, and due to this we beseeched Kiri to help us in our task of cooking rice and chicken. With utmost grace and benevolence she agreed. We preheated the oven and started bowling the stove with a ratio of 1:1 (rice to cups o’water). Now for you seasoned cooks who have ever cooked rice I implore you to keep this secret to yourself, for I was the only one to contradict such a preposterous ratio, which should have been 2:1. A prognosis that was later proved correct. For those of you in Utah, who believe a marriage should be of a ratio of 2+:1, I remind you, marriage is not rice. I would like to mention that I first learned of the 2:1 ratio while my parents were out of town and I was cooking for myself. I called my mom and asked her how to make rice and she told me the secret, Hi MOM! While the water was boiling Nathan and I arranged the chicken onto baking pans and preheated the oven. During this time we were distracted by a dance battle that took place in the other room. This was a dance battle the likes I have never seen before. It was so intense and grandiose that I start a new paragraph.

The first thing I saw as I entered the room was Lemard and Kiri. Lemard was doing a little move called “Lean with it, Rock with it” while Kiri was doing a dance that reminded me of the old Scooby Doo cartoons. You know the one, where it looks like they’re dancing under water. Before anyone jumps to any conclusion such as that that is a bad thing I would like to clarify that I love Scooby Doo and so it was a joyous moment. I was most impressed as my dance moves consist of sporadic movements not unlike epilepsy. After said battle, Andres moved into center stage with something that can only be described with a number of references and cross references. First: A Zombie Robot. Second: Simon Birch. Third: Moves selectively and delicately copied and reproduced from Grease as well as ‘The Motorcycle’. I forgot the most important detail, the music! The music was not my taste, but not much is these days and so it is something I can not only look past but learn to live with. It was a sort of gospel hip-hop. I believe it may have been Kirk Franklin. Please do not quote me on that particular portion, however if you must and feel led you may.

Whilst being distracted from the kitchen a bag that once held our most precious chicken was set ablaze by the stove. There were only two of us (both dudes) in the kitchen at the time and it was not my fault. I feel no need to embarrass anyone by saying who let the chicken bag catch fire, but I already told you who was cooking and stated that there were 2 of dudes in the kitchen, and that it wasn’t my fault. Search this entry for the truth, however, I didn’t say a name and so my conscience has been absolved of guilt. Lunch was delicious, and believe me when I tell you that I don’t bring this up because I helped make it, for even if I had lived under a rock and knew not the name nor face of the chef, the magnificent being who had created such a feast that I would still shout to the rooftops at how delectable it was. After lunch we prepared ourselves mentally and physically for the trying times due ahead, most conveniently dubbed VBS.

I will not tell a lie, nor will I short change you with any important information pertaining to the average day of a Survivor. During our daily commutes to and from the Corps we, the drivers, have had an ongoing habit of racing. I admit sadly that I am not always the victor, but as of lately I appear to have found my niche in the winners circle, and so my van rejoices with me. On this particular day I did in fact win the race to and from the Corp, though the second can hardly be called a race and so I do not feel I should take any mention of victory for it. It is intriguing to see the streets around the Midwest Corp, which is where we are currently stationed. One street has started tearing down the old buildings and have rebuilt new apartments or condos, of which I am not sure, however the other 3 streets still display the old style of run down buildings. It is disturbing to note with such impartiality and intrigue at the streets and so I must explain. The buildings in that area, and others, are being bought and turned into new fancy apartments to draw in people who have money, if you catch my drift, and in doing so make life too expensive for the people to already live there. It is in a similar fashion to how America settled in Native territory and then took charge of it, while ostracizing the Natives and eventually casting them out. This too will happen at the Midwest Corp. Large condos will come in and take the homes of the people there, and so while it is interesting to see, I cannot say that it is something I enjoy seeing. Despite this, the people of the Corp, and the VBS (which is filled with non-Corp members), seem joyful to be in the house of the Lord.

It is an uplifting experience every day that I am there and know that this is not a thought exclusive to myself. When we arrived at the Corp we were questioned on our willingness to unload a van for the food pantry. It was a delight to give back to a Corp that has helped us so much this week. With some difficulty we found a way to get 16 people into a line and move the food into the building. After we unloaded the van Mrs. Major Michaud gathered us for prayer, as we do every day. She has been delightful and as was explained to us she is “Fiery” which is immediately apparent after the shortest of conversations with her. I praise God for the wonderful officers he has sent to us in the Metro Division. I challenge you to seek out the Michauds and talk with them, for you will not leave the same person you were.

We start out every VBS with an opening in which we sing songs with the kids. The first of which, I am not the least ashamed to admit, I despise by now. The song is called “My God is Real” and I can only claim such loathe-full feelings because we have sung it so often. There are dance motions and until recently I had thought that it was blasphemous, you see, I thought it said “I can’t believe there is no other God” which Liz has pointed out is a double meaning which in fact means “I can believe are other Gods” which is something I disagree with and would never teach a child. However, I was mistaken as the lyrics say “I can believe there is no other God” and so there is no such problem with double negatives. Today was the second day that we had a special class for the older kids. The first of which resulted in 3 saved souls, in the lingo of our Salvation Four Fathers, (I believe specifically Brengle, in a book a read, it’s a tiny red one that is all about saving souls.) The second of which resulted in 4 more saved souls. It is with this end that we see that our presence has not been in vein and that God still lives in the Chicago and that he won’t go away. Hallelujah! This is the group that the Devil has been going after the hardest, the group that is exposed to drugs and sex and other temptations of the world, and God has sent us 7, so far, who have joined his ranks. I ask you all to pray for these 7, that God would cultivate a yearning for himself inside these kids, and that they would depend on him, and that they would be a blessing to others as well as be blessed.

During this time the younger children had bible study, arts and crafts, and Gym time (led by yours truly and Andres Villatoro). I cannot say much of the other two classes other than that I know the little kids are crazy about the crafts that they bring home and that they swing them around the place like a beloved Kite. It is from this that publicly give a big thumbs up to the art teachers. The highlight of every kids day is however, with all the humbleness I have, Gym Time. I know you expect me to say this as the gym teacher but today there was a boy named Kaer, who cried when he couldn’t play with a ball anymore. Didn’t see him cry when he forgot about his craft, no offense Lindsey and Kiri, but Gym time is just a little bit better. We played Dodgeball today with the kids, by which I mean we brought dodgeballs for the kids to play with. It would be cruel for any of us adults to throw the balls at the kids, seeing as how our muscles are roughly the size of their heads, and so we let them play with eachother. This is what I will detail about each group.

4-6 year olds: During their gym time Stephan played “basketball” with one of the kids, which was really just throwing the ball into the hoop. Which started a chain reaction of balls cascading through the air like fireworks on the 4^th of a July, a day which was a week ago today (as I am writing this now at 12:01). It was during this that the most adorable thing happened to me. I was playing catch with a boy named Joseph. We would both throw our balls into the air and try to catch them. He then ran over to our bin of balls and tried to open it. I ran over to him and told him, with my most child-like voice, “Joseph, there’s no more balls in there, we took them all out already.” To which he replied “I want to cuddle with them.” I may have laughed but it was truly 2 Cute. But I got ahead of myself, this was also the group that upon seeing a single ball, which was in my hand, surrounded me and clawed and yelled and giggled. The scene was too horrific to detail as it may scar your image of the children. However one boy succeeded in climbing onto another boy and hung onto my arm. This led to the lowering of the ball, and from there it went downhill. At this point I abandoned all hope of an organized game and instead merely tossed out balls for the kids to play with. Addie however, did not know this was happening and started to take the balls away from the kids. Needless to say, the kids did not respond well, and this is when little Kaer, the prince of all that is tiny, began to cry. I tried to comfort him to find out what was wrong, though I am no good at comforting. The best I could do was to rub his back and say “Hey guy, whats wrong? Are you Okay?” When he received his ball a moment later all peace was restored and his heart became full again. This is the way I would like to leave the group as it makes them seem the most innocent.

7-9 year olds: The time I took to plan a game was well used on this particular group. They forgot the rules, but when reminded they were quick to correct themselves. This was the most well behaved group of the day. Do not let those words deceive you though, for they were still a handful. It took them around 5 minutes, which in Spanish is, I believe, Cinco minutos, for the kids to become quiet enough to explain the rules. The kids who played had a very good time for the most part, though some of the girls decided they didn’t want to play, of which I will tell a story right now. One girl who was hit with a ball became very upset and so I rushed with all the speedyness I have to resolve the situation. The problem occurred when Girl A, for I cannot remember names, threw the ball at Girl B, and got her out. Girl B explained that Girl A was on her team and so she was upset that Girl A would throw the ball at her. Then I explained that in this particular game there were no teams and so she was indeed out, despite her beliefs of safetitude. At this explanation she became very disheartened and yelled “I ain’t playen no more”.

10 Years old and over: This group was by far the most troublesome. It was during this group that I entered into my 2 hour prayer shift, but due to several things I was determined to pray while I taught the class. This class needed the extra attention/supervision/person to make sure nothing inappropriate happens. We were to play a standard game of Dodgeball but they decided to break every rule. I spent so much time correcting them and asking them to step aside to the “out-line” that it became difficult to pray. They cheated more frequently then the small kids. That is all I have to say about this group, because they are still good people and only wanted to play a game more, and so by their cheating I know that they were having a good time and would have fond memories of VBS 2008.

After VBS I stayed in the chapel and scribbled a prayer in my journal. Larry Hood arrived soon with the sound equipment for Friday’s P&P night and so we spent time setting that up. The sound system at the Corp was in pretty bad shape, and was hard to get a good sound from. Larry was able to make sense of it and remedied the situation, which I know will be a big blessing to the Corp, I will not detail the condition of the sound system previous to being Hoodified, but it was in need of great work. We began to set up the praise band equipment and Larry’s equipment, which he dutifully brings every month. In the past month and a half, since congress, I have come to realize how big a blessing Larry Hood is to this division for all of his hard work. He is humble about his work and is one the best guys I know of. I say this so that you may realize that when Larry is thanked during the meetings, that it is of the sincerest gratitude. Praise band practice was pretty good, it was the first time I have heard Nate’s voice during a meeting. Usually I just play along with the drums and bass, of which are now far away from. Also we have enough music stands for all of us, which is a novel thing to me now. It makes me think back to the good old days of last week and the week before when I had to share a music stand with Kiri, or just look off someone else’s. I miss it, but I also enjoy having a stand of my own.

I forgot to mention dinner, which will be a quick mention. It was delicious. It is always delicious when we eat at the Corp. Mrs. Major Michaud cooks us wonderful meals that seem even more extravagant after a long day. After worship practice it was time to leave the Corp, it was around 8:30sh I think, though I can’t be sure. We walked out onto the streets and stared in awe and wonder at the clouds. They were moving fast and were dark grey, cracking and streaking light throughout the sky. It started sprinkling while we walked to the vans and by the time we sat inside it was pouring rain. However Kiri’s van has a broken wiper and so Audrey and the others were trying to fix it, it would not be fixed though. It dangled like a broken arm flailing from side to side. It was due to this that the other van had to follow me all the back home, under pouring rain, and so I cannot claim victory in our race, for their safety was far more important then a game. And with the arrival of our vans back at CFOT comes the end of our work day. The rest of the night was free-time, so that we could rest up and do it all again tomorrow. I hope that this entry has shown you what an average day looks like. Please pray for the continuing strength and unity in our group, and for the people we come in contact with. I would like to end with our memory verse from this week.

He has shown you, Oh man, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God. Micah 6:8