well, i´m sorry that i haven´t updated. nothing too crazy happened the rest of the week at language school and i´ve been away from a computer since thursday.
tyler and shannon arrived safely on thursday night, so that is good. they met me for lunch in antigua with emil (our contact here who we are staying with this weekend) and i was really happy to see people i know. after school on friday emil took the three of us back to his house. we went for dinner at another friend´s house and that was a lot of fun.
today we woke up at 4:30, in the morning that is, in order to go hike an active volcano. the hike was really cool although visibility was about 25 feet for most of the morning due to an extreme ammount of fog. once we got higher and it got later into the morning the fog started to clear and we had a pretty amazing view. we didn´t see any flowing lava but did come across a lot of hot spots and saw a lot of dried up lava. tomorrow we will go to church with emil and head back to antigua where tyler, shannon, and i will be staying in the same house that i stayed at this week.
so i finished my first spanish book and got a 97% on my test, because i hablo mucho español now (sarcasm intended). But my spanish really has come along way in the last week. i went from barely being able to say anything to now being able to converse with people for about 5 minutes. the people speak so fast here so it is hard to understand but i feel like i understand more and more each day.
now that shannon and tyler are here it will be a much different experience. please pray that i continue to grow with the Lord and with culture/language here the way that i have been while i was alone. i´ll write back soon.
-colter
Saturday, June 28, 2008
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
First few days in Guatemala
note: i will not be capitalizing anything in this post because the caps key is super small and i always miss it.
anyway, i arrived into guatemala safely at about 9 30 on saturday night. i stayed the night at emil´s (one of the missionaries here) house and went to church with him in the morning. around 3 pm he took me to antigua where we went to another church and then i settled in with my host family. there is another girl staying in the room next to me who is 22 and from texas. her name is jazzelle and she showed me around the first night here.
so far i am loving it here. it is very beautiful, from the architecture to the weather. i´ve never walked to school before with a volcano in front of me, so that is pretty cool. the whole town is very ancient looking and it is very small. if i could post pictures i would. just google image search antigua if you want to see though, i´m sure they have better pictures then i do.
i started language school yesterday. i did 10 lessons and i guess i´m only supposed to do like 3 a day so my brain was pretty fried. the food here is awesome. so far every meal has just been me and jazzelle eating and whoever prepared it for us, watching us eat and smiling. we talk to the family but still, i feel like they should be eating with me. nothing so far has happened that has shocked me or made me feel uncomfortable. i guess this isn´t a super exciting blog. sorry.
well, i will try to get into a fight with some people and then write about it.
-colter
p.s.
liam, i am calling you later tonight so you can tell me all about the draft.
kyle, did you get my package?
tyler and shannon, i am excited to see you two.
family, i am safe and not sick and don´t have mosquito bites.
anyway, i arrived into guatemala safely at about 9 30 on saturday night. i stayed the night at emil´s (one of the missionaries here) house and went to church with him in the morning. around 3 pm he took me to antigua where we went to another church and then i settled in with my host family. there is another girl staying in the room next to me who is 22 and from texas. her name is jazzelle and she showed me around the first night here.
so far i am loving it here. it is very beautiful, from the architecture to the weather. i´ve never walked to school before with a volcano in front of me, so that is pretty cool. the whole town is very ancient looking and it is very small. if i could post pictures i would. just google image search antigua if you want to see though, i´m sure they have better pictures then i do.
i started language school yesterday. i did 10 lessons and i guess i´m only supposed to do like 3 a day so my brain was pretty fried. the food here is awesome. so far every meal has just been me and jazzelle eating and whoever prepared it for us, watching us eat and smiling. we talk to the family but still, i feel like they should be eating with me. nothing so far has happened that has shocked me or made me feel uncomfortable. i guess this isn´t a super exciting blog. sorry.
well, i will try to get into a fight with some people and then write about it.
-colter
p.s.
liam, i am calling you later tonight so you can tell me all about the draft.
kyle, did you get my package?
tyler and shannon, i am excited to see you two.
family, i am safe and not sick and don´t have mosquito bites.
Friday, June 20, 2008
What We're All About
From December 9, 2007
There’s a band that I used to listen to when I was in like the 8th grade. They sang a song called “What we’re all about.” The song was about how they loved to rock and it was what they were all about. It says, “Rock, it’s what we’re all about it’s what we live for, we want to shout it out.” Sum 41 wasn't too revolutionarywith their lyrics.
I love playing volleyball and even thought I’m not that tall my favorite thing to do is to block someone’s spike. If you ask me, it feels even better then spiking the ball on someone. I once blocked my friend Kyle’s spike which was a pretty big deal being that he is 6’7” and I am only 5’9”. It was pretty much the highlight of my life. The next time we played I was talking about how I love blocking and Kyle said, “Colter’s all about blocking.” Which is true, I love it. When I play volley ball, it’s what I’m all about.
When you’re all about something it means that it’s the center of your actions. It is what is on your mind the most and it is what you love. You place it above almost anything else. When I play volley ball I'm pretty much only thinking, "What could I do to get myself in place to block someone?"
The other day I saw a man wearing a shirt that said inspi(red) on it which is a campaign to stop war in Africa. Now I know it is not my place to judge who is a Christian or not but I began to wonder if he was. Of course people who aren’t Christians can do positive things and support good causes but I feel like the people who should be supporting these causes the most are Christians. People go to church and they support the church and do the good Christian thing. What people forget is that there is a world out there that is suffering and in a great need of help. The purpose of a community is not to just to sit there and believe in the same thing. The purpose of a community is to be united in our actions and thought when it comes to the world we live in. When Jesus was around I am pretty sure he spent more of his time in the world then he did in the confines of a Church. He gave all he had to the poor and the hungry whether they were a Christian or not. He loved everybody no matter what. Jesus was all about love.
Once when I was at a worship gathering I noticed a frame that was on every table. Inside the frame was a card with some writing on it. It said, “Imagine the impact if every time the homosexual community heard the word Christian, they thought of the people who lovingly ran the AIDS shelters. Imagine the impact if every time a feminist heard the word Christian they thought of the men who held their marriage vows and were faithful to their wives.” I have grown up as an actor so all throughout high school and my first parts of college I had many friends who were either gay or feminists. As a Christian I got a lot of negative looks and comments from these people. Why is this? Because most of the homosexuals I knew had been told by Christians most of their lives that they were going to hell and that they’re lifestyle was wrong. Most of these women had been told by Christians that they need to just submit to men and serve and they shouldn’t be able to speak as loud as a man.
The other day I was reading in Matthew about when Jesus made a trip to Galilee. He ran into a bunch of homosexuals and women who believed they should be above men and he damned them all to hell and told them they were wrong. Wait a minute, that’s not in the bible. Actually the other day I was reading about how Jesus loved people even though they had sinned.
There’s a band that I used to listen to when I was in like the 8th grade. They sang a song called “What we’re all about.” The song was about how they loved to rock and it was what they were all about. It says, “Rock, it’s what we’re all about it’s what we live for, we want to shout it out.” Sum 41 wasn't too revolutionarywith their lyrics.
I love playing volleyball and even thought I’m not that tall my favorite thing to do is to block someone’s spike. If you ask me, it feels even better then spiking the ball on someone. I once blocked my friend Kyle’s spike which was a pretty big deal being that he is 6’7” and I am only 5’9”. It was pretty much the highlight of my life. The next time we played I was talking about how I love blocking and Kyle said, “Colter’s all about blocking.” Which is true, I love it. When I play volley ball, it’s what I’m all about.
When you’re all about something it means that it’s the center of your actions. It is what is on your mind the most and it is what you love. You place it above almost anything else. When I play volley ball I'm pretty much only thinking, "What could I do to get myself in place to block someone?"
The other day I saw a man wearing a shirt that said inspi(red) on it which is a campaign to stop war in Africa. Now I know it is not my place to judge who is a Christian or not but I began to wonder if he was. Of course people who aren’t Christians can do positive things and support good causes but I feel like the people who should be supporting these causes the most are Christians. People go to church and they support the church and do the good Christian thing. What people forget is that there is a world out there that is suffering and in a great need of help. The purpose of a community is not to just to sit there and believe in the same thing. The purpose of a community is to be united in our actions and thought when it comes to the world we live in. When Jesus was around I am pretty sure he spent more of his time in the world then he did in the confines of a Church. He gave all he had to the poor and the hungry whether they were a Christian or not. He loved everybody no matter what. Jesus was all about love.
Once when I was at a worship gathering I noticed a frame that was on every table. Inside the frame was a card with some writing on it. It said, “Imagine the impact if every time the homosexual community heard the word Christian, they thought of the people who lovingly ran the AIDS shelters. Imagine the impact if every time a feminist heard the word Christian they thought of the men who held their marriage vows and were faithful to their wives.” I have grown up as an actor so all throughout high school and my first parts of college I had many friends who were either gay or feminists. As a Christian I got a lot of negative looks and comments from these people. Why is this? Because most of the homosexuals I knew had been told by Christians most of their lives that they were going to hell and that they’re lifestyle was wrong. Most of these women had been told by Christians that they need to just submit to men and serve and they shouldn’t be able to speak as loud as a man.
The other day I was reading in Matthew about when Jesus made a trip to Galilee. He ran into a bunch of homosexuals and women who believed they should be above men and he damned them all to hell and told them they were wrong. Wait a minute, that’s not in the bible. Actually the other day I was reading about how Jesus loved people even though they had sinned.
Blog
So this is my blog. I wanted to start one before I left for Guatemala so people could keep up with what's going on in my life. Hopefully I will keep it up after I come back. I am going to post an old little blog thing I wrote so I have something for people to read before I post my first thing in Guatemala.
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