Suit Up: Family Style

Over the past few months, the church I go to in Jackson has done a sermon series (available online for those interested) on Ephesians and how to do church "family style." I like that. Community is important to me, and family can be a prime example of community (I know not everyone feels this way and for good reasons). Granted, with breaks and such, I was not there for all of those weeks, and in all honesty, I don't remember a lot from many of the sermons I was able to hear. That wasn't the case for these last two sermons.

Well, Jesus loves you!

This post brought to you by three hours of ultimate and linear dynamics.

Be a Blessing

Here it is: an honest to goodness new and original post. This post brought to you by cinnamon toast crunch and the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

Let's Hope for the Best!

This post is brought to you by 80s pop and a leftover pork chop.
And here we go:

Beating a Dead Horse

So, my girlfriend's sister, Katie, has a pretty cool blog that she keeps up (significantly better than me). It mostly pertains to daily epiphanies and various international adventures (hers and others). She's also a writer, so it's probably all a lot better than what you can find here. While I can't say I consistently read it, what I've read has been good. Anyways, she asked me if I would write a post about my trip to Cambodia back in January (here's my post on her blog). I promise to stop beating the horse after this one. This will be more Q & A (it's like an interview with myself, eh?) rather than me free writing a bunch of nonsense. These are some things Katie asked me to touch on:

Cambodia Blog #2

This is the second post I put on the trip blog in Cambodia. I'm interested in hearing your thoughts.

Cambodia Blog #1

This is the first post I put on the trip blog in Cambodia. I'd really like to hear what you think.

16 Hours

Hey all,

In about 16 hours, I will be getting in a van and traveling to Chicago. Not that exciting. What's really exciting is that from Chicago, I'll be getting on an airplane and flying to Bangkok, Thailand; then a bus to Cambodia. Am I stoked? Absolutely. I've already talked about this a little bit a couple times, so I won't bore you with my excitement. The point of this post is to give y'all a little more information about the trip. If you follow this link, you can see more information about the organizations and places we'll be going to. There will also be a calendar with prayer requests for each day. If you could be praying for us throughout the trip, that would be great.

Anyways, that's all I've got for now. Catch ya later,
Zac

P.S. Don't forget to check out the trip blog throughout the next three weeks.

Information from me to you

Hello friends,

So, as most of you know, I'll be leaving for Cambodia in a week. While there, we will have intermittent internet. As part of the trip, the whole group (including myself) will be posting on a blog. You can find it here. I might post my own stuff here, too, but I also might not. I might copy my posts from there to here (or vice versa), but I also might not. I can't really say anything for sure on those two fronts. Basically, check out this blog to follow the trip. Here's my first intro post. It's pretty basic, nothing too special; I just thought you might be interested.

Hey all,
This is probably going to read pretty closely to other intro posts, but that's okay, right? 

To say I'm really excited for Cambodia would probably be an understatement. I mean, it's just plain exciting to travel in the first place, but on top of that, I'm certain it's going to be an eye-opening trip, making it all the more special. I'd bet everyone else in the group feels pretty similarly. 

That's something that will be interesting for me though: seeing as I don't attend Calvin College, I know less than five other people going on this trip. I guess all those travel hours can be used for something after all then, eh? At least, if we're not all crazy after 20ish hours of confined travel. 

Something I'm slightly worried about is the food, but it should be more than fine. College has taught me to eat a lot of questionable food, haha. 

Well, I look forward to meeting those who are going on the trip, and I appreciate the thoughts and prayers of those following the blog from the States. 

See y'all in a week,
Zac Baker

Probably more info on my trip to show up here later such as a basic itinerary, "prayer guide," etc.

Merry Christmas

Quick update on my life (think of it like a Christmas card) before a special Christmas post (not written by me):

Meaning

This past summer, I had the privilege of being in my brother's wedding. In return for gracing his wedding and being a hilarious brother/"better man" (like a best man, but there were two of us, and anyways, isn't the groom truly the best man of the day?), he gave me book and a Taco Bell gift card (which still has to be used). The book he gave me was A Million Miles in a Thousand Years by Donald Miller (author of Blue like Jazz). I recommend it. I read it once, and I fully plan to read it again. Two quotes in particular stuck out to me, and I'm going to share at least one of them here (one problem with stream of conscious blogging: forgetfulness). Here it is:

Stress: Shear or Tensile?

That, my friends, is what you call an engineering joke. Not funny, right?

But seriously, I figured it was past time for a new post, and this has been in the sidebar for quite some time. Besides that, it's also fitting for my life right now. As some of you may know, I have five finals coming up in the next week mixed in with some homework.

The Myriad - Thousand Winters Melting

This summer, I worked in Holland, 5 days a week. It was a solid job. Part of my job though, was the 30 minute commute each way. This meant that I went through lots of CDs or just listened to them a bunch of times. I listened to a lot of different styles, bands, albums, songs, etc. At one point, towards the end of the summer, I rediscovered my love for The Myriad (unfortunately, they are no longer making music) and listened to With Arrows, With Poise. One of the tracks on this album is A Thousand Winters Melting (sorry, it's the best 'video' I could find).

10/5 Part 2?

You asked for it, so here it is. For Part 1, see here.

10/5

I'm pretty sure this is gonna be a weird post, but here goes another free write based on some stuff I thought of earlier today.

I would consider myself a fairly calculating and (usually) observant person. Sometimes, this used to come out in strange ways. Okay, I lied, it still does sometimes, but that's irrelevant.

What's the worst that could happen?

If you've been around me in the recent future, you have very likely heard me say something along the lines of "What's the worst that can happen?" I say it a fair amount, perhaps too much, even. Why do I say it? Because I like to think that I (at least, somewhat) try to live along those lines. What I'm trying to get at here is worry. While this question can be related to fear, worry, and I'm sure other emotions, I think that they share similarities but have mild differences.

This is it (or is it?):

...confronting my fear of absolutes. Sorta.
(See that^^? that's a subtitle. not sure if I've had one before.)

So, to be honest, I'm mostly writing this because I don't really want to be doing homework right now (don't worry mom/dad, it'll get done well). Ya see, I'd much rather write something crazy (or maybe not so crazy) on here than write about why all the gods hate Odysseus (false statement. Only Poseidon is pissed at him).

Nothing to Fear?

I was playing cards and talking with one of my friends the other day; and somehow, we got on the topic of fear. I honestly have no idea what we were really talking about, but one of us commented about how fear paralyzes people, and I thought, 'Huh... I should try to write something about that." Here's the attempt.

8/30

Well, here it is again: the dreaded apology post. I recently moved back to college (as many of you know is in Tennessee) and have been working to get back in the swing of things. I'm started my second week of classes, so I'm still figuring out a routine. I sincerely hope to keep some time for this in the routine. I enjoy writing it. It helps me talk in a way I normally don't get to, and it's even a little cathartic, ya know? I hope y'all enjoy reading it too, and if this is the case, I expect you to continue to ask me about when I'm going to put another post up. I appreciate you all. Stay gold.

"We have to help them!"

This whole summer, I've been working at a company called Innotec. Innotec is actually a pretty cool place to work (for the most part). As a company, Innotec was founded upon Biblical principles, and one of their main focuses for this year is stewardship. It has been important for them in the past, but it's specifically a focus this year. Example: one of my responsibilities for this summer was to plan a cell stewardship outing. So my cell (and one other guy) went to Habitat for Humanity for a day and worked on a house. The seven of us put up trusses by hand for most of the day. All this was encouraged by Innotec. In fact, Innotec in the past has allotted two weeks of paid time off for full-timers to do stewardship work (mission trips, various single day things, etc.), but recently have started to move away from that model in favor of specifically trying to make an impact.