Greater Love Has No Man...

I have been thinking about the way people use the word love. A lot of people i have talked to about it lately have said that they think the word love has been devalued. I don't neccasarily agree with that fully or completly... but i do to a certain degree, and here is why. There are a lot of things that i love, for example I love my parents, but i also love my iPod. The iPod does nothing except provide me with entertainment, whereas my parents have provided me with everything that i could have needed or wanted. my iPod couldn't do that.... but i love them both. Now am i equating my parents to an iPod..... No! does it cheapen or devalue my love for my parents? Not in the least. because if I was given the choice of getting red of my iPod or never getting to see my family.... the iPod is going out the window rather quickly. Why? because my love for my parents is so much deeper and so much stronger.. and they are so much more important to me. I believe that there are varying degrees of love. I don't however believe that there is a universal scale. Not everyone will value all things the same way or manner as you do. But there is a love that according to God trumps all other loves. Iv'e been reading John alot lately and it has quickly become one of my favorite books and within it i have found one of my favorite verses.. John 15:13 says "Greater love has no man than this, that he lays down his life for his friends." Jesus continues to amaze me. He doesn't say.... has his life taken... he says.... lay it down. Making a conscious choice to put others as more important than you. I don't think that this only stops with our life... but aspects of our life as well. Take pride for instance, are we willing to lay our pride down and admit that maybe.... just maybe someone can do better it better than you, whatever It is. or what about time....are people worth your time are yhou willing to give up a little time doing something that you enjoy... to spend with someone else... if it means bettering a relationship. Jesus also fascinates me in another aspect of this. He again goes above and beyond what everyone else does. He doesn't stop at laying his life down for his friends... but the people who hate him and rejected him as well.. Take a minute... and think about that..... I know that in a heart beat i would be able to lay my life down for my family and friends, but someone that has hurt me or mistreated me..or someone i don't get along with or consider a freinds.... i struggle with that... yet Jesus was totally unbiased in his decision... he didn't say he was willing to lay it down just for the apostles or disciples, he didn't say for everyone but this group or this group of people. but for the sins of the world... not the sins of a few. like i said i struggle with with doing to same for my enemies.... but i take comfort in the fact that the verse says... greater love has no MAN.... which Jesus was so much more than mere man... that tells me that i will never be able to love the way he did... at least not to the degree he does..does that mean i shouldn't try... no not at all i should give it my absolute best... but that also means that i will never be hated and rejected to the degree that Jesus is by some. Just wanted to share some of my thoughts. i would love to hear your thoughts and comments.... or even disagreements... I love y'all (in your respective degrees of course)

I Love You This Much

I'm not sure how many of you like country music or not. I've been listening to alot of country lately for two reasons... 1) i just really like country music 2) because it gives me this feeling of nastalgia, of when i worked with my dad, reminds me of home. One song in particular has made me do alot of thinking lately. Jimmy Wayne sings a song called "I Love You This Much" (Watch the video here).

The Song is about a boy who desires nothing more than his dad's (i think this is an inappropriate term for this man) love. The boy is constantly trying to get his fathers affection says with tears in his eyes and his arms stretched out as for as they go " I love you this much... and I'm waiting on you to make up your mind... do you love me too, however long it takes, I'm never giving up, no matter what, I love you this much."

Story goes on to the father's (i think this is more appropriate) funeral, where the boy now aged into a young man is staring at a statue of Jesus hanging on the cross. "He said "forgive me father", "when he realized, that he hadn't been unloved or alone all of his life, His arms were stretched out as far as they'd go, nailed to the cross, for the whole world to know... "I love you this much and im waiting on you to make up your mind, do you love me to, however long it takes, I'm never giving up no matter what, I love you this much."

Do you ever feel unloved and alone, like no one cares? John 3:16 says "for God so loved the world he gave his one and only son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal........ Wow!! thats love... i don't understand this love, the willingness to give up a child to me is unfathomable..... but am so very thankful that God loved us enough to do it....

I cannot read that and not feel loved. Its so easy to forget that God is omnipresent therefore God is always with us... makiing it impossible to be alone... ever...

I hope that this post will remind you just how loved you are and that God is always there. God never turns down an opportunity to spend time with and talk to His children.....

Sealing Your Own Fate

If you have seen the movie "Premonition" this post may make more sense to you than if you haven't. if you havent seen it.. im going to give you a quick run down of the story and i mean quick without much detail... so if you don't want me to ruin the end skip to the next paragraph..... right now! hurry! A woman is waiting for her husband to return from a business trip, she answers the door it was a cop with the news of her husbands death...after she tells her two daughters they all go to bed... she wakes up the next morning laying next to her husband so she figures it was a dream..... basically it goes back and forth between her husband being alive one day then the next day being dead. so she eventually makes a calender of that week and the events so that she can avoid all the events that lead to his death. so one day she chases her husband down the highway in her car to catch his car to have him turn around before he gets the mile marker she was told his death occured in. she calls him and has him pull over before that mile marker and she convinces him to turn around so he turns around and is starting to head back towards her when his car dies and he cant get is started.... and a semi truck is careening towards his car and jacknifes as he tries to slow down. he reaches for the seatbelt to get out of the car.. it wont come out.... the semi hits him and explodes cause it was carrying natural gas.... all that to say that in trying to help him avoid his death she actually caused it. she caused what she tried so hard to avoid...

Ok so onto the biblical application of this....
John. 11:49-53
49.Then one of them, named Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, spoke up, "You know nothing at all! 50.You do not realize that it is better for you that one man die for the people than that the wohle nation perish." 51. He did not say this on his own, but as high priest that year he prophesied that Jesus would die for the Jewish nation, 52. and not only for thatnation but also for the scattered children of God, to bring them together and make them one. 53. So from that day on they plotted to take his life.

To give some background on what was going on right before this that brought these statements about... Jesus had just raised Lazarus from the dead...(thats another blog for another time... i have some thoughts for that.) In verses 45 and 46 it says "therefore many of the Jews who had come to visit Mary, and had seen what Jesus did, put their faith in him. But some of them went to the Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done. The Jews were still divided in what to think about Jesus, so many people were going to the Pharisees with questions so much so that they called a meeting of the Sanhedrin. the Sanhedrin was the supreme court of olden days for the Jews. If these guys got together on your account you were in some serious trouble. The Sanhedrin was scared that if they allowed Jesus to live that everyone will follow him, and that the Romans would come in and take thier "place" being there position in the Roman Government.. also that the Romans where going to come in and conquere them and become part of the Roman Empire... meaning no more nation of Isreal(note about this later in the blog).

after this Caiaphas (one of the High Priest) against his will (and according to God's) said " You know nothing at all! You do not realize that it is better for you that one man die for the people than that the whole nation perish" He just prophesied that Jesus was going to die for the entire nation of the Jews... so that they wouldn't have to perish, so that the scattered Christians would also be able to come together to be one...... and what was their response to that? "So from that day on they plotted to take his life"... What!?! Were they listening to Caiaphas? Did they not just hear that Jesus was to be a sacrifice? They were the chosen race...Why would they kill off the man that was going to die for them? They believed that if they killed Jesus that it would stop people from following him and then Rome would have no reason to take over the nation(Which takes place in 70 A.D.) So eventually when they do crucify and kill him..... They actually cause what they were wanting to avoid..... The Jews sealed their own fate....
All this goes to pointing out that you can't stop something that God has planned.... no matter what you do.. no matter what circumstances you change, as much as you would like to there is no way you can outsmart God.... it just doesn't work that way...

Just something for you guys to chew on......

Trying to Fulfill the Great Commision,
Evan

Catch Up

I have decided that Blogging has become my new white whale, my Moby Dick. I will defeat it... im sure of this.

Before i start catching up i want you to say a prayer for the current AIMer's..... im sure they would appreciate any/all prayers you could send towards them. cause the time to pick fields is drawing near.

HHHHMMMMMM...... time to play Catch Up.

Questura-(Police station)- So i finally got my appointment with the Questura to get fingerprinted for my Permesso Di Soggiorno which will allow me to volunteer in alot more places. because some people wont let you do any work with out the Permesso because they need to know that your legal...... i was suppose to go in a 8:45 so mike said that i need to get there atleast an hour/ hour and a half early.. so i went at 7:30 and there was a long line already so im waiting and waiting and end up waiting for 3 hours and i finally get to ght front of the line... and that was just the line to get in the line on the inside... and i got sent to the back of the line... later i found out i was sent to the back because they thought i was albanian.... so i wait for another hour and get inside and move through the line decently quickly... so then i got sent to the back of the line again.. but this time it was cause i wasn't chinese so i waited another hour.. one of the officers came and asked for my passport.. and he said.." oh your american... come to the front of the line and i was done with the fingerprints in 3 minutes... and so i waited six hours for something i could have had done in ten minutes.... next time ill make sure that they know that i am american when i go to pick it up in December. So i am very excited to get my permesso.

In september we went to Vicenza which is a town about 3 hours north of prato to visit a family that tracie met when she went to help the church with an event that they had... they are a family of four. James and Angie have two kids Caleb and Jared who go to school on the military base there in vicenza. Getting there was way harder than it should have been. our van isn't the most dependable vehicle so Mike was nice enough to lend us his car for the weekend. We fill up the car and get on the road well about two and a half hours later... the car just quits and dies on us.. so we get to the right side of the road and we are looking... we still had a quarter tank of gas.. so we checked the oil.. the oil was fine.. so next we checked the battery.. all the cables were attached properly and tightly. so we cal mike and he asked us what kind of fuel we put in the car... it was a small car so of course we put unleaded gas in it. Only to find out that it was a diesel car.. my initial reaction was aren't big manly trucks supposed to be diesel... and aren't you supposed to hear them coming down the street? but then i thought... oh yeah this is europe... things are completely different here. so we get towed to a garage so that they can drain our gas tank... the guy that towed us was really nice and gave us the $100 tow for free cause he felt bad for the Americans but we finally got everything straightened out... and back on the road... two hours and a hundred dollars later.... by the time you add all the gas from the first tank they drained and the second fill up.

But when we got there everything picked up and was good and great and wonderful. started off with it being a friday night going to an early OKTOBERFEST on the military base. Enjoyed some good German food, and watched some German competitions... like log sawing..didn't know that was German... but i guess it is. also got a chance to play some american football with some of the kids there... enjoyed that so much. when we got back to the house that night i got to play videogames with the kids which was a really good way to connect with the them. On that saturday morning the younger son Jared who is 11 had a soccer game... and they crushed the other team 8 to 0. it was my first soccer game to watch. i enjoyed it so much. The rest of the day we spent on base... i had Taco Bell!!!!!!!!!!!! it was so good... it was just a good day to be with the Hughes and get to know them a little better. Then on suday morning we went to church with the Hughes... and of course i only understood some of it. after that we went back to the Hughes homestead to prepare for a cookout for some of the church members there.. they were so much fun and James made some really good food. then a little later that night we had to go home. It was overall an amazing fun filled weekend.

My friends -we have a small group of friends that we hang out with on a regular basis... there are about 4 of them missing in this photo. While most of them speak english.. they are starting to speak more and more italian to us. which has been so helpful for me in learning... cause when i try to learn italian from a book... it just gives me a headache....not saying i dont learn from the books... but i learn better from actually speaking and listening to it. i enjoy hanging out with these guys so much. we don't talk a whole lot about the bible with them yet... but very slowly we are mentioning things. Hoping that they are going to ask more and more questions.

Church Unity- One of Mikes goals here is to try to establish better relationships between the churches in Italy. To do this you of course have to visit other churches. So mike took us down for a nights stay in Rome to be with the church. we got there on saturday night and had pizza and a meet and greet and a devotional. then we went to our host families houses... me and brandon stayed with a certain Giancarlo and Ana Balboni... we had some espresso with them and talked for a bit.... going to bed soon after. woke up the next morning to go to church which was interesting cause there were 4 speakers all from different churches.... so that was really neat.... each of them had about 10 min. it was really encouraging to see them working together to proclaim God's word. after church we had lunch with our host families.... which with italians lunch can last anywhere from 2 to 4 hours..... so around 5 pm we headed home on the three hour drive... its a good thing that mondays are my off days.



New Naif Cooperativa- This is a place that helps people with physical and mental handicaps learn skills they need to get jobs. I go twice a week... once on monday mornings and Friday mornings. I love the people their the workers and the students both. they such have such happy go lucky spirits. if you want to know the honest truth i think they help me out more than i help them... they really put things in perspective for me. They don't lead what everyone thinks of as a "normal life" that they are "special". but they have more pure and true joy... than anyone i have ever met in my life... despite being "special" or not "normal"... there are lots of lessons to be learned from these guys... and im lucky God has given me the opportunity to work with these guys... God always finds a way to keep me humble.


I recently went into a bar( here in Italy a bar is somewhere you eat) and got a glass of a drink called spuma.... which kinda taste like flavored sprite.. that was in the morning.. the guy behind the bar was really nice... so i went back later that night for another glass and the guy asked me what i am doing here in Italy.. cause i look American and sound American when i speak Italian well i told him i was here to work with the Church of Christ... and i told him where it was... and i finished my spuma and left. Me and brandon went back the next moring for coffee and a pastry and as we were getting ready to leave he asked me ... so what is the difference between your church and the catholic church... and i told him there are lots of difference and he said like what..
and i felt bad cause at that point i had to tell him that i needed a few days to get it all straight in italian in my head... and he gave an amazing response and said... ok just come back when your ready and we will talk about it. So im currently working on that to talk to him... I so much look forward to it as it will be my first study i will have had since ive been here... so please pray for that.... that i can say whats needed for him to hear the truth.. that i don't somehow offend him cause of my broken Italian.

I hope that everything is all good and well with you guys... i miss you guys so much and it will be such a long time till we are together fellowshipping together.... but it will be worth the wait.... cause i have work to do here.... i want to thank you guys again for just how simply amazing you guys are and how encouraging and loving of a congregation yall are. Continue to spread that love to others.

AIMing to Fulfill the Great Comission,

Evan Wayne Williams

My first earthquake.....

no it didn't damage my house or me... cause all we got was the after shock of a 4.4 so it wasn't big..... it was about 1030 and i had just finished watching a movie...i was sick this night so i didn't go to florence with the rest of the team. and i was nodding off and i felt the house shake... and i woke up or so i thought and the house wasn't shaking anymore.... so i just went back to sleep. Woke up the next morning and was tellin brandon about my earthquake dream... and i told him... i was like brandon i swear it felt so real... then anna (one of our friends that was visiting) came down the stairs and said hey did you guys know there was an earthquake last night. so just a small experience i thought i would share with you

In Christ Alone

“I would rather live my life as if there is a God and die to find out there isn't, than live my life as if there isn't and die to find out there is.”

Albert Camus quotes

Wow....... thats a powerful statement made my a Existentialist. Camus would much rather follow what most people see as "strict" rules, and live a "good" life. because honestly if you live according to God.. you lose nothing, but on the other hand if you live a "bad" life and find that there is a God you lose everything.

Yay!!!

We have a coordinator again.... for those of you that don't know our coordinator has been on furlow(spelling).. well we finally pick him up the other day.....thats all i have for you today....
Love you guys and miss you.....


Thank you so much

In Christ alone,

Evan Wayne Williams

Convegno

Once a year in August the Italians have what is called Convegno... and its a meeting for any and all Churches of Christ in Italy, they all have an open invitation. Well Wednesday night the other three and I loaded up and headed to florence. Drove to the Huf villa outside of Scandicci, and started to meet people instantly. There were about 50 people that showed up ranging from nothern italy as Milano and as south as Taranto.

It was such a good spiritual uplift and opportunity to make connections with other churches.. one thing that excited me about the convegno was that there were other people closer to my age. most of my friends here are over 24 and some of them are my parents age....... weird i know. Despite the slight language barriers we managed to have some good laughs and conversations. Even thought all the lessons and classes were in Italian.... i got and understood a good third of what was going on which made me happy.

Overall the Convegno was an amazing experience i believe for all of those involved...

August Newsletter

First off i want to apologize for not keeping in touch very well lately and i have no excuse for it and im sorry.... all my supporters and my congregation... you guys deserve this. alright... so for those of you who are not really familiar with the Italian culture August is the month that everyone takes off for vacation.. Its been like a ghost town around here lately.

Well being vacation month the team and I took a trip to Rome and Pompeii. There was so much to do and see..... it was a good couple days. In Rome we of course we went to the Coloseo... pictured above. It is so big and so fascinating walking through and around it... so much history... but Pompeii is what really got me...... i said before i walked in there that "Its just a bunch of Rocks"...... man was i wrong.... this was such a fascinating place.. so historical, a place frozen in time. the thing that got me the most was the bodies....a family buried together.
You could even see their facial expressions and some of thier bones........ there is one picture that i took that is a body of a man praying......this picture amazes me but it also brings out a few questions
1. Who were they praying to?
2. Would they normally pray or is it just in an emergency situation

I also got to hang out with my italian friends on some nights....

Since our congregation isn't having church during August, we went to the Florence congregation. its a church full of sweet people.
Over all i had such a good August and i want to thank all my supporters for making this possible

New Friends

Alright!!!!!! i would just like to say that we are starting to make friends.... and it is so nice as much as i love my team and love to be around them it is nice to have someone else to talk to. In my opinion my Italian is still not very good... but i am starting to understand most of what people are saying i just really struggle with putting sentences together so that i can say what i want to say... so getting to talk with them is so good and refreshing for me someone that will correct me.

So when we went to language in June we met one a guy there by the name of Sandro, towards the end of june we went to Italia Wave you can read more about that in the previous post. But with his work schedule its hard for him to plan anything but we are still keeping contact and doing what we can. Then thanks to JaMarcus we were given a contact to a man named Patrizio. We met Patrizio in one of the squares in Prato, then met up with some of his friends and went to this hostile that on weekends is used as a place to hang out with friends we chilled there for a bit then went to a park and played soccer on a makeshift field using flip flops and the reflectors for car windshields . We had so much fun with these people.

Then the next day we went to a Birthday party with some of the friends that we played soccer with.... where we met some more friends...(its like a friends snowball). At this birthday party we had some good food prepared by an austrailian woman that is cousins with the birthday girl... and a chef on a yacht.. so needless to say the food was amazin and after chowin down water balloons start flying its pitch dark can barely see outlines... so much fun.... water flyin everywhere then we went to hang out at a pizzeria. went home rather late it was like 3 in the morning. Then Yesterday we met them at about five o clock the next afternoon and went to I Gigli which is what americans call a mall... hung out there for a while... it is more expensive here than in America and after that we went to florence or outside of florence really to this look out where you could see the whole city of florence and looked out and took pictures it was so beautiful up there .....


point of all this being is that i am super excited that we are making friends and things are starting to pick up here.....

AIMing to fulfill the Great Commission,



Evan Williams

ItaliaWave 2009

Italia Wave Love Festival is an homage to Woodstock which for the past few years has been held in Livorno, Italy.... which is close to Pisa. We started off by meeting up with our Italian friend Sandro who speaks really good english and we were driving to Livorno and he started asking questions about the church and what the differences were between our church and catholics and so the whole hour ride thats what we discussed with sandro.... you see this is amazing because sandro was raise atheist. We got the to concert and there were lots of cool bands and we got to meet a bunch of Sandro's friends who all spoke decent english and it was so much fun to get to hang out and chill with cool people and listening to good music.... the concert lasted till 1 in the morning and we were so tired by the time we got home.... thats all i really have to say about that... thanks for listening

Praise God for Young People

Yes i know im young too but you have to hear this story......
So back in March the rest of the team and I went to Houston for our challenge week and we did alot of activities with the youth group. One night i had a conversation with a particular kid named Corey Leighton, whose house we were staying at for a few nights. Well Corey is in Junior High, and we were talking and asked me a question that i didn't have the answer too nor have i ever thought about it... He inquired " Why don't Christians stand up for there faith and proclaim it.... why can't we be as willing to evangelize as people of other religions" and i couldn't give him an answer so i wonder why don't we have that tendency.... and even as a missionary apprentice i fail at this epicly sometimes by missing simple opportunities.

i have another lesson from this kid for another time but thats all i have for you right now. so remember to pray with me about having the eyes of Jesus when it comes to seeing opportunities to introduce them to the truth.

AIMing to fullfil the Great Commission,


Evan Williams

5 things you should know about Italy

So iv'e in Italy for about a week now and there are some things that i have learned that i would like to share with you.

1. Bars and Pubs are places to eat...they serve alcohol too but the main purpose is eating
2. Italians unless driving are almost never in a hurry.... and almost never on time
3. breakfast can be anywhere from 7:30 to 10:30, lunch is from 1 to 3 and supper is from 8-? whenever everyone gets tired of sitting at the table.
4. Italy is the wrong place to be if you want to see trucks.... they don't really exist here
5. Guys be careful about smiling at girls... they will think you are hitting 0n them....

well thats all i got for now so there is more to come

AIMing to Fulfill the Great Commission,

Evan W. Williams

February Newsletter

Mexico City

How does a thirty hour bus ride sound to everyone? Well that’s what we did to get to Mexico City. You may be asking yourself how you not get bored on a bus ride that is that long. I have a few answers.

1. Sleep
2. Read
3. Sleep
4. Homework
5. Sleep
6. Act like I know how to play the guitar
7. Say some random phrase like “Fat penguin” just to see who looks and what kind of conversation it will start.
8. Watch nacho libre (which is way better the second time)
9. Throw starburst at people while they are sleeping
10. Play would you rather
11. Play ISPY

But anyway enough about that there was a lot of things to see and do in Mexico City. When we first got to the pink house we were introduced to the missionaries that were living there. After we met them and they laid down some rules we headed to the hotel… well the guys anyway the girls stayed in the pink house.


On the first day we went out to a local park and handed out some fliers for a movie that they are going to show in tlalpan. It’s called the La Vida de Jesus (The Life of Christ) using the book of Luke to make a movie. They wanted us to invite everyone, and let them know it was free. Brandon and I thought we would try to evangelize a few Mexican kids that we saw at a playground, and all it took was taking out a hacky sack 1. and asking them quiere jugar? (Wanna play). I knew just enough Spanish to be able to talk to them… although I knew I that they had to be laughing at my awful accent and grammar. But we played hacky sack with them and just talked to them about why we were in Mexico, and they said they wanted to go to the movie so I gave them a flier and they said they will be there. Now that I think about it I wish I would have told them that I wouldn’t be…. We did the same thing the next day but for a different event, again I got to practice my Spanish. Hopefully I will pick up Italian pretty easy, which I want to thank Beth Hughes and Brian Conner for giving us private lessons….. back to Mexico.

There were some really cool things I got to see in Mexico.

This is one of the many Cathedrals or Catholic churches in Mexico City. This picture was taken on level ground the Basilica is actually leaning at that angle. Mexico City was built in a bowl of mountains and was once a giant lake so parts of the city is leaning and sinking because there is water under the foundations
Here is a pendulum that is hung in the middle of this Cathedral you can see how much the cathedral is leaning it started at the very right of the white tile and look where it is now. It is weird on the tile it shows the line that the pendulum has followed. It is something that we don’t see much in the states but in Mexico this is a very common sight…. To see a cathedral leaning.
This flag here is big enough to cover Row 10 in the apartment complex I live in. It was amazing…. I just wish that I could have got a picture of it while the wind was blowing it. This is in the courtyard of a palace that I will show you pictures of next.

This is the fountain in the one of the palaces we went to. This particular palace had murals all over the walls and I want you to be able to see them so check out my blog where I will have them posted. (evanwwilliams@hotmail.com)

To wrap things up I would like to say that I would love to go back to Mexico someday, maybe even for a couple of months. I love the people they were so open to talking to people, they are a very receptive people and very loving people. I miss being there sometimes, and I was only there for a few days, so I couldn’t imagine leaving if I was there for years.

Thanks again so much to all my supporters, can you believe its only two months before its time to go to the field….. its fixing to get busy around here with the trips we are going on in a few weeks. I love the fact that yall are still standing behind me. I pray for yall all the time and I hope yall do the same for me. I look forward to writing to yall again and I just want to say one more time I thank yall and love yall.

AIMing to Fulfill the Great Commission,

Evan Williams

January Newsletter

Move-In:
I was very happy to be moved in to my new apartment!!!! There was so much clutter in the house from having all the stuff of three people ready to move out. The move actually went really smooth and took me only four trips to move all my stuff and then 3 hours to put everything in its place and arrange the room the way I wanted it. I have a really neat set up my desk/ study area in my room takes up almost an entire wall. Then my bed and dresser takes up a wall, leaving the rest of the room open. I got used to sharing my room with someone and now I have a room to myself so my room seems so big.
Mission Term Orientation:
Now we have been asked to not tell future AIMers about Mission Term Orientation so if you plan on coming to AIM in the future jump ahead to the next section titled Camp Adventure Weekend/ Sunset Workshop. Ok I will start off by listing the rules that we will have for a couple of months.
1. No Driving - we have to walk or ride the bus or a bike to school (They let us drive half way because of construction…. But I’ve been riding my bike the whole way…)
2. No Texting or IM Conversations (Except on Friday evenings and Saturday)
3. No Internet (unless its email, or a site assigned by the school)
4. No Eating Out- (Drinks and Desserts only)
5. No T.V., Movies, or any form of electronic entertainment
The Sunday before our first day back at school we were given a sheet with all these rules. It told us to be at the school at 8:00… so me and the rest of my team walked to school. They had the doors locked and a white board with a time on it….. it said 8:30 so we waited and thankfully they came on time…. They took us in and had us gathered in this room. Then they introduced us to the President of Mbalal Land this strange made up country. Oh by the way they did all of this in languages other than English.
Right after they introduced the President there was a hostile takeover by a military coup. They came in with guns and took away the president. When we came back into the room they was only one or two lights that were on and we had to apply for these fake passports. I was done and in line and I was reading the application making sure I had gotten everything done….. and in tiny print and the bottom it said black ink only valid color I had filled out the form in blue ink so I had to start all over…. I was halfway through filling it out for the second time when one of the assistants started griping at me in French and ripped up my application… so I finally got it filled out and got to move on to the next part…. They stole my wallet so I got lucky that I had one of the assistants on my side and he got it back from me. So I finally got a passport and was able to just relax and wait.
Finally everyone got a passport and we met in the diner and Kris Smith (AIM Director) gave us a big long speech in Slovak… then they gave us this unflavored oatmeal… which wasn’t too bad… I really enjoyed the toast they gave us which had Vegemite on it. It was really good If you got a piece of toast that had it spread thinly, but the ones that had it thick were so salty. It was definitely an experience.
Next when we were done eating we met on the basketball court and in Slovak explain our next activity which will be something very similar to the Amazing Race… it was called the AIMazing Race. We were to work in our teams to obtain three envelopes that were spread out through Lubbock each of them had a different address and we had a time limit. The first envelope was at Kris Smith’s house, and it led to a house on Cornell Street... there are three Cornell streets. Luckily we got it right the first time, because the teams that didn’t, ended up in East Cornell which not the greatest part of town to be in. We got all three envelops but we got in eleven minutes late. We did a really good job though we were the second team in and the first team walked around for hours and found nothing.
Camp Adventure Weekend:
I got to hang out with Dustin and Adam for a couple of days which was really awesome. I miss getting to see them. It was a great weekend, we got to go to a place called carpenters church which is a place for homeless people to come get off the street and have some fun playing pool, or watching movies or just sitting around talking with buddies. On one of the mornings we got to hear Trey speak to us which was awesome… I love listening to Trey preach or teach. It was just an over all fun week end and im looking forward to the week long camp. So I can see Dustin again.
Thanks:
I want to thank my supports both monetary and prayer wise, Ive told yall this before but I consider yall to be partners with me in my Adventures In Missions and I mean it. I look forward to getting to tell yall about Mexico city next month It will be great.

AIMing to Fulfill the Great Commission,

Evan W. Williams

Family Pics

i just wanted to put up some pics of the people i love the most on here.