Muggle Bus

Muggle Bus

Originally uploaded by avowtostay

its 1:28am and i saw this picture about 10 minutes ago, and after wrestling within myself about some other stuff, i wanted to just stop and comment on this picture, leaving you guys with a something to think about.

the word muggle comes from harry potter and meant non magical people, which really sucked especially since all the wizards and witches got to do all the coolest junk like fight snakes, make potions and be invisible.
anyway, notice that we are human. You are human. we aren’t like super magical. Well im not and I’m realizing it now as im sitting here almost falling asleep over the keyboard.

So may you come to see that you are human first and student, or whatever else second. Know your limits and then you wont be too tired to be able to look outside of the window every once in a while and truly take in the beauty of this world. (which was so nicely captured by alessandra troncosso.)

her blogs on my roll if you desire to check it out,
and before you sleep, just stare at the picture for a while and take it all in.

eeek! attack! (17)

so, i haven’t blogged in quite a few weeks and here i am in front of the computer again wishing all of you the best as we begin school again.

you know originally I wanted to call my birthday day blog 24 well 17 oceans in honor of my favorite birthday song 24 by switchfoot, but i dont know, something about being tied up in a sheet and taken to the original pancake house motivated me to change it.

I just want to say, I love my friends, every single one of them and as I write this birthday blog, i want to let every single person reading this know, that life is so much sweeter when the honey of friendship is oozing from the seams of life and you taste it on your lips.

that’s what august 15th felt like for me. i mean, after we finished breakfast we went to office depot and walmart because robby needed school supplies and then finally to publix because i needed food to feed all of my insane friends, namingly fatima.

i mean how crazy is it? that we werent created alone. The bible says that when God created Adam he realized that although he had all this work to do and animals he was incomplete, so he put him into a deep sleep and took one of his ribs in order to create woman, Eve.

So Caroline, the greatest girlfriend ever in my opinion, got only 4 hours of sleep in order to make sure I was ready for my surprise. and boy i surely wasn’t. Well surprise number one anyway. the biggest surprise besides being abducted was seeing Alessandra break my bed in attempts to break Robby.

Eve completed Adam, she had the missing pieces to his puzzle. In the same way, we arent meant to be alone we as friends complete one another. I mean did you think the story of Adam and Eve only applied to husbands and wives?

i have to admit i certainly did.

but as I sat there playing apples to apples for like 6 hours, i saw that each of my friends brought something to me that i am forever grateful for.

moseley brings light-heartedness

caroline brings joy

jacob brings responsibility and great jokes

keyon brings easy-goingness

zak brings well zak

tyler brings friendship

travis brings honesty

kendra brings love

isabel brings sincerity

lex brings logic and lightheartedness

robby brings joy and humility

rachel brings creativity

allison brings fun and caring

fatima brings a hungry stomach and an open heart

sana brings honesty

ali brings peruvianess and authenticity.

daniela brings honesty

and brooke brings warmness.

and for the rest of my friends, i just want to say thank you so much for such a great year. and each of you has touched me in ways beyond anything i could have ever imagined.

So as i sit here trying to break in some new sandals i want to conclude saying this, through the blessing of friendship i have been able to wrestle for something more than just a cause or a name, ive been taught how to wrestle life for love. thanks guys.

*i want to thank all of you for visiting my site and i want to encourage all of you to never forget, we need one another.

faith part 1

Every year when we go to camp the guys have a tradition of holding a “man meeting” where we sit around and talk about what’s been going on in our lives spiritually. So this year was no different and we sat down, Erik, Brandon Catubig, Robby, Lex, myself and many others and talked about what God had done in our lives.

After a while, Daniel Barb got up and started to tell us about how hes been praying for his family to get saved for over 3 years. 3 years! That’s long enough to grow a beard, learn a language, graduate from high school and almost earn a college degree. And to be honest, I know that during those three years I would have doubted my belief in God, I would have questioned if my prayers were just hitting the roof and if i was just walking to myself.

But he just kept on keeping on, and in that, in his perseverance, his mother rededicated her life to Jesus and his brother and sister got saved.

Now im not saying all this to give big ups to Daniel, but rather to encourage you to have faith.

After he told us that story, before he sat down he said ” God just said to me, don’t count me out”.

Don’t count God out. Thats all im really saying.

‘Mysterious ways, how God gave his life, to put motion inside my soul, its bigger than cold religion, its bigger than life’ - switchfoot, love is the movement

may we come to believe that faith doesnt make us weak, that not knowing shows us that we are humans first and students, photographers, or whatever second.