03/02/26-03/06/26
As I sit to write this blog, I am astonished that the first week of March has already passed, and that we leave for LA in just three short days. It most certainly feels as if it was just this week that we were sprinting through Newark airport, praying that they would hold our plane back to LAX so that we could make it home. However, that was not this week, and what actually happened these last seven days, while marginally less exciting than the airport hijinx of our return from the Dominican Republic, is still absolutely worth writing about.
This week, it felt like life was back in the building. With the coming of March, it felt as if the clutches of “February flu”, as we so affectionately named the sickness that has been ravaging our class since the DR, were finally beginning to release their grip on us. The classroom was once again full, and spirits seemed higher. Compounding the general good mood, we were blessed to hear from a wonderful speaker, Jonn Noyes.
John possessed a magic item, which he used during his first talk with us. The item was a hat. While hats in and of themselves possess no magic quality, Jon’s hat was special; it could, when he put it on, revert Jon to his former days as a vehement atheist. After placing his hat on, John became a different person, not only not believing in God, but also able to tell us exactly why we shouldn’t. Over the course of the next 40 minutes, a flurry of questions was hurled at atheist Jon by our class, while some good points were brought up, but atheist Jon had the mic, so he had the power to avoid the points that might have actually done some damage, and double down on his points that seemed to destroy our position. Eventually, Jon removed his magic hat, and just as quickly as atheist John had arrived, he was gone. The exercise was fascinating and illuminating, and gave us some much-needed prep for our evangelism trip to LA next week. Jon’s talks for the rest of his time with us were all focused on apologetics and how to properly defend and share the Gospel with people who need it so desperately. His messages were incredibly timely and gave me a major boost of confidence for LA.
Last weekend was officially the last weekend of wintercamp, which means that this was our last week to play broom hockey. The capstone of our broom hockey season was a match that we played against the high schoolers who live on site. When driving up to the ark to play, it seemed that the entirety of Hume Lakes’ staff had turned out to watch us play the Hume kids. We were somewhat confident going into the game that we might actually have a chance of beating them, but I think we all had a suspicion that we were about to get destroyed. That suspicion turned out to be entirely correct. The score was 7 to 3. The Hume kids had taken down yet another Joshua class. The game was fairly close for most of its runtime, at one point being 3 to 5, but the Hume kids scored two goals in the last period, fully cementing their victory.
As yet another week of Joshua has come and gone, I am continually reminded of just how blessed I am to be here, living in this wonderful building with all my wonderful classmates. The Lord has been so good to me, and I pray that I can use the rest of the short amount of time that I have left in this program for his glory and his glory alone.
- Brayden Schlenz (Current Student)