Today was an awesome day as I finally received my passport, allowing me to take my first big step towards Japan.

In other news, I found out through a church friend, Jacob Davis, that another friend named, Josh Topper, was currently working with YWAM in Florida. This is really cool because I knew they both were in pursuit of ministry but Josh working with YWAM is quite the surprise. I’ve been trying to call him all week with no answer. I hope I might get ahold of him soon.

I also had another friend of mine — Luke Bushes from before — recommended I check out the book titled, “In a Pit With a Lion on a Snowy Day” by Mark Batterson. He said it’s based on a verse in the bible about David’s strongest soldier who chased a lion into a pit and jumped head first after it. It teaches that we need to jump head first into huge opportunities and trust that GOD will carry us through the storm. Such as me raising around 10,000.00 to take DTS in Japan.

I’ve never been much of a believer in fortune cookies but today we got Chinese at a local restaurant and my fortune said, “Your problem will be better next month.” I’m not exactly sure if I should take this as bad news or good news.

On Monday at about 8 PM, we had one huge summer storm come through and we lost power for nearly 2 whole days. Half of Hazel Crest, Homewood, and Lansing lost power. So here are some pictures of the damage done to the power poles along our road. (You got to love cell-phone photos in 2008)