day 3. mountain top feelings? sure.

Whatup whatup from Boone, North Carolina! Being here up in the appalachian mountains makes me NEVER wanna come back to the flatlands of the midwest! why the heck do we live in such a boring, unscenically (doubt that a word, but whatev), lame area!! i pretty much wanna move to the mountains and live here. so i decided i'm transferring to this school. not really, but i seriously would, but realistically i don't have much school left to finish to come all the way to the east coast and its kinda expensive.

So yea, the drive up yesterday was pretty gnarly. It took me about 9 hours, with some stoppage. I will say that kentucky has some of the most white/redneck areas i've ever driven thru haha. it was actually pretty funny cause there were miles at a time where i didn't see any minorities! not that it was wierd or anything, but ya know. So the drive was great, and i really got to see some awesome sights in ohio, kentucky, virginia, and tennessee. And the last hour drive up the mountain was freaking awesome. i got to drive next to mountains with huge lakes next to them, and then getting to the top..man, the view was unexplainable. i took some pics, but it won't do it any justice. ya just gotta see it!

so i got into Appalachian State last night and hung out with Kaity and a couple of her friends, adrienne and jamie, and we went up to this awesome place called Beacon Heights. Its basically a big slab of rock up the mountains where you can lay back and just look at the stars. No lights, no cars, no noise. Just you and the open sky. And today was awesome! Totally forgot that Boone is 4,000 feet above sea level, and compared to chitown, the air is ALOT thinner..so of course during my run this morning i was dying!

but the rest of the day was freaking gnarly. We went on a hike up thru Grandfather Mountain, which of course, like i've said before, was super awesome. Plus I got to meet some more stellar people like Matt, Eli, and Corey. we went back to town and had dinner with PW and Amanda at a mexicano restaurant. after that we hit up Kaity's church, and thats when things got real.

So wasn't too sure what i was walking into, but because i've talked with Kaity about this church before and how awesome it is, i was really pumped to come in and see what all the hype was about. dang. all i gotta say is that God was totally present in that church tonight, and that was completely obvious. first off, the worship was fantastic, and the worship leader really knew how to get people hyped up. and the best part about that is seeing kids my own age actually worshiping in that way. i guess i've just been so out of community for so long, that i forgot what that truly looks like. and pastor reggie..oh man where to begin! that man really knows how to convict people at the very core of their souls. he talked alot about grace and what that looks like. and how we forget how much we need to rely on God for things in life. And its crazy, because i've realized more and more that i don't do that as much as i should be.

the funny thing is, there's alotta of you who don't really get what i'm saying, or understand where i'm coming from with this. but to those of you who do, i've realized i need to stop doubting. i doubt so much as to what God can do thru me and my gifts, that i miss the big picture of it all...God has a vision in mind for his work, and if i'm not flowing on the river going with it, i'm blocking it from happening...not that He won't find a way, but He wants me to be a part of all of this..and how awesome is that! and i could write pages about how my "experience" at church tonight was great, but in the long run, those experiences mean nothing without actually producing fruit from them. I mean think about it, if we just spend our lives living from one experience to the next, we get nowhere. But if we use those experiences to produce fruit, and do good for the Lord out of them, thats it right there! sold! so yea, long story short, church was amazing.

and i've never been at a place (next to young life camp) where people are genuinely nice to each other(and i mean the school here). It seriously is phenomenal. And the group of people that lead younglife here/are christians is crazyyy! there is so much bonding in the relationships, that i think that this is a pretty good picture of the kingdom, and how it should look.

so yup yup. thats day 3. pretty gnarly huh? who knew that only 3 days into my trip, SO much would have happened already. Tomorrow i leave for Wake Forest to hang out with my buddy Mike. It'll be baller. Plus i'm planning on stopping thru Windy Gap in the next day or two, just for old time's sake.

thanks for checking in! and ps, Boone set the bar REALLY REALLY high so all you guys at the next stops better have something pretty good planned or i'm just skipping your state! haha. laters.