Some Things are Just Inevitable

What's been going on since my last post?
    
     Well, I've added a digit to my age and the more of life I experience, the more I realize how inevitable it is to share it. Over time we are given these experiences that mold us into who we are, and without a doubt its those experiences that makes each of us unique. One way in which our uniqueness is shared, therefore our lives, is through questions.
     Working out and sweating has become a therapeutic, energizing and essential part of my day. Monday-Friday I try to start the day off with a visit to RichCity Crossfit in Richmond, Ky; which is just 15-20 minutes up the road from Berea. There are about 10+ regulars at the 5:30am class at this gym, and this is where I have recently realized just how inevitable it is to share our life stories with one another. Often times there are a few middle-aged guys who will chit chat after the workout. One of them is a little more talkative than the others and is always asking questions to learn about other people. Me being relatively new, he often directs some questions my way. One day he asked how I chose Berea, which is a really common question. So I told him a little bit of my situation when I first started to research Berea. The easiest way to answer 'why Berea?' is free tuition, but for me there is so much more. In my sophomore year I really had no thoughts on going to college or what I was supposed to do after high school. However, I did have a friend from church ask me if college was something I was considering and if so would I be willing to let her, and the people I was closest to at church, help in me the search for colleges. Well low-and-behold one of those colleges was Berea College, which I ended up visiting the summer after my junior year and would eventually receive my letter of acceptance on Christmas Eve. This question may seem common to most young adults. How did they find out about their college or why did they choose it? This common question may yield very common answers for most people, but for me its very hard to answer without telling a snippet of my life story. For me this is a unique question. We all have those triggering questions that when asked to the majority of people a very similar answer may be given; while others may answer and reveal something truly unique about their life story. Another example for me would be how did I get my car? Most people can answer the question by telling of some story of how they saved the money to buy it or tell how they worked to pay the car off or possibly the vehicle was a gift for a special occasion. But when I'm asked how I got my car its a really uncommon answer, because I did practically nothing. My answer always includes that a foster family from church gifted me the vehicle to myself and I also include how it was really a more holistic effort as the previous owners where also members of our church.
     As I drove back to Berea after the guy asked me about my college choice, I couldn't help but to be really joyful. I was simply joyful by remembering all who have played a role in my life up to this point and how many people have impacted my life during the last few years though it seems like a lifetime. Sure questions may reveal our life to other people, but just as important it also provides a time of reflection. The last song that played from my phone on the way back to Berea that morning was titled Give Me a Song by Will Reagan. Questions also prompt us to be reminded of our life experiences and this song hit home for me and reminded me that every person that reads these words...has been invited to do so because in my short life of 21 years you have been the chorus of my song to sing to God.

September Days.

     The semester has been in session for less than a month, but I've had several experiences already. The first experience, you can take a look at from the lens of someone else by following this link: http://wjhl.com/2015/09/05/athletes-row-for-special-olympics/.

     The Berea students come from all over the world, and I have found some friends in the international students. They often share with me their culture and on Saturday September 12 I visited an Ethiopian Church in Louisville, Kentucky with 5 Ethiopian students from Berea. They were making the trek to celebrate what would be the New Year for them according to their Orthodoxy beliefs. They would also be entering the year 2008 as well. We left at 6:30 in the morning and arrived around 9:30. Unfortunately the service was just ending, but we did stay around and had some food with the people there. I was really surprised to see the reactions of my friends (Yhenew, Angesum, Kidist, Hannah, and Helena) when we arrived late. Mainly, Yhenew, who organized the group and checked out the van from Berea College to take the trip. He was very calm, but still disappointed. His disappointment did not make the situation worse and in fact I would not have known he was disappointed if it weren't for someone asking how he felt. His patience and peace about the situation was somewhat perplexing. I know if I went through the logistics to plan a trip for an event and then arrive tardy without getting to participate, I probably would have been frustrated. Despite the let down, we still had a good experience. We ate authentic Ethiopian food at the church, which requires you to eat with your hands. It was fun and so very delicious. To eat, there is a bread called 'enjera' that is round and flat like a tortilla but much more moist and flavorful. The enjera is used to scoop up the vegetables and meat that is soaked in spices which stain your hands with their aroma for a couple days no matter how many times you wash your hands. After the meal at the church we then went to one  of Angesum's friends house where we were waited on and hosted so generously. Our hosts made us hot tea and even made Ethiopian coffee. The coffee beans were roasted right in front of us then ground and brewed. They were constantly bringing snacks and drinks to us. We stayed for a long time, long enough to eat lunch with them, which consisted of the same food we ate at the church. Our hosts' hospitality was remarkable, for one they treated us like their family even though they only knew Angesum. Two, they were kind in all their actions as well. They did offer some alcoholic beverages to us, but of course I am not of age. They were surprised I couldn't drink judging from my height and I told them I would have to come back after September 26 and they said yes please do and we will have your favorite drink. I don't think I will have a favorite but all that was mentioned to show another example of their hospitality. Their kindness reminded me of this from Matthew chapter 7:

          "Keep on asking, and you will receive what you ask for. Keep on seeking, and you will find. Keep on knocking, and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks, receives. Everyone who seeks, finds. And to everyone who knocks, the door will be opened. You parents—if your children ask for a loaf of bread, do you give them a stone instead? Or if they ask for a fish, do you give them a snake? Of course not! So if you sinful people know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give good gifts to those who ask him. Do to others whatever you would like them to do to you. This is the essence of all that is taught in the law and the prophets."

     After our feasting we went on to pick up some 'to go' food from an Ethiopian restaurant before we made our way back to Berea. Louisville has the closest Ethiopian restaurants so when we make a trip there it is a must to take some food back to Berea. We left around 3:30 and I got back just in time for a folk dance that I needed to go to for class credit. Before the social and folk dance class, the dance would have been wayyyyy out of my comfort zone but the experience was actually enjoyable. 

     Some other happenings at work include me being the new guy and adjusting to learn how they do things in the athletic training room. One example of my newness is in the task of taking water to various athletics. Sandy asked me to take water down to Coach Johnson and so I asked if that were the tennis coach, but she corrected me. However, I still drove the cart down to the tennis courts, upon arriving I was wondering where everybody was as I only spotted a few locals on the court. So I call and tell Sandy where I am and she says, "Kyle, you're in the wrong place buddy." This is somewhat embarrassing and I really felt like a goofball too. So I have to trek all the way across campus to where Coach Johnson really was, at the cross country trails, seeing as to how he is the cross country coach not the tennis coach. For whatever reason, I had it ingrained in my brain that he was the tennis coach. After driving around campus, I needed to make my next trip to the soccer fields to deliver water and ice for the game that night. Thankfully Sandy was already at the fields to wave and flag me down so I would know where to take the coolers, because I certainly did not know and felt like a chicken with my head cut off that day. Working in the training room has been fun with many lessons learned already. Today (Septmeber 19) I got to work the Berea College Invitational Cross Country meet along with Sandy and 5 other student trainers. It was fun and I got to stand at the finish line and see some athletes look like beat down dogs from their efforts and give them water, ice packs and clean up their cuts from their falls on the trails. Their were about a hundred runners for each race of the men and women from 8-10 schools.

     My last experience I want to share with you concludes the work of my Summer Institute with the Entrepreneurship for the Public Good Program (EPG). Last night, (Friday Sept. 18) the Director of EPG, 2 other EPG students and myself conducted a 'trial run' of the hiking/biking trails that were proposed this past summer for consideration in the Kentucky Trail Town application. My responsibility was to act as the 'trail safety and security officer' which required me to recruit 4 people that would act as flaggers. We were expecting out-of-towners for this trial run and with their lack of familiarity they would need some guidance along the routes. My responsibility was to make sure a flagger person was at each of the 'unsure' sights to guide the riders along. The event was successful and we reached our goal to have 50 surveys completed by the participants. All that is left to do now is to send the surveys and notes from the trial run to the Kentucky Office of Adventure Tourism for review and wait to see if Berea becomes certified as a Kentucky Trail Town.

September has been a great month for me and I hope it has been the same or better for you!

Enjoy the pictures!

Cross County meet from Saturday (Sept 19) morning

'Trial Run' of the proposed hiking/biking trails from Friday (Sept 18)

'Trial Run' of the proposed hiking/biking trails from Friday (Sept 18)

Ethiopian food from a trip to Louisville.

Ethiopian food from a trip to Louisville.

Berea, Berea, Beloved..

     I'm back to the grind of becoming educated with week one in the books. It feels almost as if I never left, fitting comfortably back into the swing of the Berea Bubble and its busyness. Our first day of classes was Wednesday the 26 and here's some of my thoughts on my courses.

Comprehensive CPR and First Aid (MWF 8:00-9:10): The instructor, Sandy Williams, is also my labor supervisor for the athletic training room. This is my first time having a course with Sandy and the first time working under her. She is returning from Sabbatical, but I already expect to learn much from her in class and at work. She is very thorough, personable and is very experienced allowing her to provide input of emergency situations from first person accounts. I was questioning myself if I should stay in the course, but on the first day she stated something that gave me reason to stay. Sandy acknowledged that we can learn CPR and First Aid in a very safe environment of the classroom, but her goal was to mimic real life scenarios and the craziness that might go along with an emergency situation. After all, our senses will be alarmed differently from a safe classroom environment to a real life emergency situation. There are about 20-25 students in this course, which is a pretty big class at Berea.

Social and Folk Dance (MWF 9:20-10:30): Since this course is right after CPR&First Aid and in the same building, I get to the dance studio early. Up until 3 minutes or so until the class starts it is just 8 or so females and myself. My thoughts are, "Oh this should be good!" but then the rest of class files in and I am not the only male... To start off the class, we went around and introduced ourselves and stated why we wanted to take the class. When it was my turn, my reason to take the class was that I felt stiff and awkward when I danced and so I wanted to not feel stiff and awkward when I danced so that I could enjoy dancing. So far we have done some contra dancing and waltz. This is also a "big" class with about 20-25 students.

Biomechanics (MWF 1:20-2:30 & Lab Thurs 12:00-2:50): For whatever reason, I could have sworn this class started at 1:30 not 1:20...and I ended up being late at 1:26. AJ Mortara is the professor and he is also my academic advisor. He just gave me a hard time when I walked in and at the start of the Friday class session he acknowledged that I was on time when he was taking attendance. This class really captures my interest in the human body and movement. By coincidence, this is also an all-male class with about 15 of us.

Teaching Danish Gymnastics (MWF 2:40-3:50): This is taught by a professor from Denmark and his name is Martin Moesgaard. Berea has partnered with one of the schools in Denmark for the last few decades to host one professor to teach gymnastics for a year, but this happens to be Martin's second year at Berea. I have been taught by Martin before in the Danish Gymnastics Club last year, and he is very intentional in phrasing his questions the right way as he knows that the answers he may receive depend on how he asks the question. For this course, we will visit the Berea Community School and teach one of their class sessions a couple times a week. We will write lesson plans and come up with games that intrigue their imagination and incorporate gross movements such as walking, crawling, jumping etc. Although I am not planning on going into education, I still see value in this course as I may improve my ability to teach, which we all do every day. This also fulfills one of my elective course requirements in my major. There are about 20 students in the class.

General Studies Requirement 310: Understandings of Christianity (Tuesday and Thursdays 10:00-11:50): There are 4 levels of the GSTR writing and critical thinking seminar as part of Berea's general education requirements. All GSTR 110 sections vary on the subject focus but the title of my 110 was So You Want to be a Changemaker? All GSTR 210 focuses on Race, Diversity and Identity. The specific focus for my 210 course section was on John Gregg Fee, the founder of Berea College. We explored what it meant for people in Fee's day, which was during the mid to late 1800's, to be radical. All GSTR 310 courses focus on the Understandings of Christianity. This means that the course explores the various differences of Chrisitianity throughout the world and how other religions may view Christianity. The professor for my 310 is Jeff Pool. He has always taught philosophical and theological studies. He has been at Berea since 2003 and was at TCU previously. I did appreciate his perspective and the things he was saying from the first day of his class. I resonated with him when he shared that his first undergraduate course on Christianity gave him trouble because he was going into the class with the idea that all Christians were completely unified in all that they believed and acted upon. I certainly feel this way and experienced some of the same trouble my freshman year when I took Introduction to the Old Testament. For some reason, looking at Christianity through an academic lens really affects me and gives me some emotional turmoil. However, Dr. Pool seems sensitive enough to realize some students may feel some emotional turmoil during the course and is open to discussion outside of class about any troubles we may have. He has learned to appreciate the goodness in all the differences, I am not sure how I will handle it this semester but we will see. Also, he says he likes class discussion, but on the first day I'm not sure if he took breathes between his sentences...I may have to use my learnings from CPR sooner than I thought if he keeps going breathless while he talks.

Those are my courses and thoughts from week one. I will also be working 12 hours a week as an athletic trainer which I am looking forward to, my sport to cover will be Baseball. As I said before, Sandy is very personable and Saturday she had all the athletic training students to her house for a cookout! It was really awesome and speaks volumes to the kind of faculty and staff at Berea College.

I am expecting to really do well in all areas (academic, social, labor etc.) of life this semester after a great summer. Speaking of which, September 30, 2015 at 7:00pm I will actually be presenting on my summer internship experience in hopes of becoming a Fellow of the Entrepreneurship for the Public Good after two summers under the program. If you are reading these words, you are certainly invited.

Also, you may have wondered what I was doing that caught me up in thinking my Biomechanics class started at 1:30 instead of 1:20. Well I will be glad to tell you. I was actually sending some emails for potential team members/sponsors for the Sept. 26 St. Jude's 5k Run/Walk in Kingsport. If you feel like running with me or making a donation, you can visit this link to do so:  http://fundraising.stjude.org/site/TR/Walk/Walk?px=3573197&pg=personal&fr_id=40422

The link will provide you with two options of joining my team, Crossfit Kingsport, or donating on my behalf. The run will start at 8:30 and the walk will start at 8:45 that Saturday morning. This last weekend of September is also my 21st birthday, I would really appreciate donations or friends to do this event with as a birthday present over any gifts.

I'm also excited to have a single room! And air conditioning in my dorm for the first time too! Here's some pics of my headquarters.



I hope this update finds you well. Feel free to stay in touch via email, text or phone call. I would love to hear what's going on in your life.

I am Overwhelmed...

     Simply put, I am overwhelmed by God's work in my life and in the rest of His creation. Through the people He surrounds me with, I am constantly reminded of His Love. The relationships that have formed over the course of this summer have left me breathless. Never would I have thought to form such close friendships that bring me more joy than my soul has ever felt. My thoughts are constantly occupied by the blessings of these friends, so much so that my slumbers are shortened. Shutting my eyes at night has become almost unattainable. As they lay open filled with tears my heart pounds heavier and heavier; becoming a drum with every heartbeat, the walls of my thoracic cavity pound with love, joy, yearning, hopefulness, and these fruits of the Spirit leave me breathless.
     Just 4 years ago, my heart and soul were filled with something completely different. Instead of love I felt neglected, sadness rather than joy, desperation instead of yearning, hopelessness instead of hopefulness, and my tears were from sorrow instead of love. Praise be to God, who doesn't leave alone those who need Him. Praise be to God, who answers and hears the cries of His people. Praise be to God for speaking to me through these words...

Hear my prayer, Lord;

let my cry for help come to you.

Do not hide your face from me

when I am in distress.

Turn your ear to me

when I call, answer me quickly.

For my days vanish like smoke;

my bones burn like glowing embers.

My heart is blighted and withered like

grass;

I forget to eat my food.

In my distress I groan aloud

and am reduced to skin and bones.

I am like a desert owl,

like an owl among the ruins.

I lie awake; I have become

like a bird alone on a roof.

All day long my enemies taunt me;

those who rail against me us my

name as a curse.

For I eat ashes as my food

and mingle my drink with tears

because of your great wrath,

for you have taken me up and thrown

me aside.

My days are like the evening shadow;

I wither away like grass.

But you, Lord, sit enthroned forever;

your renown endures through all

generations...

~Psalm 102: 1-12~

     This Psalm was God's answer to my prayers in my time of loneliness and desperation. During that time of solitude, I would tell myself, "if I can just make it to 18 and graduate high school I can get a job and be own my own." Oh how WRONG! that way of thinking was and oh how misled I was...that was until God's people came into my life. I soon felt reaching out to the Church was an option for me. So I prayed for a long time before I took action and one morning when I was sitting on the side of a hill staring at the mountains that paralleled, I began to read Psalm 102 for the first time and I began to get goosebumps. I felt as if I had written that Psalm and my words were presented to myself. God had answered.

     And even though God has answered my prayers so loud and so clear. Just like us all. I am still a sinner despite all the Love He has given through His Son, but thanks be to God for His mercy and grace that we may be redeemed. I will always need to sing of His truly unwavering and steadfast Love and may that be your reason to sing praise with the rest of His people.