Life Is Donkey Kong

Well I made it to Chicago and back with little to no problem. Parking in Chicago is awful ($19 a day to park in the lower lot of the McCormick conference center, $15 a day to park at the Hyatt Regency). Of all the expenses I paid for while in Chicago (Gas, food, misc.) parking was about half. Which was not what I was expecting. But things worked out because Spherion directed a deposit into my checking account while I stayed in Chicago. Thanks Spherion.

"Well, you're the one who spent hours in a chair, staring at a screen talking to customers about their rewards points."

Ah, yes. That's right. I did do that in order to earn the money.

Like I said before, this was my first adventure to Chicago. Sorry I didn't update while I was there, but there was no free wifi (I mean, it's Chicago). The Hyatt was asking for $10-$15 for 24 hours of internet use. I opted to keep my money. I figured it was not dire that I had access to the internet.

The place what beautiful. Lot's of construction going on all through Illinois though. The deep dish pizza tasted good. Had some watermelon Italian ice with Lauren Cox, Craig Peterson, and Ira Erum at a little pizza spot not too far from the hotel. I got to drive through China town, which for me of course is a real treat. Let's see...there was a random marathon Sunday morning near the conference center. Josh Strauther from the LA church rode with me over to the conference center. We were already running late because you need your hotel key to escape the hotel parking garage. Another thing you need is to pay the $45 dollars for 3 days of parking before the machine (Yes. Machine. Freaking robots) allows you leave the parking garage. So, we're trying to catch up and get to the conference center (Well, getting to isn't really what needed to be done. The hotel was already a siamese twin/tumour to the EXTREMELY large McCormick center. Really, we just needed to drive around to the other side of it to park in the lower lot and make our way to the Arie Crown Theater) to practice for the Sunday morning service. As we go down 31st (I'm not sure on that number. It was something like that) toward Lake Shore Drive, we see part of Lake Shore Drive is blocked off. But why? A freaking Marathon. So, there's this random marathon happening right where we need to turn in. We do make it to the lower lot, race toward the Arie Crown Theater, and show up a half hour late. Despite all that, the car ride there was hilarious.

No one ever expects the Chicago marathon...

Sorry for that long story/anecdote/rant.

Anyway, the weekend was also incredibly refreshing spiritually as well as mentally and emotionally. I got to see a lot of people I haven't seen in at least a year, like Carl Sullivan and John Hyon. Met a lot of new people. Most of the new people I met served and played in the worship which may have been the best part of the weekend. The Arie Crown Theater seats about 4,000 people. We had about 2,000 college students attending the conference. Each night we played a set of worship music to 2,000 fired up college students. It was miraculous and placed me in a spot that made me feel completely and wholy intuned with everything. When I played and worshiped I was living inside the moment, focused on God and the rhythms, united in a beautiful way with all these people. Then on Sunday, the Chicago church as well as all the conference attendees from all over the country (and some from Canada, the Carribean, and South Africa) came together, filling the theater out completely. Amazing is the most simple and apt description I can give.

This past weekend was a weekend that gave me a certain hope. For a while my hope and dreams were beginning to dissipate. I was losing faith in what could be, what I wanted for myself in the future, and I figured all of what I dreamed of was impossible. I've reached my own conclusions that that is not entirely true.

Before I left, I started to study out in the Bible what it means to seek God. In the back of my smaller Bible I have a little concordence/index. I looked up 'seek' and read all the scriptures listed. One scripture I focused mainly on is from Matthew 6 where it says, "Seek first his kingdom and his righteousness and all these things will be given to you." I figured in order to see God, we must know what the kingdom is as well as righteousness.

After looking more, reading more, I came to the conclusion that if I want to seek God, I have to follow Jesus. "No one comes to the father except through me." That made sense to me, so I decided to follow Jesus through the gospels starting with Matthew (which I'm close to finishing).

When I was packing for the ICMC (International Campus Ministry Conference) I didn't know what the theme would be about or what sort of lessons were planned. So when I arrived and saw that the theme was "Follow Me", I was a little shocked. Just prior to driving up to Chicago I decided this is what I needed to do and study out in order to seek God. Things were beginning to align. Throughout the weekend I continued to read through Matthew, and as I did, the lessons in the evening would focus on scriptures I had read earlier that day. Not to be egotistical, but I think God prepared my heart for this weekend so that I would be attentive as well as impacted by the whole event.

There were also a lot of classes and lessons about the one-year challenge, the one-year challenge being taking a year out of your professional or academic life and going to another church to help in it's development and expand God's kingdom. There's a great need for it now, especially in places like South Africa, China, Turkey, Salt Lake City, and Anchorage Alaska.

This is something that has been on my heart for at least the last year. My passion for it dwindled considerably, as I said before I was losing my dreams thinking things like a full time job would put me down. Listening to people talk about the one-year challenge rekindled my dreams and desire to serve wherever in the world God wants me. If I could, I would go around the world for the rest of my life doing this, but that may not be in the play book. Hopefully, prayerfully, I can do the one-year challenge in the not-so distant future. Already I'm talking to a disciple in China about coming over and teaching English and help strengthen the churches there.

There's so much more I could talk about, but I feel like I've written too much.

As for the title of the post, I thought I would get to it sooner in my train of thought but apparently not. It was something I said during the course of the weekend. "Life is Donkey Kong" meaning, if life is some grand game, it wouldn't be one with bosses. We all have different bosses to face, we don't all live the same life and struggles, so to think of life as a Mario or Zelda or Final Fantasy game would not be true. Life is a high scoring game. You do the best possible, whatever that may be, and submit your score. Like Donkey Kong (the old one. Not Country). So, Life is Donkey Kong.

That didn't really have anything to do with the other 65 sentences, come to think of it.

Hope you enjoyed. Later gators.