HAHA

so, a little comic relief...

go to www.homestarrunner.com/sbemail.html and watch DO OVER... half way through on the right Strong Mad will come in... he gets mad then he gets HAPPY! this happy face can be paralleled with our oh so familar AJ ..::mocking rae and eleanor::.. happy face :D

enjoy
teh heh

y, MEH!

New Blog to Check Out....

Hey ladies and gents,
So there's a great new blog I discovered that you should check out..

http://darthharbison.blogspot.com

My brother created a blog! It's pretty awesome so far. You guys who came to watch Ep. III that one night should check it out especially, since he has his own short review on it. I really enjoyed reading his blog; he's a really good writer, even if he's talking about silly stuff. Rock on Mark! Plus, you have to give him props, because he picked the same blog template that we have here, AND he has a link to the Train Station on the blog! How cool is that?

Train on brothers and sisters!

AJ
<><

YEAH!!!!!

Hey Everybody,
Well, it's official--I'm FINISHED with the most important paper of my college career! Rae and Jessica, you would be proud; I stayed up until 5:30am this morning finishing it. Now I know how you feel. :) It was interesting going to bed just as the sun was coming up. But God gave me strength; I wasn't really too tired the whole time I was working on the paper, and I wasn't even that tired at 8:15 when I got up--I've been more tired at other times during the semester. So I'm sitting in my music technology class now in the music lab typing this--our instructor is just listening to people's projects, and he listened to mine on Tuesday, so all but one of us at a time are literally just sitting here with nothing to do. And he doesn't even mind. So after this, I'm going to the music department convocation--the ceremony where they do the music fraternity stuff, and hand out awards to the important people, and the rest of us just sit in the audience and clap politely and then take advantage of the free dessert reception afterwards. Fun stuff. Well, thanks for all your prayers--I still need them for my finals and my other 2 papers--but 351B is done!! 20 pages strong--oh yeah. For training. I love you all--keep on training!

AJ
<><

Corrected Time

Hey y'all,
Just to let everybody know... The Cafe officially closes at 7pm, so we will actually want to meet at 6:45. Rae and I will be running over from our classes, but for the rest of you, you should get there early to make sure you can actually get in (and eat, if need be). Looking forward to seeing you all there and talking about the next step on the road to THE TRAIN STATION....

AJ
<><

i love you

You guys are the best! I am amazed at how much you care about my situation. It is obvious that each of you are driven by the love of God. You guys are an awesome group of women and men for God.

Just to clue everyone in, I spoke to my dad last night about the apartment and his reaction was mixed. We are going to go look at it on saturday(tomorrow)...pray that if it is God's will that my dad will see the benefits of the situation.

Doug, Faye, Jessica- thank you for your encouragement calls. They deeply ministered to me.

Be blessed today. I hope that God repays each of you 100 times with the amount of love and encouragement each of you has shown me.

In Christ,
-Mike

Scriptural encouragement

Hey ladies and gentlemen,
I just wanted to share with y'all the passage I was reading in my quiet time this morning. John 15:1-8 (ESV):

1 "I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. 2 Every branch of mine that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit. 3 Already you are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you. 4 Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. 5 I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. 6 If anyone does not abide in me he is thrown away like a branch and withers; and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned. 7 If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. 8 By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples."

There's so much good stuff in there (which is why I quoted the whole thing); I would really encourage you guys to meditate on this and to pray it back to God for our community. But a few things I was noticing in particular:
1. The all-importance of abiding in Christ. I heard a talk on this passage once where the speaker said that "abiding" in this case meant "staying connected." We need to stay connected to Christ and to His Word (v. 7), both individually and as a whole community, for this to work.
2. Prorities! He is the vine and we are the branches. This is not for us (although we get some cool stuff out of it too:)); it's all for Him.
3. "Apart from me you can do nothing." No matter what we do, if we're doing it apart from Christ, it's not worth doing it because we won't be able to do it. :) (Is that kind of like the main thing being to keep the main thing the main thing?)
4. Verse 7. With everything that still needs to happen with applications, leases, co-signers, dads... if we ask in God's will, if we're staying connected, He'll give it to us.
5. Dare I say verse 8 would be an awesome mission statement for the Train Station? Just a suggestion...

Sorry this got so long, but I hope you can take some strength from it. I love all you guys more than you know. And don't worry... an explanation of train will come. Soon. :) Love yaz! (as my Aunt Suzie on the East Coast would say)

AJ
<><

Possible Bed/Space Solution

For those that don't know I went to the apartments yesterday to check them out. And the bedrooms are pretty small. I was talking to the lady and she said it was unlikely that we could put two desks plus beds in each master bedroom....however after talking with Doug and AJ. I think we decided that, first of all the women didn't really know what she was talking about and that it could be possible to have two desks and two beds if we were really wise with the space available. Below is a link of a design of a loft bed that has a desk underneath it to maximize space. We could either buy something like this, they are about $200 bucks at IKEA or we could possibly make our own based on a similar idea.

Here is the link:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=4380824933

-Mike

Great is the Lord and Greatly to be Praised!

Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding.

Tonight was definitely a stressful night. We thought Rae's dad would co-sign for us all but then my dad talked him out of it. Rae and I were freaked about talking to our dad's, AJ felt that it was his fault that his mom thought that Rae’s dad thought she was an idiot, and Doug (like all of us) just wanted to hit something.

But Great is the Lord! We all know that the Lord wants to do this through us; we all have received conformation, and have seen the Lord bless us in our decision. Honestly, I see this as a roadblock that the enemy is trying to throw at us. Looking at tonight, I have seen us fret and worry. But why worry? "If God is for us, who can be against us?" We have this big God whom we can call father. He is our rear guard. He is backing us up on this. Yes this is hard, yes it is scary talking to the dad's who just don't understand, but in our suffering we praise God for we have been "counted worthy to suffer shame for his name." And we can rejoice in knowing that the Lord has this all in His hands. He sees this path before us and is guiding us down it. We will get through this because the joy of the Lord is our strength. When it all boils down to it, all that matters is His glory, and we can rejoice because He will receive all glory! So rejoice! Praise Him who is worthy to be praised. For the Lord is God, good and mighty!

I'm not mad, but...

I am a little disturbed that there is conflict concerning who will be on the top and who will be on the bottom. Personally I would prefer the top, but that is no different than anyone else, nor is my reasoning better. I didn't know it was an issue until tonight (because I thought faye didnt want the top) and knowing that at the time I was bummed out, BUT God quickly showed me that all my reasons for wanting the top were selfish and irrelivant to the quality of the community. I know it isnt that big of an issue, but we cannot let things like that get started. If we are all going to live together for a year and do what God wants us to, stuff like that can't be in the way. It seemed that who was going to have the top was already established (guys?) yet I don't know how that came to be. If you guys dont read this by tomorrow morning its aight, cause its going to come up. My vote is flipping a coin, if we are going to lay out reasons the CANNOT be about what YOU want, but what will improve ALL of our experiances at the Train Station.

(bad reasons include):
Who wants to have the party room
Who wants the bigger balchony
Who has more stuff to carry
Who wants a vaulted sealing
Who wants to be cool
Whos idea was it first
Who wants a view

(good reasons include):
A broken leg

anything else... deal with it! i vote for a coin flipping, unless someone happens to come up with a logical reason why one should have it.

(another possibility is switching after first semester, it shouldnt be that hard to do)

I LOVE YOU GUYS! and im not trying to point my fingers at anyone!!! i included a couple of my reasons too ;)

If you have read this before the meeting..... YOURE NOT GETTING ENOUGH SLEEP!

Beginning BASIC TRAINing

Well this week God has really conceived an awesome foundation for our community. I think we have began BASIC TRAINing. That is...

Brothers
And
Sisters
In
Christ TRAINING

This phase includes more prayer and more faith that everything regarding the apartment lease, applications, community, moeny, parents etc all will come together Divinely this week. Kammy said that we have at least through this week to get our applications in with 2 co-signing adults that are teachers/nurses in order to get out discount.

Hey, Doug finally started a post!!!

Hey y'all! I need to call Kammy from the Homestead apartments very soon. She left a message that they've had some people interested in one of our apartments (probably the girls') and she needs to know what we are doing. (could just be to scare us).

I have read some of the complaints about the website. Some of them are pretty hard to ignore. For me it will certainly be a change of lifestyle from my own [clean] room and driveway parking. For those of you coming from Hope, this place should be a castle. just a castle...with holes, and mold, and maneur, and ants, and broken dishwashers, and towed cars, and ants, and slashed tires, and poor paint, and unclean carpet, and poor maintenance service, and more ants, and expensive laundry facilities, frequently shut off water, and unreturned security deposits , and and and...

Now, there is probably tons of context around each instance due to the amount of people in the world who get irate at things that aren't as bad as they seem. Are we willing to suffer through this, make a difference, look for the positive, encourage others [all in Christ] to make this place a castle with forty foot hight walls, a mote, gardens, proper security (archers), blue sky, crumpets and tea, jesters, triangle flags, and white knights?? This place will require PRAYER PRAYER PRAYER for us to impact it for God's glory. I think this place needs Christ's love the most. This place is lost. Maybe our community's purpose has greater implications that we initially perceived. Is THIS our assignment? Could this be where God wants to start revival? Please pray heavily on these things because I was hoping to put money down to hold these places this week.

Trusting in Christ,
Doug

Happy Mother's Day!

Happy Mother's Day to all you wonderful people--yes, this means you. Even though none of the 8 of us (or 9 or 10, including Shiloh and Eleanor, who I know checks this too) are actually mothers.

It's 2:30 on Mother's Day. Have you talked to YOUR mom yet???

AJ
<><

Prayer Requests?

Hey guys!

I was just wondering if anyone had anything that we could all pray for. I think it would be cool to use this for that -until we all live together of course ;)
For me, you can pray for my design homework. I am having a tough time designing this book cover, and it is due tomorrow. I feel like I am having designers block, I can't get to where I want to be. Please pray for me; I don't want to stay up all night!
Thanks guys!
I love you all!

Living by his amazing grace,
Jessica

Faye, you're Awesome!

Great point Faye. I am praying for you and doug today as you are looking for a place to call home. Remember "home is where the heart is"

Hey guys don't forget to fast tomorrow. The prayer focus is for people going away for the summer - that they would find the support that they need and for them to change the lives of others over the summer....pray for the community too!

Hey we could also use this thing for prayer requests. I'll start...umm...just pray for my walk right now, I'm not sure whats going on but I'm feeling kind of dry over these last few days...

A.J., Rae, Jessica, Faye, Doug, Stephen, Bethany, How can I pray for you?

Faithfully yours,
Brother Bito

Link to "Vista del Plaza" - Check it out

Hey guys, here is the link to the place that I talked about in the previous post.

http://www.rentnet.com/propid/471009

Talked with the Dad - Updated Info

Hey Guys!
I am excited about this opportunity...I can't wait to live in community this next semester.

Ok a couple of things, I need to know. I spoke with my dad and he basically said that I am free to do whatever I want in terms of the living situation, but, he said that we(my parents) have the means to support me in having my own room, if I would prefer that. And I think I would prefer that if it is possible for a number reasons, first of all I have to get up at 5am every morning and I don't think any of the other guys want to hear my alarm everyday, and I can tend to be somewhat messy (which is something I am trying to work on) but still if I am rooming with someone who is really neat than they might be kind of frustrated with me, but maybe its a growing experience, I don't know.
But anyway ultimately my dad said that the decision is up to me, which is cool.

Oh yeah, and furthermore as a side note, I really feel that we should include Tim in this. For me personally he has been probably one of the most dependable people on the outreach team this semester, and I think he would have been even more dependable if he lived closer to campus....I am not even sure if he would be interested, but I would be stoked if he was because it was awesome living with him in Japan last summer...we always found ourselves laughing about some of the stupidest stuff. I think he would be an awesome addition to the community, and personally I don't think that everything should be so set in stone that we can't invite him. Let’s talk about it.

Oh yeah and one more thing if we have a 3 bedroom apartment, rent will be super cheap for each guy because I would be paying a 1/3rd of the rent, which would come to like only $200-$300 each.


Also, I found a place online that is 2 miles from campus called "Vista del Plaza" where they have 3 bedroom/3 baths for $1475! Which is really cheap! I've never been there but the pictures of it look pretty nice. What was the price of the other 2 bedroom place that we were looking at? Also if anyone has any other listings post those so we can go check them out. Faye, I got your call I will call you right now.

So I guess I would say that my feelings are that if it is possible I would prefer a 3 bedroom place. But I am willing to talk about other ideas too but the main thing is that I really am looking forward to living with you guys next semester.

We should have another meeting.

In Christ,
-Mike

THE Name

Oh my freakin' gosh.

So Doug and I were out talking by his car at 12:40 am tonight, and we so came up with the name for the community.

The Train Station.

Pure and simple. It fulfills all the requirements given so far for a name: 1) it's hip, happenin' and cool; 2) it represents who we are, what we stand for and what we do; and 3) it fits the "hey let's go to" line: "I'm heading back to the Train Station!" "Hey let's meet back at the Train Station!" It's so perfect. You just can't deny it. And for those few of you who don't know what TRAIN is, and you don't know what the heck I'm talking about and you think I've gone insane... well we already knew that but once TRAIN is explained to you, you too will see the incredible awesomeness and will agree that this should be our name. Seriously. It's so perfect. Doug and I literally jumped up and down and screamed "YES!!" when we came up with it. It's so there. You don't even know. So anyway comment and tell us all how awesome it is... and until we meet/speak/read again, TRAIN OUT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

AJ
<><

HEY

in case anyone didn't know, on thursday i was accepted to go to Virginia Beach! I will be leaving on May 29th and get back August 13! that's an update about me... i guess i could put that on my own blog but whatever!

ok so when are we all gonna hang out? breakfast anyone?