Hello friends,

It is time for my semiannual update. J

Right now I am home on leave and I will be headed back up to the Academy on the 22^nd. I am using this leave period to prepare to be a swab summer Chase Hall cadre. What that means is that I will be working with 7 classmates to indoctrinate 35+ swabs; our goal is to teach them everything they need to know to succeed for the rest of their time at the Academy. Swab summer is a seven week program, but I will only be working the first three weeks. The first three weeks are the most intense (more screaming and pushups) because the swabs come in knowing nothing and have to learn everything all at once. By the end of three weeks we will have taught them most of what they need to know to succeed; over the following four weeks they will learn to perfect what they have already learned.  

Leading during swab summer will be a huge growth experience for me; I expect to learn and mature a lot during the three weeks I will be taking care of my swabs.

My goal is to treat each swab as an individual and do everything I can to help them succeed; sometimes this will mean I need to coach them, and sometimes it will mean incentive training (pushing deck)

I have several prayer requests. First, that I would have the wisdom to see what kind of help a swab needs; do they just need motivation, or do they need me to explain the expectation again? Second, that I would have wisdom as I interact with my classmates; swab summer is very stressful and people tend to disagree. Third, that I would hold out spiritually and mentally; it is very easy to get mad and lose your temper at the swabs when they seem particularly stupid. I want to remember that I signed up for this position not because it was the most fun, but because I want to help them. Finally, please pray that I would hold out physically; I will be operating off of significantly less sleep than the swab’s get for three weeks in a row, and I already have two health concerns heading into the summer.

That’s it, thanks for reading.

Resting in Him,

Chip

Currently Reading Wild at Heart: Discovering the Secret of a Man's Soul By John Eldredge see related

So I FINALLY got around to changing my background color. I like bright yellow, but that was a little overwhelming. Anyway, I am out on parole and loving every minute of it. I have the time to talk to some old friends that I have been meaning to call, but never had the time. If anyone wants to say hey, just give me a call. Its great to hear about your lives, and realize that my old Teenpact world still does exist and that for the enth year in a row, some of the kids whose first class I got to staff are now interning. I am not that much older than them, but it still makes me feel old. I still think of myself as 18 and when I saw that a friend of mine was 20 I thought, “that’s old, wait, that’s my age.” So as friends and family members move on and come closer to getting married and having their own careers, I am starting to realize that life is flowing on whether I choose to go with the flow or not.

If staffing Teenpact classes and helping coordinate student projects was like being put in a spiritual convection oven at 175, then the academy is like being thrown into the spiritual microwave. Getting out and having time to figure out all that I have gone through and exactly what lessons I have learned is great. It also helps me figure out what I need to work on in the coming months. God taught me more this past semester than I have learned in years of normal life. Sometimes these lessons are very hard to accept, like when you find out that your opinions really don’t matter because God is in control of your life. You expect Him to guide you, but when you suddenly find out that God wants you to do ____ it is much harder than when God slowly leads you to that same conclusion. If everything made sense there would be no need for faith though.

We practiced dancing so that we do not look like idiots for all of my formals.

We went to an all academies ball the other night. Lots of fun.

Some friends who have not identified themselves put a reindeer on top of our house Christmas eve. It fell down so Capers Whatley and I went up and fixed it.

Last, but not least: me, as a red head (the picture does not do show the change that well.) My mom and I both died our hair red.

God bless,

Chip

Currently Listening Christmas By Mannheim Steamroller see related

Thanks for the prayers y'all. I was amazingly blessed twice today and I only have one more paper due tomorrow morning. After that I get to take a big breath and dive into finals.  I will be getting home one week and a few minutes from now.Yeah! I miss the south, my family, my dogs, my jeep, my freetime, and my ability to wear non-issued clothing very much. I have been in some form of uniform for 99% of this semester.

We had a holiday formal that was a lot of fun and a good break from the stress.

God bless,

Chip

Currently Listening Freedom By Michael W. Smith see related

Hey guys A quick update.

I am doing well. This weekend is the busiest of my cadet career. Prayer would be greatly appreciated.

    Hey y’all,

I wanted to give you an update on my life. This semester has been a time of huge amounts of growth in my spiritual life. I have learned several different lessons. First our lives do not need to be spiritual roller coasters. It is some times but it does not have to always be like that. I do things in extremes and tend to make my life more dramatic than it needs to be.

The lesson I am currently learning is much harder to hear. About a month ago I started praying that God would keep my humble. I don’t have anything to brag about, but I have a tendency to look around me and say “I am not doing that bad. I am doing pretty well actually.” Anyway, after I started praying this God gave and continues to give me the opportunity to practice humility frequently. Heh. Not much fun. As I see all of the different parts of my life that need work I feel like this is the first time I have looked at myself with my eyes open. I really don’t like what I see when I look at myself and see all of my pride. I was reading and I read a verse that said “through the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks.” If I think about some of the things I have said in the past I wonder what my heart is full of. How can God use me (that is the reason I came to the academy) if my heart is full of other things?

I have a few good Christian friends here who are helping me figure myself out in some ways and that is a blessing. I miss y’all down south though. No one up here understands my sense of humor; maybe it has changed since I came here to be a kind of hybrid that will not make sense to anyone. I hope not. After coming to the academy and seeing the back-rounds of all of my friends and classmates I have come to appreciate my childhood more. My parents did I good job. Teenpact was really great.  

we went hiking over the long weekend

we went to the beach the next day; it was cold