world impact

Todd called me up around 1:30 AM EST to ask me if I could give him a ride to church in the morning. I should've been sleeping at the time, but for some reason, I was wide awake and tossing and turning.

So I went to pick him up and we were the first ones at church. We saw Jeanie come by, so I honked at her to make sure she knew we were there. We decided to stay in the car because we didn't know if the church was open or not. Then Dan showed up and jumped in our car. As more and more people arrived, my car couldn't hold all the people. The girls decided to see if the church was open. Todd and I were too lazy to actually get out of the car to check, so we didn't have confirmation if the door was actually locked. At first, Dan was going to step out too, but he thought better of it, realizing that you didn't need 4 people to see if a door was locked or not. It turned out, that the church was open this whole time.

We went inside and upstairs past the library. The heat was blasting. So much for a cold church. We decided to hang out in the grange in the mean time. We were there for a few minutes, until Ming came in and started setting up for 4th service. Not wanting to be in the way or to be a problem when the Mandarins got there, we decided to go to the library.

As more and more people arrived, the library began filling up as well. They started to pray and I got a call from Tony. He had a terrible time getting out of Jersey City and onto 280, so he was going to be a bit late. I looked outside, and I saw Jamie, so I gave the phone to her to give Tony diretions. There was a huge accident on 280 East involving some over turned cars. Even the people on the West side were rubber necking. Tony just decided to meet us there, considering he was so close already.

The kids finished praying and we all gathered outside to get in the church van. On the way to World Impact, Todd and I, with a little help from Bond, about media, media's control, and Christian media in relation to it. It was one of the more intelligent discussions I've had in a long time. We went over things such as how the media and other industries are run by about 5 large corporations. We talked about the importance of Christian media and its vision and purpose. How, invariably, in a secular market, it would apothosise and lose its fundamental direction. Examples such as: YMCA, JC Penny, Salvation Army (?). We talked about how as long as the executives and upper management was controlled by a Christian majority, it would be fine. The problem was that people die. Things happen, and the desire for greater profit would eventually supplant any moral standing.

What was supposed to be a 30 minute ride, came closer to an hour. We got lost somewhere in newark. We didn't realize it until we had to get back onto 280. Apparantly, we had missed the exit entirely so we had to back track. Eventually, we made it.

As we entered the school, they were just about to pray for the food. We stood out in the hall as they prayed and felt extremely out of place. We weren't sure exactly what we were doing there or what we were supposed to do. At first, the kids just kind of hung out with each other, standing in their own circle talking about their own thing.

I met this one guy from Jacksonville Chapel in Montville. I had my digital camera out and was snapping as many shots as I could. He saw my camera and we started talking a bit about cameras and photography. He showed me some of the pictures he had caught, and they were pretty good. Some of them were really well framed. Others were not as good. We spent a good amount of time talking until someone mentioned that we should go get some food.

Jacksonville Chapel provided all the food. There were scrambled eggs (probably from a mix), french toast, sausage, bacon, mixed fruit, hash browns, dainishes, and bagels. All in all, it was a pretty decint spread. By the time we ate, it was around 10:30 AM EST. I had been up for 2 and a half hours already, so I was ravish. I just kind of found an empty seat somewhere and sat down and ate.

As I was eating, Alan Fang sat down next to me. I don't know how we got onto the topic, but we started talking about the IT department at church. It wasn't so much discussion as I was just venting about the lack of direction and the lack of efficiency with the IT department. They had or were in the process of setting up a web server and a mail server. Which is completely redudant since we have nanwob.net providing that service. I don't know too much about the details, but it sounds like those in the IT department are just masturbating to technology and their own skill and knowledge. Instead of using what is already available and what is free and what is already established, they go through the trouble of setting up these servers. I don't know how long I was on the rant, or if Alan even cared, but I needed a drink, so I politely excused myself.

I got my cup of water and the program began. I stood against the window sill where all the drinks were. There really wasn't much room to sit, so we decided to be kewl and block access to the drinks. Sitting in front of me was this tiny tiny little girl. Something about her was just so captivating. As she was eating, she slathered this huge chunk of butter on her french toast. At first, she used a knife, but it wasn't working that well as most knives spreading butter don't. She proceeded to use her fingers to try and spread the butter around the french toast. After she had sufficiently coated the bread, she licked her fingers, sucking off the left over butter. It reminded me of the episode of Simpsons where Homer starts an internet company and uses a stick of butter as a pencil holder. "Time to write another delicious memo. Mmmm.... memo." The little girl shoved the french toast in her mouth.

Later on in the program, she went to get more food. She came back holding a plate full of bacon. It reminded me of Stayc and M and the time they had 6 pounds of bacon and finished it in one sitting. It was pretty gross.

The first group to perform performed some body worship. It was pretty good, but nothing really innovative or exciting. Then again, I'm a perfectionist. They peformed a second dance that was a lot better.

The next group that came on were some larger older women. But they had a great dance. It was fun and playful.

Then Undignified performed. Todd gave a little talk right before they performed, and it was pretty good. His one good joke was "People ask us what denomination we are. Presbyterian? Baptist? And we say, 'No, we're Chinese'". It was great. He also talked about Ravi's push about unity in diversity. After his talk, the girls performed "Beloved".

A pastor from a local church came and talked about segregation. Even though segregation doesn't happen nationally, it still happens individually. This was something that I always knew, but never really hit me. I wouldn't say it was an eye opener, but it was definately something that I needed to hear again.

After the message, a group of kids came on to show us some of their karate. Their actual moves were just alright, but it was their discipline that I was so enamoured with. They had scripture memorized, they had other things memorized, and they were just so confident. Sometimes, I think we need classes like this in our church.

When it was all over, I met up with the guy with the camera and we showed each other some of the shots that we had taken since the morning. He had some great great shots using contrast and light. We exchanged URIs and parted ways.

We stacked the chairs, and headed out.