More Than You Care To Know

Alright, here we go. This will not be a short blog entry. :) I'm going to blog about a lot of things that happened this weekend, some big, and some small, in no particular order.

--I had told Tim and Troy, both ATLs and very good friends of mine, that I wasn't yet to a point where I felt comfortable being an ATL myself during a weekend. So they put overall rector Aaron to up to a challenge (which he accepted); Aaron came up to me the night before the candidates arrived and said something like "Joel, we're adding another table, and they need another ATL, and they really want a male, so they're hoping you would do it." I, of course, got a little flustered and muttered some response about how it wouldn't work, but then thought it was rather funny when I found out it was a joke. So that became a running joke throughout the weekend, and appeared on several pieces of my wheat. "So you wanna be an ATL?" :)

--Thanks to Tim, I now (finally) own the Star Wars Trilogy on widescreen DVD. I, sadly, had previously only owned in on full screen VHS. And that is not acceptable. Thanks Tim!

--Doing the Cheeseburger Song with Tim and Troy was good fun. I was rather nervous to sing it with them in front of 90 or so people, but it went well.

--I accidently kicked a Stations of the Cross candle and broke it. Bad Support Adult!

--I started to move our tall ladder (10 footer), only to then realize that, sitting on the top of the ladder, had been a wire cutter. Ouch. It fell and smacked me in the face and popped out one of the lenses for my glasses. Either then or at some other point during the weekend, those glasses acquired a nice long scratch. Oh well. Is it time for Lasik yet?

--My Support Rectora is a former Everquest II player. How sweet is that?

--As we were making hug balls in the Support Room, I walked by a bunch of them laying on the floor, and said "Holy Hug Balls!" Jill Bartels thought this was particularly amusing, and it became an rather repeated phrase. Then, as we were doing our written team affirmations, she showed me what she had written on my affirmation. It said "Holy Huge Balls." :) She had added the extra "e" on purpose, to see if I would notice it. Me, being the kind of person that likes to make people laugh at every occasion, decided to repeat this phrase verbally, and the entire Support Room started laughing. Poor Jill. It was rather funny. :)

--One of the signs we put up around the church was misspelled. "CANDIDATES" was, instead, "CANDITATES." This was, of course, noticed After the weekend, and After the sign had been up. Can TEC people not spell or something? :)

--One of my responsibilities throughout the weekend was to set up the fire for the burning of the sins. This proved more difficult than it should have been. The two lighters I had weren't working, and the wind would quickly blow out matches, even when I tried to block the wind with my hands or body, or when I tried to light the matches within the bucket. The fire even went out once after I got it going. Eventually it all worked out though, even though when the candidates got there, the flame couldn't be seen from outside the bucket. But after people started throwing their papers in there, the fire grew. The bucket caught a fire. :)

--After I got the fire going, I stood there for several minutes by myself, at the foot of the cross. I've never cried at a TEC event, but I came closest this weekend. I threw my personal inventory paper into the fire there, before anyone else came out, and I really felt God's calm.

--I printed out 300 sheets at work for my wheat. Who knows if anyone actually read the whole thing, :) but you never know.

--Sitting at Agape, across from Support Rector Brandon Lecy, I randomly created with word "Wow" with my fingers and mouth (this is something my friends and I have done before), and he thought it was the funniest thing ever. It became a TEC-wide phenomenon (or something like that). I'm so proud to have influenced so many people. ;)

--Friday night, Support Adult Jennie and Support Rectora Torey stayed up a little later doing a little planning for the next day. When I got back to the male sleeping area, the lights were out, people were asleep, and I had no idea where my stuff was (the room had been moved around due to Stations of the Cross). Instead of somehow finding my stuff and not waking people up, I just went and sleep on a couch in the Support Room. Lesson: Bring a Flashlight. :)

--Overall, the weekend was amazing. The team was awesome, the leadership was amazing, and the candidates were deeply moved (that is, after all, the whole point of the weekend). God was obviously at work this weekend.

--Two sad things, though, about the future. Due to my crazy work schedule over the next couple weeks, I will not be able to make it to the TEC Reunion. :( Which kind of sucks. (Support Party Anyone?) :) Also, I won't be able to apply to TEC 70 in January, but will be applying to TEC 71 in April. I'm already pretty excited. :) And... *drumroll* I will Not be putting Support as my number one choice. It will likely be ordered as Wheat, Kitchen, Support. And no, Bauer, I do not want to be an ATL. :)

There are lots of other things I could blog about, but this blog entry is already long enough, isn't it? :) The lesson of the day... God is good, and - like our weekend verse and theme stated - we all need to catch a fire and be on fire for God in our lives.

LotD: YouTubeX. Save YouTube videos as files on your computer. Pretty handy.