Sorry for my unexpected silence over the past couple weeks. But, if you will listen, I will briefly delineate why: For one, school has been extremely busy. I'm afraid with finals 11 days away it's crunch time, and I've been spending every spare minute working on reducing my mountain of last minute assignments. Also, IHC was the 14-16 of this month, which required a lot of my time, which took away from homework time, which added to my crunch time. It all equates. But, I wouldn't trade IHC for anything! IHC was followed immediately by VIP Day, which meant that I ran from the time I got up till about midnight Friday night. Saturday was spent doing homework. Lots of busyness, but God is good. I did have a fun time doing an impromptu photo-shoot a week ago. You can see the results here.

I had a phrase from a song running through my mind today, "Jesus has overcome; the grave is overwhelmed." What a powerful thought! I am so thankful to be serving a risen Savior Who loves me, calls me His own, walks with me through the tough stuff of life.

- Ryan

P.S. If you think of it, pray for me that I'll get everything accomplished that I need to during this extremely hectic time of the semester.

Tags: Busy

IHC 2009 has come and gone. I love IHC! I've been every year I can remember. It's definitely a very busy time these last couple years, but lots of fun. For some more pictures go here. Sorry, I would post more, but I simply don't have time. With finals 11 days away I'm afraid I have some serious amounts of homework to get caught up on.

- Ryan
P.S. Thanks to my awesome cousin Amanda for taking this picture, and the picture of the GBS choir. It's kind of hard to be in the choir and take pictures at the same time

Tags: Photography, IHC, Family, fun, Busy

"Ok, life, you can slow down any time now!" ~ Ryan

Tags: Busy

It seems at times that my break has been just as busy as my semester; but I have had times to relax and kill time. I trust you had as wonderful a Christmas as I did. It was good to spend time with family. I'm afraid I tend to be an impulse driven writer, and at the moment, I don't have the impulse So, I will simply post a bunch of pictures and hope you won't notice.


I was blown out the water to get this! It's a bag to hold both my laptop and my camera when I go on an overseas trip at the beginning of the summer.


Man, I wonder who stole that one piece of cookie dough


Mom holding Jayla


Katie opening a present.


Kara opening her patriotic gift.


My brother, Jason.


My brother, Andrew.



My grandma & grandpa holding Jayla, their fourth great-grandbaby.


Jayla again.


Me holding Jax.


JeNa, Katie, and Jaxon.


My brothers, Jason & Andy.


My grandpa and Andy.


Katie driving the remote controlled dozer.


Jaxon playing around.


We all got t-shirts with our family's name on it.


My aunt, Debbie, and JeNa.


My friend, Becky, came over with her family one night for tacos! (family tradition)


My cousins came up and we went ice skating yesterday. It was a lot of fun. This is Jacynda.


My cousin, Travis.

Hope you don't mind my cop out

Ryan

Tags: Busy, Family, Christmas, Relax

It has been a very, very busy few weeks. The Christmas play is now over (which is kinda sad), I survived preaching in the annual service held at GBS during the weekend of the Christmas play. Now it's time to focus on homework. I admit, from where I stand right now, it looks literally impossible to get it all done, and I may not, but I know that the same God Who was faithful to help me through last week is still walking right by my side this week as well. The pictures are of my in the Christmas play, in which I played the statue (I was a walking, talking statue when I wasn't frozen in place). It was so much fun! The gray color was a mixture of face paint, gray stage hairspray, and makeup. It took about 3 hours to put on every night, and about 30-40 minutes to take off. The removal process involved scrubbing my face and hair about 4 times thoroughly with shampoo. Then using special makeup remover around my eyes. The Lord was faithful to the cast, choir, and orchestra, and the play went very well. For more details and pictures see my Facebook. Will post more when I have time.




Ryan
P.S. Photos compliments of Marilyn Muir, Jeremiah Parker, and Sharalyn Watters

Tags: Busy, Homework, Play, Preach

Ahhh... you gotta love that feeling as layer after layer of skin gets peeled off your nose as you keep it to the grindstone! The semester is definitely back with a vengeance. It seems no matter how much I plan, or how hard I work, I am destined to never again see my pillow until at least midnight. Although, I am to the point where at a quarter till midnight, I just shut things down no matter where I'm at. Having to get up at 6:00am every morning simply will not allow for late nights. Which, by the way, brings me to my next point. I have been exercising every morning at 6am for the past three weeks. I thought I was supposed to feel some great "lift" in energy, and "focusing" of mind. *sigh* "I'm waiting!!" Oh well, it is making me healthier. To sum it up, things are going OK. Classes are good. I'm learning a lot (small digression - It continues to strike me just how blessed, and honored I am to be here, learning these things. When I consider that my brothers and sisters in Christ are suffering, being tortured, and dying every day for His Name, it humbles me). I'm going to be an uncle again soon! My brother Andy and his wife are expecting their third child. Hopefully I can get up there soon. Well, it's late, and the morning will soon enough be knocking at my door. So, I bid thee adieu.

Ryan

P.S. I walked about 1.5-2 miles on this trail one time, only to run across this sign and have to turn back.

Tags: School, Busy, Life

I'm trying to get back into the swing of things here at GBS. I got my room mostly in place, now I just need to hit Greek really hard to refresh me for this year. The stack of flash cards you see here are less than half of all the vocabulary words we need to have memorized. It's a lot of work. And that's not even counting all of the grammar rules we need memorized. Well, If you can't tell by my very lackadaisical writing style, I am tired. I believe I shall retire. Have a good day.

Ryan

Tags: Greek, School, Busy

Bedtime yesterday - 4:30am
Bedtime today - 3:30am

Hmmm... I think I see a pattern! Maybe by the end of the week I'll get to bed before 11:00pm!

Ahh.... Gotta love finals week!

Ryan

Tags: GBS, Finals, Busy

I decided not to make excuses for my long absence from the blogosphere, but let me just say that it involves homework (well, I guess I just did anyway)... I just finished taking an assessment exam for Greek. Let's just say, better luck next time... Let me forewarn you, you may not see too much of me over the next two weeks as finals start Thursday of next week. But, hopefully after that I will have some time to relax, and blog, and sleep, and live!

May you have a peaceful, quiet, serene, slow-paced, lollygagging day
Ryan

Tags: Busy, Greek, End, Homework, GBS

Ahh, it was another late night here at GBS for a certain college student (yours truly). It was about 2 am when I rolled into bed. Can I be done yet? I'm ready for summer. But, it's good for me, and I'm learning a lot. Well, on to Greek. Were working on aorist participles right now...the fog is pretty thick right now. And I'm taking 2nd year Greek when I don't have to?! I need my head examined! Or in the words of Festus, "much learning doth make thee mad" (Acts 26:24).

Ryan

Tags: Homework, GBS, Busy

It has been an extremely busy past couple of weeks! I have a lot to update you on. I actually went Alabama this weekend with the Ministerial Dept., and had a blast. But, it is now 1:56 A.M., and I just got back to my room from working on Greek for class tomorrow (oops, today ) and I am too tired to do it now. I will try and make time later. See yah!

Ryan

Tags: Busy, School, GBS, Crazy

I have returned! After a 2-3 month hiatus, I am back up and running. I have successfully finished my 3rd (and by far, hardest) semester at GBS, and will be heading back on January 7th to dig into my 4th semester (which will be comparably, if not more, difficult). But, the Lord was faithful, and He gave me the strength I needed to make it through. I am now on break, and it feels wonderful! I haven't slept this much in 4-5 months! I am currently up at Megan's house in Shelby, MI, and we will leave on the 24th to go down to my house to finish out the break.

I will probably not attempt to catch up on all that has lapsed during the 'silent months', because it would just take too much time. But I'll just state that the semester went fairly well scholastically, and I am enjoying my job working for Dr. Brown (it keeps me busy!). I hope you have a merry Christmas!

Ryan

Tags: Busy, Break, Personal, Website, Return

You may be asking, "Why such short posts?" The answer is simple, no time. I know that sounds like a lousy excuse, but to that I say, become a GBS student and see for yourself what it's like. Hopefully I'll get some time this weekend to upload pictures, and post some more blogs. Have a great day!

Ryan

Tags: School, Busy, GBS

Maybe the better question would be, "Where haven't I been?" It seems these past 6 days have been a blur. With IHC, followed by VIP Day, followed by senior pictures, followed by ministry pictures Sunday, and soon to be followed by the GBS school picnic tomorrow, I am certainly giving my camera a good workout. But I really don't mind taking pictures. In fact, I thoroughly enjoy doing it. The day I stop enjoying it is the day I put it away for a while. I figured it out yesterday, and I took nearly 4,500 pictures in five days. But it was a lot of fun, and I don't regret it at all! I did, however, receive a lot of help from Megan who was faithful to run around behind me and help with all the camera equipment. We were finally able to relax Sunday afternoon, and it was such nice day we ate lunch outside and spent much of the afternoon out on south lawn relaxing in the shade. ahh... the calm before the storm (the end of the school year). But there are only five weeks of school left, and then the summer is mine... if I can just hold on

Ryan

Tags: Photography, Busy

An interesting event occurred the Monday before IHC (Inter-Church Holiness Convention). First, for those of you who don't know, IHC is an event where a lot of the holiness churches get together for a 3-day convention in Dayton, OH. There are usually around 5-10 thousand people in attendance. Now, back to the story. I was just waking up from a nap when suddenly my cell phone rang. I answered it with my usual "Hello", but was surprised to hear the voice of the president of my college, Dr. Avery, on the other end. He then proceeded to ask me if I would be interested in helping take pictures this year at IHC because the current photographer will be leaving for the mission field. I gladly agreed, because I knew it would be something I enjoyed. So, to make a long story short, I spent the three days of IHC running around taking LOTS of picture. I took around 2,500, but only turned in around 1,200. It was a very good experience, a tiring one, but rewarding.

Ryan

Tags: IHC, Photography, Busy

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I came to a place a couple days ago where I told someone, "I have reached the point of switching from pursuing excellence, to merely pursuing survival." It's one of those things that you must be a college student with five weeks till the end of school to understand. I reached quite a low ebb in which I had no where to turn but to my Father. But He was faithful. I am reading a book in my Doctrine and Practice of Prayer class simply entitled Prayer by Philip Yancey. And in it he talks about how God desires complete and total honesty in prayer. I have been in the habit of doing this for a while now, but it was reassuring to see that I was on the right track. If God already knows our thoughts and how we're feeling anyway, then why not express them to Him? God was faithful to send someone to encourage me to keep on, and to keep the end result in view. He has truly proven Himself to be a God of faithfulness, and even though I don't fully understand why this event happened in my scholastic life, I know that God is in control and I can trust Him to guide me through. So if I can simply encourage you, if you happen to have anything in your life that you don't fully understand, don't hide your emotions from God. Yancey says something to the fact of 'perhaps it's not the fact that we have these feelings that troubles God, maybe it's the fact that we're trying to hide them.' Look at the biblical examples of Job and David. Have you read some of David's psalms lately? They are the epitome of honesty before God! So don't bring a 'false' you before the omniscient God, come before Him as you truly are, and that is where you will find Him.

Ryan

Tags: Busy

Hey everyone, Not too much to say, just haven't checked in with you all for a while so I thought I would give you a quick update. I had a very hectic day today with a test and a quiz back to back. I stayed up till after 1:00 A.M. this morning studying for the test and was still very shaky on it. However, I prayed and asked God for His help and He most certainly came through! While I did not get a 100% on the test, I at least passed it with an acceptable grade. I also received a good grade on the quiz. I am finding more and more that when my back is against the wall I can turn to Him for strength and guidance. He has always been faithful to pull me through, even when I may not have given the "best" performance beforehand. It's so amazing that even though we may have a hard time believing, He is faithful to us (2 Timothy 2:13). May God's presence saturate your day, and may you follow His will in every nuance of your life.

Ryan

Tags: Busy, Test, GBS

Sorry for the long gap in updates! With the Christmas program tomorrow, and finals less than a week away, busy is not an adequate adjective!! Still, things are moving along relatively smoothly without any major hiccups...so far. But finals week will be grueling! I can't wait for Christmas vacation!! I will be leaving sometime Friday afternoon. Well, I have another class in a few minutes so I better get going. Have a good day!

Ryan

Tags: Busy, GBS