Did you know that not only is BET a hip-hop, groovy televeision station, but it is also used to describe multilayer adsorption of a gas or solute to a solid, adhering surface? Who would have guessed (except those that have had some P-chem)?

I have had to lecture this week to my environmental chemistry class and if you haven't guessed this already, my topic is adsorption phenomena. I didn't really know the material in-depth until this week, but it's not the most difficult to conceptually (or mathematically) understand for those that have had a good deal of chemistry, physics or thermodynamics. I fall in the first category. The real challenge is translating the notes I have, which are very theoretical, into something the students will be able to comprehend. Thankfully, on Tuesday after some prolonged brain storming, the good Lord helped me start writing a student-friendly lecture for Wed's class. And again, thank God, the lecture went really well!

Because of the lectures I have to give, research has been put aside this week. I've welcomed a little more rest and time with the Great Rest-Giver. I've also welcomed a little more time with Kindel and friends. Yesterday evening Kindel came by my office to spend some time praying with each other. From our time sharing scripture with each other, one of the themes we recognized is that while we often keep ourselves from seeing God's work in our lives, he'll frequently just come along side us in amazing, surprising ways. He could just leave us in our obtuse understanding of His work (and character), but out of his love, we find him jumping into our boat and calming the storm. In prayer, we both showed a desire to have deeper friendships with those around us - inside or outside the church - it doesn't matter. We'd like to be more confident of our position in God's kingdom, thus becoming more vulnerable with those God brings in our lives. Easy thing to say, but this can be hard, painful, and time-consuming. Worth it? I think so.

Well, have a nice weekend.

An attractive sequential extraction

Honestly, I feel like crap, but I am alive.

Research has required a lot of effort lately. I don't know how to describe the week I've had, but I can clearly say that I've put in about twice as much work as usual - time, mind, body. It has been hard. Over last three days I 've had a steady intake of caffeine, mostly from coffee. Thankfully, though, I did get about 8 hours of sleep last night. While it was much needed, my body, in the form of a sore body and splitting headache, is still responding as though it could use another 10 hours in bed.

Even amidst the demanding schedule of work, the task of extracting different forms of phosphate from my sediment samples is going really well. Monday evening I messed up pretty bad and start over, but since then I've been granted a wholesome capacity to perform my lab work well.

On another note, I've decided to apply to the Vienna trip. This doesn't guarantee that I'll be attending, but it's the first step in investigating the ineffable Creator's plan for my spring break. I also did this when praying about spending the summer of 2005 in Thailand. Please continue to give me feedback on this - I've talk to maybe three people about it. Especially all of you from church that read my blog!

Thanks again to all of you that care enough about me to visit my website. Thank you for you prayers and thoughts, I am an unworthy recipient.

Vienna

My faithful and infrequent readers, I could use your prayer and advice.

Through the Graduate Student InterVarsity chapter at UIUC an opportunity has arisen to spend 10 days in Vienna to aide the Austrian Student Mission. The spirit about the trip is unique - a small group of American graduate students will travel to Vienna to be an occasion for which the Austrian students can do outreach on campus. This may initially sound like any other 'mission trip', but the InterVarsity view of outreach is not what I would consider traditional. As graduate students we would help lead discussions about the relevency of the Christian faith to the academic world. Hopefully, we would have the opportunity to share about how we see the neccessity to integrate faith and academics within our discipline.

While fruitful and good, the mission-oriented trips I've taken in the past have not purposefully taken advantage of the gifts I've been given regarding academics and intellect. And so it excites me to think about the poweful witness my personal faith story - that which includes the spiritual and intellectual - could have on such a trip as this.

The dates of the trip are March 16 (fly out Fri; arrive Sat) to March 24 (fly back on Sat). If I attended the trip, it might be wise to stay a few extra days to tour the Austrian or German countryside.

Your prayers, questions and comments and very welcome.

Thank you.

Crash

I crashed into Marcin...



Jeremy ate some dirt and hugged a tree...



And Marcin took a nice tumble.



More pics of our Kickapoo crash-course in my PhotoBucket (See links section).

DTR

Israel's (the Church) relationship to God is marked by a series of covenants. In the discussion that I helped lead this summer it was noted that each stage of the progression of God's covenants is marked by an inaugeration ceremony of sorts. Furthermore, during the era of a particular covenant, the relationship between God and the people is often renewed. For example, the covenant between God and the Church during the Mosaic era had an inaugeration ceremony that took place on Mount Sinai. God declares what he has done for the people, basically who He is and his great deeds, and then makes known how his people will relate to him and be blessed. His people will keep the law. During the time period before David, the Mosaic covenant is often renewed by a public reading of the law. Inaugeratory and renewal ceremonies can be thought of in modern terms as "defining the relationship" or as DTRs. Daily instances of DTRs come in family and friend relationships.

Today at lunch I was sharing some good news with Austin and other friends. In describing what had happened, Austing declared "Oh, so you had a DTR! That's awesome!" And so, my thoughts immediately took a tangent to the idea of God's covenantal dealings with his people. Any thoughtful tangent to God's covenanting with his people is a good tangent! Anyway, all of this is introduction to that good news I shared with some of my friends and church family this afternoon.

For the past seven weeks I've developed a good and very enjoyable friendship with Kindel, a wonderful young woman I met at church. As Kindel and I have spent more and more time together, we've both prayerfully felt the desire to a committed relationship with each other. Yesterday evening her and I took a beautiful hike through Kickapoo State Park. During which, it took all of the two and a half hour hike to finally work up the courage to tell Kindel what I felt, and during this pleasant conversation we redefined our relationship. As Austin called it, we had our first DTR.

I'll follow up on this later, but I'm happy to share the news with you.

Servetus

Genesis 2:15 "The LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it."


Calvin's commentary: "Moses now adds, that the earth was given to man, with this condition, that he should occupy himself in its cultivation. Whence it follows that men were created to employ themselves in some work, and not to lie down in inactivity and idleness. This labour, truly, was pleasant, and full of delight, entirely exempt from all trouble and weariness; since however God ordained that man should be exercised in the culture of the ground, he condemned in his person, all indolent repose. Wherefore, nothing is more contrary to the order of nature, than to consume life in eating, drinking, and sleeping, while in the meantime we propose nothing to ourselves to do.

Moses adds, that the custody of the garden was given in charge to Adam, to show that we possess the things which God has committed to our hands, on the condition, that being content with a frugal and moderate use of them, we should take care of what shall remain. Let him who possesses a field, so partake of its yearly fruits, that he may not suffer the ground to be injured by his negligence; but let him endeavour to hand it down to posterity as he received it, or even better cultivated. Let him so feed on its fruits that he neither dissipates it by luxury, nor permits to be marred or ruined by neglect.

Moreover, that this economy, and this diligence, with respect to those good things which God has given us to enjoy, may flourish among us; let every one regard himself as the steward of God in all things which he possesses. Then he will neither conduct himself dissolutely, nor corrupt by abuse those things which God requires to be preserved." (emphasis added)

Well, Calvin, shall burn those who willingly neglect the land, considering such Christians as heretics?

What's really important?

"Religion asks us to reanalyze what is really important ... it asks us to give away or sacrifice what is difficult to give away." R. McKim

Two conferences in three days, both intriguing. First up was the Illinois Water Conference where I learned that the sediment I sampled the last two trips I took to Chicago isn't any good. I need to analyze it fresh. Currently on my plate is the U of I's Workshop on Religion and the Environment. I had made plans to attend a lecture entitled "Salvation and Ecology", but ended up getting to hear McKim's talk entitled "Can the Religions Help?"

Here are are the thoughts I penned out in an email a couple of minutes ago:

Although McKim encouraged the audience to look intently to the world's relgions in addressing the numerous environmental issues of our day, it sure made me think about my personal religion. Fasting, sacrificing time for prayer or fellowship, money toward tithing are central aspects of Christian devotion. Is this where the Christian idea of sacrifice ends? Or, will it extend to the sphere of God's creation? After sin, well, and resulting from it, the world is faced with numerous problems - food shortages, population explosion, poor drinking water. Should a true religion claim to have the answers to such problems? Can Christianity rise to answer the spiritual, as well as the humanitarian and environmental problems of our day?

Lookin' forward and lookin' back

Week 7. Most of the folks I'm friends with keep the same sort of yearly schedule I do. It's based on the semester system of the academic world. At this point in our calender, we're not primarily thinking it's now october 1st and have this, this, and this to do. It's a "I have 9 weeks left in the semester, two projects due between now and then, and a fall break where I'll procrastinate while laying up with family and friends. Nonetheless, I was extremely surprised to hear that this is week 7.


Pic 1: Here some of us are at the Pumpkin Fest a few weeks ago. Front (L to R) - Adrielle, Josh B., Kindel, and me. Back - Karen, Matt, Bryan, Janine, and Melody.

God has been very good. Let me reminisce on His grace and love:

The new people God has brought into my life have lavished encouragement on me. To tell you truth, the past three or four weeks I've felt spiritually parched. Upon listening or reading the words of those pleased by God's nearness and ever-present love, my heart lights up with desire to be in that place again! So easily I go back to the same routine of neglecting the Spirit's call. And the Great Shepard has kept true to his promise to go after every wandering sheep that is his. It's through my friends and family, including those at my local church, that my faith is being built up.

My adviser confirmed that I'm on track to graduate in May. I have a couple of life options I'm pursuing for post-graduation: a PhD program or work. I've spent much more time thinking about PhD programs over fixing up my resume or looking for job opportunities. Maybe it's just that time of the year? I often think, though, that the only real job option available for someone with my education is, well, to stay in academics. Where does an environmental chemist look for a job? I don't want to sit behind an instrument all day, pushing the 'start' button and filling out reports. So I'll preface my next paragraph with the comment that I have not fairly considered the job option.

Nonetheless, I've been very encouraged in my search for a PhD program. After making some contacts with local profs., I think that I have what it takes to get into some decent environmental science or engineering programs. Some of the email discussions have been particularly useful in helping me see what type of adviser, group, department, and project that will best suit me. Ask me sometime about how I've seen Providence working through this process.

Research and TAing have been going very well, but they keep me quite busy. Because of a full schedule, it's been a little more difficult to keep up with friends. At lunch today someone noted that I had basically disappeared for a few weeks. Well, there's truth to that.

Some prayer requests before I finish:

Spiritual health that positively affects my relationships
Consistent and healthy balance of time
Leading and fair decision making w/ regard to work and more grad school
Unspoken request for some healthy problems among family members

For some reason this passage was brought to mind:
"When our days there were ended, we departed and went on our journey, and they all, with wives and children, accompanied us until we were outside the city. And kneeling down on the beach, we prayed and said farewell to one another. Then we went on board the ship, and they returned home." Acts 21: 5-6