This is just going to be a random collections of different thoughts on my mind as well as a few stories. Enjoy the miscellany.
- My van probably had the fewest people in it out of the 3. It seated 12, and we had maybe 6-8 the entire trip. Starting off, we had 2 full benches the people could lay out on. Which was really nice.
- I slept a ton on the trip down. I’m one of the drivers, so I slept so that I wouldn’t be tired when it was my turn to drive. But Steve Mortland apparently never feels tired, so I didn’t get a chance to drive. Not that I’m complaining though.
- Villanova absolutely smooshed UCLA today. It wasn’t even close. I wouldn’t even call it a game, more of an exhibition.
- Our rooms weren’t ready right away, so some of us had to wait until 1 to move into our rooms. I was watching the end of the Villanova game and partly napping when some of the guys came back from the beach. I gave Dan the key to our room (1305) and he went to take a shower. He came back with a puzzled look on his face. He told me that there was already stuff in our room, and how there was a ton of food in the fridge along with a case or two of bud light. I was about as confused as he was, because Erika had told us that that was our room.
So I told Steve about the situation and headed down to the front desk to see what the problem was. While I was down there, the 2 girls who were residing in the room were in front of me getting their keys reactivated. When I went up to ask about it, Erika had called down. They looked over their records and realized they had given us the keys to the room next to us, and our room was really 1306.
Just imagine if they were already in their room and Dan had accidentally walked in on them. That would have made for a much much more awkward story.
- The first place a couple of us went to for lunch was a pizza place across the street, Stavro’s. Two years ago on the first night we were here there was some sort of incident there, and like 5 police cars showed up. So I already had some preconceptions that this place was a little bit sketchy. We walked over, and the doors were locked, so we were about to leave. A woman walked out from the back, and unlocked the door, and let us in. But after that she just walked back into the kitchen. She didn’t say anything, didn’t give us any menus; she just left us out in the front. It was really weird.
- I’m so glad our shower nozzle is strong. I hate taking showers where the shower head flow is just a trickle.
- I like our team a lot this year. Not that there was ever a Daytona team I didn’t like, but I feel like this year’s team will get along quite well with each other. On some of my previous years there have been a person or two which has sort of been on the fringes of the group, but I don’t see anyone like that (yet) for this year’s team. That’s going to help us a lot, considering we’ll be working a lot more closely with each other in smaller groups, as opposed to one large group in the past 2 years.
- UConn is having a field day with Texas A&M as well. It seems like the games thus far today have not been close, or surprising, as last night’s games.
- One of the popular activities of this afternoon has been napping. As of right now, there are 4 guys laying on the floor or couches in the main conference room. Countless others are probably sleeping in their room as well. That’s probably what happens when you don’t sleep at all on the ride down.
- While we are Wendy’s, Liz Chang wanted to take a group picture of the 6 of us that had chosen to go there for lunch. One of the guys in front of us asked if we wanted him to take it, and we gladly agreed. He asked us where we were from, and if we were on our spring break. He seemed pretty talkative, but we kept the conversation short. Back at the hotel, I realized that that would have been a perfect opportunity to carry on a meaningful conversation, and see if maybe we could plant some seeds. We were in line for a good 15 minutes or so. But we missed the opportunity and chose to talk amongst ourselves.
With this having been my 3rd year, one problem that arises is the sort of outreach mode mentality. When we’re on the beach or out at night, we feel like we’re in outreach mode. We care for people and want to hear about their lives. But when we are maybe out eating, or taking some time for ourselves on the weekend, it seems like we’re content to keep amongst ourselves. Even when perfect opportunities are presented to us on platters, we sometimes chose to ignore them, wanting to stay in our bubbles. I’m one of the first to admit that I’m part of the problem, and I just pray that the Holy Spirit can work in his powerful ways to divorce us of our selfish and scared mindsets. So please continue to pray that we can live our leaves in a meaningful and intentional way so that others can see and hear of God’s love.
“For this reason I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands. For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love and of self-discipline.”
- 2 Timothy 1:6-7