Answered Prayers and good things

It seems like near the end of last year I did a lot of praying about God blessing Jones with more Christian guys. Before Gary and I showed up, it was said that there were really no Christian men at Jones involved in Cru at all, much less in leadership.

Today I realized just how well God answers prayers. One of the freshmen living across the hall from me, John, organized a night-time prayer and worship get-together in his room tonight with all the Christian guys he could get a hold of from the north colleges, mostly freshmen. It was amazing to see how God has inspired him to make changes here at Rice and how enthusiastic he is about serving the Lord to transform the Rice campus. He is certainly not alone, as his roommate Andrew also had some kind of part to this and is also a Christian. It seems like the short end of of 3rd south has become the Jones Men's Bible Belt of sorts, and its awesome. I'm pretty sure most of the floor within a few doors could hear all of us singing and praising the Lord tonight, especially because of John's really enthusiastic and loud prayers and all of the guitar playing.

There were two other things about today that made it exceptional. The first involved me waking up at 6:30 am to go and serve the community by cleaning up debris from Ike at Hermann Park along with several other MOBsters. It was a great opportunity to serve and make Hermann Park as beautiful as it was before Ike hit, and it was also a great opportunity to meet lots of the new MOBsters and continue to strengthen relationships that already exist.

I also have really, really been enjoying the time I've been able to spend with Robyn lately. There's something about her that just makes you always in a good mood, makes me feel totally comfortable, and she's really fun to just talk to for hours and hours. Tonight we went to Thai Village, walked all the way to Ben and Jerry's before realizing it was still out of power, went back to Baskin Robbins instead, and then spent another couple hours just talking and playing cards in her room at Wiess. It was pretty much amazing. I wish I didn't have so many problem sets due on Monday that I have to work on tomorrow.

Hurricane Ike

Just a few days ago, a category 2 hurricane known only by it's three letter name, Ike, flew threw Houston, thrashing all in its path. I am fine, and I don't know of any Rice students who were injured by the hurricane in any way, but it definitely has had an impact on life at Rice for the past few days.

Friday night, each college was hunkered down in a safe location to take shelter from the storm. Jones was sent to our commons, right next to Martel in the north servery. It was a really fun time, but I'm not sure I'd really want to do it for longer than just one night. We watched movies, played board games, and hooked up a projector on a white bed sheet so we could play Brawl. I also played a bit of Rock Band in the Martel section of the servery, and one person said that he'd never seen someone play drums on expert before. Made me feel pretty awesome. Apparently my obsessive playing with the rest of The Festering Pheasants (a band made of myself, and several Martelians which usually include Ian Jones, Bobby Anderson, and Collin Hansen, but occassionally has substitutes) has paid off since I've progressed from medium to expert in less than a month.

The next morning we woke up to find debris covering a majority of the Rice campus. Although we still weren't allowed to leave the building at this time, I later ventured out to discover several downed trees in the south college area as well as the academic quad. The north colleges didn't lose any trees outright, but Brown lost quite a few bricks from the top of their tower. Later that night I went to Wiess to watch the first two Star Wars movies (New Hope and Empire Strikes Back), and it was pretty awesome.

While we never lost power, we did have to deal with a loss of water pressure, so we weren't able to shower for a couple days, and even after we got the water pressure back, it wasn't until yesterday that we got warm water. Ike did a great job of showing how well we as Rice students are able to deal with adverse conditions and still persevere. That fact that there isn't any homework due this week did make it a bit easier though.

In slightly more exciting news (at least for Mithun), my relationship status is very much complicated right now. To the point where I now realize why there is a "It's Complicated" choice on facebook. If you want more information you are welcome to call or email me, but you might get a bit confused.