Thursday, December 25, 2008

The blessing of a Godly family!

I sit here thinking about all the things that I have to be thankful for and the biggest thing that comes to my mind beside my savior is my family. They have always been supportive in my decisions and the directions that I feel that God is moving me. All through out my life I have seen God's hand touch my life in a way that I can never forget it. No matter what step I have taken next in my life God has always laid the foundation and provided for me. So as I sit here being a college student in awe of the life that God has given me I am thankful for a Savior that has seen that I have searched for him and he has made my paths clear. Without the love and direction of my heavenly father I would be lost and not sure of what my next step that I should take. I have my family to thank as well for helping me put complete faith in him. My wonderful parents have raised me to understand that apart from Christ i have nothing and with him I have everything.

I honestly believe that Christ rewards those who are faithful to him and are willing to live their lives for him. I can see these rewards all through out my life but my most recent blessing is a girl named Shelly. Shelly has been such a great inspiration to me and has encouraged me to seek the father more than I could have ever thought. She has so much zeal for the Lord and when her face lights up with the glory of God I just melt. She is more than I could have ever asked for and I honestly believe that it is because we have been faithful to him that he has brought us together. She will tell you the same things that I have already mentioned. She has been raised by a loving family that was in love with God. She was seeking God with all her heart when she ran into me and together we desire to serve him with everything we have. If we have to give up everything we know and have to serve him then we are more than willing to do so. So on this Christmas night in December we ask that you pray for us and that God will use us more than ever for his glory and not our own!

In Him,
Garrett

Wednesday, December 17, 2008

In for the night...

Today has been a pretty good day! I would say that this week has been pretty balanced out for me because I have had one final a day until today. Today I had one in Foundations In Digital Editing and then I had one in Computer Graphics tonight. I think they went pretty well! I was talking to my buddy Phillip yesterday and he said that its depressing because he can look out his window and see people packing up and heading home. I wish that was the case for me but all I have is one more day of school and then the next day I am headed home myself.

Tomorrow I have an Old Testament final and a Gateway final but the only one that I am worried about is the Old Testament final. Hopefully it goes well because I sure do need all the points that I can get in that class.

I went to bed at five and hoped to wake up at seven so I could finish my music video but I slept through my alarm and woke up at eight. I hopped out of bed and grabbed my laptop and started editing again. Keep in mind that the only footage I had before last night was the footage getting out of bed and sitting on the couch. So I filmed all the music stuff last night thanks to Ben who was a big help in holding the camera for me. Ok ok... I need to give a little credit to Michael who also helped me film. So anyways... I edited and submitted the video at like ten which was thirty min. before it was due.

I told Shell that I would meet up with her and pray with her before we went and started finals. So if you have ever seen my campus it is a little walk from my Dorm to the Cathedral. It was well worth it because she is worth it. We had a great time of prayer and talking! It is moments like that I cherish because when we talk about God and his greatness it just makes me so excited. Then we split ways and went to take our finals. We had our last final of the day together in computer graphics and then we went to the Admissions building for a pizza party. It was so fun because there was ton of pizza and they had a soda fountain there. Then we headed back to her dorm and hung out for a little bit (Not to long... I Promise). For a longtime for Shell and I is a lot longer than yours! lol... anyways... I am back in my dorm just listening to Jars of Clay.

I have to start cleaning my room because they will not let me leave until it is completely clean!!!

Later,
Garrett

Music Video Away!!

Well, it seems that the life of a digital media major is one that has frequent late nights. Last night I got about three hours of sleep. The late night almost costed me a dorm building when puffs of smoke started coming from the pizza that Ben dropped into the bottom of the stove. We had two pizzas in the oven and we were only able to get one out first because of the amount of smoke that was building up in the oven. It was pretty intense!

I am sitting in my digital media class watching our Final videos and it feels so good to be done with this class. I really didn't like it because it challenging what I already know. Why not challenge something I just learned and not something that I have been doing for seven or so years. Anyways... I do not recommend the class even though it is required for my major.
Here is the video below that I did for my class.

Tuesday, December 16, 2008

Thinking About Christmas!

It is after dinner and I am sitting in my dorm room thinking about this amazing awesome music video that I am suppose to be making. Needless to say that I have not got any further on it since my last post. For my foundations in digital editing class we can either edit a music video or we can make a sports edit reel. I am think since I already have a bunch of sports footage from this summer I could very easily just edit to music. So I am still deciding what I really want to do. If you are bored you should check out the original music video "Flood" from Jars of Clay on YouTube. It is so old and cheesy so anything that I do could only look better than the original.

So I have been thinking about Christmas and some things that I would not mind having. This list by no means is something I want people to buy. Just something to look and think of the many adventures with them.

1.) Dell Laptop Backpack (It needs to look cool).
2.) 22'' Widescreen Monitor (Dell if possible)
3.) PowerEdge Dell Server
4.) 1000 ft. of Ethernet Cable with Crimping tools.
5.) Nice USB-Wireless Mouse (http://www.logitech.com/index.cfm/mice_pointers/mice/devices/130&cl=us,en)
6.) 2X 2GB DDR2 RAM (For Dell Desktop)
7.) 1.5 Terabyte Drive

Exciting Week of Finals and Videos!

This week has been a good week! Just sitting around jusnt waiting for the next final to be done. Hopefully they will be all over and I will be back at home hanging out with family and friends. I am currently in the process of working on some videos. I have a couple of ideas for a new 15-30 second clip for a kamp video. I have a music video that is due tomorrow but I will work on it after dinner. I got some of it filmed and I just need to capture it. I am going to be doing it to Flood by Jars of Clay. This semester has been a really busy one for me! I finally got my kamp video done which has been the highlight of my week. I had to duplicate and sleeve 1150 DVDs and had to get them all mailed out by monday.





I got bored and so I went and barrowed a camera from my friend Jake down the hall. Here are some shots of my dorm room that I took. Just a little glimpse into the messy life of Garrett and Chris's dorm room.

Who Am I?

I am 20 years old and I am a student at John Brown University. I am currently a digital media major but really not sure if that is what I want to do the rest of my life. I am dating the most amazing girl in the world and excited about the things to come in our lives. We pray that God will use us to further his kingdom and that we will honor and respect him through everything we do. Through this journey called life we have experienced highs and lows but one thing that we have found that never changes is the love of God for us. We desire to serve him with everything in us and we have come to find out that if we are not living our lives for God than there is no reason to be living. We have found that he is the sustainer of all living things and without him we are hopeless. Finding his intent for our imprint in our lost world of today is what we are striving to seek.
I have been blessed with an amazing Christian family that has raised me to discover that I cannot be separate from Christ. Since I was a little boy I have had the desire to be involved in ministry some way and people would ask me the question… “Where will go?” I was quick to respond back… “Wherever God leads me.” I think back then it was more to impress people with such a cool answer but today I sit here in my college dorm room saying the same thing. I want to be where God is leading me to go and the only difference between then and now is that I am more in love with my Savior. He has inspired me to be more like him and I fail so much but I keep getting back up and trying all over. I have been blessed with an amazing co runner in my walk for Christ and she picks me up where I slack and helps me get back on the right track. Shelly has been such an inspiration to me growing in my Christian walk over the past year. We came together because of Christ and it is through Christ that we have been able to live through struggles. We are at the point that our greatest fear is not losing one another but that we could lose sight of God’s direction. Together we run this race beside one another and realize more and more that it is a team thing instead of an individualistic thing.
Growing up in the heart of Branson Missouri I have been raised around great influences and one of those would be Kanakuk Kamps. If you are not familiar with it you should check them out because they are making it happen. It is a Christian Athletic Sports Kamp dedicated to teaching kids the attitude of Christ through sports. I have grown up with Kanakuk and have always had the desire to work there but for some reason I felt like I could never be able to get my foot in the door. During my junior year of High School I really began to question my faith and wondering if what the world had to offer me was better. So as the school year went on I began to cuss and stopped reading my bible because I knew that was the last thing that I wanted to do. In the back of my mind I knew that God was real because he had been there for me all my life and I would think about him a lot during that time. I really began to feel lonely and empty because I knew that God was just waiting for me to turn back to him. One day I got a call and it was Dave Janke and he asked me if I wanted to come and work for Kamp as a videographer and I was like sure. Immediately I knew something was going to have to change in my life because there was no way that I could be living two different lives. So I got my act together and stopped cussing and started to read my Word. That summer was the best summer of my life because it was then that I realized that I had missed God so much in my life. I got into my bible deep and it was lonely whenever I did not have it on my all the time. I read so much about the life of Paul and how he made so many sacrifices for the gospel and then realized that no matter how many he made for Christ it would still never add up to what Christ had done for him.
Today I am typing this about me because I have to understand that on a daily this life I live is not mine but Christ’s in me. So as insignificant my life is to this world it means so much to my heavenly father. So as I live my life I pray that I live it to the glory of God and the day that I don’t I hope that God takes it from me. I am a gift but God’s gift to me is far more than me. There is something greater to live for and that is for Jesus Christ.
Your Bro,
Garrett