I’m sure some of you know this is coming (I told them either in real life or on facebook), but here it is.  How I found Jesus through all the crap I’ve endured for 18 years (don’t get me wrong, it started kicking in when I was around 12).  But be warned: this testimony is NOT for the faint-hearted.  It’s also going to be INCREDIBLY LONG (mostly because it’s THAT complicated, and God would want me to let you know my story), so to not rape the dash, I’ll insert a “read more” break after this paragraph is finished.  Also, our testimonies don’t end when we meet Jesus and are saved.

In 1990, right after Christmas, I jumped out of my mom’s womb, literally peeing on the ceiling (she told me not long ago), and my parents got married about a year later.  I never even knew that it was like that AT ALL, but I think I walked around the church wanting some M&Ms from a machine that day.  And that was probably my first trip to one in my life until July ‘92 (I was in the nursery and never paid attention much to anything, but more of that later).  Shortly before my 2nd birth day, I snapped my leg so bad that I had to spend Christmas ‘92 and my birthday IN THE HOSPITAL.  I think that was the moment that I wanted to be physically fit without getting destroyed in the field or a weight room.  I was also told that I was almost shot down by a bunch of BBs in 1991, and that was the same year that I began living around 12th St. and Peoria Ave. for 17 years (I was born downtown and my house was at 36th and Acoma at the time).  I’m glad that I survived two big physical storms before my second birthday.  Kind of odd, though.

Anyway, about a year and a half later, in mid-1994, I think, I was diagnosed with a mild autism, Phoenix was pillaged by a ravenous storm, and if I saw it, an amazing solar eclipse across the U.S.A.  I’m not sure how my parents reacted to that, but I do remember that I went to the clinic a bunch of times a few years later.  I think it was the same summer that my mom took me to Chicago to meet my great-grandparents, and began Pre-K weeks later.  I wanted to play hooky a couple of times, but incidentally, there wasn’t any school for any 3 or 4-year-olds on Wednesdays at my school (I think that was the day of the week).  Then came kindergarten, and I noticed that my mom was getting big; I didn’t even know she was pregnant, and I can still feel the joy of meeting my baby brother, Chris Outland, in November 1996.  And I still remember laying with him for weeks on end, that and eating six pizza slices a few days before my 6th birthday with my grandparents. (ah, the good old days :’) )  I bet that was the reason we moved to a big house nearby, but I didn’t mind. :)

I didn’t think that my parents would split up forever when I began making friends in 1997 or so, but they did; it was really hard for me for awhile.  It’s pretty good that my brother and I got to visit him in each of his homes that he lived in that were nearby, though.  I never knew why they divorced, though, until I was around 10 or so, about a couple of years after my mom started dating a guy named Randy; he was pretty cool at first, but then in 5th or 6th grade, things got pretty nasty.  By the way, I found out that my dad was on drugs since he was 13; that and they’re pretty much polar opposites.

Anyway, my brother and I each got abused by him (shoving my bro to a wall, throwing me on a bed without warning), but he only did that once, he never tried to kill us, at least that’s what I think.  Plus, he was an alcoholic, so after he took us all to southern California in 2002, we were in for some pretty rude awakenings every other day, so I couldn’t wait for him to leave the house.  And home wasn’t the only place with evil at the time, even my 6th grade science teacher banned me from half of the field trips that I really wanted to go to.  I was like: “I know, I screwed up, but I’ve never been on an island before and I really want to go!”  I was also going through puberty, too, so I got in trouble each day I attended school for some reason.  I still remember thinking: “Damn, this is so unfair. WTF are they doing to me?!  I DON’T DESERVE THIS KIND OF $#!@!!!”  And that was just at the start of 2003…

About two months later, I went to Chicago again, but this time, my mom brought my brother.  I wanted to go explore the Brookfield Zoo of the 21st century, but my great-grandfather was in bad health and was on his way to eternal life soon, so I remained behind and spent whatever time we had left with him; he died that summer along with the rest of my mom’s savings.  Months later, as I entered 7th grade, Randy began to pack his crap, but stole most of our stuff.  I loved those rugs!  Funny how everyone wanted to be my friend since then; apparently to them, I was like Mr. Cools-ville or something.  Weird, huh?  But that didn’t matter much compared to the fact that we had to sell almost everything just to get by, including our dog and parrot; our cats were the only living creatures we had left, and all hope was lost thanks to the retarded George Bush for canning my mom, especially since she seemed to become the biggest bitch in the world.

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve always loved my family to this day, but for awhile, even back then, I never felt loved back, so it was pretty hard for me to find a girlfriend when I started dating at age 13.  I also got grounded a few times throughout 2004 for skateboarding down a hill or going to Circle K or something.  Funny how people can crack down really hard because of one “oopsie” in a part of your life, so I was a prisoner inside and out.  It was good to know that I still had hundreds of friends from that moment forward, and music also helped me get by in high school, too.  And so did girls; I’ve always loved women. :) And speaking of women, I dated a girl named Kayla (who was a freshman while I was a sophomore in high school; she thought I was a college kid) for over a month.  It was pretty good for a few weeks, but then I found out that she was crazy and suicidal, so we broke up because I figured that it would be best if she didn’t poison anyone’s thoughts.  I got over it within hours, or was it days?  I think it was before me and my friends saw Jackass 2 in a hotel by NAU in late ‘06 after a band competition a week later.

I was glad that I could talk to some of my friends about the whole shebang (don’t take it literally, I still haven’t had sex yet; I’m saving it for the lady I marry one day), including Corrina, and I didn’t even know she liked me that much.  I didn’t want to date for awhile, though; I just wanted to have some fun everywhere.  I did begin dating her about a year later, though, and over time, she became my first love at age 16.  However, the majority of our relationship was in 2008, but a few weeks after we started dating, we were threatened with foreclosure, and by we, I mean my family.  My mom did work a few jobs since her 2003 departure, but she was unemployed at the time, and her boyfriend, David, helped us get by with his job.  Besides, we were threatened with foreclosure in 2004, but my mom’s boss, John, saved us from it back then, but she got laid off in 2006, and worked at Circle K during the rest of the summer.  Then, she became a court’s secretary or something for about a year or so, but got canned when she counterfeited $16,000 for some reason; she decided to resign to take in the inevitable.  I don’t remember what job she had in late 2007, though, but they did split right before I turned 17.

And also, in that time frame, our car’s transmission failed miserably, and for a month, I tried everything to raise the money to be able to fix it (it was over $2,500 with the 2008-09 tags).  Plus, things were getting kind of hasty at school (a kid named Kyle spread a rumor that I was gay after I told everyone that our friend, Ian, was gay; that’s karma for ya), and for the first time, my relationship with Corrina was in jeopardy.  Good thing we fixed it a short while later; I think it was because of the damn rumor that probably resolved itself.  I finally quit on trying to fix the car at the end of January 2008, though, I didn’t want to push things any further.  Then, from out of the blue, my family’s church friends, the Van Dykes, let us borrow their ‘97 Volvo until Jenika, their second daughter and child, finished her credit hours at NAU up in Flagstaff, even during our move in April 2008 from 12th St. and Peoria to 24th St. and Sweetwater Ave. (we needed the extra cargo space) Plus, I forgot to say, my dad began living with us again a few months prior to the move so that he could stay there and live clean after a heart attack from December 2007, so his big van carrying everything was much better than renting a moving van; the distance between houses is only 2.5 miles.  I did think that Corrina was cheating on me / stood me up from a pizza date in February of that year, so I’m not sure why, but I wrote a note to Ashley about everything I was (I secretly liked her, too, but I never wanted to interfere with her dating life with our friend, Jake).  Seriously, I never saw it coming, even after I found out that she was a horrible liar and not believing her for the longest time.  Why all this business about her, you ask?  You’ll see pretty soon.

Prom 2008 was very fun for me and Corrina, even though she didn’t want to go bowling with me right after that; she wanted some rest.  She passed out getting her nails done (god, that was weird), and I visited her in the hospital right before we left.  However, I thought I made fun of Ashley with taking a bunch of tests, so that time, I wrote like, a two-or-three page apology note, then I called her a few days later, and as it turned out, I wasn’t even a jerk after all.  I did notice a strange connection between her and Corrina through me, though; it began to hit full effect that summer, but more of that later.

It was a shame that it was the same night that I damaged the ‘97 Volvo, and it would’ve cost thousands of dollars to fix, and we didn’t want to spend that much money, so it was deemed totaled when all the water from its radiator leaked off.  With that, I had to take the bus for summer school that I signed up for (I did a year’s worth of Spanish; it was also my first one), and I was thrilled to make new friends over the 6-week span.  None of the bonds lasted long, except for a girl named Kallie Fentress who was 15 at the time; I think she’s pushing 18, now, and it’s been over a year since we last talked.  I even got to reconnect with Amber Coleman (one of the girls I met in second grade, yep I was pimpin’ even back then despite the craziness), and it was pretty legit.  However, after Spanish class ended, Corrina assumed that I was cheating on her with about 10 or more girls for some reason, but I never did.  I can’t help but be THAT sexy, I said, but she was bashing everyone I knew, especially Ashley, when I told Corrina about my friendship with her and how I wanted to go out with her at age 14 (I must not have been ready to do that yet), and that was back when we met in 2005.  I went past it, but as it turned out, Corrina really was the jealous type, and she told me she wasn’t!  I never looked at her the same way again, yet we still went out everywhere.  You can say that summer 2008 didn’t go well for me, and worse things were yet to come, so I was like: “Is this the beginning of the end or something?  What am I going to do?!”

Apparently, it probably was, of our relationship, for months after that, as I returned to school for my senior year and my mom got a good job for the first time in five years, we kept fighting about everything we didn’t realize before, such as her being incredibly high-strung and all (it was a freaky storm inside and out because half of Phoenix was out of power the same night we broke up again; the time before that was the week before she turned 18).  It went on and on and on and on, with discovering that she has O.C.D. right before our band trip to Vegas, and me finding out about my autism through a car accident in November 2008, so with that, I prayed to God that things would somehow undo themselves; I think I was getting walked all over all semester by everyone.  Funny how I didn’t accept Christ yet, though; I must’ve had an identity crisis back then (although I didn’t realize it until last April when Jenny D. spoke at CRU about the fall of Adam and Eve thanks to their identity crises as well), and I think it lasted throughout my senior year, too.  With that, we finally broke up for good that December, shortly before my 18th birthday.

During Christmas break, I talked to Kallie about the whole thing, and from there, we caught up for awhile, even though I haven’t seen her since that one trip to PV Mall that Corrina and I went to a few weeks prior.  That instantly made my Christmas break much better.  However, when January 2009 came around, things weren’t going well inside or out, even neighboring schools were noticing.  There was constant drama throughout the halls of Shadow Mountain High because of Corrina; she even managed to get her friends to stop talking to her, too.  The fiasco at school calmed down by the end of the month, but as I was applying for financial aid at ASU after I was accepted two months earlier, some tension arose inside of me for some reason; I think it was my disability, but I guess I was just hurting from the confusion and chaos of our relationship’s end still.  I still wanted to take a break from dating for awhile and see what was wrong, because Corrina tried to kill herself a few days after we split :( and my emotions were getting mixed up.  Weeks went by, and my programs got better, but my domestic environment only worsened, and by a bizarre coincidence, my mom gets a really bad review for lacking people skills right after she went on strike because we couldn’t really get our chores done on time, and I was still like: “WTF?!” even during her 90-day probation.  However, it did seem to make sense of why I never invited anyone to my house.

As the months went by, my stress increased, from ASU freshman orientation to graduation because I didn’t get enough financial aid to be able to live on campus, and I really wanted to do it.  However, I did get into a summer bridge program at ASU, because thanks to a law called “I.D.E.A.” that was passed in 2008 (I don’t know the acronym), everyone with a disability that is going into college from high school should do it whether they want to or not.  At first, I wasn’t into it, but when I realized that I’d get the full college experience, including living in a dorm for $50, I thought: “Hey, this might be alright.”  Mostly because I figured that I’d finally have freedom everywhere for the first time in what seems like a thousand years.  It also came with 7 credits, including a course about disabilities, which I deeply resented because I hated that part of me so bad that I wanted to have it surgically removed or something after a KT scan, I’m not sure.  Besides, I was planning on taking 17 credits in the fall of 2009, and since my major was (and still is, to this day) mechanical engineering, I knew that I was in for a rough semester (and definitely a rough college career) if I didn’t do something FAST.

I think I was being finished off from the Sunday that I looked up my grades in mid-July 2009, and they were all F’s and D’s, so I have never been more shocked in my entire life.  I even maneuvered around every possible trick from a college professor that I could think of, and there were LOTS OF THEM.  Yep, I tried my best, but I still failed, especially after I got into a fight with my suite-mate at the time.  Why did we fight, you ask?  He came in my dorm, and found me playing Runescape, but he said to do my homework.  It went down a little something like this:

• Paul: Dude, what are you doing?
• Ron: Playing Runescape.  I could use some chill-time today.
• Paul: I think we have homework that needs doing by tomorrow…
• Ron: I know, but I can’t do it, even with help; things are getting so bad around me that I’m unable to do anything else!
• Paul: It don’t matter, man, just do your shit.
• Ron: NO!! I’m too stressed to do it all!
• Paul: What?!
• Ron: My mom is trying to take my decisions away from me!  How the fuck can you tell me what to do when I got a bunch of other shit on my mind?!  Isn’t a couple days off of homework to de-stress myself good enough?? *grabbing Paul’s shirt* I HOPE THOSE GUYS REALIZE WHAT’S GOING ON HERE!!!
• Paul: Whoa, whatever, man, I see your pissed off at something.
• Ron: Yeah, I know.  I don’t want to get destroyed overnight because of this, either.

Little did I know, someone reported to the ASU police while my grades were improving to C’s and B’s over the next two days, and on Wednesday, July 15th, my worst fears were realized:  My parents arrived along with some security guards to take away my room key, and I was escorted out of the PV East tower while I was saying: “Damn, my mom’s got ISSUES!  I hope she’s happy.”  I thought it was a crazy dream at first, but it was instead a living nightmare.  The next thing I knew, I was in my room, motionless, with about 100 papers on my lap, and my dad was saying that I could be headed to jail for the whole thing.  He even said that you could die in there, and knowing that not everyone would like me, I thought: “Oh, God, it’s only a matter of time before my time on earth is over, I’m headed to the big house!! WHAT SHOULD I DO???”  Plus, I realized that my mom went too far on the whole thing because she even went as far as bringing an old habit of mine (the being-all-walked-over one) and using it against me along with my disability, my messed-up relationship that went under, AND my finances even though I knew about it and looked into other financial aid programs; it didn’t matter to her that I was kicked out and probably wasn’t going to be allowed back in as long as I live!  I wanted to kill myself that week, but I never did, because I wanted to see how therapy goes; I mean, I thought I was going to die anyway.

The next day, I went to my first appointment with my therapist (I got my mom to hook him up with an appointment for me on July 16 awhile back; I knew it was only a matter of time anyways), and I explained everything as vivid as I could possibly describe, while she was in the same room as we were.  After over an hour, I was surprised that nobody went violent (even though my brother and I had a couple of knife fights that summer over our Runescape accounts because of our mom; you might even say the entire thing was demonic, a.k.a. Satan’s work), so after the appointment ended, I was saved by the one and only, Jesus Christ.  I would’ve let him in years ago, but I was probably too stubborn.  It didn’t matter, though, because I felt as though nothing more could go wrong, especially at my hearing which took place that Friday.

At the hearing, I explained everything, and I stated that I never meant to have it go to the whole Degrassi drama/action levels.  It was just that way from the beginning, and instead of getting locked up, I only got probation.  However, I wasn’t allowed back in the dorms until last month even though they’re full, now, and I needed to visit my consultant, Shannon Murphy for awhile, but having my class schedule knocked down to two credits for the fall was a pretty good call for me.  I couldn’t go back into ASU for five more days, however, I think I was suspended until Wednesday, July 22nd.  I don’t mind having a five or six-year tuition plan, though, because I had no credits coming into college.  Plus, I was limited in classes until last February, when I took 8 credits (although I withdrew the lab and mechanical engineering intro lecture to make it six for the spring 2010 semester).  I didn’t mind, though, but I did feel kind of idle despite my involvement in the ASU marching band until last week.  However, I did get a free snowcone one day at the SRC right before I was planning on working out in the gym, and through it, I joined Campus Crusade for Christ because I wanted to know everything about Jesus through that ministry (I still do to this day, and I’m not stopping!)  I’m glad Taryn was there with me beside the MU so that I could get more information out of it, and now, I love it so much that I want to work for CRU one day!

At my first meeting on August 27, 2009, I stayed at the ASU area until about 2 a.m. because I enjoyed Jesus time with everyone THAT much.  My mom was kind of worried, but that blew over eventually.  I even signed up for an off-campus freshmen/sophomore small group that night, too (I’m in the Upperclassmen Men’s group, now), and I soon decided that as I become a junior at ASU, I wanted to lead it as well, but it hadn’t happened.  As time went by, I enjoyed each CRU session more and more, but when October arrived, I discovered that my brother was talking to my dad about something, and I knew he relapsed right after I got kicked out of my dorm and everything (he got sick about two or three weeks later), so a month later, I heard his side of the story, and I bet he relapsed because of the chain of mistakes that started with my mom.  We hung out a bit in November and December, including the 2009 Light Parade at uptown Phoenix by the Light Rail.  He disappeared at around Christmas 2009, right after I got an SUV.  Then, at the 2009 Winter Conference at San Diego, I realized that Christ wasn’t in the center of my life even once, so I let Him be the center of my life (it does go in and out sometimes, I want Jesus to be the center of my life 24/7) for the first time ever, even when I realized that He was already in my life form July 16, 2009.  I must’ve had a clouded mind, but I can never be too sure.  However, I did begin to desire to work for CRU through my major on New Year’s Eve.

Two months later, I applied for a Santa Monica project, but got rejected because it had been too recent that I let Jesus in my life since I wrote down 7/16/2009 as the day I received Christ, and for some reason, I seemed to have lacked a certain filter (or 20) in my brain; I guess I was just playing it by ear, but it turned out that I really did lack that filter when I reblogged a post back in May.  I’m glad that I had fun with the Tempe Summer Project that I applied for instead, and it was a lot less expensive, though I couldn’t pay the $500 for it.  Good thing Erik and the CRU staff saved up some “bail-out” money just in case we fail, and shortly after the project ended, I wanted to be on staff with ASU CRU since then for a year or two, and I think I’ll do it after I graduate from ASU.  I may not have left the state, but Phoenix was pretty fun during the summer, which made this one the greatest in awhile.  I’d say that 2009 was legit, but even though I found Christ that summer, I don’t want to make light out of it.  Besides, there’s no way I’d go berzerk like that ever again because I’ve had Christ stop me from going insane from the moment I let him in.  He keeps me sane as long as I live.

However, there are seasons when every corner reveals one train wreck after another, and that’s just how my third semester at ASU was like.  My fifth one was even worse, but I’ll talk more about that later.  Not just me, but for many of my friends in CRU, like Cory in his new job at Harkins, Alex in her new staff position, Shane in living elsewhere than the CRU house for the first time in three years, etc. who had a hard time coping with all the changes, but at least they could pass their classes.  As for me, I quit band in late August, hoping to make room for my studies while sleeping at various places in the CRU house neighborhood, but nothing worked, since I had an even harder time with finishing my calculus homework and stuff.  I guess every form of class has their price and difficulty, and if you’re not prepared for some courses, they can kill you.  DO NOT GIVE YOUR HOPES UP FOR FAILURE.  A few weeks later, Fall Getaway near Payson was pretty good (and so was the camping trip in the White Mountains when I had Jesus make millions of shields from demons in a patronus fashion), but I knew I was going to get owned by my schoolwork when I returned to Phoenix, so I got really anxious the night I came back.  I’m sure my assignments were good, and my paper wasn’t too bad, but about two more weeks later, Erik talked to me about something, and he wanted me to see Jack Perrine.  I really wanted to know what it was, since he was being vague, but I got a hint: It had something to do with my living situation.  The next day, I thought he’d help me out, even though during the meeting, he said there wasn’t any guarantee he’d do so, but instead, I’m now limited in visiting the CRU house, the UnApps, the M&M, and probably the Estro from 2-6 p.m. each day for eternity.  I never slept in the Estro, because I don’t want the girls to feel awkward, but regardless, I still studied as hard as I could.  Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough to keep me from passing any math-related courses, so after Halloween, I dropped them, leaving only English 101.  Besides, I was only sleeping everywhere so I could make it to class on time, but it stripped away my structure, causing me to carry boulders of burden for things even graduate students haven’t done, at least as far as I know.  Then, the night after I saw the Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 premeire, my SUV broke down, and it almost caused me to kill myself when Ashtin brought me home.  Good thing he suggested Colossians, so I read the whole book, realizing that God should be glorified every single day, which includes staying alive, even if it meant enduring tons of suffering for awhile, which I’ve done since then.

It included riding the bus everywhere I go, living with very limited finances since the transmission went down in the SUV, causing it to break down (my dad and I towed it back to my house a few days later), and wouldn’t you know it, I ended up failing English 101 two weeks later, even after the car breaking down inspired me greatly to write a paper about stress.  I would’ve passed, but I forgot to make a works cited page for it, so I only got a D.  I felt so bad that day that it became unbelievable that I was even IN college in the first place.  Still, my Christmas shopping throughout the month of December was really good, and so was my 20th birthday, the 2010-11 San Diego Winter Conference, and much of my winter break.  Too bad that one of my foster puppies had to be euthanized in January due to Wobblers, an incurable spinal disease that causes neurological problems to no end.  I felt bad for a day or two, but moved on after that.

I really loved my classes for spring 2011, but my backpack went missing on January 23rd, along with my laptop, some textbooks, a Bible, a transit book, and other school stuff (I didn’t even realize it was missing until I crossed Tempe Town Lake, and came back only to have it all gone), so, I didn’t have much confidence in my studies anymore, especially since I needed to pay a loan that used up most of the money I had at the time.  Besides, I wasn’t sure when the other loans will come in, and to this day, I live too far away to get a job still, but last summer, I found out that I can move into the UnApps through financial aid (more of that later).  I even called the Phoenix Lost and Found Center the day after, but to no avail; the same happened with Tempe and ASU, since it was at University and Rural Road.  I managed to sort it all out with my mom later that week, but didn’t get a new laptop until about three weeks later from my grandfather.  And about my dorm situation, it turns out that even though I can visit them as of August, I’m forever banned from living in one at ASU, as if sanity and forgiveness has ceased to exist in that department.  It was like God did’t want me to go to school at all, even though a short while later, I’ve realized that His plans are a whole lot better than mine.  I can always replace some of my stuff at Amazon.com, but I don’t want to go to school if I’m just going to get screwed every other day.  Still, if you prayed for me that night, thanks so much!!

Anyway, in February that year, I put my new Windows 7 laptop to use after subsequent failures of borrowing one that works, and the only one that worked was a Windows XP (it was a bit old, but I could cope until its privacy turned out to be on the fritz).  My grandfather must’ve wanted to give me one more chance at it, and I see that as one of God’s many mercies.  Over time, I began to notice some pretty strange things happening around the world.  Here’s a list of what I constantly reblogged in the first eight months or so of 2011:

1. Mysterious animal deaths around the world (over 50 countries confirmed weird animal deaths)
2. Flooding in Queensland, Australia
3. Massive protests in Egypt, Bahrain, Libya, and about ten more countries; it seemed like a trend (i.e. Jasmine protesting fad), including multiple governmental sieges in each country the protests are in
4. Massive quakes in New Zealand, Japan, the East Coast, and another big one in Chile
5. Discovering some pretty strange things in mainstream radio… My guess would be the Illuminati, a satanic organization that started right before the U.S. did, and has portrayed itself in society in the 1960s, not so much after that, but nowadays, I’m seeing more and more of it than not in recent times.  Some examples include: Lady Gaga’s songs, Born This Way and Judas, Jay-Z’s songs such as Empire State of Mind (he disses Jesus in verse 3), Dirt Off Your Shoulder (he said “middle finger to the Lord, hell yeah, I’m a boss”…WTF?!), and a backlashed message that says: “666, murder, murder Jesus” then he says the unholy number again, I hate it, and maybe even Eminem’s latest song, “G.O.A.T.” (he says in the acronym, “greatest of all time,” it might be something I read off of Matthew 25 once, and I think the devil is using them to suck people into fame, but it’s my hope and joy that not every famous person is in the Illuminati).  I think Kanye West succumbed to it in 2007 when his mom died, I remember him breaking down crying when he performed “Hey Mama” on stage that I saw on TV.  Even Megan Fox is now part of the Illuminati, too.  I don’t think Michael Jackson was part of it, and if he was, he must’ve rebuked that when he came to Jesus a few weeks before he died.  They say the doctors killed him.  And to top it all off, even the stuff with any hint of sexuality (i.e. album/magazine covers) certainly sounds like the devil’s schemes to cause even hardcore Christians to fall apart and pursue sin instead of Jesus.
6. There was a civil war in Libya and possibly another one in Bahrain.
7. 2011 is the first year that a billion people will go hungry (found on a post I deleted) —
8. I just found out last August that the drug war is causing pain to the economy like no other; it may never get better and the U.S. credit rating downgraded.  I think that’s part of God’s plan, though.  The only solutions would be either to legalize drugs or wipe out cash completely, or at least the U.S. dollar and have it adopt another form of currency; I think it’s related to the part of Revelation when the antichrist establishes the mark of the beast and makes everyone receive it… well, those who at least worship him or buy or sell stuff during the second half of the Great Tribulation.
9. There’s more Illuminati stuff than I thought as of early August.  It’s pretty scary.  Even though one of them is a pyramid, I don’t think the pyramid-shaped souvenir I brought from Newport Beach last spring is an evil weapon; in fact, it can even be used to glorify God.  I’ve seen one of those pyramid-like things give glory to Jesus before, it’ll happen again if God is willing inside me.  Besides, it’s probably about what the heart wants, and that God knows what’s in mine.

Meanwhile, I applied for the Santa Monica Summer Project again because I found an article on the Internet, I think it was nbc.com or something, it said that L.A. was among the rudest of cities in America.  All that and more I wrote on the application, including exponential growth in the Lord, but it still wasn’t enough because for some reason, the director still thought my filter is broken, and it’s wasn’t from my disability again.  He thought I got mad easily, and I think it was from the time I exploded in Jessica’s car once in December 2010 when the fall semester was ending, then I sent him an e-mail asking why I still haven’t heard back yet even after his operations director, Jenny Bailey (she’s CRU staff at ASU) on April 11.  He called me back twice (I had my iPod on while reading some of my psychology textbook in a bus to my house that night;  I called back, then he called me again the next day) after the e-mail, and during the conversation, I told him that yes, I have been getting pretty pissed more often lately, mostly from buses.  I didn’t think it would happen again, but it did.  I even got that “label” from the SMSP ‘11 director, so I felt as if nothing really changed at all, and I was doomed to have these qualities for as long as I live.  It’s not my fault that public transportation keeps letting me down (I managed to miss the regular psychology exam yesterday because of it; it must’ve let me down 6 or 7 times in the last two days alone).  I think the buses and light rail failed me about a thousand times in the spring 2011 semester alone, so I proposed to find a job to try to move into the UnApps for the 2011-2012 year, but it didn’t work.  More of that later, though.

And while the world is falling apart, my community was in danger in the spring, too.  For instance:

• Erik Naylor said that everyone in his POD was depressed last February.
• People started getting cancer in CRU (I’m not going to mention names for their sake).
• There hasn’t been as much authenticity as there used to be; people don’t even want to be on fire for God anymore, I think.

…and worst of all, people in CRU that I know weren’t even trying to live out the Gospel and are instead doing things that wouldn’t glorify God.  Some may not want to do it, but the rest of us are a little more faithful to the end, yet we fail every day.  I guess it’s noticeable from even a total stranger at times.  I’m glad my dad and I are still contacting each other, but my brother must’ve given up on him, as if he never quit drugs in the first place (which he did over the summer last year).  I don’t really think our mom taught us forgiveness when we were little, so if he didn’t read the Bible (he said he did on Easter Sunday ‘11), then it’ll just be evident things are WACKED-OUT.  Plus, the transmission that my dad said he’d get in my mom’s car won’t work, so now, I don’t really want to drive anymore with the gas prices going up and up, even after Osama’s death (I learned Proverbs 24:17 that day, so conviction = great faith).  I did notice the gas prices going down over the summer, but I don’t think I’ll go back to driving anytime soon.  Where did the fun go?

The good news is, I had a lot of fun at the 808 ball and cliff-jumping after the dance fiesta when the spring 2011 semester ended.  Both were high above the ground, yet I only jumped once from the 15-foot boulder.  The water was pretty cold, most of us went in and felt it.  We even had a bonfire beside the 15-foot cliff.  I didn’t jump off the 40-foot cliff into Saguaro Lake, but I think I’ll try that next time; I had hoped it would be during the day because I was pretty scared of falling in the lake on my way there and back in the middle of the night.  I couldn’t see the rocks, but I jumped off the 15-foot cliff anyway.  I think it would be hard to explain to someone who never heard of cliff-jumping why it isn’t considered suicide, too.  It’s really fun, though, but it can be a bit scary.  I guess we’re afraid of falling at a bad time, just like I was most of the time that night, yet still had a lot of fun anyway.  As for rides to my house… they were hard to find.  If Andrew and his car weren’t in front of the CRU house, I think I’d still be at ASU until the light rail showed up at 5 a.m., but I was typing this INCREDIBLY long testimony at my house shortly before going to bed (I copy + paste and make it more current; i.e. summer 2011/early 2012 updates).  It’ll just get longer every time because I don’t want to leave out anything important, as for everything we do comes back to us later.  And while I thought I was the same person I was in 2009 before I came to Christ, I realized it was all a lie, and if I really was the same person as I was back then, I’d probably make people disgusted just by showing up.  I’m always changing in Jesus, however, and I will never lose my salvation in Him.

It was only a few days later when my bike was stolen because I thought the UnApps/Cru House area was impervious to thefts, and I thought it was so because nobody locked their doors the whole time.  Of course, that doesn’t mean the Holy Spirit left the area, nor does it mean it’s not protecting the Cru House anymore (they had a break-in at around the Fourth of July).  I was actually afraid of rejection by a job application, and I think it happened again with Schlotzky’s Deli at Priest and Southern Ave., but maybe it’s because I didn’t know my cox.net account doesn’t work anymore (I put the cox.net e-mail address on the application).  That being said, I haven’t had one of those since mid-May, nor have I had a working cell phone, cable TV (or TV in general, though I can still play DVDs), but we got a new land-line phone, so my number has changed.  I also had to overdraft a couple of times just to fix my bike one night late last July, but I already paid it all off before school began a month later.

Unfortunately, I failed at trying to move into the UnApps again, but this time, it was because I needed to transfer $3,600 to my mom for rent (she borrowed some money from a friend of hers just to make ends meet, and nobody else could do it, nor would they want to).  I was confident it would happen when my financial aid was off the charts-huge, but I think God made it happen so my mom’s rent would be paid later.  I’m glad that my mom’s needs were met, but what about my needs?  I’ve tried everything to find a place to live near ASU since I first started there.  I felt ignored by God just thinking about it half the time during my first day back at ASU.  That night, however, during a prayer/worship session at Danforth Chapel near the MU, I was glad that Josue told me that God speaks through other people.  I did lose my blue backpack and a red helmet with a light on it, that day, though.

Meanwhile, I was getting attacked spiritually after reporting it to the police that the backpack was gone.  I think Satan wants to torture me into madness, but I’m not going to let that happen, nor would I want to.  I noticed a mason lodge on Scottsdale Road south of Thomas, and I’ve rebuked it so many times in Jesus’ name since my discovery of the place the night before school started again.  I’ve rebuked a masonry factory and a sidewalk with an inverted pentagram along with the infamous 666 mark along with other related drawings as well since then.  Earlier that evening, I even noticed a couple of baseball uniforms with satanic pentagrams, and I thought it was some pretty weird stuff.  I told Taryn we had to do something that night (it was ASU passport on August 17th).  A guy named Josh Mitchell even messaged me about such things to give me fair warning.  I replied that I’d keep that in mind, then told him everything I saw that week.  It was only a Monday, August 23, that I remembered that the drug war was damaging the economy, rendering me stripped of my ability to find a job the whole time I’ve been looking the last several years.  I heard that Wall Street was part of the coup as well, but there’s no time to concentrate on who caused the crises.  And as for my backpack, I used one that I got at my freshman orientation as a replacement until I found the guy who took it a week later at a light rail station.  I didn’t know he was homeless, so we traded.  He said that everything but the cooling pad I always keep in there was taken, but I had already replaced my binder and such.  From there, things were pretty good.

The next day, however, I got hit by a car while riding on my bike on my way to class (it was also a Thursday).  Its condition was so bad that I had to hail a cab about an hour and a half after I left the Cru House during CRU BRU that night, but I was willing to pay twenty bucks for a ride home.  The guy who crashed into me even gave me $60 for repairs, even though we both would have been cited otherwise (I was going on the wrong side of the road and the cars were blocking his view).  So far, I had already replaced one of my pedals, but my tires still needed work, so I took it into a bike shop the following Saturday, cruised around town for a couple of hours waiting for it to get fixed, all the while reading God’s message to the world a.k.a. the Bible.  The repairs ended up to be more than $160, but it was worth it.  I had already contributed $200 for bike repairs in that week alone (I took my bike into another shop to have its crank and brakes repaired), and it wasn’t even September yet.  I haven’t stopped budgeting, though; I kind of need to keep going with that stuff, especially since I only had about $1,300 or so left after the repairs.

Meanwhile, I accidentally broke my laptop in early-mid August 2011, then turned it in to a laptop repair center when my financial aid came in, thinking it would be fixed by September 1.  It wasn’t.  Nobody told me that I needed to reply to an e-mail first, but they started when I showed up that day.  It was good the night before when my mom left me a $500 gift card for anything I want, but it was a rough start to September.  I had to tie my bike to something so I wouldn’t be late to class, met with Shannon and even a counselor later that morning, went back to where I tied my bike down, bought some paper to fill up my 3-inch binder where I’m recording financial data from all over the world every other day though I haven’t done it since October, went to the laptop repair center and did everything described above, and arrived late to my Chinese class again, only to find that my wallet was missing after class was over.  My professors understood everything, though.

I carried over $300 for laptop repairs, and I probably wouldn’t have had that cash even after the visit if it were fixed that day.  I lost the $500 gift card, my credit/debit/ATM cards, my Sun Card, and everything else in it (my social security number is still around, though; it wasn’t in my wallet when I lost it), and every time I visited the Lost and Found center at Rio Salado Parkway and 52nd Street, it never showed up.  I already replaced the credit/debit and cancelled the ATM the next day, September 2, so nothing else would happen, and I had received a new Sun Card, too.  I finally finished replacing everything that I lost (I even fixed my laptop at that time, too) in mid-September because it took about two weeks (or ten business days) to replace my credit/debit cards completely.  The Sun Card went to my student account, and my bank was nice enough to let me withdraw ten bucks with it.  I could do the same thing every time between my wallet loss and the day my debit/credit cards arrive in the mail.  It was very frustrating, but when you’re at rock bottom, you don’t quit looking up and reaching out; in my case, it’s God.

I wanted Him to be faithful with all this despite these numerous trials that seemed to never end and go on in a pattern, and He did (I’ll get to that later).  I had lost stuff on the first three Thursdays that school has been in session, and it was almost always public transportation-related.  It sounded strange at that time, and after all my needs were met again, overdrafting would be inevitable, even though I had my local church help me out (together, the congregation supplied me with $100, and the pastor even gave me a Bashas gift card after a service in November).  I was constantly begging God for His mercy and grace to undo it the whole time.  In early October, I finally ran out of financial aid for the fall 2011 semester, so I resorted to my $1,300 credit card limit, but I had no choice except for using it all up.

Meanwhile, my horrible finances got in the way with my schoolwork enough to have an inability to pass anything except for English 102, even after moving a class taking only a third of the semester to the early autumn.  I couldn’t keep up with any of my material, and kept struggling in school despite my efforts and prayers to God about it all.  I was also on financial aid warning for ASU since August 2011, and after awhile, whatever ability for me or motivation I had to keep concentrating began to erode.  I made my way from trying my best to practically giving up on school in general.  Through a meeting with a guy named Ron Hicks, I was told that I couldn’t pass my Chinese class along with that other class taking up the middle of the semester only, but I was told that I could get compassionate withdrawal.  My Chinese professors were in the room with me, and many of us agreed that it would be a good option.  Upon further discovery, I found out that a compassionate withdrawal could erase all of the data that was requested, even after that class was already finished, so I seized that opportunity.  I was told by some that it wasn’t really a good option for me, but I persisted that it was the only way I can keep going to ASU.  They said that I could only do a compassionate withdrawal if something unusual occurred or if I got into an accident of some kind, but I was approved for that compassionate withdrawal for everything because of both of these statements in the first part of this sentence.  With that, I was able to focus on my proposal for my English 102 class (I had a B on it at the time), so I chose Phoenix Public Transportation as a topic because I had been riding it non-stop for almost a year at that point (it’s currently coming up on 16 months; I may not be able to drive until either my mom graduates or I do).  By God’s strength I managed to pull my grade up to an A- because of that proposal; I think it’s my best writing work yet.  I could even register for this spring semester and change my major to psychology at the same time.

Despite that, however, I had no way to afford the 2011 Winter Conference trip by December, but God told me twice that I was going, once about two weeks before Christmas 2011, and again on the 22nd.  So I made a Facebook event, and I managed to have full support of the $257 in just ten days!  All of it came in before the 23rd, so even though $200 of it was in gift cards, I went to the bank and deposited $67 in cash. Unfortunately, it was impossible to deposit currency from a gift card of any kind into your account even by a teller, so I thought, “Well, I guess this is it.  Who am I kidding?  I don’t deserve to go anywhere.”  However, I remembered that I can register without having to pay in full, so I used all $67 of my checking account at that time for registration.  The network that I was using kept trying to disconnect me, but my registration was successful anyway.  That network got a password on Christmas Eve, though, but even though my family had never been so impoverished, we still had a good holiday season because another family managed to provide for both major holidays.

The 2011 Winter Conference trip was one I’ll never forget, maybe because I remembered that San Diego was the first place I had ever trusted God with even though my mom and I prayed for the hearing to go well, and the 2009 Winter Conference was also in San Diego.  It wasn’t by my abilities or anything that I could go, but all of God’s provisions.  From there, I’ve remembered about what God has done in my life and how He’s saved me time and time again, so now, I keep boasting of His great works and power at a more frequent rate.  One included how my spring 2012 financial aid check came in despite what had happened in the previous fall semester, leaving me with about $4,000 after paying off my credit card debt (it was $1,300; my credit card limit, as of mid-March, is currently upgraded to $1,800).

For this current spring semester, however, I still didn’t move into the UnApps because I hadn’t remembered that the last time I lived on campus in July 2009,  I had just met the person I lived with until the day we moved in.  For this one, we only talked through Facebook messages, and I was still uncertain about my finances so that I could move into the UnApps.  It was only the day I first met him that I remembered what my last move-in experience was like (I met him in late January).

Meanwhile, I was working on an East Asia application (I’ve wanted to serve God there since my first Fall Getaway trip on October 2009 but could never do it yet), and I submitted it in mid-February.  I couldn’t get accepted, though, because there weren’t enough guy leaders, and the project director and a good friend of mine, Michael Scott (not to be confused with Michael Scott from The Office) added that because of my disability, he wasn’t sure if it would work, but having learned that Jesus isn’t politically correct back in the fall, I prayed to God that it would happen, and I think He will get me there someday.  I did tell him about the Tempe Summer Project that I did back in the summer of 2010, and he replied that the San Diego Express Project (it lasts two weeks in the second half of June) would be a good alternative.  However, I still haven’t applied yet because not only am I scared to death of rejection, but I think there’s a bunch of false Christians among us, like college students, ministry staff members, and everything in between.  The Bible consistently warns us about that.  I still think it’s a great place to spread the Gospel, though.

In the meantime, my small group was doing a series called “If You Want To Walk On Water, You’ve Gotta Get Out Of The Boat,”  and I thought it was interesting when we did an episode centered on the story of Joseph when he was captured and taken to slavery in Egypt by his own brothers (Genesis 37).  I didn’t know he was appointed the governor until I read further into the story two weeks ago, though.  From that story, someone commented that God isn’t always going to deliver us, but I know that deliverance and helping out are two different things.  Joseph was about 17 when he was captured, and about 30 when he became the governor of Egypt and was reunited with his family.

Last week, I read a post on Tumblr about Jeremiah.  I thought it was interesting that he was considered a “weeping prophet” because even though he loved the people of Israel, nobody would listed to what he said for 40 years about God’s future obliteration on Jerusalem.  That kind of thing… is sort of how this world is running today; nobody seems to want to pay attention to Jesus anymore, and disaster could come about unexpectedly.  That destruction on Jerusalem actually prompted Jeremiah to write all five chapters of Lamentations.  Even though it’s probably the most depressing book of the entire Bible, there’s a part in chapter 3 when it says that God is still merciful and His unfailing love never ended despite that.

And how it goes in my life, I found out on February 29 that I’m failing my statistics class (I need it for my major), and I need to do everything I can to pass; I’ve prayed to God about it a LOT and so far, it’s working.  I’ve gotten perfect scores every single time since then, not just on God’s strength, but sometimes, we need to do our part to get what we want and/or need.  I’ve dressed up like a lady before several times since February 1 just to get it improved shortly after my first test that I bombed badly, but that didn’t work out too well.  I think those two examples of Joseph and Jeremiah can be said that sometimes, we try our best to do God’s will and avoid trouble, but trouble is inevitable in the end every now and then.  That doesn’t mean that death has the last word, because Jesus’ death changed everything; He now holds the keys of death and life, and life is now the last word.

Although I did even worse on the second test, I have confidence that I’ll do very well on the rest of my material because I believe that God will always prevail in the end, and He lives in me.  In fact, I think that nothing is impossible for God.  He’s also worked in my life from my rescue from what would have been a fate behind bars to financially vindicating me many times to keeping my college career at ASU stable time and time again.  And because God has done the impossible out of His great love for me from the beginning of my walk with Christ, my favorite verse in the Bible is Matthew 19:27 (it took the song “Healer” to know that).  It’s actually where this blog title comes from: With God, all things are possible.