Creation Speaking Seminar

a few weeks after i got home from wyoming, i was off on another trip. this time, to missouri.
during the spring geology trip, i learned that dave and maryjo nutting were going to hold a seminar on how to present creation materials. this really interested me because i love the topic of creation science and would love to teach it some day.
i knew that my friend brian was trying to start a new ministy having to do with creation speaking, so i told him about it and he wanted to go too. so we told the nuttings we wanted to go and they arranged free accomodations for us both. in the end, the only thing we had to pay for was the gas to get there :)

i'm so glad i was able to go. i learned so much, i met a lot of great people, it was exciting to help brian and the nuttings figure out more of what brian's amateur creation speakers ministry would need to be and include, and i had a lot of fun to boot.

on the drive down, we saw a sign for the world's largest rocking chair, so of course we had to stop. here are some highlights from the trip down:

me in front of the world's largest rocking chair. it is also the largest rocking chair on route 66.

a curious cannon next to the rocking chair. apparently, that's how they guard it. after all, they dont want anyone to drive off with it.

a lawnmower that did not work no matter how hard i peddled.

there was a cool mural next to the rocking chair. so i took a picture with it. the goal was to blend in with the picture. something that's hard to do when you're about 4x larger than the people in the painting.

we ran into some crazy weather. thunder, lightning, a downpour, hail, rainbows, and this crazy sky. i'd never seen anything like it before. this was the same night the tornado hit joplin. luckily, we weren't close enough to be affected by the winds.

the week went by very quickly. the seminar was from around 8 or 9 until 5 every day. then we'd go out to dinner, and afterwards i'd do some homework (i missed the first week of summer classes for this. but it was totally worth it). in the middle of the week, we took a field trip to the creation museum in strafford which one of the men (dr. rod butterworth) at the seminar runs. it was really cool. and if i'm free next summer, then it's all worked out to where i could be a tourguide there and live free of charge with the family that hosted me for the seminar :)

they had some madagascar hissing cockroaches at the museum. dr. butterworth asked if i'd like to hold one. even i was surprised when i said yes. here i am:

after the seminar was over, brian and i visited our friend amy swan. she went to jhbc the same year i did and we're good friends. since she lives only an hour from where the seminar was, we decided that we couldnt miss this opportunity to hang out. we ate dinner there and caught up and it was really fun.
in the morning, we left and toured a local civil war cave. my camera died, so this is the only picture i have of it.

when we walked into the main building, it came up that the owner of the cave and one of his employees were admiring my awesome boots and were saying that i maybe could one day work there. plus, the employee's name was lesley!!!! spelled the same way i spell it!!!! so i thought that was really cool. and if i come back to be a tourguide at the museum, i might apply to work there too :)

then we went inside the cave. it was the first time i'd ever been in one and it was awesome. i love caves now :)

after the cave, we were off to the long road home... or so we thought. after stopping for lunch at chick-fil-a, my car wouldnt start. so i popped the hood, called my dad, did some quick diagnostics, wiggled a wire on the starter celenoid and basically fixed my own car. it was an extremely rewarding feeling :) even though all i did was find and wiggle a certain wire.

after that, it was all smooth sailing. i dropped brian off at his house and then drove back home to finish my mountain of homework before class on tuesday.