What I Believe.

A number of people have asked me what my specific "religion" is. However, before I begin, I'd like to say that I don't like being referred to as "religious", just that I believe in God. Religious is too unspecific, too uncategorized. And putting me in the category of "religious" is saying that there are several other religions, but I don't believe in them, so I shouldn't add myself with any other faith.

The branch of Christianity that I affiliate myself with is known as Pentecostal. It is considered the largest of the Apostolic Churches. If you understood that, than good, otherwise:

I believe that God has made Himself known in three ways, as the Father in creation, the Son (Jesus) in redemption and the Holy Ghost in emanation. But, I don't believe God as three seperate persons but one (if that makes sense). Basically, I believe in One God. I believe that he takes on three different roles, just as one man can be a father, a husband and a son but still the same person.

I believe that the Bible is the inspired word of God.

I believe in baptism, or being fully immersed in water in the name of Jesus. I believe that baptising is the physical way of washing away one's sins. However, I have yet to be baptised.

I believe in being filled with the Holy Spirit. I believe that being filled gives one a certain gift, be it speaking in tongues (a language not understood by the believer), understanding what is said in tongues, certain gifts with teaching, the gift of certain wisdom and various other "fruits". Pentecostals are rather strict, believing that everyone must speak in tongues but as the Bible says, speaking in tongues is not the most important gift. For those who have never heard someone speak in tongues, it's very hard to describe. It's a series of noises that sounds different than any language I have ever heard.

I believe in communion, in taking the bread (representing the flesh) and the juice (representing the blood that Jesus spilled) only when taking it prayerfully and with full understanding of what it means. I believe that if you don't believe in God, that you shouldn't take holy communion.

I believe in foot washing, that by washing someone's feet you are showing great respect and are submitting your self to them. In the Pentecostal religion, foot washing is often used in wedding's from the bride to the groom as a sign of committment and faith.

I don't agree with repeated repentence. Some people in the church will repent for whatever sin they've commited over and over and over. Repentance is overrated and abused. I think if someone feels like they have to repent over and over, they don't have a strong relationship with God and should work on that instead of repenting every week. Prayer is very powerful.

I believe that marriage is a religious ceremony between a man and a wife. Debate me all you want, I'll listen but I don't believe in same-sex marriages.

I don't believe in abortion of any kind. I believe that sex should be in marriage, and as soon as a child is concieved it has the potential to be a human being and to abort it, whether it has a brain or not (as some people have brains that are useless - if they are in a vegetated state for example or if they are missing a part of their brain, it doesn't make them less human).

I believe in evangelising. I don't believe in bible-beating someone into Christianity. If you beat someone into Christianity by saying, "you're going to hell if you don't become a Christian this minute" (or something to that effect), I think that they might convert, but it's a temporary thing...I don't see why someone would stay in a religion if they felt that they were scared into it.

Obviously I believe a whole lot more but it would take up much more time than I have. For those of you who know me, you know that I am open-minded with non Christians and I don't look down on anyone who doesn't believe what I do. This is merely a post for those who don't understand what I believe.

Ciao.

Devastation following Boston

I'm anticipating this to be a long post.

Friday was my birthday. It was fun, after work I brought Crystal over and we went on a walk looking for Tristian (he was coming with us to Boston and we hadn't heard from him in a while), and when we came back, I got to open my presents. I recieved wonderful clothes and lots of chocolate from my mommy and a new Sony Cyber-shot digital camera. I would have pics to post on here from the beautiful beast, but the software isn't working correctly. Anyhow, we had my absolute favorite cake, ice cream cake, and then Shane took Crystal and I out to dinner at an Italian place. It was really fun. Then, we ran into Tristian, confirmed Boston trip and went home to watch "Crash", which turned out to be a great movie.

We woke up an hour late on Saturday, but it didn't matter because no one else was really ready to leave and it was raining very heavily. We left the house to head to Boston (an estimated 2 hour drive) at 12:30. We didn't check into our hotel until 6:30pm. The ride down was chaotic, with rain flying up from the road, over the car and frantic lane changes. We took a route that brought us through Alstead/Walpole, into Keene, throguh Nashua and Salem, and down into Mass. It was the worst driving conditions I had ever seen, and we were scared because we'd almost been hit too many times to count. It was incredibly hard to see anything on the roads.

We planned on meeting Leif, but all of us were terrified to get back on the roads after everything that had happened, so we called and asked to reschedule for lunch the next day.

The next morning, as soon as we got the go ahead from Leif, we headed to where he was staying, an hour away from the hotel and got lost 5 times. We called the hostel he was at and were given completely wrong directions (after being repeatedly assured by the clerk that we were "only minutes away"). After driving for three hours, Leif called us and we tried to arrange a place to meet and after another two hours, getting lost several times (and all of us incredibly cranky), Leif called and we rescheduled for New York instead.

Meanwhile, my mom had been trying to get ahold of me with horrible news. The exact same way we had taken to Boston was demolished. Alstead has been completely wiped out, with three people dead from being stuck in their cars when the rain came in Saturday. Bridges collapsed, roads are washed away and most of the houses in Alstead alone have been ripped off their foundations and blown away. Keene, a big city that I often shop in (only 15 miles from where we live) has been completely washed away. The colleges are closed and people are asked to evacuate. Everything is flooded. People are riding in kayaks through the streets. The dams all around have breached, it's chaos. There is a state of emergency for a five minute walk across the bridge. The flood waters in Keene reach 18feet in some places.

We had to take a different route home that took four and a half hours. As we descended into Claremont, we could see the water levels had risen at least 8 feet and were flooding into the forests. As soon as we got home, we were thankful for not going back the way we came just the day before and got a call that work was canceled for the next day (today) and just a few minutes ago we got a call that it was canceled for tomorrow. I fell horrible because I know so many people who live in Alstead (which is only a few miles from our work at the primary school in Charlestown), and a few who were in the process of building homes there. About half of the students in the school are from Alstead as well. It's expected that work will be closed all week. There are 5 confirmed deaths, and twenty people missing, just in Alstead, a town with a population of under 1,500 people.

The picture of the road above is from Alstead, showing just a part of how the roads are being ripped apart.