samana numero dos.

almost half way there guys...soo what can i say about week two? well i took on matts challenge, and have not seen/listened to media since monday! im pretty much amazed that i have been able to do it since im one of those people that needs noise for pretty much everything that i do. but God has really helped me and has kept me away from temptation. i have spent a lot of my time outside this week (well only on the sunny days) and have just done homework and think about life. its been really great because its actually not a lot that i just sit on my own and think about life and God. also i have hung out with my family a lot more than last week. the other night my mom and i had a really good conversation that didn't end up in a life lesson and now we even have an inside joke...:)this week has also given my whole family a good excuse for making my dad turn off his radio teehee.
time to take on week 3.
praying for you guys!

It's Getting Harder...

I am like soooo close to finishing the 3rd book in the series... which would finish the whole thing off! And, there are movies, but now I can't see the last movie until April 3rd (because I'll be on the Jr. High Missions Trip)!!!! Ugh... this is getting so hard! But, the plus side to the media fast is that I am growing in my relationship with God! BTW... you guys should read Psalm 8! It is really cool because it talks about how great God is! I love Psalms, but Proverbs is my favorite of the 2 because it contains less war related issues...

Confessions and STUFF

OK, i have a CoNfEsSiOn- though it lasted for a while, i've been slacking off on the whole connect with God thing. i'm trying to think of some creative ways to do that- away from the norm of praying and reading your Bible and just stopping there. i mean, those are good things. . . . but ya. i've filled in a couple of entries in my prayer journal (which was TOTALLY good, especially considering that it has collected some dust lately), written a couple of songs & a devotional (really neat ways to worship, by the way), and am going through Proverbs, but it feels like i'm just going through the motions, you know? ? does anyone have any creative ideas of how to connect with God? ?
on the other hand, i've really been enjoying the song "You're not Shaken" by phil stacey. it's like reminding you that God has a reason for everything that happens, and nothing happens out of His control. pretty awesome. the devos on here have been cool, too. i guess that you just have to take this thing one step at a time. =] hope everyone else is doing well! !

if i were God...

wow, Gods been really talking with me the last few days. before the media fast, i kindof got along thinking that i could go through life myself, and i didnt need any help. God has been showing me just how much Hes involved in my life, and how much he looks out for me. i glad im not God, because if i was the world would of exploded or something on the eighth day. :D

Day 13

So its day 13 and ive been really struggling the last couple days , my dad pulled out our xbox and has been playing it in the front room. Ive been stuck in my room slaving over the tons of weekend hw so i cant just go and get away on the bike=(. over all i know the fast is going well tho i got a book "The Best Question EVER?" on Thursday night and im already halfway through it, which is saying something considering how slow paced i am at reading i think the coolest thing about the book is that is sets out actual things you can do and not just lofty and general goals to strive for. I know even being halfway through it, If your looking fr a book to read check this one out !

School

Hey guys! It really stinks for me because I'm editor of the yearbook (along with one other girl) at my school and the whole yearbook is due next week! It's soo stressful for me because I also have a 2,000 word essay due next Tuesday... so, please just pray for me that I can get both done on time! I will pray for you all this week!

REDDING!!!!

Enjoying a fun weekend with Mr. Tim Brock up in Redding. We're hoping the rain will stop so we can go enjoy the snow tomorrow at some AMAZING waterfalls. We are staying at my parents place which is kinda boring so we are craving some media right now, but no, we will stay strong! I'll have photos tomorrow of these waterfalls........ and you will envy us!

Peace out,
Dave

Love

God has taught me something really important. I never fully understood what love was. Really, I never understood or felt it before. Well yeah, I have felt it but did not know that it was love. I always mess things up and misinterpret what it is. I learned this yesterday when I realized this guy who I thought I loved/liked actually liked someone else. But my other friend, Bryan told me that Colin the guy I thought I liked did love me, but as a friend. When I looked back at all the times he's been for me I just finally understood. It was amazing. I finally understood LOVE!! So I thought I'd just share that with you guys. I've caught up with the devos and my Bible reading and hope to continue doing so. :]

day 11 on foreign planet.

So its been 11 days... Almost half way :)so I've been reading this really cool book about how to enjoy God and lastnight I was talking to a friend about how I'm scarred from past experiences and how I don't have the best relationship with my father and I pick up this book after I got done talking to my friend and the topic for the chapter was "healing scars from the past" and "the love of a father" it was talking about forgiving yourself and how God loves you way more than any earthly father could and when I saw that I started crying, it was soo cool how God shows stuff to us. On another topic,I've been frustrrated lately because I've been trying to get sponsors but it seems all my family and friends are struggling for money and I havnt been very sucessful in recruiting sponsors. But I know God will provide, I just hope I can keep up the faith. Ok so today was youth group... Fun stuff.. We talked about the story of lazerous.which is a good story about faith! God seems to be pointing me back to having faith.also
I've been thinking during this fast what I'm gonna do for college... Its kind of a depressing thought because I haven't really put much thought into it . I've been asking God what he wants me to do but so far no response. Pray that I will have faith, and that I would listen to what God has planned for me.

Ahhhhhhhhhhhh.. Anyways praying for you all!
"I can do all things through Christ who stenngthens me "

This is soooo frustrating

ok i think God is testing me because when the media fast started . My grades were going upand stuff . Now im back to where i started my teachers i being weird they really dnt know how to teach except avid drama and P.E . They are making me stressed out And then i thought the media fast would help me read my bible . But i have no intention im trying really hard . Idk mabry i shld try to read the bible on the computer . Because i really wanna get something out of this but i feel like this isnt helping . Ive proved that i can survie without media but now i really need to buckle down . So pray for me because i guess i will start reading my bible . And Work on my grades there not bad but they can be better .

Life is seldom what we plan.

So Howdy!

Can you believe that is been 11 days already? I sure can't.

So for the media fast, I've been reading a chapter of Acts and Proverbs a day and I have to say, Solomon, [the one who wrote Proverbs] is one wiiiise dude. I love all of the verses. They're so poetic and metaphorical, but at the same time, straight to the point.
I really like this one verse,
"6 Listen to me! For I have important things to tell you. Everything I say is right,7 for I speak the truth. Proverbs 8: 6-7
SO SPIFFY! It reminded me of media so much. I mean think about it, we look for truth and honest information in media but we will NEVER find it. Look no further guys because God, he has it. Media is just wrapping us in lies, but God will set us free with the truth. : )

Anoooother thing that I found really cool was this singer, Jon Foreman. I love his indie Christian folk style. [oh and he's also the lead singer of switchfoot]
But this song by him really spoke to me;
Love Isn't Made

So I arrive
At the conclusion
Love isn't made
Love doesn't sell or pay
But we buy
And sell our love away

And yet here I am
It's funny how
Life is seldom what we plan

Beautiful eh? I'll let you decide what you think it means to you. :D

~Heather Dunmoyer

Day 9? Where is it?

So those of you who are following the devos, you may have noticed that there wasn't a Day 9... my hope is that you took yesterday to seek God on your own. Did you seek silence? Did you avoid all media? Did you notice God's presence right there with you? Well, if not, read today's devo... it will "BLOW" you away! Trust me

Finals!

ooooooootayyyyy... so this week is finals! yay? lol... its actually not that bad, cause i took my french final early! so that was nice. and then my health teach decided that we would take a "trial final" early and if you did good on it you wouldn't have to take the real final. so i won't have to (: so i just have to study for english! which is gonna be a breeze (:
anywho... i always listen to music when im studying, but recently i haven't been. i actually find i can focus more when im not. And since i have more time cause i get my hw done quicker, i have recenlty been going on alot of bike rides! i tend to pray when im biking (: so it super cool!
Confession time... i haven't been reading my bible as much as i would like... cause i've been suuuuppper tired recently. I am getting better, but that has always been my problem. I enjoy reading alot, but i read fast. and the bible isn't a fast reading thing. its more of a "read and take time to comprehend" thing. soooooooo... of couse it hard for me.
so tomorrow night when i have time cause i don't have to study for french, im a gonna find a couple songs to play on guitar and piano (: i have the chords to No One LIke YOu by David Crowder, but i havne' t played it in a while cause its so easy! so im a gonna spice it up a little bit (: lol.
Have an amazing week!!!

~*Kylie*~

Je suis entré

I have entered finally. Sheesh it took me 10 days...well I've been busy and getting here wasn't very easy. I have a huge project due tomorrow and my best friend is leaving to an independant study program. Which means I will only see him twice a week. I'll try to play catch up a little bit with the devos and get in touch with God. I seem to be drifting away--despite the lack of media. I think Media never was the true problem for me--but priority. I put other things first before God. Media just helped keep me away...now I'm just replacing media time with homework or christian media...it's a step up but... anyway keep me in your prayers as I try to reach closer to God.

RAIN!!!

I Have been in my room all day painting and i looked outside and saw rain!!!

I read a really cool book today called enjoying God..its about how God is wanting to have a relationship with me and how much he loves me....its really amazing when you think about it...God wants to spend time with us as much as we want to spend time with our friends or our special someone...He Loves us soo much!!! this book opened my eyes to how much God REALLY wants to spend time with me. I've been doing pretty good soo far with the media fast except for tonight...mt favorite show was on and it was the season finale ..and someone died ...i guess i'll have to wait till next month to find out who. :/

I have been spending alot of time playing my guitar...i learned a new chord!!! ya baby!! allie would be soo proud! :)

Keep it up guys!! you can do it!

remember ....We can do all things through Christ who strengthens us!!!

9th Day -_- "1st Blog"

Hey guys,
So after trying over 9 different times to figure out how to post this blog, I have finally mastered it out and turns out i have a 3 year old Blogspot account that had built up Micro Pc dust. eh who knew?. huh. anyways. My last nine days have been a very interesting challenge for me! Considering like 20 of the Best Movies came on Tv that i couldnt watch! ='( Its kinda hard... And this show called NCIS Just happens to be my favorite show... of all time! And it just happend to come on about 14 times these last nine days, But when i found myself looking away from the Tv show that just came on, that i obviously cant watch! I had Found myself having a brief little tiny thaught about somthing. Saying "You know i watch this show more then i read my Bible" Which is very true as well as sad! ='( And if ive gotten one good thing out of this fast is that i should always put Christ first in front of everything i do. He should be at the top of my list of daily activity's. So... Ive thought up this plan, its a 4 step way we should live our lives. #1 Put God First No matter what!. #2 Love your neighbor as yourself. #3 Live today like its your last day, In a christ like manner! Like. The last person you talk to leave the conversation in a good way, be happy, forgive the people who hurt you. And pray for them. Help eachother out in anyway possible. And always think like christ. and #4 always obey the holy spirit. I pray that i would be able to live like this in "Everything" i do "Everyday". Please pray that id be able to do stay on the right path to God, and that i Read my Bible, as well as being able to endure these last 22 days of this fast. =) Thanks for reading and praying for me. "Oh and i thought i might ad, "Before Their Eyes" is now my new favorite christian band. There really good. Look em up =)"

~Gabriel C.~

snowboarding

yesterday i went to sugarbowl to snowboard with sam. had a great time (with no major injuries :P) but there was an accident that happened on the freeway with two semis and we were stuck in the car in the same spot for two hours! i ended up getting home at 11 at night.

im doing the week of silence that matt challenged us to do, also. a week of no music, christian or non-christian. wow its gonna be hard because music is my life, but God will see me through.

i encourage all of you to read through phillipians, its good stuff!!

whoa!

Hey guys!! So I finally figured out how to do this thing. So media fast has been pretty good for me so far, I'm shocked at how good I'm doing. The only hard part for me is but being able to watch the season finale of my favorite shows. I've had a lot of free time on my hands so I started painting again and I threw a surprise party for Tim. Gods really been showing me what there is in life besides media and its kinda cool :)
Anyone have any movies I can watch?

How's things for all of you?

Music

Ha. After I challenge you to seek silence this week, I found this sight. It's not perfect but if you're having a hard time finding comperable music in the Christian genre, check out this site... it might help

http://www.ministryandmedia.com/CCMchart/default.htm

Silence

Read the Day 8 Devo... I got a big challenge for you all! Time to see who's ready to really take this to the next level. If you really want to seek God's presence, you'll step up and respond.

BTW, I love how encouraging you all are to each other. Just a couple things to keep in mind:
 - DON'T USE THIS SITE FOR CONVERSATIONS (LIKE REPLACING FACEBOOK). Definately encourage each other. Definately pray for each other. But don't let this replace you actually speaking to the person! We live in a media infested world which is destroying our ability to personally relate to others... like texting, email, facebook, myspace...
 - BE HONEST WITH WHAT YOU ARE FEELING AND THINKING. But keep it, you know, clean. I haven't seen anything bad yet... I'm just reminding us all
 - SHARE IDEAS and SCRIPTURE. This is a great place to share you ideas of what you and your family are doing... show your parents this site. Encourage them to read it (especially if they aren't doing the fast with you... which they should be). Share what you are reading in the Bible and how it's affecting you... don't just put "it's cool" or "I like it"... share why you think it's cool or you like it. What specifically are you getting from reading it

You guys are awesome! This has been the best year yet! Keep it up!

Brittany

Ok wow me!Itotally missed the email shame on me ! i was thinking i didnt get an invite . See computer makes me frustrated arg . Anyways I love the media fast soo far its been super fuun . Like gospel is the best thing invented in this world . Because u can get up and shake yourtail feather "christian way" Also i got to hang with maggie and valencia . The 3 amagias idk how 2 to spell it . But i can tell u media distracted me with my . H.W and now my grades r going back up . I guess the hardest part is people at lunch play secular music . And i plug my ears going "LORD jESUS I LOVE GOD" u get dirty looks but oh well. CAUSE IM STANDING OUT 4 CHRIST . MY 1ST BLOG THIS IS COOOL AHHHHHHHH . K DONE

Just FINALLY getting started...

Hello everyone! I finally completed my first blog! Yay! Hahaha... anyways, the media fast is really hard for me because I miss facebook a lot... but hey, this is a great time for me to connect with God! I have been reading Numbers a lot this week. I was sitting at my desk the other day, and all of a sudden, this voice from somewhere told me to read Numbers 6, and vuala! It talked about fasting and how hard it was for people back then to fast from wine and other stuff that they liked to do. I can really relate to this because when the Nazirites said that they had hardships while not drinking wine, I have a hard time not going on facebook. When it says in Numbers chapter 6, verse 4: "As long as they are bound by their Nazirite vow, they are not allowed to eat or drink anything that comes from a grapevine, not even the grape seeds or skins", I realized that even though other websites may not be titled "facebook", they are still a part of the "grape" as a whole. I have to thank Matt when he said in one of his blogs that he doesn't want this blogging into another replica of facebook, I realized that I was doing that exact thing by posting 'random pictures' and other random stuff on here. I already knew, but needed a reality check about the blogging being about your progress during the media fast, not what your random pictures are. And I point this out to myself, but I hope that maybe this will help others too not only during the media fast, but afterwards too. One of the challenges that I have had to face so far was not going to see Percy Jackson and The Lightning Thief. One of my friends invited me to go see it with her, and I had to turn her down. I really wanted to see this movie because it was a really good book and because it had Logan Lerman in it. I thought that Logan [Lerman] was really cute. I then opened my bible to Proverbs (one of my favorite books because it gives the best advice!) and randomly went to Proverbs 23 and read and happened upon verse 9 of which says: "Don't waste your breath on fools, for they will despise the wisest advice." Then, a little while back, before the media fast, I was on facebook looking up some stuff on Logan Lerman, and I found one of his quotes which said: " I don't know if the movie will reach Twilight levels of obsession, but if it does, I'm ready for it!" Don't ask me how I remembered it, I just did... And if you read thru to verse 12: " Commit yourself to instruction, attune your ears to hear words of knowledge." I then realized that the only reason I really liked Logan Lerman was because I thought he was really cute... but it turns out that I need to look deeper into a person like God does, he looks at their heart. That is what I need to do more often. And once again, I thank you very much Matt, I needed the help and check-up because I was turning my blogging into another facebook substitute! Well, I'm probably boring you with my words, so I will just not blog anymore right now! Always keep GOD at the the vanguard of your mind! Good luck with the media fast! :)
~Jessica Burns

(:

WHOA! i haven't really posted in a while... lol. well its been pretty fun, my friend from school came over saturday night, and we watched narnia and ate pizza and did sel's and abbys hair and then went to baby sit my crazy neighbor and his two cousins. Very fun (: after we put them to bed we just chilled and played a "EXTREMELY" fun board game... Then she came to church with me! and then we gave her pig, zorro, a bath (: tehe. I had a music withdrawl when i gave my friend a hug today and heard Taylor Swift in her ear phones. I like totally flipped out cause i miss it. Its actually not that bad. I have been listening to alot of music that i used to love but then sorta stopped listening to cause secular music took over. After this is over, i fully plan to mix some christian music into my playlist. Which i really should of done a while ago... Well now that finals are this week, it is gonna be helpful that there isn't that much media to distract me! At least i will get some studing done. (: cause i fully wanna Ace these. Pray for me Please! and im praying for all yall. tehe. (: God Bless!

Silence is Golden!

Yay, I'm finally posting something on here. Well, the media fast has been fabulous so far, complete with a visit to the hospital! I didn't turn the TV on in my room there once...I wonder if the nurses noticed? I have really been enjoying the quietness fasting from media is affording me. Why is it I don't think to turn off the TV or shut off the computer or, whatever it might be that takes up so much of my time when I'm not on a media fast? I think it's cause I'm addicted. Addicted to "zoning out." But it's such a time waster and even though a little TV is fine and dandy every now and then, I really think God could use my time better...like he is now. Praying for all you guys!

What a bad day!

oye! I had a long day at work which started right after i left church. I suspended an employee and in doing so.... left the store short handed. So I had to stay all night. Needless to say I was not in a good mood driving home. As i was pulling into my driveway, I noticed my dog leaping in the window for joy because she heard me pulling in. She turned my frown upside down and helped me to be nicer to my wife when I came home than I most likely would have been. God is good! I love how he makes things like pets for our enjoyment. He's such a good God!

Dave

Pretty Cool!

I'm already starting to like where this is headed. . . . now that i have less distractions, i've been able to have a couple of good chats with my mom, play card games with my sister, do random stuff with my brother, and explain what a snipe is to my siblings with the help of my dad. :) tee hee. i've been writing stuff, too. . . . i've been connecting with God by writing songs and poetry and the works. i think it's pretty cool. the shower has also been dubbed my favorite place to pray. hah! ! the other night, i read some of 1 John, and because of it, i've decided to really focus on loving people for the duration of this month. so we'll see how that goes. i really hope that i can keep some of this up even after the fast is done. :-D

Good Book

Read the first 17 chapters of revelations last night. I love that book! haha, its fun knowing whats gunna happen when Jesus comes back. You guys should check it out.

fun times

week one is doing good so far. in my spare time, i invented a new game that combines elements of Bang! and chess. i'm still working on the details, but so far my family likes it! who knows? i could make millions selling it.

Week 1 done!

So far so good. The first week has gone by pretty smoothly. The hardest part of this fast for me this year is definitely music. I really don't listen to a whole lot of Christian music but not anything that's super bad. So trying to find music to listen to is kinda tough. I'm with Chloe where I like a lot of electronic music and the funny thing is is that there is usually no words in the music soooo I don't know if it really counts. Well the first week is over guys, Keep Strong!!!