Name

"God said to him, 'Your name is Jacob, but you will no longer be called Jacob; your name will be Israel.'" -Genesis 35:10

Hey friends! I sorry that I haven't posted anything in awhile. Most of my time has been spent taking care of housemate Dave and taking naps to recover from whatever sickness that I caught.

For the past week, Dave has been bedridden with a double ear infection which prompts him to throw up with any sort of motion. Within the past two days, Dave has made remarkable recovery and has been able to prepare things for his flight back home. However, because of the recent infection, his doctor has ordered his flight to be delayed for at least a week. Which means that I'll be able to hang out with him for another week yet!

When I woke up on Sunday morning to go to Macquarie, I felt awful. I had a fever, the chills, aches and pains, as well as a cough. Thanks to your prayer, when I woke up Monday morning, almost everything was gone. I still have a weird cough which makes my voice do some funny things, but I'm far on the road to recovery.

Since coming to Australia, I have been given many names. The reasoning for this is probably because Australians like to shorten just about everything, so having to remember two names is really an inconvenience. When I first arrived, Junior decided to name me "Moose", since I'm from some place near Canada. Matt insists on calling me John, just because he knows that it bugs me. Dave has decided to call me "The Epistle". This came about after he couldn't remember my exact name, but knew that I was named after 2 of the 4 gospels. Rather than try and guess which ones, he settled with Epistle. At Merrylands, I received the name, "Stick". I'm not entirely sure why I was labeled this, but it probably has something to do with my natural tendency to "stick" with a job until the end. Dave has also decided to start calling me Marcus. No explanation there at all. Gotta love Dave.

Around campus, I'm mostly known as "That guy that plays piano" or "that one guy that asks good questions in New Testament Introduction". However, today I was renamed by the guys who run the sisterhood primary class. Apparently, they thought that John Mark takes too long to say, so they introduced me to everyone as "John Mark Junior Senior Ben Ben.....Luke....Ben." I have to say, it's pretty catchy. However, if I ever wanted to have business cards made, I'd probably run into a few issues.

Thank you all for praying for me to be healed. I am very far on the road to recovery and wouldn't be here without you. Things coming up: Building a Youth Center this Saturday, Macquarie Sunday, Rebecca's basketball game Sunday, First band performance Monday (please pray for that).