Tuesday, January 11, 2011

Africa- Who is Blaine??

Blaine? Who is Blaine? I'll tell you.
Blaine is 4 days younger than I am. Together, Zack, Mat, and Blaine took me in and carried me in Bethel. I'll never forget some of the stories I have with Blaine, and how he saved my life so many times.
When I first arrived, he invited me over for coffee after work. "Sure!" I said, "We'll be over for sure!" I was stoked! Right off the bat, someone who had been in Bethel for a good amount of time wanted to befriend me! Hold up a second, though. I said 'we'll' be over. Who was I talking about? My first roommate. Little did poor little Trevor know, he was soon to have many, many issues with his first roommate. I won't mention him by name. Lets call him...Kermit. 
Later, Kermit and I had some upsets. So when I said to Blaine that we would both come, he lovingly concealed the fact that he invited only me. Haha, looking back on it, its embarrassing how naive I was, and how many times Blaine had to look over my stupidity.
Blaine was assigned to train me in, as we were in the same department. So he worked one-on-one with me for two months. Toilets, floors, truck docks, offices. Poor, poor, Blaine, having to deal with the terrified little boy that I was/am. Everyday, I'm sure he was exhausted by my youngness and naivety. Still, everyday he stuck with me and worked tirelessly. He was my best friend in Bethel. (I love you Zack and Matt, but you left early on while Blaine was there the whole time!) Blaine was able to fill any role for me, whether councilor, comforter, ally, foe, whatever Trevor needed at the time-Blaine was able to fill. When I thought I was madly in love, Blaine was able to balance my thinking out, and when I was ready to throw down with Kermit and rip out his throat, Blaine took me for a walk and cooled the fire.
You see, Blaine has this amazing ability to do and know just about everything, and be awesome at everything you could imagine. I know it sounds like a stupid thing to say, but its true. Either that, or he could manipulate your mind to thinking he was awesome at it, even if he bombed at it. He was a storehouse of random trivia, is the fastest runner I've ever met, can swing as good as Fred Astaire or Ginger Rogers, sing like Frank Sinatra, and rock video games like none other. Its frustrating how good he is at stuff. You almost didn't want to be friends with him, but as soon as you were frustrated he would do something to swoon you over again. It was a humiliating, degrading process but you never wanted out of it. I stopped playing pool because of him...

Alright, let me redeem myself with Blaine, ok? In the last post I mentioned how he got me buzzed for Gilead meal. Alright, it wasn't totally Blaine's fault. Blaine, you coulda warned me that your margarita was so potent, and that an empty stomach was a bad idea! AND wine was involved! Haha, its ok though. I will always remember the time I stumbled down the E-building stairs trying desperately not to fall as I made my way to the dinning room for Gilead Meal.
In fact, as Blaine mentioned, we did some other things that I sort of should have thought twice about. Crawling through a window on the roof was involved, thats for sure (I cannot BELIEVE I forgot to mention that one). And the blowing off my overseer's overseer, yeah. Totally my bad. Thankfully Blaine was there to break my fall and help me save my butt. I was unaware! And naive! I had no idea who this 'Lorenzo' fellow was, how was a Bethel newbie supposed to know who the 'Home Overseer' was supposed to be?? Its not like he says 'Hi, I'm Lorenzo, the home overseer. I'm the boss of your boss, and I decide whether the branch even considers extending your stay.' or anything! 
Now, one last thing for Blaine. Blaine is the whole reason that I started this blog. He suggested thinking about it, and starting it up so that others could read it. So why don't we all give Blaine a nice round of applause?! Leave a comment and tell Blaine how much you love him, and how wonderful an idea this blog was! 

Internet has been spotty. I have a very, very hard time getting pictures up. Sorry everyone, but for now you'll have to be patient with me. I'm unsure of when I'll be able to post pictures. Here are some updates.   

So it turns out that we are not going to the Zone visit in Kampala. The couple I stay with (the Bennetts) have been going back and forth non-stop, and are just exhausted. The couple I house sat for (the Panduros) just got home from the UK and are also exhausted, so they all need their rest. I have no way to get there, lol, so I cannot go. It is no problem, though. We have a lot going on, so we’re very busy this month. Thats a little bit of an update. Here is something more.
    There is a town nearby that is spelled phonetically Chow-so-see, though I have no idea how to spell it for real. In that town, there is a budding congregation. Well sort of. Its not an actual congregation yet. They have one meeting a month where about 20-30 people meet. Jonathan Gubser goes over to give the talk. Just recently they rented out a building to use for a kingdom hall. They rented it out for one year to see how well it does. So hopefully they can spur on some growth to support a congregation there! Then we would have yet another congregation in Uganda! Aaaaawesome.
Recently I've been hanging out with Richard a lot. Do you guys know Richard? He is all over my Flickr account, and he has a lot to do with our early morning service group. I think he is about to turn 37 soon. I've been able to really get close to Richard, more than the other brothers around. He is a very, very wonderful brother.

Alright that is about it for now. I hope you liked, and hopefully next post will be about some experiences regarding my ministry and/or the congregation!

9 comments:

  1. Yay Blaine! =D>>>>>>> (that's me clapping) You are obviously a pretty cool guy and a great friend. Do you really do everything THAT well, or do you just have Jedi powers? "You ARE impressed with me." Haha! Sounds like you guys had some great times. Good call on the blog, too!

    Thanks for the update, Trevor. Thank goodness you're okay. I honestly was a little worried. Thought you fell off the face of the Earth! (Which I'm imagining in Uganda might literally be possible to do.) Very cool about the new group! Could it be in Kasese? And glad you are finding a good friend in Richard. It's amazing how Jehovah knows what we need and often provides it in the way of friends. In Bethel you had Blaine, and he's still a good friend, and now you have Richard. That's another thing about putting yourself out there in sacred service... you end up accumulating this wealth of awesome friendships with amazing people that you would never have met otherwise! Jehovah is indeed 'good'!

    See ya in the funny papers!

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  2. Ehm, we're not going to the zone visit not because we're exhausted but because it means waking up at 2.30am, leaving at 3am, getting there at 7am and wait in a cue for minimum 3 hours to be searched by the police because, thanks to the President who wants to be re-elected, Kampala will be REALLY dangerous (many foreigner are leaving this months because they don't want to be around during the election), leaving at 2pm and getting back home at 6/7pm... CAN YOU REALLY BLAME US FOR NOT GOING???? You'll be scared to death as soon as you get there... I don't think you want to see that side of Uganda...believe me...we know...

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  3. Jenny- Nice job, Jenny! Let him know how much we love him!

    Panduro- Ehi, sorry, sorry! I forgot how strong short Italians and crazy English/Italians are.

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  4. Mrs piggie and Kermit should get together and take their issues somewhere far away. Lol

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  5. Haha, nice Step. I agree, that would be nice!

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  6. *roaring applause* for Blaine. This post was great, it was wonderful getting to read about the friends found at Bethel! I enjoy hearing of encouraging experiences and following the experiences of youths giving Jehovah their first fruits and experiencing joy from it, so thanks Blaine! I've heard of and even met ones from Bethel having such wonderful dispositions! It is truly refreshing to be around them, I hope someday to become like that. Surely it is as a flower in the best environment, they are at the center of Jehovah's earthly organization! There ones I've met like this throughout Jehovah's organization. They've always been an encouragment to me and ones that I look up to (including the ones I read about in the articles,yearbooks, examples in the bible)! I hope that someday, I will follow even closer in Jesus' footsteps and become an example in demonstrating christian qualities as many of my brothers and sisters do! Keep up the wonderful work in setting a fine example!

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  7. As a fellow ward of Blaine, he is the best and should be cloned :)

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  8. Blaine's Mom said: He gets his singing and dancing from Mom,fast legs from Dad. His older brothers claim early on they realized their parents didn't know how to properly raise Blaine so they took over. They claim all his successes and blame the parents for the rest. Yes Trevor, Blaine gave me your blog link and it is a highlight to my day. Bobette Hamblen

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  9. Thank you very much, Nautica, I appreciate your mature and enthusiastic comments! Thank you for reading!

    Brad, its good to hear from you. :] Perhaps we could clone Blaine, but then we'd have a fight over who was the best version, and that just simply will not do.

    Bobette, long time no see, huh? That sounds like the brothers that Blaine described to me, thats for sure! Haha, thank you for reading, and I hope that we may be able to visit again! Perhaps this time a bit closer to home, huh?

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