Well, I guess that’s about it.

I think this is will be the final thing I ever post here. A little less than two years after I started it, it’s coming to an end. It’s been a wonderful record of all that’s happened in my life since I graduated from university what seems like sooo long ago now. Thanks for keeping up with me everyone who has (mom and dad) :)

My sister and I are beginning a blog together, and everything I write from now on can be found there:
Between Heart and Head

My summer in North Dakota was wonderful, something I’ll have great memories from the rest of my life. Medora was the place I was meant to be. I worked at a pizza parlor in town with some really cool people. It got crazy in there sometimes, but it was a really fun environment to work in and a fantastic job for the summer. Lots of good times making good pizza, listening to good music, and having good conversations with the other good people working there.

The whole caring for and protecting the environment craze hasn’t really spread to North Dakota yet though. Recycling is one of the most simple, basic ways that we can reduce waste, and the company that I worked for this summer barely made an effort. At the pizza parlor, since we thought it was important, some other employees and I set up a program and started recycling what we were able to. I think the same system we used at the pizza parlor could be relatively easily implemented across the company (which runs most of the businesses in Medora). I talked to some people about it and actually wrote out an essay type of thing explaining why I thought it was important and how I pictured it being done, and, to add more voices to the conversation, I also started an online petition encouraging the company to start recycling. If you would check it out and consider signing it, that would be awesome :)
Petition to Institute an Organized Recycling Program

ACMNP TRNP 2011, My fantastic team (Me, Kylee, Abby, and Patrick)

There were four of us putting together the ACMNP services this summer, and the other three people were great! We did a weekly Bible study and read through the book of 1 Corinthians, and we prayed and confessed sins to one another every week. Fantastic people that I’m really glad I had the chance to meet and to serve alongside this summer. Patrick plays the banjo (among other instruments) and a couple of times we had a guitar banjo duo leading the music at our services. We also pretty consistently had some big numbers of people coming, close to one hundred people a couple times. If you’re interested, I’ve put the transcripts from my messages on the blog again. You can find them here.

Some highlights from the summer include exploring and hiking in nearby Theodore Roosevelt National Park, having my parents come visit in early July, organizing a Pizza Parlor dodgeball team for a local dodgeball tournament and destroying, getting a hammock and spending lazy afternoons laying it in under the bridge down by the Little Missouri River, backpacking across TRNP with my friend Peter who came out to visit for a week, going to play raquetball in Dickinson with my friends Yarema and Chad, playing music with several other people in Medora and just spending time and sharing summer with some of the fantastic people I had the chance to meet in Medora. My favorite two days of the summer were when 8 of us from Medora took a trip down to the Black Hills in South Dakota one weekend. We camped out one night, hiked to the top of Harney Peak, found a couple of awesome swimming holes, hung out in Keystone, and saw the lighting ceremony at Mount Rushmore. An awesome trip :)

It's a simple life on the farm.

Now that I’m back in California, I’m living in Chico and working the harvest on the same rice farm that I worked for last fall.That will probably last until about Thanksgiving or so. I still have no idea what I’m doing in December or for the beginning of January, but for seven weeks from January through February, my friend Peter and I are traveling to Patagonia in South America and I’m stoked! I need to learn Spanish this fall though, that’s my project.

Come March 2011 it will probably be time to settle down and look for something more than seasonal work. I’ve realized recently that I don’t have a place to call home anymore, and I’d like to put down some roots and settle down a little bit somewhere (even though at this point that scares me more than the thought of moving
somewhere brand new for just a season).

Alright, it’s been an adventure :)
Peace and love,
Brandon

Matthew 5:8
“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.”