My hope is built on nothingless

Well god jul, merry christmas, feliz navidad or however you say it wherever you are. Yesterday we went to a meal setup by the church for poeple who dont have family are alone on christmas. It was really nice, they had alot of good food and after we ate and sat around and talked we sang and danced around the tree ( alot of fun!). Then before we left came santa! with a raindeer! who left us a messy present on the floor hahaha! so that was pretty interesting. Then after that we went to a friends house whos family had invited us over cause they knew we were alone. It was one of the most touching things some has done for me. They truly treated us like family. For some reason i can never sleep on christmas night so i slept for about an hour then i woke up. I made a fire and just sat and relaxed then tried to go back to sleep. This morning we opened presents around eight. Well i pray that god will give me courage to carry on. OH! merry christmas lewie and family! im so happy you found my blog!
well god bless,
-Samuel J. Miller

Im your man

So here i am, again, writing, again. Well we are now on our christmas break. I never thought i would say the word christmas and hold back a tear but its true. Being away from home sucks, im not going to sugar coat it, it just does but we get by i guess. I think cabin fever has become a concern for the team. You know there are some days where i wake up look in the mirror and ask myself why in the hell did i do this then i cant help but laugh because how insane am i to take a year outa my life to go to some place i ve never been before and do something i have no experiance in but i guess that fits me the more i think about it. I never really knew what the heck i was doing half the time i was back home. i guess i just like a good adventure and this is falls under that category. I dont know what to write here but for those who read my blog back home and dont comment on here it would be nice to get emails or something. Jer. 29:11 "for i know the plans i have for you ´declares the lord´ plans to prosper you and not to harm you. Plans for a hope and futuré".
In patience,
-Samuel J. Miller

On the 309

Well it has been a very interesting week to say the least. We went raindear seperating, raindear are not that big but they dont like to be grabbed by the antlers and they put up a heck of a good fight when you do. But how many people in there life time can say they helped seperate raindear in the artic circle? and in - 16 degree weather i might add. Everyone was just so happy and relaxed. everyone seemed to know each other and had no problem with including us, i found it rather touching. So that was wed. i spent the next day in band practice till friday in the morning we actually had the dance. it was alot of fun, the rules are if someone asks you to dance you cant say no and you have to dance for the entire song. It was really funny to watch the teachers grabbed the really shy boys in the back and dance but everyone really seemed to enjoy themselves, it was a day well spent. Then the day started to go down hill fast. We opened grottan and we didnt think really anyone would come because the 9th graders were doing the lucia show agian that night from 8 to 9 and at first i was right till they started pouring in. We were packed in there and kids just reeked of alchohol. After a while i poked my head into the back room to check in and make sure everything was ok and the minute i opened the door the rushing smell of beer hit me in the face. I walked in and one of the kids playing pool who we know from östra walks over and says sam! try swedish beer. at this point im and truly pissed off. I take it when he hands it to me and i tell him that he cant drink at grottan and i walked to the back door and procceded to poor the dang stuff out. when i got back in i found alyssa trying to get a kid out who was so drunk he couldnt stand nor really speak and the kid i took the beer from was fighting with another kid. So i ran and got Elis (AKA the swedish hulk) and he grabbed them and pulled them all outside. Well the one kid wasnt happy about that and while going up the stairs out side he kicks a window and breaks it. Some other people walked the group home and i was happy to be rid of them. It was a rather depressing end to a depressing day. Saturday morning i went lifting with my friends markus and richard then we stopped at the bakery\ coffee shop in town and just talked. it was one of the most content feelings i ve had since i been here. just hanging out with friends talking and eating. Just relaxing and having fun. Well im tired of writing and this is really long so for those who read this stay safe and your always in my prayers.
Sincerly,
-Samuel J. Miller

All things bright and beautiful

With our amount of sunlight becoming less and less i find it takes an emotional blow. Not really in a negative way but more it moves in more highs and lows then usual. I more then ever find myself driffting off into memories that i havent thought about since they themselves occured. They tend to flood my mind and stop me dead until afterwards waking from my day dream to find i had spaced out. I recall waking up early with my dad to go roofing, or the bird cage they had in the nursing home my grandma miller was in. They come back to me in bright, beautiful color that even now brings me close to tears not out of sorrow but of joy of rememberance of days gone by. It is evident to me now that my family and friends forever live in the deepest parts of my heart, and that shall never be changed. After this journey is over ill get down on my knees and thank god for the adventure.
Sincerly,
Samuel j. Miller

the bridge over troubled waters

well as of now we have gotten into our routine which is very nice but i kinda wish it was fuller. I ve been helping out with a band the school started to play at the highschool dance and thats alot of fun but we practice for like four hours a day so that gets rather tiresome. Next week is english camp where we take some of the kids to a camp nearbye and they are only to speak english and they learn about the world and poverty and things like that. Im pretty excited for that because we have the seventh graders and they seem to really enjoy talking to us so im not worried about them giving us any trouble or not speaking at all. Cabin fever sometimes takes over at night when its been dark so long we think we should go to be but its still early so im trying to learn to keep myself occupied. I have the feeling i will do alot of reading while i am here which isnt a bad thing. the weather here has actualy been pretty nice, only like an inch of snow and its been in the teens to the thirtys lately (farienheit). Random note but since we have much spare time in the evenings i had the thought that love is the greatest feeling and the next greatest would be the feeling of contentment. In peace,
-Samuel J. Miller

into the great wide open

well i know i havent written in here lately but nothing has really changed to much. We still are going to school talking to the kids, some still lie others talk alot and some dont talk at all. We just got back from watching the new james bond movie so it was kinda nice to sit in a theater again. We are slowly learning A LITTLE swedish. we as a team are slight aggrivated by how kunskupens hus ( the place next to the school where we learn) teaches. its more filling out books rather then learning how to say things and hold a conversation. Grottan is going well, some of the immagrants from afganistan asked us if we could have it twice a week because they like and there isnt much to do. An interesting fact or tibit i learned the other day from an older kid is that we arent like the other teams, he mentioned that when he came to grottan the teams would usualy end up asking why they werent christian and trying to convert them. I am very thankful that i am not asked to do that with the children. Evangilizing has many different faces and i think simply talking at people is one of the most uneffective and egotistical ways of describing gods love and want to follow them. We should lead by example not a "do as i say" method. I feel kind of lonely at times because in all honesty we dont know if what the kids tell us during the classes are true and we ve had instances where some of the ninth graders were making fun of us because we dont know swedish. I sometimes feel like we are treated with distane for simply being foreign. I just feel that them lying to us is like directing a blind person into traffic. Its taking advantage of someone who already feels insecure about not being familiar with their surroundings. Im sorry i am ranting about small vexations i have with encounters we have had. Almost all people here are rather nice to us or at the very least polite. Well im going to finish watching the simpsons on the computer so good night and keep me in your prayers as you are in mine.
-Samuel j.
p.s. the title is a tom petty song i know

No train to stockholm

Well this is the week the kids have off so we found ourselves in a perdicatment because without school there isnt much to do. We went on a hike out in the woods and explored and it was beautiful but cold. Emilie and her older sister took me and alyssa to Luleå this week too which is kinda like chicago only smaller colder and the stores are more expensive but the malls were really cool to walk through. It kinda sucks being the only guy in my group because i do feel slightly secluded and left out in some things that go on but ive been making guy friends which i am very thankful for. Today is halloween and grottan but no one really dresses up but in honour of the occasion i plan to stuff myself with candy as i always have done and will continue to do. I need to start ordering more books to entertain myself because i am watching to many movies. We get to see some northern lights here and that is so cool to see. Anyway i am ranting but i will try and write more later. in peace,

-Samuel j. Miller

jag heter Samuel och Jag nej talar Svenska.

my name is Samuel and i dont speak swedish. Ok so its fun the here but bloody hard to pronouce. In the english alphebet we have 5 vowels, the swedes have 9 (A,E,I,O,U,Y,Å,Ä,and Ö). but we have those sounds in english we just dont have seperate letters for them lik Ä is a double OO sound like in goose but its still hard to remember that. Anyway today we got to go to the highschool and talk to kids there in the tenth grade and they arent talkative but more so than middle schoolers. i have to go to swedish classes so i will continue later. lol ha started again. anyway to me really the kids just seem really bored but i dunno they are warming up to us ´slowly but surely. Anyway i cant think of anything else i can say so peace

set the controls to the heart of the sun

Well i am writting this post in Jokkmokk Sweden. The plane ride from chicago to stockholm was amazing, I have never seen anything so beautiful in my life until we broke through the clouds and kept rising and rising. I expect heaven would be something like it. We had like a little computer in front of us and we could pick movies to watch to kill time so that made things go pretty fast but after 5 hours your ready to land. Oh my goodness landing sucks dot com. we got here at 7 40am which would be 1 40 in the morning back home then we flu to luleå and drove to Jokkmokk. so we made it to where we are staying at about 2 30 here which is 6 30am back home. Tom took us to his house to eat and meet his wife Disa and his youngest daughter Hannah. Everyone here is very friendly but we stick out big time as americans so you kinda feel stared at by everyone but we are something new so its not unexpected or unwelcome. I am so excited to learn swedish, more now because i can't tell what anything says without it. it is beautiful here at night. Oh we didnt sleep for about 28 hours because to try and get use to the time difference we stayed up till about nine o clock here then went to bed but i still feel rather sick and jetlag isnt fun. I keep all at home in my prayers.

working over time

well its weird going from a house of 16 to a house of three but it has been really nice getting to know alyssa and bethany. Our visas have come so we leave on monday which is really exciting but its really awesome to stay here for this week, at first i thought it would blow but its been alot of fun. We got to help out at a place on monday that serves food to people with HIV\AIDs, it was so neat seeing how nice the staff were and how passionite they are about what they do. Later that night we went to a seminar on the book "battlestar galatica and philosophy" my first thought was this surpasses any other nerdy thing i have ever done but it was really fascinating to here the different theories people had developed through the show. Yesterday we worked at a pre school place i worked at before early when we were here. this weekend we get to go on a camping retreat with the brethern church we live next to and i am super excited about being in the wilderness for a bit again. to sum this up people rock and i am nerd dot com. (on a sadder note the cubs and sox s are out of the running but i trudge on) in peace, -Samuel j.

the word i shall not mention (visas)

well they haven't come in yet so i shall continue to stay in the house in Chicago while everyone else is leaving. Though it will be hard to watch everyone leave i think it will be very nice to have this opportunity to really get to know my team members which will be very helpful for when we are together in a different culture because we will be able to be open with each other. i want to thank everyone who has and is continuing to pray for our visas. oh and MY FAMILY IS COMING THIS WEEKEND!!!!! WOOT!.

things stuff and blah blah blah

well my time in chicago though only brief over all has been pretty cool. Its really neat to see how helpful people are when you pull out a map or just look completely lost. the little kids are so funny here. On the trains the just run up and down the train laughing hysteriactly. No matter their cituation they seem to almost always to have fun. 

Though this isnt all fun and games. sometimes it is hard to get along with everyone but i very much count this whole thing as a growing experiance i was in desperate need of.  Its actually really cool just to see how everyone comes together like trying to put a hard puzzle together. We may not finish it before we all leave but we can put our own parts together by the time we get back. This will be something we carry with us always.

Also its amazing how fast food dissapears in a house of 16 people.

livin in the city

well i have found out definitely that i am a farm boy by far. the city seems rather abrasive. though i highly enjoyed going to a pre school that the kids spoke both english and spanish. i have always enjoyed watching kids they are so funny! we played duck duck goose and even the shy kids would break out into laughter when the teachers could not catch them. other than that i find it rather hard to enjoy the city. its weird not to have a car either but its alot of fun to hang out with my group i live with they are all very unique. The canadians i seem to talk to the most because we just go back and forth on what differences in culture we have that are small but still are big enough to shock both of us. 

i have realized that i am not the greatest writer but i will keep everyone posted. -Samuel

chicago thus far

it is fun