Prove It!

Happy Pentecost!

I am a very logical person. I like things to make sense in my head, so if for some reason something doesn’t make sense to me, I will spend hours even days racking my brain to figure it out or make sense of it. I don’t believe things just because “that is the way things are.” I love questioning why things are the way they are and questioning how they came to be that way. Above all though, I simply can’t believe in something unless there is proof it exists.

Oxymoron

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Author Note:

Wassup my brothers and sisters? My name is MC. Yes, I do rap. And that’s what this post is about: rapping. But not just any rapping. Catholic rapping. YESSSS! So anyways, the point of this little author note is to give you a heads up on the blog/piece/whatever. I was able to interview the 2Pac of Catholic rap: C2Six for this article I did in English class. The man is a true inspiration. Anyway, I’m showing ya’ll my article/whatever because to me, Catholic Hip-Hop was a major step in my Faith life. It’s a great evangelization tool to reach the youth. Like 65% of youth listen to rap. Imagine if we replaced all the negativity in this music with positive messages… Catholic rap has helped me sooo much. But sadly it’s often overlooked. If anyone is interested, I’ve posted some links at the bottom. Some of the sites have cool Catholic apparel shops (Check out JMJCat3.com for dope hats.) Anyways, I’d love to work with Unleavened Ministries in the again in the future if ya’ll will have me…You guys are awesome. Now to all the readers: You guys are awesome and God loves you! Keep the faith alive! May Mary watch over you! God bless! Viva Christo Rey and AMDG!!

 

The Passion

“For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him might not perish but might have eternal life.” (John 3:16)

As the Lenten season came to a close, I looked up at the crucifix that had been hidden for over a month.  But, this time I looked at it differently than I ever have before. I looked upon It with new eyes, and He looked back at me, with the most loving look a father can give his daughter. It was a look that said “I love you so much that I will sacrifice my own life, so that you can have a better one.” Even though I am unworthy of His love and His sacrifice, He loves me so much that He will sacrifice Himself over and over again for me, even when I fall into sin. How great. How amazing. And how awesome.

But, how often do we actually think about Jesus’s sacrifice on a daily basis? Over Easter and Lent, I had the privilege to attend all the Triduum Masses (Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and the Easter Vigil). I love these Masses because each one is special in its own way. Each one highlights and teaches about a different event in Jesus’s hard journey to rising to Heaven to be with His father. It’s really an eye opening experience! Along with going to the Triduum Masses, on Good Friday, a group of friends and I also got together and watched “The Passion”. Now, this was my second time viewing “The Passion”, and I was crying practically the whole time.

The NET challenge: Ten Thousand Dollars, Twelve Short Stories, and Three Months

 

It’s not often that you find yourself writing a story about a cult of evil bananas in order to try to bring people closer to God.

But that, ironically, may be just what I’m doing over the next three months, because I’m raising ten thousand dollars.

This coming school year, I’ve been invited to serve with NET Ministries.
After an intensive five week training program, NET sends 150 young adults in teams of 8-12 across the country to give retreats and share their faith with youth, offering them something better than what they might find in broken homes, unsupportive schools and peers, and cultural pessimism.
In a word, Evangelization. (A big word, but still just a word.) In case you don’t know that word, it basically means to spread Christ’s love, especially through actions and how you live. (In this context.)

I hate to wake up and hear somebody talking about how this kid just committed suicide, or that guy came into school with a gun. It stinks to live in a culture where we just seem to accept insane divorce rates, teenage depression, substance abuse, and twelve year olds addicted to drugs and pornography.

I think you hate it too.

But if we don’t have anything better to offer, we can’t fix the problem at its root.

We do.

My name is Samuel Wong, and I’m going to go travel the country, sing, perform skits, carry furniture, subsist on parish charity(apparently something called “eggbake” is particularly common), and generally make a fool of myself to attack that problem. The problem of people not even knowing who Christ is, not realizing that someone really does love them. I want to share the good news. I want to share how God has worked in my own life.

And you can help.

NET asks us to raise five thousand dollars to cover the costs of lugging someone around the country for nine months. That’s about a hundred retreats, and seven thousand young people reached- -by one single NET team.

Over seventy thousand young people are going to be able to experience a NET retreat this year, and you can help, with any kind of donation, be it money, sharing this with a friend, and especially, prayers.

We aren’t just gonna leave it like that: we’re gonna have some fun.
I pledge to you, the reader, that for every thousand dollars raised, I’ll write an epic short story- if you need an example, check out Death of the Flies.
If you need another example, check out The Worst Decision.
If you need another example go donate so I can post more stories.

When we hit ten thousand dollars, I’ll post an awesome semi-anthology thingy with all ten of those short stories, plus:
Two bonus stories by me.
Two bonus ones by guest authors.
Cool bonus artwork by the Unleavened Ministries’ Olaf.

I think that we can totally do ten thousand dollars.
Don’t just sit there. Click here to donate. (Takes just three quick steps!)

Then share this opportunity with someone else who cares. Because that’s what it’s about.

Thanks for your time,
Sam Wong

P.S. If you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment or contact me directly at my email, astoolamongchairs@gmail.com ( I read anything and everything you guys send!)

 

Samuel Wong is a homeschooled Senior in Highschool who creates a plethora of evil plots. He enjoys writing stories, eating, and singing badly.

 

Red, thick, muddy dirt.

I can still smell the dirt. The red, thick, and muddy dirt that always seemed to get into EVERYTHING and never ever come off. I used to curse that dirt. Day in and out I would walk on that dirt and I would curse it. But, boy do I miss that dirt. That distinct earthy smell that you never seemed to get away from. I remember the smells of the city. The burning rubber, clothes, DIRT, food, and trash. That distinct smell always takes me back to a time and place where my soul was awakened. Sometimes I go weeks without smelling it and then all of a sudden something triggers it and I can smell it as though I am standing on those red, dirty, busy, noisy streets of Kenya.

The Reason for… this season?

As I was sitting in the super packed, overflowing, noisy church the other night on Ash Wednesday I had a lot of thoughts going through my mind.  I had just gotten off work and had rushed over to the 6 pm mass thinking that it was going to be full, but didn’t really realize how FULL it was going to be.  I sat in the back corner on a makeshift pew and it was hard to focus.  And, I was at first really frustrated with the situation because long story short, I have been struggling a lot with my faith life.  I have been lacking in the prayer realm and haven’t been able to focus that much at church.  I went into Lent thinking that this was going to change. That I was going to have this huge AHA moment and everything was going to back to normal—the way things used to be.

What do you want of me?

The apostolate where we stayed in Jamaica

“Amen, I say to you, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.” Matthew 17:20

 This past December I was blessed with the opportunity to serve on a mission trip in Jamaica. Before I left, I was so excited! I was getting to spend the entire week in the beautiful country of Jamaica, hanging out with Jamaican children, and doing some work on the side. What more did I need to know? I listened to my friends who had been before as they told me stories of these kids loving to play soccer, finger paint, sing, and do puzzles. Being an Early Childhood Education major, I felt that this week would be a piece of cake. This was my first mistake.

Running to the Father

18 years. For 18 years, I have lived in the same little house, in the same little town, with the same family. When I was a little girl, I would dream about being a mermaid. Like really, who didn’t watch “The Little Mermaid” and not say she was going to be Ariel? When I got a little older, the dream was winning American Idol and going off to be a big star, or singing to myself in the grocery store and some famous person would overhear me and get me a record deal. As I got older, my dream turned into going somewhere and helping people, and led me to my passion for kids, teaching and writing. New people were added to my dream along the way, and as it evolved, so did I.

All the time, people have these dreams, especially in high school and college. The most common phrase I heard among the conversations in my high school classes was, “I can’t wait to get out of here…” They had dreams. They aspired to bigger and better things. College, jobs, families, being famous, or like me, helping people. When my class graduated, back stage after we had walked out everybody was laughing and crying, a big mixture of joy, sadness, happy tears and fears. We all knew what we wanted, we had been working so hard, and now that it was finally here, were we ready?