This sinister...

(These stories are as true as possible. I'm trying not to exaggerate.)

This is a simple diagram of my uncle and aunt's house in California. The light gray box is the garage, and below that is the driveway with cars in it. The dark grey with light grey rectangle is the Master bedroom and bed. The pink room is my cousin, Danielle's.

Me and my brother, El, we're on vacation seeing our grandpa and relatives. We had been staying at my grandpa's house fifteen minutes away, but we decided to spend a few of the nights at my Uncle's (as usual). We had a terrific idea. We would scare my cousin Danielle when she came home from school. The parents were working, so when we arrived the house was empty. Perfect. Originally we were planning on something simple, but I convinced El to go full blown. He parked the car that we had been using on the other block then walked back. Meanwhile I put all of our luggage behind the bed in the master bedroom (dark grey room). I found a red marker and wrote a sinister note on a ripped piece of scrap paper. I scrawled something like, "Be careful, we are watching" in scraggly misshapen letters. I then wrinkled it and unwrinkled it to add effect. Constantly looking out the windows we formulated our plans. At the last minute we decided that El would lay down between the wall and the bed where I had placed the luggage. I frantically shuffled our many bags into the attic where they couldn't leave clues. After barely getting a plan together, they arrived!

Not only had our cousin Danielle come, but her boyfriend Richard, and her friend Erica also came! I quickly ran out the back door and through the gate in the fence (the blue mark in the diagram.) El called me on the cell phone that I had and quietly informed me of what they were doing inside. He lay on the floor looking at them under the bed. We had carefully arranged the bed skirt so he could see down the hall and into the kitchen. He whispered that they were talking in the kitchen and then they moved into Danielle's bedroom (the pinkish room in the diagram). When he told me it was safe, I ran on the outside of the fence to the front of the house. I ducked under the windows hoping that they wouldn't see me. I then quickly rang the doorbell at the front door (red mark). Running like fire, I crouched behind the parked car in the driveway (green dot).

Danielle came to the door, "Hello?" No one was there. She looked around, but didn't see anyone. She then went back into her bedroom and told the Richard and Erica what had happened. El was whispering their movement over the cell phone. Of course they were alarmed that no one was at the door. All three came to front door. I was hoping very hard that they wouldn't see me behind the car. They called out, wondering who had rung the doorbell. As soon as they left the bedroom, El dashed into the hallway and dropped the note in front of the doorway of Danielle's room. He then ran back and hid on the floor and looked from under the bed. After talking about the mysterious ring, they returned Danielle's bedroom. If I remember correctly, they didn't even see the paper! It was only when Danielle went to get a drink that they noticed the note. El kept quietly whispering what they were doing as I waited behind the car hoping no neighbors would see me.

He listened as they walked into the kitchen. A drawer opened. They walked back to the note that I'd scrawled in red. A knife suddenly stabbed the paper. "He's got a knife!" My brother whispered. All three of the teenagers were very frightened and Richard had gotten a long kitchen knife and stabbed the paper to pick it up. Through the cell phone I could barely hear them exclaiming their alarm, "Who did this?" They all started freaking out. Richard got all manly and started shouting in each of the rooms, "Where are you? Show yourself!" He swung open the front door and stepped out. He swore. Now I was scared. El had just told me that Richard had a knife and now he was walking onto the driveway! Thankfully he turned inside before looking around the cars. El informed me that they were now looking around the house and they had opened the back door to look around the yard. I could hear the fear in their voices.

I then got up and walked inside the fence in a place they couldn't see me and opened the garage door. To my surprise Derek, my other cousin, was just walking home from school himself. I tried to dart back out of the garage, but he saw me. "Very funny. I see you." He said sarcastically. He walked inside ignoring me. Danielle, Richard, and Erica were now outside looking in the yard yelling their threats. I followed Derek in through the garage door and found El sitting at the kitchen table in plain sight. We told Derek what was happening, but he was uninterested, he didn't know how scared the others were. We then called out the door to the others and they filed inside. El and me told them that we had done it all. They were really embarrassed about falling for the prank. Richard sheepishly put the knife back in the drawer. It had worked perfect! I had thought all along that it wouldn't work out well, but it worked out better than I had imagined. They said how that when they first arrived home they had been talking about how they didn't like how horror movies were so scary. They then panicked when they saw the sinister note. Wahoo! It took a while for them to realize how funny it was, but it was great.

This scary...

My friend, Clay, had asked me to help with a work project at the Character Inn. His mom and him would then drive me home at the end of the day. So me and some other friends helped out with the project. After dropping them off, we went to pick up Clay's sister Mary, who had been helping some of her friends at a horse farm. On the car ride Clay and I had a terrific plan (guess what's coming!) He had the Narnia movie soundtrack in the car and we found the scary song where the White Witch stabs Aslan. We watched the time and found that the extreme climax at about one minute and thirty seven seconds. I then hid in the very back of the minivan. We tried to think of everything. If Mary was to put her luggage in the back, I would simply try to scare her early. We rehearsed the plan several time and kept his mom well informed so that she wouldn't ruin our plan. When we stopped to pick her up, Clay and his mom got out and talked with the friends for a while. Clay was careful to get in the front seat before Mary could, and she ended up sitting in the exact seat we wanted her to. She sat in the middle passenger seat. It was dark and raining. Couldn't be more perfect.

After chatting a bit, Mary got out a C.D. she had gotten from the friends and asked Clay to put it in. He begrudgingly put her C.D. of cheerful Christian music in. This might ruin our plans! We had to have the scary Narnia music. Clay listened to the new C.D. for about two minutes before he turned it off. "That's nice." He said unconvincingly, "OK. Now that we listened to your song, let's listen to mine." He put in the Narnia soundtrack and prefaced, "Now I want to see if you notice something different in this song." He did a great job sounding natural, "Really put yourself into the music. Try to really feel like you're there." She agreed to listen. The music slowly started out somber then growing in rhythm. I watched the seconds roll away, and when there was only about thirty left, I leaned over the very back seat directly behind her. I crouched. The music reached it's climax. I sprung. With a scream I grabbed her shoulders and suddenly squeezed. For a few terrified instants she looked back at me as she herself was frantically screaming. Their mom, who had tried very hard not to be surprised, also screamed out. It took about eight seconds for Mary to recognize me. Clay and me started laughing. Mary started laughing. We laughed a really long time; Mary said she'd never been scared so much in her life. It was very funny. We kept on laughing. I still remember Mary's look of shock and alarm as she looked back at me. It was so perfect.

This day...

Enough of the prank stories (they were extremely fun doing). Now for today. After doing school and going to the gym with my dad, I went over to the high school and some stores to witness. You can read about it here: http://teens4evangelism.wordpress.com/evangelism-experience/#comment-24 . I'm hoping that I was able to plant Christ's seeds in their lives, because I didn't get too much of a response while talking.

I was looking at some verses from Isaiah. Isa 42:19 "Who is blind, but my servant? or deaf, as my messenger that I sent? who is blind as he that is perfect, and blind as the LORD'S servant? 20 Seeing many things, but thou observest not; opening the ears, but he heareth not. " These are striking verses. Think how God must feel to have his servant be blind and his messenger deaf. I began thinking of the lost people in the world. Teenagers and adults aimlessly listening to their iPods and MP3 players. They are deaf to God's word. I thought of people mindlessly watching TV, playing video games, or watching movies. They are seeing many things, but not observing the important. I then thought, am I doing the same? What things am I blind to that God is trying to show me? I've thought of myself as God's servant, am I a deaf servant? Am I truly listening to what He wants me to do? Are you blind? Deaf? Isa 42:23 "Who among you will give ear to this? who will hearken and hear for the time to come?"

God bless your day with Christ's riches!