Lléname con tu amor, Señor, otra vez...

This blog is dedicated to the man of many nicknames. Weathy. Weatherfired. Swayzee. Twinkle. And my personal favorite, Otra Vez. And that's not even all of them.

I originally picked this song line because it is the reason we call Patrick "Otra Vez." It's a song we sang in Mexico on our youth group missions trip. It translates "fill me completely with your love once again." Of the songs we learned that week, this one was probably the one where Patrick spent the most time forgetting the lyrics. Every once in a while you would hear Patrick, almost under his breath, singing "llename da da da da amooooor..." and then he'd get a little louder and sing "otra vez!" Eventually he did learn the words, but he had a thing for that song for some reason, and he still sings it, and we still call him Otra Vez.

Patrick became a Christian some time around March. We didn't hear about it until some time after at a Skillet concert, where he told one person and slowly but surely we all ended up hearing about it. He didn't see what the big deal was. We were thrilled, to say the least. Of course we were thrilled, though. That's what we'd been waiting to hear for months.

Every year the youth group has a big party at the school for the Iowa vs. Iowa State football game. It's a big outreach thing, and we all try to invite as many people as we possibly can. Patrick was one of them. I knew him from riding the bus with him and this guy called Rounds. He never talked to anyone and he sat by himself and Rounds would talktalktalktalk to either Patrick or me, and neither of us made much habit of responding too often, because Rounds was not a very nice guy. Anyway, so I knew who he was but never talked to him before. Then he comes to this football party, and I tried to talk to him. Just say hello, thanks for coming, are you having fun, the food is good, you know, whatever. I was not the only one to attempt this and fail. I remember Gabe asking a couple of us if we'd talked to the new guy, and we were all like "We tried and he won't respond! I think we're scaring him." Turns out, we did scare him. But he came to youth group two sundays later, and he's been coming ever since.

Patrick has missed youth group like, twice since then. He is involved in everything the youth group does. He's read more C.S. Lewis books than I have. It's pretty awesome. At first, he didn't talk to anyone at youth group. He literally showed up at the beginning, sat in a corner by himself, and left at the end. Eventually, he started to talk to us. Now we can't get him to shut up, and I mean that in the best way possible. ;-)

Patrick is a good example of why it is okay if you freak out the new people. He is also a fun person to skip advisors to go to vending machines with. He will laugh at you when your Gardettos spill all over the floor, but he will buy you more if he has enough change. He will bum rides off of you for everything and then talk about how awful your driving is, but he will let you steal his pop-tarts. He is a fun guy. You should know him.

Sincerely,

Mara