Bob Dykstra’s

Memoir by Micah Vander Beek

Last fall I went on a trip I want to take again. I went to a place not very far away but many things there were different, I was on the Lac Courte Oreilles Native American reservation. I was there as part of a small group of people from my church who went to Wisconsin to help a missionary named Bob Dykstra.

I had been waiting for two years to go on this mission trip, I heard a lot about it and wanted to go. Luke went on the trip two years before and has gone every year since. The only thing that I was not happy about was missing a soccer game.

We left school around one in the afternoon and went to Countertops Plus to meet with the others going with us. We left there at 1:45 and started our four and a half hour trip. It was Chad, Aaron, Dayton, and I in the Ford truck and Amy, Luke and Nick were in the Ford van behind us. Dayton and Chad were sitting in the front seats and were talking about Dayton’s training for becoming National Guard. Aaron and I sat in the back having brief conversations and listening to Dayton’s interesting stories of Boot Camp.

We got near the reservation and then stopped to eat at a restaurant called the Norske Nook and then went to the cabin we were staying in and then went to Bob’s house on the reservation. Bob had his house on the reservation and he also has a small building called the shack that he uses for as a place to teach and have fun. He also has homemade volleyball court and horseshoes right outside of the shack.

That night we went out by the volleyball court and had a bonfire where he told us about his career as a missionary, how he started, why he was where he is at, and why he never went farther away. After this we went back to our bunkhouse for the night.

The next morning we got up ate and went to Bob’s to start our first day of work. We all gathered in the shack for a devotion and went over the list of things to do in the three days we were going to be there. The first job I had was to move rocks from the back of a shed so the adults could install a lean-to for split wood. After moving rocks and dirt Aaron and I split wood for a couple hours. Bob had a huge pile of unsplit wood because he has a wood furnace and burns wood almost all winter long. After splitting wood with a machine, we moved the split wood over to small shelters to keep the wood dry. After we finished this we ate lunch and then we switched groups and Luke, Dayton and I went and did yard work for some people who just couldn’t do it by themselves.

The next day started with devotions again, then more wood splitting. After a while of wood splitting Luke, Nick, and I dug around a foundation and moved dirt so it wouldn’t spill inside of the incomplete shed. Next all of the young guys went with an older friend of Bob’s to a rock pile and collected rocks. As boring as this might sound it was actually my favorite part of the whole trip. Larry, Bob’s friend, is a really fun guy who loves to joke around while still doing work and we overloaded his truck and trailer in less than an hour.

Larry then took us out for ice cream for doing such a great job and then took us back to Bob’s. We used the rocks at Bob’s for the barrier around the volleyball court.

That afternoon Bob took us to the school where we pulled weeds from a volleyball court and hockey rink. While pulling weeds we played cops and robbers with the kids who were there and had a great time with them.

Bob then took us into the school where he showed us where he worked for the school and explained a giant painting in their lunch room. Each part of this giant painting was hand painted by a few people in each separate tribe in the reservation, showing some of their past and what they believe.

Back at the shack we ate and then went out and played volleyball with some of Bob’s friends and had a great time.

The next day we had a small church service to conclude the most impactful trip of my life.

Baseball

Any topic essay by Micah Vander Beek

The world is filled with sports. Sports are played almost everywhere you go. Soccer is played in almost every country. Basketball is gaining popularity in Europe. Football is the most watched sport in America. Rugby is basically football but played throughout the world. Baseball, America’s favorite pastime, is played all over the world, along with a similar game, cricket. Of these many world wide sports, baseball is the most mentally challenging along with some physical activity required.

Baseball requires having a strong arm and being good with hands, but no matter how hard you throw, or how good you are at fielding and catching, if you are not mentally prepared you will not do well. Mental errors in baseball usually result in missing a catch, letting a ground ball through the infield, a bad pitch, bad throws, and misjudged fly balls. Any one of these mental errors can change a game for the worst. Instead of having two outs and a runner on first, you now have one out and runners on first and third.  

Basketball is also a great sport that requires mental awareness, but requires mostly physical ability to play. Basketball does require you to know the plays, where you should be on the court, how to play your opponents on defense, and the timing of a steal. These mental requirements are usually not focussed on, basketball is usually played on split second decisions and not much thinking ahead.

Baseball requires you to think ahead to the next play. Should I throw a Curveball? Where should I throw the ball if it’s hit to me? Will the pitcher throw a Fastball, or breaking ball? Should I turn a double play? How fast is the runner? All of these things and then some should be thought about before every pitch. The game of baseball is far more complex than most people think it is.

Football is very popular and fun to play. Football requires being very physical but not much thought while playing. Football only requires you to remember specific plays for most of the offense. For the defense you have to try to figure out what the other team is going to do and stop it. In football, the people who do the most thinking are the coaches and quarterbacks.

Baseball requires all players to be aware of the amount of runs, the count, and the runners. You have to figure out what to do with the ball before the ball is hit. If the ball is hit to you it is easy, but if the ball is hit somewhere else you have to figure out how you can get involved in the play. You could back up a throw, get involved in a run down, be the cut off from the outfield, or call out what base to throw to.

Baseball also can result in being hurt or injured while playing, even though this is uncommon. The most common way of getting hurt is being hit by a pitch, or a catcher taking a foul ball to the mask. Most of the time these result in the player being rattled for a few minutes but are fine for the rest of the game. Another way of getting hurt is when the ball takes a bad hop when you try to field it and it bounces and hits your arm, leg, or anywhere else on your body. There can also be collisions because of miscommunications by fielders and they run into each other, trying to catch the same ball.

Baseball may not be considered the most fun sport to play, but it is fun to watch and easy to understand. Baseball may not require being as physically active as most other sports, but the mental readiness is needed much more in the best sport ever, baseball.  

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone

by J.K. Rowlin

Review by Micah Vander Beek

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone is the first book in seven of the Harry Potter series written by J.K. Rowlin. The Harry Potter books are fantasy and fiction. The books are about a boy, named Harry, who is a wizard. The series is about Harry’s adventures during school in Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

Harry is a young boy whose parents were killed, then was taken in by his aunt and uncle. Harry grows up with Uncle Vernon, Aunt Petunia, and his cousin Dudley, the Dursleys. Harry is always mistreated, living a closet under the stairs, never getting birthday gifts, and being treated almost like a slave. But Harry was able to make weird things happen. At the age of 10, Harry found out he could talk to snakes and then somehow made glass disappear.

On Harry’s eleventh birthday Harry received a letter from a strange person. Uncle Vernon knew who this person was and refused to let Harry open it. The letters kept on coming and in a large amount. Harry eventually got ahold of a letter and it was from Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. The Dursley’s knew that Harry was a wizard all along and didn’t want him to be a “freak” like Petunia’s sister, Harry’s mom who was murdered by the most powerful dark wizard of all time, Voldemort. The Dursley’s did everything in their power to keep Harry from going to Hogwarts, but a very large wizard, named Hagrid, came and took Harry with him.

While Harry was buying all of his school supplies, Harry figures out that he is famous for stopping the dark wizard Voldemort. Voldemort had tried to kill Harry, but Harry somehow lived and Voldemort became very weak and disappeared.

The whole wizarding world was strange to Harry, but he loved it. He had trouble finding the proper train station, platform nine and three quarters, which can only be accessed by running through the barrier between platforms nine and ten. Wizards set up charms like this to keep muggles, people who are not magical, from discovering the wizarding world.

On the train to Hogwarts, Harry meets Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger. They end up becoming Harry’s best friends. Harry also meets a rich spoiled boy, Draco Malfoy, who becomes Harry’s enemy.

Harry, Ron, and Hermione figure out that the school is protecting a very powerful magical object, the Sorcerer’s Stone, and someone is trying to steal it.

Who is trying steal the Sorcerer’s Stone? What do they want to do with it? Will they gain immortality? Will Voldemort return to power?

I thought this was a very good book. The mystery is very well created, and it was not the only focus of the book. Action was also mixed in at great times to help keep it interesting. The pace was good, it never went to slow that I got bored, and it didn’t go to fast either. The story brings a fiction idea and almost makes you believe this has really happened. It takes a story of wizards and puts it perfectly into Britain.

The explanations for why normal people don’t know about the wizards is so simple, charms that make people see old ruins instead of a castle, walls that appear solid but you can run right through them, and simple memory charms that make people forget what they just saw. They are so simple that you think it might actually be real.

Overall I think this is a really good book, it has really good pace and plausibility, the main characters never do anything out of character during the whole book. I do think this is the worst book of the whole Harry Potter series, but is still worth reading.

Basketball and Soccer

Comparison Essay by Micah Vander Beek

Basketball and Soccer are both great sports; they have a lot in common, but basketball is just a little more fun and you are less likely to get an injury.

Basketball and soccer are very alike. The way to win in soccer is to get the ball in the other teams net while trying to keep the other team from scoring on your goal. In basketball the way to score is get the ball through a hoop and net while keeping the other team from scoring on your hoop. Basketball and soccer both require dribbling and passing a round ball to keep it away from the opposing team. Both games are physical and require a lot of running to play. Both games are reffed and have rewards for unfair or dangerous play by the other team and have boundries of play, if a ball crosses the boundary it is out of bounds and is given to the team that did not touch it last.

Soccer and basketball are also very different. The biggest difference between the two sports is in basketball you only can use your hands to control the ball, but in soccer you can use any part of the body to try to control the ball except for your hands. In basketball if you intentionally kick the ball it will be awarded to the other team, in soccer the main way of controlling the ball is with your feet and if you touch it with your hands play is stopped and the other team is rewarded a free kick from where the penalty occurred. In basketball if there is a foul the ball is giving to the team who got fouled out of bounds closest to the place the foul occurred. A foul in basketball can be just a touch on the arm, but in soccer a penalty isn’t called until someone makes a dangerous play that could injure someone. Two different penalties are rewarded in soccer, a direct kick or indirect kick. A direct kick is when a penalty is called and the ball is placed, but at least two people have to touch the ball before it can be scored. A direct kick is when the person who takes the kick can score without anyone else touching it. In basketball if you get fouled you throw it in from the nearest sideline, but if the foul occurred while a person was shooting they are awarded free throws, uncontested shots worth one point. Worldwide, soccer is much more popular than basketball, but basketball is much more popular than soccer in the US.

Soccer and basketball are two of my favorite sports and are fun and competitive. They are very similar but have some major differences, but basketball is just a little more fun to play and watch, and just a little more safe.

Going Home

By Micah Vander Beek

I woke up that morning in a cold sweat, I had a feeling that something terrible would happen that day. I am Steve Turner, a college dropout who joined the US Marines. I am currently on my third tour, stationed in Iraq. My main job is to accompany tanks and clear houses. I have seen men take bullets and die for their friends and country. I realize that every step I take could be my last. This is why I plan on this being my last tour so I can go to family back home in California.

June 10, 2004, its a normal day in Iraq. I am part of a convoy of Marines who are clearing houses looking for information about Al Qaeda leaders. My convoy was told that all citizens were to evacuate and all military age males still there were there to kill us. We find many houses with women, children, and old men. Almost all of the military age men have left their families until we have passed through.

The roads are sand and rock that are packed down from the few cars and our tanks. The stone houses appear abandoned and the cities all seem lifeless. We come up to the side of the houses, avoiding windows, and get to the front door. On a signal one soldier kicks down the door and we rush in, guns drawn, clearing every room in the house. Then we search through everything in the house looking for hidden weapons or people.

The streets can be just as dangerous as the houses. Improvised explosive devises can be planted anywhere on the streets; an ambush could strike a single group, but not the whole convoy, and our biggest fear, snipers. Snipers are the only enemy we cannot see, or find before they strike. They pick us off one or two at a time and then relocate and shoot from somewhere else. Even with all of these dangers we keep going. We can only keep going on the memory of the people we care about back home. We are there only to keep these terrorists out of the land we call home.

Today we are moving on to the next city, we are moving deeper into the enemies territory and we are expecting more resistance than normal in this next city. On our way I hear the sounds of some gunshots and an explosion at the very front of the escort. I am riding in a humvee made for carrying troops, the humvees with a machine gun are in the front and back to protect against a possible ambush. The humvees are armored and very powerful. We drive very fast and drive right into other cars knocking them out of the way of the other humvees, but not if they are occupied by women and children.

We reach our destination and set up camp and eat. Then we all set out into the streets. We can see residents peeking out from behind their curtains. They are looking out in terror.Their husbands are gone and they are defenseless.

I hear gunshots break out on the far side of the city. The men over there radio for backup. I gather my squad and head out as fast as we can to the location of the pinned down soldiers. We reach the location and there was no one here. There is blood and bodies on the ground, and bullet holes in the walls. All of a sudden shots rang out from around us. We realize we had been ambushed and ran for cover. While I was running there was a terrible pain in my right thigh. I fell on the ground and started dragging myself to cover not knowing what was going to happen. I see my comrades coming back for me. They grab my arms and drag me to cover. I feel light headed and dizzy. I know one thing is for certain this is my last time fighting in a war, either way I’m not coming back. I don’t know whether or not I will live, but one thing I do know is I’m going home.

WILD

Last weekend was awfully amazing

it was my birthday

my youth group went to a

Wild game

We rushed to our seats`

the Wild were playing the

Tampa Bay

Lightning

the Wild got to a

quick start

Tampa tried to

fight back

but they could not

match the

Wild

Homerun

When I hear a the crack of the bat,

It’s 3 years ago,

crack, the ball is hit,

it goes toward third,

it hits a runner,

The runner is not called out,

the runner scores the winning run,

we lose our first game of the season,

but that is not my story,

my story is,

it’s a 2-2 pitch,

the ball comes streaking toward the plate,

I swing,

crack, the ball goes flying

through the cloudy sky,

it lands deep in the green grass outfield

as I sprint around the bases,

I reach home base

long before the ball does,

it’s my

first

homerun

of the

season