This picture of the Texas Capitol in Austin was taken by Jordan because I was driving.

Tuesday, April 18th, 2006

I expected TeenPact to be wonderful, but it's more than twice as good as I was expecting!

Monday, we began by playing dot-to-dot; starting at the Capitol, we were directed from staff member to staff member, all the way to the meeting building. There we received our name-badges, and proceeded into the room to become aquainted with our other class members. After some preliminaries, the staff did a skit to demonstrate how a bill becomes a law (or doesn't). It was much more memorable then a lecture, and a lot more interesting. I would include a few pictures here, but I was under the (mistaken) impression that cameras were not allowed in the capitol, and so didn't bring take it in with me the first day. After that, we had a brief discussion of "Parlamentary Proceedure" (basically, the rules that govern the Senate and the House of Representatives when they are in session). Then we all voted to enter a session of the TeenPact Senate. A bill was brought up for discussion, and the chair asked if the author or sponsor of the bill was present. A staff member (who was acting as the author of the bill) came forward and stood at the podium (called "the well"). The TeenPact students then asked questions about the bill, using "Parlamentary Proceedure". The staff helped us if we didn't know, or remember how to ask. Eventually somone made a motion to move the previous question (vote on the bill). We failed the bill and went on to another one. Then we had the first readings of all the bills written by the TeenPact students (part of the pre-class homework was writing a bill). One at a time, as they were read by the author at the well (or podium), the bills were assigned to a committee. The name of my committee was "Eco-Terrorism" or the "ET" committee. All committee names were made-up by the staff, not taken from existing committees in our State. There were jokes connected with the committee names, and I think the staff had a lot of fun making them up.

On Tuesday, we began with praise, worship, prayer, and a devotional about Joseph, by Katie, who was also my committee staffer! Then we divided up into our committees (like "teams" in a Children's Institute). My committee sat in a circle, and we went around the circle, introducing ourselves, telling how many siblings we each had, and then answered a few questions so we could get to know each other better. We then elected a chairman, and we were supposed to elect a clerk (or secretary), but we ran out of time. It was time for lunch! One of the highlights of Tuesday afternoon was the "Evil Twin Debate", of which we had one every day, except Monday. An "Evil Twin Debate" is when a staff member takes a current issue and defends a non-biblical stance on it (although they don't tell us that they are advocating the wrong side until later).

This is the "Guest Director" of TeenPact Texas 2006. He is trying to convince us that when we have conservative judges in the Surpreme Court, they should legislate from the bench- just like the liberal judges have been doing. Chad is arguing that we should do whatever it takes to uphold and further God's righteousness in our nation. In one of these pictures, he had just asked a student who was questioning him, "Who should we obey? God, or the government?" The student replied, "The government!" Chad lifted his hands and said, "Back up! Lightning is going to strike!"

They give a short speech explaining why they believe this issue should be solved a certain way, and then open the floor for questions. The idea is to get us (the students) to think, and to ask questions revealing the flaws in their argument (basically like a debate). They never let us "win" the debate, being very good debaters themselves. Sometimes it was very difficult to think of a way to counteract their arguments, even though I knew it was wrong. They allow us to ask questions for about fifteen minutes, and then they would spin around and say, "Ok, I'm back now. I do not believe anything I just said." Then we studied and discussed what the Bible had to say on the issue, and why the viewpoint they were defending was not Biblical. It was such modivation to study the Bible and learn how to defend what I believe!

We also had a congressman come and speak to us. Before he came, we were taught the proper way to greet him. When he entered the room, we were to stand, and clap for him, and the same when he left. They explained, "Even if we don't agree with the speaker, we are doing this to respect and honor him as our authority." They also explained that after he spoke, he would probably allow us to ask him questions, and they showed us the correct way to ask. They told us to raise our hand, and when recognized, to stand, introduce ourself, tell where we live, ask our question, and sit back down.

Wednesday, was another wonderful day. This day's schedule was similar to all the other days. We had worship and devotions, time for TP Legislature, time for bill discussion with our committee at lunch, and one to two field experiences! Field experiences were different learning activities our committies would go to, with a different staffer for each one. We had field experiences on: Campaign Finance Disclosure, Bill Research, Debate/Apologetics, Learning about, and interviewing a lobbyist (or Advocate), and more.

I think the field experience about lobbyists was the most interesting. We learned that a lobbyist is a person who studies one (or a few) bills, and the facts impacting them, then presents the information he has gathered to legislators (the members of the House of Representatives or Senate) with the intention to impact legislation and issues (basically the lobbyiest wants to influence the congressmen to vote a certain way). Once we learned about lobbyists, the staffers, Johnson and Katy told us that we were going to go in groups of three, and find and interview a lobbyist. They gave us a few suggested questions to ask: "What makes someone a good lobbyist?" "How did you become interested in politics?" "Who are you lobbying for or against?" "What advice would you give to a young person interested in lobbying?" They then told us to stay in the general area we were in, find and interview a lobbyist, and be back in about 10 minutes. Megan, the other girl assigned to go with me, said, "You go first, please!" We looked around for a person of the discription Katy had given us: Nicely dressed, probably looking like they were busy, and had something to do...etc. We finally decided on a middle-aged man in a suit, but he was talking to a lady, who was also in a suit. We waited for a minute, then the lady turned to us and asked, "Do you need to talk to one of us?" I was slightly taken off guard. "Either one of you, or both of you, would be fine," I replied. We introduced ourselves as students who were at the Capitol for a government and civics program (somewhere in there I told them it was a Christian program). I told them, "We are learning about lobbyists today..." The lady said, gesturing to the gentleman she had been talking too, "Here is someone who can tell you all about them." She left, and we were alone with our "lobbyist". Before I could even ask if we could have a few minutes of his time to ask a few questions, he started by asking, "Was Jesus a Liberal or a Conservative?" I thought for a moment, and then replied, "A Conservative." "But Jesus gave to the poor," he said. I thought I had misunderstood him, so I said, "Then did you mean generous when you used the word liberal?" He didn't really answer my question (a pattern that would continue), but went on to say more confusing things, basically trying to tell us that it wasn't right for his Republican colleages to label him as a Liberal just because he thought the government should give money to the poor. In a brief pause in his argument, I managed to ask one of our questions. He gave a brief answer. My fellow students asked their questions, and he partially answered them...and went right on with what he was saying. I was beginning to think our time was up, and there was seemingly no end to the flow of his talk. Johnson came and stood nearby as if to say, "We need to go; wrap up the discussion." After a minute or two, he walked off. I seized the next pause in the "lobbyist's" talk, and quickly said, "Thank you so much for your time, we appreciated being able to talk to you." I began to step back to leave, and to my surprise, he started talking again! The next time he paused, Megan helped me by saying, "We really have to go now, but thank you so much for talking with us." And we all quickly shook hands with him and walked off before he could say anything more. To make a long story short, we were late. Very late. When our committee got back to the meeting room where all the other TeenPact Students and Staff were, they were having a trivia time (because they were waiting for us). Please don't get the impression that it was a horrible experience- it really wasn't. It taught me several lessons, and it helped me loose some more of the nervousness I tend to get when I have to talk to people I don't know. What would I have done differently next time? I would have asked him to define his terms, liberal and conservative, and I would have just asked more questions, in general, before I answered, just to be sure I understood what he was talking about. I think I probably learned alot more talking to this congressman (we discovered through some of the things he said that he wasn't a lobbyist) than I would have if I had talked to a real lobbyist, or if he had merely answered our questions. God works all things together for good! (Romans 8:28) Interestingly, when Jordan went with three of his committee members to interview lobbyists (on Thursday), they talked to a person who was the exact opposite of the gentleman we did. :)

We also visited the Senate and the House Chambers as a field experience, and learned more about how they function, and what they do. We had daily "Prayer Walks", where we would go with our committee to different places around the Capitol Complex, stand in a circle, and one at a time, pray and give thanks for our authorities.

1 Timothy 2:1-3 "I exhort therefore, that, first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks, be made for all men; For kings, and for all that are in authority; that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty. For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour..."

At the end of every day, Tori, the "Quiz Queen" would go up to the podium, and announce that it was time for our favorite activity of the day- test time! :) The tests were fairly easy, with ten questions per day, on what we had learned that day, or in homework. The final quiz on Thursday had 25 questions, two of which required us to write Romans 13:1-2 and 1 Timothy 2:1-3 (verses we were supposed to study before coming) from memory. But now I'm getting ahead of myself.