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To Be A Buddy - lessons learned from "becoming a trendsetter" put in a blender with Tori Sosa

Well, first, lets just dwell on the incomprable wit and genius of the title. Next, I will elaborate!
Well, as you, my church homies, know, we have been learning from God's Word and the mind of Jake Box about becoming a trendsetter. First of all, I will just say that pretty much, this has been the most awesome and most touching/convicting of all the series I've heard in a long time.
The first Sunday one of the discussion group questions was something like, "does the idea of becoming a trendsetter scare you, or excite you?" and the answer was off-the-chart excitement (although no one in the jr high group except steph really knew me well enough at that point to exchange a laugh :)). As any of you that know me very well might guess, I love the idea of trendsetting! And it was awesome to experience the feeling a few times during the series; wearing the cape out to lunch, wearing pjs to d-groups and the next week more people doing it (thank you steph), and a few other times when I could tell that I was really different from the norm (ok, you know what I mean those of you who are laughing).
One sunday, the topic had been "Trendsetters gain influence", and one of the points had been about accepting. It struck me, the conclusion you can draw that people are friends with people who accept them, and those friends are the people who have influence ultimately. And several times came to mind.
One was last Christmas, when my family met Stevi and Troy in Marseilles, where stevi and troy had friends at a church. We ended up being at the Church pretty much all day on Sunday, since they were having a potluck (with raw salmon, fish eggs, and some other pretty weird things :)), and so we, speaking awful if any French, had to mingle and chat with total strangers for hours. There was one girl who was a few years older than me who was American but lived there, and she came up to me, sought me out, introduced me and translated and talked to me about the other people and her life, like, almost to the point of annoyance! She ended up with inviting me to her birthday party, which I couldn't come to. It was just wonderful to have her accept me as I was, and even like me!
Another time I thought of was just about a month ago when we went to Colorado to fix up our house. Our real estate agent has kids our ages, and his daughter Tiana was another awesome example of acceptance. She made me feel like her best friend and on top of that is a totally cool person!
And now for the Tori part. If any of you know Tori, you know that she is one of the sweetest, cutest, most accepting people ever. If you know her, you are her "buddy", and the more you get to know her, the more "buddy"ed you get. For instance, if you are with her all day, by the end you might be her buddy-buddy-buddy. And that sunday, Tori had invited me to her fifth-birthday celebration at the zoo. And I was reminded of a few things. Jesus said that we must become like little children - accepting, forgiving, faith without seeing- to enter the kingdom of heaven (matt.18:3). And I was reminded that I can and should be just as accepting of people I meet; it's how Jesus was, and how he's told us to be.
So I have been practicing acceptance. And the funny thing is, when you accept, you are accepted too! I know, I'm a genius, but it's something God's been teaching me :). So until then, buddies. Peace out.