Crucible

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Wall of text incoming… 

Woke up to this letter this morning.

This is almost getting comical, except its not funny. In the past few months we have lost 8 committed regular supporters.

Everyone who has stopped has given really solid reasons as to why they are stopping so there is zero condemnation or judgement, that’s not what this is about, we feel ZERO percent entitled to anyones hard earned money.   

8 supporters lost is ONE FORTH of our support team. The timing doesn’t make sense at all in this new season of life.  Our expenses are at the highest they have ever been with the move out here to a high cost of living area and the addition to our family. 

God’s timing surely is funny though.  Had this happened before we moved out here 6 months ago… God knew we probably wouldn’t have come. 

Losing a couple supporters here and there is par for the course if you are relying on ministry partners for the bulk of your salary.  But losing over a quarter of our team?  What gives?  I think I need to fast and pray and see if we’re doing something wrong. 

One of this mornings proverbs was “The crucible for silver and the furnace for gold but the Lord tests the heart.”

The other day when I found out we were losing our 7th supporters I went over to the first worship morning of the quarter.  We just got a batch of 30+ new students who are here for their Discipleship Training School.  They will be here for 3 months getting trained and getting ruined for the ordinary, and wrecked and transformed by the love of God and then head overseas to share the gospel and help people in need. 

Through tears I worshipped the Lord.  Not tears because we’re destitute, we’re not, but tears because it is so evident that this is what we we’re created for and called to do.  And sometimes you have to realize in your own heart that even if we lose 1/4 of supporters we’re gonna keep going. 

What are we called to?  To encourage and equip wide eyed foolish young people (sorry guys, I was that at 18, probably still am now, thats why volunteer for this organization and don’t receive a paycheck from them) who believe God wants to use them to change the world. 

To inspire and train followers of Jesus at every age to ACTION.  To BE and demonstrate love in a real hurting world.

To help people value what they say they value. 

Jess’ Biblical Core Course just graduated 14 students, all of them in their late teens and twenties.  And do you know what they did in that 3 month school?  Read through the whole Bible, dug into the original context, made observations and interpretations of the text and then applied it!  That’s no small undertaking.  And we’re sending a team of 7 to Mongolia to work with believers there to help equip them to better study, teach and apply Scripture. 

So maybe this is the crucible and God’s testing our hearts.  Are we in this for the money?  Are we in this because we get to live in Hawaii?  I don’t think so.  We’re just trying to be obedient to what God’s calling us to, that’s why we’ve never lived anywhere over 3 years.  Right now it just happens He’s called us to a beautiful place and we need to be more intentional about enjoying the beauty while He has us here. 

Maybe I haven’t done a good enough job over the past year to keep you all updated.  I wasn’t on social media in 2018, because I find it harmful to my soul.  I find it a distraction from what I feel called to really be doing.  I find it stealing my joy and energy.  I feel it fueling envy in my life and allowing disgusting insecurities to surface. 

But I guess you cannot full time fundraise without social media.   So I’m back.  And I’m gonna get after it. 

I cannot sit and dwell on this loss of over a quarter of our committed supporters.  I can’t sit and feel sorry for myself.  I’ve got a family to take care of and we’ve got a mission to accomplish.

As my family has grown I’ve thought about what our family mission, vision and values are.  And I recently moved the word “RESILIENCE” to the front of our values.  The Bakers are resilient.  My parents have bounced back from serious hardships and set an example for me to do the same. 

When I think about resilience, I think about my dad who was the first person in his family to go to college, and when he lost his teaching job in NY (I was 4) he went and worked as a manager at mcdonalds, and then at a toy store, he didn’t quit, he didn’t withdraw and hit the bottle like some men do, he pushed forward, humbled himself and did what he needed to do for his family. 

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Yesterday I made the lock screen on my phone a picture of Ansel in a shirt that says be strong.  There’s no more crawling back in bed and trying to hide.  I picked up this side job cleaning construction offices for you son.  Because Bakers are resilient.  We also walk in loving kindness, and prudence and diligence.  I’ll do a facebook live soon sharing about that.  

So if you’re facing adversity today I encourage you keep after it.  Double down, put in the extra effort.  We can’t shrink back right now.  Remind yourself of the why of what you do. 

Even beyond the programs we run, we do it for the individuals.  The other day we sat with a twenty something who was asking for relationship advice.  Ya know what?  Family is the foundation of society.  And the worlds message on relationships is way different.  I’m glad that Jess and I can have a voice in young peoples lives when it comes to marriage, family and relationships. 

I recently went to a Church hospitality training where the last session was from the Honolulu Police Department on active shooters.  They started out their session by thanking the faith community for raising up the next generation with morals stating that it was making their jobs easier. 

We try and set an example of life and family for the people that are younger than us here.  We’re just a tiny step ahead, but we are trying to share the reality of the battle of everyday life.  The disciplines that we’ve put in place to stay sane and have a trajectory of success.  And the reality that some days you get plowed over and have to brush yourself off and get back up again. 

We’re not destitute, just losing a quarter of your donors is not a good trend.  I do have a part time salary from my part time Pastoring job and I’ve picked up a part time job cleaning offices.  But we are relying on our ministry partners from the Bakers ministry for the bulk of our salary. 

In the mean time we will keep doing what we’re doing, and I’ll be better about sharing what we’re doing.  We’re going to  choose to stay encouraged.  Keep good attitudes and keep pressing in.  Enjoy the beautiful scenery that God is allowing us to live in.  We’ll readjust our budget and be wise stewards and frugal. 

So if you’re the praying type we’d love it if you’d pray for us.  Pray that God would raise up more committed ministry partners.  People who truly believe in and want to partner in what we’re doing. 

We really believe in prayer.  And we wanna pray for you too.  If you feel like you’re facing adversity in your finances or any other area of life, message us and we’d love to pray for and encourage you. Lets keep, keeping after it.  

JuliaJanuary 17, 2019 - 4:38 pm

Bakers are resilient. Love it!

Encouraged by these words, “So if you’re facing adversity today I encourage you keep after it. Double down, put in the extra effort. We can’t shrink back right now. Remind yourself of the why of what you do. ” Struggling to prioritize alone time with the Lord/the Word and this reminds me to keep trying and to not be complacent in my failures to do so, thanks Jim. Blessed to be friends with the Bakers!

The Warrior Ethos [book review]

I’ve really been loving youtube.  I like finding interviews with interesting people.

The other day I saw an interview with Mad Dog Mattis.

He mentioned the Commandant’s reading list.  I love to see the books that other people are recommending.

One that jumped out to me was The Warrior Ethos by Steven Pressfield.  You’ve probably heard me talk about the The War of Art by Pressfield, it’s probably one of my top 5 books, so I was excited to see another shorter book by him.

I’m fascinated by these elite fighting forces and the self discipline they carry, able to do seemingly impossible tasks, pressing through super hard circumstances.  I’m also interested in their training.  I’ve been slowly reading through The Warrior Elite which follows the training of Navy Seals in Class 228, I’ll write about that soon.

Here were some of my take aways:
Early on in the book Pressfield talked about the wives and mothers in Sparta, and how they championed their husbands and sons as warriors.  This stood out to me because for that to happen, the culture had to have been so clear on it’s vision and values  that it created this unity and willingness to sacrifice.

It reminded me of the Morvaian missions movement which tithed 10% of it’s people, they loaded up their caskets with them because they knew when they were going to foreign lands to preach the gospel they would not return.  And as they shipped out their missionaries the whole community would stand at the shore and send off the young men with a chant of “That He would receive the just reward of His sufferings.”

Another take away was about salary.

For the warrior there are 2 types of salary.  Financial, and psychological.

The financial salary would be meager for the warrior, but the psychological would be pride, honor, integrity, being part of something that serves a great purpose, a community of valor and glory and friends that would lay down their lives for you.

It also talked about how the warrior is willing and eager to embrace adversity, and how the payoff of a life of adversity is freedom.

Again, I totally see the similarity between the warrior ethos and the missionary ethos.

Here are 3 quotes that I liked from the book as well.
“The will to fight, the passion to be great is an indispensable element of the warrior ethos. It is also a primary quality of leadership because it inspires men and fires their hearts with ambition and the passion to go beyond their own limits.”

“The warrior ethos commands that brute aggression be tempered by self restraint and guided by moral principle.”

“Let us conduct ourselves so that all men wish to be our friends and all fear to be our enemies.” – Alexander

This is a short book, about 90 pages I think?  I wouldn’t say it was amazing, but I did have some great take aways which I shared above.  Have you read it?  What do you think?

Hows Your Plan?

Why can’t I make forward progress?!

I know what I want to do, but when I try to get there it just doesn’t work!

This morning I took time to write out a morning routine.  I put it on paper, well digital paper, but it was no longer a thought in my head, but a plan on paper.

Do you know what is necessary for a good morning routine?

A good evening routine.

And this is why I think our moments of motivation fail, because there are steps that we didn’t think about that slow us down and eventually derail us.

It’s crazy how one extra step between us and our goal can derail us.

Honestly I almost got derailed from writing this, because I can hear Jess talking on the phone right now and it’s a distraction.  I had to open 3 browser windows that wasn’t blocking the flash player to get a white noise generator out.  That was a bunch of steps between me and my goal, and those little tiny steps sometimes are what trip us up and keep us from success.

So my morning routine, having a plan, having it written, seeing on paper the things I want to accomplish in the morning.  So much mental energy is used up in trying to choose or make the decision on what to do.  If I already have it mapped out for me then thats one less step that I have make to get to the destination I want to be, putting me one step closer to success.

It’s also good to see those plans on paper, because it allows me to move things around, it doesn’t make sense for this thing to come before this thing, and I can move it.  Where as if I was just trying to do those actions in a state of groggy, I might just feel the resistance and go back to bed.  Putting things on paper  helped me optimize, and  have an order for things.  I love order.

The difference between chaos and order is a well executed plan.

Having a plan and writing things down also helped me realize that there are sometimes other steps to success.  Planning for reality.  Putting things in strategic places the night before so there are less steps between me and executing what I want.  Filling up the water kettle, grinding coffee and putting it in the french press the night before.  Two steps completed in advance, so that in the morning, I can simply press one button to heat up the water, and pour it over the coffee grounds, instead of having to take the time to fill the kettle, and grind the coffee.  Plan ahead, and reduce the number of steps between you and success by executing as much as you can before.  Mise en place.

Writing things down also helped me realize some of things I want to do aren’t specific enough.  Read.  Read what?  Now I’ve got to make a choice again, and I might get derailed.  This sounds dumb, but I can really get derailed in the decision making, I get paralyzed by trying to make the best choice, and the longer I stay in a position of inaction, and indecision, the greater my chances are of staying there.

Interruptions suck.  I just had to switch from white noise to brown noise so I could focus and in the mean time I got a private message on facebook, in fact, its dinging right now with someone trying to contact me and it totally broke my momentum.

So reading… do I have a list of books that I want to read for 2018?  Am I setting up my computer the night before so that I’m not logging on and being inundated with facebook notifcations that are a great distraction from what I want to do?

Simple things like, opening my book up the night before on the kindle app, to where I want to start reading.

Get specific with your plan.  Table top it, run it through in your mind.  What’s to vague?  What can you prepare the night before, get ready, get in place, so that your day can be a success.

Not much good happens on accident, the older I get the more I realize stumbling onto things is dumb luck, and for me to go in the direction I really want to go requires an intentional plan.

Lets go!

Maybe I’ll Use This Someday…

I was at my parents over Thanksgiving and thought to myself…

“My parents keep a much cleaner house now…”

Then it dawned on me.

Oh.

Maybe it’s because I don’t live with them anymore.

I love tidiness.  And when I say I love it, that doesn’t mean I do it.  I’m currently typing this on my dining room table.  There’s a stack of mail here, a book that I haven’t read, a journal, multiple thumb drives, my coffee, some electrical tape, a bluetooth speaker, some receipts.  Gross.

Have you read Marie Kondo’s book about decluttering?  It’s pretty amazing.  And I’m attracted to the minimalist lifestyle.  Wanna know something funny?  I have no clue where that Marie Kondo book is.  I did have it by my bed side for a while… my bedside table is an area that is constantly getting stuff dumped on it.  Dang it, sorry  Marie.  And well, sorry Jess:(

I got to this sentence and got so frustrated that I stopped writing and picked a few things up.

It’s so important for things to have a HOME otherwise they just collect on flat surfaces.

I hate receipts and paperwork.  CLUTTER.

As I look in my basement and see all of the crap that I’ve collected.  There are so many things that I’ve picked up and thought “I MIGHT use this someday.”  The problem is that day never comes and so… there is a broken propane grill on the side of my house, some extra couch cushions in my basement, a gas lamp that I thought I’d flip (I even bought the glass part) some fishing poles, ugh, the list continues.

So I feel like I’ve learned a valuable lesson.  If I don’t have an immediate use for something, I don’t need to bring it home, because “might” never happens, and it just collects dust bunnies full of regret.

Who wants to go to the dump with me???

 

Faithfulness and Goal Setting

I love dreaming.  I love  thinking about an ideal future.

Today I feel an urgency to get some of my dreams out of dream mode and drag them into reality with some written goals.

That is the difference between head in the clouds dreaming a real concrete vision.  A good leader can see the ideal future, and has a written plan that they can communicate on how to get there.

But where is the line between being faithful to all that you’re currently juggling and have in motion, and dreaming and planning for the future?

You can’t neglect one for the other.  If you only dream, and aren’t faithful to what you already have going on, you won’t move forward.

And if you’re so stuck in what you’ve currently got going on and never dream, nothing will move forward.

I think I visualize a couple hours schedule a week, that is just for dreaming, planning and goal setting.  And faithful hard work diving in to what I’ve already got going.

Dreaming is more fun than the hard work of planning and doing though.  But lets get it done.

We Miss You Cowboy

Last year I received a phone call from Jimmie. 

Through tears he told me that our friend Cowboy had passed. 

I remember sitting later in Jimmie’s lawn and our friend Ben came by and we all kind of stared at nothing together. 

I met Cowboy for the first time when he was speaking at a church that boasted it had been around since the 1800’s.  His giant hand shook mine, and his gruff yet loving southern accent made me feel instantly welcome.  He took us out for ice cream after, and we sat and chatted and joked and laughed.  He shared about the discipleship schools he was running in Alabama and his work in Haiti.  

Whenever we ran a RED School we would have Cowboy come and teach on the Father Heart of God.  He always called it “The Father’s Heart of God.”  Which I thought was a strange way to say it, but he taught it like no other. 


His teaching was good, but it wasn’t his teaching.  It was his authenticity, the fact that he actually carried a Father’s heart. 

I remember one time he stopped the class and his teaching, asked permission from Jimmie and the rest of the class to focus in on one person.   This large man, knelt down in front of them, with a plastic table separating them, grabbed their hands, made eye contact, and in a hushed tone ministered the love of the Father to this person. 

That’s what made his teaching impactful.  It wasn’t just teaching, it was action.  And it wasn’t just action when it was convenient or someone was looking, it was action that flowed from knowing how far out of His way the Father went for Cowboy, that caused Cowboy to stop– and notice– and act. 

Listen to the interview I did with Cowboy here


We miss you man.  I pray that everyone you know and impacted, is spurred forward to being intentional in being interrupted, to love the one God has placed in their paths. 

Gently Instruct and Keep Learning

Don’t take for granted what you’ve been taught. Not everyone has had the same privilege to learn what you know.

As I wrote this thought down this morning, I felt like the Lord spoke “gently instruct” to my mind and so I looked up that phrase knowing it was in the Bible.  Here it is.

2 Tim 2:22 Timothy, run away from youthful desires. Instead, direct your passion to chasing after righteousness, faithfulness, love, and peace, along with those who call upon the Lord with pure hearts. 23 Excuse yourself from any conversations that turn into foolish and uninformed debates because you know they only provoke fights. 24 As the Lord’s slave, you shouldn’t exhaust yourself in bickering; instead, be gentle—no matter who you are dealing with—ready and able to teach, tolerant without resentment, 25 gently instructing those who stand up against you. Besides, the time may come when God grants them a change of heart[c] so that they can arrive at the full knowledge of truth. 26 And if they come to their senses, they can escape the devil’s snare and walk freed from his captivity and evil bidding.

It’s easy for me to think or assume that others should know what I know, but they haven’t lived my life.  And I’ve sat under some amazing teaching.  So if they don’t know, it’s our job to gently instruct, which works well if the person wants to learn.

And if they don’t, then thats fine, that’s their choice.  But it should make us ask ourselves, am I currently teachable?  Am I looking around to be a every day learner?  Am I receptive to what others are trying to teach me?  Am I willing to sit through some of the fluff, and bad presentation of peoples blabbering to get a gem?

If you’re not learning you’re not growing, and if you’re not growing your stagnant and dying.

Deep and heavy thoughts for this grey Monday afternoon.  Enjoy!

Bowling With A 9 y/o Homeless Kid

Another Friday had rolled around, this was going to be my last time hanging out with B.  (Read part 1 here.)   before we left.  I wanted to take him to a movie, because I didn’t think he probably got to go to the movies very much. 

I picked up Ben at the YWAM base and thought, I should run to the bathroom real fast, but I ignored that.  Don’t ignore the voice of wisdom.  I just had to shishi.  (That’s how people in Hawaii call going numero uno, I know when I first heard it, it sounded like a better name for numero dos… but I digress) 

The carpool lane to pick up kids from school was so backed up that I was on a major road and not even on the street where the school was when we got in line.  I was kicking myself for not going the bathroom and I told Ben.  I probably told him every 30 seconds.  What a teachable moment… the Bible personifies wisdom as having a voice… and the voice of wisdom was speaking to me at the YWAM base to GO THE BATHROOM and I was a fool and did not listen. 

Anyway… we picked up Bless and headed to the movie theater.  I parked and walked quickly to the bathroom.  We all chee-hoo’d in the parking garage, because that’s what you do in spaces that echo is shout.  (Chee hoo is like the Yee-Haw of Hawaii.) 

We stood in line to get tickets, and I couldn’t see the movie that I wanted to see listed.  There weren’t a ton of kids movies options… I don’t remember the names of them now, but one was really more targeted at girls, and the other cartoon was the one I wanted to go see.  When we went up to the ticket window the movie we were going to see wasn’t listed.  I asked about it, and they said that they pulled the movie.  Oh…

We sat on the steps and thought about what to do next. 

“Are you hungry B? If you could eat anything what would you want?” 

“I’m not really hungry right now.” 

“What do you want to do?” 

“Um…. I don’t know.” 

I had an idea.  I had seen Lucky Strike being built at the mall but hadn’t gone in yet.  So we drove over to the mall.  I was pretty sure that there was a bowling alley there.  We walked in and asked how things work.  The bowling alley was on the floor above and the hostess recommended that if we were going to bowl we do that first.  So we went upstairs and paid, and got shoes and socks, and got our lane.  Of the four lanes, there was one other that was taken.  We located a light ball for B. to use.  B. had never bowled before.  So I showed him what to do.  He was hesitant to try, but did so reluctantly.  We ended up putting the bumpers up for him.  None of us cleared 100.  B. asked how much bowling cost.  It wasn’t cheap, nothing in Hawaii is cheap.  I didn’t realize at the time but this was him asking to play another round, I didn’t catch it.  I’m still to used to my direct East Coast way of communicating, and not the Asian influenced hinting at things.  He really enjoyed bowling. 

We went downstairs to the restaurant and got a booth.  It’s also an arcade, so the flashing lights and noise was a bit overwhelming.  We looked at a menu.  B. said he wanted poke.  Market price.  I tried to suggest something else, more kid friendly, and maybe more budget friendly.  Nope, B. wanted poke.  (Pronounced po-kay)  Cubes of raw ahi.  A delicace.  A homeless 9 year old kid wants sushi grade ahi. 

For some reason this messed with me.  I remember a friend telling me when he was on food stamps in Hawaii that he would go and get poke all the time too, telling me it was the best he had ever eaten.  Wichael could see my internal struggle, “Hey B. what if we split the poke bowl?”  B. agreed.  We also got the kalua pork nachos which our waiter suggested to us.  B. loved those.  I could load a game token card up when I paid my bill.  These places are so smart, if you change currencies enough times, you forget how much you’re paying to play. 

I let B. and Wichael go peruse the game floor while I paid the bill, I wanted B. to look at every game and decide which one he wanted to play before starting so he didn’t miss out on the best ones.  B. came back to me a minute later, eyes wide with a smile on his face.  He had left the napkin tucked into his shirt.  He was so excited. 

I paid the bill and found them, and watched an enthralling game of air hockey, where B at the buzzer beat Wichael.  I’m pretty sure Wichael was trying too… eh maybe not. 

I had a meeting that evening that I had to get to, and I still had to get B. home, and Wichael back to the YWAM base, and pick up Jess and head to our evening meeting.  We played a few more games with B. and headed on our way. 

I got to see B. again at church the next Sunday to say goodbye.  It was my last Sunday at church in Hawaii. 

Last I heard his parents didn’t pick him up from school, and the school called the cops.  CPS picked him up and put him in foster care on a different part of the island.  I guess he’s back with his parents now, but only if his step dad does rehab.  Being a typical addict he can’t take responsibility for himself and is blaming this all on B.  Wichael has been able to spend sometime with B. since then.  When the subject of family comes up, B. avoids its.  “Let’s just play.”  or “Let’s talk about something else.” 

It’s sobering to think about the fact that B’s. story is not really unique.  Unique to us maybe who have had solid upbringings.  But there are many kids all over the world that are growing up in chaos.  I’m grateful to Ms. E who on her own reaches out to these kids. 

I don’t know where to go from here, what to write, what to feel.  How do we stop the cycle of poverty and addiction? 

Proverbs 19:17

Whoever is kind to the poor lends to the Lord, and he will reward them for what they have done.

What strange imagery, lending to the Lord. 

I guess all we can do is pray, and then be obedient if God asks us to do something.

Ask God today what it looks like for you to be kind to the poor.  And if you’re having trouble being kind to the poor ask God to reveal to you why that is. 

Pray for B.

My Day With A 9 Y/O Homeless Kid

A couple weeks ago, a woman, we’ll call her Ms. E, at church came up to me while we were cleaning up church and asked me what we were doing while we were here. I told her a bit of what we were doing.

She went on to tell me she has been spending some time with a 9 year old boy who was homeless, and was looking for good male role models for him and asked if I’d consider spending some time with him.  I told her that I wasn’t going to be here much longer, but that I’d pray about it.  Ms. E told me that this age range  is such a crucial time to spend with kids, because basically after 12 their trajectories are pretty much set.

I didn’t want to start something and not finish it, especially with a kid that might not have much consistency in his life anyway.  I thought I’d check with Ben Wichael one of the YWAM guys I met on this trip and see if he’d be interested in going with me a couple times together and then taking over.

Anyway, we put a date on the calendar to make it happen.  I picked up Wichael from the YWAM base, and cast some vision for our time.  I used to do martial arts as a kid and remembered talking to one of the instructors I’ve kept in touch with.  He shared with me how one of their goals in the 30 min class was to give every student appropriate touch, like a high five, along with a positive affirmation by name, 5 times during each class.

No wonder everyone like karate classes so much.  Who knew that they were being so intentional about that, I just thought they really liked me.

Anyway, I set that as a goal for us.  Fist bumps, high fives and encouragement.  And I thought outloud, “What was the one lesson I wanted to impart to this kid in our hang out time today?”  Wichael and I discussed it.

We arrived at the school with some help of Wichael’s gps on his phone, and pulled in the carpool lane.  We saw B.  (We’ll just call him B.)  I rolled down my window and one of the teachers asked gruffly, who are you here for?  B. I responded, and she turned around and shouted his name.  His eyes lit up in excitement, Uncle Ben!  Uncle…. his voice kind of trailed off, and he hoped in the car.  Wichael and I were amazed that complete strangers picked up a student from a school and no one batted an eyelash.  We also wondered what children’s services thought about kids who were homeless.

“How was school?”  We asked.  He responded saying that he had PE today and talked a bit about what they did.

Since I heard him say Ben’s name, I asked him if he remembered my name.  “Tim?”  He asked.

“Nope, Jim.”  I responded.

“Jim…” he said a few times emphasizing the J.

I sat with B. at church last week and Ms. E asked him to tell me what he wanted to be when he grew up.  He told me he wanted to be a NFL football player.  I asked him if he had a football and he said no.  I told him that we’d go get him one when we hung out but that he’d needed to remind me.

“B. I remember I told you to remind me about something when we hung out today, but I don’t remember what it was, do you remember?”

I could sense the excitement in his response.  “I remember! You told me we would go get a football today!”

“Oh yeah, that’s right, do you still want to go do that?”

“YES!”  He exclaimed.  “I thought maybe you’d forget, or that you wouldn’t want to do it anymore.”  He said his voice trailing off.

A time for a teachable lesson.  “Nope, do you know what good men do B.?”  “Good men keep their word do you know what that means?”

“It means that if you say you’re going to do something that you do it.”

“Right!, and thats what we want to be is good men, so I said I was going to do something and we’re going to go do it.”

“Okay.”  He said, I could still sense the smile in his voice.

I had a fleeting thought that it’d be cool to go over to the punchbowl cemetary, because it has an amazing view, but didn’t know exactly how to get there.  As we were trying to get back to a road I knew I took a turn, and lo and behold guess where we were?  The entrance to punchbowl.  We drove around and I showed B. and Wichael the views.

Still kind of lost we ended up going up Tantalus, neither B. nor Wichael had been up there either.  I thought that if you kept going up it looped around, Wichael was looking at his gps and kept telling me he didn’t think it was right.

“Ben, what do you think is another characteristic of a good man?”  I asked.  “A good man takes responsibility and doesn’t blame others.”  He said.  Great give me an example.  Ben went on to describe how if he threw a baseball and broke a window that he wouldn’t lie that he didn’t do it, but that he’d let the owner know what he did, and pay for the window.

I read an article this past week on how values need examples.  And I think that’s a really good point.

I gave an example of how I needed to admit I was wrong because I thought that Tantalus wrapped around, but it didn’t and how I needed to take responsibility for my mistake and apologize.  I asked B. if he understood and he didn’t respond.

I looked at Ben, and he turned to look at B.  “He’s out.”  He said.

We descended the winding roads of Tantalus to the sound of B. snoring.

Tears began to fill my eyes, I’m glad that he felt safe enough with us to take a nap.  I wondered what kind of sleeping conditions he had, and if it was hard to sleep being homeless.

We got to walmart about the time B. woke up.  We got to the sporting goods aisle and I told him he could pick any football he wanted.  I had to go to the bathroom and saw a large line, it was a line of people on the first of the month cashing their paychecks at walmart.  I came back and saw that B. had a football in his hand.  Which one did you pick out?  I asked him.  He showed me with a HUGE grin on his face, the green one.

The look of absolute delight on his face was well worth the $5 I was spending on the football, heck, I maybe would have maxed out my credit card buying the kid whatever he wanted if I knew he was going to be that happy over such a simple gift.

On the way out he asked me if he could take it out of the box, which I said he could and as soon as he was out the door it was out of the box, he threw the box in the trash.  “Do you want to go to a park and throw it around?”  I asked.  “Yes!”  He said, eyes still lit up in excitement.

We drove over to where we live, there’s a park that backs up to the condo we’re staying in.  On the way I asked him if he lived in a tent, he said tarps.  I asked him if it was hot, and he said sometimes.  I asked him what his mom did, and he told me that she cleaned 2 different hotels.  I asked her if he ever thanked her for working so hard, he said he didn’t, but agreed that he would.

I parked in the park and got out and we threw the ball around a bit.  It probably looked like that VW passat commercial where the dad is playing catch with his son.  Maybe not that bad, although Jess did tell me later “I saw you trying to run.”  I WAS running I told her.  She noted that I was holding my pants up, which is standard running stance for Jim Baker (right Aaron Reinard?)  I realized running around with B. that I really need to lose some weight before having kids because kids like to run around and right now, I surely don’t, although I never did, but I still need to loose some weight anyway.

I said hello to Jess through the back gate.  B. stood there in amazement.  “This is where you live??  Nah…” he said in disbelief.

While we were playing we saw another kid sitting on the curb drinking a soda.  His dad was sitting in the car looking at his phone.

“B. do you wanna ask him if he wants to play?”  And B. waved him over and the kid came running.  I was on B’s team and Wichael was on I’s team.  There was a homeless man sleeping in the park which B. pointed out, literally pointing and saying “homeless man.”  The homeless man groaned a few times saying “go away.”  But we kept playing since it was 3pm in a public park.

I had asked B on our way back from walmart if he could have anything for dinner what he’d have.  PIZZA!  He told me.  I asked him if he had a favorite pizza restaurant and he said dominos, and talked about their twisty bread.  So after throwing the football around we headed over to dominos and ordered some twisty bread and a medium pepperoni pizza.  He stared at the tv which was playing a western.  We ate and packed up the leftovers for him to take home.

I knew which park he lived in but I had never been there, and I didn’t exactly know where it was.  So I headed in that direction and B. helped us get there.  “Park over there by my grey car.”

“Oh your mom’s home?  Do you want us to get out and meet her?”  “Yes!”  I got out and he was grabbing his things.  “Thank you for the football and the pizza Uncle Jim.”  He said and smiled.

He ran up to his “house” and asked another auntie if his mom and dad were home.  At least that’s what I picked up since he wasn’t speaking English.

We walked up to some tarps hung over some pallets.  There were probably 5 or 6 of these makeshift homes there.  B’s step dad was passed out on a mattress, but his mother came out and greeted us, not making much eye contact, shaking our hands and saying thank you.

As we walked away I could hear his mom asking him what he had, and he said pizza.  I wonder if those few slices of pizza were going to feed the whole family tonight?

I got back to the car and was feeling pretty emotional.  It didn’t seem real that kids are living like that here in America.  I’ve seen that type of thing in third world countries, but not here.  Ben and I talked about it.  My guess is that probably 2/3 of the world lives like that.  Maybe that’s a bit high.  So it’s not the living conditions that are the worst part, I guess you can be a functional human with minimal shelter, its just certainly not the norm for me as an American whose house I grew up in sold for over $300k.  But it’s sad that his father figure is a drug addict who can’t get out of bed.  But I guess you could own a real nice house and still have a dad that was addicted.

I wonder if this family is here legally?  I’m sure setting up a semi permanent structure in the park isn’t legal, but homelessness is way out of control here in Hawaii.  But if B. was born here in the US that means he’s a US citizen right?

I’m not the government, so it’s the governments job to do what the government has to do, I’m not advocating open borders, but while these individuals, made in God’s image, are on my radar and are here, it’s my job is to care for them the best I can.

Caring doesn’t mean enabling either.

It made me wonder if B’s mom when she came here thought that they’d be living in a park under some tarps.  Is this the dream that she had of immigrating to America?  What was her life like back in Micronesia?  Is this better?  Is this future better for B?

Jared really messed me up in his interview on Doing Ministry Well, when he asked the question, What does the Kingdom of God look like for these people?  Does it mean they have to have jobs, and houses?  Is that what the kingdom is about?

How do we as a church reach out to this family?  We can do things for B, but we’ve got to help the whole family unit.  And if we help the whole family unit, then we probably have to help his whole tarp village.

But how do we help and not hurt?  How do we care and not enable?

I wish I had answers to these questions, but I can’t find answers to these questions from afar.  And unfortunately I probably am only going to be able to see B. one more time before I head back to TN…