Hey everyone,

Quick update.

We had an awesome visit with our friend Sandi!  We actually spent her last night here camping!  For some reason people don’t see Jess and I as campers… but we really enjoyed it.  Above is a photo from one the days we saw the sunrise at Bellows Beach, and sunset at Ko Olina.

We leave Tuesday for the mainland.  We are leading a missions trip for young professionals in Jamestown NY next week.

Thanks for reading the last post.  I was going to write a commentary on it with the post, but I wanted it to speak for itself.  I wrote that a couple of years ago.  I do not think that any “profession” requires you to wear more hats, or come under as much intimate expectation as a pastor.  Pray for and encourage your pastors!

I’ve got some guest blogs coming up from some amazing people, since we’ll be on the road.

Thanks for reading!

– jim baker

Hey Pastor, I know it’s your only day off this week, and you’re just trying to value one of your congregates by coming to this get together.  I appreciate it.  I know we said it’d start on time and its an hour after it was suppose to start.  Thanks for being the only one that came early.  I know you let us borrow all of your personal stuff for this party, do you mind helping us set it up too?

Hey Pastor, I know you don’t know the other people I invited to this get together, but they know you’re my pastor.  So they’ve got an expectation on you and your family.  So uh, would you mind making sure that you iniate conversation with every single one of them?  Make sure they seem super comfortable, talk to them a lot about them, ask them a lot of questions, make them feel valued, and for sure make sure you remember their names.

Hey Pastor, I didn’t really like the way you just spoke to your kid, shouldn’t you show him more grace?

Hey Pastor, what your wife is wearing is making me feel a little uncomfortable.  And what she just said under her breath makes me feel like she doesn’t really want to be here.

Hey Pastor, I know you want to talk about your church right now to me, and some of the hurts you’ve had, but I don’t really care to listen to your problems, I wish you’d just ask me about me… or I wish you’d stop talking.

Oh, Pastor, thanks for coming.  I wish, well, I expected you were going to stay a little longer, engage a few more people, speak to your kids a little nicer, control your wife’s attitude and clothing,  ask me more questions about me instead of talking about yourself so much, but I’ll be praying for your sermon prep on sunday!  Blessings!

Hey everyone, happy Monday to you.

Our friend Sandi is here she’s visiting us from Chicago.  We’ve been showing her around the island!

Yesterday we went to the Bishop Museum which Jess and I had never been to which was nice.

Just a quick update

How was your weekend?  What are you looking forward to this week?  Let us know in the comments!

[This is what I posted on instagram right before my 2 month hiatus]

Holy cow… my last post about me selling my camera got over 300 views.  My average blog post gets like 30.  Interesting… I have a theory why… do you? haha

Anyway… recently I spent about 60 days without social media.  No facebook, no instagram, no twitter.  And while it was hard at first… it was really glorious by the end.  I got quite the welcome back when I returned, which was nice.

Not being on facebook is something that I’ve wanted to do for a while.  I’ve gone short periods of times before with out it, but I had never actually deactivated my account.  While I was in the Philippines, 2 of our team mates had made the plunge and gotten off of facebook completely.  And that inspired me to do it as well.

Gosh, the first few days I was so bored.  I didn’t realize how incessantly I checked facebook.  It’s a reflex, I can open my browser and type in facebook without even thinking… yuck.

I set out to disconnect because I wanted to do other things.  Facebook and social media were/are such a crutch.  The second I get bored… I can be inundated with new information.  Not always good or useful information… but new information.

As the time went on, and my social media detox period ended, I started to get into a groove, reading books, and I wrote more. Honestly… I think I enjoyed life more.

It was funny though, at least daily… someone would ask me if I saw something on facebook, or reference something that they saw on facebook.  Facebook has so integrated into our daily lives, that I felt like a strange foreigner not partaking.

One of the things that I didn’t like about facebook was, it felt overwhelming.  I’m an introvert.  (I realized that with all of the information out there about introversion today, it still has a bad stigma.  I’ll have to write a blog post about introversion soon)  Social media felt like one more thing I had to do, one more external stimulant that I felt I had no control over.

I talked with our friend Colleen, who is a social media and etiquette guru about my issues with facebook.  I explained my feelings about social media to her and asked her some questions.  What we realized is that I was trying to interact to much.  One of my top 5 strengths is individualization.  Meaning I value individuals.  I also highly value responsiveness.  So I was trying to make sure that I was liking and commenting back to every comment that came in.  To which Colleen said isn’t necessary, or expected.

So since I’ve been back, I haven’t been trying to break my neck responding and liking every comment.  But it feels weird.  If someone takes the time to write a comment on something I’ve posted… sometimes a long comment… I want to acknowledge that I’ve seen it, and take the time to respond.  But, are you expecting a response?  And if you don’t, then what’s the reason behind commenting?

If social media isn’t really for interaction, than what’s it for?  It’s like me standing in the middle of a room, shouting something and people hear it, but never respond.  That’s bizarre to me.

I remember when AIM (Aol instant messaging) was all the rage.  And I remember being so shocked when you’d be chatting with someone, and they wouldn’t say goodbye, they would just disappear.  Sometimes they would be courteous enough to throw up an away message.

So how is social media in the long term going to affect how we live out our lives in REAL life.  Our friend Hannah has made the observation that she thinks it’s already caused a serious decline in empathy.

I came back to Hawaii and realized there was no real way to operate in the job I’m in without facebook.  I’m in charge of social media and marketing here.  And just for networking purposes and communicating… facebook is a must.  So I re-activated my account.

For the first few days, I only logged in to see if I had a notification or a message, to which I would respond, without looking at my newsfeed.  But as time has gone, I’ve slipped back into scrolling through my newsfeed and losing track of how much time I’m spending there.  And now I’m pulling up facebook out of habit, instead of intentionality. Doing it because I need some new stimuli to tickle my impatient “boredom.”

Gross.

I’ve realized something very imperative about myself in the past year.  I feel better emotionally if I’m being productive.  Maybe that’s common knowledge for others, but it’s a good realization for me that I’ve come to recently.  Spending a lot of time on facebook isn’t productive.  It actually sucks the motivation out of me.  Which means my mood starts dipping if I’m spending to much time on facebook.

I’m also trying to implement NOT checking e-mail first thing when I wake up.  To complete my morning routine, and do things that require actual focus before I touch e-mail or social media.  I’ve been trying to write this post since I’ve returned to Hawaii, and this morning I haven’t checked my e-mail or facebook… and look it’s getting written.

So anyway, I’m not demonizing social media.  But for me, I really need to MANAGE my social media use and make sure that I’m in control of how much time and when I spend on it, for the betterment of own my life.

Facebook is a great way to connect with people IF actual interaction is going on.

Engage:  What do you think?  What’s your relationship with social media?

[The last photo I’ll take with my 5dm2.]

So, I’ve sold my camera.  And I’m not planning on buying a replacement.

One of my former guitar students from Maryland bought it.  I can’t be more happy with him buying it.  I know he will put it to great use.

Some might find me selling my camera as a shock… others might not.  Some of you might not even know that I did photography.

In recent years, I haven’t done much.

My thoughts on the issue are this…

Hobbies should be fun, and careers should make you money.  Neither of these things were happening.

I could go on and on and tell you more reasons why photography isn’t fun anymore, but I’ll spare you.  I’ve been kicking around the idea of selling it for a while, and Jess finally had a peace about it so we did it.

I truly feel that the gifts and talents that God gives you are tools in your tool belt.  They were never given to you to become your identity.

I’m hanging on to some accessories, so if I do feel the urge again, I can simply rent a camera body and go to work.

But I’m glad to be parting ways with it for now.  It’s like a weight lifted.

A huge thank you to all of the clients I’ve worked for, and all of my photography friends, colleagues and mentors.

Engage:  Do you remember a photography moment we shared?  Or do you have a favorite photo I took?  Let us know in the comments.

[Don’t be this guy…]

This past Monday the Longs (CVS) right around the corner from us was robbed with a hand gun.  That’s pretty close to home.  We frequent that store often as well do other people from the YWAM base, although most of us probably aren’t there at almost midnight.

What would you do if you were in the store when it happened?*

Avoiding places and situations that are potentially dangerous is your primary step to safety.  Longs in Manoa is not a dangerous place.  However 10 minutes before closing time at 11:50pm, does make it a higher risk.

Don’t be a hero.  Whatever amount of money the robber got away with is not worth anyones life.  I assume that large corporations have insurance policies  to protect against any loss of money.

My assumption is that staying calm, and not being perceived as a threat to the robber is your best bet.  So that means, no sudden movements.  If you can easily and safely make it out of the store, I would, but if that would require making a scene, I’d just stay put.  No need to spook the robber.  Most likely he wants to get in and out with the money as easily as possible, most likely without hurting anyone.  But if he gets spooked, he might start getting violent.

Most stores have security cameras, so most likely there is no need to bust out your cell phone and start recording.  I can see that being perceived as a threat.

If you can safely, be a good witness.  And after the event is over and you are free from danger call 911.  Below are links to two previous blog posts on those very subjects.

How To Help The Police At The Scene Of A Crime

What A 911 Operator Wants You To Know

Engage:  Have you ever been anywhere where a crime has been committed? What did you do?  Let us know in the comments.

* This blog post is for informational purposes only and is solely the opinion of the author.  I am in no way an authority on this issue.  The author will not be held liable for any losses, injuries or damages arising from its use.

Hey everyone, HAPPY JULY!  Here’s a tour of what my garden looked like when I returned.  Big thanks to Spencer and Madison for tending it and the fish while I was gone.

The fish are a lot bigger.  I think my pump is on its last leg though, I have to unplug it and plug it back in for it to work.  My lilikoi was overgrown and attaching on to everything it could.

My tomatoes are being eaten by birds!  When I was cleaning up yesterday, I had taken a piece of tomato off and threw it on the soil, and watched a bird start picking at it with his big beak.  When I came back later in the day this had happened to a tomato that was in tact before.   Maybe I should put a bird feeder out there next to the garden and then they will leave my garden alone?

I’m realizing that you probably need to plant about 8x what you think you’re going to want to eat.  Murphy, bugs and birds will get your garden.  I’m having fun with it though, and am grateful that I’m not relying on my garden to survive.

I took out all of the Okinowan spinach, it had grown like a weed in the aquaponics.  I’ve still got some of it in the ground and in a pot.  The lady that I bought my composting worms from gave me a cutting of it and it’s really taken off.

The chia seeds that are second generation are SO MUCH taller than the original bunch.  I wonder if thats because they seeds were spread further apart so that they did not choke one another out.

Also, my third or forth generation manoa lettuce does not seem to be growing as fast, but that could just be my imagination.  I don’t think I picked the seeds at the best time.

My black beans were producing beans, but I need to figure out some kind of trellis system so that they can really take off.    And my tomato plant is doing okay, it has one small piece of fruit on it, (well I thought it did yesterday, when I went out there this morning it didn’t) I hacked off some of the vine which must have been helping balance the whole plant, because now its leaning a lot, whoops.

And my composting worms are back.  A huge thank you to Alisa and MaryLou for caring for them when I was gone.  I need to harvest those as well.

Here’s a photo from this morning  after yesterdays work cleaning things up.

– Farmer Jim

Engage:  How is your garden doing this summer?  What’s doing well, what’s not?  Let us know in the comments!

I just realized that as far as the blog goes, it looks like we never went to the Philippines.  We did however, and had an amazing trip.  A huge thank you to everyone that prayed and gave financially so that we could go.

I sent out a ministry update with the details about the trip in the beginning of May.  If you don’t get our ministry updates you can see our debrief newsletter HERE.

Engage:  Have you ever been to the Philippines?  Comment and let us know about your experience.

[A photo of Jess and her 94 year old Grandpa having an ice cream cone in Sarasota Florida]

We are BACK in beautiful Hawaii.  Transitioning is always strange, we had been traveling on the mainland for 2 months and it became the new norm.  But as we flew into Hawaii and saw the sun shining on the mountains here, we were glad to be home.

We had a great time on the mainland, I’ll try and update more about what we did soon.

Staff meeting starts in a bit, but I wanted to let you all know that we’re back home safe.

Thanks to everyone who made time for us, opened up their home, and fed us on the mainland.

From back to front – My dad, my niece, my sister, my mom, my other sister, my other niece, my wife and me 

Unfortunately my two nephews were not there

We are having a great time on the mainland.  We had a great time in Ohio with Jess’ mom and step dad and grandma.

We will spend the rest of May here in South Carolina, and then will head to Atlanta to see Jess’ sister, who will then drive us to Sarasota Florida so we can see Jess’ dad and step mom.

I probably won’t update again until we get back to Hawaii early to mid June.

Aloha!