So every Tuesday, I lead a team of our DTS students down to Waikiki to partner up with RK who pastors a church made up of mostly homeless people.  We pass out pizza and talk, listen and pray for them.

Last week, a drunk guy came up to me and got in my face and told me he was going to kick my “butt.”  I was sitting with my back against a picnic table so I had no where to go if he threw a punch.  RK intentionally backed away.  I felt the need to stand up to defend myself if I needed to but I thought if I stood up it would just escalate the situation.  So there I sat… luckily, nothing happened… he got bored with me and then decided to go hit on my female students…

Here’s RK’s thoughts.  What do you think?

[Papa John’s Valentines Day Promo]

Jess and I went out Wednesday night to celebrate Valentines Day early.  We had dinner at a nice restaurant, and I’m pretty sure that someone tried to punch the lock the trunk of our car in that parking garage too.  Anyway,  I enjoy celebrating holidays on days other than they were intended because you don’t have to deal with the masses.

So this morning I made us a green smoothie for breakfast, and then I had training for a new position that I’m taking over.  I came home right before lunch time but didn’t eat anything before I went back into the office.  I was super hungry.  So after my reception shift, I asked a co-worked if he wanted to go get something to eat.  We headed to burger king.

We ordered our food from a guy behind the counter who was a little hard to understand.  It’s Hawaii, everyone is of some Asian decent pretty much.  So English is a lot of peoples second language.

As we were waiting for our food I noticed an older customer kind of berating the young 20 something behind the counter.  The customer was slamming his fist on the counter, and getting in the kids face, asking him if he understood now!?  You could tell the kid behind the counter was trying to fight back tears.

My friend Ben asked me a question, and couldn’t answer him, I said I was sorry and that I was wondering if I should go say something to this jack-hole.  (I didn’t say jack-hole, you get the point, not my best moment)

I didn’t go over and say anything.  I found it funny that both of these guys were Asian, I wanted to go up to the older guy and be like… hey remember when your parents immigrated here?  And language was hard for them too?  I didn’t.  I also wanted to ask the older guy where it hurt.  Maybe Valentines day is especially hard for him.

We sat down and ate our meals.  I looked at the older gentleman’s seat… I thought he had left his tray with trash sitting on the table.  He didn’t, he returned with some more food.  Maybe he went up to apologize.  I didn’t see that if he did.  I hope he did.

As we finished up our meals, I felt like I needed to go say something to the kid behind the counter.  I’ll be honest, I didn’t want to.  I really didn’t want to.  It would have been so much easier just to walk out.

I stood up as Ben threw the trash away, and I said in my head, God if you want me to say something, make a way.  I didn’t know how to get the kids attention… he was taking orders and then putting the food on trays so he was all over.  So as I walked past the counter, and I caught his eye.

I walked to the counter, another girl thought I was coming to order, so she was trying to help me, but I stuck out my hand to the young man.  I looked him in the eye and said “hey man, thanks for your hard work, I know you’re working hard, and I appreciate you, I saw what happened, that guy is just a grumpy old man, so don’t worry about him man, thank you for your hard work.”  He smiled a sheepish but genuine smile, and said thank you.  And we were on our way.

***

Last night our outreach teams returned, and shared stories of the awkwardness of trying to minister cross culturally, at times without a translator.  Language barriers are hard!

We get so frustrated when people can’t speak our language.  And we Americans think it’s our right to have everyone communicate in English.  I know it’s frustrating.  I really do, I can think of what a hard time I had trying to get my eye-glasses from a person that didn’t speak English well.  But we HAVE to remember, that just because people don’t speak English, doesn’t mean that they aren’t human beings, and have value.

Even the aggressors have value.  Every person has value because they were created in God’s image.   I probably should have gone and sat with the old hurting man too, and asked him how he was doing.  Next time…

Engage:  How was your Valentines Day?  Who did you love well today?  Comment and let us know.

Watch this video to see how our garden is doing Poinsettia was the name of the Christmas flower that I couldn’t think of.

Oh!  And I found a tomato

– Farmer Jim

When we returned to Hawaii in the Spring of 2013, I wasn’t staffing the SBS anymore, so I didn’t have to lead the homeless outreach to Waikiki like I did previously.

At the end of 2013, God was working on me to schedule time to serve.   I don’t think serving comes natural to anyone.  And that’s why you have to schedule it, so that you can faithfully show up and die to yourself.  That’s the point of disciplines anyway right?  Scheduling something… and making it a discipline, putting in consistent hard work, so that one day it will be natural.

So God was working on me to get back out there… and I was fighting it… let’s be honest, it’s much nicer to sit in my home every Tuesday nights than serve the homeless.  But it just so happened that they needed someone to lead the DTS team to Waikiki.  So every Tuesday evening I’m hitting the strip with some DTS students in tow, and we’re inviting the homeless to come eat pizza.  We spend time talking to them, handshaking, hugging, and praying for them.  It’s super sobering when they remember your name, and you don’t remember theirs.

Two weeks ago, some of the students went up a street they never went on.  And then they wheeled a guy in an office chair to get pizza.  To my surprise it was Jim!  I hadn’t seen Jim for probably a year.  (You can read here about one of my run ins with Jim –> Blistering Sunburn, An Ambulance and a Drunk Preacher pt 1) He was in a home for a while, but is now back on the streets.  It was great to reconnect with him.

Engage:  Do you schedule time to serve others?  Let us know in the comments.

I need your help.  Remember how I wrote in the post about the super bowl how controversy is great marketing?

Well, I’ve intentionally strayed away from writing blog posts on current events, or even in response to popular blog posts that are floating around.  But I’m wondering if I should take the leap.  I don’t want to just be a “response” blogger.

Part of the reason I’ve kept to myself, is fear.  Once you put your opinion out there on a hot topic… you’re bound to get someone disagreeing with you.  And so far, I’ve only gotten one sort of snarky comment on this blog.  And then there was another comment recently, but that was really unrelated to the blog itself.

I feel like internet arguments are kind of dumb.  They don’t solve anything, and people get really rude, really fast, basically because things are grossly misinterpreted.  I’m also not sure anyones opinion is ever changed from an internet argument.  Interjecting my opinion on a hot trending topic would be like standing in a large group of people shouting at one another, interjecting my opinion and having the whole group start shouting at me.  (I wish I could draw, that’d be a funny cartoon)

Our friend Colleen recently wrote a response to a blog post that was really popular, and her blog got a ton of hits from it.

I think I might have answered my own question by writing this blog.  It sounds like a sell out thing to do to just write responses to other peoples blogs just to get hits.  But if it’s controversial and I have an opinion that may be beneficial and that side of the story isn’t being shared… then I think I’ll go for it.

Engage:  What do you think?  What should I do?  Let me know in the comments.

[the beautiful ladies I got the honor of spending superbowl sunday with, the one in the white is my favorite!]

So I’m not a huge football fan.  To be honest, the Superbowl was the first football game I’ve seen all season.  We don’t own a TV.  And even if we did, I don’t see myself sitting down to watch a game.  Eh, maybe I would…

Congrats to the Seahawks fans.  I don’t know if it’s just my geographical location but it seems to me there were a lot more seahawk fans than bronco fans.

[Blake and me]

Our newest friends Jenni and Blake (I say newest because we just recently met them) invited Jess and I over, along with two other of our YWAM friends, Allie and Cat. (haha)  Jenni and Blake prepared a generous spread of food for us, and we watched the game on their comfy couch.  A huge thank you to them for their generous hospitality!

Blake is in the Army so they are stationed here.  They recently got connected with the YWAM base and have been attending our Thursday night meetings.  The crazy thing, that makes the world so small, is that they used to go to the church at the Clarksville Vineyard in TN, where one of the pastors is a mentor of mine.

Anyway, we were a bit late getting to their house, so they tivo’d the game and we watched it taped.  Our friend Allie knew the score though because she kept checking on facebook.  We had to get Cat back to a meeting so we didn’t finish watching the whole game, but we did see Bruno play the half time show.

Here’s an interesting fact.  Bruno grew up coming to the YWAM base here in Honolulu for after school tutoring.

The game was boring in my opinion.  And the commercials didn’t seem that great either.  It was interesting that a lot of the commercials had a great hook, using some emotional appeal, and then quickly changed to advertising for their seemingly unrelated product.  I also felt like I saw a lot more celebrity endorsements this year too.  And then there was the super controversial coke commercial.  I often wonder if marketers know that their advertising is going to be controversial and that’s why they do it.  Controversy is good press.

At least the food and friends were good

I remember someone posting something on facebook about the doritos time machine commercial.  I thought it was made by YWAMers, but I found out it was just made by someone in my home town.  In 2010 Jess and I and some friends submitted a commercial.  Obviously we didn’t win.  I’ll try and dig up a link to see if I can share it with you.

Engage:  Did you enjoy the Superbowl?  Were you happy with the winners?  What was your favorite snack?  What was your favorite commercial?  Let us know in the comments.

On our way to IHOP today I pulled into this parking garage and realized I had taken a photo of it in 2008 on my first visit to Oahu.  Here’s that photo.

One of our SBS (School of Biblical Studies) students is kicking around the idea of coming back to staff.  So, I wanted to meet up with him and talk to him about support raising.  All of YWAM is volunteer and relies on relationship based support.  Staffing a SBS is a 10 month commitment and I absolutely think it’s a worthwhile investment.  No where else can students come and read the whole Bible in 9 months and study it inductively, in such depth, learning the history and context in which it was written.  And for that to happen there has to be staff.

So I took this student out to lunch, I told him he could go anywhere he wanted and he picked IHOP.  So I drove us there, and parked in a parking garage in Waikiki.  The parking attendant gave me two tickets, one for the car and one for me to get validated.

We went in and had a great lunch, I got to share with him some things about support raising and we had a good conversation.  On the way back to the parking garage, it started raining and about half way back, I realized that I had left my parking ticket at the table.  I thought since I had a receipt that we’d be okay.

We pulled up to the ticket window, and the parking attendant asked me where the ticket was.  I said I didn’t have it but I had a receipt showing that we just ate at the restaurant.  The attendant called her supervisor over.  The supervisor told me I’d have to go back and get the ticket or it’d be $35, and pointed out the sign  that said lost ticket are $35.  She had me back up and park my car.  My student said he’d run back to the restaurant.  He did and returned without the ticket.  IHOP said they had thrown it away and it was gone.

So I told the parking attendant and her supervisor that news, and then they had to call the owner.  I was already 15 minutes past my lunch break at this time.  I think I was getting a little impatient, because one of the ladies said “hey we’re just trying to do our job.”  To which I calmed down.

After hanging up with the owner one of the ladies said, he’s crazy, referring to their boss.  I laughed and said that I was praying for them to get better paying jobs and a better boss.  Trying to bless people in my frustration and not take it out on them.  Like they said, they were just trying to do their jobs.  We have to remember that people are valuable, even when we’re getting frustrated at the situation.

I called IHOP… they said there was nothing they could do for me.

I had $28 in my car, which was gas money.  I’ve been trying to pay cash for gas because you get 10c off at the pump if you pay with cash.  Gas is $3.91 here in Hawaii.  At this time, I was thinking how ridiculous this situation was.  Paying $35 because I left my ticket in the restaurant and they threw it away.

I told them I had $28 to which they had to call the owner of the parking garage again.  They wanted to see my ID for insufficient funds.  Meaning they were going to send me a bill.  I told them I did not want to show them my ID.  The parking attendant agreed that she wouldn’t have shown it either.  To which the supervisor said that the owner said to call the cops.

Part of me wanted them to call the cops just to see what would happen, but I decided that wouldn’t be good.  I asked my student if he had any cash on him, he didn’t, the parking garage only took cash, no cards.

I asked for the companies information, so I could make a complaint.  They gave me the number.

I asked the attendants if there was anything they could do for me, if there was another way out.  I told them I wasn’t a tourist.  They said there wasn’t anything they could do.  I remembered I had an emergency twenty in my wallet, and pulled it out and paid in full.  The attendant sheepishly asked me if I wanted a receipt.  I told her I did, and said goodbye.

I was pretty infuriated at the injustice of the situation.

But I realized something.  That whole situation, as frustrating as it was, it was an inconvenience, not an injustice.

God had already provided for it.  Literally.  We let a friend borrow our car because,  in the same week they got rear ended in one car, and had alternator problems in another.  When they brought our car back they had bought us a tank of gas.  So as we near the end of the month, I’ve got a full tank of gas.

As we were driving away, in my frustration of the “injustice” of this $35 parking fiasco, God’s still small voice reminded me, that, daily there are little boys and girls being raped all around the world.  And daily, there are children and adults all over the world that are without clean drinking water.  And daily there are people in North Korea that are subjected to a hellish life of human rights violations.

Maybe I should get more impassioned about the things listed above than a $35 parking ramp inconvenience.

Call To Action.

Listed below are organizations that work against some of those injustices.  I challenge you to go check out what their doing, and to donate to them $35, because lets take a not so great situation, and turn it in a way to glorify God.

The Nehemiah House – The Youth With A Mission Nehemiah House are three 24-hour residential facilities catering to female victims of sexual abuse, maltreatment, abandonment and child trafficking. (We’re actually leading a small team there in April)

I Thirst Water Program – Impact Nations provides Sawyer water filters for people to have  clean water.  Pastor RK’s church which is made up of mostly homeless people raises money for this organization.

Liberty In North Korea – I don’t remember where I heard about this organization, but check out what their doing, it’s pretty cool.

What justice area are you passionate about?  Did you donate to any of the organizations above?  Let us know in the comments.  

A photo I took in the Columbia Mall Parking Garage in 2007

I woke up yesterday later than I wanted to, and checked facebook on my ipod.  I instantly saw a whole bunch of posts about the Columbia Mall shooting.

The Columbia Mall is where I grew up going, it was 10 minutes from my house.

Here is part of what the Howard County Police Department Facebook Page said:

“Howard County police have confirmed the identity of the man who shot and killed two employees before taking his own life in an incident yesterday at the Columbia Mall.”

This wasn’t just some news story, this happened in my hometown, it feels much more real than other violent news stories, even though I didn’t know anyone involved.

I send my condolences and prayers to everyone involved in this horrible incident.  I am thankful for the Howard County Police Department’s quick response and for keeping the public in the loop using social media.

I’ve seen some of the most ignorant things said online about this incident, and that’s frustrating and not even worth repeating.

A big question that has gone through my mind is what are you suppose to do if there is an active shooter in a public place?  If you had that question too, the DHS has published a pdf pamphlet to give some instructions in case of that kind of emergency.

Smile, reach out and love those that are hurting.  You never know whose life you might save.  

Byodo Temple

I want to be a more productive person.  I go through seasons of productivity, and I feel great during those times. Then I go through seasons of not being productive, and well, my mood tanks when I start being unproductive.  Not at all in a work-a-holic sense, but in a healthy, it’s good to produce sense.  Here are 3 productivity and motivational obstacles I face every day.

1.  Negativity

If I don’t get up and start my day right away, I lay in bed and my mind gets negative really fast.  Thoughts go through my mind like “who cares” and “what you do doesn’t matter.”  I’m reading a book right now called The War Of Art by Steven Pressfield which has been really inspirational.  The author calls these negative thoughts “resistance”

2.  Fear

In the few minutes of sitting down to write this post, I’ve almost closed it and deleted it all at least twice.  The first time was when the intro sentences weren’t flowing.  “Forget it… this is a dumb post anyway,” (more negativity) as I went to delete what I had written.  And the second time I was going to scrap this was, when I was writing about point 1, negative thoughts.  I was afraid that if you were reading this you’d interpret it as I was hearing voices or something and think I was weird.  I’m not hearing voices, but I’m going to go out a limb here and guess you experience some of those negative thoughts too.  So I’m kicking fear in the teeth, and I’m going to keep writing.

3.  Distraction

It is easier now than ever to be distracted.  I wonder if Mark Zuckerburg would have created facebook if he had a distraction like facebook?  Or think of any other inventor, imagine if they would have had social media.  Would they have been as productive as they could have been?  Although social media is a part of my job, I can often get trapped into thinking that mindlessly reading my newsfeed is being productive.  Well it’s not, and I need to be more disciplined to be more productive.

Engage:  What keeps you from your productivity potential?  Let us know in the comments.

Cortney doing a back handspring in Waikiki | www.thebakersphotography.com

Aloha everyone,

As promised, I said I had a blog surprise for you and here it is.  A brand new blog design!

Blogger served me well for quite a while, but I’ve decided to take the jump to a self hosted wordpress blog.  I’m hoping that the cleaner look will help me “look” more professional, and I hope to engage some new readers this year!  Thanks to everyone who takes the time to check what’s going on in our world.

Some of the links in past posts are still going to take you back to the old blogger blog, but I’ll be working to get those all updated soon, it will be quite an undertaking.

What do you think of the new layout?  Let us know in the comments!