a couple of thoughts as i drove today…

whoever said that we are at risk of over-populating the planet has obviously never driven from dallas to the west coast…

another thought:  it was 115 degrees in blythe, california as we passed through it.  i’m not going to print my thought.

on our way…

When was the last time you were this happy to give your money away?

did little web-surfing this afternoon with my down time.  no work.  just play.

thought i would pass along this little exercise in giving god the glory.  can’t wait to get home and see if we can get some funk in our offering time. turn up the sound!

dude, i’m inspired…

Beauty is in the eye…

this is a shot off the cliffs in laguna beach.  we were there yesterday.  it was an absolutely amazing day.  my first full-time, full-pay, full-responsibility youth ministry gig started in 1980 in huntington beach, just up the road about thirty minutes from laguna.  we were there from 1980 through 1990.  still hard to believe this was our home, at one time.

we spent the evening with some old friends last night…reliving the past…enjoying the cool (no more of that stinking 72 degrees…it was in the 60’s)…and remembering how good it is to know that ultimately, god is still god, no matter what.

as i laid in bed last night, i thought about location.  yeah, location.

there’s a reason people vacation in southern california…or hawaii or colorado or canada or florida or other parts of god’s creation.  because it’s beautiful there.  and it’s usually different.  hey, when we first moved to texas, it didn’t take long to learn that, if they could, people left during the summer!  you can only hang out in the malls and movie theaters so long.  when people came back, they would tell stories of the beaches in florida or the alpine air and mountain peaks of the rockies or the stunning mountain lakes up north…

now here are two things i’ve learned on this topic:

one…beauty is everywhere.  it’s pretty hard to top what we experienced in laguna yesterday.  but it’s also pretty hard to top some things back home in texas.  people in so cal don’t get to see the stars like i do…every night!  oak trees and lakes everywhere.  i’m still amazed at our thunderstorms and sheet lightening.  i run outside and watch every time.  the first real day of fall, when the temperatures dip into the 70’s during the day, is like being reborn.  it’s beyond description.  i can get rain, sleet, snow, wind, blue skies and 70 degrees…all within the span of 24 hours!  the budding of trees in the spring and everything turning green again is something i never experienced in southern california.  i get it every year now…and would never want to miss it again.  wildflowers.  say no more.

to the smug of texas, they see no beauty in southern california to write home about.  to the smug of california, they see no beauty in texas that would even compel them to visit our great state.  mmm…  to the smug i say this:  get over yourselves!  there is beauty everywhere!

the second thing i know is this:  i learned this lesson years ago in my early days of youth ministry…fun is not what you’re doing, it’s who you’re with. our vacation has certainly been a sensory feast, but what has meant the most to us has been spending time with people.  the conversations.  the laughter.  the memories.  the stories.  and it wouldn’t matter to us if it was on the beach or a fancy restaurant or on a worksite in mexico on a mission trip…it’s all the same.  people are what make things fun.  not the destination.

in a couple of days we will begin our trip home…a 24 hour trip, mostly through the desert of california, arizona and new mexico, and then through the panhandle of texas.  let me think…laguna beach or vernon, texas…oh yeah.  there’s beauty everywhere!

a personal insight…

we had lunch with an old friend today.  we had not sat and talked…really talked…since 1990.  in 1990, he was a just a kid.  he’s a man now.  older.  wiser.  deeper.  it was great to be around him.

as we talked, old wounds of mine were opened.  i thought about things that i had long since buried.  i remembered a lot of good stuff, but some of the pain was still there.  lurking.

but it’s in the past and i have moved on.  older. hopefully wiser and deeper, too.  we are all products of our past.  life events…both good and bad…are the things god uses to shape us and mold us and turn us into something for noble purposes.  or not.

i’m grateful for the pain and the struggle and the injustice and and difficulty and the mistakes and the growth curve that my life journey has produced.  i would not be who i am without it.

i am even more grateful that god never quit on me…even when i doubted…even when i wanted to give up…even when i called his existence and wisdom into question…even when theology and philosophy didn’t square up with what i heard others saying and doing.

i am grateful that faith and reason learned to coexist in my world.  i am grateful that i got to the point that i didn’t have to have answers for everything and that i became (by the grace of god) a pursuer of the “big picture”.

i am most grateful that i didn’t let people define god for me…or ruin faith for me…or box me into corners where there was no reasonable way out.  i am grateful that hurt or mean people did not suck me into bitterness…or lure me into apathy…or blindly call me to a life of judgmental self-centeredness (though i struggle with it everyday).

i will be eternally grateful for mercy, forgiveness (both for me and for those i interact with), for purpose, a higher calling than a mere existence centered on my own pursuit of happiness, and a the capacity to live life within the touch of people…in spite of the risk.

yeah, i’m a pretty happy guy tonight…and it has nothing to do with my location!

Don’t show this to PETA

when we left ten days ago, our lewisville casa was being held hostage by a mouse that we have not been able to catch for the past month and a half.

goooooooooaaaaaaaaaaaal!!!

many thanks to our faithful housesitter, cammy, and her hd-loving-sports-watching papa for finding the rodent and disposing of it.

hopefully.

I finally made it

before moving to texas, wanda and i had been members of four churches…over a span of 39 years.

we met when we were 15 years old in my home church of national city first christian church:

by the time we got married and left for the lights and glitz of LA, national city first christian was running about 125 people (in a building that seated 300) and was about half white and half filipino.  pretty interesting mix.

after we got hitched (at age 21) we moved to fullerton california and started working on the campus of pacific christian college as head residents in the women’s dormitory.  soon after, we threw ourselves in with the church family at anaheim first christian church.  it was the place we were both mentored in youth ministry.  it was a really big church (for us)…about 700 people.  it looks exactly the same today as it did in 1976.

we left anaheim after four years of training, and i became the youth and family minister of first christian church of huntington beach.  we stay there from 1980-1990.  it was a big church then.  it’s pretty huge now.  i’ve always took credit for the growth they’ve had.  we leave…they grow.  makes sense to me.  here’s what the building looks like today.  i’m not too sure about the purple color, tho…

in 1990, we raised our missionary support, packed up for our old home town of san diego, and i became the director of mission trips for amor ministries…the same group we partner with when we go to mexico in juarez.  that was my “day job”.  on the side, there were six families that joined together to plant a church in the inner city of east san diego, where we had all moved.  the first place we met was in wilson middle school:

we stayed in san diego for nearly five years, until god said it was time for these so cal homers to move to texas.

amazing.  the first church in 39 years that really felt like “home” to me.  sheesh.

when it’s home…and it’s family…it really doesn’t matter where it’s located.  even if it’s not 72 degrees with a cool, off-shore breeze.

can’t wait to be back.

Times have changed

there’s lots of stuff to catch up on, but we’re off to the memory races early this morning.  thought i would pass on a picture, though.

the very first house that wanda and i bought when we were 26 years old was a 3-bedroom, 1-bath, 40 year old, stucco house about seven blocks from the pacific ocean in huntington beach.  simple.  small.  old.  dark, ugly wall paper inside.  total little old lady house.

when we moved, we sold it right before the explosive housing market boom in southern california.  (we’ve never been the greatest financial whizzes in the world…)

this is a picture of our property now.  it’s worth a little under a million dollars.

yeah.

The adventure continues…

the whirlwind trip to the motherland has been great!  seeing lots of people, visiting lots of places, eating lots of stuff…it’s been everything we’d hoped it would be.  thought i’d give you a few highlights from the past couple of days (since i’ve been offline for a while):

• it’s really crowded out here.
• the san diego that everybody sees on television or visits on vacation is not the real san diego.
• san diego is the most culturally and economically diverse place i have ever visited.  even more than los angeles, as far as i’m concerned.
• where else would you find a korean family standing in line at a taco stand?  too cool.
• we bought tickets from a scalper to go to the “sold out” padre-dodger game on the fourth of july.  we got to sit in the first row of the left field deck…right behind manny.  here’s a shot of wanda before the game started:

• we had a blast.  the left field bleachers were full of dodger fans…maybe just as many as padre fans.  trash talking went on non-stop for the whole three hours!
• there’s a reason i grew up a dodger hater…
• i’m probably not the most patriotic guy you will ever meet, but i gotta tell you, nobody does the fourth of july better than san diego.  military towns have got it going on around this holiday!
• we found a place up on a hill, overlooking mission bay, to watch fireworks.  it was awesome.  we were able to watch six different fireworks shows going on at the same time…and then the finale at sea world at the end.  pretty sweet!

• we were on our way to one of our favorite san diego eateries, el pollo loco, and decided to stop and get a snack at another place…and then resumed our trip to the crazy chicken!  just because we could.
• walmarts are the same everywhere you go.
• all of california is a hands free state.  that means no talking on the cell phone while you drive (unless you’ve got an ear piece).  it’s been a real hassle, but i wish we did it in the great state!
• people say we don’t have a texas accent.  here’s my question:  do you think we have a california accent…dude?
• kids who grow up on the beach all look the same.  always have.  always will.
• have i told you it’s 72 degrees out here?  if i haven’t, i’ll let our friends scott, gayla, and jordan congdon tell you.  they are the founders (and also president and ceo) of amor ministries, the ministry organization we go on our mexico mission trips with.  i’ll write a little later on their insight into the drug cartel danger at the border.  it’s pretty interesting…

• we found a church to go to today that had a 12:35 start time.  yeah…12:35.  you gotta like that.
• their band played three songs that we do.  their band has nothing on ours!
• preacher preached for 55 minutes.  not sure i could get away with that.  pretty sure i wouldn’t want to.
• nobody greeted us.  nobody said a word to us.
• it’s a big church, so i’m not sure how they would ever know who was new and who wasn’t.
• i missed north point today.
• we drove to orange county (south of los angeles…not south of beaumont) this afternoon.  pretty sure all of los angeles was driving home to LA while we were on the road.
• the coast of california was stunning today.  too bad the water temp is always 69 degrees.  here’s my question:  why couldn’t god have put the water temp of the pacific ocean in the gulf of mexico?  seems like the people who live in 100 degree temps would appreciate it more.
• we drove the pacific coast highway for nearly two hours.  we went through places like san clemente, dana point, san juan capistrano, laguna nigel, laguna beach, newport beach, huntington beach.  sounds exotic.
• i really want to take my california friends for a drive in texas…through places like muleshoe, cut-n-shoot, gun barrel city, ding dong, and pflugerville.
• i have a new favorite snack:  carne asada fries.  it’s sort of a northern baja version of chili pie.  fries piled with carne asada, quacamole, cheese, sour cream, queso mexicano, red chile salsa.  mmm…

got a big week ahead.

as much fun as we are having, we can’t wait to get back home.  really.

Anatomy of a tragedy

in october of 2007, wildfires around san diego consumed over 500,000 acres of land, causing multiple injuries and seven deaths.  over 2,700 homes and businesses were damaged or destroyed and over 500,000 people were evacuated from the area during the largest evacuation in california history.

today, i found another casualty.  the church camp that i grew up going to was burned down in the fire.  i never knew.

wanda and i drove up to it today to see the damage first hand and there was locked gate at the bottom of the hill.  in all the years i spent going to featherstone camp, i have never seen that gate locked.  it was sad.  it was surreal.

it was a reminder, in the midst of a wonderful vacation, that tragedy and sadness and unpredictability and darkness loom around us all the time.

are you ready to face it when it comes?  because it will.

are you ready to face death and loss and separation and failure when it rolls into town?  because it will.

do you have a worldview that provides a deep and wide perspective?

do you have a faith that you didn’t make up in your own mind?

do you have more than an existentialist outlook or a fatalistic philosophy?

do you have more than a humanistic resolve to get through it “as best you can”?

do you live with more than karma…more than a crap shoot…more than “suck it up”…more than “all things pass”?

you need more than this.  because it will come.