Things I really love right now:

• My very comfy computer chair that I rescued from the trash a month ago
• A warm drink on a cold day
• Stocking caps and scarfs
  
• Not feeling the pressure to read for a deadline - being able to read leisurely
  
• The Decemberists and Snow Patrol
• Seminary friends that I can relax and laugh
• Streams of Living Water by Richard Foster
  

A really nice family picture from a few weeks ago

This is a picture from dinner with my sisters and their families. I do really miss them now that I am living in a LA and don't get to Portland very often.

An absolutely amazing video!

I found what might be the best video ever online today and am so thankful to that person. Thank you sir!

Memories, memories!

Today I had a distant memory return to my mind and wanted to share it with you all.

And here they are (with a picture attached below)

One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven, Eight

BANANDY STRIKES AGAIN!!

Halloween is an exciting time, because there is always the possibility of a Banandy sighting anywhere in the world. This year it was in LA around the downtown and USC campus areas. This year Banandy was on a bike riding all around. One exciting moment was Banandy was at one point being chased down the street by about 20 kids all yelling at him and wanting him to give them candy. Little did they know, but Banandy has no candy to give at any point. Banandy loves candy too much to give it to others.

Banandy would like me to remind you of the most famous previous sighting of Banandy.

• Croatia sighting as told by Alexis

Beware of future Banandy sightings in your city!

Update on life this week

Alright, so my bike seems to be working again, but I'm not really sure because I broke a bone in my foot last Friday and I can't really walk very well, let alone ride my bike.

So, first, the story of the broken foot: Friday night some of us from the church took a bunch of kids to an ice rink in Van Nuys for some fun and mainly to play Broomball. This game requires all participants to play sans ice skates on the ice. So as you can imagine, we are all falling down constantly. It has elements like hockey where you play on two teams and hit an object toward, and hopefully into, a net. The differences are that you use broomsticks with a rubber tip to hit a rubber inflatable ball. It was a lot of fun until I fell down in a group of people and someone fell on my foot. I got up and realized that there was a problem. But, praise God, I have been walking the last few days on the foot and it is getting a little better each day.

My classes have been going for three weeks now and I'm really enjoying the material that I am learning. The Church in Mission class has been really interesting, but the direction the class is moving in is a bit confusing and ambiguous. So, that adds a bit of stress when you don't know what is coming next. My Intercultural Attachment class has been really cool. We are getting more into the concept of bonding and attachment and it is becoming clearer each lecture. I have another class starting the week after next that is called Poverty and Development. I have heard that this class is really great and the professor is so knowledgeable on the topic of international development. The class will be really intense though, because it is a two week intensive course that meets three hours a day, five days a week. That will be going on as the other two classes will be continuing. Whew!

Today was really great earlier, because one of my roommates, John, and I went to lunch at a Bosnian restaurant I found here. It was somewhat close by and definitely within driving distance from our house. The food was great and made me miss living in Croatia. I noticed a very reminiscent scene at one of the tables outside where two men were drinking cappuccino's, smoking, and had very nice cell phones. This might seem odd to you, especially the cell phone part, but it was very true of cafes in Rijeka. I always remember feeling out of place sometimes, because I had a really ghetto, old phone and I didn't smoke. I also found out that I could buy the ingredients to cook up cevapi for my housemates at some point for dinner.

I'll try to continue to have interesting things happen in my life and transpond them here (hopefully no more broken bones though!)

You all could be praying for me now. I've been experiencing some pretty intense spiritual attacks in the last week. The enemy has been throwing some junk at me and it has been super frustrating to deal with right now. I've been having all these issues with my bike, which is my only form of transportation right now and my means to get to school. I've had to spend a bunch of money to get it fixed, which makes my life more stressful since I don't have a job and am living off savings. I know that the enemy is trying to get me to buy into some lies about the Lord and that is the reason all this stuff with my bike is going on. He want me to believe that I can't really trust the Lord to provide for me. I've also been feeling some doubt and feelings of worthlessness in regards to seminary. I do not want to believe Satan and see that I have worth through Christ, which will cast my eyes on Him in my doubt. I believe that shining light on the things that I am struggling with and asking those in my life to pray for me will break the enemy and God will heal me from the attacks that the enemy has already done. Thanks.

Classes started today! Yeah!

I have finally experienced my first moments of graduate school today. And it felt pretty nice! I had two of my three classes today. The third will be happening in a month as a two week intensive course. It was really nice to finally get started after all the waiting I have been doing since moving a month and a half ago. I also realize how much work it will actually be. I'm expected to do about 150 pages of reading a week for each class, which might not sound like a lot until you realize that some of it is some pretty dense theoretical stuff. Even with all of that, I am super excited for it to be beginning.

I want to tell you about my two classes that have begun now. The first one is called Church in Mission. The title comes from the modern thought of how the Church fits in with the missional agenda of the Bible. Previous to the modernity movement, many churches viewed themselves as a "fortress church." Their focus was on themselves and missions was viewed to be performed by outside agencies. Now, more and more churches are seeing that God intended for the Church to be intimately involved in missions. A huge part of the class will be a group project that will be focused on researching a particular racial/ethnic group within the North American church. My group has decided to research the Latino Evangelical church in North America. Some of the things we might be researching will be undocumented immigrants in the Church and how the Churches should view the laws of the country in regards to the Bible. We will be creating a wiki that will be accessible to anyone; and especially as a resource to the Church. We will also be creating a youtube video about our research. I will be sharing those with you all when the become available.

The other class is called Intercultural Attachment. It is based on a theory called Attachment Theory that deals with building relationships across cultures. I am just now learning about what Attachment Theory says, so I can't really explain it yet. I have been reading for the class the last few weeks and read a book called Why You Do the Things You Do. It has been a really interesting look at how our past relationships, especially with our parents, shapes how we relate to people in our lives now. The authors recognize that there are basically four types of relationship styles that are present in people. Most of us have a combination of parts of a few. The four are Aviodant, Ambivalent, Disorganized, and Secure. Avoidant people are secure in themselves and often will rely too much on what they feel they can offer. When in distress, they will only internalize their feelings and now seek others or God in those times. Ambivalent people do not feel secure in their abilities and will run to people around them and find security in them. Often they will be extremely clingy and uncomfortable alone. Disorganized people will have a sporatic mixture of avoidant and ambivalent styles. Often disorganized people will have some form of major trauma in their past that has created this style. Secure people will relate to people and God in a healthy way. When distress happens in their lives they have hope that a solution will be found. Obviously, this is a very simplistic explaination, but hopefully you can get the point.

The two week intensive course is called Poverty and Development and is taught by Dr. Bryant Myers, who worked for World Vision for 30+ years in development work all over the world. I am super excited about that class. I will explain more about it as it gets closer to starting.

I hope this gives you an idea about what is going on now in my life.

Today was the first day of orientation at Fuller and I loved it! I absolutely love that people pray there! That might seem like a strange statement, but I have never been to a school in my life that people prayed at. Like all the people pray there; professors, presidents, student. I am so loving that right now!

And besides all that, I get to learn about how to better communicate the Gospel to people across the world will people from all over the world. Today, I met people from Norway, Australia, Malaysia, Korea, China, Japan, India, Nigeria, Kenya, Holland, and some others I can't remember right now. Pretty cool though!

More to come soon! School starts Monday!

New Monasticism

So, I mentioned yesterday I am part of a monastic community here in LA. If you are not familiar with the concept of monastic community, I will try to shed light on it. In the last two weeks, we have read through and discussed a book describing the new monastic movement using a variety of authors with differing experiences with monastic communities. The book is entitled School(s) for Conversion: 12 Marks of a New Monasticism

The gist of the book is that groups of Christians intentionally live together in an area and reach out to their community and address their needs. The people living in the house share what they have and live as a community resembling the community of believers in Acts 2. This passage is set just after Pentecost and thousands of people are becoming followers of Christ. It says in verses 42-47:

"They were continually devoting themselves to the apostles' teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone kept feeling a sense of awe; and many wonders and signs were taking place through the apostles. And all those who had believed were together and had all things in common; and they began selling their property and possessions and were sharing them with all, as anyone might have need. Day by day continuing with one mind in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, they were taking their meals together with gladness and sincerity of heart, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord was adding to their numbers day by day those who were being saved."

Monastic communities have been around in the Catholic and Orthodox traditions for a really long time. Some of the early communities were Franciscan and Benedictine. One quote in the book that stood out was "The Benedictines' submission to the church did not result in their being submerged in the much laxer practices of the wider church; it instead resulted in the wider church being transformed by the example and teaching of the monastic communities." (12 Marks 75)

The real heart is to reach out to our community in live and acceptance and share the love of Christ with them. And all the while, serve to larger body of Christ through the church and, just as the monks above, affect the greater church in a large way for the kingdom of God.

It has been really cool to see how this house has become a huge part of the community and people really feel welcome here and I'm excited to be a part of that in the next two years.

Some pics of the drive down to LA with my dad

Northern California mountains in fog

North of the bay area on the coast

Golden Gate bridge with the classic fog rolling in

Pops and I in San Fran

NEW STEPS IN LIFE Part one... (or some other dramatic title here)

Well, I've been in LA for a few weeks now. It is a strange feeling here for me. There are elements of comfortableness for me and then there are all the very strange things also. Due to my summers here, I know the city relatively well and am knowledgeable about the cultural elements. My living situation is one that will take some time to adjust to. I live in a house with four other young(er) people about my age and a family of four. The parents of the family run the house and have two small children. The house runs as a sort of New Monastic community that I will explain later. In sorts, the house is open most hours of the day to anyone from the community to stop by, we have dinner together as a community most nights and anyone from the community can join us, and we have community Bible study and prayer times. We try to make is a very open and welcoming place for anyone that enters. One of the difficulties that living this way brings is it is a challenge to find time and space for yourself away from others and distractions. Personal, alone space is practically unknown here.

As you know, LA is a pretty crazy place and there's always tons of traffic and people in a hurry everywhere you look. For some reason, I really love to craziness around me and the Lord has really put this place on my heart to want to serve and share His love around. I am excited and nervous all at the same time about these next few years of my life. Two years from now, I hopefully will have completed my Master's degree at Fuller Seminary and am preparing to serve to Lord in an urban setting here or across the world. In three weeks, I will be starting the next step in the process leading up to that by starting classes at Fuller. I have been looking into the classes that I have decided to take this fall and am getting a little nervous about them. Each course will require 1500-2000 pages of reading and this is in a ten week term, plus a 12-15 page research paper for each class. Whoa! Am I prepared? Not likely!

So, as all this is happening, I recognize that I need some prayer. Here's a few requests for anyone that is looking:

• Peace for me as I prepare to start school. I want to learn better to take my anxiety to the Lord as soon as it comes to me.
• Patience and love for the people I live with. I want to extend grace to those around me jsut as God did to me through Jesus.
• Compassion for the people around me that are lost in the eyes of the Lord. Just as Jesus wept for Jerusalem, I want to weep for this city and long for revival here.

Lord, thank you that you have called me into your kingdom and you have included me in your plan in this life. Thank you that you have chosen to use me to share your love in this city. Allow me to have sufficient grace and love in this place. Lord, come in power in this place.

I love bacon-maple bars!

A few months ago I mentioned bacon-maple bars from Voodoo Donuts in Portland and how much I loved them. If your first thought is "that's disgusting!", you are so wrong. Honestly, my first thought was like that, but after trying it, I was lovin' it! Think of having breakfast at a restaurant of pancakes and bacon and it all mixes together. This is just the donut version of that. And it's amazing! Donuts are great, but donuts that have meat on them are even better! So, if you are in Portland or come for a visit, Voodoo Donuts is the place to go.

The Newest and Latest News!

I am moving to LA in the fall to start up at Fuller Seminary and do an internship through a church. I am super excited about doing something new in my life and starting down the path that I feel the Lord has been leading me toward for a few years now. The thought of starting up school again doesn't sound that fun right now, but it will be something that I care about, as opposed to my undergraduate work in business.

I am going to be studying Urban Missions as part of the Inter-Cultural Studies School. It will be really cool to be studying this as I am working in an inner-city church. I can get some nice practical knowledge as I am cranking out the schooling.

Also, I will get to quit my job, which is a really nice benefit. It's not that I hate my job; I'm just really tired of it right now and feel pretty emotionally exhausted and burned out. So, that's the latest and newest!

Awkward story of the day!

I haven't added much to this blog in the last 9 months or so cause I've been working at a homeless shelter and much of what I do has to remain pretty confidential. But I heard a story from one client a few night ago that bears repeating to a broader audience. So, hence this posting...

The client approached the counter asking for the staffs opinion on a hypothetical question. We obliged and he started with the following story:

*Does it seem weird to you that someone would walk into the shower with only a t-shirt on, holding his socks and underwear, and step into the stream of water? This man started to wash his socks, underwear, and shirt with soap, but continued to keep the shirt on as he was lathering up his whole body and clothing. Would you be concerned for him?* (paraphrased for brevity)

My natural reaction with confusion, but after more explanation I started to get the idea of what took place. In some ways, I was surprised, but things similar to this happen often enough, that the shock wore off pretty quickly.

I'm sure I'll have more of these stories to add in the near future.


Oh, yes, and I did just make a trip back to Rijeka for about two weeks, so I'll have more to share about that at a later point. I'll leave you with a picture of my buddy Davor and I.

A few of my current favorite things...

• Wilco's "Sky Blue Sky" cd
  
• The Bacon-Maple Bar from Voodoo Donuts (more later)
• Vietnamese Beef Pho
• Netflix
• New green shoes
• The possibility of a new job
• Sweatshirts with hoods on a cold night
  

A Continuation of the BEST OF

"John and Andy" from Gibraltar. This day excursion was definitely a highlight of the trip.
I do love monkeys!

Taken from the Croatian National Park, Plitvice. It was the bottom of one of the huge waterfalls.

Pic of my buddy Dario and I on the bridge to Krk.

Cool painted buildings in the city of Rovinj, Croatia.