Here and There and Everywhere

Aloha! So I've been pondering what the rest of this year is going to look like for me. It's been an amazing and crazy last year with many changes, and so at least that will probably be consistent. Change. I'll just share what my thoughts are as well as some things I desire, and we'll see what happens. God is so good, and His agenda and direction is much better than mine. You probably know my tendency to be indecisive, and other weaknesses, so its cool to see how the Lord can use that for the better.

I got an email from IHOP, and my acceptance packet for the internship at the International House of Prayer will be arriving soon. So, I will be spending 3 months in the fall in Kansas City, and I am stoked! It looks like I will be returning to the mainland in August with the Monroy family to help with the kids in San Francisco since David Monroy is speaking at a conference there. I will bus it over to Utah, see my family for while in St. George and head over to Oklahoma to see my mom and family there before heading up to KC.

There is an option to stay at IHOP for another 3 months after this internship, but one step at a time. This round ends in December and then I would love to road trip to see friends, including a trip up to Minnesota, then up to Canada to visit Danielle. Lord willing, it will be awesome. Eh. :)

As for what happens after that, I would like to return to Hawaii.

In the roughed outline of the next 5 years or so, I hope to include a year long trip around the world that is intentional in nature. Either with missions or service or culture sharing or something and then the touristy travel things as bonus. I want to go scuba diving in the Great Barrier Reef, return to New Zealand, visit Fiji and other islands, go to Java n' hear a gamelan orchestra, then India, loop Africa do some African drumming/dance, up to Europe to visit a few friends in Holland and see Great Britain, over to south America learn some Spanish and back up to the states. Ya that sounds good to me. Anyone wanna come with me? I know Danielle and Kelsey, ya'll have your passports ready. :)

I hope to have improved music skills, as I'll take my uke, and I'd love to do a marathon on every continent. (except Antarctica. I'm not into trying to outrun polar bears).

So there is where I think I'm headed. Of course I may look back at this post some day and laugh, but its fun to ponder. What is trippy to think is that God already knows where I'll be and when.

"For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do." Ephesians 2:10

"From one man he made every nation of men, that ehy should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. For in him we live and move and have our being. As some of your own poets have said, 'We are his offspring.'" Acts 17:26

Aloha :)

Kill Your Television

I had a co-worker with this printed on the back of his t-shirt. Perhaps it seems a bit extreme, but I kinda like the slogan now. How many times have you, like I have, come home after work and "unplugged, vegged, or unwound" in front of the t.v., or spent a free (memorable?) evening in front of the tube? I'll just take this post to pass on some interesting things I've been reading about us and the television.

What I say:
When I was younger I had read that you breathe more often staring at a blank wall than you do watching t.v. So what does that mean about television's affect on our mental, physical, social, emotional well being? I don't watch t.v. anymore, although I like watching my fav. movies or new video every once and awhile- which is still t.v. time. (I love going out to see a movie, but that is another story for another post). I realized how addicting t.v. was for me, those sitcoms are like pringles- you can't have just one. And pringles aren't that good for me in the first place.... hmmm. For example, I had turned my nose up at the show Friends when it first came out, but it was another thing when my friend (a pop-culture and fine culture connoisseur) had taped every Friends episode AND deleted the commercials. Each episode was a neat 20 minutes long and I ate them up. Hey, but they are 30 min. shows right? ...what about the other 10 minutes...huh. Now I think that I would rather be hanging out with my friends then watching somebody else's Friends on t.v. .

What others say:
"US surveys indicate that by the time the individual American graduates from high school, he or she will have spent more hours in TV viewing than in school. Study considers the effects of television on development of sight and hearing, its effects on health, as well as its effects on cognitive and intellectual development. Creativity and imagination -- as well as linear cognitive development--shown to be damaged by television." This is taken from http://www.tvturnoff.org/waldorf.htm .

Here is a "just the facts, ma'am" list about our T.V. habit : http://www.tvturnoff.org/images/facts&figs/factsheets/FactsFigs.pdf
So we see that T.V. undermines family life, harms children and hampers education (also according to American Academy of Pediatrics), it affects our nutrition and promotes obesity (McDonalds doesn't need any help:), a sedentary lifestyle, it promotes violence, stereotypes racially, relationally, poor self image, and those laugh tracks are super super super annoying. Have you ever just listened to the laugh tracks and not the content? Its downright unnatural.

Here's a few fun quotes:

The remarkable thing about television is that it permits several million people to laugh at the same joke and still feel lonely. -T.S. Eliot

Television is a chewing gum for the eyes. -Frank Lloyd Wright

On the positive side:
"Of course, television, in moderation, can be a good thing: Preschoolers can get help learning the alphabet on public television, grade schoolers can learn about wildlife on nature shows, and parents can keep up with current events on the evening news." http://kidshealth.org/parent/positive/family/tv_affects_child.html

I'll give em' that. Nature shows, sesame street- educational. Evening news, well helpful and accessible, but often biased and factually there is more info on the front page of the newspaper than there is in the evening news due to commercials and repetition on t.v..

So the scientists, health experts and I recommend turning off the t.v. . Of course this is scary, because what does one "do" with the free time, the strange emptiness, and how does one cope with fatigue, depression, and boredom? Well, hmm, better get that imagination going, and if ya want help and to plug my other post- check out a few thoughts in Treasure (Part 1). Charge life, go get em' tiger.

Treasure (Part 1)

What am I suppose to do? Who am I? What is my purpose, my destiny, my passion? Where is my place in life? All good questions. I wanted to share some thoughts and pass along some words from Kirk Bennett.

"Everyone is always wondering, "where is my place?". I go through that regularly, over and over again because God wants to take us into a depth of knowing Him and security that does not reside in what we do outwardly. It resides in who we are. God wants to align our hearts that we would understand who we are so that issues of what we do flow out of that."

It isn't about "doing" a ministry or doing anything in particular. "The church is going through an identity crisis." But what about all the stuff, ya know, the stuff we are suppose to be doing? The Lord simply says "Come Here. I just want to be with you." Besides you can't do the second commandment without doing the first. You have to know God, your creator, champion, friend, beloved, Lord to know who you are and have perspective on life.

So who am I? Who does God say I am?

"The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field." Matthew 13:44

Say the man from the parable is actually God, and he is searching the world to find the treasure, a relationship with people, the "voluntary lover" (2 Chron. 16:9). Once God found his treasure, his people, he gave all he had and paid the price of His Son Jesus for them.

So we are the treasure!! How cool is that !! "....then out of all nations you will be my treasured possession. Although the whole earth is mine, you will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation." (Ex. 19:5) "God has chose you out of all the peoples on the face of the earth to be his people, his treasured possession." (Deut. 7:6) "You are a chosen people...."(1 Peter 2:9) You are chosen, God likes you and wants to hang out with you forever! "Treasure" in Hebrew is "segulah", which means "God's special treasure". You are of great worth. God doesn't give that word to His anointing, the fruits of the spirit, or ministry gifts but says that about your and your life.

"You don't have to worry about gaining the ground of His pleasure, of pleasing God, of asking what you have to do. You are the ground of His pleasure- you're the thing He longs for!" And its so simple. All we need to "do" is say YES to Him. There will be a revelation of who we are and of His affection that will awaken a passion for Him.

Me Jane, You Tarzan

This weekend I've spent an unusual amount of time in trees. Yesterday my friend amy shen and I went hiking, and she was leading the way to one of her newfound favorite spots. This favorite spot proved to be somewhat elusive and although we didn't use the word "lost", it did involve a 2 hour detour and climbing several huge banyan trees roots and limbs and all up and down the side of a steep hill of scree. I don't know much about rock climbing (except that lava rock isn't ideal), but I do like tree and root climbing. Think Swiss Family Robinson without all the disneyness, glamour and dangerous animals.
Today I went hiking with Danielle (ie. Mountaineering Joan of Arc) and the girls on the Maunawilli trail. At the end of the trail is a rewarding swim in a tiered waterfall with great rocks to jump off into a deep lagoon. On the trail we all took turns swinging on a real vine from the trees. AND I caught a fish with my bare hands!!! (note "fish"= small minnow) Needless to say I got to enjoy a beautiful slice of Hawaii, even with the mosquito bites and scrapes as souvenirs.