The subtitle isn't really fair without an explanation. Day one started out by getting up at 3:30am, and being on more planes than I should have had to count. We landed in CR around 8:30, getting out of the airport was easy and fast, and I am glad that we had a taxi waiting. The taxi driver got us out to the toyota mini-bus and off we went.  San Jose is ugly, and run down, and busted. The drive to Casa 69 where we were staying the first night was crazy, and looked much like the drive to Cabo from the airport. Lines in the road are definitely guidlines, the taxi drivers are crazier than NY cabbies, and people walk out into the road whenever they feel like it. The buildings all have security gates and doors on them, barbed wire everywhere. When we finally stopped, it was at a door in an alley that had a neon "69" in the window. The driver buzzed us in and what awaited inside was a little compound of solitude surrounded by a big city and barbed wire. The room was decent, the staff was friendly, but when it comes down to it, we were only there to sleep, and we had another early morning coming. We finally were able to catch some z's but with being worried about waking up on time, I randomly awoke throughout the night...

Check back for Day Two soon...

I sit here in the comfort of my big chair, sitting in front of my TV, with my heat on, my power on, my internet connection working...  My daughter is sleeping safely upstairs...

...

apply this picture to your surroundings right now...

then read on...

All of the sudden Mt. Hood erupts... the west face blows out with the ferocity of Mt. St. Helens times 10, and blows rocks, ash and lava towards Portland. The sudden melt of the glaciers and snow on Mt. Hood sends mudslides hurtling towards the Portland metro area. We don't even know what is about to hit us. Possibly huge boulders, maybe a mudslide, or maybe just so much ash that we can't see or breath.

This is essentially what the people along the coast of Japan have experienced. First, an earthquake of proportions that even I can't understand. I lived only miles from the epicenter of the Northridge quake in Southern California, but even at an explosive 6.7, it was nothing compared to an 8.9 or 9.0 of the recent quake in Japan. Second, we didn't have to endure an even more destructive tsunami washing away not only buildings, but lives, and not just lives, but entire communities.

Think and pray on this before you click read more...

At our church, Oregon City Evangelical Church, Marion and I are part of a few groups, I am on the technology board, Marion is on the missions board, and we both sit on the A.C.T.S. board. A.C.T.S. stands for Action, Compassion, Truth & Sacrifice. We have the honor of serving God through serving our community, and one of our suggestions for our "Have a Heart Month" was Heart for the Homeless. This involved getting many of our church body from all different ages together on Saturday (2/26/11) to put together 125 sack lunches that had a PB&J sandwich, some chips, an apple, a juice pouch and some cookies. We had cases of water donated by Haggen Foods that we were able to pass out. We also put together a bunch of kits with dignity items in them, and Marion went out and bought blankets, tarps, socks, underwear, sleeping bags and hand warmers to also pass out to our community.

This is how my adventure today (2/27/11) proceeded...

Marion and I have now completed the 5th week of our Perspectives course, and it has been definitely overwhelming the amount of information that they have thrown at us. While overwhelming, it has been excellent. It has definitely been changing my view of "Christians" and "Christianity" and challenging me to get out of my comfort zone.  If there is anything in the last 5 weeks that I have learned, its that God isn't comfortable.

If you talk to a Christian, especially if you aren't one, I think people tend to paint a very pretty picture of being a Christian, that everything is going to be pretty and perfect if you come to Christ, when in reality I think if you are truly trying to follow God, that you will encounter trials and suffering. That isn't to say that you also won't be blessed, but God calls us, rather commands us to go out into uncomfortable situations and spread His glory. I'm not sure about all of you, but going out and talking to people who have other beliefs and ideas about religion doesn't sound like a good time to me, but here we go anyway...

I was going to wait to post this until I had a video ready from all the footage I shot with the GoPro, but I haven't had time to work on it at all, and time is wasting on my memory. Anyway, on with the run.

Most of you know that last year for Marion's 30th birthday she ran 30 miles. We made a bit of an event out of it, invited some friends to run to celebrate and we called it 3(30) or 3 thirties which stands for 30 years, 30 miles, and 30 blessings. 1 mile for every year, and one blessing for every mile. This year, Marion wanted to carry on the tradition, but in a different way. Instead of having a party for her, and spending alot of money on "things" and consumables, she wanted to bless other people. She also wanted to have more people be involved and included, so she shortened the route to a single 10 mile lap around the Portland water front. So this year's event was chosen to help out Portland's homeless, and so came 10 Miles 4 Portlands Homeless...

I have a full post planned about my first time snow shoeing, but I wanted to post this video, I'm sure it'll make some of you out there smile, I know it made me laugh!

Check back soon for posts on Marion's 10 miles 4 Portland's Homeless Run (www.3thirties.com) and the snow shoe with the Village Babtist Men's group report!

check out the video after the break...

Marion and I started a class called "Perspectives on the World Christian Movement". It is a 15 week, in depth course that requires a lot of reading, studying, homework and we will be getting graded. It is a program that was developed 35 years ago to prepare missionaries and people interested in spreading God's word out to others.

We just finished the second night of class, and the second week of homework. I knew that the class was designed to give us a greater understanding of the biblical meaning of the word "missions" and what God's mission really is, what I didn't know was how personally challenging and how eye-opening the course would be.

So many people think that missionaries go out and scare people into believing / accepting Jesus, that the only reason people ever believe is so that they don't have to go to hell. However, do you really think that God just wants to scare us into loving Him? What about all the blessings He gives us (even when we don't deserve them)?...

Last month, while posting the Sunday Bulletin for the upcoming service to the OCEC website, I noticed that they were going to be holding a baptism at the beginning of 2011. I instantly thought, what a great way to kick off the year, as I had not been baptized when I was younger. But I guess I should back up and fill in the story for those that weren't in the loop...

Hello World.

What else is there to say to start a blog? Even though it lacks originality, it is to the point. So what is the point of one more blog in a world of millions? There is no real point, not for those reading anyway. The only thing that you are going to get from this blog is an insight to my life, you get to do a little eavesdropping. I get to share my thoughts and feelings with whoever might run across this small amount of data. I'll save the formal who I am and what I am about for the about page, as this post will hopefully get buried with a ton of other posts. I will tell you this much that I do want to improve my writing, I want to see how I change over time and I want other people to see some of the changes in my life as well. I am starting this blog at big time in my life full of changes. My family and I are embarking on some big quests, listening to a calling and doing our best to follow that calling faithfully, and anything might happen this year.  All I know is that God has plans for us and our motto this year is "Let God Lead". This blog is going to have a lot about God, my family, friends and some of the things we work on in our business.

Feel free to send an email, start a skype call (button at the top) or drop me a line any time.

God with Us

~b