2009

I don't even know how to start writing today. When it's over a month between blogs I forget how to do this stuff. 

So I mentioned this girl last time, maybe you remember. Her name is Helen. Well, anyone who knows anything about my relationship patterns over the past, oh, 8 years, knows that I'm really good at having relationships that last a week, or maybe less. So I was really hoping to avoid maintaining this pattern in this relationship.

Good news, folks! We've avoided it so far. I know it's only been a month and a half but it has been fantastic. It's so fun figuring our this whole relationship thing with a great friend and experiencing all the times of growth that come with it. 

Let me just take one paragraph to tell you about the awesomeness of Helen, and I hope it doesn't make you puke while you're reading, but really it's pretty cool. Believe me, you'll wish this had been you:

So 5 of my friends and I took a little vacation to the Philippines for 3 days just before Christmas. Before we left, Helen gave me a double Eagle's Nest Outfitters hammock. Anyone who knows anything about hammocks knows that receive one of these from anyone is a solid score; to receive one from your girlfriend is about 50 times better. Phenomenal gift. Anyway, it was nice to sit in the hammock between 2 coconut trees and look out over the ocean with my beautiful girlfriend; or sit and look up at the stars and talk. Pretty awesome. So then one day we decided to rent motorbikes and ride around the semi-remote island we were staying on. The 6 of us piled on 3 bikes and Helen rode on mine with me...obviously. It was basically a movie come to life. Nothing like riding some local's motorbike around a semi-remote island with your girlfriend hanging on behind, hair flowing in the wind, sun shining down on us, bugs splatting on my teeth. Rad.

Ok, I'll spare you the rest of the trip, but needless to say, it was great.

Other than that, life is pretty much the same as always in HK. Work all day, exercise in the evening, eat delicious Asian food as often as possible, travel when the opportunity arises, occasionally wish I was in the US instead. But mostly I'm glad I'm here. 

Sometimes it is tough to be here, though. My mom recently had surgery to repair some bulging discs in her neck, and so far it's not being nearly as successful of a surgery as we had hoped. It would be nice to be home now to help her in this time. Yeah...I'm a momma's boy. Sorry.

Anyway, one of my youth group guys from last year is headed back to the States soon and he wants to go gaming tonight. I've never gone gaming before and I know I'm gonna suck, but I want to spend time with him, so I'm gonna go. Miss you, I promise.

If you don't read anything else, at least read the part near the bottom...

As is typically the case on my blog, I haven't written in too long of a time and too much has gone on for me to adequately write about my life. So again I'll just provide some hi-lights with the continuing hope that I'll do a better job in the future.

First of all, November 3rd was the biggest day for my job for the entire year. The organization I work for hosted a huge fund raising banquet, and my job kept me running about a million miles an hour. It was a lot of work, but I loved it. We were all thinking that considering the 'economic climate' we probably wouldn't make too much money, but we were wrong. It was an incredible blessing and such a direct answer to prayer that we even more money was given to alleviate the stresses of poverty on the poor in the Philippines. We raised nearly US$700,000 and it was an incredible night. So that was huge for me and a great thing to get to be a part of.

On November 9th I turned 24. I was fortunate enough this year to have 2 parties for one reason or another. The first night my friends and I partied along with some of the kids from the youth group and played Rock Band until late in the night. And when that got old, there was always the Magic Mic Karaoke to keep us company as well. Of course, there were Filipinos at my party, and that means that Karaoke is a must. Then the next day I had an 'adult' party for just my friends in my age bracket, which basically meant the same thing as the night before, minus the rock band, but a few people might have drank some wine. Maybe. And we had some awesome Thai food. Except I forgot to say 'no tentacles in the soup, please' so I definitely had more squid and more tentacles than I ever expected to eat for a birthday meal. Yeah, Asia!

However, the best is yet to come: I have started dating this amazing girl. Her name is Helen Wong and she is the cutest ABC (American Born Chinese) I have ever known! This is still a young relationship, but I am really excited about it and really encouraged through it. She has incredible maturity, yet is one of the most animated, fun-loving people I know and I am really looking forward to this relationship. I could go on, of course, but it's late and I don't want to divulge too much in an open blog. You never know who reads these things! Could be some crazy people out there. But she is incredible; take my word for it. 

Until next time, which I promise won't be so far away,

Joy and Peace.

Uh...Sorry...

...it's been too long since writing. My bad...

Anyway, I'm really looking forward to this weekend.

"Why?" (that was you asking).

Ah, thanks for asking! Tomorrow the Passion conference is stopping in Hong Kong. So I'm taking the youth group from my church to hear David Crowder and Chris Tomlin. Should be a fun night. Apparently in the states they're all serious about it only being allowed for college students, but I think if they did that here they would get like 10 people showing up, so we're bringing the high schoolers. I hope we're not, like, breaking any rules or something. And if we are, I hope it's just a really light punishment, not death or something like that.

Perhaps if they gave us a piece of cake and then told us to leave. I think that would be nice.

Friday-Sunday is going to potentially be a very awkward time, and I can't wait! My church is teaming up with a few other churches to put on a conference called Love Actually where we actually gather kids at a retreat center and just talk openly and seriously about SEX for 3 days. This includes sessions where guys can ask girls (leaders and peers) questions, and girls can ask guys, and I really hope for some great situations...all within a pure, Christian context, of course! 

So, if any of my Kanakuk friends don't mind, it would be great if you can fly in for the event. Because as anyone who knows anything knows, Kanakuk people are the BEST and creating and maintaining awkward situations. I'd love to have you in town.

So yeah, it should be a great weekend. I know you are all jealous.

Beyond that, just working on life, love and the pursuit of happiness. Working double-time (technically, but not really) since the full-time paid staff of my organization in Hong Kong has been cut in half (leaving a total of...1! Me...) so I have a few extra responsibilities to pick up.

And for my spiritual ponderings, I just wanna direct you all to Philippians 2. The first few verses are basically awesome. Reading over them lately, I was really struck by the command to, in humility, consider others as more important than myself. At first I thought "that's a great idea, but it almost seems as just a formality that Jesus is asking us to perform."  But then I read on...and it continues to give the example of ultimate humility (which is what allows us to consider others as better than ourselves): Jesus taking the form of man and coming to earth, allowing himself to take the position of a servant and becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross.

So this is where I realize "oh...it's not just a formality."  It's Christ-likeness.

I know this seems like a simple realization. But honestly, it's something I've been very poorly at lately. In fact, I think I've been very selfish, at least in my thoughts, if not in my actions. So I'm going back for a little spiritual milk, and I'll get back to the real spiritual food when I'm ready for it again.

I'm outta here! Ciao!

Let's get ULTIMATE!

Last night was the beginning of a new era: The utter domination of team Black Rain in the Hong Kong Ultimate Players Association. 

Now, this ain't your grandma's ultimate. This ain't even Kanakuk-style ultimate. This is legit ultimate. Positions and strategy and all that stuff. Maybe it's the way ultimate is really supposed to be played, and I just know the toned-down version of it, but this stuff is the real thing. I didn't think I'd like it from the way it was described. But it was AWESOME.....and we destroyed our opponents. We beat them soundly. We scored more goal point units (thanks, Brian Regan) and the 14-8 score at the time of the lights being turned off at the stadium in Causeway Bay was more than enough to prove that Black Rain is not a team to be messed with.

Besides getting to play as a part of an organized league again, which is incredible, it also makes me think of something that my good friend Andy Braner likes to talk about a LOT: the idea of community.

Part of my community here in HK has remained pretty static since about the time I first moved here. There are a few of us who make sure that we hang out all the time. We do church together, most of us work in the same office, we randomly go eat American breakfast together early in the morning, etc etc etc. We are each other's primary community. It makes life here great.

But part of my community has been extremely dynamic since getting back to Hong Kong. The first week I was here I met Eric in the gym. He's not a believer from what I know and I think his priorities are extremely different from mine and the people in my 'static' community. Fortunately the first time we actually hung out was the night after he had become heavily intoxicated, so he wasn't wanting to do that again. Which I was perfectly fine with.

The next week I met "Steven" (I don't know his Chinese name, and even if I did, I wouldn't know how to say it or write it, I'm sure). Steven told me the other day that he has only ever had any encounters with one other American, and he was black. I am the first white American he has been willing to play soccer with, talk with, hang out with. He told me it's "not a racist thing" but whatever. I don't care why he hasn't talked to Americans in the past. But now whenever we get to talk he has a million questions from "what do you think about the pollution" to "don't you think John McCain is too old to become president?"  For some reason he has decided now that he wants to know how other people think. And while I don't always have clear answers for him, I think it's helpful for him, and it's definitely helpful for me too.

And now I've met all these people whom I play ultimate frisbee with. A good number of them are Christians, but a good number of them are not, as well. It's a place where I can fellowship with other believers, and a place where hopefully we are examples to those who do not choose to believe what we believe. 

The point of this is that in the past my "community" has been 99% Christian (except for my 3 months at NOLS when I had no other Christian influence). It's been great. It's given me a solid foundation (I think) and I know that I have a HUGE support system, especially with the plethora of people from Kanakuk whom I know will be there in less than a heart beat if necessary.

But this time in life is so encouraging because I get to have my comfortable community around me almost all the time, and I also have the opportunity to go to the hungry, the lost, the broken down, the searching, the angry, and be an example to them. And while I write about how great this is, I also know in the back of my mind that it's something that scares me. It's freakin hard. But it's an honor to have this ability and I pray that I will use it well.

Thanks for being a part of my community.

INK!

I got a new tattoo today.

On the way back to my apartment a guy was getting arrested, just outside of the MTR (the subway station for all you non-Hong Kongers).

I am glad that I'm the one with the new tattoo, and not the sore wrists from the cuffs.

Also, went on a sweet hike/jog/swim with Marcus. So that was rad. And then we ate ramen with ham. Ordering ramen from a restaurant is still weird to me. Nowhere in any Westernized portion of America (meaning outside of China-town in whatever city you happen to be in) would you go to a restaurant and order ramen noodles. You would just buy it for 10 cents at the store and make it at home. But here, I had a beer and a bowl of ramen with ham and I paid HK$ 30. Like...US$ 3.50.

I love this place.

I'm Here to Please You

I decided that I'm really just too tired to blog right now, but it's 6:20 on a Friday night and I realized that I exist to make my avid blog-followers happy (meaning...me.)

Some good news from life recently:

Ocean Kayaking

Hot Yoga

Sunday Morning Hikes

5 PM Service at Church

The Espresso Machine at Work

Re-reading Journal Entries

Sleeping 12 Hours on a Week Night

Getting up at 6 the Next Morning and Working Out

I guess I'll get into my actual post now. Hope you liked my list, tho.

I had a slightly disappointing day. At this point I am questioning a lot of things. Not fundamental things, like God or love or my feet or something, but things regarding what I'm doing, where I am (in life, not physically...that's easy to answer), and so on. And I almost blogged on that. But I realize that it's probably just a whim that will pass with the next breeze. Which in Hong Kong means a typhoon. Frickin' rad! Anyway, I digress (can one digress before one even begins?)

So instead I'm gonna write on one of my recent journal re-reads, which is actually a reflection on something I read. I read it many months ago, but since it's taken me almost a year to get not even half way through the book, it's probably only a few pages back from where I am now.

It's The Divine Conspiracy by Dallas Willard. I'm picking up in the middle of what he's talking about, but here it is:

"When this cheerleading approach to the 'real world' triumphs among those who profess Christ, they may then have faith in faith but will have little faith in God. For God and his world are just not 'real' to them. They may believe in believing but not be able to rely on God - like many in our current culture who love love but in practice are unable to love real people. They may believe in prayer, think it quite a good thing, but be unable to pray believing and so will rarely, if ever, pray at all."

Man, well done Dallas. I mean, not that I feel really qualified or whatever to make comments on the entire Christian community, but from my own observations, especially in my own life, this is totally true. I think the comment about those who love love but are unable to love real people is huge. All my Christian buddies, my self included, talk about love like it's the only thing there is to talk about. I don't know how many people either have or want to have a tattoo that says something about love. Even I do, and I have some designs ready, but we can discuss love all freakin day long. But are we really doing it, to real people?

The Savior didn't just sit and talk about love to the Scribes and Pharisees and whoever else. And the Father didn't just have a conversation with the Spirit about how great it is that He created love, and that he even IS love. He sent Jesus to earth, and the Spirit loved us enough to descend upon us at our conversion. If our example is God, we have no ability to say we don't know what love looks like.

I know I fail at this myself about 83,000 times a day, but it's good for me to get it on paper. This didn't exactly end up going the direction I thought it was going to, but whatever. I rambled and this came out, so I'm happy with it.

I started tonight's blog at work but then I went to Encounter (the high school youth group here in HK) and so I'm finishing it now at 1:40 am.

I just wanna end with one more really important thing:

If you're playing Mario and Sonic Olympics on Nintendo Wii, Peach is totally the best character to use on the Trampoline event. I got a perfect 10 with her like a million times.

Tryin out the love...after I take my nightly nap. Praise God for Saturdays!

How do you say "Switch!" in Cantonese?

Sports: the language that needs no translation.

I've waited for this moment ever since moving to Hong Kong last year...

...I've watched and watched as all the locals play their pickup games of soccer in the parks and dreamed of the day that I could be among them.

Today was that day. It just took what I thought was a wrinkle in my plans, and it all turned out better than I expected.

2.5 incredible hours of being the sole white guy playing game after game of pickup soccer. I had no idea what was being said. And I didn't need to. I haven't played soccer in over a year, and it was ok. My muscles ached. My feet pounded. My body just hurt. And I loved it!

One thing that makes soccer (football in HK) so great, as with many sports, is that the purpose is very clear. Your goal is the goal, and there are no questions about it. Score a few goals, and you're in the clear

But it's not no simple in the Christian life. I mean, we know that we have one path. Jesus claims to be "the Way, the Truth and the Life." So as long as we hold true to His teachings we should be ok, right? I think scoring a goal is easier.

In Matthew 23 seven woes are proclaimed to the Scribes and the Pharisees. Jesus warns them to change their ways. He shows them how they wash the outside of their plates and cups so they appear clean, yet the insides remain dirty. Again, he tells them they are like white-washed tombs, beautiful and clean on the outsides, but only containing dry old bones on the inside...nothing resembling the "life abundantly" that Jesus came to give us.

Easy as it is to look down my nose at the Scribes and Pharisees and proclaim "Why didn't they understand what Jesus was trying to teach them?", I realize how easy it is for me to fall victim to the same trap. Especially now that I'm part of the 'rat race', holding a job in a bustling city where just walking down the sidewalk makes me feel like I've gotta be competing with everyone around me...for...what? To look like I've got it together? To look like I'm more in shape than the next guy? To look like I'm successful and happy?

These things are not ultimately bad, of course. You don't need me to tell you that. But they are not the point. The point is that the inside is of more importance. It seems so base to say this. It's hopefully what Christians are taught from day 1, but I think it's easier said than done.

So let's help each other out in trying to keep our focus off of appearances and on issues of the heart. On love. On compassion. On 'whatever is noble, whatever is pure, whatever is just', and the list goes on.

I beg you to help me with this. And I hope that somehow I can be an encouragement to you, too.