Mother Teresa's Daily Prayer

DEAR JESUS help me to spread Thy fragrance everywhere I go. Flood my soul with Thy spirit and life. Penetrate and possess my whole being so utterly that all my life may only be a radiance of Thine. Shine through me and be so in me that every soul I come in contact with may feel Thy presence in my soul. Let them look up and see no longer me but only Jesus. Stay with me and then I shall begin to shine as you shine, so to shine as to be a light to others.

Wow.

Hear her recite it.

More here.

Life...

It's been difficult to find blog time in the last few days. A lot has been happening, too much, in fact!

We got our minivan (transmission) fixed. Two days later we noticed a rather large puddle of pretty red transmission oil all over our driveway! Got that re-fixed only to wake up the next day to a van that won't start! The alarm, it seemed executed a hostile takeover of the electronic system and refused to be shut off. One call to the mobile alarm guy who exorcised the unwilling alarm for a mere $75. Then two days later we realized the battery was not holding a charge. Maybe the last effect of the evil battery, who knows. $84 later, a new Die Hard and a two-year warranty.

Being in the office only two days a week (due to the other 3 days focusing on our personal support needs) reminds me of the analogy of a one-legged man in a butt kicking contest. Do you have that mental image? Well, that's me.

Tonya's birthday was Sunday and her parents flew here from Indiana. Good choice- it's minus 4 there and 75-80 degrees here! We all had a good time on Sunday, showing off our new church and having lunch with a bunch of friends.

Sunday night we went out with her parents to see Cheaper by the Dozen. This movie is only funny if you're NOT a parent. I almost walked out a couple times. Sometimes you just have to make a stand for justice and sanity. In the mean time Erica on our staff team was watching Syd and Zach. Unbeknown to us, Zach was throwing up all over the place, including down Erica's back. Good thing we have a washer and dryer. I'm looking for the nomination website for the 'Aunt of the Year Award'.

Monday, Zach still playing 'fountain boy' helped change our family day plans. Syd and I took Grandma and Grandpa to Farmers Market and 'The Grove', but not before the mandated every-California-visit trip to In-N-Out Burger.

Tuesday, brought staff meeting, several other smaller staff meetings and an impossible to-do list. I have been working on our fund raising golf-tournament with the other LA Campus Crusade ministries. We call ourselves LA Connect.

Then last night is was members only, "Nemo night" at the Aquarium of the Pacific. Membership does have its privileges. So Syd and I took Grandma (Grandpa already flew back for work on Wednesday).

Today is more meetings and sending our some letters, etc.

Trying to be faithful and see the daily graces of the Lord.



______________________

UPDATE - 7:31 PM

Just got back from Downey Memorial Hospital. We took Zach in at 1 PM with a 106 degree tempature. By the time we got to the hospital it had dropped to 104 degrees.

They gave some meds and we waited for the temp to drop. They gave him a suppository to help calm the vomiting. Then they seemingly half-heartedly decided to do a chest x-ray. Praise God they did because he has mild-pneumonia. So after all day of promising that he would not get a shot... he got a shot. Ice cream tonight (that's our post-shot family tradition).

He is doing much better, even ate a bowl of soup, rice and a popsicle (the ice cream equivalent for tonight). We see how the next few days goes.

Happy King Day

Today our team went to our local Martin Luther King day parade in the Crenshaw district of South Central LA. It was a great time- a pretty diverse group attended this celebration. I was surprised to see many Asians represented in the parade. There was also the typical politicians trying to convince everyone how much they love the community, the mostly African-American TV anchors and reporters happily waving, and big corporations trying to convince minority communities that they really 'care'; Coke, Lawry's, etc. But even with all the posturing, we still had fun.

For more on Dr. King see the King Center website and Stanford's great Dr. King Project.

I wish we all would focus more on Dr. King's writings and speeches. Everyone knows his "I Have a Dream" speech, but there are so many others just as good if nor even more profound. One of my favorite Dr. King quotes is...

Love is creative and redemptive. Love builds up and unites; hate tears down and destroys. The aftermath of the 'fight with fire' method which you suggest is bitterness and chaos, the aftermath of the love method is reconciliation and creation of the beloved community. Physical force can repress, restrain, coerce, destroy, but it cannot create and organize anything permamnent; only love can do that. Yes, love--which means understanding, creative, redemptive goodwill, even for one's enemies--is the solution to the race problem.

--Martin Luther King, Jr., 1957

I Love this City!

From the cultural richness of the King Day parade in Crenshaw I drove up into the Little Armenia and Thai Town area of Hollywood. The smells are amazing! I got to spend time with two pastor's I met about four years ago. JR Woodward and Craig Wollack and their team have spent at least four years praying, studying and planning Kairos- Los Angeles.

I really like and appreciate their focus on being church in the context of everyday community. The have an innovative approach to establishing community.

The structure of Kairos consists four elements;
Disciples:
seekers > hearers > kneelers > faithful > servants
Equippers:
dream awakeners - heart revealers - story tellers - soul healers - light givers
Gatherings:
canvas groups - congregation - neighborhood church - larger gatherings
Ministries:
equipping center - urban center - missions - support team

It is a biblical, well thoughtout approach to church. I know that God is going to use them significantly to help build His Kingdom in LA.

Today...

Slow days are nice... urban ministry dosen't normally allow for many!

Apparently, last night there was a lot of police activity outside our house. Victims of a drive-by stopped their car in our street and argued (loudly) about what they were going to do. Supposedly the shooting wasn't in our immediate neighborhood. Sheriffs came and took at least a few away, so who knows what happened. Best of all, we slept through all of this!

After we awoke, Zach accompanied me to the gym (nice Kid's room), Home Depot to get a replacement back-flow value for my high quality, self-installed sprinkler system. We had some $1 Chinese food and got hair cuts. Tonya and Syd were on their own errand spree- including grocery shopping.

Went home and installed the back-flow value. Brass this time!

This evening a family from our small group at church came over to take showers, as they were locked out of where they are staying.

Looking forward to church tomorrow it is nice to have a church you can't wait to go to. That hasn't been that way for us for a long time. God is good. All the time.

Trying to raise some support

Today was a day to work on our personal support. Even though raising our own missionary support is not what I would call fun. But overall I have learned to appreciate the process. We are so grateful for the 215 or so individuals, families and churches that are part of our team. Yes, we really do consider them part of what God has called us all to do. Some are 'goers' and some are 'senders'. The 'goers' couldn't go without the 'senders'!

However, today I really didn't appreciate the process so much. Our staff have an inside kind of joke that asks how many times did you "leave staff this month". When our staff do leave it is hardly ever just because of the support raising process. But I have to admit I have been thinking about a 'paid' job recently. I have "left staff" in my mind a few times! But then I think about what I get to do and see and usually it is a fleeting moment or... day!

Over the last three years as the City Director too much of my time has focused on raising the city budget and not enough time focusing on our own personal support. This is the primary reason that we in the situation we are in now. So now I have to buckle down and focus on our own account.

The great thing about this support raising process is meeting people and getting to share with them what God is doing in Los Angeles and the inner city of America in general. That is the exciting part.

Crusade has a great (and very biblical) perspective on raising your support. Because God's will is complete, when He calls you, He also calls your financial team and you just have to discover who they are.

So, we'll do what it takes, because God is in control and He is moving before us, we just have to follow!

Attachment Theory

Tonya and I have been talking about 'attachment' and some of the ramifications of 'not being attached'. We have seen this over and over again with some of the kids we work with. But we had a deep example of that this weekend.

Eden, our god-daughter and of course, Bob and Susan (our team members, best-friends, next door neighbors, etc.) just came back from Chicago on Saturday. They are adopting Eden who was born on Dec. 26th. So after we picked them up from LAX our team, other friends and family came over for a bit of an open house to see Eden. LaToya, a single teenage mom who lives across the street from us brought her six month old son with her. Other than us they were the first ones there and among the last to leave. Tonya has seen her son much more than I have, but we never had the opportunity to spend as much time with them as we did on Saturday.

Mario, her son is a real cute baby, he is one that the old ladies would stop and fuss over for awhile. Big cheeks and all. But I was amazed that he never smiles or laughed. I have been around a few babies and have always been able to make them smile and giggle. Just do anything really goofy or make some silly sound and that usually does the trick. But not with Mario. He just sat there seemingly thinking, "what is this stupid white guy doing?". As we were discussing this later on we thought the fact that Mario dosen't smile isn't surprising. We have noticed and Tonya has talked with LaToya about holding, caring for and spending time with her son. She is outside on the patio a whole lot without him. Some of the younger kids even say that their grandma is always on LaToya about passing off her baby responsibilities to someone else. It would seem to make sense that since LaToya never really had opportunities to make those emotional attachments with her parents, those same traits are now being passed to her son. Mario it seems, hasn't really been able to make some of those emotional attachments either. Hence no smiles.

So I played with him almost the whole time. Tickling, playing with his toys, bouncing a balloon on his head- all failed to get him to even act like he could smile. But I kept at it and I noticed how he would just stare into my eyes. Finally during an energetic (on my part) game of peekaboo he began to smile. Soon he was laughing. I even got him to have a couple laugh-so-hard-you-roll-over laughs!

But it really just made me sad. Seeing how some of God's beautiful children have to grow up is really hard.

Were past the "we are gonna try to save the whole world" phase of ministry and we know what we can do is very limited but it makes me sad. Sad and thankful. Thankful for my children, the children at our SAY Yes! Center in Compton and the other 13 SAY Yes! Centers across LA, that they are getting the chance to become attached to something- emotionally, physically, socially and most important spiritually attached. And I look at Eden and I thank God for the different life that she will now have the opportunity to live.

Man, what I have taken for granted in my life. Forgive me Lord.

Pastor's Prayer Time on "Prayer Mountain"

Today was our 'trial' run for a pastor's prayer time at Kenneth Hahn State Receration Area in Inglewood, a two-hour prayer time to literally 'pray over LA'. This will officially begin on Jan. 29th and happen the last Thursday of each month at 9 am.

Pastor Rooselvelt Marks and I have been discussing this since our Box of Love packing party over Thanksgiving. Today was beautiful. Crisp and pretty clear. We had seven people there, three (including me) from our team.

We are praying for a real movement of the Lord to unite pastor's hearts together. I believe this can be a real powerful time for pastors to come together to pray and establish good relationships to begin partnering together in ministry focused directives. Come and join us if you're from LA!

January 2004 Prayer and Praises

Prayers

* Pray for our financial support situation. We are currently raising support 3 days a week until we are back up to full support.
* Pray for many new contacts.
* Pray for our mini-van, it is currently sitting in our driveway until we can afford to replace the transmission.

* Continue to pray for Ramiro's family. His mom is now attending church regurarly but his dad now does not want to go.
* Pray for Ramiro that he will stand strong and continue to grow in his faith.

* Pray for Zachary, our 3 year old (and us) during this potty-training period.

* Pray for wisdom directing our team as we are navigating some tough areas.
* Pray for our upcoming LA Connect Golf classic fund-raising tournament on Feb. 23rd. (Wanna play? Email me!)

Praises

* Thank God for a good, relaxing holiday season.
* For our new church, it is such an amazing place. This has been a real oasis for us.
* For Eden, our new God-daughter! Bob and Susan, from our team has just adopted a baby girl! We are truly rejoicing over her, she is a real answer to prayer.
* For a saviour that loves and cares for each and every need we have, before we even have it!

DATA - Bono fights for South Africa

We have been interested and praying for South Africa for 10 years. We have continually sponsored World Vision children from South Africa, God seemingly awoke us to Nelson Mandella's inauguration (we fell asleep with the TV on) at 3 am, and my favorite movie, "The Power of One" takes place there.

Recently we saw Oprah's South African Christmas show and Tonya and I both bawled (even though many white people do cry watching Oprah, we normally don't!).

Think of the contrast between the residue of years of unbelievable oppression with the music and the beautiful natural landscape of the country. To me, South African music is the most beautiful in the world and the country has to be one of the most beautiful places in all the world. Our hearts are struck by the poverty and the continual, devastating effects of apartheid. A pastor from our church just went there and talked about how their are no street lights in some of the townships, because they are tore down and sold for scrap metal. Amazing.

I've been reading about DATA, Bono's organization to help fight AIDS and other devastating situations (debt, literacy) in the country. I was encouraged to see they have part of their part of their web site dedicated to helping the American Church figure out how we can help. There are sample sermons, Sunday school curriculum, etc.

We Christians must get engaged with this issue. Tonya and I will be involved with our church in some way. We hope to go there sometime in the future.

Just saw The Passion of The Christ!

Unbelievable. Amazing. Uncomfortable. Breathtaking.

Tonya and I saw Mel Gibson's upcoming movie today. We were with about 1000 other pastors and church leaders for the pre-release screening at Saddleback Church.

Like today's moderator Lee Strobel said, this movie is almost to describe. YOU MUST GO SEE IT! It comes out February 25th. It does have an "R" rating, BUT DO NOT LET THAT STOP YOU. It will change your perspective on the most important story ever told. Yes it is graphic, very graphic. Hence the "R" rating (don't take children under 12 or 13). You will be effected. Bring tissue, lot of tissue.

I just kept saying in my mind, I put Jesus on the cross, He's thinking of me right now, that whip to the back should have been mine.

Mel was there. Strobel interviewed him. Mel has a deep faith and feels an amazing calling to do this movie. They have experienced much spiritual warfare but already many have come to Christ by being involved or seeing a screening of this movie.

THIS WILL BE A VERY EFFECTIVE EVANGELISTIC OPPORTUNITY FOR OUR CITIES AND COUNTRY IF...

... IF THE CHURCH GETS BEHIND IT.

There are tons of materials to help families and churches use this movie as an opportunity to share their faith. See my recent post on the sites where churches can go for more information.

I think every Christian in America should go see this film in the opening week because...

1. It will give you new insight in an accurate account of what Jesus did for YOU,
2. It will be an avenue for a more intimate relationship with your savior,
3. It will send a message that Christians do care what is put into movie theaters

Then, every Christian should take a non-believer back with you to see it again.

We at Here's Life Inner City will send info to our 300 church partners encouraging them to see and use the film to share the message of Jesus to their neighbors.

If we all get behind this opportunity, what an Easter we will have!

Pray for the film. Pray for Mel. Pray for the millions of people that will see this movie and have questions about who Jesus is. Pray for church's to get involved and be ready to help answer these millions of peoples questions.

Happy New Year!

Well we managed to survive another year, and another gun-shooting-up-in-the-air New Years celebration in Compton. A quiet evening talking on the phone with everyone about new baby Eden and just chillin' and hoping no stray bullet leaves a new year hole in our cars! (ok, that's a bit over dramatized).

I pray that 2004 will see many lives changed for Jesus!