… and it started this morning

exercise at 5:00 am

even monks would love to find Jesus…

devoted

.. I feel the Lord desiring to do a new work in me… His moving consumption over my life is intoxicating, I can’t resist it this time…

Lord, come…  come, Father…

Before: Indonesia’s Banda Aceh Northern Shore

After:

Before: Indonesia’s Banda Aceh Shore

After:

To help with perspective, a little over 3,000 were killed from the World Trade Center Attacks on 9/11.  The number dead from the above Tsunami in South Asia is now climbing to 150,000.  Thank you for continuing to keep the families of those affected in prayer during your New Year Celebration… they alone only know how vitally important that is to them right now.  As of this post, the world has pledged to help with $1.2 billion in relief efforts, including America’s increased pledge by 10x to $350 million.  Although significant, the amount needed for relief is estimated in the billions.  If you could help with relief, even just a couple dollars, it will go a long way (donate).  Despite whatever method you may get involved in, prayer is the most important.

the january ’04 class

[click here for larger picture]

T’was only yesterday that these beautiful people arrived on campus… I remember just standing at the airport, holding an “Honor Academy” sign and having them just flock to me.  Well, some of them weren’t that easy.  I remember Louis Colon just wandering in the airport for 8 hours and I was the first to find and greet him…. I would’ve missed him had he not had “Louis Colon” written in big letters all on his box (I’m sure he thanked his mom for that one).  I remember seeing Beth Holder come right up to me and ask, in a very straight tone, for a ride on the shuttle… she wasn’t on any sheet and almost struck me as some random person playing a joke on me.  Weird, but we still laugh about it to this day.  Although we now must part ways and get ready for a new January class (and they’ll be great), the January class of 2004 will forever be remembered in our hearts.  Thank you for the laughs, pranks, tears, hugs, love, ministry, beautiful memories, and playing a great role in my extended family. *sniff* Well, as a token of appreciation, I will even include my famous (in my own mind) “top 10” list that I started for last august’s graduation, with of course, a slighly modified version for the January class (sorry, couldn’t help it):

my humbling moment

…in fact, I was showed up.  This past Wednesday I was invited to take pictures for a lady core after the Christmas play because all the other photographers were doing “other things.”  No problem, i thought, I would love to.  The night came, the play was wonderful, and afterwards the core came and it was my time to take my little eBay digital camera and take pictures of the core on a beautiful stair case.  I started taking pictures and noticed that the flash overpowered the shot.  No problem, I’ll turn the flash off.  A little factoid is that with my camera, in order to take a non-flash shot in a flash setting, the camera needs to soak every color and take 2-3 seconds to hold the picture.  If anyone moved during the 2-3 seconds, the image would be blurred.  In English: it’s not the fancy camera, it’s just a camera. 

So there I am taking the pictures and the core, praise the Lord, ever so cooperative.  As I am changing angles (mom taught me well), another guy with the massive studio digital camera, with a long zoom lens, just happens to come in and within my little 2-3 second shutter time, he has already taken 8 shots without any flash and soaking every color.  The core quickly takes their attention off of me and onto mr professional with the nuclear optical camera.  He’s taking pictures from the side, to the left, on top of the stair case, and anywhere else in the room that I didn’t go.  While I got maybe 4-6 good shots out of a total of 16, our friend has taken a good 48 shots in half the time.

“feel good” bbq

another beautiful day

I was awakened past thursday by a voice mail of my beautiful sisters singing “happy birthday” to me as they were on their way to school.  It was the most precious thing and it was something I saved on my voicemail and will keep saved for a while.  My mom called and singed happy birthday and my wonderful assistant gave me a beautiful hand-made poster (shown below).  Then, the entire promotions department came to my desk to sing the song as well.  What more can I guy ask for?  I did commit the sin of keeping my birthday to myself and, let me just tell you, that’s really a stupid idea.  Yeah, I got confronted for it, but my mom helped resolve it by posting on my xanga for me (post below this one).  I love my mom.  Saturday, 12-04 was my mother’s birthday (my birthday was on 12-02).  A little fun fact: my mom got to take me home from the hospital for my birthday.  I got to sing happy birthday to her Saturday on speaker-phone with the rest of the family and hear her blow out the candles and read b-day cards.  We’re going to share a b-day cake when I go home for Christmas and celebrate our b-day cakes together.  🙂  If I didn’t say it already, I love my mom!  As promised, here is the poster my assistant, Shelley, made for me (you should check out her xanga site):

baby

OK, here it is…..12-02-80 (24 years, thursday), 4:23am…ouch…10 lbs and with a big smile on his face. This is how we were introduced. I have been smiling since. Thank you Son for teaching me patience, patience, patience….. I love you very much

PS, How am I doing with this xanga site?

Love MOM