Where I'm At ~or~ Far From Home

So it's been a while since a general life update on here, or any kind of consistent posting. I wish that wasn't the case, but things got pretty busy really fast this summer, and this blog kinda slipped in the old priority list.

But now--now, I'm stranded here in Tulsa, alone on a Saturday night with a mountain of reading and writing to do and a complete lack of any desire to do it. It was out of moments like this that this blog was birthed.

I guess I should start at the beginning. Of June. This summer in El Segundo was amazing. Absolutely incredible. It was probably the best summer of my life. The city is gorgeous and friendly and everything I hoped it would be, with a bustling Main Street within walking distance of just about everything, tons of local-owned sandwich shops where they enter your order almost as soon as they see your face, and a Farmer's Market that shuts everything down on Thursday afternoons. The weather is pretty much always room temperature, with a high of 75ish and a low of 65ish; the windows in my bungalow were open every day and every night. Oh, and the Pacific Ocean is just around the corner; I snuck down just to look at the water to fill up a couple of lunch hours on slower days.

While I was down there, I never really thought that I went to the beach all that much, but, sitting down and thinking about it now, I probably hit it up four or more times a week. Something about the sand and the water and the wind and the nature of it all just never got normal to me. It was always breathtaking when I reached the top of the hill on Grand and could finally glimpse the waters beneath.

The church was awesome, too. Instead of assigning me the random intern jobs that no one else wanted, they actually took the time to find out what my passions and strengths in ministry were and then worked with me to design places for me to use those in conjunction with their ministry. It was really cool and gave me a lot of opportunities to test myself in real youth ministry situations. I was amazed with how quickly the staff welcomed me into their lives and their work and supported me and valued my opinion on all sorts of things that I didn't really feel qualified to give an opinion on. It was scary, but in a good way.

The people were also great. My biggest fear going into the summer was that it usually takes longer for people to begin liking me than I was going to spend out in El Segundo, but as the summer unfolded I really quickly fell into some really great new friendships and reopened a couple of old ones. When I first arrived I thought that I'd have loads of time alone in my bungalow to read and study, but between work and hanging out with all the great people I met, I ended up spending very little time back there at all.

There was also a girl. She's pretty amazing. If you want any more of a story than that, shoot me an e-mail, or call or IM me or just stop me walking through the GC and I'll be glad to tell you all about it.


But that's the summer...I think. I mean, there are a ton more stories than that, and maybe over the course of time you'll hear them all. But for now, I think that'll do.

Now I'm back in Tulsa. I've got a ton of work ahead of me this semester. But then there's a bright glowing future somewhere after that and I can't wait to get to it.

Peace, love, and joy to you all.

So there's this girl.

Stories from this Summer (some with photographic evidence even)

Dear Everybody,

The other day I started writing haiku. It's been pleasurable.

Some of them are about things that have happened this summer. I like these specific haiku, maybe even more than some of the other ones.

But I like the other ones too.

So, I've decided to post several of them over here so you all can enjoy them and hear what kind of stuff has been going on down here. Kind of.

And since they're only like seventeen to seventeen-and-a-half syllables each, they will not bore you to death either.

Haiku 1 (Wed 8/1/07)

$85
More than a week's worth of work
Parking tickets suck

Being parked in the El Segundo Beach lot after dusk: $50
Being parked on Virginia St between 8 & 10 am Wednesdays: $35
Being a part of funding the largest metropolitan network of roads in the world: Priceless.

OK, so I don't know if it is the largest metropolitan network of roads, but LA's pretty freakin' huge.

Haiku 3 (Fri 8/3/07) my foot is on fire quickly now right foot go down crap am i a dumb

So, beach night was Thursday...and I thought I could do the whole walking across coals thing again. But I hit a wet spot, so this is what my foot looks like now:


The bottom side is definitely worse, but my camera only occasionally works, so this is the shot I got; as you can see, my foot sank into the coals and it burned all the way around. A little light second-degree and quite a bit of strong first-degree means I'm having a blast everywhere I go.

Haiku 6 (Fri 8/3/07)

working in baja
we ate the orphans' last rice
then we came back home

That story is straight up true, y'all. I'll have to tell it sometime in person...the blog thing is cool and all, but it's just going to miss the mark on this one.

Haiku 8 (Sat 8/5/07) my beard looks awesome without it i look fifteen; die, facial hair code!

That first line's true...the senior pastor at my church said so this morning. So I mean, you can disagree, you're just disagreeing with God. ;) Here's a pic of me laying the law down on some troubled youth at beach night. (or something along those lines...)


Peace, love,
and joy to
you all.