Cheee!

New Year, 2011! Pandora is one freakin' cool thing. I wonder what we will have in a couple years to play random music. Maybe an implant that reads our hormonal changes and create music playlists that will bring us to any emotional state depending on our preferences or what ever.

Battery is about to die, bummer.

Well, New Year, which means..... absolutely nothing! Life goes on and things will happen good and bad, happy and sad. Christ remains the same, never changes and my life has meaning because of Him. Good Night 2010 day, Goodmorning 2011 tomorrow/ now.

A Day Like Today

So, here I am in a coffee shop trying to figure out what to type. I was sitting for a while earlier and nothing was coming out except what seemed like a mess of jibberish, spit out to try and sound all fancy and smart. How often do we do this? are we raised to do this? You know, we talk one way but then when we type or write items out we make it sound a lot more collected and gramatically correct, which for me is not how I speak. Actually, I think that may not be the case for everyone. My art professor this last semester was complaining a bit towards the end of the semester as students were turning in pieces of work that had so many gramatical errors due to students approaching the writting in the same way that they would text. She was quoting some of the articles and lol, smiley faces and other notations were present....

So we are sitting here and coming up with some of the most random things to do and I am stoked to be blessed with the friends I have.

Memories

As I was browsing through the internet I stumbled upon this site.

"Do I still remember my password?" ... Apparently I do. haha

Over a year since I last blogged on this site,
Over a year since I last stood on Oahu,
Over a year since I began this most recent chapter of my journey,
Over a year....

A new chapter a year ago? Who decides when those chapters begin or end? Isn't our life a collection of experiences that are bound by our own perception of time? Instead of speaking of chapters I think I will call this..... Life..... profound, ya? haha Shoots

I wonder if anyone will read this. Maybe an e-mail will be sent out notifying that Spam and Eggs recently added a post to their account.... or maybe this will be just dust in the wind scattered in this splattering of words...

Sooooo, this last year what has happened... To branch into another thought, if I may, I think this will be beneficial fo me and probably only me. Some, as they stumble back on this as I have, may find this interesting, amusing, or just annoying. To that I say, What-ever. haha People journal to process their ideas and thoughts, I ramble to bring sense to my chaotic spastic mind. So, in these ramblings I post, I will hopefully find some ideas or thoughts that connect, to then help in processing what it is I am thinking.... (I think I just repeated myself thinking I was making two completely different statements...hmmm).

To summarize this past year I will say that God doesn't give up. Rev Hi was an awesome, stretching, hard year for me. God has a great way of loving the stubborn in their brokenness. It reminds me of a sturdy Teak tree. Here I am blowing hot air at God and He still stands strong and doesn't break. His love doesn't stop reaching for me. I bring a monsoon full of rain, thunder, havoc and He doesn't give up but stands His ground and smiles at me. No matter what I do it's like He is pursuing me like a passionate lover...... Sounds weird but no matter what I do He doesn't stop and won't seem to let me go. As much as I have tried to push He is STILL there. Even when it seems as if that last sin was the one to break that tree He stretches His branches, shakes the dew off the leaves, and booms with the melody of Love.

Currently God has been showing me How much I desperately need Him; and in saying Currently I mean since I heard who Jesus was back in pre-school, waaaaay back. But, in the most recent of recents this has been a recurring theme for me. My life unravels with-out His tender hands holding it together. The ministries He has blessed me with become like clanging pans unless I let Him take over. What I once found value in I see as just vanity. Ecclesiastes.... Oh, Vanity...haha

So easily I find my self getting sidetracked and distracted. Casting Crowns song Slow Fade talks about this slow fade. It could be anything but that distraction can slowly steer our minds, our hearts, and our lives in the complete opposite direction until... BAM!!! What happened?

This last summer I had one of those moments. To make a long story longer, this all started back in 3rd grade. There was this kid....hahaha just kidding. Here I was finishing my second semester back in College, reaching for summer time, ministry and work lined up. Surfing plans made out. I was ready for this awesome summer and finding this awakening in my relationship with Jesus. "Just you and me J-man.".... not really. Maybe it was that Cockiness that lead me into idolizing.... As, I was going through the summer things seemed great; Camp rocked, I was surf's up, and everything seemed gravy. But one day, meeting with my parents, Reality smacked me hard.

I was with my dad and here I was trying to fix my van, yet again. Through conversation he made a comment that really opened my eyes. This statement made me re-evaluate my summer, my life and it took me weeks to realize the root. So here we are and my dad says,"Brock, what's going on with you?! Your mom and I are concerned for you! Either your back on drugs and alcohol or we're just bad parents! What is it?"

Woah!!! In my mind I was thinking, what?! are those my only two options? I assured Him that neither was true and that I was working on it... but i didn't know what the "it" at that time was. After weeks of praying and reflection God showed me what it was. You see, through out the summer I had made plans to really devote my time to God and spend "quality" time with Him. My summer ended up being an exploit of my selfish desires with a side order of Jesus in a to go bag. Because of this selfishness I was neglecting my rent (I didn't think it was that big of a deal), canceling plans to meet with family (I talk with them all the time, and I see them every so often. What's the big deal, i thought), and I wasn't guarding my thoughts or heart (Hey, I'm just being a guy. Plus it's summer time....). The root of it all..... I had put Jesus on the sidebar. I was thinking that these moments of weekly Jesus appetizers on sunday would sustain me but I was depriving my whole being. Everything was slacking because I was compromising in my walk with God.

God doesn't want us to be half in and half out. I was confronted with my custom faith that was rotting the arteries of my soul.

A few weeks before school started I was hanging with some friends I hadn't seen in a very long time. That night we talked about a lot of deep stuff but the one thing that stood out to me was the question, "What have you been reading in the bible lately?" Ummmmm,.... I can answer this, I am a teen pastor.... all that could come to mind were the lessons I was giving my teens. I wasn't investing any personal time to hearing from God and reading His word...WoW... That night hit me hard and I am so thankful for those two people in my life and how God has been using them because that really helped to turn me back in the right direction.

What do You think of God's word? Seriously, What do you think of God's word? I struggled to read Gods word because it seemed more like a chore than anything else. I HAVE to read it because I am a Christian. But, God has been changing that in me. I can't get enough of it. It really is like bread. I don't always know what it is saying and if that is the case, I read that chapter again, and again, and again. Sometimes weeks of reading the same thing just to grasp what God is telling me through it, to find what the writer really meant when He told the people that.... But His word is amazing. Pray rocks and is soooo important. I have been stokin' off of what God has been doing and prayer definitely is something that helps align me to His will. In relationships communication is vital. No communication, poor relationship. It is hard to really grow without communication. It builds trust (Faith), knowledge, patience (effective Listening takes some practice and time), and even love among other things. Prayer is so vital to our walk with Jesus.

I don't say these things to boast about me. I say these to share what God is doing. He is changing my heart still, showing me how much I desperately need Him. I wish I could say I could care less about what people say but there are still parts of me that struggle with acceptance and a desire to be liked, BUT, I hold tight to the promises of God so that I can still stand in those hard times. It's not by my strength I have made it this far, but it is completely the grace God has shown me that carries me.


Welll...... my rambling seems to have stopped for now. But Check out Galations 5, this is a chapter I am wrestling with now. I have to re-read it over and over because I forget most of what it says after I read it. haha I remember A little bit more each time though. Join in this wrestling match with me

Aloha

MMmmm...Dog Tastes Good...

What an experience the Marshal Islands was. People ask how it was and all I can say is that it was an experience, a very good experience. There were moments where I loved it, loving the people and then there were moments where I was really not enjoying it; the island felt like it was getting smaller and it seemed like there was nothing to do. This was a growing summer.
During the summer I spent two and half months on the island of Ebeye located in the largest atoll in the Marshal Islands. The main island, Kuajilein, is a US army military base and they do a lot of missile testing along with providing jobs for the people on the island. A majority of the people on Ebeye move there from other islands so they can work on Kuaj. Usually when people think of the South Pacific or Micronesia they think of lf lush tropical islands, that’s what I thought. But, Ebeye doesn’t quite fill that idea. There weren’t many trees on the island; any trees were primarily located behind the walls of people’s houses. The houses were constructed out of plywood, or any other objects they could get a hold of to make a barrier, had tin roofs, and holes in the walls covered by plywood to make windows. One person’s wall was also shared by their neighbors. Water and electricity were pretty limited and very expensive. Sometimes the island wouldn’t get its shipment of diesel which was used for the few vehicles and generators for electricity. So, we went without electricity occasionally.
We took our showers from a bucket and didn’t have running water until the last month for the sink because of a broken water pump. There was a pump that would get the water from the catchments container, about 300 gallons I think they said, and it would come out of a spout. I had to get my drinking water from a special facility because the island water would have caused some major digestive problems, which I had the amazing opportunity to experience =). We washed our clothes by hand and hung them on a line to dry.
There was quite a difference in rolls between men and women which was a bit difficult for me to get used to. The women would do most of the work; cleaning the house, cooking, washing clothes, shopping, and serving the men. The women were such servants and would roll up their sleeves and tackle any problem that came up. The men would have more of the working the job responsibilities. But, honestly I saw the men sitting down and talking, working on the vehicles/bikes, and fixing the house more then anything while the women were always cooking, serving the men food and moving.
In the Marshal Islands people don’t have much money. Ebeye is one of the poorest islands in the Marshals and you could definitely see it. Kids would run around with no slippers over rocks and glass while small babies would be walking around with no clothes. There was a lot of neglect that was seen with the kids and that was the hardest thing for me to face. During the summer my main ministry was with the youth and our weekly studies were some of the only structure these kids would get through out the week. There were kids everywhere running around from sunrise to sunset with no supervision. If a kid acted up it was very common for the nearest person to smack them and yell at them even though they weren’t the parents. Many of the kids, I didn’t find out who their parents were until the end of the summer not because the parents were gone but because everyone would smack, discipline, and tease them.
Twice a week I was involved with teaching the kids bible lessons, play games and sing song. Every Tuesday we did this “hope share” at the church and every Thursday it was at Dump Town. Yes, there was a part of town called Dump Town because the housing was adjacent to the dump. Twice a week someone would burn the trash to make more room and all the smoke would fill the city. Those days, all day, the only thing you smelled was burning trash. Kids would play in the dump finding toys in the rubbish and there were groups of men who would play baseball on the corner of it too. By this you can kind of see the condition of the island.
The island itself was not that big. At a comfortable cruising speed I could ride a bike around the island in less than 8 minutes. To walk from the ocean side to the lagoon side took maybe a one minute walk. You could stand in the middle of the road and see the lagoon to one side and the ocean to the other. One of the more interesting things I noticed about the people on the island was how much of an influence the American culture of consumerism and materialism had affected them. The Marshallese are very much people who love to serve and in doing so would put them at disadvantage but everyone helped to support the next person.
But, maybe it’s because of the TV (they had military TV which was all the popular shows in the US in their own lineup), or movies, or magazines the teens and young adults were very much into the latest gadgets and clothes. Not all of the teens were like this but many were. In the Marshal Islands it’s very common for the girls at a young age, on average 16, to get pregnant and have kids. The income would usually come from family, some outside source or the boys would get jobs. There were many cases though where these teens with families would get so caught up in buying the latest stuff like ipods, really nice clothes, or phones that it would leave there family with no food for a week because they couldn’t afford it.
So, here I am on the island noticing this and I am criticizing the people for doing this but then I realize that I have been caught in the same cycle as well. For me, this was a very humbling summer. My pride was something I really struggled with and it wasn’t through outward expression but the thoughts that would go through my mind about the people or the island. God really convicted me of that during the summer and sure worked in me in a lot of areas in my life. Though the culture was different, I couldn’t understand the language, and I sometimes felt all alone God taught me so much and was amazing. I learned and experienced so much more on what it means to serve and how it looks. I never have really had a hard time liking someone but there were people there that challenged that immensely and through it helped me to see more what God means when He says to love and what that looks like. I think I read the bible there more than I have ever read it in my life and it was crazy how it was applying to me, and speaking to me, and just so interesting. I still have a hard time reading some parts of it because they are so boring but there is so much rad stuff in it. This was a very growing summer for me, opening my eyes so much more to the reality of the life we live on this earth, the condition of our own American culture, and more of who I am and who God wants me to be. God really is a good God even though following Him can be so hard and frustrating sometimes (that’s more of my own personal struggle with stubbornness and pride). Matthew 6:25-34

Please feel free to ask me any questions about this summer or what not.

Times

Alooooha! We are getting near the end of this Rev Hi year and this year has so far been amazing. Today was going to be hangin' out at Makaha but then ended up going to a beach near Kea'au's. It was fun, I don't think I have ever had that much sand in my nose. Good times at the beach....finally. =)

This weekend we had the Hawaiian Youth Coucils. God was sure working with in that camp. The theme was Outcry and man were people crying out to God. It was amazing. I want so bad to put into words what this weekend was like but right now I am unable to do so. All I can say is that lives were changed, lives were renewed, lives were restored, and passions burned stronger. The speakers we had were awesome and really spoke with conviction and passion. I was a councelor at this camp and had a cool group of teens. We had devotions the two nights we were there and on the second night I gave my testimony, in the cabin devotions, which was hard to do, but God opened up some conversations that I pray helped out some of the young men in that cabin. The last night one of the boys asked me if I was a youth paster back home. I said I wasn't but I was thinking about it and he said "wow, those guys are lucky"....I was speachless. The next morning while we were cleaning up one of the boys started beat boxing, and then some started rapping and they were saying it was dedicated to me. I was stoked. I'm not saying this to try and float my boat or whatever, but I am saying this to say how amazing God is, that through all the rubbish that might be in our past that God can use it for His glory. God can take this "jar of Clay" and fill it with the most beautiful treasure. That God is an amazing God and can use anyone who is willing to be used. ........Whew... ok I'll get off the soap box. =)

This trip has been awesome. For me, this trip has been challenging every aspect of what I believe and every aspect of what I do and why I do it. Where is my heart when I give that lady a sandwhich, why do I believe that the word of God is true, why do I find it so hard to sit and listen to God? I am being stretched more then I ever thought possible and as hard as it is, God is giving me the strength to get through it and I have experienced so much peace and joy through all of this, it is just amazing. God is Good Until Later Aloha

Long Time No See:

Shoots time goes by crazy quick out here. It's been a while since I have posted on here. Things are happening as they happen and moments pass into other moments on this Rock.

I got to preach today at The Rock....Woah intense it was. Shoots, it was a bit like a testimony and a relation with lazarus and all. Rob taped it so I was extra nervous.

I am not really quit sure what else to type because It has been a very hecktic kind of emotional time for me lately. God is amazing how He is there the entire way even when I am a punk and what not.

Oh we did the great Aloha Run this past monday. FUUUUNNN At the 2nd mile nature began to knock inside my stomache....held it past the first stop...suffered until the second one...went...relief...ran and collapsed at the end. I didn't really collapse but it was fun for sure. A man in his fifties died while running it...had a heart attack when he finished the race. It was sad. Pray for his family.

I don't know what else to type so I will add more manana.

Aloha

Ramblings

Hitting up on the third week back in Revolution Hawaii. It's quite amazing what God is doing out here. Doors are opening up for Mark and I in our ministry. We are now voluteering at the Boys and Girls club, helping with a basketball team on Wednesday and Friday, tutoring students, starting-up side ministries with The Rock Church, and playing volleyball on Saturday with the Rock. I am stoked at how God has opened up doors and using Mark and I out here.

For me personally, I am really excited to be working with Kids. I have always had a heart for the youth and am so excited about getting the chance to reach out to them in our communities.

With all these great blessings going on around us I have been struggling a bit with a few things within myself. I thank God for how He has been challenging our team and working within all of us. But, there have been mornings where I just wake up and feel so discouraged; I don't want to work out, why is that person looking at me funny, man they act like they have it all together...they don't...take off that stupid mask, let me pray for them...bless them...bless what they do...bless their food...bless my cat...bless me...bless....blesss, "I love you Lord please fill me with Your love"...look at them still acting like they are all that and a bag of chips, stop being a gerk, "Use me today Father"...I could talk to that person...nah I need to read my book...I'll probably see them later we ARE on an island, I need to go to sleep I have done so much "ministry" today. WoAh!! Pretty crazy... I read that and I am thrown back a bit, but these are some of the things going through my mind. It kind of disgusts me to see it AFTERWARDS but during all that judging and hypocracy I feel so justified.

Right from the start of returning back here God started weeding me out. I blogged a little about how difficult it was to come back leaving my family and people so close and dear to me as I am here for another 8 months...but I know God is not done with me, He won't be done with me until the day I die. It is very convicting, though, as God has revealed these things to me and very humbling because as much as I want to have it all together...I don't. As much as I want to be independent and do it on my own, I can't. As much as I want to be proud at what I have done, I'm not. I don't consider myself a victim of low self-esteem but a victim of sin and a victim of my selfishness within that sin. Through all of this, through my rages of independence, giving "wholeheartedly" but only partially to God, I continue to see that no matter how much I mature, no matter how much I change, no matter how much I try I am in desperate need of God. I am in desperate need of His love, His forgiveness, His guidance. I need Him. I am capable of doing all these things on my own but I have found that the fruit (if there is any) is worthless, rotten, and spoiled without God.

I think I put this in an earlier blog, but I read this quote about humility and I want to put it in again, "Being humble is not thinking less of yourself but it is thinking of yourself less." -(I believe..) Max Lucado (correct me if I'm wrong). When I first heard that I liked it and interpreted it as putting others before myself. I still think that is true but I also think it connects to a much deeper level than that. When you're thinking of yourself less, who are you thinking about? Others? family? spouses? In a conversation, what is a popluar topic that people enjoy? In the past one of my favorite things to talk about was ME. What I'M doing, what's happening to ME, what God's doing in ME, Me...Me.... Shoots. What about this blog....I am talking about me....well, I kind of use this as a means for me to be real with myself and to those of you reading this.

I pray that as you read this the credit doesn't go to me but to God. In this blog it may seem that I am bashing myself a bit but in defense to that I say that I am being real with the struggles going on in my life, in my walk with God, and in my heart. I am tired of wearing these masks that I have worked, lied, and cheated so hard to put up. I desire to live a life that is truthful with myself and the people around me. Truthful with my family and those I love so much. I am tired of working so hard to "act" like a Christian. I am never going to live up to the standards that are put up to that with out lieing a bit or so on. All I can be is myself, garbage and all, and lay it at the feet of Jesus and give everything I have to Him.

Where do we stand as a Christian church? What does it mean to be a Christian? Why am I so disgusted by so many Christians? Why do I so easily point my fingers at others when I am just as guilty? Where is that Justice, Where is that Love, Where is that Forgiveness that Jesus tells us about? What has His example shown us? What are we doing to live that? What can we do? Can we really do anything?

The more and more God is transforming me the more and more I realize how much I need Him in my life. I was talking to someone very close to me and they told me something that really inspired me. They were talking about how God has been working in their life and have found that they are praying quit a bit more than they used to. But, even when they aren't saying prayers they are still in close communion with God in their mind and in their heart. I think this is an example of what God ment when He said to pray with out ceasing. Keeping ones whole self in constant communication with God. I want that, I desire that...to always have God on my mind....to really constantly be in that act of prayer even when words aren't being used... In Romans 8 it says, "26In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express. 27And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God's will." God is Good

Thank you all for reading this Blog and please feel free to leave comments, prayer requests, questions, or concerns. Thanks to those of you who have left comments, I really appreciate what you have said. Until Later

Brock