Wednesday was Interesting

It has been a long week! Today we went to Seabridge park and chillaxed with some people. Yesterday I dropped $425 on books for this semester at Talbot! Thursday was average but Wednesday was interesting.

I started off the day meeting with the guys from Simply Youth Ministry. Andy, Nadim, Riley and I went to lunch at their "secret" location. We had a fun time talking about the Simply Mission Trip that I MCed for them in conjunction with Group Workcamps Foundation. We also talked a lot about life (props for Andy who had his newest kid born on Friday) and pretty much goofed around. They are fun guys and we seemed to click. Andy invited me to stay and hang out at a youth pastors gathering and meet some people but I had already committed to joining my buddy Ethan Hedberg (Outreach Pastor @ Ambassador) in taking some much needed clothes and mattresses to a group of Bhutanese refugees situated in Covina, Ca.

I felt kinda like a goofball explaining to Andy and the crew that I believe God is calling me away from full-time Youth Ministry and more towards... well.. I'm not really sure. I would love to do some teaching/presenting/training and earn a little cash for school. Considering that, last week on the SYM Podcast, Matt and a few of other guys spent quite a bit of energy ripping on presenter/trainers who thought they had all the answers and wanted to make some money, I felt a little silly telling the Simply guys my plans. The Podcast was all in good fun and pretty entertaining to listen to but I am wondering if it wasn't in the back of the guys heads as we ate lunch and I talked about my hopes. I was kinda bummed to find out that Simply didn't have and curriculum trainers or presenters like Group (Simply's parent company). I represent Group as a Resources Adviser and get to drive around and present their VBS and other curriculum at different churches and bookstores. It's a fun gig but they come few and far between. Anywho... it would be fun to represent Simply but for now it is not possible.

Lunch was fun and the guys are great. I hope to hang out with them again sometime.

After lunch I drove over to Ikea with Ethan H. and looked at floor mattresses. As a church (really only a few people and Ethan) we are supporting two families that are refugees from Bhutan. They are housed in Covina, Ca which is about a 25min drive from Brea, Ca (the current location of Ambassador Church). So far they had been sleeping on the floor. Ethan, out of his own pocket, wanted to buy them some mattresses to make their meager existence a bit more comfortable. We found some at Ikea but they were extremely expensive. We were both praying that something would work out. Ethan would have only been able to afford two single mattresses for a family of five. On the way out we stopped by the clearance section where we found two mattresses (a queen and a full) for about the same price as the two singles. We recognized God at work and Ethan bought them.

We delivered the mattresses and spent some time with the families. It was a really cool experience. The families, who did not know each other before they moved into the apartment complex, share a fridge and just about anything else needed. They live in the ghetto where pot smoke drenched gang-bangers are the predominant fixture. Ethan and I were definitely out of place as everyone stopped to stare at the clean cut white guys carrying a load of stuff into the building. The language barrier was pretty immense but the Holy Spirit started sorting things out as we gained a bit of supernatural understanding along with one of the teens becoming comfortable enough with us to try out his English.

I talked to an 18 year old that was technically a Bhutanese refugee but had lived all of his life in a refugee camp in Nepal. His freedom was literally 2 weeks old. His attitude was great and all he wanted was a chance to check his e-mail and let his friends know he was ok. The other kids just wanted vegetables. The mom wanted a broom. We were given the only seats in the house as the mother served us Chia Tea from Nepal and the father attempted in some form of English/Nepalese to educate us on the plight of the Bhutanese in international political relations.

We are going back soon. God is doing something with here. I get to follow through with it while Ethan is off on maternity leave. Oh yeah, welcome to the world Elias Hedberg!!!!