sjamesho.v3

Halloween is so~ pagan. that’s the short of it, and i don’t have the time to get into the whole thing right now, but shouldn’t there be some alternate celebration that could be experienced instead that is more uplifting and wholesome? my friend Tammie Lindsey had given me the idea about two years ago referencing the Jewish celebration of Purim. and after studying into it over the last month or so, i really saw that there could be something to that idea. so last Sunday i had a un-Halloween Party this year at my house.

(photo taken by Andrea using Aiko’s camera)

me, Aiko, Thea, and Moises doing last minute dinner preparations. i think was cutting some Italian parsley for my eggplant and lentil salad and Aiko was finishing her salad while Thea was helping Moises cut the persimmons.

there was a lot of food or i should say enough food for everybody because in the end there was just some leftovers as opposed to a lot. there was bread, bruchetta, fruit, persimmons, egg rolls, eggplant and lentil salad, chili garlic roasted brocolli, salad, and baklava. here are some close-up pictures of the food.

fruit salad

bruchetta

(photo taken by Aiko)

after dinner we sang some songs. i don’t know why Andrea and Heidi are giving amused smiles at me.

(photo taken by Aiko)

i had forgotten how funny looking i get when i play guitar. maybe that’s it. anyways, after singing we went into studying the Jewish celebration of Purim by going directly to where it started… in the Book of Esther. for me it was quite an interesting study over the past month and as always there is always much more to learn and much more deepness to go.

(photo taken by Aiko)

for those of you who don’t know, Purim is celebrated in the 14th and 15th month of Adar which is around early spring. the upcoming Purim is March 4-5, 2007. so why have a party around Halloween? well, not only is the overall theme of Purim the “hiddeness of God revealed” but two principle social commandments of Purim are: 1) sending food gifts to friends, and 2) giving charity to the poor. Thanksgiving is just around the corner as well as the upcoming food drive that the youth and young adults will be participating in. so in the spirit of Purim and the timing of giving to charity i figured why not? this year’s Bible study was an overview, however i think it would be cool to continue this tradition next year where we can break the story down in its elements.

i have more photos and will post them in a gallery when time permits.

i was going to do a super post since i had quite the weekend. but after i got home from work, i was unusually fatigued. i don’t know why since the night before i had a good 8-9 hour sleep. at first i was thinking that the time-change had something to do with it but since it’s only an hour difference i shouldn’t have been sleepy at 5:00p. where my health is concerned i didn’t want to take any chances by going to Bible study earlier this evening so i took a nap till about 8:30p. i feel much better now and will start off this post with last Saturday.

it has been a very, very, very long time since i’ve done special music. i was happy to help even though i was approached by Heidi and Nikki (Nikki is the one on the left) the evening before (Friday). i just strummed while Heidi plucked. it was different and nice not having to sing for special music although some church members thought that we should be a trio. i don’t know… we’ll see where the Lord leads.

i think it has been about the second or third year in a row that my family will be missing out on International Sabbath which is going to be this coming Saturday. however, i took the opportunity this Sabbath to wear my new Chinese-styled jacket which even though it was thin it was warm. i will just have to find out how true this is as the temperatures begin to decline in the coming weeks.

later in the evening, my family went to Banana Leaf for dinner. i had forgotten what the vegetarian spring rolls were like. so i had to order them and of course take pictures. now i won’t forget. hehe.

vegetarian curry laksa

cendol

when i drove up to the park entrance of Coyote Point last Sabbath morning, i expected what some might come to expect when having worship in the outdoors–a stronger connection with my Creator, a refreshing experience of the Spirit, a re-dedication to the God i serve. of course, this is all well and good and i experienced what i expected to experience. however, i would be a fool to completely confine my experience to just that. for another thing that i left open to learn was the thing and/or things that God wanted me to learn today that i did not expect to learn. that’s one of the reasons why i love God–He’s surprising that way. and today was no different because there was one other thing that i expected in the outdoors… well i guess in my Christian experience as a whole but especially on an outdoors Sabbath… and that is that God would teach me things and show me things about Himself, about life, about eternity that are surprising and unexpected. and that is a gift–surprising and unexpected.

before i continue, i have to go back to last night at the Mountain View Japanese Seventh-day Adventist Church where this two-day experience began. using Taj Pacleb, “Righteousness by Faith” was the message and theme that God wanted us to more fully understand during the Sabbath hours. for the last week or so, the Holy Spirit has been speaking to me about purging the things that aren’t necessary. i suppose this is the residual effect of the previous month’s seminar and last night it made me think about how much garbage i still have around that i have procrastinated in getting rid off. it was on the list “to do” but never done. well when i got home that night it was resolved, like the prodigal son i came to myself and with quick prayer for strength allowed God to free me from the things that seemed so important but in reality made Him less important. i thank God for helping me follow through with the words that claim that He’s the most important.

so this Sabbath morning, i came to nature. though i know that sin has marked itself all over God’s creation, i know that God is here and can speak to me in a place that still tells of His wonder (Ps 104) and that doesn’t have the distractions that i may find elsewhere. Taj said many things, but God impressed me with the imagery of Jesus crushing… yes CRUSHING… the head of Satan at Calvary (Gen 3:15, Matt 27:33, 51). and if i truly want that victory over Satan, then i will have to truly allow Christ to live in me fully. i know that this process is not something that can happen in an instant, but the decisions that i make daily… that i make at each moment… are opportunities for me to choose Christ, to choose to tap into His infinite power, to allow Him to overcome through me.

i want to be one of those people in Revelation 2 & 3 who overcomes. and the overcoming thought is to overcome without His power, but that’s not how it’s supposed to be. overcoming is easy because it’s Christ in us who gives us the power. truly wanting to overcome… truly desiring to overcome… truly deciding to let Him overcome for us is the struggle (Rom 7:14-25). because in the process of renewing the mind (Rom 12:2) to that of the mind of Christ, we’re letting go of all the ideas and patterns of thought that aren’t Christ-like. but you know what? as long as your heart is humble and that you yearn to be taught of God… as long as you want to stay at the feet of Jesus and want to honor Him with your life… He will cultivate the faith needed to make that decision easier and easier. His delight is that we delight in obeying Him because we love Him… in fact to the point where we love Him so much that obeying Him is an impulse. i want to take this one step further if possible. “Thy word have i hid in mine heart, that i may not sin against Thee” (Ps 119:11). in knowing the Word we know the things that we do that show our obedience (or disobedience) to Him. but in a relationship that’s a rather awkward setup. in the beginning i suppose that how it is, but as our relationship with Jesus grows more and more, prayerfully His character is more and more becoming infused with ours and displacing the parts that aren’t like Him. i want to get to the point when just “being” is naturally obeying Him. to do that, i will have to actively starve the sinful man and feed the spiritual man.

after worship we had a delicious lunch and fellowship. i believe spiritual food isn’t only obtained at a sermon or homily but even during eating physical food with others. look at the many opportunities Jesus took to share himself when food and festivities were present. the wedding at Cana, feeding the 5000, Zacchaeus, and the shore of Galilee are just some of the recorded instances. i’m sure that there’s a lot more. eating is an opportunity to connect with each other, to edify each other, to learn about each other.

when our stomachs were full, some of us went around the park to pass out books and to witness to the other people at the park. a few of us stayed behind for Bible study and personal sharing. i decided to start this blog and then go around the park to take pictures of the beautiful details, colors, and textures in God’s nature.

we all gathered back and relaxed a bit before we had vespers. although some people had to leave earlier, we were happy that others joined us to close out the Sabbath. when the worship was over, we had to quickly pack up our stuff and relocate to the Mountain View Japanese Seventh-day Adventist Church before the park closed. it was there where we had dinner from the food left over from lunch. in fact, there was such an overabundance of food i would safely assume that we could at least go one more meal but instead we distributed the rest amongst ourselves the items which couldn’t be stored long-term.

the rest of the evening was spent hanging out, building friendships old and new for this is what the body of Christ is all about. for in a society that is headed more and more to isolationism and with the growing spirit of dispute and disharmony, Christ’s body indeed shines bright. last weekend, i have been refreshed in the community of God’s people that works together, eats together, loves together, and someday soon will live together forever. amen!

oh goody, last friday i got to go into San Francisco. and i say that without sarcasm… well maybe a little hint of sarcasm. anyone living in the Bay Area knows that there really is no real good reason to go into the City unless you have to. if you have reasons like you work there, live there, or being the tourist then yes, by all means go into the City. but if you don’t have to, why would anybody want to experience the traffic going, or coming, or both going and coming. bleh. well i wasn’t going there to work and i don’t live there, nor am i a tourist. however, TO be a tourist in another country… more specificly a mission trip to India… i had to go to the Consulate General of India or the Indian Consulate. i don’t know which is the proper term maybe they’re interchangeable. their website says the former, but when i went there i saw a sign inside that said the later.

anyways, here i am in front of the Consulate just right after i submitted my and my dad’s visa applications as well as forking over $120 in application fees. my facial expression isn’t because of the amount of less money i have. rather it is because my self-framing photo skills were off that day so instead of taking two or three pictures to get the shot, it was more like six or seven. maybe the unusually warm temperature in SF and me wearing black had something to do with it. anyways since it was about 11:00a and the visas would be ready around 4:00p, i had A LOT of time to kill so off i went in search of a public library where i know i would find an free internet connection.

it was a good thing i had my trusty GPS with me so i looked up the closest library and took off. as joyful as one would find the parking experience in SF, i finally secured a place that wasn’t claimed by a parking meter since i made the mistake of not bringing coins and i’m cheap. as i walked up to the library i was disappointed to find that it was closed for renovation but would open soon… but not that day. loading my computer back into my trunk, i got back into my car and went to the second closest library. great! it wasn’t closed. but of course there was no parking to be found AND no one was leaving any time soon. they say three times is a charm so off i went to the third public library and it was closed! BUT this one had a small parking lot and no one was there yet. AWESOME! and there were trees surrounding the parking lot… shade! DOUBLE AWESOME! so i parked, screened down my windows, opened up my moon roof, and got out my laptop which i quickly found and connected to the library’s wireless network. when they opened an hour later, i went in to plug in so that i could recoup my battery.

about 2:30p i decided to find some cheap food by means of Taco Bell. however when i got there, i was parking-challenged once again. so i decided to skip lunch and just go back to the Consulate since and wait out the next hour or so. when i got back to where the Consulate was i was fortunate enough to find parking around the same place as i had earlier that day. i pulled out my laptop once again and to my delight, i found some neighborhood wifi networks that were unsecured. TRIPLE AWESOME! for kicks i decided to go the Consulate at 3:30p instead of 4:00p just to nose around. i should have gone at 3:00p since there was already a line and they had already started handing back the passports. great… waiting in line outside wearing black in this unusually warm-nearing-hot day. by the time i got our passports it was 4:00p and this was my opportunity to start heading out of the City.

all the awesomeness that i had quickly left has it took me about 40mins just to get out of SF itself and another hour and twenty minutes to get to the Mountain View Japanese Seventh-day Adventist Church for vespers. i hadn’t eaten all day… that’s okay… God made our bodies to be resilient in unusual times. the vespers was the beginning of the weekend theme “Righteousness by Faith” sponsored by the the Area 2 Youth and Young Adult Federation. i will post about that when time permits. but sufficed to say, with all my comings and goings, i’m now one step closer to India because my Father granted my visa application. God is AWESOME!!!

i had a pretty interesting weekend and since we’re already halfway through this week, i thought i’d better give you guys the rundown of the goings-on before this coming weekend because i’m sure that there will be more stuff happening and the stories will get all backed up and less fresh. and nobody likes being backed up or less fresh. although it’s a good idea for your computer files to be backed up but that’s an entirely different kind of business.

after a delicious lunch at the Chu’s house on Sabbath, Heidi and i went back to the church to meet up with some of the young adults to go door-to-door for a Community Health Survey. we split up into four different teams taking four different areas around the church. going door-to-door isn’t one of the ministries that gets me going. but out of doing something different, it was pleasant surprise and experience. we met back at the church to share stories of the afternoon with each other which was pretty cool. going door-to-door hasn’t climbed or declined on my list of things i’d rather do. but since i didn’t have anything better to do that afternoon, it was a nice change of pace. i guess that’s where the blessings lie whether i’m moved or not. it’s always easy to do the things that come naturally and in the ministries that you’re gifted in or that your personality is suited for. if you’re just doing those things all the time, you may eventually find yourself in a ministerial rut. so whether you feel like it or not, it’s always good to allow yourself the freedom to do something completely against your gifted/character type. you’ll find it not only refreshing but you’ll be refreshed in the ministries that God has gifted you in.

as soon as we were done sharing our stories and ending the door-to-door activity with prayer, we grabbed a quick bite to eat courtesy of the leftovers of the young adult potluck. once we were done eating we loaded up some of our cars with literature and headed to the HP Pavilion where Harvest 06 was being held. as the meeting/concert let out we were there passing out literature commentaries on stuff like “Victory at Calvary”, “Love Stronger Than Death”, “Remember”, etc. apparently the literature was given to us by Pacific Union College for this specific event. of course, we were more than happy to help distribute them.

apparently we were not the only ones there to help spread the message… well, i guess this group was there to spread “a” message but the way they went about it and the spirit in which they did wasn’t very Christ-like. supposedly they believe that everybody other than themselves aren’t truly Christians. some of them even told other people that their relationship with Christ was false. who are they to judge? oh, by the way, “Laurie” is referring to Greg Laurie who was the speaker for the event.

here is my friend Andrea who got into dialog with one of the protesters. we later found out that this guy is the founder of this group. after talking with some fellow Christians outside, we got a little bit more information and decided that the best thing to do was to pray for them so we got in a circle and did just that. when we opened our eyes, all of them were gone except maybe one. hmmm… interesting.

i don’t normally get up at 7:00a on Sundays. nor do i get up from spending the previous evening playing Xbox till 4:30a. (it’s been at least four months since i’ve touched my Xbox and i guess i got pretty carried away). well, i got up at 7:00a this last Sunday to meet up with the youth and young adult leaders to go over the activities the day before, constructive criticism, and future plans and schedule. at first we were supposed to meet at 8:30a at Hobee’s for breakfast because Andrea thought 8:00a was “too early” for a Sunday morning. but on Friday she learned that she could go help Heidi with canvassing in Modesto so she changed it to 7:30a. when i got there at 7:30a i learned that Hobee’s opens at 8:00a on the weekends and 6:30a during the week. of course we couldn’t let Andrea off the hook that easily and joked with her a little bit. i’m sure that we’ll bring it up from time to time later on but always in a fun way.

my Hobee’s Breakfast Quesadilla. i’ve had other selections at Hobee’s before but after Sarah ordered this it sounded so good that i ordered the same thing… and it was most tasty!

it also came with a Blueberry Coffeecake which i took half home with me because the quesadilla was very filling for me. i missed those teenage years that i could just eat and eat and not get full. i love eating and tasting all the wonderful flavors and textures but really dislike getting full because that just makes me stop eating.