Ode to Dave

I recently had an unblievable chat w/ my boy davey franz who is currently is Bangladesh. I got to hear his voice for a solid 30 mintues. It was fantastic. As i was looking through some pics on my computer, i couldn't help but really miss him. I hope that you enjoy all of these, b/c this is something that i couldn't resist posting. Some things don't always work out as you have planned but they are always a blast. enjoy the hitch hiking to san fran pics. so full of HOPE.











These pictures were taking at all different times during our trip and all of the them were enjoyable. God Bless Friendships!

Simply

It has been far too long on this deal. i am going to try to make it more frequent from now on. i guess being on the computer just makes me feel like i am working still or something. I just wanted to share w/ you something that makes me feel like i am living the LIFE. here it is



It is just a great juice. My ol' roommate nate turned me on to this stuff but it is usually too dang expensive to buy, however, at Target i found it at an affordable price. I would suggest you go out and give it a shot. i wasn't feeling to good, just having a little sickness, and just wanted to chug some OJ, so this is what i went w/. i drank a large bottle in a day and never looked back. Love

Change and Chocolate

Today i was thinking about how funny/crazy change has been in our lives. We are one person in one season of life and then someone who has changed a bit (maybe for the good maybe not so good). An example of this is when i was in junior college and looking forward to a life of comfort and "success." I think that a lot of factors had played into this season of my life, relationships that i had around me, some male some female. Through changes in my life i realized that God had much more designed for me than that vision that was planted into my heart and mind. As i said, many influences were around mainly being one of the culture that i was plugged into and the lifestyle that i was grown up around. A lifestyle of passion and following God began to stir about in my heart and a search for what i would enjoy spending a majority of my "work" life doing became a desire of mine.
God ultimately brought me down the path of using a bachelor's degree that had been so fortunately bestowed upon me. Through choices that i had made which i knew would ultimately be good (ie the Pink House) he directed my path. All of this to really say and comment on my opening sentence, what i had ultimately wanted to become now becomes hard to not judge against those exact things. What i wanted originally is no what i don't want for anyone yet what happens and belongs to many that i know. Its just a crazy thing that i have recently noticed and am choosing to think about in a more positive way. I hope that this doesn't come of boastful in any way b/c i am not intending it to be, just that i feel that i am content in what i have found to be comfortable for me. God has a way of changin us through seasons of our lives to i think ultimately please him and for him to use us in the most glorifying way for him. Life gets a heck of a lot more exciting when we think about the future in this lense and one that realizes that He is never done w/ our character and w/ our goals/dreams/expectations that are within us. I hope that this is making some sort of sense. What i am doing and living right now may not be where i ultimately land in 15 years but if i have realized a few things in my immature life it is that it will be one great ride.

On a side note b/c i know that everyone likes a great picture, here is one of Kimberly and me at a recent wedding we attended in bakersfield. They had a few chocolate fountains and some fine treats to put them in and she did something very unexpected (at least that is what i thought) with a table of our friends around. Man she is
lovely. This is one of the last days that the stache was at its full length, i recently shaved it down to absolutely nothing, with a razor and everything. i havent felt that in over a year and a half...

life is toooo good

Things are a cooking here in Fresno. I want to just post a little bit about my life currently. This week is exciting for the Thrift Store b/c i recently got the store on Fresno City College's Work Study Program, which means that kids at the college who have financial aid to work can come to the store and work 15 hrs a week and the state will pay them. I posted the job and within 2 days i got a total of 18 applications! God is good, free labor and a chance to free Garth and myself up to get things rolling w/ the community! I am a little anxious about it all b/c now we have to interview people and find jobs for them to do. It is a great step and i am excited to see the new life that we can bring into the store. We have a lot of great community outreach ideas, such as creating our own currency for the local kids programs to promote good behavior/good academics and in the process get our name out there a bit more. Trying to serve the community in new ways is our mindset and i think this is a great step for us.

I also had a spontaneous opportunity to go to Shaver Lake w/ Andrew and Denise for Saturday night. He invited Kim and i up to hang out and enjoy Denises grandmas house that is unbelievable. we played an intense game of monopoly (i missed you dave) and watched too many seinfelds. Life is good. hope that you are all well. love bryan

Well...

So, today is my first day subbing again. it has been quite awhile but it seems like i never really stopped. this is such a great job, i am at hoover high today and the kids have been great. although the most chatty class is coming up next. Life seems really busy lately, after my girl moved up here it seems like i have things going on every single night. although they are not all long things and they are fun things they are still things that i have to be a part of. I enjoy being busy and having things going on that i want to be a part of, but sometimes it is also nice to not have any plans and just come home and see what happens. I am super blessed to be a part of all that i am be it the Thrift Store, dodgeball, Guatemala, The Well Southeast or other various events. I am still learning to balance different things in life and learning how to say no to some. (although thats the tougher lesson) because i want to be a part of those things but need some time to just sit down and read books that i want and watch films every so often. i think its a responsiblity thing but also that life is just a bit busier right now. It is absolutely terrific to have Kim live 4 streets away from me and makes for less long phone calls and a chance to get to have more one on one time w/ her. Thanks for all of your love.

Truth

How can we seek truth in the simple and compilcated? (if you read this leave me your thoughts)

Bryan

Portland...mmmmmm

Well we are a few days down in our portland adventure, seeing and being w/ my friend Chad as he gets married in a few days. We got in to town on saturday evening at about 11:00 pm and went camping sunday afternoon. We went to a place called Canon Beach (where come of the goonies was filmed) and stayed two nights there. To fill you in on a bit of what happened, we made torches out of my jeans shorts and ran around the coast, found an illegal spot to camp on the coast, made a shelter out of ginormous drift wood pieces, ate ravioli and mac and cheese boiled by laying it next to the camp fire, and many many more things. i will upload photos soon of the adventure. the wedding is thursday and there will be a lot of hangin out until then, i hope to hit some sweet thrift stores and discover some pants that are in need of some loving. this city is incredible. the end.

ENJOY THE PICS

just some things in my brain...

well all my friends, i sit on my lawn at 9:43 typing this message under a sweet moon w/ a cool breeze. I got back from a killer weekend at Morro Bay where we had a weekend get away for my Boy Davey, we played a ton of monopoly (which is one of my favorite games to play) and had a few beers while we walked down to the water many a time and watched entirely way toooo much T.V. My girlfriend just left fresno and is headed back to bakersfield. it was fantastic to see her for the afternoon/evening b/c it will be a bit until we get to hang out again. i leave for Portland on saturday as i will be particpating in and enjoying my best friend Chad's wedding. we (friends and family) have been looking forward to this for about eight or so months and it will be the gathering of the year. It is sad when we can only count on getting friends together for weddings even though we are all super close w/ each other. life has a way of taking people to different locations and different time periods. We are going camping on the west coast of Oregon for his bachelor party and will have the time of our lives there i am sure. friends from different walks of his life coming together to form one heck of a week.
Life is great in all aspects of the word. Things with the job are going very swell as the Well Community church keeps expanding and job descriptions keep shifting. The apt is great but i feel the lack of involvement that i have gotten to have yet. It seems like i am going to have to be a heck of a lot more intentional to develop the relationships that i want w/ the neighborhood. it is not going to come easy as i am a white man in a hispanic culture. Ivan and i have had a blast together going through a book together and just sharing more about our lives. here is a few pictures of the area that we live in, the one pic w/ the sun glare is what has been dubbed the "martin park" b/c we live behind the family wtih the last name of the martins. The picture w/ the stairs is where ivan and my studio is located. behind the park and behind the house. it is really a beautiful place to dwell...





I am not really sure what else to include in this blog, i really need to start riding my bike more, awwww, which brings me to something else. last ngiht while playing dodgeball, i was headed for a ball near the center line and locked my ankle in place and moved my body and heard/felt 4 or so loud cracks. i immediately went down b/c of the pain and the inability to move and had to be escorted off of the court and to a hospital near by. i was lucky enough to have my brother there so he took care of me and was super patient w/ my 4 or so hour process of getting x rays and all of that jazz. it turns out that there were no broken bones but they are not sure of the 'soft tissue' around it. so i have crutches and am taking care of it so that i will be good to go this weekend up in portland.
other than all of this i feel like God has been ohh so good to me. he keeps leading in me in paths that i really feel fit me and has put those around me who have much to teach. i love all of you and let me know what else i should write on. love and peace

B

My Plants (organic ;)

Here are some pictures from my cherry tomatoe plants. I got them quite awhile ago and didnt' know if they would make it b/c of the werid weather which was real warm and then cooler and then warm again. I have them in pots b/c of my moving in the last month. I would like to pot them but who knows what will happen. Anyways, i am really excited that they are going to be eaten very soon. i have only had one so far but....soon. click on those pics and see how lucious they are!

New Post!

Hello all of those out in bloggerville. It is a friday evening and i am sitting on my new porch and sweating a bit outside, but enjoying it anyways. Beautiful monarch's flying around and a slight breeze. I am looking down upon my lovely cherry tomatoes that i have had for a while, and they are coming right along. I acutally was messing around w/ my one red tomatoe and i accidently pulled it off of the vine. So....i ate it! and it was awesome. NOt amazing but not bad either, i enjoyed it and look forward to the rest of its fruit. Well anyways, that is all a side note. Life has been great for me recently. Work has been busy but great to have my brother working in the same office. We are having a great time. God is Good.

So ivan and i moved into a little studio in the lowell neighborhood, which is just a half mile or less from the Pink House (which made for an easy move). Although our space is small, i think that it is all we need. I have had fun w/ some kids around the corner and this place feels much different than the PH. Although it was sad to leave my home of the last 10 months, i think that it was time and was needed. I learned a ton about myself and had some great times wrapping up my emotions from the impace of the PH and i am super happy to have had the experience of that community. God is Good. It has been great to see the Lord's hand on our new adventure and even though we arn't sure how long we will be here, we are sure that we have some sort of season to experience here. I will post some pics of the place sometime, next time i whip out the camera.

I have been reading Velvet Elvis recently and probably have about a quarter left to read. It has been a great read so far. People say that he is crazy, some people say that he is wrong, some right, a bit of everything. I just enjoy reading new perspectives and some great insight to passages. One thing that i read today really has stuck in my head. Let me tell you about it.



He is discussing the Jewish tradition of following a rabbi and how powerful it was that he asked the working class people and the youngsters to be his disciples. Since they are fisherman, it means that they didn't make it to study the rabbi and his yoke, thus were sent to learn the family trade. So continually throughout Jesus' ministry, he is continually dissappointed in their lack of faith in themselves. For example, when Peter sees his rabbi walking on water so what does he chose to do? walk on water of course. When he starts to sink he yells for Jesus to save him. Jesus says "you of little faith, why did u doubt?" the point that Bell makes is What does Peter lose faith in? not jesus but himself, he loses the faith that he can do what his rabbi is doing. Rob Bell continues on with the idea that "God has an incredibly high view of people. God believes that people are capable of amazing things" (pg 134). It is a powerful message that God knows that we love him and wants us to trust him with our lives, but we chose not to believe and live it out. As Bell ends the chapter

"The rabbi thinks we can be like him."

What do you think about this? it keeps me encouraged, b/c i tend to not count him in on everything.

So what else is new? I am going to bako on sunday to see kimberly and hang out w/ the family for a few days. that will be FUN, and what is my big news for the next week!?!? TPH 2008. what is that you might ask? Tom freaking Petty at the Hollywood Bowl on wednesday! It has been a long time awaiting. I think that we bought our tickets on the superbowl sunday. My life is going to be that more complete i think. It should be a great time w/ Jeremy, Dave, Elliott, and Everett. Anyways, we are super excited. So that is all for now. Love and Peace for now!