Finding Momentum

The Regen­er­a­tion interns and I are wrap­ping up our year here at church. What have I learned? This was the year I stopped roman­ti­ciz­ing urban min­istry. I hon­estly came in with the idea that I was going to be really warm­hearted and be an amaz­ing res­cuer and friend of the poor who could really see […]

My nephew, he’s the one in Afghanistan. Some­times I wish I could take his place because if I go… (silence) it doesn’t mat­ter. Lis­ten, I ain’t gonna lie about it. I’m an alco­holic. I don’t drink because I’m sad. I drink because I lii­i­i­i­i­ike drink­ing. I don’t know if I can trust you any­more, man. […]

Chan­nel­ing Ice Cube: 94610 prayer walk with church com­mu­nity. Gary shared that doing these walks builds hope in us… helps us remem­ber there’s hope for Oak­land. Give us eyes and ears and a heart for the city and our neigh­bor­hood. And after­wards I bought a brioche knot + a pizza slice at Ariz­mendi and 2 peaches […]

The most dif­fi­cult (and yet I sus­pect one of the most reward­ing) part of this year’s intern­ship has been to sim­ply sit with some­body and lis­ten. Yes, it’s been mad­den­ingly dif­fi­cult with Betty, the lady pic­tured above. Ask any­body; I’m a busy, hyper-scheduled guy. But to lis­ten to some­one is to really allow your­self to be […]

you have come to us in royal fash­ion, your slip­pers tri­umphantly slap­ping against gravel, your ele­gant fin­gers drum­ming against our win­dow­panes. you keep up a good pace, sir. you glide along­side our car and smile your patented, ring­mas­ter smile. we watch you through one-way tinted glass and air-conditioned cab­ins. you are a curi­ous spec­i­men, a […]

Eric and Dr. Reuben, a photo by andrewhao on Flickr. Eric shakes hands with Dr. Reuben, the tribal chief of the Mamanwa vil­lage we vis­ited on the island of Min­d­i­nao. We donated some funds to help the con­struc­tion of a san­i­ta­tion system.

It star­tled me because I actu­ally felt it last night, the groan­ing of a city. Car­los’ voice expressed it best, a wail that shook the walls: Oh / how he loves us oh / how he loves us and I felt like cry­ing. Tonight it was there again as we ran with the street kids. […]

Yes­ter­day we walked the slum vil­lage on the out­skirts of town: Pasil. It was over­whelm­ing: the crowded alleys burst­ing at the seams with noise, garbage, teem­ing life. The men are giv­ing us resent­ful looks, send­ing us hos­tile mes­sages with their eyes. The women are call­ing out to us–one grabs Zach’s hand and walks with him […]

Here’s a few fun pictures:

I’m sit­ting in the ter­mi­nal at SFO and about to board and it’s finally hit­ting me–here we go. A few of you may have got­ten this, but here’s a quick recap of what I’m going to spend the next few weeks doing: I’m going to Cebu What: Mis­sions trip to the Philip­pines with Regen­er­a­tion, my church in Oak­land. When: April 20th […]