BASIC Action Ohana Group

Wow, starting a new job is stressful. I can’t believe what I have to learn; those things that the job entails, people’s names and personalities, projects that needs to be completed. But let me tell ya, starting a new job near Christmas, well, that’s just a bit insane. And Christmas, it just came sprinting into my life.

Christmas, tis the season to be, but it wasn’t for me. I wasn’t ready for it. I barely got gifts wrapped and passed out. To top it all, I got really sick Christmas Eve. I just spent it sleeping.

So, I almost missed Christmas. But thankfully, I woke feeling better. I had a chance to talk with some friends and eat with my Mom. God may or may not have had a hand in making me feel better today. I just want to thank Him for letting me know that it was never too late to enjoy Christmas.

So with the hours waning on this Christmas day, I wanted to wish everyone a Merry Christmas.

Here is another Christmas project by Ming:

The Saint Nick Project is an exercise in love. We are called to love our neighbors and in this particular exercise, we do so by making care packages and delivering them to the homeless. The care packages are assembled in the week prior to delivery, an on Christmas Eve, like St. Nick, we deliver them to our recipients late at night!

Although this is a “Christian” project, we welcome any and all. All we ask is that participants respect one another. If any problems arise, please let Ming or Matt know about it.
We believe we are doing what’s right, to bring hope and warmth to our recipients who often have little of both. However, in the end, we believe that our participants will be the ones who benefit the most. Our intent is to help our volunteers to develop the eyes and heart of Jesus…meaning we become more aware of those in need and we do something about it. This is not about placating our guilt, but rather, to help shape a lifestyle of helping others.

I was talking today with Mark Gallagher, the Kaimuki Christian School principal. Over the past many years, he had been organizing a Christmas Day caroling activity, visiting the Salvation Army facilities on 22nd Avenue near the Kaimuki Avenue intersection. He mentioned that it would be nice to revive this activity.

In the past, people would gather around 10 am on Christmas Day at church and then go over to 22nd Avenue. In preparation, people wrapped simple gifts for the toddlers whose moms are at the facilities. As I mentioned earlier, there are 2 groups of women there; 12 are in the beginning drug rehab program and must stay all the time there. There is a second group of 12 women with kids who have finished rehab and are in a transitional stage on the way to independent living. So, this group is free to go outside within rules. I will be contacting the Salvation Army chaplain to get a clear idea of what we can do. I’ll try to keep it simple…

I’m enclosing information on the number of children and moms that reside at the Salvation Army Kaimuki facilities.

There are 24 moms in the beginning rehab program, which means they must be there all the time.

There are 12 moms in the transitional program, which means they can go outside based on certain rules.

Some moms have more than 1 child.

If you can’t join us on Christmas Day for caroling at the Salvation Army facility, (we plan to meet at church around 10 am to sort the gifts), please feel free to bring a present to church ahead of time. We will have a box placed for that activity by the worship center soon.

Mahalo!!

AGE             BOY  	GIRL  	SUBTOTAL

Unborn 	        5 	4 	9
0 - 5 months 	8 	4 	12
6 - 12 months 	4 	4 	8
1 - 3 years 	5 	7 	12

Total children 	22 	19 	41

MOMS 	                	36

Hi…

It has been a while since this blog has been published. Since the last post, there has been some changes in my life, and I let the blog slip into oblivion. So, without further ado, I’d like to begin to revive this blog. I plan on changing the look of this blog as well as the content. I will comment further about my thoughts and desires for this blog, but suffice it to say at this moment that this blog will be more of a journal of the journey about the friendships being developed in this Ohana. Here, I want to put down the success and failures of trying to live the Kingdom life that God has so wondrously given us, together.

So, for the handful of you faithful readers out there, thanks for coming along this journey and guiding me with your wisdom. I look forward to living the Kingdom life with you.

Google’s unofficial motto is “don’t be evil”. I’m not sure how they are doing living out their slogan, but I can tell you that I really like the products that they have produced. GMail is very cool, especially the way it handles spam. I’m also really liking their rss reader, Reader. I sorta used their calendar, but I just found something that just made my day, an easy way for their calendar to be incorporated into the BASIC Action Ohana web site.

Now this site can allow you to check where we are meeting, what chapter we are on, what activity we have planned, or any other event that we may be doing as a group. And we love it when others join in so if you just want something to do, why not come and join us. The more people to share with, the more fun it will be, or so I have been told.

Does anyone know of other neat applications, like this one, that others have used for their web site?

Well, the group is back with a new book to study, Jesus Creed.

I’m personally looking forward to having more lively discussions, deeper friendships, and more fun and/or service activities. Our desire this time around, to be transformed. With our hearts, hopefully, filled and strengthened with grace, we are moving forward towards transforming ourselves to be more Christ like. So if you are interested in being transformed, come join us.

Cal had me spend some time reflecting on the HIM conference, which is a great way to gather myself after the informational weekend overload. So, in the midst of this process, I decided to post some of those reflections here.

It is a hope and a future that our God gave us, a theme which the conference attempted to explore. For me, the conference was a tiring, exciting, inspirational, frustrating, and convicting time. I felt stirrings of great expectation when I first entered the convention center. I wanted to be wowed and found, instead, hope. I wanted to be excited and was given peace. I love living in God’s story for many reasons, not the very least is its unpredictable unfolding of my expectations. I came to learn, and learn I did. I didn’t gather any new insight nor did I receive any bombastic knowledge. Instead, He gave me a reminder that just overlays what He was teaching me for the past year. I was reminded of the hope that the immediate future held some of my desires; hope that I will be able to see His kingdom here on earth; hope that I will see my Compassion adopted child for two years, Iya, grow up to be like the compassion speaker, confident in who he is now and will be in his future because of our love, Jesus; hope that our season of reaping will be here sooner rather than later; hope that I am honoring Him as I gain patience, love, and understanding during my season of waiting and sowing. So, with this hope, I will push forward with intentionally loving my Ohana, (I can already hear the groans from them), giving more communication time to Iya, and push myself to look at my coworkers through different pairs of eyes.

These were some of my experiences from the conference. Here are some of my sights of the conference.

If you have never been to a conference, I truly encourage you to experience a segment of God’s community. It will be an inspiring weekend. For those that went, what were some of your experiences from the conference?

“Tonight, we bring you something different in this already extraordinary campaign year. We are calling it the Compassion Forum, an evening with the Democratic presidential candidates to focus on the issues of faith and compassion and how a president’s faith can affect us all.”

And thus begins an interesting evening where the democratic presidential candidates talk about faith. What amazes me is just how natural they both are when speaking about their faith, a departure from the last election where the democratic presidential nominee, Kerry, was reluctant to speak about his faith. This interest me since, as an Ohana, we have been trying to find ways that faith plays out in everyday life.

You can read the complete transcript at CNN. Let me know what you think in the comments.

We have begun to meet at the Kahala Starbucks to complete our study of “What’s So Amazing About Grace”. I thought a coffee house would be perfect for an insane 8:30 in the AM, yes that is early morning, meeting. I could just swing by, grab my grande, 2% (because I really cannot handle soy, yet), vanilla latte with 2 shots. Yes, that’s 2 shots, much to the dismay of my fellow Ohana family and those who worship at the 10:30 service.

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I’m not a real Starbucks aficionado as can be witness with my difficulty of choosing the size of my beverage, grande is large right? So it should come as no real shocker that I really don’t know what I should try at Starbucks. Can you give me some suggestions by telling me your favorite Starbuck’s libation of choice?

More photos…

360This last Sunday, I ran into Darren at the Easter service, happy belated Easter by the way, and couldn’t help but reminisce about our group’s beginnings. Wow, has it been 4 years already? Have we been together for that long? Some of my earliest recollections about the Ohana was a pictionary ice breaker that we did together, I swear that drawing that looked like Italy was suppose to be a fish, while eating delectable Costco sandwiches. Funny what you remember. What are some of your fond reminiscence about your small group experiences?