I Am Six Again

My childhood has come back to me.

Tonight, my friend, Justin, and I were watching TV at my house. It was an average night, flipping through channels and looking for something to watch. But then something amazing happened, something glorious. We were flipping through channels when we stopped on something magical. It was like the heavens opened from the TV and Justin and I were filled with delight. We got this instant wide-eyed, wide mouthed grin on our faces.

We became closer friends because of this one incident.

My life was complete because of this show. It brought me back to the days when I was a child, waking up on saturday morning to sit down and watch this show in my favorite comforter. It was my most favorite show, with my most favorite comforter, watching it with my most favorite dog.

This show was Pee Wee Herman's Playhouse.

All those memories flooded back to me. Delight, humour, insanity, weirdness, hyper-activity, make-belief land, and uncontained joy.

I am happy, and Love Pee Wee... (except after that one infamous episode in the theatre.)

Here's to you Pee Wee, thanks for the great memories!

Canada, ho!

It's official... I'm moving back to The Homeland!

After 2 years and 10 months, God has been calling me back to the land of maple syrup, beavers, meese, geese, hockey, "eh's", mounties and poutine.

It will be sad to leave the land of Sun (for 6 months straight), 110F blistering weather, surf, yanks, raisins, fruits & nuts (mentally and figuratively), Republicans, the Governator, and botox. But I think I'm ready for the homeland.

I have been hired at a super-sweet church called Coast Hills Community Church in Cloverdale (west of Langley). It's a 3-year-old church plant with about 200-250 people, majority of them being new believers. It's a young church with young, creative and passionate people. The church has a HUGE passion for the lost and the church is very evangelistically focused.

I have also felt the calling to finish my schooling and pursue a masters degree (God willing!). Now that I'm growing up, (although, not height-wise) I need to be thinking of what's most beneficial for the longevity of my career.

So, I'm excited to be moving back on September 13th; my first day is the 15th. It will be just in time for the NHL to start and I will still be able to catch the CFL.

So, ya Canucks! Let's chillax, yo!

Step by Step, oh baby

I don’t know about you, but I LOVE the unknown. I love surprises! I love adventure. I love carpet. I love lamp… errr….sorry… But I love the mystery of not knowing about a destination until I’ve arrived… The journey is fun, the adventure is exhilarating because I don’t know what to expect.

Some people don’t like mystery. They like to know what is going to happen. For example, some people don’t like movies with surprise endings. They will usually ask someone beforehand about who dies, who lives, how it ends, etc. Others hate knowing anything about the plot before they watch it. They want it to be fresh, new and mysterious. If anybody talks about what happens before they have seen it themselves, they usually will plug their ears and sing so they don't get any hint as to what happens. That is what I am like. I don’t like repeats, I don’t like taping sporting games because if it’s not live, or if the outcome has already been established, it's no longer a mystery.

I wonder if this is why I love having a relationship with God. God will usually speak a promise into our lives but he never reveals how that will unfold. He will say something like, “I’m going to be doing something amazing through you,” or, “I will use you to do _____ (Insert what you wish).” But we never know what exactly that is until it has happened or we have arrived to that point.

About a year and a half ago God gave me this vision of me walking in complete darkness. In fact, it was like I was walking through this giant, black void. I could see a door in the distance, but I did not know how to get there. Kind of like that scene taken from the end of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade where he has to walk across that giant chasm called the ‘step of faith.’ It looks like there is no ground until he takes that proverbial 'step of faith' and ground forms beneath him. In this vision, stepping stones would appear out of the darkness right in front of me, but only one or two stones at a time. It was like I had a flashlight that could only look right in front of me. But as long as I kept in step with those stones, I could make it to the next one and eventually to the other side.

After that, I asked God what the meaning of this vision was. And he spoke to me and showed me the following.

The walk was my walk through life. God will be doing amaing things through me, which was the door on the other side and He was only revealing one step at a time to me. This was the next step of where I should go in life. If he showed me the whole path, I would try to take a shortcut, or veer off the path to go my own way, but that wasn’t God’s way. God showed me the destination, but not the path on how to get there, and that was intentional, because he knew the best journey on how to get there. It was for my own good. It’s for our own good. If God showed us our whole life and every step at one point, we would try to do it our own way.

This is where following the voice of God becomes so important. He knows exactly where we should go; He’s designed it that way. If we choose our own way, we may fall down, or the journey will be tougher. Every day we must ask God where he desires us to go, who to talk to and what decisions we should make. He wants to be involved in every aspect of our lives.

Psalm 37:23-24 says,
"If the LORD delights in a man's way, he makes his steps firm;
though he stumble, he will not fall, for the LORD upholds him with his hand."

Lately I have been riding God’s wave and it’s been awesome. He has been doing some amazing things and I am so humbled by it. I am blessed! I just wanted to encourage all of you to be searching and following the voice of God for your life. He will lead you places unimaginable. It’s an adventure and it’s exhilarating! I will be updating you with some new news in a few days… stay tuned, mah homies!

Torn...

Jesse is Not a Believer.

So, here's chapter 4 on this dog, Jesse... (my roommate's dog)

I think I'm officially done with my roommate's dog. This time he has gone too far, He has crossed the line. He has done what I thought was unimaginable.

Last night I came home to find a surprise... I walked into the living room to see stuffing from a pillow strewn throughout the living room with the remnants of a pillow case on the floor. I didn't think much of it because this specific pillow is his usual victim that we let him vent on. But then I found something else... something a lot more terrifying lying in the middle of the floor - my chewed-up bible. I stared in horror as I saw that it had a whole corner chewed off.

This bible and I had many memories, seeing how I've had it since I was 12. Fortunately, it's still readable and none of the pages were damaged... it just has a nasty 'scar' on the corner of it.

But I've finally said, 'enough is enough.' This dog is forever banished outside while I am home. I don't know why he's inside, really. But that has officially changed... Sorry, dog, indoors are for kids.

My only conclusion for why Jesse did this:

He is not a Christian.

There it is... it's final...

So strategical defense move #47 in operation anti-Jesse: pray for Jesse's salvation!

All I can say is that I'm torn.

Today's word: GRANOLA!!!

So, for some reason I keep using the word "Granola." It seems to be the word of the weekend for me.

Now Granola can mean two things:

Exhibit #1














Exhibit #2









Now when most people hear the word, they think of the former... but lately I have been meaning it as in the latter. I've never really used this word in this way before until I came down to California. It seems to be the common word for a 'hippie.'

This has been my new favorite word and it started from this morning. I started today eating a granola bar. It was a good breakfast, full of chewy granola and chocolate chips. Then, later on at Starbucks, I called my friend, Justin, a Granola-Hobo because he's been growing his beard out and his odor was a bit 'au natural;' much like a hippie.

Then, tonight I went to a concert tonight to watch the bands Devics and The Black Heart Procession in Visalia. The opening band (which I cannot remember their name) was definately 'granola.' It was like a modern version of Gypsy music... but on acid and pixy-stix. The weird part was... I enjoyed it.

One of their guys looked like Fidel Castro and they had a girl lead singer. They were really creative and had this one guy who would play an old bassdrum skin on it's own and an accordion player; quite experimental I must say. Their fans were quite expressive, wearing a flowery skirt over their jeans.

But again, the only thing going through my mind during the music was the word, 'granola!' It was screaming through my mind. Kind of like that scene in Austin Powers with the Mole. I think it's stuck in my memory for good.

So, The word for this weekend - Granola. Use it, if you dare!

Wedding Marathon is DONE!!!

So, 5 months later and 4 weddings down, I am finally done my marathon!
Whew!

Let me tell you, weddings are fun, but can get a bit tiresome. Whoever invented the Tuxedo should be shot. First of all, they aren't comfortable. Secondly, NO guy would have designed a 15-piece suit unless he was on something... or Italian... But the good part was, out of the 4 rentals, I only had to pay for 2 because of gracious grooms. Otherwise, my bill would have ran up around 4 bills.

But the best part was seeing how every wedding was different. How every ceremony had differences (did you know that in America they don't sign the certificate during the ceremony? ABSURD!!) and how every reception was different.

So here's to my fellow Grooms and groomsmen! For good times and good company, I salute you! Keep it real, homies!

Ch-Ch-Check it out!

If you guys were interested, I have a lot for information on my Myspace account. www.myspace.com/tyco82

My first Blog

So, Today I have decided to get an account at blogspot seeing how most of my Canadian friends have one and besides, I like the format.


The one thing that can get frustrating is getting used to a new format or webpage. I am an advid Myspace addict. With Myspace, I can breeze through the site like a hot knife through butter, or like Lance Armstrong cycling in a race of obese people, or even like a piece of shashimi slithering down my throat.


But when I get to a new website, it's like starting from square one. It drives me nuts! So much so, that I sometimes feel like ripping every hair out of my body.



It's funny how, with the rapidness of modern technology, we can become so impatient with something slightly slower than what we're used to. It drives me crazy when something takes longer than it should. Then again, it also drives me crazy the fact that slow things drive me crazy.

Take for example, dial-up... that is too slow for me. Or what about Sunday Drivers? Too slow! Or even when you order a meal at McDonald's and they ask you to pull ahead to the waiting parking spot? Oh man! How dare they ask me to wait when I expect them to be on time.

I think I noticed how bad it was when I was too lazy to click on links that my friend sent me in an email. Have we (or have I?) become SO lazy that even moving a mouse an inch to check out a link becomes too time consuming?

Some one help me, my patience is growing thin because I'm taking too long to type this.

So, here's to many blog's to come, whether they are bad or mediocre, it shall be a fun journey!