Thought I'd update you with a few pics from my quick two day trip from Sacramento to Kauai for Adam and Kalii's wedding. 

A shot from the air of Kauai's coastline.

My Dad, Mom, and self at breakfast.

A blow hole nearby.

The happy couple, Adam and Kalii.

The wedding party taking pictures.

The Estrella (bride's) family of 6 girls and 4 boys, with Adam and Manny!

Adam and me.

Good friends Manny and Kaala (sister of the bride) Baek and son Isaac.

The view oustide the room where Dad and Mom and I were staying.  The shore was rocky here, but beautiful nonetheless.

What a week it’s been in the Youth for Jesus program!  This is the first time I ever tried starting the program one day and beginning the evangelistic meetings the next day.  I have to admit that on Monday things were a little bit hectic in Sacramento!

God is really blessing though.  We’ve had some incredible answers to prayer.  I’ll try to remember just a few:

On Monday, we were waiting for the translation equipment to come that was needed for that very night (at the West Sacramento site we are offering simultaneous translation into Spanish).  I was in the fellowship hall of the church printing some things on my printer, but because it ran out of paper I had to go up to the front of the church to look for more paper in the church office.  I thought the office would be open all day, but I found it locked.  As I turned to leave the FedEx truck drove up with our delivery – and I was able to accept and sign for it.  Incredible timing!  God knew we needed that package delivered before the evening meeting.

Slavic came to find me just as it was time for him to start preaching at the Russian site.  “The ‘clicker’ isn’t working to advance my slides,” he said.  “Every time I try to plug it in it reboots my computer.”  I’d never heard of such a thing, but I decided to take a look, grabbing my laptop on my way to the front of the auditorium – just in case.  Slavic began demonstrating by plugging the device into his USB port and – nothing happened!  In fact, the device worked normally!  What we didn’t know was that Leasa Hodges had just pulled aside one of the church members.  “We have to pray,” Leasa said.  “Now? Here?” the church member asked.  “Right now,” Leasa replied.  So the two said a prayer that the equipment would work.  When they were finished they looked up at the screen, and the device had just begun working!

One of the Bible workers, Jeff, was stopped at a traffic light when the car in front reversed into him.  Upon getting out of the car to survey the damage the other driver began explaining that he had no drivers license (DUI), had no insurance, and that his car wasn’t registered.  He pleaded with Jeff to not call the police and promised that he would pay for the damage.  Finally Jeff conceded, under one condition.  Pulling out a flyer for the evangelistic meetings he told the man that if he would come to all of the meetings he wouldn’t report the incident.  The man has been attending, and both he and his wife have been thrilled with the program.  “This is just what we have needed,” they said.

In this year’s program there are 38 Youth for Jesus, 13 Bible workers, 2 deans, 3 coordinators, and 5 volunteers serving as cooks and administrative assistants.

The attendance at the Russian-speaking site has been increasing each day, until nearly 200 are now coming nightly.  There are 150,000 Russian-speaking inhabitants in Sacramento.

At the 5 p.m. meeting at Sacramento Central about 50 interests are coming regularly.  At 7:00 p.m. the audience is a little over 100.

At the West Sacramento site there was a serious problem with the air conditioning the first few nights – and the high temperature for the day (around 5 p.m.) has been around 105 degrees Fahrenheit!  Despite these discouragements, around 30 visitors have continued to attend the meetings.  The team has been of good courage and demonstrate impeccable organization.

Although the YFJ attending the Russian-speaking site don’t speak Russian, God is using them just the same!  Besides providing the very important child care, these three young ladies have been going door to door in the Russian-speaking neighborhoods distributing handbills.  Alexandra, who speaks Romanian, found one lady from Moldova who spoke both Russian and Romanian, and was able to converse with her and invite her to the meetings.  She is now attending.

I could continue, but I shouldn’t make this entry too long.  Overall, God is really blessing the efforts of the young people in Sacramento.  A big thanks to all of you who have been praying! Your prayers are certainly making a difference.

Only two and a half weeks until ASI National Convention!  Hope to see or hear from you soon.

I was going to post some more pictures from GC and from here in California - but I can't find my camera!  Oh, why am I so scatterbrained?  I had it in my suit coat pocket on my flight, and I think I left it in my hotel room here on Sunday, but now it's gone.  Hopefully I'll find it soon!  I'm praying....

Things are going well here in California at the Youth for Jesus program.  Thank you for all your prayers!  The meetings are going great.  I'll update more later....

Ciao!

Whew!  The 58^th General Conference Session is over.  My feet are now in recovery mode as I SIT on the flight to Sacramento.  One blessing of my day – I received complimentary upgrades on both flights today.  I think the Lord knew I needed some more rest before being immersed in the Youth for Jesus program.

I think I’d like to share some of my observations from the GC Session itself.  This is the fifth GC I’ve attended, and yet it brought surprises as well as disappointments.  One thing that struck me again this time around is how incredibly diverse the Adventist Church is!  I’m not talking about weird stuff like strange ideology or lifestyle (I suppose we have more than enough of that diversity too!), but diverse in languages, cultures, nationalities, and every hue of skin color. It was fun to stand at the top of the escalator and survey the thousands of loudly conversing attendees, and realize that even though probably less than three or four in a hundred both looked and sounded like you, they were your brothers and sisters just the same. It really brought home the fact that only one in thirteen Adventists live in North America.

And yet I was impressed with the realization that in spite of their colorful clothing, thick accents, and entirely different socio-economic and cultural backgrounds, hundreds and thousands of those in St. Louis thought much like me.  It’s an incredible testimony to the work of the Holy Spirit: that two individuals speaking two different languages and growing up in entirely different circumstances can come to know and follow Jesus in such a remarkably similar manner.  Sometimes, when surrounded by my beloved and much-more-like-me-in-skin-color fellow believers in North America, I feel I have little in common with them – in lifestyle and ideology.  I found it personally encouraging to be able to travel around the city and recognize my brothers and sisters in Christ. I’m glad there are still so many faithful believers around the world.  I realized we must seriously pray for the work of God here in the developed countries of the Western world.

It was really neat to be able to talk and visit with old friends and make new ones.  Several of the evening Division reports were very encouraging.  I personally especially liked the reports from the Euro-Asian Division and the South American Division.  Some of the others were, frankly, disappointing.  Instead of a worshipful account of God’s leading I think they would be better classified as an up-beat travel video.  It led me to realize, personally, how easy it is to begin looking at the sacred work of the gospel as if it were any other human enterprise.  Can we rightfully use the world’s methods of promotion, acclaim, and accolades to advance the holy kingdom of God?

In spite of the fact that I only made it to the evening meetings (and not to all of them), I found many of the messages delivered to be soul-stirring and encouraging.  I appreciated both Sabbath Schools, and the messages by Elder Bediako and Dr. Samaan especially.

There was some incredibly fantastic music as well!  I was so blessed several of the choirs and many of the soloists.  Of course I knew there would be music that I would be uncomfortable with.  I knew that the applause at times would come less as a response to the message of the song (how often have you noticed that to take place?) and more as an appreciation of the performance of the song, or in reaction to the crescendo of the soundtrack.  This was painfully obvious a number of times, as the vocalists performing would dance or kick or yell and the audience would go crazy.  I found that to be disappointing, but not atypical of what’s happening in Christianity today.  We really are involved in a Great Controversy!  And spiritual things are still spiritually discerned.

Probably the greatest blessing was seeing so many old friends and just realizing that God has a faithful remnant who are preparing for His soon return.  Probably the most disappointing was the evidences of the Great Controversy within the Church, and how the Parade of Nations was turned into a carnival, complete with thousands of waving glow sticks (dare I ask who paid for those?), another rendition of secular travel videos, and music so loud (and more taste-y than tasteful) that there was a constant stream of people leaving the building.  And to think, that all of us who felt compelled to leave were looking forward to the Parade as the highlight of the Session!  It certainly was a change from the other four I’ve seen. A large group of us ended up at the park across the street, where we had a meaningful sundown worship.

All in all, I’m thankful.  I’m thankful to live in the final hours of this Great Controversy.  I’m thankful for the truth of Jesus that both forgives and transforms, indiscriminate of skin color.  I’m so incredibly thankful for the message of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, and the privilege of being a member of God’s world-wide family.  I’m thankful for my parents and the very Adventist upbringing I received.  I’m thankful for Ouachita Hills, and the opportunity to work there with others who wanting to live the judgment-hour message.  I’m thankful for ASI, and for those leaders of this organization who have sought to avoid the questionable or “grey” and focus on only the best in Adventist material.  I’m thankful for the Youth for Jesus program, and for the young people who have discovered that understanding, experiencing, and sharing the Three Angels’ Messages of justification, sanctification, and coming glorification is far more fulfilling than entertaining or being entertained.  And I’m thankful for my friends who help me to keep focused on Jesus while not compromising with the world.

OK, we’re beginning our descent into Sacramento and I have to come back to the present realities.  Please pray for the Youth for Jesus program in Sacramento, OK?  And for the evangelistic meetings which will begin Monday, July 11, 2005.

Greetings from St. Louis, Missouri!  I've been here at the 58th General Conference session since Wednesday night.  Whew!  It's been a fun weekend.  Lots of meetings, crowds of people, spiritual blessings....  It's also great to "have" to talk to people for "work"!  Not very stressful.  It's been nice to be staying in the same hotel with the Smiths and Whitings too!  I hate staying in hotels by myself.....

It's been a bit crowded on the Metro (OK, so that is an understatement....) since the Cardinals have been playing every night, the GC session has tens of thousands getting out at the same time as the games, and also since it's the July 4th weekend there are fireworks displays downtown (third largest in the U.S. purportedly), and the State fair is underway down by the river front.  I didn't get back to the hotel until 12:40 a.m. this morning.  :s

But it's all worth it.  I've seen so many people I know!  I should have taken picture, huh?  Let's see, so far I've seen the following OHAites:  Luke, Luther, Lindsay, Leilana, Elicia, Sveta, Mayri, Nicole, Valerie, Israel, Jason Sliger, Manny Baek, Christina Thrash, Christina McNeilus, Rachael Matthews, and probably others that I am forgetting now…. Sorry!

OK, here’s a few pictures.  Enjoy!

This was taken Thursday night, the first evening that I was here.

Here's the North American Division President, Don Schneider.

This was taken when there weren't many people in the stadium, but you can get an idea of how large it is.  63,000+ seats plus 10,000 more on the floor!

Mr. Luke Whiting and yours truly.

Christina and Justin McNeilus giving a report on Cambodia.

Here's the Ouachita Hills display in the exhibit hall.

So far things have been pretty uneventful.  Elder Paulson was re-elected as the General Conference President, with Elder Ted Wilson purportedly coming within about four votes of being elected to that office.  Please pray as the Division officers are elected now!

Hope to hear from you soon!

Ciao!

Hi!  I'm going to post a few pictures from Puerto Rico.  Of course it's hard to take pictures while I'm preaching, so there's not many of those.  But I had a few hours to head out around San Juan and El Moro so I snapped away like any other tourist.

Well, here I am in San Juan, Puerto Rico.  I thought I'd never make it here!  First the flight from Dallas to Miami was an hour late, then when we did arrive in Miami a major thunderstorm had just passed through and shut down the airport.  We waited another hour for our gate to become avaliable.   Once I did get to my flight to San Juan, they were one stewardess short of being able to board the plane, so we sat and waited.... until about 2 a.m.  I finally arrived at 4:00 a.m., got to bed at 5:00 a.m.    I'm glad I didn't try coming in just before my meeting begins this evening.

Please pray for the youth meetings I'll be having here this weekend!  I need your prayers.

Miss you! 

BTW, my cellphone does work in PR. 

I didn't get home until Monday afternoon.  Even though Elisa's birthday was a few days ago, we celebrated her birthday a little late.

Here's some pictures of a beautiful park in Wichita.