no shave november

Previous Post Big Boobs and Broken Hearts

I haven’t shaved all of this month, being it’s no shave November. Amy, my wife is pretty much disgusted by my bushiness, even though I think it looks great. Only 5 more days and I will have no excuse to keep it any longer, so till then I will enjoy and post my wolverine pose here.

Big boobs and broken hearts

I am writing this on my phone in an Atlanta hotel bar at 12:57am so it may be a bit shady. I am going to write about the girl that I met on the plane yesterday as I flew to Atlanta. I forget her name, buy I will never forget her.

She was one of the last passengers on the plane and I noticed her instantly. She had the largest boobs I have ever seen and she sat right next to me. As soon as she sat down she started telling me about her boob job and how she was scared about internal bleeding. If your reading this and wondering where I’m going from here I will warn you that it only gets worse, haha.

She proceded to tell me that people had been rude to her all day saying that her boobs were not proportional to the rest of her frame. She asked me what I thought, so I politely told her they looked fine (I’m laughing at the whole thing just writing this).

For the next 2 hours she talked to me about how other girls were jealous of her and were mean to her because of her boobs. She bragged on how her boobs were her best feature and told me that her goal was to be in Playboy.

She also asked me what she should tell her parents. I told her that they would probably notice right away, there was no hiding these things. She also talked about and asked me about getting fake id to get into bars (she was 18). She talked about her dissfunctional family, her half sister who is a stripper and her sisters 3 kids.

When we landed she asked me to help carry her bag as she didn’t want to rupture her new boobs, so I walked it with her to an airport travel car. She told them she was disabled, got on the car and went to her gate. Now I am sitting here at 1:14am writing about her.

I’m writing cause I am sad. Most guys love looking at big boobs, but we never think of the person that they are attached too. This girl was so lost, so insecure, so desperate. What happened in her life to bring her to this? Where will she go from here? It seems like a road to self destruction, pain and lonelyness. I have been praying for her and thinking of her all day. I hurt for her and wanted to write the story down so as not to forget.

I thnk about all the things I could of said, but feel like I said none of it. I just tried to look forward and be nice. I pray that God puts some good people I’m her life. People that will walk with her and not use her, like she thinks she deserves.

It’s been a crazy last 24 hours. I’m thankfully for my life and the people in it. I want to be used of God every day. I hope I’m ready, I hope I’m prepaired.

Thanks.

celtic advent

 

 

Today, Nov. 15 is the 1st day of Celtic Advent. Celtic Advent comes from Ireland and is a time of reflection and looking to Christ. Celtic Advent goes from Nov. 15- Dec. 24, lasting 40 day’s. The first time I heard of this season was 3 years ago while reading Celtic Daily Prayer.

What do I do during Celtic Advent? Well every night, before going to bed I light a white candle  and say the following prayer:

God of the watching ones,
give us your benediction.

God of the waiting ones,
Your good word for our souls.

God of the watching ones,
the waiting ones
the slow and suffering ones,
give us Your benediction,
Your good word for our souls,
that we might rest.

 

and of the angels in heaven, and of the child in the womb,

give us your benediction,
Your good word for our souls,
that we might rest and rise
in the kindness of Your company.

Then I blow my candle out and go to sleep. My prayer for this years advent is to grow closer to Jesus and to hear his voice and feel his peace so that I can grow and be a shining example of Jesus to all whom I meet. I would encourage you to practice this simple tradition over the next 40 days and see God do great things in your life as you get ready for Christmas.

Justice Friday the 13th

Today is Friday the 13th. I remember as a kid being psyched about Friday the 13th and sitting down watching the movies with Jason the hockey mask wearing axe murderer. Good times, but I am glad I have moved on.

This weekend some people from “Freedom Project International“are coming down to TJ, Mexico. They are planning a documentary project that will trace human trafficking up the west coast, starting in Mexico and ending up in Vancouver, Canada. At the moment they are trying to find key contacts in government, law enforcement and at NGO’s that could help them get a feel for what’s really happening on the west coast.
The purpose of the documentary is ultimately to produce a tool that can bring the reality of trafficking home for people living on the west coast. Not only do they want to use the documentary to raise awareness but they also want to give people tangible ways that they can be involved *here* in the US, in their back yards and in their communities. I’m not entirely sure what this all looks like yet, but that’s why it’s a documentary. They are going to discover and interview as they go.

I am excited to be able to hang with these peeps over the next few days to learn, become aware and figure out how to act. It goes great with what we have been discovering down in TJ with the issue of prostitution and child prostitution. I pray that this weekend God gives us some key way’s to be involved and act on His behalf in this area. I’ll keep this updated as to how things are going.

There is no abundance, just provision

I have written a bunch about the times where I have gotten free tickets to sold out shows and how crazy weird that is, but this morning I had a revelation while making my AeroPress coffee. The revelation was that God does this in all sorts of ways in my life for some crazy undeserved reason. I have come to the conclusion that there is no abundance in my life, there is just provision.

In the last two weeks we have had $2600 in extra expenses come our way. Amy had to get an emergency root canal and crown which cost $2000 and on Sunday while driving to church our car overheated. It turns out the radiator and thermostat were broken which cost us an additional $600. Now we did not have the money to pay these bills, but they are all payed off and we did not go into one cent of debt for it to happen, how the heck?

It seems as though in our lives God does not give us more than we need, He gives us what we need when we need it. We have been waiting for our tax return which has been in question of coming since May and last week, just as these expenses came the return showed up. Also, on Friday, 2 day’s before our car broke down we had breakfast with some good friends. These friends were the people who gave us the car we are driving and they gave us a check after eating that ended up paying for the damage to the car, and a bit extra.

I stood in the kitchen amazed this morning. I have been griping about all these extra expenses that we had, but not being thankful that God provided for them. I kept thinking of all the other things I could have done with that money instead of putting it in the car or a tooth, but God had other plans.

I leave this post being humble and grateful at the provision of my God. Thank you for taking care of us, thank you for being there and thank you for putting up with my sinful, complaining, not thankful nature.

Happy Anniversary

Today is the 4 year anniversary of my blog. I have learned a lot, grown a lot, yet still spell just as bad. I thought that a good way to celebrate my 4 year blogaversary would be to re-post my first post from Nov. 3, 2005 (I got this idea from my good friend Lars).

I was just listening to a sermon by Erwin Mcmanus, the pastor of Mosaic Church in Los Angeles. It really spoke to me about being real.
Recently one of my friends had some trouble in his life because they didn’t tell people what they were struggling with. They tried to do it alone and be invincable. What happened was that my friend fell.
This is a quote from Erwin in his message

” It is amazing how much strength love will give you and how much strength you will find when you care about other people even more than yourself. And I know this, no matter how sincere you are, your going to need some extraordinary strenth to overcome your rapids you are going to find yourself drowning in. And that is why we all need Jesus. Because when He enters our life, when we give our hearts to Him He becomes our source of strength. And when your exhausted and you have no energy left and you don’t think that you can make it one more day, you will find that He is always strong. Especially when you are honest about your weakness.”
I pray that we would be honest today about our weaknesses and that we would take them to God and take them to each other so that we would become the kind of people for God that we desire to be.

Lent Justice Calendar

Happy Monday to you. I have been thinking of this for a while now and it seems as though things are coming together for it. What the heck am I talking about you wonder? Well, a few of my friends and I are putting together a calendar for the season of Lent. It is a calendar where each day we focus on a different area of injustice in the world. Some examples are  human trafficking, water issues, hunger issues, slavery, etc. Each day we will focus on a different injustice, tell a story about it (short story), give a web site of someone or an organization that is working with that area, pray a prayer and give people a way to act. Example of acting is if we are praying for those who don’t have clean water (every 15 seconds someone dies of a water related illness) that for every bottle of water in your house you would give $1 to the Charity Water project.

I love that you come and check out my blog, honored in fact. I am posting about things that I care about (that Jesus has put on my heart) and you stop by to read, thanks. In that, if you are interested in sending some content for the calendar we would love it and need it badly. We want to get the info out there by the beginning of Feb as lent starts Feb. 17 with Ash Wednesday. Please let me know soon if you would like to participate and we can talk more.

You can either comment here or just email me at philnamy@gmail.com

Thanks again, have a great week and I hope to hear from some of you soon.

Justice Friday at the border

Last Justice Friday Post

On Wednesday evening I headed back down to Mexico with the staff to pray, hand out soup talk with the poor and desperate. It was a cold night on Wednesday, not cold for those of you reading in central Canada or Seattle, but cold none the less. The wind was blowing off of the Pacific and dropping the temperatures below normal for out here.

As we do each week we parked the cars and broke up into 3 groups and went off to start the evening with prayer. On the drive down to Mexico I was asking Jesus what he wants to see happen in TJ. I have been involved with the homeless for a lot of years now and I have discovered something profound. Handing out soup and hot chocolate with prayers is not going to end poverty or desperation, we need to do more.

As I said above “Handing out soup and hot chocolate with prayers is not going to end poverty or desperation, we need to do more.” In saying this, I am not downplaying prayer or hot chocolate, both are good and needed, but it cannot stop there. We need to get kids into school, parents jobs, alcohol and drug addictions stopped and poverty and desperation ended.

The thing that happens so often is that when a family is in their most desperate time of need instead of the church coming to them to offer hope and life some hustler out to make money at the expense of others gets to them first and offers them a way out. The way out is not a way out at all, it is just a deeper spiral into death and destruction. What do we as the church, the body of Christ need to do?

That is what we are trying to figure out on these Wednesday nights. It reminds me of a story in the bible where Jesus comes in the path of a prostitute. The pharisees throw this woman at Jesus feet and pick us stones to kill her. Jesus doesn’t just pray for her, but he points out the sin of the accusers, encourages, rebukes and affirms the girl accused of prostitution and writes something in the ground. It seems as though the point was made. The accusers drop their rocks, the girl goes away with freedom and understanding and Jesus moves on.

I pray that God gives us His strategy to reach and bring freedom to Him kids, both the oppressed and oppressors in TJ, Mexico.

 

U2

Well, on Friday I managed to do it again, I scalped for cheap into an epic show. Friday morning Amy and I work up, dropped of the kids with some good friends and headed up to Las Vegas to see some friends and supporters who were meeting us there. We were also headed up to see if we could score tickets into the sold out U2 show.

After a 5 1/2 hour drive we ended up at Sam Boyde Stadium, 3 hours before the show. Amazingly there were a ton of people there already. Most of them were getting smashed so that they would have no memory of the show that they paid up to $260 for, others were selling tickets and others were standing in the GA line to get the best spot on the floor possible.

I have done this enough times that I know who to stay away from when looking for cheap tickets. For starters, if you care, I don’t talk to the guy’s who have a sign. Especially the signs that say “I need tickets” on one side and “selling tickets” on the other. I also stay away from anyone talking on their mobile phones while trying to sell tickets, they are just trouble. The people I talk to are everyone else. I just unashamedly ask for tickets, free tickets at that.

It took about 20 minutes until I saw this lady walking around. I approached her and asked if she had extra tickets. She told me she had 2, her daughters friends couldn’t come. She said they were $36 each, but she would sell them for $30. Something inside me told me that if I try to get her to $0 then I am just a cheap jerk, so I went for it. 2 tickets to U2 in Vegas for $60, pretty good deal to me. Plus, this was the smallest show on the tour, so there were no bad seats.

It was a great night. Amy and I had fun and U2 did a great job. You can see it here from LA. I am grateful for the kind gifts that are given to me in the form of shows. It is weird and shocking to say the least, but I feel like Jesus is cool with me going to shows and provides for it to happen. That and there are a ton of really cool people out there who just want to hook people up with free tickets to great shows.

Justice Friday in TJ

I am posting Justice Friday today (Thursday) as tomorrow I am driving to Vegas to scalp for free (hopefully) into the U2 gig. Anyway, so yesterday my friend Ingvar and I went down to TJ, Mexico to teach on their secondary school on starting an international ministry. It went good, lots of questions, feedback and stories. I like when teaching goes that way, when it turns into a discussion.

Afterwords when we were about to leave for home we found out that some of the staff were going down to the red light district of TJ. A part of me was thinking “no way am I going, I have kids and a wife at home that I want to cuddle, and TJ is dangerous, I could get stabbed.” The other part of me was saying “if you don’t go then all the stuff you say about justice is just a load of shit that makes you sound like you care.” So I went.

We got down town and grabbed the igloos of soup and hot chocolate and headed for the red light district. Some people were in charge of the hot chocolate and others went walking and praying. I went with the group that walked. We headed into an open area and spent some time praying. Ingvar suggested that we pray and ask God what TJ will look like when Jesus comes back. The picture I got was of a park. A park where kids love to play, people are laying on the grass resting or playing Frisbee and flowers and beauty are all around. A place where people want to come and find rest and peace. The thing is that TJ is the total opposite of a park, it is more of a crack house.

After praying we walked around as some of the girls wanted to find some friends that they had run into the previous week. We walked by girl after girl after girl standing outside ready to give themselves to any man who would pay for their services. A few years ago I would have just assumed that these girls love their job and the money, but the more that I read and become aware of the issues of prostitution the more that I realize that the majority of these girls, most likely all of them hate what they do and are either forced to do it, or are so addicted to dope that they see it as the only way to get the money to stay on the stuff.

After a bit of walking we ran into the friends that the girls on the team were looking for. It was a mom and dad with their 3 little girls (6, 7, and 8 years old). The seven and eight year old were already doing services for men on the street and the six year old, named Guadalupe was close to being pimped out by her parents into the sex trade. The parents did this as they felt it was the only way they could make money to provide for their family, they were very straight up about it. We hung out with the girls and then gave them treats and walked on. While walking we passed another man standing on the street with a girl, no older than 12 who he was selling off to men so that he could make money. We stopped to offer him hot chocolate, but he just nervously motioned us on.

Even as I write this I am numb. I have not cried over this, nor have I thought about it much. I think I am afraid to let myself go to that place, although I believe I need to let myself go there, to get the heart of Jesus for this little girls, girls the same age as my Emma. These girls should be running around in a park, but instead they are prancing around at the will of their parents at all hours of the night being forced to give their innocent bodies away.

I will continue to go to TJ, as it is in my own backyard and I can not ignore it. I pray for these girls and pray for me that I would never grow numb to the things that break the heart of Jesus.