Here's to the Crazy Ones

Here's to the crazy ones.

The misfits.

The rebels.

The troublemakers.

The round pegs in the square holes.

The ones who see things differently.

They're not fond of rules.

And they have no respect for the status quo.

You can praise them, disagree with them, quote them,

disbelieve them, glorify or vilify them.

About the only thing you can't do is ignore them.

Because they change things.

They invent. They imagine. They heal.

They explore. They create. They inspire.

They push the human race forward.

Maybe they have to be crazy.

How else can you stare at an empty canvas and see a work of art?
Or sit in silence and hear a song that's never been written?
Or gaze at a red planet and see a laboratory on wheels?

We make tools for these kinds of people.

While some see them as the crazy ones,
we see genius.

Because the people who are crazy enough to think
they can change the world, are the ones who do.

(I can't claim this as my own but I love what it has to say. I love the idea of stirring things up; being aware of the current state of things and not allowing yourself to become complacent with the way things are. Fighting to make the world a better place, a more loving place.)

The Beauty of Community

This weekend seven of us from the house drove up to hang out in Newport Beach with my buddy Mike for the weekend. Going up there we had no idea what the weekend had to hold, Mike told us his family was out of town so we just figured that we would just take some surfboards and hang out on the beach all weekend. It had been a long week so we were all looking forward to fleeing the madness for a few days. So Friday night we rushed home from work, packed our bags, and hit the road. When we got to the OC we were greeted by Mike at his cousin's beautiful Newport home. The house was incredible, fully suited with a basketball court and in ground hot tub. We could tell it was going to be a great weekend. Saturday afternoon we all headed to the beach to take in some rays and check out the surf.

When we arrived at the beach we were introduced to this incredible community of people, who were assembling a Thanksgiving feast fit for more than a hundred people. Mike was introduced to this group of people through his friend Nado who he had just met the week before. Without ever having met any of us, they wanted us to come to this Thanksgiving party they were having. So we hung out on the beach all afternoon and helped the people get ready for the party on the beach. As we got to know these people it was so inspiring just how genuine and loving they were. As the sun set and people started to show up for the party it was incredible how community began to assemble. They had invited a so many different people to the party; close friends, random neighbors, co-workers, people from church, anyone and everyone. They really just wanted to gather people together to invest in their lives and bless them. It was really inspiring to me how they loved people and held nothing back along the way. The meal resembled something out of a move, a full course Thanksgiving feast; and there was live music with a beach fire surf videos playing on the side of the house. It was like something you would do for your best friends but they had invited everyone from every area of their life.

Not only was the weekend so relaxing and a great release from the day to day grind but it was just so encouraging to me, inspiring me to love people in ways like that. It was so refreshing to see community lived out the way I believe it was meant to be lived. Because of Mike's desire to serve us and have us up to relax for the weekend we were able to become apart of this whole other loving community. This is so much proof to me that God is always at work using us to love each other!

War Dance

Ok so there is a new movie coming out called War Dance. The other night as one of our training sessions, our bosses were able to get the director of the movie to burn us an early copy of the movie to we could see the movie as a group. The movie is the story of a group of Ugandan children living in a displacement camp. It shows the day to day activity of the children and how the war in Uganda had affected their life. Each child represents a different hardship that has been inflicted as a result of the war. The children face so many harsh realities every day, but they are still able to find joy. Their joy comes through their time of singing and dance at school. Every year there is a national sing and dance competition in the capitol city. The children are determined to go to the competition and win it. I am not going to ruin the end of the movie for you but for me the movie was just very refreshing. It is a really heavy documentary but the film makers were able to capture the weight of the situation and turn it into a beautiful story in spite of the tragedy at hand. I feel like dealing with the situation in Uganda day in and day out, sometimes we miss the idea that the people in Uganda are just as human as anyone else around the world, almost like sometimes in humanitarian work you miss the capability and intelligence of the people living in these devastated areas. It is eerie to see a Ugandan children walking around talking trash about how they are going to beat another school in the completion. It just makes it soo real; like this could be any American kid living in a displacement camp in fear for their life every day. I really give the people living in areas of conflict like this a lot of credit for how well they deal with such grave tragedies. I really don't know how myself or any other American would respond to this kind of treatment. I highly recommend everyone going to see this movie when it comes out, it might just change the way you view the world.

Where has the time gone?

So it has been just over a month since I left Ohio and moved out to San Diego. Looking back it feels like just yesterday when I was back home at the lake skiing everyday. But its crazy how times have changed. Since I moved out here it has been non-stop action all the time; I am constantly surrounded by this incredible community of people who have such amazing love for others. We are all here fighting for the justice of the Ugandan people but one thing you learn early on, living with 40 people in one house, it is impossible to love the people in Uganda if we can not love the people living around us. This is a pretty cliche idea that they teach us early on but it is so true. It is so easy for our hearts to break for the people thousands of miles away who are being so brutally mistreated but it is not so easy to love your roommate who slowly annoys you from day to day and finally sets you off when he neglects to wash his dishes one day. This is when love is really tested. Needless to say living with this many people comes with its challenges.

So after I had been here for a couple of weeks the city of San Diego decided to catch on fire. I had just gotten back from a weekend in LA when we found out that there were multiple fires surrounding the city and they were rapidly approaching our office and our house. To make a long story short, the next day we ended up having to move out of our house and our office and setup shop at friends' houses for a few days. This is a picture that I took of the fire the night we evacuated. This picture was taken on top of the hill by our house. Our office is down in the valley closer to the fire. The next day the fires started to climb over the mountain in the background and began come down the hill towards town. But miraculously the fires diverted to the south and spared both our office and our house. It is funny how no matter where I move in the country natural disasters just seem to follow me; whether its hurricanes in Florida, Avalances in Colorado, or wildfires in California.

Here is a picture I took recently at Ocean Beach. We have been going to the beach quite a bit and one day I was able to get some decent surf pics from the pier. This was during the fires so the sky was pretty hazy and the lighting wasn't the greatest but you get the idea.

This has been short and random but please keep checking back, I will try to be better about posting stuff up here. Take care, I love you all!

-C