Talent Continued

STOP!! If you haven't read the previous article scroll down and read then come back up here so you'll know what's going on

As you stand at the edge of the fifth, circular area, you seem to be able to detect sounds, but you can't quite tell what they are. You start to walk forward, you tilt you head, your breath becomes slow and quiet. The sounds increase. Sounds of laughter and playful yelling start to fill the air. You see bright greens, blues, reds, and yellows. You begin to see children running, climbing, sliding, and swinging. Some adults playing, others watching, talking to each other. Suddenly all becomes quiet. All eyes are on you. The children run over to you, and lead you to a water fountain. "Wow! You look thirsty." they say. You look around thinking you must have stumbled into a utopia the world has always dreamed of. Then you notice everything is strangely familiar. It is actually our world outside the stressful, ratrace when we decide to slow down and enjoy life. The innocence and kindness of children. The compassion, and generosity of people of all ages. Why haven't you noticed this before? You decide this is where you will spend the majority of you time from now on, with only short visits to the others, not the other way around.

People have varying degrees of talent. Bakers, Sports Stars, Writers, Counselors, Ministers. They all need fine tuning. Whatever you talent practice, practice, practice.

Thanks for bearing with me while I fine tune what I like to do. Go discover your world, Paul

Fine Tuning The Talent

I've been thinking quite a bit lately about talent. It started a few months ago when I heard the guys on The Bob and Tom Show on early morning radio talk about how much they liked the show "Cake Boss" on TLC. I thought it sounded pretty girly, but since it was the guys on the show talking about it I thought I'd check it out. Although I don't DVR it I do try to watch it whenever I can. He makes it look so easy you start to think hhmmm, I could probably do that. Then you snap back to reality and you realize he has a team, and the proper equipment. It did get me to thinking what do I really like to do, I like to create with words. I obviously like to write, thus the blog, but now I've decided to focus more on the creative aspect instead of the random. There will still be alot of that, because my mind is quite random. But I feel a need to do a little literary decorating, or painting. So check this out,


Imagine sitting on top of a lighthouse. Although you can see a full 360 degrees, there are four separate areas on the ground. The first area you see is a desert.


You see the scorpions scurrying in and out of a skull half buried in the sand, you feel the hot wind on your face as you watch it blow the sand. Your mouth is getting dry, you start to feel hot, you look up, not a cloud in the sky to protect you from the scorching rays of the sun. Beads of sweat appear on your forehead. If you just had a sip of water. You find yourself looking for an oasis.


While looking for that oasis


You turn to the left. You see a beautiful blue ocean. You're sitting seventy feet in the air. You can see hundreds and hundreds of fish twenty five deep in the water. The water is so crystal clear it magnifies the yellows, reds, and orange colors of the fish and makes them so brilliant that you feel like you could just scoop them out of the water. You sit hypnotized, watching the fish swim in and out of the coral, when suddenly you realize that even though the breeze is cooler, the salt air has intensified your thirst. You need drinkable water, your search continues.


You turn again to the left.


As you look down this time, the area is dark. Coming from the bright sunlight it takes a couple of minutes for your eyes to adjust. Gradually, you start to be able to see little specks of light. Squinting, you notice the specks of light are small fires scattered in and around demolished buildings. The ones around the buildings are in big barrels with people huddled around them trying to keep warm. You smell burning wood and paper. You hear people screaming, and glass breaking. As your eyes adjust even more you see people running out of stores with food and water. Even though you are really thirsty you decide it isn't worth dying for, you keep searching.


One last turn in hopes of quenching your thirst


You turn to find the sun rising amid skyscrapers. Traffic is starting to fill the streets, men and women in suits are filing into the buildings. The buildings are made from steel and glass. You get the feeling you are in the middle of one of the worlds major financial districts. Immediately you think, finally water. Then you notice people in tattered clothes sitting against the buildings, and standing on the steps leading up to the buildings holding their tin cups, or playing music hoping someone will help them. You see the look of discouragement settle in their faces as they have cigarettes thrown at them. As they are pushed and shoved down the steps and walked over, like noone even cares. You look at your wrinkled clothes, feel the tangles in your hair, and detect an unshowered smell coming from your body. Your thirst is almost unbearable. Do you want to endure the ridicule and go down and ask for a drink?


You think this can't be all there is, if only you could fly. You stand up, take a deep breath, hold your arms out and .......LEAP. You are flying, you can't believe it, you can actually fly. Where do you go? You see the financial district, the desolation, the ocean, the desert. While you're trying to decide you notice a fifth area in the center, connecting the other four, a sort of hub. It was straight down surrounding the lighthouse so it wasn't visible while sitting on top. You fly over to the edge, hover just close enough to see. You decide to land. What do you see?


My version in the next post,


Thanks for flying with me, Paul

Encouraging Update

Since I brought the idea to you a week and a half ago the churches helping churches team have returned from Haiti. They have put more information on their website than I would be able to tell you about, but here are a few things.
103 churches have signed on to help.
200,000 dollars has been donated through these churches, International Aid, and Amway.
They have hired on a pastor from a church down there and are working with him to address his individual needs. They also did an interview with him. It's pretty interesting, check it out
There are also some videos to watch.
Here's the link if you're interested www.churcheshelpingchurches.com
Thanks for your help,Paul

Churches Helping Churches Update

For everyone who may be considering helping the Haitian relief effort by donating to "Churches Helping Churches" I got a report today saying they did get to Haiti with a medical crew and a camera crew, and they will be reporting back soon with further details. I'll keep you posted. Thanks , Paul

Compassion For Haiti

When you look at the pictures of Haiti this week doesn't it make you feel helpless? Doesn't it give you an overwhelming feeling of sadness? The question I asked was how will they rebuild? Yes, the world is coming to their aid. Yes, food, and medical aid are already starting to arrive. There was a doctor from Rapid City, S.D. that was already there on a mission trip and was able to help some before he had to come home. If you notice the houses that are still standing you can tell how poor the country is. Regardless of the massive deficit in this country the U.S. is considered a rich country and, even though we don't hear about it very much any more New Orleans is still rebuilding after hurricane Katrina. If you're feeling overwhelmed for the people of Haiti, imagine how they must feel looking down their streets and seeing nothing but rubble where their houses used to be, and not being able to find family members that are missing. There are many ways in which to help. It doesn't take much searching to find legitimate charities.
I follow a blog from James MacDonald of Harvest Bible Chapel. His latest blog said, what bothered him the most was, who is going to help the churches? He talked to some other pastors this past week, and they decided to take a team to Haiti early next week and assess what needs the churches have. They have already started a website so everyone can keep updated. The website is www.churcheshelpingchurches.com. If you are involved in a church they are more than likely developing ways to help. If you aren't, this would be a way to help a legitimate, respected, organization who is trying to help those who are trying to help those who are suffering. The website just has a "test post" up right now. But, they are suppose to start posting needs when they get back next week.
As I search inside myself, and the hurt I feel for them, I don't know how much I will be able to do financially but I do feel fortunate that I am able to help by passing on the information. As they post the needs I'll continue to keep everyone posted.
The verse Love One Another keeps coming to mind, and the phrase Love Equals Compassion. Life is a constant search. Thanks for searching with me, Paul

Wondering Gong Ju

Despite her petite 4ft.11in. 90 pound size Mei Li has proven she could hold her own with the big boys when necessary. Not that she really needed to most of the time, she just had this unexplainable desire to know the martial arts. There have been times however when she has needed to defend herself, but those opportunities didn't arise very often living in a town the size of Cassville, Missouri. With a population of approximately 3000 you can usually figure out who the violent crime offenders were on any given weekend. The ones who aren't in church Sunday morning are usually the ones sleeping off Saturday night's barroom brawl in the local jail. Since she is only fifteen the bar isn't where she gets her experience. Her experiences have come from ignorant high school predjudice, or boys that thought they could take advantage of her small size. The boys are just trying to prove their manhood and all the girls are having that problem. It's the predjudice that hurts the worse. Even though she has lived her whole life in Cassville, has grown up with the kids who were born there and knows their parents, there are still people who treat her differently, and sometimes even mean, just because she looks Asian.

Her parents adopted her from China when she was just an infant. They do what they can to include some of her Chinese culture into their lives. Her dad has always called her Gong Ju, which means Princess. Her name itself means pretty, or beautiful. But, living in the heart of rural America she doesn't get very many opportunities to experience her true culture. She is fortunate there just happens to be a man who lives there who is willing to teach her Kung Fu.

Since she has grown up in America she wants to live the American life, but she feels like she can't be fully American, but neither can she be fully Chinese. She used to work at Aunt Kathy's Cookies for awhile until they closed down. The owner of the Chinese restaurant said she can work there, but then she feels like she would just be allowing herself to be stereotyped. Some days she feels so lost, like she's wondering through life not knowing what to do or what lifestyle she should be following, sometimes she gets so frustrated she just wants to scream.

Even though it upsets her, every once in a while she asks her parents to tell her the story of her birth family. The adoption agency had the history of her birth family documented as it was handed down through the years. It actually starts out pretty cool, thinking how adventurous her great-grandparents were. Although she was adopted from China her family was from Tibet. Her great-grandparents left Tibet when the Dali Lama went into exile. They knew it was going to be dangerous especially being pregnant but they had to try to make it over the Himalayas to India. Naturally there is no way to prove the story, but the story that has been handed down is that although many people died, she was protected by the seti who, on occasion, actually took her into caves and laid around her keeping her warm with their fur. Then bringing her back the next morning. They eventually made it to India leaving behind everything they had ever known, but nothing could have prepared them for the life of poverty they experienced. They found work wherever possible. Some days they only had one meal and alot of times that was just enough to feed their daughter. As her grandmother grew up she learned she could use her beauty to her advantage. She could at least have a hot meal and a warm place to sleep. Needless to say she got pregnant at age fifteen. When her mother was two years old a couple of men came through town promising a better life in Hong Kong. Her grandmother, seeing no future where she was, packed up her mother and went in search of a better life. With all their glamourous promises, the life these men were offering was no different than what she had, just men with more money, and fancier gifts. Having nowhere to go, her grandmother was stuck in this lifestyle, and unfortunately because of her lack of education her mother had no choice but to live the prostitution lifestyle as well. In 1994 when her mother ended up pregnant she vowed not to raise her kid like that so she put Mei Li up for adoption.

Mei Li is grateful for the life she has, and to her birth mother for not making her grow up like that, but still she has that disconnected feeling. That longing of wanting to know her past. For now she has made her own vow. To do the best she can, go to college, and become an ambassador to China. She will make sure her own children know their heritage.