Homeless Community

When I used to live in Bellflower, I'd walk to work. Along the way were usually some homeless friends just waking up or enjoying a liquid breakfast. Bellflower is about 1/2 drive from downtown LA. Since moving away, I try keep up with the homeless situation in LA through LA Homeless Blog. A recent post shows us some links:

Eric, from http://blogdowntown.com/, tells us that the “Downtown Los Angeles Homeless Map” has been updated. It looks like a heat map and shows the concentration of homelessness in the downtown area from November 1, 2006 to today.

This map “takes raw data about those sleeping on the streets and transforms it into a visual tool for understanding the situation.”

Two things come to mind after seeing the migration:

1. The concentration of homelessness in a geographic area is always in a state of movement. It is quite vivid in this graphic map. In downtown’s case, it could be “blamed” on police activity, or simply part of the natural mode of homelessness.

2. It appears that homelessness in downtown is getting smaller. The question is why? Is it because the police activity is pushing people out of downtown, or because more people are accessing services and housing?

I’ve been called a couple of times by the Los Angeles Times. They are trying to get empirical data that the downtown police activities are resulting into spreading homelessness throughout the county. Perhaps this map might at least show the fact that homelessness is decreasing in downtown.

Darfur Is Dying

wow. this is a wonderful ministry tool: darfur is dying is an interactive simulation game that puts you, as a character in a refugee camp, in the middle of the darfur genocide. you move your character through a series of decisions and experiences, trying to avoid the militia, provide water for gardening and brick-making, and keeping health up. i found my heart actually racing as my 12 year-old character was running from the militia, and i was reminding myself that this is really and actually happening, at this second, in real life, to a real 12 year-old, as i’m playing this.

this would be fantastic for small group ministry, or to distribute via email to your students, as a way to discuss (and respond to) the needs of the world, and specifically, the people of darfur. would be cool to ask your students to play, then come together to discuss.

props marko

Ski Trip To Hemlock Valley Resort

Levi's class went skiing yesterday at Hemlock Valley Ski Resort and I took a van full of kids up.

I snowboarded for the first time and the learning curve was steep. There were some pretty entertaining (dangerous) moments, like the time the board slipped out of my hands at the top of a run and it accelerated all the way down to the lift. Or when I got back to the top and I could not stand up on the snowboard and had to walk down. Eventually I sort of caught on and by the end of the day I could do both heal side and toe side turns. With an hour to go I swapped my snowboard in for some ski's and went out on some runs with Levi.

This is Levi's second year snowboarding and even with ski's I had a hard time keeping up with him. He has really caught on to the sport.

It was a fabulous day. The ski was blue, the temperatures were warm and being out of the office and in the mountains was very refreshing. Last week was busy with four speaking engagements and doing some sermon research and sermon planning for February -- I didn't know how much I needed to get away from it. Friday's are my day off, so this was a wonderful gift.

I think Hemlock Valley is one the best kept secrets in the fraser valley. The views are awesome. On the green chair you can seek Mt. Baker and Harrison lake. It's a georgeous resort. The hill is only a 50 minute drive from our house which is closer than Manning and Levi thinks Hemlock is better skiing.

BC Place In Bondage (again)

Looks like BC Place is back in business. It's been a tough month for the Vancouver icon. Workers raised the roof this week on BC's doom.

Looking once again like a plump marshmallow in bondage, the inflatable roof of BC Place is back in place.

Inside, rain was still dripping through drainage holes into pools of standing water on the concrete floor late Friday morning, but general manager Howard Crosley said a gardening and landscape show scheduled to start Tuesday would go ahead as planned.

more here

Heartland's New Life

As you can see from the recent posts that there have been a few births within Heartland this month. This is an exciting time for us as we see God's children come into this world. There have been three births so far this month and we are not done. There is another couple expecting and is due this month and another family is close to finishing their adoption process.

So, we thank God for new life!

Welcome Jacob Brennon Hansma

We want to welcome Jacob Brennon Hansma into the world!

Jacob was born on Thursday, January 18th.

Congratulations Hansmas!

Welcome Rhys Elijah Owen Sloan

We want to welcome baby Rhys Elijah Owen Sloan into the world!

He was born on Jan 9th and came in at 7 lbs, 11 ozs!

Blogger 2 Is Gone

I've been trying to log into blogger for the past hour 90 minutes. It must be down. I've checked blogger status, but there is no info posted.

Blogger, blogger 2, where art thou?

(Obviously, blogger 2 is back. I wonder where it went? Still no update on blogger status)

Extreme Weather Stories

It seems that the amount of extreme weather we and others are experiencing has been on the rise. Here in Chilliwack, it has been gloomy and cold and raining. Maybe I'm sensitive to this weather after living in LA for awhile. But I was talking with a friend this morning who grew up in this area, and even he is feeling the effects of the constant clouds, rain, wind and storms that have hit here this fall and winter.

There has been flooding, toppled trees and dumps of snow. You'd expect all this in a normal winter, but it seems this winter has been especially harsh. Even long standing icons of this area have been hit hard. BC Place has collapsed and Stanley Park has lost thousands of trees to wind storms.

Other bloggers have reported extreme weather too. Jordon blogged about the storm that hit Regina. He called it the worst storm in memory. Even Southern California has to bundle up. Mike tells of the cold weather in Mission Viejo and Mark talks about freezin' his hiney -- although Mark was Yucaipa, which should be cooler than Mission Viejo.

We had a great day on Sunday, however. It was sunny and the temperature was below freezing. All the rain we had filled fields with water and with the freezing temperatures, there were nice ponds to skate on. Reminded me of growing up in Terrace, where we'd often go to the lake to skate and play shinny hockey.

There was plenty of extreme weather in Terrace. Some winters we had to shovel snow off our roof for fear it would collapse from the weight. One winter we had storm after storm and the banks on the side of the house got so high, that we had to shove the snow off the roof up. No kidding.

Anyone else have extreme weather stories?

Welcome Kathleen Elena

A big welcome to Kathleen Elena who was born on January 10 at 4:42pm!

The family is doing very well.