Welcome to my Blog!



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I'm a youth pastor in Southern California at a Nazarene church. I've been serving here for about 4 years. We have a large youth group of around 100 teens from all different cultures and backgrounds.

We merged with a Spanish church in January of 07 and our youth groups are now ONE! As of a little more than a year ago, I am working with a co-youth pastor named Javier. If you want to know more about me, you can read my very first blog post here.

I started this blog as a way to remember the amazing things that happen in my everyday life in ministry... the hilarious things that my teens say and do, the joys and victories, and the life stories of the amazing teenagers that are the future of our church, and our world. But I am also glad when it brings encouragement and joy to others. Feel free to leave your comments and let me know you're reading!

I am so blessed to be here, I love my teens... they are my heart!


And by the way...
at our church...
we speak 5 languages!!!
English, Spanish, Korean, Chinese and Gypsy! :)


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Gang Raid

10:00 AM at 10:00 AM

We do ministry in Southern California.
In a very urban area.
Cerritos itself doesn't seen all that urban... it's a pretty nice, fairly wealthy city. But our church sits on a corner that borders Hawaiian Gardens and Artesia.
When I first moved to Southern California and heard "Hawaiian Gardens" I had this picture of this beautiful, wonderfully nice city. I was sadly mistaken. Hawaiian Gardens is home to all kinds of racism, gangs, and hatred.
That is where we do ministry.
One of the things that I have often shared is my heart for gang outreach.
This morning, I heard about something that really shook me.

The largest gang raid in United States history happened two minutes away from me. Right down the street. In an area where a huge amount of my teens come from. A place that I drive through everyday. For this small town girl from Oregon... that was shocking.


(weapons confiscated during the raid)

88 people linked to a "notorious southern California street gang" were arrested. Right next door. 1400 police officers, 17 SWAT teams... FBI, and all kinds of other people were involved in the take down. You can read more about it HERE (or just google it).

Today I'll be praying for these people... for their families... for the other members of the gangs... for the people they've hurt... for the people who may be hurt in the future.... for the ongoing issue of racism that haunts our nation and hurts people of all nationalities... for the hate in the hearts of people... Join me?

This is my life in ministry.

1 comments:

Derek Hickman said...

wow. wow. and uh, . . . wow. Just think, you may have influenced some of your young people to turn away from the gang activity. You may have also touched the hearts of some gang members. You never know . . .

Wow.

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