Amy and I saw incredible beauty and riches in Hawaii, and we saw signs of tragedy and injustice.

Challenges

“How many steps does it take to become homeless? It depends.

Remember the owl in the old tootsie pop commercial? He would ask how many licks to get to the center of the pop; take a few and then chomp down on it. Task accomplished.

So needless to say it doesn’t take all that much to hit the streets for survival.

On the new Hawaii Five-O we were introduced to Kamekona, the proprietor of Waiola Shave Ice and Kamekona’s shrimp truck.  Until we went to Hawaii I thought “shrimp trucks” would be synonymous with a “foodborne illnesses.” 1

Fortunately, we fought those fears back down.

The food from the shrimp trucks were my favorite meals I had on our vacation and among the most reasonably priced meals we ate.

Our two favorite shrimp truck meals were on Oahu.

While we were in Hawaii Amy and I bought some cool souvenirs for her, my daughter Shannon, my son Josh and my son’s girlfriend Tay.

One day Amy asked, “Don’t you want any souvenirs?”  Then, before I could answer Amy answered her own question, “Oh, yeah, food is your souvenir!”  Unfortunately, based on the size of my waistline, I may have those souvenirs for a while.

Truth be told, I did come home with souvenirs.  I brought home five different blends of different Hawaiian coffees from three different plantations.

On Oahu we tasted our favorite coffee was the Dole Plantation’s Waialua Coffee.

Amy’s dream vacation — and therefore my dream vacation — was to go to Hawaii.  Not just to go to Hawaii, but to go to Hawaii and see whales.  That meant, of course, that we would have to do many things that we had never done before. 

As many of you know a very kind and generous man gave us his frequent flier miles so our airfare to and from Hawaii was free.  Thus began our scramble to do our part to make the rest of the dream a reality.

The Love & Respect Experience By Dr. Emerson Eggerichs
“A Husband-Friendly Devotional That Wives Truly Love”

If you’re a typical husband:
– you’re not eager to be vulnerable
– you don’t want to be corrected or enjoy opportunities to challenge your behavior
– you don’t want to schedule weekly interrogation sessions
Those concerns are addressed in the book. 

This book is meant to build you up, not to break you down.

The devotions are easy to follow and quite short — 800-900 words each — three or four minutes of reading.

Just in case I needed another “WHAT is happening in our world” moment, news out of Scotland:

“Sex trafficking victims reveal horror of witchcraft and torture being used to enslave women in Scotland“

Assuming it’s true — and I have no reason not to think it isn’t — it’s so heart-breaking and horrific.

FML

One “victim had been trafficked from Africa and was only prostituted in Scotland. She was trafficked by a trusted community member she turned to after witnessing the murder of her parents and grandparents by the police.”

High school Dropout Becomes A Millionaire

He was born to a young unmarried woman he never knew.
He was given up for adoption.
He was without parents until he was adopted when he was six weeks old.
He was without a mom – at five years old his adopted mom died.
He was without a dad – when he dad traveled around looking for work.

He did have a grandmother who modeled and taught him important life lessons.

No one would have predicted that a teen, who grew up poor with a troubled childhood and a limited education, would build a worldwide corporation and become incredibly wealthy.

Christmas is over, but the new year is here.
You enjoy Christmas presents, it’s time to enjoy a New years gift.

I don’t believe on New Years resolutions I believe in doing. Yesterday I challenged you to give yourself the gift of ambition.

This year apply that renewed ambition to give yourself the gift of learning something new.

The Gift of Learning

Everyone I know wants to learn something.
Everyone I know pushes aside some of those dreams.

I know, you’re busy.
Fight off your excuses.

I know you’re tired.
Fight off your laziness.

This Christmas week was very different. For the first time since we got married we did not travel.  We had a great time the 23rd — our Christmas — but the 24th & 25th felt a little empty and lonely.

Don’t get me wrong, we had a peaceful and blessed Christmas week, it was just different than in the past.

Perilous Presents

If our family and friends depended on me knowing their interests and needs they would never get anything.  Whether I’m being frugal or I’m ignorant, I simply don’t know what people like.

Friday I met with one of my favorite people. For more than a decade Erica Wilson and I worked together at TreeHouse. While Erica is disinclined to gamble with her money, recently she gambled with her life. Erica left behind her job, friends and family and moved to Belize for three months.

While it was not a permanent departure from her life in Minnesota, it was a significant life transition.

I asked her, “How do you gamble losing all that?“

Erica smiled with a slight shrug, “The only thing that comes to mind is that I trusted God with it completely.”