Every nation, tribe, people...

Today, I was privileged to be a part of my classmate and friend's installation in a church whom he was taking over the pastorate. The neat thing about this whole thing was he's African-American and it's an African-American church. I was excited to be asked to be a part of such a wonderful occasion and in such a different set of circumstances than I usually find myself in.

I was really honored to be a part of an all African-American group of clergy participating in the ceremony. I got all dressed up in my Hong Kong suit, thick black framed glasses, and even got to sit with everyone else up in the chancel during the whole ceremony. It was so great! It was a great time of worship filled with great preaching, prayer, music, and fellowship. I was blessed being amongst a body of believers I've never found myself worshipping with in the past.

Sailing, Sailing...

Believe it or not, this was me skippering a 22 Foot Capri sailboat down in San Diego. I was in SD for the weekend visiting my family because my dad was able to fly down to hang out with all of us before gallivanting off to Hong Kong again next week.

We had an awesome brunch that morning at the Broken Yolk Cafe in Pacific Beach. I had the special, which was pretty good. But my sister had this totally awesome California Breakfast Burrito. It was filled with eggs, avocado, bacon, and potatoes. It was soooo good. After brunch I suggested we go sailing that afternoon since I had just passed my test last week, was rar'n to put my skills to the test and I really wanted to take my family out on the water with me at the helm!

We went to Seaforth Boat Rental down at Mission Bay to check out what they had and what I was capable of sailing. So I figured we'd just check out a small boat and take turns riding in it. Turned out the place didn't have any 14 Foot Capris and only a 22 Foot Capri would be big enough to hold all of us at one time. (At this point I started getting a little nervous because all I'd ever sailed before was a 14 Foot Capri.) I told the sales rep about my sailboat experience being limited so he suggested that I go out with one of the instructors and my siblings (my to-be-crew) to see how it'd go. If I didn't feel good with the boat then I could just call it a day right there. But if all went well then we'd come back in, pick up the family and head back out. I was still really nervous at this point but I agreed to try it out.

We went out for about 15 minutes and everything felt good so we decide to pull back into the dock and pick up the family. The instructor disembarked and the family hopped aboard and we were off! We ended up sailing for another hour in Mission Bay, basically just doing laps around the same buoy. A little repetitive but hey, for my first time out, I think that was about all that I could handle. I mean, I was out skippering for the first time on my own, on a boat 8 feet longer than anything I'd ever sailed before and I had my family plus the next generation of Los on board. Should anything have gone wrong, I could have wiped out my family in one afternoon! Very bad stuff! But, thank the Lord, everything went really well and we had a great time! I'm really happy I was able to take my family out for my first sail.

The Divine Wager and Human Free Will

These last few days I've been working on a paper for my Writings class. It was a theological paper on Job 1:1-12 and it was about this idea of "The Divine Wager and Human Free Will". This passage intros us into who Job was and a discussion and ensuing wager between the satan and the Lord. These verses are packed with some really great stuff. I had a great time working on this paper especially in discussing it with one of my friends. We must have spent about an hour and half talking about and drawing out all these great observations and ideas about what was packed inside this passage. It was a real great discussion. I would highly recommend this passage to look into for those of you who wonder about the idea of free will and predestination.

A Great Sabbath

Today, I had so much fun! Earlier this week, I decided that Satuday (today) was going to be my Sabbath. I was convicted in my Writings class when my professor briefly highlighted that it's still one of the Ten Commandments and we ought to take it just as seriously as we do the rest of the Commandments. So today, I really lived it up and rested/enjoyed!

The day started with our last sailing class. I have really loved this class and all that goes along with it. Our sailing mornings have always started out with these great breakfasts of eggs, sausage, bagels, juice, and coffee. It's totally great! I think I commented that I'm really going to miss sailing every Saturday morning and these breakfasts. This morning we were going to be tested on all that we had learned these last few weeks. Allison and I even spent about an hour the night before practicing the different knots and memorizing the different parts of boats and sailing.

The test began with rigging the boats, then taking a written test and finally sailing two courses. They all went really well and me, Mike and Allison all passed! Now we'll be able to check out 14' Capri boats. They each hold four people so I'm looking for people to take sailing now. If you're interested, let me know!

We concluded the lesson with learning how to upright a capsized boat. I was so excited for this because before this class I thought that once you capsized it would be a huge ordeal to upright it again. Apparently, it's not that hard. So now I know how to upright a capsized boat!

That afternoon, I went to the driving range with my friend to hit a few balls for about an hour and half. After that, I went to a USC vs. Washington State Women's Volleyball game. It was really exciting!

What a great day spent playing sports! Sailing in the morning, golf in the afternoon and volleyball at night. And to top it all off, I had Chinese food that night for dinner! Very cool!