Of Bicycles...

For many of my friends who spent their days at Baldwin Park in Concord, having a bicycle is a big deal. These guys don't have cars, and public transit in Contra Costa County is not the best. A number of these guys could really use a bike to get around town. So, if you live in the Bay Area and read this and have an extra bike, toss me an email...or maybe you know someone else who has a bike laying in their garage collecting dust. I would really love to hook a few of these guys up with bikes before I move to San Francisco and can't see them as frequently. Thanks.

St. Francis

St. Francis

"Lord, make me and instrument of Your peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love.
Where there is injury, pardon,
Where there is doubt, faith,
Where there is despair, hope,
Where there is darkness, light and where there is sadness, joy.
O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;
To be understood, as to understand;
to be loved, as to love;
For it is in giving that we receive -
It is pardoning that we are pardoned;
And it is in dying that we are born to eternal life."

A place to live?

I've been looking for a suitable place to live in San Francisco for a while now. I've gone to some open houses and driven by places and walked by places. I'm getting a little tired of it and a little frustrated at how hard it is...trying to trust that God really will provide for all our needs.
I've fallen in love with Bernal Heights along with my friends Ryan and Holly, and for the moment it feels like it would be a wonderful place for our family.
There is one place in particular that I really want that just popped up on craigslist. I'm praying that God would provide in the best way, and if this is a good place for us that we would be able to rent it.

Kayla is 2

Walking the streets...

I get to spend the whole week in the City with a group from Riverside participating in a week long Jesus Dojo. It is going to be a great week because the leaders, Damien and Jen O'Farrell, are people I've been getting to know over the past couple years and truly enjoy. I hope these high schoolers appreciate Damien and Jen and the care and teaching they receive from them.

We did some serious walking today and met some wonderful people. A woman named Bree stopped us and thanked us for smiling. We paused our walk and spent a few minutes with her, and she explained that she just appreciates seeing young men who appear to have to be happy and kind. We had an interesting conversation in which she invited us into her group of actors she is getting together. An hour or so later an elderly woman in the UN Plaza said hello as we walked by. I was surprised to see a woman of her age sitting down in the middle of the plaza by herself. She just wanted some people to talk to for a little while, and we enjoyed her company. She told us about the crummy motel she has to live in these days and her hopes that her social worker will return from vacation so she can get into a new place, but she was also encouraging... "It's a beautiful day! I finally see how beautiful it is. I recently quit drinking and smoking, and I just feel wonderful!" "Yes, God is good, isn't He? He has given us a beautiful day." Suddenly she asked us to pray for her, which was interesting since we had given no indication we were Christians or were in the habit of praying. We prayed for her housing situation and thanked God that He has delivered her from alcohol. We said goodbye as she called out to us to take care of ourselves. The three of us continued our walk through the Tenderloin in awe of the frail old lady sitting in the middle of the UN Plaza, soaking up the sun.

I can only hope and pray the week is full of moments like these. I'm stoked about this group. Tomorrow we enter the beautiful mess of Page Street Community Center.

love

Little children, let us not love with word or with tongue, but in deed and truth

It's a boy

Today we found out that our unborn baby is a boy. I would still have been stoked if it was a girl, but deep down I am excited for a boy. The Millheim house will be brought into gender balance...hopefully less pink.

Mount Shasta

I thought it would be a good idea to climb Mt. Shasta on Monday with two of my old college buddies. When my buddy Paul met a triathlete who said that the hike was by far the most intense physical thing he had ever done, I should have realized what was about to happen. For some reason I didn't really understand the gravity of the situation until I was about halfway up and realized that climbing Mt. Shasta is a big deal. Today I read online that beginner climber/hikers should always do the hike in two days instead of trying to do it in one day. After leaving at midnight and returning at 4 PM the next day (16 hours later), I can vouch that one should not try to hike the mountain in one day under any circumstances unless you have some strange desire for long periods of intense physical anguish. Also, if you ever go don't forget to put suntan lotion on the bottom of your nose. I currently have blisters on the bottom of my nose and on my lip just below my nose from the sun shining off the snow.
Oh and one more thing...pooping into a bag on the side of a snowy mountain as people hike by you is difficult, very difficult.

Connections

Yesterday in the midst struggling to get a million things done and feeling like I was making little progress on any front, something beautiful happened. I've been trying to develop friendships with the homeless crew that hangs out at the park close to my house in Concord. I bring small groups from the church I used to work at to share a picnic with them in the hopes of broadening horizons and building friendships across normal boundaries, but I love to just cruise by and see what is happening.
I was trying to get some work done on my computer while I spent time with Kayla while my wife was working while I tried to clean out my garage and get my house ready to rent while I checked craigslist every few minutes for a place to rent in the City while I tried to figure out how to get people to this "Walking in the Ways of the Kingdom" experience we are doing July 8 while I stressed about not training to hike Mt. Shasta this weekend. Meanwhile Kayla felt neglected and I was getting little accomplished. I decided to take Kayla with me to the park and jog there with her in the stroller and see if we could connect with some folks in the park. I saw Patrick, who is always full of energy. After he spent some time making Kayla smile he told me how bummed he was about his bike that was just stolen. Just then I remembered that I was going to see if anyone needed a bike in the park. One thing I need to get out of my garage is a bicycle that is in a couple pieces and I have no idea how to work on, but I had a hunch it could be useful for someone. I told Patrick about it and he got just a bit excited. Kayla and I jogged home and as soon as my brother got home he watched Kayla while I put the bike in my car and drove it back to Patrick. My brother had an extra tube he pitched in to help out, and Patrick was ecstatic. I was also ecstatic to have the bike out of my garage. Simple but beautiful.
So often it seems the beautiful things are in no way from my own planning but just happen when I give up and let myself be available to whatever. Little things add up to remind me that the Kingdom is happening, the Kingdom is advancing, God is at work in this messy world behind all the scenes...

ONENESS

In our Jesus Dojo we are focusing on Community for 7 weeks, and each week we will look at one aspect of what Scripture tells us about community. Last night we discussed oneness or unity. I enjoyed our discussion as we shared our similar but unique struggles with loving others within the Body of Christ and truly being willing to even try to be one with other people. In our pursuit of oneness the group decided upon a couple of commitments for the following week:

Spend time with someone who claims to follow Jesus but really rubs you the wrong
way. (For some of us this is the Mega Church people. For others it's the evangelists on the street corners in San Francisco. For other it is wealthy suburban dwellers. For others it's the radically right wing Republicans.)

Reading the same chapter of the Bible each day. (starting with 1 Corinthians 7 last night, since some of us have been doing this for a while)

Pray the same prayer at 3 times during the day, morning, noon and night. (We are using Ephesians 3:14-21 as our prayer for this week)