B.....A.....T.....T.....L.....E.....BATTLE!

Two girls already on base ready to run at the crack of the bat. The next batter puts on her batting helmet, steps up to the plate, taps home base once with her metal bat then gets into her hitting stance, clutching the bat in her hands as she eyes the pitcher. Her teammates in the dugout start a chant, B.....A.....T.....T.....L.....E.....BATTLE! Battle...battle...battle...BATTLE! B.....A.....T.....T.....L.....E.....BATTLE! Battle...battle...battle...BATTLE! It's a cheer I heard last Friday at a girls JV softball game. My friends Mallorie and Mandie coach at Northview HS. Their girls use this cheer whenever their teammate goes up to bat against the pitcher. The cheer keeps echoing through my mind. Some of you may have heard it before. It's used more often when a batter keeps fouling the ball in an effort not to strike out. In softball, pitchers will mainly throw fast balls, risers, changeups and curve balls in an attempt to get the batter out. Batters will battle in the box one ball after another against the pitchers pitches until she slugs a hit past the infield to get on base.

It's a picture of the great controversy, the battle between good and evil. I'm visualizing the whole scenario of a batter going up against a pitcher who throws all sorts of fast balls, curve balls, etc. The devil throws at us all sorts of temptations, some fast, some slow. At times a curve ball that comes out of nowhere. He's doing everything he can to strike us out. The pressures on, we step up to the plate, clutching the bat in our hands, ready to battle. The devil is the pitcher. The ball is the temptation. The batter represents us. The helmet is salvation. And the bat represents the Bible. B.....A.....T.....T.....L.....E.....BATTLE! Battle...battle...battle...BATTLE! What are you going to do? How will you handle stepping up to the plate?

The New Testament writers give us some battling tips:

Paul says, "Take your stand against the devil's schemes, to take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God."

James says, "Therefore, get rid of all moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent and humbly accept the word planted in you, which can save you. Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says."

John says, "I write to you, young men, because you are strong, and the word of God lives in you, and you have overcome the evil one."

It seems to me that the Word of God is key to battling against the devil. Without it, you're hopeless. It would be like stepping up to the plate without a bat. There are of course times when we fall short and the devil strikes us out. We feel worthless. But don't lose hope. For Paul writes in Romans "You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. If God is for us, who can be against us? We are more than conquerors through him who loved us."

When all else fails, remember what God has done! He's given us His son at just the right time. And he battled for us! He is our Coach, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. So step up to the plate with your bat, a conqueror, and B.....A.....T.....T.....L.....E.....BATTLE!

Goodbye Spring Break

Back to work tomorrow. Spring break was great and I'm clearly not ready to get up and teach tomorrow after such a relaxed break. I really didn't do much or go anywhere out of state. Other then a few days of girls softball practice, two days of class and sleeping in til 11am on some days, I spent most of my time preparing for the sermon I delivered yesterday at my church. The Indo one that is.

For those of you that don't know yet, I was asked to volunteer at White Memorial Church with the young adults. An opportunity I didn't want to turn down. So now I'm working with young people in two churches on the weekend, which takes a lot of my energy. Sunday is my only real day off. At least with the Indo church, I have plenty of leaders to work with that make my my job as a coordinator much easier when I can't be there. At the White, we're struggling because though it's a bigger church, there are far less young people there than Azusa. So it's become my job there to grow the young adult group, beginning in Sabbath School. We're doing okay and slowly growing.

Concordia University accepted me into their graduate school and now I'm working on my Masters in Education. Sweeeeet! I take classes every Tuesday from 4:30-8:30pm. Yeah 4 straight hours! And I'm the only guy with 11 other women in the class. I feel like I don't belong, especially since most of them are older with much teaching experience. But hey I have much to learn and maybe it's a good thing that I'm getting this done early. And surprisingly, I spent a lot of time in different libraries over the break. Something I hardly did when I was younger. Now I love it!

But yeah, today was great day. We played volleyball at Heritage Park, East vs. West. At first I didn't think that many people were going to show up because it looked like it was going to rain. But we had a good turnout! West came prepared, as always. The East barely had enough players. We played 6 on 6 best of out of 5 games and man good times. Whenever Jerry Sagala is on your team, you can't help but just laugh. The guy is hilarious! We ended up losing to the East team in 4 games. Our record falls to 3-1 while theirs improves to 1-3. West has won softball, football and soccer while East grabbed their first win today in volleyball.

Well that's all I feel like posting for today. There is one other thing on my mind but that's personal and there's only a few people I can talk to about that. Good luck guessing what that is. Have a great week everyone!

New Year Update

Just a little over a week into the New Year and it's already been more than exciting! I'm keeping up with my re:solutions. Well, I accidentally broke one already. I ate at the Hat on Sunday with a few friends after volleyball, completely forgetting that I wanted to stop eating fast food. Jay Jay reminded me the other night and I felt like a complete failure. But it's not going to keep me from trying to keep the re:solution from here on out. I guess you can say I made up for it this weekend by over-doing another re:solution. Normally I would only go to the gym 6 times a week but today I played in an all-day volleyball tournament that we loss in the quarter finals. I then played later in the basketball league I'm in with LA Knights, a game we could have won! I had a chance to win it at the buzzer with an alley-oop pass given to me from a teammate but I missed the layup. Two hard losses in one day to start the new year. But that's alright. It's a humbling experience. Can't win them all and at least I'm getting the exercise in.

In spite of that, it was a great overall weekend! On Friday night the youth got together at Jessica's house to watch "Thin Ice," a movie about Vince, a non-Christian young adult who goes on a ski trip with a church group, which includes six strong sets of opinions about God that will soon collide. We had a great follow-up discussion about the movie and learned some lessons such as

1. obedience and love must always go hand-in-hand (one without the other can be sinful)

2. being a Christian doesn't mean you live a perfect life (God is with us through our struggles and can help us)

3. many Christian churches are responsible for leading people even further away from God (I can write a completely separate blog about this issue. I'd highly recommend this book for reading, Unchristian:What a new generation thinks about Christians and why it matters by David Kinnaman and Gabe Lyons.)

So yeah that was Friday. On Saturday night a small group of us went to visit an elderly man in his home who was dying of cancer. We sang a couple songs for him then prayed after. It so happened that he was a doctor and that made me think, for so many years he's been the one helping hundreds, maybe thousands of people. Now he's the one that needs help. Just shows how a disease can happen to anyone. We shouldn't take life for granted but live each day to the fullest because we never know when our time's up. After that I met up with Jay, Adrian and Jenn to watch Tron. I had no idea what to expect other than what I've heard from others in that the visual effects were amazing! And yes, they were more than right! We watched it in 3D which made the experience even more incredible. So not to spoil it for anyone that hasn't seen it, I'm not going to talk about the story line of the movie and what happens.

And Sunday, well yeah I already blogged about that earlier. I should also mention that I made some awesome new friends from 24 hour fitness where me and Jay play volleyball - Mandie, Mallorie & Brittany. They're so fun to be around! More stories about them in upcoming blogs.

Re:solutions

Instead of resolution, I like re:solution. Dictionary.com defines the word solution as this: the act or process of solving a problem. Now I like that better than resolution and I'm left with the question, what problems in my life will I be trying to solve this year? I currently recognize several problems that I've failed to solve in my life.

The first is this, not getting to the gym on a consistent basis. In previous years I've made resolutions to go to the gym to stay conditioned, get bigger and stronger. I've always started off good then slowly fade away and get lazy. This is a problem I want to fix and so for the past month leading up into this new year, I've already been hitting the gym at least 3 times a week. For this year, the solution is to play a sport on Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday and lift weights on Monday, Wednesday, Friday.

The second is that I eat way too much junk food, mainly chips, soda and fast food. For this year, I've eliminated those three from my diet. Yes that means no more In-N-Out, Taco Bell, Burger King, etc. The only exceptions are Subway, Quiznos, Pepe's and Albertos and sit down restaurants. Cutting back on the fast food not only helps me stay healthier, but spend less and save money.

And lastly, I haven't had a consistent daily reading devotional relationship with God. In the past I've always been more motivated to study or have devotional time with God only when I'm preparing to teach at my church. That isn't good because the main motivation to spend time and learn from God shouldn't be to teach others. The main reason anyone should want to spend time in daily devotion with God is because they love God! And I want that to be the solution to my current problem.

So, re:solutions. I've recognized the problems in my life that I need to solve. What are the problems in your life? What solutions will you come up with to fix those problems? Remember, don't be discouraged if you fail, even if you fail miserably. There is no perfect solution. Jesus is the only perfect solution to every problem and loving him is the highest goal anyone can achieve. Consider this passage of the Bible:

"Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus."

Philippians 3:13-14

Goodbye 2010

10...9...8...7...6...5...4...3...2...1. Happy New Year! 2010 has finally gone, 2011 has come. Ah it feels great to enter into a new year! To start off fresh, put past mistakes behind, and live hopefully, a better and more rejuvenating life! And so to recap last year, here are some of the memorable events that come to mind

January

WMC Pathfinders Camping, Death Valle

Disneyland

Rowland Heights Church League Champs, LA Knights

February

Snowboarding, Mt. High

Disneyland

March

SGVCSL Champs, SGA Jr. High Boys Basketball

Senior Class Trip, Seattle

Disneyland

April

UCLA Cup Champs, LA Knights

WMC Pathfinders Camping, Carpinteria

Disneyland

May

Disneyland

June

Walla Walla University Days

Dodgers vs. Yankees

July

AVP

LLISDA Tournament Champs, Hoopaholics

Backpacking, Spruce Grove

Beach, Surfing, Bonfires, S'mores!

August

Vacation Bible School

Turning 25!

Bachelor Party

K1 Racing, ESPN Zone, Rock Climbing

Leo & Roeum's Wedding

September

IASDA Softball Champs, West 31-30

October

Church Camping, Silverwood Lake

Coaching SGA Jr. High Girl's Volleyball

Six Flags

November

IASDA Football Champs, West 33-32

CIF Southern Section Finalists, SGA Girl's Volleyball

CIF State Championships, SGA Girl's Volleyball

December

Journey to Bethlehem

Snowboarding, Mt. high

Christmas

Snowboarding, Snow Valley

New Year's Eve at Leo & Roeum's

So those were the highlights of 2010, the ones that I remember at least. Looking forward to an awesome 2011 year!

I'm Back

If you check my last blog, you'll see that it's dated January 4, 2010. Yeah it's been nearly a year since I last blogged anything. It's not that I didn't have the time because there were plenty of times I could have blogged. I just didn't feel like sharing online and then forgot I even created this. Facebook and Twitter has made microblogging my thoughts and pieces of my life a lot easier. But I've decided to get back into blogging on here and will do my best to get to it weekly.

And so just to summarize in case you're wondering, this year, 2010, ranks up there as one of the most emotional ones for me. I lost my job as the young adult pastor of a church at the beginning of the year. That was painful to go through because I connected so well with the young adults and church members. Then I went through a friendship with a girl that I thought was going somewhere but never did. After that I spent the summer not knowing if I was going to be working at San Gabriel Academy anymore. Turned out there was a change in administration and God blessed me with another year as the Elementary & Jr. High P.E. teacher. My buddy Leo then got married and being his best man, everyone at the wedding tells me I'm next. You can't help but have some feelings of emptiness, especially when I'm not even seeing anyone at the moment. And finally, I was sick for more than 50 days starting in October leading all the way into December. It really was a test of faith because I couldn't talk without coughing and I had a hard time getting a good night's sleep. I still went to work.

And here I am now, back blogging. That's all for now. I'll be highlighting some of the memorable events of 2010 in my next blog. Stay tuned...

2009 Memories

I can't believe how fast 2009 went by! It did get off to a sad start when my mom & I spent a few weeks in Indonesia mourning the loss of Oma. And it sure had it's up and downs, especially the months between April and September, from church issues to relationships and jobs. But in spite of everything that happened, God was faithful all the way through. He closed and open many doors and led me to where I am today. Hope you enjoy the list I compiled to kick off this new year!

January

Traveling to Indonesia with my mom to bury my grandma

Offered new job as Elementary P.E. Teacher, SGA

Speaking at TLT Sabbath, White Memorial

February

Pathfinder Convocation, White Memorial

Now Therefore Go IASDA Youth & Young Adult Week of Prayer, Azusa

March

Indonesian Basketball Tournament, UCLA

Fast & Furious with Marcus, LA Chinese Theatre

Two-week Spring Break

1st Annual Youth vs. Young Adult softball game

IASDA Youth Uncensored Vespers

April

Traveling up to Central California with Finish the Work

SGA Alumni Sabbath at beating varsity in basketball

Pathfinder Fair, Don Bosco Tech HS

Claim LA w/ Faith for Today Speaker-Director Mike Tucker, with PCC

May

1st Annual Youth Bikeathon from Azusa Canyon to Seal Beach

Revelation Speaks Peace w/ It is Written Speaker-Director Shawn Boonstra, USC

Going up to visit Walla Walla University with Elissa, Katie and Amy

Balloon Stampede, Walla Walla

Speaking at IASDA Adventurer's Camp, Galster Park

June

Last day of work at A+ Learning Center, Arcadia

Flying up to Walla Walla for graduation

Vegas with Leo & Roeum

Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen

Teaching summer school Jr. high class

July

My re-baptism!

Backpacking, fireworks and sleeping at the top of Mt. Wilson

Bonfires, Huntington Beach

Orange County Fair w/ summer school kids

Loma Loma Indonesian Basketball Tournament

August

Six Flags Magic Mountain

Courage to Stand International Pathfinder Camporee, Oshkosh, Wisconsin

1st place fancy drill

New 2009-2010 school year beginning at SGA

Time Traveler's Wife

September

SWYC, Pine Springs Ranch

Helping coach SGA women's varsity volleyball team

Loma Linda Filipino Summer League

Field trip to California Science Center

Dodgers First Round Playoff game

October

Big Bear with mom & dad

Teen Leadership Training, CCF

Moving to Alhambra SDA & making new friends

UCLA vs. Oregon State Women's Volleyball Game, Pauley Pavillion

November

1st place in volleyball, Indonesian Convocation

Grandparent's 60th Anniversary, Whittier

2012

Thanksgiving at auntie Diane's house, Moreno Valley

December

Offered new job as young adult pastor for White Memorial Church

Hearing about Leo & Roeum's proposal

Being an angel for Auntie Esther's Praise Connection

Journey to Bethlehem, SGA

AVATAR

Decorating my new office!

Christmas at auntie Stephanie's house, Anaheim Hills

Playing wii with my cousins and nephews

Christmas party at Auntie Hazel's

Celebrating my mom's birthday at Disneyland

Buying a Disneyland Annual Pass

Those were the highlights of 2009. I know I probably forgot to mention a lot of other things but those were the ones that stood out. I'll be sharing my Top 10 Resolutions for this new year 2010 in my next blog.