This is for real!

On Sunday, October 31, 2010 Brian proposed to Stephanie and she said, “Yes!” It is with great joy and gladness that we announce to beloved family and friends that we are engaged!

How We Met

Stephanie moved to Los Angeles in the fall of 2007 to pursue of year of urban mission work with the DOOR program. She moved into the Community House in Hollywood to tutor children in the neighborhood, teach their parents English, and work with the homeless. She also looked forward to leaving Los Angeles when her year was finished. She told herself that she would go to graduate school for Clinical Psychology as soon as the year ended, so there was no chance she would date anyone.

Brian returned home to Los Angeles in the fall of 2007 after a summer at Spruce Lake Wilderness Camp in the Poconos. That summer, he reconsidered his post-grad school self, figuring out how to live a life he was passionate about, including the kind of work he should seek and the qualities he should look for in a wife. This does not mean he was looking for Stephanie. He was actually just looking for a job. The writers’ strike started in Hollywood and the probability of him finding work as a writer/director seemed small (however, he was and is very grateful for the deck-building job he landed back then).

First Presbyterian Church of Hollywood owned the property that Stephanie and her three lovely roommates were living in for their volunteer year, and funny thing, Brian not only attended FPCH, he was serving as an elder on session at the time. Some staff at FPCH discovered that Stephanie and her roommates could sing, and invited them to sing for a service. It was while they were rehearsing for said service that Brian walked into the room in which they were practicing, and introduced himself to the lovely ladies. Stephanie did not notice him very much because, earlier that day, she had sideswiped her parent’s Oldsmobile on an inanimate object. There was a very large gash in their car and she was not sure how to inform them of this.

Over the next few months, Brian helped out at the Community House and invited Stephanie and her roommates to several Hollywood functions. They really did not know many people in Los Angeles, so it was nice to have a welcoming friend those first few weeks.

How to Win Over the Friends

Not only did Brian care for Stephanie, he was equally attentive to her friends. He helped out and loved on the children of Gregory Avenue in Hollywood, attending tutoring times and tried playing basketball with some of the kids. Stephanie noticed that Brian was at ease with some of the more challenging kids. He also brought over the makings for root beer floats for Stephanie and her roommates! He earned friend points taking Stephanie to see Enchanted on their first official date (but do not ask Stephanie about the tortilla soup).

Stephanie was an immediate hit with Brian’s extended family. His nieces and nephews quickly made Stephanie the lead and Brian the supporting cast whenever they visited. The rest of his friends thought she was yet another figment of his imagination as most of them did not meet her until after her year at DOOR ended.

The Plot Thickens

Over many visits to parks in Los Angeles, surprise dates, explorations of art (Dali is creepy), and oral readings of C.S. Lewis, Stephanie realized they had a lot in common. Brian had that figured out after a few dates. Only people meant to be together could sing the Olympic Theme in harmony while driving the treacherous streets of LA. Brian was put at ease about his work situation when Stephanie shared about her family’s struggles through periods of unemployment. They discovered a shared love for cooking, the outdoors, and cooking in the outdoors. Stephanie is growing to appreciate the Dallas Cowboys and the Buffalo Sabres. Brian is still developing his ice skating ankles.

Questions, Questions

Brian took Stephanie to a park for the afternoon on Sunday, October 31. They went to Brand Park in Glendale, where they had their first kiss about two and a half years before. Brian wanted to ask Stephanie to marry him; she wanted to take a nap. The nap didn’t happen as the conversation moved toward the question. Brian showered compliments over Stephanie about the qualities he saw in her and admired about her. Stephanie told him he was putting her on a pedestal. Brian said that was where Stephanie belonged. As Stephanie got up to leave, Brian said, “Speaking of pedestals, this is what it looks like to be on a pedestal.” Brian dropped to one knee and a certain important question was inquired of a surprised Stephanie. After Stephanie said “Yes!” and then “Is this really happening?!” they shared the news with family and some friends before wrapping up the night at Phantom of the Opera. In the room to celebrate with them was Andrew Lloyd Weber and Sarah Brightman . . . or maybe they were just there to close the 18-year national Phantom tour. You decide…

Looking Forward

Stephanie is excited to one day soon recycle, have a compost pile, and till a garden with Brian. She also anticipates her return to academia in the near future. Brian looks forward to continuing his writing, directing, and teaching. Together, they are excited to read through many great books on rainy evenings, and even more excited to read on snowy evenings next to a fire. They look forward to much hiking and adventuring in the great outdoors (but no more getting lost like they did in Sequoia). In their future they foresee chasing after many tennis balls gone astray and potentially learning the Tango. The couple’s first feature screenplay, Miss Connections, is a Romantic Comedy ode to the 405 freeway in Los Angeles and will be available for option in a few months.

What is popular...

Wow! Long time since I have updated you all. I'm attempting to capture more of my thoughts about life in the Southland electronically, so here goes, after more than a year hiatus from blogging:

I have been doing some work for PATH in San Diego for two months, engaging business owners and residents in downtown and assuring them that we will be working with them as we move forward to build a homeless shelter and permanent supportive housing units in downtown San Diego. This has not been an easy process.

Yesterday, I presented to a group and there was one person in particular whose scowl at me was so daunting, I almost didn't make it through the presentation. It's hard when you are the only person in a room of 15 other business leaders, and most of them do not have a reason to like what you or your project represents. My age of 25 probably does not help matters; I seem young, naive, innocent, a bleeding heart...

But that's when I realized, I am not doing this to be well liked or respected. Yes, I want to gain respect for being the hard worker that I am, but the work that I am engaged in right now will not always be popular. I am doing this to aid a portion of the San Diego community right now that has no voice, and no access to services in the immediate area which will see them sheltered on the coldest night.

I remember several of my middle school classrooms having a banner over the blackboards which read: "What is right is not always popular, what is popular is not always right." It is my hope to strive towards the former whenever popular, realizing that the former will probably not give me much money, success, popularity.

I believe this ties into an advent sermon I heard recently about John the Baptist, preaching to "prepare the way of the Lord." He didn't just mean prepare the world, he meant prepare ourselves. One of the ways I am preparing myself this year is through letting go of opinions of others. I'm going to look silly, bumbling and unprepared at many points throughout my life, not just this. But what matters is that I understand my own need for Christ's redemption, my own need for a Savior every day. Who cares who is staring at me? The only person I should care about is the Divine Gazer, watching my struggles, joy, pain, and sin, and saying amidst the many difficulties, "This is my child, whom I love."

Encounter with God

This past Saturday night, to celebrate the ending of one of my GRE tests, Brian and I went out to eat and In n Out burger. We had a great time, as always we enjoy this restaurant a lot.

There was an older deaf couple that was eating nearby us, and when they got up to leave the husband gave me a little message on a small sheet of paper. The message read "God Bless You :)". I guess Brian and I must have looked confused about what we would have done to deserve such a compliment, because he and his wife were both pressing their hands together and bowing towards us, in an effort to explain. They were both Caucasian, so I know that they were not doing some kind of greeting that is normally seen in Asian cultures... finally the man turned over the paper he had given me and wrote: "Pray before eating." They had seen me say a quick blessing over our meal before we started eating.

What a blessing! I really had needed encouragement that night, because I don't know if I did all that well on my test, and boy was I so blessed to have been able to receive that small token of love from the man. He is my brother in Christ! And how amazing that it just took one small act that seems so elementary and rooted into me, praying before I eat, to give someone the opportunity to converse with me about my faith.

I felt extremely happy leaving the restaurant. This is why I love In N Out, and maybe even LA so much; there is such a diversity of people here and BOOM: before you know it, you are pushed together into community with people that you never would have interacted with on your own. And there you are, sharing your lives with one another like you had never expected to.

Classical Conditioning at its Finest

Apparently, the city of Los Angeles, California has a pigeon problem. It does not take a rocket scientist to figure this out! The most disturbing part about the pigeon problem is that there is actually a woman living in the Hollywood Hills who, for some reason or another, goes out every morning to feed the pigeons all over Los Angeles. She has no furniture in her living room, just bag after bag of pigeon feed, and she faithfully feeds the enlarging pigeon community all over Los Angeles. I even think I saw her on my street one morning with crusts of bread (*and of course I got out my angry eyes, why would I want someone to feed the pigeons on my street?!).

To combat the growing pigeon population, the city of Los Angeles has come up with an amazing, but age-old, solution: put distributing sites around the county on rooftops that don't get very much traffic, where pigeons can go to get their food. And when the food is being distributed, some kind of light signal/sound signal will go off to let the pigeons know that the food is being distributed on their rooftops. Sound like Ivan Pavlov, doesn't it?

Can anyone else see a possible issue with this? I can. The woman is still going out to feed the pigeons. I'm talking about every single morning. People have actually tried to catch her and she somehow manages to evade them. And this will be her routine for the rest of her life. She loves these birds! So while the pigeons might learn to go to the distributing sites because they will learn to pair the noise/light signal with their food, they also will still be getting their food from her. This is a huge issue. Instead of getting rid of the pigeon population, we will be exacerbating it!

A possible solution (if anyone else wants to chime in with another solution be my guest...): at the distributing sites, make sure the pigeons eat the feed and deliver a small shock to them at the end so that they learn not to eat the food? This is very difficult, though for severals reasons. 1. several animal rights activists frequent this lovely city I find myself in and 2. the pigeons could just learn not to come to the distributing sites and still they would be fed by the pigeon lady. So really, I don't know if there is a sensible solution. But the next time you are in Los Angeles, and you see a pigeon, just think of me and smile.

Housed: One Veteran!

The scene: Los Angeles Housing Authority, Friday, August 28th. A room with florescent lights and no windows.

Those present: 30 veterans, 5 case managers with LA Housing Authority, myself and my partner Herman.

Required: Clients present submitted an application, and also had 90 days sobriety, a physical and mental health evalutaion, as well as copies of bank statements.

Getting to see one of our clients in a room with 29 other vets receive a voucher for his own apartment: priceless!

Now, for the other 90,000 homeless in LA, let's get cracking!

In all sincerity, it has been a crazy ride with this particular client seeing him through to this point, and it has taken a lot of sweat to actually get all of the required components gathered and all of his appointments met.

As I looked around the room, I realized that most Veterans do not have the luxury of getting case managers to aid them in looking for apartments. They are going to be making their appointments on their own. Although most veterans in the room receiving their housing vouchers appeared to be middle-aged or higher, I did see some younger looking men that could not have been much older than me. I wondered what must be different about their lives now. We're awarding these veterans who served our country with reduced fee housing vouchers for single and one bedroom apartments, and yet they should be able to have a house of their own, not just an apartment in this crazy, jam-packed city. One man asked about his PTSD and how that was going to affect his ability to find an apartment approved with the program in the given 120 day limit. He has a 2 year old daughter. I hope that there will be reform in this program, and in similar programs to come, as we continue on the quest to house every homeless and underserved person living in this city.

For now, I must celebrate along with my wonderful team the small feat that has been accomplished with the collaborative effort of case managers, social workers, and doctors, all who had a small part to play in getting our one client the dream of his life, an apartment he could afford on his SSI that is in West Hollywood, CA.

Glorifying God in the Dull

Currently I am studying for two Graduate Record Examination (GRE) tests, which will be taken about a month/month and a half from now. One is in psychology, and the other is the general which I took a few years ago. The majority of my summer (post-relative visit, that is!) has been establishing a regular pattern of study on two weeknights and on Saturdays. Boy has it been difficult for me to get back into the swing of things. I told someone recently that it was like retraining a muscle I haven't used in a while. There are days where doing math problems and reading an abbreviated version of a general psych text book is less than desireable. Yet I continue to press on. Part of me is happy to be studying again, because I know that I will be closer to my goal of getting into clinical psychology programs. But the other half says to me daily, "It's summer. You should be outside. Or in an air-conditioned movie theater. With friends."

One of my professors at Seattle Pacific said that we glorify God when we show up with a grateful and willing heart. This means that in showing up to study, grateful that God has given me the chance for some higher learning, and also willing to humble myself and learn the magnitude of that which I do not know, I am glorifying Him! Although many days when I sit down to study I do not feel like studying and I do have a bad attitude, I am trying to re-focus that energy into feeling like my score will be that much more positive because I am studying so diligently. I think this can be taken into anything and anywhere we go. This week, I am praying for a grateful and willing heart as I show up to work, to studying, to the gym, to hang out with friends, and in my quiet times. I know that God will meet me there and work out the rest for me.

The Day MJ Passed...

On Thursday, June 25th, a momentous thing happened here in Hollywood. I'm not referring to Michael Jackson's death, either, although it has been crazy to be living in the city he was living in while he died...

I'm talking about Project Connect, a nation-wide program of services available for the homeless. Here in Hollywood, we call it the Y!MBY, meaning Yes! in my backyard. Many people today have the opposite, or N!MBY (Not! in my backyard!) mindset and for that reason each year it becomes more and more challenging to provide low cost, permanent affordable housing, and to build shelters and other service centers to help the homeless and other high needs populations. When I was in high school and living in Michigan, there was talk of a new county jail being built in a residential neighborhood. Many residents of that neighborhood combatted the jail being built there. They said they did not want a jail in their backyards.

This illustrates the idea of N!MBYism, the current attitude that yes, the homeless should be helped, but let's send them on a bus away from our community to get them help somewhere else.

Project Connect Day's goal was to assist our clients who are homeless in Hollywood, actually in Hollywood. It took place on Thursday, June 25th, and we saw 518 homeless people that day. Everyone completed an intake and was seen in an orderly fashion. There were representatives from many agencies, a church group was doing foot washing, there were free haircuts, and many persons were placed into shelter. All in all, it was a very successful day. To give you a picture of what the day was like, I've included this link:

http://www.epath.org/yimby/Connectday2009report.html

At this site, you can view a video of the day. Although I'm really not so sure that it complies with HIPAA, since the clients signed a consent form when they came in but I can't remember if it said anything about putting their pictures in the media.

Whatever the case may be, the same day that Michael Jackson died, 518 people in Hollywood were given a meal, some were given a place to stay for the next 3-6 months, and much much more.