If I was A Superstitious Man...

Four-leaf clover // Will this one bring me luck?, originally uploaded by Merlijn Hoek.

If I was a superstitious man, it would have been freaky when the check for my escrow hold is numbered 666. Not only that, yesterday, I dropped my phone and when I picked it up (it's a touch screen phone) it said "666" on the keypad.

Good thing I am not superstitious. But I thought it was funny. Also, my real estate agent got a random text today asking him to call back a number that ended with 666.

Can God use this sort of thing to encourage people to not do something? Probably, but considering that God knows I'm not superstitious He would not use something this simple to persuade me. Now, if I had told this to my mom, she would probably think that the world was coming to an end... =)

Brown Rice Bugs...

I usually don't buy a big bag of rice because I don't cook rice often considering I'm korean. When my parents came over, we had to buy a huge bag of rice back in May as my mom was eating rice for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. So, after I came back from Israel in July, I start to find these brown bugs everywhere near my pantry, I couldn't figure out what they were so I kept cleaning them up but they'll show up again.

I cleaned up the pantry, trashed all the left over open pasta and flour thinking they might be attracting the bugs, and gave it a vinegar treatment to all the surface area. They showed up for 2 days after that and they were gone, yeah!
Today, as I was about to cook my rice, I see these bugs INSIDE the airtight container of rice, not that many but when I took it out I saw one crawling away into the rice *gulp*. I sifted through and was able to get rid of them a little and did a final cleaning before cooking the rice.

I had googled before trying to figure out what it was but had no luck as I wasn't sure what to look for... now I googled for "brown bugs in rice" and BINGO! I had my answer. These are apparently common bugs found in rice (or any type of grain) and--get ready if you're squeamish--their eggs are most likely still with the rice you commonly buy, it's just that it takes a long time and a hot and humid environment for the eggs to hatch!! And what do you know, I had left my home un-airconditioned for 2 whole weeks and they had hatched!

For a final check, I brought out the BIG bag of rice I had purchased back in May... I cleanched my teeth... opened the bag... and... saw at least 50 of the buggers crawling on the surface of the rice, YIKES!! Grabbed, trashed, tied, double tied, and down the trash chute it went.

So, next time you eat rice, remember this... you are getting protein because of those fine bug eggs... it sounds disgusting (specially after seeing them crawling around) but bugs are edible. Have a nice dinner.

Conundrum: Good Neighborhood for Comfort, or Living with Ministry in mind?

Here's an interesting thought that popped into my head today. Should my new home be a place in an affluent neighborhood, where everything is clean, safe and people would go "woah, nice place, nice neighborhood" and be glad and envious at the same time? Or should my place be a place for ministry where I can reach out to people? Can it be both? What suits me better?

I started to look for some homes in more "affordable" areas with a more hispanic community. My agent tells me--rightly so--that the neighborhood is not that safe. But the thought came that moment. I will be attending the Calvary Chapel SPANISH School of Ministry (I just graduated from the regular ENGLISH School of Ministry) to improve my spanish and be able to expand my ministry to the latino community, and getting a home in a hispanic community would certainly help, and seems more than just coincidence to me.

I was never really able to connect to the neighborhood as the american culture seems to have moved away from anything more than just a "hi", "Good Morning", to your neighbors and they keep themselves at an arms length. And if I move into a nice neighborhood, I don't think I'd have much in common with them.

I think I would have more in common with the lower-middle class, and maybe have more opportunities to reach out to them by being a good neighbor. Maybe it is the Philly trip that made me realize that I had a lot in common with the kids from the poor neighborhoods. They just played with everything they found, and their entertainment was doing acrobatics and tricks.

Many of you know of my weird acrobatics and miming and just hand based tricks and stuff. I attribute that to having too much time as a child and not much to waste time on... you end up creating your own games and being an acrobat (me, Jackie Chan style)

Anyhow, 10 years ago, I made an unofficial pact with God that I would not spend more than $20k on a car after my parents had bought me a car when I was 21 that ran about $25k back then and realized how spoiled I really was. The motive was to not get a car that would be a "status symbol"

I think I need to carry over that idea when buying a home. I'm not saying that it's wrong to have a nice home or car. You can definitely thank God for his blessings when you do have, but this is just me. It's not that I would feel guilty for having a nice car or a nice home, but I have seen too many Pastors who drive cars that are too nice or homes that are too extravagant and I don't want to head that way.

It would be nice to live in a nice neighborhood, and have a nice house, but my priority in life as a Pastor is to the ministry of serving God. I'm not willing to go buy a house in compton--as Pastor Lee did in North Philly--but I think I can handle a slightly poor neighborhood in Anaheim with comfort I can live with and focus on ministry at the same time.

Maybe time has come to finally use my Spanish skills for ministry. Please pray for this opportunity for me to a possible future ministry.