Boredom [BOOK BLOGRIMAGE DAY 4/30]

I've been at the Seeds conference all day. It's an honor sitting next to ministers hungry about learning and reaching this visual generation. The speakers in main sessions and breakout sessions are killing it. I feel like my mind is expanded and my selfishness exposed. I don't want to get into that, but I am growing and thankful for it. Being part of this conference is challenging my ability to write. I'm studying at conferences all day, and end up writing this book at 1am and beyond. Even now, I'm in a tulsa coffee shop called "Phoenix" listening to an artist named Fiona. I love Tulsa. I also love sleep, but this book and my ministry keep me away from both :)​

I feel like I have nothing good to write. I'm not fishing for compliments--that's just how I feel. Even when those feelings come, I just keep writing, trusting that God can use my foolishness to put the shame the wise. ​

TODAY'S EXCERPT:​

​A little kid constantly complaining about life’s boredom needs a punch in the face. What happened to the spirit of adventure? Boring people are bored. Exciting people are excited. Whenever one of us complained about boredom to my parents, my mom, or mummy as I call her, told us to grab a piece of paper and write 100 things that we could do to create adventure. She never gave us a different response. She didn’t sympathize with how much free time we had. She didn’t shed a tear because our schedules contained an endless amount of rest and relaxation. She provided us a means to develop creative and imaginative muscles I’m afraid people are unaware of.

Pranking My Sister [BOOK BLOGRIMAGE DAY 3/30]

Greetings. Today, I am posting this at 2am because I attended a conference and revisited my College, Oral Roberts University all day. I haven't been here for many years and wanted to take advantage of the opportunity to learn from a conference and reflect sentimentally on the memories of schooling. ​

​Here is today's excerpt:​

I looked up to my sister a lot. She had good looks, attractive friends and popularity--she won the Homecoming Queen position at the largest high school in Minnesota. Being her little brother, and not being socially received as well, I loved pranking her. Something about seeing her struggle and suffer because of my intelligence, cunning and preparation developed great joy in my heart. One evening, while she put the final touches on her mascara before a big school dance, I decided to prank her with a trick I saw on America’s Home Videos. She walked down the stairs, draped in a beautiful silver dress and curled hair that’d soon hold the Coon Rapids Home Coming Queen crown. With only 5 minutes until her date rang our doorbell, I asked Akka, my sister, “While you’re by the sink, can turn the water on, so it warms up?” She had no reason to suspect what happened next. She probably thought I wanted to wash the dishes, though that is unlikely since I never washed anything. But she walked towards to the faucet anyways. The moment she lifted the faucet handle, a rushing stream of water from the dish sprayer soaked my sister’s Homecoming Dress. Five minutes earlier, as she finalized that mascara, I wrapped a rubber band around the handle that enables the dish sprayer to powerfully project water in synch with the faucet. She never saw it coming. I laughed, but she didn’t, which is still the dynamic we have today in most situations.​

Please provide me feedback. It helps me so much. ​

For those you unfamiliar with this BLOGRIMAGE journey, click here.​

Road trip Writing [BOOK BLOGRIMAGE DAY 2/30]

​This challenge is exhausting! I'm on a 15 hour road trip to tulsa for the Seeds Conference hosted by Church on the move. I'm with great friends, but took some time to write. I am finding it mentally and emotionally draining to write. It's hard to know whether my content is good or not, but I am fighting the temptation to edit while writing. 

What I'm learning:​

• The key to to writing, is writing. Don't edit! Just write. 
• Another key to writing is not getting distracted. Don't check tweets or Instagram!

​Here's today's excerpt: 

Everyone says they were awkward growing up. Between my scabbed over chapped lips, curly uni-brow, pink wind blazers and in ability to understand people’s jokes because I learned English from parents who didn’t speak it well, I’m pretty sure I have most people beat in levels of awkward. My parents hardly knew what to do with me—they yelled at me for a lot of things. One day, I rummaged through mummy’s (my mother) dresser and pulled out a pair of jeans. Alternative music started taking off in early 90’s Minnesota and I wanted to look like the coolest grunge rockers with their Doc Martins, Long hair, plaid shirts and jean shorts. In order for this to happen, I needed the jean shorts, or “jorts” as cool guys call them. My mom’s jean were typical 90’s mom jeans, tapered at the bottom, acid washed and pulled up past the belly button. Before anybody could stop me, I pulled out a pair of scissors and started cutting the full scaled jeans into jorts. Denim is hard to cut through with kid’s scissors, though I managed to get it all done. Putting the jorts on brought in feelings of self accomplishment, pride and pure exhilaration. The first thing to do, of course, would be getting on my BMX Haro bike, and riding around my neighborhood in order to show my friends how cool I looked. For sure, I’d be the “cock of the walk,” the envy of every kid, bully and anybody that might think “I should go back to my own country.” These jorts were my right of passage—one of many I used to gain people’s approval, fit in and not feel so awkward. Riding my bike around the block in my jorts brought various feelings, but one stood out in particular. I felt cool.  Not cool in the way of good looks, confidence and likeability, though, I felt cool in the region of my jorts. Looking down, while riding my bike, I saw my jorts were cut so low that my butt cheeks touched directly to my cold plastic seat. And instead of creating jorts to make me look cool, I had created booty shorts that exposed my inner to upper thighs to the coolness of the wind and another laughing crowd. My mom wasn’t happy when she saw her jeans out of the dresser, and my butt hanging out of her jeans. Like I said, my parents often didn’t know what to do with their awkward child.

Please provide me feedback. It helps me so much. ​

For those you unfamiliar with this BLOGRIMAGE journey, click here.​

Book Writing Blogrimage [Day 1/30]

​For my Blogrimage, I am writing a book! 

This is something I have wanted to do for years, and the Blogrimage is the perfect catalyst. For those of you unfamiliar with the Blogrimage, here are some of the details: 

1. Pick a Challenge

2. Do it for 30 days.

3. Blog about it Everyday

Why Writing a Book?​

I feel called to leave a message that lasts beyond my death. I am writing about living in various worlds (being a Sri Lankan American and a Christian Preacher with a Hindu Background). I think my position and circumstances in life are pretty unique, and my wrestling with different ideals and falling in love with God is a story that should be told.  To be completely honest, ​this challenge is hard. It took more more than two hours to write my first five pages. I'd probably put this book off forever if it weren't for the Blogrimage so I am glad for this opportunity. 

What to Expect?​

1. Expect to see a passage from one of my daily writings

2. Expect to read my passage and encourage me! It will help me continue on!

Challenge Details:​

• ​Write 5 Pages a Day (Total of 150 Pages)
• Share Excerpts from the Book
• Receive Feedback on the Book from Comments
• Not Edit the Book

This Day's Writing:

“Where is the toilet paper?”  I screamed after using a squatty potty bathroom in the middle of a Sri Lankan Jungle. There were many things my parents never taught me about the country responsible for my brown skin, but they never mentioned Sri Lankans don’t use toilet paper. While people who use toilet paper think that toilet paperless people are gross, it’s actually considered gross to many people do use toilet paper. In South Asia, it is common for people to wash with soap and water following a session in a bathroom instead of simply “smearing everything around with paper,” as it was later described to me. I hadn’t discovered yet that some people didn’t use toilet paper, so I awkwardly walked out of the bathroom, without fully pulling up my pants, in order to find someone who might help me. I thought yelling, “Help Me! I can’t find any toilet paper! This is an emergency!”  should work to help, but it only managed to gather a crowd and surprised laughter. Nobody took me serious because, A, my pants weren’t all the way up and, B, I looked like I was born and raised in Sri Lanka. They didn’t know I never was taught about the local bathroom culture. They didn’t know that I only spoke English and 3 sentences of German acquired over 4 years of German language class.  They didn’t know that this was my first time in Sri Lanka. All they knew is that they saw a very handsome, brown skinned, 19 year old running around  and yelling, “I need toilet paper! Where is the toilet paper!” with his pants not low enough to touch the ground and get dirty, but high enough to get dirty in another way. Finally a 23 year old pre-med student communicated to me, in broken English, about the societal ramifications of asking for toilet paper. He said in a solemn voice, “It is absurd for you to ask for toilet paper since our country typically does not use it all.” He realized that I wasn’t a normal locally raised brown person and he politely informed me I must wash myself with soap and water with a bowl that I’ll find next to all toilets. My whole life I’ve navigated awkward circumstances like this because I am formed by several different worlds. This isn’t a sci-fi book. I’m not talking about a parallel universe or out of body space experience. I’m talking about being raised by Sri Lankan Hindu Refugees in the middle of Coon Rapids, Minnesota and eating Chicken Curry next to Hamburger Helper. The western world, American, where I was born and raised has shaped half of who I am. The eastern world, Sri Lanka, shaped the second half.​

I won a Lifted-Truck and More.

​Last Friday, I picked up a Lifted Dodge Ram with a $3000 bright blue paint job. It's massive and towers above all vehicles on the dirt roads of Michigan I use daily. The coolest part, though, is that I got it for free.

​This isn't my first Dodge Ram. A couple months ago, my 1982 Dodge Ram Prospector, purchased for $600, broke down after two years of semi-faithful service. The "Old Prospector" as I like to call it, served me well, but now stays lifeless at a car shop down another one of the Michigan dirt roads I use daily. 

"Randomly" I got a bigger and better Dodge Ram. All because I picked the right raffle ticket at the right event. ​What a massive blessing. My wife can hardly get into the truck because it's so big. This might be a stretch, but this whole situation made me think about another massive blessing we've all received.

​This last weekend, I took a 10 hour seminar on early Church history. I learned about people hashing out critical theological doctrine, hand-writing Scripture and trying to build a structure for Christianity while being killed for the same thing. The reality is that, in the same way I received a truck for completely free, I got a priceless faith inheritance for free. I love it. The Bible made it's way into my hands because of people's deaths, hard work and conviction. 

​Sometimes reading the Bible feels like a burden. And spending over $80 filling up my massive truck can feel like a burden, but when I look at the bigger picture, I am grateful that God gave me something I didn't deserve at all. 

​The Bible, the Church, Doctrine, and our faith didn't come by accident. Take advantage of the rich heritage we have so easily available. It's a massive blessing. Read your Bible and let us all share freely the faith we've been freely given. 

6 PEOPLE YOU ENCOUNTER WHILE WITNESSING [VIDEOS 5 & 6 OF 6]

Ever Pray for Someone while doing to the Cha Cha Slide?

The Gospel Challenge Video series comes to an end with these two videos. See parts of the Cha Cha slide, and a live human cloning--all to teach Evangelism. 

This is the third installment of a 6 part video series that tests people's abilities to witness.

Basically, I put on a disguise, find Christians and see how good they preach under pressure. In this blog post, you'll see how people respond to "The Interrupter" and "The Final Challenge," and other people you've probably encountered while witnessing.

Video 5: The Interrupter

This person gets in the way of good conversations. Let's say you're in a great moment with some people and they are praying with you. This person will bring up irrelevant conversations, and ruin everything that is happening. Featuring Rick Lundskow and Gabby.

Video 6: The Final Challenge

This is the last video! This final video includes every character from the last five videos. This is the ultimate challenge for anyone trying to witness. This features Robin Sullivan from WMUZ radio. On Thursday, December 20, 2012, I'll be on her radio show to discuss Evangelism.