Part of what I will be doing this next year is raising funds to support many aspects of my life. The CRC has very graciously given us a stipend to buy some of our time, but as is the case with all church plants, this money isn’t even enough to live off of, let alone cover expenses that we may incur for the development of Kai.

As I write this I am just emerging from a dream. As is the case with many of my dreams I don’t remember it, but what I do remember is that the moment I woke up the phrase, “pray-seed-money” was repeating in my conscious stream of thought. So, i’m guessing the dream had something to do with that?

So this is why I am posting.

Kai has three major aspects (mission, relationship, spirituality). One of the ways that Kai will meet its mission is to be an active participant in the economy of our neighborhood — namely through a small business. Over the past 6-8 months I have been in conversation with a few people as to what this small business might be, and am in the process of having a market research company do some work for me to figure out the market i am entering into. But apart from having a heart and a calling to open a small business not much else is in place yet — especially finances.

So once again, this is a call to those of you that believe in the power of prayer. My subconscious told me I needed it and so this is a plea for prayer for a couple people to come along side Kai and say, “I believe in you and your mission, and I want to show you that through supplying you with seed money” And as you pray, if you see or hear a response (of any kind) please let me know.

blessings
joel

The first step toward being an indigenous community in South Lake Union (SLU) is to move there. Now, housing in Seattle is ridiculous, let alone downtown Seattle. But over the past 4 months Brooke and I have been jumping through loops, taking out a home equity loan, consolidating debt, and praying alot because Vulcan Real Estate has a project called Veer Lofts. This project is geared toward first-time home buyers and therefore Vulcan has decided to place the listing prices under market value (how much? no one really knows, because they are still expensive). But because of this, and because SLU in in the process of taking off, there are over 600 people that want in on 99 units (ouch). Vulcan expected this though and so what they did is put all of us that jumped through all the loops into a lottery process. They then drew out the lottery cards, one by one, to establish the order that people could choose their unit. Obviously, we have no control over this process and so we had to wait patiently for a phone call to tell us when our date was that we could come down and pick out a unit. Well, the phone call came about a month ago and we found out that out of 600+ people our card got drawn 33rd. HOLY MOSES. we were stunned. but to top it all off, our friend and my partner in crime with Kai has gone through the same process and his card got drawn 39th. HOLY MOSES. The laws of probability tell me that there was less than a 2% chance of that happening. (i just made that up). So as we cautiously celebrate the day and time (December 4th at 5:15) get closer and closer.

So, if you are the praying time, please pray that a unit that we can both afford and like is still available for both Tim and Us. If you are the ‘thank your lucky stars type, then thank them for us. Or, if you are the ‘good luck’ type, then do what you can to throw luck our way.

peace
joel

so there are a few (like 2) of you out there who have come up to me recently and said, “why did you stop blogging?” after my ego comes down from realizing that there are a couple people that actually visit this site I find myself diving into my either one of two reasons. The first one being that I don’t think i believe in blogging anymore. yes, i know, it is a strange thing not to believe in. but everybody i know who has a blog has had at least one blogging crisis where they wonder why they continue to blog. this must be mine. on my good days i think blogging is a good way to get thought out and to communicate with friends and family that are a far. On my bad days i think of blogging as a self-indulgent, narcissistic forum. This blog does both of those.

the second explanation is that my audience has changed. and anyone who has ever written anything for public consumption knows that when it is written there is always a face, or two, or many that are at the forefront of the mind. this facilitates what language is used, how ideas are expressed, and much more. and since i have graduated from MHGS that crowd is not my audience anymore. for the most part my audience seems to be people in europe, south america, and the occasional person from alaska. strange? yeah, i think so too.

so here i am, with some spare time on a monday afternoon typing words onto a screen that will soon be read by who knows who and less than 2% of people respond, the other 98% simply consume the information without adding, or subtracting from what i say. so why do i do this, it seems to be futile at times.

maybe that is why i stopped?

in addition to the above two reasons, i have stopped blogging because there is way too much to update you all (the two of you) on. so much has changed in the past 3-4 months. i finally got done with MH and am in the process of understanding what it means to not be a student for the first time in my life, i got a grant through the Christian Reformed Church (CRC) to do community development and reconciliation in Urban Seattle, I quit my job as Associate pastor at Wits End Church, I am in conversation about opening a small business in Urban Seattle, Brooke and I may (in less than 5 week) own two condo’s, and i backpacked/hiked over 80 miles in 4 weeks.

so, all that to say, as Kai (the name of my non-profit) takes off this blog will be changing, and look for an announcement (soon) about the Kai website going public.