Archives for November 2009

LIFE WITH GOD

November 17, 2009 by Brian Berry Leave a Comment

God’s been chasing me on something for a few months. It has come up all over the place for me. It came up in some conferences I went to. It came up in books I’m reading. It came up in a retreat with our guys in the desert. It has come up in my own teaching and preparation several times. It came up in a devo I did for our staff last week.

It’s the reality that I do not want to live my life “near God”. I want to do life “with God”.

This has lots of implications.

THEOLOGICALLY: I believe God is omnipresent- everywhere. I do not have to travel somewhere to go find God. (ie: Psalm 139:7-12) God is near me all the time. But near me, and with me, are separate things. God can be “near” a drug deal, but it doesn’t mean God is “with those doing it”. God can be “near” a church service, but it doesn’t mean those teaching or those listening are doing so “with God”.

PRACTICALLY TODAY: I think in our internet and electronic driven world we live in today… we think we can do life “with people” who we are never truly “with”. I do this from time to time. But there is no exchange for real, hand-to-hand, life-on-life, with one another kind of living. I think there are those who read this blog or follow my facebook posts or twitter updates and think, “man, I feel like I know Brian” because I update those things fairly regularly and they choose to read them regularly. But the truth is, that connection a reader experiences is something… but it is not “with one another”. I’m not saying it’s bad to read a blog or follow someone on facebook. I’m just saying we shouldn’t mistake the feeling of intimacy we feel for the real life value of being truly “with” one another. Sometimes distance makes it impossible. And facebook is a nice way to minimize the distance and to talk and to connect, but facebook will never replace the value of my real presence somewhere. I can’t coach soccer from facebook, or hug my kids, or love my wife, or give a shoulder to a hurt friend to cry on. It is what it is. But it is not “with” one another.

PERSONALLY WITH GOD AND I: I think I can make this error with God though too. I can get content with following God at a distance. With sort of a voyeurism of faith where I observe and watch and even follow God, but I’m not doing life hand-in-hand, heart-to-heart, WITH GOD. I do not want that to be the summation of my life. I don’t want to settle for anything less than life with God.

Anyway, I had forgotten that this was also the subject of a devo I did for Youth Specialties on their podcast. It was just posted today, but I recorded it a while ago. So I watched it “fresh” for myself today since I did not recall what I had said then. Like a voice from inside my soul, calling me back to what is important… it was good for me to be reminded today by my own voice from the past, that the with God life is what I really want.

O God, may it be true of me what was true of Noah: “Brian walked with God.”

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WHY I GO TO MEXICO

November 14, 2009 by Brian Berry Leave a Comment

I have come to love Mexico. I thought moving 30 minutes from the border would mean I’d take hundreds of students every year… but the truth is, we’ve taken waaaaaay less in San Diego than we ever did in Nor Cal. My largest trip here is still about as big as my smallest trip team from there.

Part of it is because local Mexico news is local news here, so people are actually more afraid of the border here than they are in Nor Cal. We tend to believe the news and lately, Mexico is a fearful place to go filled with drugs and waring and you’ll likely die if you go.

Yeah… well… we keep going, but now that they require passports (something I’ve required from Nor Cal for years), we are taking fewer and fewer students. This time it was 4 high school girls, 5 from the Berrytribe (we didn’t take Becky and Billy cuz we thought it was too soon a transition for them and a variety of other reasons), and some of our adult volunteers- all in all totaling a nice size group of about 15 of us for a day trip in honor of the Veteran’s day off.

But regardless… I’d go with my family alone. Why?

CUZ I’M RICH: It’s good for my kids to get around a culture that reminds them they have too much. It’s good for me to be reminded I’m rich. Today I went to a wedding rehearsal in Rancho Santa Fe. In the hour before the rehearsal that Shannon had to be there, Jake (who is a ring bearer) and I went to a coffee shop. Rancho Santa Fe is the land of 10 million dollar homes. Really. The church the wedding is in is sitting around MULTI-million dollar estates. Jake and I had coffee in a place where my car was clearly lower class and we went window shopping for fun at a real estate broker next door and there was not one house for sale under 2 million. The largest we saw had 9 bedrooms, 9 bathrooms, 2 pools, a grass tennis court, and was going for 16 million. Yeah.. hang around in Rancho Santa Fe and you’ll feel poor. Now drive south of the border for 15 minutes, spend the day there with a family we sponsor who has no car, no phone, no refrigerator and 6 kids who live in a 200 sq foot home and you’ll shut up about being poor in a hurry.

CUZ IT MAKES ME HAPPY TO SEE THEM HAPPY: I love seeing kids play. I love sharing food and serving along side those who could use my help. I love bringing them food and sharing the abundance we have with those who could use a little more.

CUZ OF THE FOOD: Ok.. I go for the taquitos and the ice cream. Truth be told, if you told me I couldn’t stop for taquitos, I think I might question motive one and two in light of motive 3. I LOVE to eat in the hole in a wall open air taco places. I’ve yet to get sick. I always pick one whose reputation is good among the locals and looks good and clean and yeah… we just roll in and eat till it hurts. It’s really the best thing about Mexico. They are good cooks 🙂

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HODAD’S SCHOOLS MY SMALL GROUP

November 6, 2009 by Brian Berry 1 Comment

So, last summer I took a group of high school kids to the beach for the day. Or at least that was what we planned, but it ended up being just a bunch of hungry dudes who could go… so it ended up becoming a trip to Hodad’s for lunch. It’s an eclectic and super fun burger joint just blocks from the beach in downtown Ocean Beach.

That summer day I ordered one basket of fries, an order of onion rings, and a round of sodas and the guys each bought a burger. Nicholai- who was interning during the summer- thought…

“Oh… I’ll just order like I do at In-n-out and order a double double with bacon.”

Yeah… well his double double was double the size of his face and he gave up after 1/2 way done and cried uncle.

Ever since then, our small group of guys has been claiming they wanted to show Nicholai the burger could be owned. So, finally, we took them on last Wednesday night for them to experience it first hand- 6 of them for the first time.

The numbers: $119 bill for 9 dudes. 5 bought doubles. 4 got wiser with singles. I ordered 2 baskets of fries and one onion ring to share and a vanilla shake to mock them with.

There was sooooo much fat and grease and sugar and God knows what on this table that we didn’t even dare to pray “Dear God, please bless this meal.” We just asked for grace and forgiveness for what we just did to our body and agree’d we’d be seeing God a full 30 days earlier than He planned due to this diversion in artery health on our part… and then ate.

The result?

Yeah… 4 singles got polished off. And so did the baskets of fries and rings.

As for the doubles… Um.

David Bach (almost done below) and Brian Brangwynne (fisting it in the background) are have now been bestowed the title of “HODAD” for finishing the entire burger.

Michael (ordering) was bestowed the title of “SLOWDAD” since he did finish his, but ate it all the way home and finished the last bite as we exited the freeway to church.

And Jeff Sers (burger pride) and Michael Conley (slacker boy)- both of whom talked big game… have now been dubbed the “NODAD’S” since they got spanked by the burger and could not polish it off, leaving at least 1/3 of it still in the basket.

This day shall now be a historical moment in the lives of 7 high school students and 2 leaders who came, saw, and even a few conquered.

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HALLOWEEN 2009- ANOTHER FIRST

November 2, 2009 by Brian Berry 2 Comments

After bringing Becky and Billy home last February, we are still having firsts. This holiday season has hosted a bunch more: the first tick or treating, the first pumpkin carving, and the first costumes. Next will be more through Thanksgiving and Christmas… all firsts for Becky and Billy and for us with them too.

They loved pretending in costumes they wore 3x…. once to a school party, once to the dress up day at school, and once on halloween. Jake chose to be a cop, TJ wore grandpa scott’s cowboy hat and some gear, Billy was superman, Tyler a ketchup bottle, and Becky chose a fairy.

Having grown up in a fairly primitive and dust filled space, you’d think Becky would be ok with dirt and slime and stuff… but she hates yucky stuff. Grabbing pumpkin guts with her bare hands were met with nasty faces and repeated claims that this is “yucky”. The youngest kids drew on the faces and I carved them when they were done.

Our neighborhood serves for great trick-or-treating with lots of common streets, kids all over the place, and plenty of houses to choose from. Since we no longer have to be at church, we have friends over for dinner, meet the neighborhood in the street with java in hand, and then go hiking for candy. The Hammond’s- who went to Africa with us to adopt too- joined us and off we went. We ended up meeting up with 3 other families from our street and spent the next 2 hours going house to house mob style with 14 kids, 10 adults, and the dog.

When we get home, the Berrytribe plan involves dumping the entire loot into one pile… no fighting over whose candy is whose or we take it all away. We just sort it and let them pick a piece from the loot now and then. In about another week, we’ll “miraculously” get rid of the rest of it: there’s always more than our family could ever reasonably consume. Our kids are onto us and think we should send a bunch of it to Welcome Home in Uganda… but cost and the “melting” factor may keep that from happening. Maybe we’ll take it to Mexico with us in another 10 days and share it with the daycare center we’re gonna visit.