Archive for February, 2009
Prayer breakfast
February 10th, 2009. Published under Fun Stuff, religion. No Comments.
Last week I was in DC for the national prayer breakfast. Any words of mine cannot do justice to what this week was like, but I’ll try.
I have been blessed to have a guy like Bob invest in me and encourage me to go to DC for this. I was able to spend most of the beginning of the week with him and a few others, running around meeting people. For Bob it was meeting friends that he already knew, but new friends for me. I met ambassadors, businessmen, politicians and average Joes like me from all over the world, from Sri Lanka to Lebanon to Benin to Kazakhstan and many, many more. What was so great about everyone here attending the prayer breakfast is this: you are instant friends with whoever you meet. The whole spirit surrounding everyone there is indescribable. Virtually every conversation is centered on Jesus. For politicians, politics usually gets thrown out the door. I saw between Bob and these friends a deep friendship, most of which started with Bob just calling them and saying “Hey I’m some dude from San Diego and I want to meet you.” Sounds weird right? But he did it, and now is incredible friends with people from all over. And its not like he’s friends because he wants something out of them, more of the opposite. With every single one of them, he is discussing ways he can help them, not vice versa. And every single one of them he is being an instrument to point them to Jesus. Many of the people I met were Christians, but several were Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist or non-believers. But all of them had had some encounter with Jesus or were experiencing Jesus through the likes of Bob and other friends.
One of the cool things too was that once I met someone, if I saw them later in the day or week, it was like we were old friends. Through the friends I met I learned a great deal about other cultures and religions. For example, through some friends from Sri Lanka I got to see, through two different generations’ viewpoints, their thoughts on topics like Muslim extremists and arranged marriages. It was quite funny hearing a girl my age ask her parents, jokingly, how many goats or cows she was worth to them for her dowry. But with religion, both were simply outraged at what is going on and disgusted with the fundamentalists. Both the kids and their parents talked about how hard it has been for them though in the West. They are prejudiced against from both sides, from many Christians for being Muslim and the general clumping of all Muslims into the extreme suicide bombing category… and from extremists (supposedly about 10% of all Muslims) who are attacking everyone. The two my age talked about old high school friends they saw who are now extremists and how weird it was for them.
Anyways, the week was incredible. Obama and Tony Blair spoke at the actual breakfast; both gave really good speeches.
Note that this was not a “Christian” gathering. There were people from all sorts of religions, but the focus of the whole week was to put aside out religious differences and look at Jesus and his life. Every religion can accept Jesus and what he taught. They may not accept that he is truly the way truth and life, but just looking at his life is the beginning of the conversation. You can’t become friends with someone by telling them from the start that they are wrong… I met several people, from different religions, who bumped into Jesus through friends and heard how it had changed their lives. Its just so cool seeing how focusing on something that unites us can transcend our differences and bring peace and reconciliation to people from all over the world.
Slumdog Millionaire
February 10th, 2009. Published under Fun Stuff. No Comments.
Go watch it. This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a while. It is very entertaining, but tells the story that is true for over millions and millions of people in our world.