High School Rivalries

Rivalries. They are everywhere. From sibling rivalries to sports you can't escape that there is just something special about beating your most hated rivals. Most rivalries are born when two competitors (whether intentional or not) meet or compete time and time again. For a rivalry to really be good, both sides should be competitive. If it's too lopsided (one team wins all the time), it becomes a boring rivalry. If you think about all famous rivalries (Yankees/Red Sox, Ohio State/Michigan or USC/UCLA to name a few) they all have a great fan base and a bitter hatred toward each other.

When it comes to high schools, we didn't have a rival. I went to a small, Baptist high school that didn't seem to think that anyone could compete with them so we didn't have a rival in the traditional sense (plus we had to play the large group sports by combining with other small schools).

But then I saw how two schools on the mainland took their rivalry to a new level. One school made a lip-dub video and basically told their rival to top it. Whether they did or not is up to debate (I think you can vote on which video you like more) but either way I thought it was great. There wasn't any trash talking or viciousness. It was simply this is what we did so see if you can do better.

This first video is the challenge and the second one is the response. Got a favorite rival that you want to challenge? I'd like to see what you can do!

Toto, I don't think we're in Kansas anymore

One of the great parts of my job as a pastor is being able to travel to Japan once a year. I have now gone to Japan maybe 9 times or so, but this year for the first time, I had a chance to go to a Japanese Costco. Big deal you may be saying to yourself. Costco? We have a Costco here.

And while it is true that we do indeed have a Costco here there are a few subtle differences between our Costco and the Japanese version. For one, the Japanese Costco takes yen and ours uses the more standard American dollar. But seriously, there were some pretty cool things at the Japanese Costco.

It's so Americanized that even the word 'entrance' is in English



Difference #1: I've never seen snow blowers at our Costco

Actually the biggest difference was in the foods. Our Costco just seems to have regular sized items that are just packaged in larger quantities. The Japanese Costco had larger sized fruits and vegetables that came in larger quantities.

Look at the size of those pears!

Here's Sharon giving new meaning to the phrase 'daikon legs'

The largest green onions I have ever seen in my life

Now if you're honest with yourself you know that one of the biggest reasons Costco is so enjoyable is the samples they give away. In Japan they don't mess around. They don't give away burrito samples or a few pita chips like we do. They give away freshly fried steak, raw salmon and even seasoned seaweed!

Some steak coming off the fryer



This was an soy bean tofu that I didn't particularly care for



But it was relatively inexpensive



Mmm, salmon (notice the small bottle of shoyu on the side)



Those salmon fillets look delicious



No samples of these, but the octopus and squid did look good



She didn't want to be in my picture, but she did open her cooler so we could see the samples



Yup, a big box of seaweed

And of course after a hard morning of shopping we did have to eat lunch somewhere. Again, it's like our Costco except with a few minor differences.

Can you spot the differences?



If you said Clam Chowder and Bulgogi Bake give yourself 100 points



Inside the Bulgogi Bake



The Clam Chowder was surprisingly good



And of course, one last reminder that we're truly in Japan is their birthday cake

We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express.

Sometimes I am at a complete loss for words. The Bible tells us that sometimes we don't even know what to pray for, but the Holy Spirit will intercede on our behalf and pray with words that cannot be expressed (Romans 8:26). This is one of those times.

Yesterday I found out that while on their way to a conference in Oregon, a group of Bible college students from Colorado lost control of their van on the icy road and spun out of control. 13 of the 16 aboard were ejected. Two of them didn't make it.

Of course this is tragic in any case. Anytime there is such a loss of life it is sad. What brings this closer to home is the fact that one of the two people who passed away is the brother of one of our MiniChurch shepherds, Joy Pishcura.

So many times heard stories of tragic events all over the world and it seems so far away and so distant. It rarely hits this close to home. Not only was Joshua young (he was only 20) but he was on his way to doing great things in the Kingdom of God. He had his whole life ahead of him. He was taken away much too soon.

Please continue to pray for Joy and the whole Pishcura family. In addition to Josh passing away, his sister Katy was also a passenger in the van and she is in the ICU in Boise, Idaho. Pray for God's peace, pray for healing, pray for their families and friends and pray for all the love and support they will need in the upcoming weeks.

You can read the Denver Post's coverage of the accident here.

A Funny Story from the Road

So it's been a while since I've last blogged. A real long while. It's not for a lack of things to blog about as much as just laziness. So sorry. I'll try not to be this lazy in the future.

The last few months have been a blur. At one point I spent 21 out of 22 nights sleeping away from home because I went on a missions trip to Japan followed by a wedding in New York and a vacation in Boston. Needless to say, I came back exhausted.

But Japan was great. I really feel like we're making great progress there and I can't wait to go back next year. There are many great stories from Japan and rather than try to write all of them now, I'll give you a funny one to start out with.

One of the great things that Pastor Ohigashi is doing in Sapporo is encouraging the house church movement. So one day during the middle of the week we drove out to Yoichi to visit them and stopped along the way in Otaru town.

Because there were a bunch of us going out to the country, we took two cars. In our car we took along a man named Mr. Honma. I love Mr. Honma. He is a man after my own heart. I guy loves to eat (all the omiyage he gives us is food). He has even been known to leave church (while it's still in session) to go and find something to eat. Needless to say, the man is hungry!

That's Honma-san on the bottom

So anyway, we stopped in Otaru town and did a little sightseeing. Otaru is an old town with many little shops selling trinkets and little knick-knacks. Of course, like many places in Hokkaido, they also have soft-cream.

Cruising the streets of Otaru

Now in Otaru they take their soft cream very seriously. There's not just your standard chocolate or vanilla. That would be way too amateur. They don't even do the twist where they mix two flavors together. Rather, in Otaru they stack up the different flavors that you order (like a little soft serve snowman).

Here's the exciting menu board

There are seven flavors you can choose from including milk, melon, green tea and even lavender. But like I mentioned earlier, you can get some stacked. They have a "flavors of Hokkaido" with five flavors or for those not as adventurous you can choose the one with three flavors.

Dural wasn't playing any games and got the five flavors



Akane opted for a more modest three

So anyway, Akane (the girl in the picture above) was one of our translators and because she speaks both Japanese and English, she was our designated orderer. Of course we all fired our orders to her and she had the unenviable task of relaying to the girl behind the counter making our soft creams. But in all the hustle and bustle, she forgot to order Mr. Homna's soft cream (you know, the one who loves to eat). I'm not going to lie, I have never seen a sadder looking man in my life. He looked positively crestfallen. We were in a rush and the line was long, so we weren't even sure if he would have enough time to stand in line again.

But as luck would have it (because I'm sure some of you are feeling really sorry for him right now) David, another team member, was already in line and Mr. Honma got to have a soft cream like the rest of us.

Once we got on the road again, Mr. Honma shared his feelings toward almost being left out of the soft cream party. Through our translator Akane, he said his spirit became sad when he saw all of us happily eating our soft creams. He asked God, "Why? Why can't I have a soft cream too?".

Then, he said, when he say David come with a soft cream for him, he was overjoyed. He said he wanted to jump up and down but he was afraid that he might drop his soft cream and become saddened again.

So I told Mr. Honma, "Well you know, we did order for you the soft cream the first time, but the person who failed to get it for you is sitting right next to you." To which Akane, who was sitting right next to Mr. Honma sheepish looked at me and said, "I'm not going to interpret that."

And she didn't. Poor Mr. Honma will never know why he didn't get to eat soft cream with the early crew.

The Man, the Myth, the Legend

A few weeks ago we had a smoking class at church. No, not that kind of smoking silly. We learned how to make smoked meats and cheeses. It was a great class because all class long you could smell the smell of brisket, pork, ribs, salmon and cheese smoking away. Even now, my stomach is rumbling at the thought of how good the food was.

Anyway, the week before the class I got a random call from a woman named Iris. She heard about the class and was interested in doing a similar class at her work place. She's recreational specialist for the City and County of Honolulu and she works at Kualoa Regional Park.

I don't know if you know this, but for five fun-filled summers, I worked at Kualoa as a camp counselor. I didn't have the privilege of working with Iris, but we definitely worked with some of the same people. So while she was on the phone, I told her that I worked there from '97-'01 and we exchanged the usual pleasantries.

Summer camp 1999

Kualoa was one of the best experiences of my life. I mean, what other job pays you to go camping every summer? Not only that, but we did 3-day camps so if you had wonderful kids you looked forward to the next camp and if your kids were rotten you were only stuck with them for three days. What a beautiful system!

Not only that, but we got to dress up, plan skits, play games and basically be kids all over again. I learned how to steer a canoe, honed my puppetry skills and learned how to sleep on tables (because someone once told me that centipedes couldn't climb up table legs).

Man, I wish I still knew where my Bruce Lee costume was!

It was also at Kualoa where I learned the joys of tempera paint. For some reason almost every costume at Kualoa used generous amounts of paint. Of course, many of the activities involved costumes so we must have gone through gallons of the stuff. I'm amazed that no one developed any sort of skin problems over the years based on the amount of paint that regularly covered our bodies.

I'm not sure who I'm supposed to be, but judging by the picture I was some Polynesian member of KISS

So anyway, back to the smoking class. Iris shows up and I walk over to her to introduce myself. The first thing that comes out of her mouth and I swear I'm not making this up is "you're Scott? I asked about you when we got off the phone. You're a legend at Kualoa." The last line she whispered, almost reverently. At first my only reaction was one of surprise. "Legend?" I responded. "I'm no legend. Mr. Bryce, now he's a legend. Compared to him I'm more of a folktale."

Right before we took the canoes out (that's Mr. Bryce on the far left)

Of course over time some things get blown out of proportion and stories get more embellished. Still I would hardly consider myself a legend. There were many great people that I got to work with that had been there as long as I had (and even longer). Oddly enough, there were many of us that worked there at least five years considering the job was really for college students.

But I don't think I have ever worked with a more talented and dedicated group of people. They amazed me every week with their costumes and creativity. Every week we had to do skits, come up with new dances and songs and keep each other entertained. And I can say with confidence that over those five years I hardly saw anyone repeat a song or skit. Not to say that everything was original, but even the recycled material had tons of new variants added to it.

So a legend? Nah. The only thing I ever did there that even garnered any attention was one costume that I wore at final assembly. I was inspired by my people, the ancient Hawaiians and it consisted of a single piece of fabric.

Look Mom, I tied it all by myself!

Think Blue, Part 1

So many of you already know this, but I am a huge Los Angeles Dodgers fan. I have been since the sixth grade. And although I have been to some pretty great sporting events in my life I had never been to Dodger Stadium. I have seen the Dodgers play before, but that was in Washington DC when I was there for a conference and the Dodgers were there playing against the Nationals.

At the time of this writing, the Dodgers are currently in first place in the NL West and when we went to LA they had the best record in baseball (currently they have the best record in the National League). Of course my hope is that they will win the World Series so being the eternal optimist that I am, I convinced Keao that we had to see the Dodgers this year because this is their year.

And, not only do we need to watch a game at Dodger Stadium, but we also need to take the stadium tour so we can really get the good fan experience. So instead of being at the ballpark just once during the day, we would end up going there twice.

The sign that greets you upon entering the parking lot



On a clear day you can just make out the famous Hollywood sign

The tour started out with us walking around the upper deck for a while as our Dodger Ambassador, Jordan, gave us some history of the park. This part was pretty interesting. But that was just the start...

Our next stop was down an elevator to the press box level. We went into one of the conference rooms where we watched a short video about the future of Dodger Stadium. Of course it was hosted by Vin Scully, the legendary Dodger broadcaster.

This is Tommy Lasorda's retired jersey number in the conference room

Next up was the Vin Scully press box. The actual box where Vin Scully calls the games every night. I believe it is literally one of the best seats in the house.

Here I am pretending to call the game

Here's the view from the press box

After fooling around in the press area for a little while we then got to check out the luxury suites. Some of them are really nice, it's too bad I'll probably never get to watch a game from there.

There's everything in here including food!

I like the theme of this table and stools



Ronald, Tommy and Keao



They even have a pool table in case the game gets boring



Frank Sinatra's actual seats



Here he is sitting in one of them

Afterward we kind of worked our way down to the ground level stopping by the entrances to the Dodger and visitor clubhouses. We then entered the Dugout Club, a high-end club with tons of Dodger memorabilia.

Before the World Series trophy they gave out bats to the World Series winners. Those five bats are from the Dodger World Series championships before 1988



This is home plate from Ebbets Field that the Dodgers took with them when they came to Los Angeles



Did you know that Babe Ruth briefly coached for the Dodgers?

Then we got to go tour the field and the dugout, but not before getting to walk through the tunnel that leads directly to the doors of the Dodger clubhouse.

Keao doing her best Prince Fielder impression

In the dugout with the Jr. Dodgers

Next to Joe Torre's bench

Sweet Lou Johnson

The view from behind home plate

To view the rest of the pictures click here.

The Happiest Place on Earth

Last month Keao and I celebrated our second full year of marriage (yay!). To celebrate we decided to take a short trip to LA (yay again!). Now, when it comes to planning trips, I like to squeeze in as much as I can because I only have a limited time so after flying all night (we landed at LAX at 6:30am) we got our rental car and drove straight down to Anaheim, home of the Disneyland Resort. Now if you do the math that meant that we only had around 4 hours of sleep on the airplane (by which I mean I slept and Keao read a book next to me) before we started our really long day.

Ready for a fun-filled day at Uncle Walt's place

We first met up with Nich and Tricia for breakfast as we would be spending the day with them. Tricia, our roommate, spent the summer in California and Colorado going to various conferences and doing some vacationing so we hadn't seen her since May. Nich, her boyfriend, lives in California so we hadn't seen him since before even that. So after scarfing down some food from Mimi's Cafe, we headed over to Disneyland for our day full of fun.

We decided to go to California Adventure first and after taking a few pictures we headed to the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror.

Look! We're on a really long street!



Right before the ride while we're still smiling

The story behind this ride has something to do with the Hollywood Tower Hotel being struck by lightning and you going to the Twilight Zone. This is one of my absolute favorite rides and I've ridden it in Florida as well as Tokyo. Every time I ride I just keep thinking what a great job Disney did with it. It should be noted though, that the American version is a much tamer version compared to the Japanese version (well at least the story is, the actual ride part is quite similar).

Notice the difference in architecture in the Japanese version?

Since it was such a hot day we also decided to hit the rapids ride as well. You gotta love rides that have the disclaimer "you will get wet, you might get soaked". I for one, didn't really want to get wet. I was perfectly content to stay dry and warm. Unfortunately it was not meant to be. We almost made it the entire way when my lovely wife started complaining about how she didn't get wet. Literally five seconds after she says that a huge geyser shoots up behind us and soaks us to the skin.

She how happy she is?

It should also be noted that I was wearing a Spam shirt that day. I don't know what it is about Spam, but over the course of the day I got 7 compliments or references to my shirt. From the time we got on the rental car shuttle, to the Disney employee who told me he loved Spam, to the girl that simply screamed Spam as she was passing by. People really seemed to notice the shirt.

People also noticed the big turkey leg I ate while I walked by them too. One of the best things about Disney theme parks is the turkey legs. I'm sure you have seen pictures of me eating them before, but just in case you haven't, here's one more.

Me and Nich acting all manly with our huge turkey legs

After having our fill of turkey legs we did some exploring. We managed to find a real Hawaiian girl in Lilo during the parade and even found the entrance to Club 33, a super exclusive club that's the only place within Disneyland proper that serves alcohol.

This parade almost made us late for our Fast Pass to Soarin' over California

I wonder what it would take to get me in there...

It's no secret I love Disney. Last year I was fortunate enough to visit the Animal Kingdom in Orlando and Disney Sea in Tokyo and then to top it all off I now was able to spend a nice day at Disneyland with my wife and a few close friends. Does it get any better than this?

I'm not going to lie, it was a long day. We didn't leave the theme park until almost midnight and if you compound that with our lack of sleep we were pretty beat. We did manage to sleep in a little the next day though. I'll tell you about that adventure real soon.

To view the rest of the Disneyland pictures click here.