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In the best seller book The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell describes the importance of connectors to the social interaction and changes of everyday life. Connectors are naturally a person who knows lots of people, they are the social networkers who know to whom you need to talk if you want something or want something done. One of the roles of a connector in a community is to introduce people to each other. Just think about someone who knows people across cultural, social, professional, and economic circles and are happy to be the link that connects them. Now think about Jesus, isn’t he the ultimate connector? Didn’t he come to connect people from every nation, culture, and language to the Father? And if we are his disciples isn’t our call a call to be connectors? This week at the University of the Nations I realize how the place is a hub of connection and connectivity. Strategically the Hawaii is located half way between North America and Asia. The crash between those two totall...

Technology is rapidly transforming communication landscape and this generation is eagerly adopting this new way of life, actually today’s children are growing up in a new reality. With my smart phone you can text, check your email, search the internet, pay bills and much more. For some of us raised in the 20th Century it is hard to keep up with all available benefits to our disposal. This week I’m participating on the Grassroots News International (GNI) Strategy Summit her in Kona, Hawaii. I’ve been invited by Jeff Rogers to facilitate the planning sections to develop a three years strategic plan that will move GNI to the next level. Two of the participants are participating in the meeting via skype and Google meeting, one in Brazil and the other in Switzerland. Before the first section yesterday Jeff took me to the “Innovision Studio” where we are meeting. For the brain storming sections I asked for a whiteboard or a flipchart which were available at the Innovision Studio. In order t...

Home to King Kamehameha, who unified the Kingdom of Hawaii and from ancient times, favored place as Big Island’s “gold coast” for outstanding sunsets, Kona is also home to Youth With A Missions’ University of the Nations (UofN). Kona’s fascinating history, the first established church in the Hawaiian archipelago is in Kona, fits well with the UofN motto of “Knowing God and Making him known”. Carla and I were in Kona with the Anastasis in 1983 before she sailed to Honolulu where she stayed 18 months putting the sprinkler system. At that time we attended the Biblical Counseling School in Makapala, a couple miles north of Kona. It is exciting to come back 25 years later to see the vision flourish and develop. There are students from all over the world attending UofN schools, Asia, Africa, North and South America, Europe, and Oceania. You can hear all kind of shades of English when people are not speaking with those that speak their own language, Babel reinvented. The age is overwhel...

A young man onboard the Mercy Ships Anastasis told me one day that he went to speak with the Chaplain about a girl he liked. The Chaplain asked him if he had told the girl he liked her. He said no. The Chaplain sent him off telling him to come back after he spoke with the girl. The Psalmist says that God wants to give the desire of our hearts. The problem is that we need to tell him what we desire. We are basically in the end of the first month of the New Year, but have you stopped to think of what do you hope for in 2013. What are the dreams and expectations you want to happen this year? In a “do” culture dream, especially day dreaming, has a bad reputation. However, dream is an integral part of hope, that internal desire for something to happen that leads us to plan and act toward making the dream a reality. This week we commemorated Martin Luther King Day who is well known by his the civil right movement involvement and the speech “I had a Dream”. This iconic speech has inspi...

You can download the updated version of Don Stephens’ book ‘Ships of Mercy’ . In this book Don Stephens, Founder of Mercy Ships tells the incredible ongoing story of 35-years of service the poor and need. From the uncertain beginnings of the first Mercy Ships the Anastasis who sailed to four continents to the Africa Mercy serving in West Africa it is an expiring story of bringing the good news to the least of all. The link that follows will take you to the site where you can download a copy. Click here.

A friend sent me this YouTube video of a Brazilian ten-year-old singing Amazing Grace. “You’ve got to listen to this …” she said. Yes I agree. You got to listen it. Click here .

Maybe you are already wandering about the New Year’s resolution you made for 2013. Or you are looking for ways to keep them alive beyond the end of January when 36% ceases to exist. Less than 50% are still alive by July.  Resolutions are goals you make to yourself. They range from spending more time with the family, saving money, or spending less of it, to loosing weight. The problem with resolutions is that they have a tendency to be are broad and generally lack specifics which overwhelms. Less and specific goals have a better chance to succeed beyond. In the other hand resolutions are motivators who have the power to bring movement to life’s inertias that time to time creeps to one’s existence. The prospective of a New Year, brings a synergy that motivates to action. The commitment you make to change is powerful because it pushes you to a different reality. Through the prophet Isaiah, God tell us: “See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up: do you perceive it? I am mak...