Christmas Week

It has been a wonderful Christmas! Having a few days off made it extra nice. For the Havens, we spent Christmas eve in Turlock with my family. It was too quick, but good to see my twin 5 year old nieces who I don't see very often.

We sucked it up for the first time in many years and went to the Christmas Morning Service at Hillside at 6 am. It was a nice way to turn the focus to the reason for the season. After a relaxing morning of cinnamon rolls and opening gifts, we went to a movie together.

On Friday Patty said it would be fun to go to the movies, so we put the word out and 16 of us went to see the movie "Bedtime Stories". Gary, Ruben Escobedo, Patty and myself took 12 kids from the neighborhood.

On Saturday, Patty went with me (she walked) as I ran a couple of miles. When we came back, one of the older girls was coming to what she thought was Bible Club. Being a holiday weekend, it was a day off for the leaders. This gal was really disappointed. We asked her if she wanted to go run errands with Patty and me. She said of course! (I wish I could get that excited about running errands!) When we went to pick her up, her older sister said she was going to go too! We asked her sister if that was OK and she said it was. We spent 3 hours running various errands and ended up with lunch. These chance (if you can call them that!) getting togethers are very special to Patty and me and not taken lightly. We know that these times are relationship building and we share with these kids normalcy, hope, and love.

We spent the evening enjoying the company of the college students at the annual Christmas Gathering Party. We enjoyed a wonderful potluck dinner, exchanged homemade gifts, and then we were all off to wonderful time on the ice at Vallco Mall again spending time and developing relationships.

As we were heading off to church this morning, we had 6 boys show up wanting to go with us. This is both exciting to us but also we realize that it will be a challenge to keep them from not disturbing others too much in the service. Being a holiday weekend and only 1 service and no Sunday School, we knew that all 6 would be with us. We sometimes wonder why they want to come and do they really get anything from this experience? I have to remind myself to just be obedient and do the work and let the Holy Spirit work in the hearts of these kids.

As we were waiting for lunch at In N Out, I had walked up to get catsup and napkins. A fellow came up to a couple of the guys that were with me and started to play a card game with them. (I believe it is called 3 Card Monte.) When I walked back, he asked who I was and they told him that I was their church leader. He immediately picked up his 3 cards and left! I found that whole thing very interesting.

Patty opened up the Center as she cleaned out our locker during the afternoon. After she finished, she took a number of kids on a bike ride. It was actually a nice day with no rain or wind.

It was a fun weekend and now we can go back to work. Wait. I go back to work and Patty gets to keep getting paid to do this!

Patty now here... since I do the editing, I am going to add one thing. As I was bike riding today I was a bit anxious to get back to the Center so I could do some clean up, put Christmas stuff away and such. I kept thinking to myself though that I need to not be in such a hurry to get back to clean. The stuff will get put away all in good time...it is more important to spend time with the kids. When I got back from the bike ride, I really was glad I took the time out to play with the kids.

A Letter from the Director

This was good from Gary, the FD Director:

Hey Everyone:

One thing I’m finding out is that the Farm Drive Neighborhood Center is a place of non-stop activity!! There is so much going on every day, and now, the holidays are here! I wanted to let you know about a few good things that we have seen happen over the past few weeks. God is so good!!!

We were contacted by Burke Williams, a health spa in Santana Row. They wanted to do something for the families at Farm Drive! Because of our floundering economy, all of the Burke Williams employees had just been informed that they were going to be taking a cut in pay. In spite of this, they wanted to do something for someone else and showed up with Thanksgiving dinners for two families in the neighborhood!!

Then, Christmas came along…………

We asked for donations for our “store” and you responded. Because of you, we had the biggest store ever!! The kids were able to come and “purchase” gifts for their families because of your generosity. We had many people show up to help the kids wrap their gifts. My brother, Tim, his wife, Cheri and their daughter, Tisha spent the afternoon helping the kids. Tim said that he was personally overwhelmed by what he experienced that day!

The UE Group, for whom our own Sarah Garcia works, decided that they wanted to bless some families at Christmas. On Monday, they showed up at the Center with 30 “family bags” and stockings for 65 kids!! Not only were they able to help out families at Farm Drive, but it has opened up avenues for Sarah to share this ministry, as well as her faith, with her coworkers.

Paty Sayre, who is one of our regular volunteers, spearheaded a project for the Campbell Church of Christ to “adopt” some families for Christmas. They were able to bless five families with food and age-appropriate gifts----families who would probably not have had much for Christmas without this help. As they left, Patty and I talked about one other family that could use some help and decided to talk the following day about what we could possibly do.

Well, before Patty and I had a chance to talk, my brother Tim called and said he had been telling two of his neighbors about Farm Drive, and that they wanted to help a family this Christmas!!! Then, on Tuesday, Tim called and said that he and his neighbors, Rebecca Hall and Curtis Campbell, were on their way with gifts for this family, and TEN EXTRA LARGE PIZZAS from Round Table!! How do you get rid of ten pizzas?? You activate the “Farm Drive Notification System,” of course. We told two or three kids, and within minutes, we had about 40 beaming kids ready to eat pizza!!

Our resident caterer, Ruben Escobedo, has been “employing” some of the kids from Farm Drive to help him with his catering jobs. Not only does it teach the kids a skill and let them earn some money, it has allowed Ruben to get to know some of the kids in a fairly short period of time. One of the girls shared with Ruben that her only Christmas wish is to meet her father. Wow…..!! Ruben has had an opportunity to meet this girl’s family and even begin discussions with the mom about the possibilities of making this wish come true.

I know that there are a lot of other little stories that I may have missed, but I just wanted to let you know how God is using everyday situations to bless the people here at Farm Drive. I keep thinking, “ONLY A GOD LIKE YOU.” (Someone really needs to write a song…………)

Thank you for your continued generosity. We couldn’t do it without you. May God continue to bless you during this Christmas season and give you the joy that you have given so many through your involvement with Farm Drive!!

God Bless you much!!

Gary Johnson

Christmas Party at Gary's

This past Friday, we took 27 kids over to Gary's house (new Director at Farm Drive) to have a Christmas Party. Before we left, Gary did a little warm up. Listen and laugh!

After arriving at Gary's house we had BBQ hamburgers and chicken sandwiches.

Then many games were played all around the house, for example Twister!

A little Bingo

A little friendship

A little more friendship

A slide down the stairs, video. Sorry it's sideways. You have to turn your monitor sideways. or turn your laptop sideways. ....

or turn your head





It was a great experience. Everyone had fun. Gary was very gracious to let us destroy ( I mean use) his house!
On the way home we had a special treat for the kids by driving over to the Gleason houses. If you have never seen them it is real fun.

Store

Every year at Christmas we have a "store" so they kids can buy gifts for everyone in their family. This year was our biggest ever! We also had one apt. just for wrapping and people came and helped the kids wrap all their gifts.

We asked for donations from people at church and got a huge response. We were actually worried we'd have a bunch of stuff leftover and have nowhere to put it. After a couple of hours of letting the kids shop, we let the parents in. Needless to say we had nothing left. Thank you to all those that donated stuff and to those that came and helped wrap. The kids had a great day!

High School Christmas Party for FD

On Wednesday, the 10th of December, the high school group from Hillside put on a Christmas party for the kids at Farm Drive. They have done this for a number of years. The kids were picked up and taken to the church. They were divided into 4 groups and came up with a team name. Dinner was served, (pizza) and then they made a craft by decorating a frame. Their team picture went into the frame. They also played some games like "pop the balloon tied around your opponents ankle"!

Hey, is that Santa playing too?

They decorated an picture frame that their teams picture went in and then everyone got a Nativity as a gift. The high school group did a great job!

Another competition that they did was to decorate a Christmas tree. Not an ordinary
Christmas tree.... but oh, you can see below:

Silly Pete.....

This is actually scary!

What is Christmas Spirit?

This time of year you hear people say that they just can't get into the Christmas spirit. I think we all know what they are saying. We may experience it ourselves. But what is it really we are saying? Is it something that goes back to our childhood and the feeling we get around Christmas time? Can't wait till school gets out, helping dad put the lights on the house, buying a tree and hanging lights and ornaments. Then there are the smells. The smell of the Christmas tree, the smell of mom's Christmas cookies, the smell of a fire burning in the fireplace. (Maybe even chestnuts roasting?) All of these plus other traditions help put us into the Christmas Spirit.

But there are things that seem to prevent us from getting there. Busy schedules both at work and parties and shopping for our friends and family. Relationships that turn sour or are difficult may also keep us from that spirit. What are your reasons for not getting into the Spirit?

Maybe we have the wrong idea of what Christmas Spirit is. Christmas is about the birth of Jesus, the Savior, Immanuel. God with us who saves us from the ills of the world with a message of hope and peace. Followers of Jesus are called to duplicate this message. The spirit of this season would then be a message of hope. (Actually this should be year round!)

How then does this play out? For me, when I see God's people give sacrificially to help others, that gets me into the Christmas spirit. It is even enhanced when I get involved. The more it happens, the more I see God at work bringing hope to people. Lately, I see that almost every day. A couple of examples were mentioned in the previous post. I will be posting some events that have taken place over the past couple of weeks (now that I have pictures.) I have seen people get laid off from their jobs and watched their friends and family rally around and help them in many different ways.

Being apart of Farm Drive, we see so many people adopt families for Christmas and go out of their way to be help to those less fortunate. When I get fed up with the commercialism of the Christmas season, I think of all that is being done to others in need and that helps me get in the Christmas spirit!

It's Been Awhile

Yes, it has been awhile. Just have not had enough access to a computer. Now that has been taken care of, will get back on track.
Some say that blogs are so last year. Maybe that has something to do with it. Nah. I like to live in the past anyway.
Patty's computer is in the shop getting an upgrade and that is where the photo's are. We will just have to do a blog without pictures.
A few things pop into my head as I think about living here. A couple of Sunday's ago after Patty and I ran a few errands, we came back and found blood on our stairway. It went up to our window. We found out a kid got a bloody nose and ran to our house to get help. We weren't home so he finally went home.
As I was taking a hose and brush to clean up the mess, one of our neighbors came up and needed a ride to a local grocery store. Her car was not working and needed a ride. Patty took her to a particular store where she could wire her sister some money. Our neighbor is working two jobs and is not getting much sleep. She can also not afford to fix her car.
Tonight as I was eating dinner, another neighbor came by and offered food. Appears there is a birthday party and plenty of food. She brought by tacos and pazole. Yum.
This morning I filled in for Robbie at Bible Club. His small group is the older boys ages from 13 and older. There was 8 guys there and we went over the part of the Christmas Story in Luke where John the Baptist was born. John was to prepare the way for him, to give his people the knowledge of salvation through forgiveness of their sins, because of the tender mercy of our God, by which the rising sun will come to us from heaven, to shine on those living in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the path of peace.
The Farm Drive Center is a place of Peace, Hope, and Love. People know that.

An Interesting Article

http://www.compassion.com/sponsordonor/compassionmagazine/alittlechildwillleadthem

Captains Ship

Here is a video of a game we were playing last night with Gary, the Captain!

Betty's Retirement Party

My (Patty's) boss Betty just retired from being the Director at the Neighborhood Center. She was a great boss but is now feeling called to move on. Now Gary shown in the picture below is the new Director at the Center. The kids love him.

We had a Retirement Party for Betty / Welcome Party for Gary last week. Unfortunately the pictures are kinda backwards, meaning the nighttime shots are first. We invited people from church and also lots of neighbors. Lots of people came (way over 100) and we had quite a potluck. We asked everyone to bring food. We had a huge variety of delicious food! (including beautiful cakes and we can't forget Gary's popcorn machine!)

Sharks Exhibition Game

Every year we have a street hockey tournament with the kids in the neighborhood. This year we took 2 teams and played at the arena in the parking lot on a Saturday. That night we all got to go to a Sharks Game. They lost but we still had a lot of fun. We were up in the nosebleed section which meant we could see just about everything!

Patty's Trip to France

Here are 2 videos of my (Patty's) trip to France. I believe the first one is in the first town we visited which was Colmar. This Cathedral was old and beautiful...absolutely awe inspiring! I will post more videos (I have 7 but they are no more than a minute each) in a week or so. Wait till you see (hear) the one with the accordian...so french!




This next one is of the Cathedral in Strasbourg. This Cathedral is very old and beautiful. It's so amazingly tall! The churches in France are huge on the inside. I could stand and look at the architecture for hours. Turn up the sound and you can hear an accordian in the background.

Tanda

Tanda - Spanish for group, turn, rotation, task, certain number of persons, gang.

This morning one of my workers handed another worker a $100 bill. I asked what that was about and he said they call it a tanda. He had no idea what the English equivalent would be. The above is from a Spanish dictionary. He says that 10-12 guys mostly here at work put $100 of their paycheck into a pot. Each guy gets a number and each paycheck the guys whose number is next gets the total pot of $1000 to $1200 dollors. Kind of a savings account. Only problem is when one of the guys gets the pot and leaves before he puts more back in.

Community. There is that word again. These guys get it. How to survive. (Hopefully they don't spend the pot on some luxury item like a flat screen tv!).

I think I have a name for my next small group.

Tanda.

Team Hoyt - Redeemer

A Little Friend

I found this little guy walking down the main road at the nursery. These things get a bad rap because they are ugly. Though their bite can be compared to a bee sting, their bite is usually harmless. None the less, I did not stick my hand next to him to show how big he really is! Mating season is in the fall so he must have been looking for someone. Could be a she running from a male!

Street Hockey Tournement

This post will be a repeat of last year when we were involved in the Sharks in the Park Street Hockey Tournament. Same shirts, a few different people, in fact more people. Last year we had one team and this year we had 2 teams with lots of subs! We were the first team to play Saturday at 8 am so that meant they had to be at the Center at 6:45! Doughnuts always helps. Below is a picture of a few of our older kids team with Reuben on the far right our outstanding goalie!

That is him again with our new interim director, Gary. (more on that later). They had a great bonding experience in the week leading up to the tournament by Gary buying Reuben his first cup. Ask him about it sometime.

Our 13-15 year old team! They may not have won any games but they looked good!




Our younger team (10-12). They won a game in overtime that was very exciting! But it was not enough to move on in the tournament. Both teams played very well and exhibited a very high level of sportsmanship and team play which we were very proud of!

The Great Adventure

Our Mission Team that went to Tanzania in June/July put on a Day Camp for elementary school age kids at Hopac school.
We used a packaged version that Hillside Church used a couple of years ago that was called "The Great Adventure". This song got stuck in our heads and you can see why!

Traveling In Dar

Just a little video I shot in Dar while driving. Gives you a little idea what it is/was like.

Sailing Day

Our local Kiwanis Club owns several sailboats that they keep at Lake Cunningham. They give lessons to various groups at Sailing Camp every summer and some of our kids from FD have taken lessons over the years. This particular Saturday was an end of the season celebration and a chance for the kids to go out sailing for the day. Below is Rayshaun, Javier, Ronnie, and Ruben. They have all passed their sailing lessons and took Patty and me out sailing.

Ruben and Ronnie going out to catch a breeze.

This is Travis helping Ronnie put his sail up on his Sunfish.

It was fun. They are not supposed to capsize the boats but what's the point of going sailing if you don't lose control of your boat and tip over and get wet! All accidentally of course!
The kids can go sailing on Saturdays for free through the Kiwanis Club. I need to take advantage of this more often. (I love to sail).

zoo

Back in July (yes, this is a late post) 25 of us went to the San Francisco Zoo. What fun! Some of the kids had never been there before. Here's several pictures of the small group that I (Patty) was with.

The tigers were a big hit with all of us. There were 3 baby cubs born last March. They were so cute to watch as they all played with the mom. I wanted to of course take one home with me.

The last picture is our group picture.

Circus

Barnum and Bailey's Ringling Brothers Circus came to town a couple of weeks back. We got a call asking if we'd like tickets and we had a free night so we said yes. Little did we know the tickets were for a Penthouse Suite ($95 per ticket). We took 4 girls and had a lot of fun.
Here we are just chillin.

We found out that if we went early we could see some of the animals outside in the parking lot. We saw the elephants (one is 40 years old and weighs almost 12 tons!), horses, and the tigers. Then we were able to go inside and be down on the floor and watch and visit with the performers. We also were able to get their autographs. The problem with the Suite is that it is way up at the top away from the action but it still was cool.

Here is a picture of our neighbors that we took to the circus. (L to R) Maria, Jasmine, Angie, and Inez.

Bicycle Jump

It has been awhile since I have done an update here. Sorry. I will start with a video from our weekend at Hume Lake and the bicycle jump off the end of the pier. Nobody in the video is someone I know but it was fun to watch. I got a great seat near the landing and I was surprised how good of a seat it was. The first guy jumped and I almost got wet! I realized that must have been why nobody was sitting there! But none of the other jumpers got close to getting me wet.
( I added the music).




It was a great weekend to get away and enjoy the mountains. It was the first time that Patty and I have been there in the summer. We have been at many winter camps with the high school group and this was cool. The students are more serious about their walk and we were not there as staff. We were just like another college person.
The speaker was Josh Riebock from Austin Texas. He was new to Hume.
One of the sessions he was sharing from the story of Jesus turning the water to wine at a wedding. During the feast they ran out of wine. Jesus asked the servants to go fill up the jars with water and then draw some out and take it to the master. That is all they were asked to do. Nothing else. Fill the jars and then take what they thought was water to the master. Jesus would do the rest. Too often we try to do too much on our own power. We need to just hear and obey. Nothing else. Sometimes things are real simple what we are asked to do and we can't believe it. There has to be more. Nope. He does the work. We are just the servants. The hands and feet.

What we missed in Tanzania!

When we went on our Tanzanian safari at Mikumi Wildlife Preserve, we looked high and low for lions. A fellow from Florida who used our 10th group ticket was at this same preserve 3 or 4 days before us did see the lions. Here is a picture of the male!

National Night Out

Last night,Tuesday August 5, was National Night Out. It started 25 years ago in Philadelphia as a way to bring neighbors together with the police to talk about ways to combat gangs, violence and drugs. It has now spread nationwide and Target is involved as a partner too. With the help of Gary Johnson (friend that goes to our church) we put on one of the 25 or so local San Jose Night Out's. We invited lots of neighbors and came together to share food and got to know each other. Some of the police department came as well. Below are pictures of us enjoying a ton of food that neighbors brought to share. We also had some people from Hillside which help out at Farm Drive come by and help out.

Gary brought his popcorn maker. It was a big hit!

We had 3 people from the Crime Stoppers organization come by. It is a non-profit group that helps communities and police fight crime. Also 2 of our local beat officers came by. Here is Rudy talking to some of the kids.

The other officer here is talking to some of the older kids. It was great that they could connect with the kids in a very casual atmosphere.

One of the captains of this area stopped by. It was a great evening to get to know everyone!

Giants Game

Patty and I had 4 tickets to a recent San Franscico Giants game. When we got up in the morning Patty wasn't feeling to good. Reuben (on left) and Leroy went with just me. We took the Caltrain from San Jose right up to 1 block from the stadium. Self portrait.

Our view from the upper deck. It was fun to go and be there. Game was boring and the Giants lost again. Neither of them had been to a MLB game before and they had a lot of fun. Leroy is scared of heights so this location took him a little while to get comfortable with. (especially after I stopped pushing him!)