The Art of Hospitality
I remember one of the first times I travelled on city transit.  I was traveling to meet up with a friend in his new apartment. I was going to a place I had not been before, on a mode of transportation I had not used much before, with several people whom I had not met before.  I had an address in my hand and a bus driver to guide me.  It was a warm fall evening so naturally being dark and in an unfamiliar place, my sense of security was being challenged.  I was dropped off at the bus route where I thought my stop should be.   
As I surveyed the landscape I knew that I was not "in Kansas anymore." I checked my address, I checked the surroundings and quickly felt confused and unsure of where I was.  
"Drat, I should have brought a map." I said to myself. Now what do I do?"  At a time when personal cell phones were not as prevalent as they are today I thought I could spot a pay phone.  I walked up the street and down the street yet found nothing.  Finally I spotted a church off the road with people streaming out.  "They must have a phone," I thought to myself as I cautiously yet confidently strode towards the church.  I was confident because I was certain there was a phone, I was cautious because I had no idea what I was getting myself into.
I quickly found a man who looked very kind and gentle. I asked him if the church had a phone. He quickly directed me to the phone.  I was ready to get out my friends phone number when my heart sank realizing I had not brought it with me.  
Sensing I was losing my composure the kind gentleman wondered if he could give me a ride somewhere.  Regaining my hope in the situation I politely obliged.  
As we drove I emphatically thanked Art, whom I found out his name later.  "Art, I can't thank you enough for your hospitality.  I am far from home, with no phone number, and an address I've never been to before, and shoot it looks like I'm late as well."
Art was very cordial as he drove, telling me what area I was in and what sort of surroundings were there.  And then he stopped, and with a serious yet humble tone told me, "Well you know what Colin, I was actually speaking to my congregation about being a good Samaritan at church tonight.  I would be a hypocrite if I did not practice what I was preaching."  
Those words reverberated within me as we drove by a strip mall a few blocks down to phone my friend to tell him that I would be late.  I dug around in my pockets.  No change.  "No problem," Art stated, "I have 35 cents right here." 
I later found out from my friends roommate that in fact there was a mix up of dates and that my friend had gone to another place to hang out.  
Now what am I going to do! I thought.  How am I going to catch a bus at this time of night when I don't even know if the buses are running. 
Just then I heard Art behind me, "how about I give you a ride home Colin." It's no trouble at all.
Art's example to me reminded me the true meaning of the "Art of Hospitality."  By going out of your way to offer a stranger time, resources and moral support, you remind that person that they are important with no strings attached and no obligation to pay you back.
Thanks to all of those who have gone out of their way these past two weeks.  Many have showed us the "Art of Hospitality" by making our transition from the familiar of Stettler to unfamiliar of Saskatoon not just a move but a journey of discovering what the root of the  "Art of Hospitality is... Love.   
       

 I was running up to the 12km mark when I realized I had lots of energy left in me.  "Funny," I thought to myself, "last time I ran I ran out of gas at 13km as I was trying to keep up to the 'fast runners' in the immediate running group I was in."  Looking around the crowd had thinned out to where individuals could run in single file and I could look ahead of me to see the twists and turns that lie ahead.  As I paid attention to my body and what my spirit was telling me, it was at this moment where I gave myself permission to give it all I had for the finish line.  I tore into my energy gel like a wild animal, sloshed water all over my "Run for Ratank" shirt trying to refuel my depleted body of the water it was so desperately longing for.     
Questions naturally filled my mind: "what if I run out of gas like I did last time?  What if I do not make my goal time of 2:00 h - 2:05h?  Yet I heard that piercing voice again, the one I heard when I decided to run for Ratanak International, "just keep going."  
A poem that I had heard earlier that week was brought to my attention as I felt my heartrate increase as my pace picked up.  Although it had nothing to do with running and more to do with bike racing, it was relevant to the race that was yet set before me:

                                                                    Just Pedal 
    At first, I saw God as my observer, my judge, keeping track of the things I did wrong, so as to know whether I merited heaven, or hell when I die. He was out there, sort of like a president. I recognized His picture when I saw it, but I really didn't know Him.   But later on when I met Christ, it seemed as though life were rather like a bike ride, but it was a tandem bike. and I noticed that Christ was in the back helping me pedal.
    I don't know just when it was that He suggested we changed places, but life has not been the same since. When I had control. I knew the way. It was rather boring, but predictable...It was the shortest distance between two points.  But when He took the lead, He knew delightful long cuts, up mountains, and through rocky places at breakneck speeds, it was all I could do to hang on! Even though it looked like madness, He said, "Pedal!"
    I worried and was anxious and asked, "Where are you taking me?" He laughed and didn't answer, and I started to learn to trust. I forgot my boring life and entered into the adventure. And when I'd say, "I'm scared," He'd lean back and touch my hand. He took me to people with gifts that I needed, gifts of healing, acceptance and joy. They gave me their gifts to take on my journey, my Lord's and mine. And we were off again. He said, "Give the gifts away; they're extra baggage, too much weight." So I did, to the people we met, and I found that in giving I received, and still our burden was light.  I did not trust Him, at first, in control of my life. I thought He'd wreck it; but He knows bike secrets, knows how to make it bend to take sharp corners, jumps to clear high rocks, fly to shorten scary passages. 
     I am learning to shut up and pedal in the strangest places, and I'm beginning to enjoy the cool breeze on my face with my delightful constant companion, Christ. And when I'm sure I just can't do anymore, He smiles and says...
                                                                      " Just Pedal."
I crossed the finish line at 2:03:44, 6 minutes shorter than my previous year's time.  As I did, I realized that it was not just me running that day... someone was running alongside of me cheering me on.  The prayers, the encouragements from friends, family and complete strangers helped me to "keep going" as I knew that this journey was short compared to the horror that many children face in Cambodia. 
This year I ran for Ratanak.  Someone I never met yet who has left a legacy of speaking up for the voiceless that will not easily be silenced.

Image from: (http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_ChNszMDiGhE/S78EOq7U-aI/AAAAAAAAFEk/-3W-zvOX1F0/s1600/tandem-bike.jpg)

Life is a treasure worth valuing.   I went out for a 5 mile run yesterday in the 40km wind and was mentally transplanted to the realization that this effort is being directed by a force beyond my control. Yesterday I was speaking at church on how God pursues and treasures his people even when they do't appear desirable or lovely.  Hosea was called by God to marry a prostitute for many reasons including as a means to show the rest of Israel that He, as the Divine Husband, desperately longs for his children's intimacy.  Through this endeavor I feel I am learning more about how to fight for the treasure that is each and every person. I find myself recognizing and reafirming that each person is a gift that is seen as precious more than my understanding or comprehension.  As the journey continues, I run for Ratanak, but I also run so that precious jewels that have been stifled and made "dirty" through the plague of human trafficking can be seen as the jewels that they are; just as they are.
I want to send out a note of gratitue to my mother in law Barb for being so persistent in her efforts to bless Ratanak International.  Her generous spirit and willingness to bless her family is a treasure I have had the privilage to be inspired by. 
A thank you to Doug at ID Apparel in Stettler for helping my T-Shirt design take flight.  I am looking forward to wearing a "Run For Ratanak" shirt this Sunday.
I also want to thank Brian, Alexis, Faith, and Melissa and the rest of the staff of Ratanak International for putting up a designation on their website for those who wish to donate in response to my efforts to "Run For Ratanak" in the Red Deer Woody's Half Marathon this Sunday.     
For those who wish to donate: Go to the donate tab on the www.ratanak.org website: click on Ratanak Canada: and in the "Giving in Response to Column" go to Woody's Half Marathon.  https://ratanak.org/secure/donate.cfm We can do this! Let's raise $1000 and beyond together.

Woody's Marathon is a week and a half away and already I am overwhelmed with gratitude for the support I have received to raise $1000 and beyond for Ratanak International. Family members have stated they want to get on board with the cause by donating resources to this run.   I am eternally grateful for my wife who has encouraged me not to give up and to keep giving time and effort to this important mission of awareness to Human Trafficking.  Recently I was given the privelage to run with a group of individuals who are working on running the Woody's Half Marathon in May.  Thanks to CJ and the running group at Performance Physiotherapy in Stettler for giving me the opportunity to share my heart about rehabilitiating lives from the interuption of Human Trafficking.   Some of the runners said they would be willing to wear a "Run For Ratanak" shirt as they run the Woody's 1/2 Marathon as well. 
I appreciate Paul Brandt who took time to tweet about this initiative on his Twitter account yesterday http://twitter.com/#!/paulbrandt/statuses/68359260777615360.  This was a huge surprise and gift.  Thanks also to Karen the editor of iRun Magazine for posting my story on http://www.irun.ca/blog/index.php/irun-for-ratanak/.
  Thank you.. The journey has only begun. Let's continue to journey together as we try to reach the goal of $1000 and beyond for Ratanak International.      

Run for Ratanak
My name is Colin Bruins and I am running for a reason.
I am 27 years old living in Stettler AB. Canada.
I grew up in small town Alberta and have been sheltered from a lot of the major trauma's and social disasters that I heard about on the news. A few months ago I was at my computer casually checking my facebook account when I came accross a link my friend Treven told me to check out.   had a yearning to support a cause that was beyond what I could fathom or grasp.     The video presentation was on on the value of human life and how that value is diminished when people are sold and bought like other commodoties.
I was shocked as I heard children as young as 6 years old were being used for sexual favors by their owners a half a world away in Cambodia.  I was even more shocked to learn that several desperate parents would sell their own children for as little as $30 just to make ends meet.  Having four children of my own, the thought of them being sold as an animal sickened me.  This was the first time I was confronted with the reality of Human Trafficking and its global epidemic around the world. 
After that presentation which was given by Country Singing Star Paul Brandt, I felt like I had to do something more than merely sit back and agree that what was going on was aweful. During Paul's presentation, he mentioned an individual who was inspired to cycle a long distance to raise money to bring Awareness to Human Trafficking.  That is how I became aware of Ratatank International.
At first I casually looked at www.ratanak.org to see what information that I could glean more about the Human Trafficking issue.  It was there that I was able to first be acquainted with its founder McConaghy. I was inspired even further to do something to raise money for this organization when I heard, how Brian, a former police officer, wanted to get a couple of suit cases of medical supplies into the country.  After several people heard about his cause, two suitcases turned into nine tones of medical supplies.  Brian deliberately went into harms way to make sure that the people of Cambodia, had basic medical supplies.   Brian and the medical supplies were detained in Cambodial.  After being interviewd on state television he was later seen as an ally to the Cambodian people and was later released along with the medical supplies.  This was how Ratanak started.  Ratanak (meaning precious gem) was a girl who died of Dengue Fever when there was still a UN embargo over Cambodia and no medication or aid was allowed in.  It is for this type of courage, and for speaking up for voices that are muffled under adult manipulation and greed that I have gained a heart of compassion for the people of Cambodia. 
I later got in contact with Brian to tell him about my fundraising idea to do a race of some sort to raise funds for Ratanak.  I drove five hours one day to hear him speak on the injustices in Cambodia and the hope that Ratanak was giving to several girls and woman there.  I was inspired at how projects like their "New Song" Centre was helping girls who were once trapped in an endless cycle of usery, were able to tranform their lives into something greater.  Many girls have gone from living on the streets to owning their own seamstress shops, or bakeries. 
After getting in touch with Brian, I was further encouraged to run by hearing the story of a man named Larry. Larry had never really ran in his life until he was inspired by the stories of Ratanak International to raise money for specific projects that Ratanak is involved in.  Larry has gone all the way to the Boston Marathon to raise awareness of Human Trafficking and the work that Ratanak International does to address the issue.  I have contacted a local T-Shirt designer to get a couple t-shirts made, have had someone dontate an item from their home business for raffle, and am getting the word out about Ratanak through word of mouth and social media. I have also been inspired to create a blog that I will use to highlight my journey for fundraising with Ratanak. www.rhythmsofasojourner.weebly.com.
Having trained and run for a 1/2 Marathon last year, I am looking forward to when I run May 22nd in Red Deer Alberta at the Woody's Marathon for Ratank International.
Contact E-mail for me: [email protected]
(Image from: http://forum.belmont.edu/bfitbu/2010/09/interested_in_running.html)

Going to University and taking a psychology course one is bound to come across the works of Walter Bradford Cannon.  He stated that the human nervous system responds to perceived threats by either  fighting the response or by fleeing (taking flight) from the threat.  His work details how our lives want to be in a state of homeostasis (in other words, being in equilibrium, or harmony with itself).  When a point of stress or emotional stretching to our normal comfort levels occurs, we will take a fight or flight response.  I would like to offer three variations on this idea of “fight or flight” in how we apply this psychological principle in our lives by looking at three separate principles.

1.    We try to fight in order to take flight

2.    While we are in flight we want to stay in sight

3.    Whether we fight or take flight, rest is always best

I am reminded of the importance of “fighting” perceived obstacles in our lives that discourage us from achieving our goals by reading about the journey of Dr. Seuss.    A writer at an early age, Theodor Seuss Geisel wrote in his local college fraternity humor magazine.  During the Great Depression, Geisel supported himself and his family by drawing advertisements for household named companies like Ford, General Electric and Standard Oil.  Always attentive to life’s simple and complex mannerisms, Geisel was inspired to write his first book after listening to the rhythms of a ships engine.  After writing And to Think that I Saw it On Mulburry Street Geisel went to a publishing company to see how his work could be developed further.  After being rejected, Geisel, who was using the pen name Dr. Seuss for his work, went to another publisher, and then to another, and then to another, and then to another and finally after the 27th, rejection, Seuss found a publisher who was willing to publish his first book.  It was during this journey that Seuss wrote other children’s books as well as political cartoons for daily newspapers.  He, along with a business partner Ralph Warren,   tried to invent an  Infantograph (a device that could tell parents what their child would look like when they were older).     It was also shortly after getting this first work published where Seuss turned his interests to political causes getting involved in the US military and writing scripts for films that dealt with conflict.

   It was not until later on where Seuss was inspired to write several other children’s books like Horton Hears a Who, The Cat in the Hat, and The Grinch that Stole Christmas to name a few.     Being aware of his limitations as well as his strengths,  Seuss always had a knack for the creative. 

Here’s what he had to say about his inspiration for the Grinch that Stole Christmas

I was brushing my teeth on the morning of the 26th of

      last December when I noted a very Grinchish countenance

      in the mirror. It was Seuss! Something had gone wrong with

      Christmas, I realized, or more likely with me. So I wrote

      the story about my sour friend, the Grinch, to see if I

      could rediscover something about Christmas that obviously I’d lost.

Through writing several popular and inspiring works, Seuss never won some of the well-known awards for children’s literature such as a Newberry Award.  Although not recognized in formal award for his children’s literature, Seuss’ imagination lives on through his motivational characters like the Cat in the Hat, the Lorax, and Horton.   Seuss suggested that the imagination leads to discoveries that the mind cannot fathom.  Looking at Dr. Seuss’ journey in life, we see that there were lots of struggles.  Through a desire to not just fight, but to cooperate with his struggles,  and rest in his creativity and resiliency, Seuss discovered  ways to overcame challenges.  The gift of imagination, and the awareness of life’s intimate yet seemingly mundane idiosyncrasies brought new worlds and new characters to life.   

When we choose to fight in order to take flight, we can embrace our God given imaginations as a thing of beauty as we become aware of our unique and awesomely crafted imaginations. 

When we think of prison many images come to our minds.  It could be the shackles on someone’s feet or hands preventing them from getting away from the authorities.  The orange, or “black and white” striped clothing that many prisoners uniformly wear as part of living in the prison.  It could be the barred doors, the barbed wire, the yelling and screaming from other prisoners, or the cold, institutional looking cells.  Whatever your opinion or picture, prison is a place to house those who have chosen to disobey civil laws causing intentional or unintentional harm to others.  Violators of justice are sent to prison to protect civilians from being harmed again while giving the offender the potential to be rehabilitated themselves.    The same can be true with the inner prisons that we intentionally build around our souls as a means to “protect them from the outside world.”  Those living on the “outside of our lives” looking into our life may not be able to detect this prison through casual conversation.  The prisons we construct are often gradual, piece by piece, layer by layer as we experience inner pain from the outside world.  The true self that is represented by the soul can be “attacked” by the outside world for not conforming to a culture that often desires assimilation and uniformity.  Every time we hold back from saying something that we truly believe (in a way that honors the other person, yet holds our principles in tact) so that an uneasy truce between the relationships can be held, another piece of the inner prison goes up).  Whenever we tell ourselves, we are not good at anything, and we choose to live a life purely of routine and familiarity, without exploring the depths of talent and gifting’s given to us by our Divine Author, we are closing the barred doors to the inner cell of the heart.  Or whenever we see suffering in the world, feel that it’s a tragedy, yet do take action to bring justice for others because we are “too busy” trying to drown out the inner cries of our true self by making our outer selves appear important and  “all together” we are placing the barbed wire around our inner cells so that our true self cannot escape.    

How can we break through such an oppressive inner sentence where we proclaim ourselves the judge, jury, and hall monitor of our inner selves?     

Back when the emancipation proclamation was instated in 1863, not many slaves, living in prisons of their own, were freed.  It was not until the 13th amendment was adopted in 1865 where slavery was official abolished in the United States despite its presence in modern day through other means such as Human Trafficking. Despite the victory won for human freedom, many people continued to live as slaves as they did not know anything about Abraham Lincoln, or the freedom that they were given except that they knew there was a freedom possible and that there was an Abraham Lincoln.   For those of us living in our own inner prisons, we can take comfort that there is a Divine Emancipator in our midst who desires to set us free from our self-made prisons.  It is when we become aware of this Divine Emancipator and His sacrificial work on our behalf where we can experience the joy and freedom from the inner slavery to addictions, emotional turmoil, seemingly insurmountable stress, and inner wounds we have received.  Despite the many layers of emotional brick and steel that we try to surround our true selves with, our Divine Emancipator designed our true selves and knows who we are on the inside out.  In fact, he was the one who was able to escape a fortified tomb from the inside out with guards patrolling outside in case someone tried to free him from the outside in.  As we get to know the Diving Emancipator who is on the outside, and invites us to bring him into the darkest areas of our insides, let us ask ourselves a question: what might the Divine Emancipator be up to in our lives today in tearing down the bricks of our inner prison?