Jon Huckins

Well, well, well…Landing back in the U.S. last night from a trip up to Vancouver symbolized the temporary landing of Janny and I in a few ways. Here is a bullet point version of the past month or so:
– Still working through the miscarriage of our first child (named Haven) and trying to muster up the courage, amid lots of fear and anxiety, to start again.
– Decided to study in Israel this summer @ Jerusalem University College! Fits perfectly into my Master’s program @ Fuller and Janny will audit the class right along side. We are in the application/detail portion of the process, but things look good.
– In an effort to live more simply and free ourselves up to study in Israel and possibly go on board with a non-profit, we have moved from our little cottage by the beach in Santa Cruz, up to a little studio in the redwoods of Mt. Hermon.
– I continue to teach Adult Education @ North County H.S. and am coaching the H.S. golf team. I will be speaking at Harbor Chapel(our former church community) in May, Mount Hermon this summer and at the National Youth Workers Convention this fall. My book is taking form (art,editing,proofreading, etc…) and is projected to be released on July 16th. Also, I finished another quarter of studies @ Fuller this past Friday. Officially completed my Hebrew language requirements! Shalom.
– Between two spa’s, lots of subbing and our recent move, Janny has been working her little tail off. She subbed for a 4th grade class a couple weeks ago and the school fell in love with her. They offered her a full time position (at least through the end of this school year) teaching 4th grade. She has a love/wanna pull out her hair kind-of relationship with the kids as they have enough energy to fuel a large city. No clue how she does it, but she is super motivated and cares for them alot.
– We have continued to be in dialog with a non-profit called Nieucommunities about the possibility of partnering with them. Janny and I got to spend this past weekend with the community at their site in Vancouver, Canada. Great people, with a hopeful vision for mission, church and mentorship in the way of Jesus.

It is weird how something as material as an old pick-up truck can stir up so many memories and nostalgia. A few weeks ago, Janny and I sold my ’96 Chevy S10. I owned it for almost 10 years! Janny and I have our 5th wedding anniversary coming up on March 19th and it has been 10 years since we started dating. In other words, this crazy old, broken down most of the time truck is filled with memories. Road trips all over the state, tear filled airport drop offs when Janny lived over sees for a semester, camping trips when we didn’t have a tent so we slept in the back…on and on and on. Cheers to the old beast!

Also, last night my buddy Allen went with me to hang out with our friends at the homeless shelter. Before we started serving the meal I saw Lyle and was able to catch up with him for a bit. I asked if there was anything new going on and between bites he looked up at me and said, “I got a job!” It was so fun to see his excitement. He said that it was not only helping him financially, but it was helping him mentally and emotionally. His eyes were filled with hope. Cheers to Lyle and some new hope!

I wasn’t sure if Lyle remembered my name or even our conversations. After turning down my lunch offer by not showing up at the taqueria a few weeks earlier, I had assumed to have only been a blip on his radar. Of course, why would I have been anything else? I was just another privileged white guy who drove a functioning car, slept in a warm bed, had a constant life companion(Janny…and Harry) and only worried about eating LESS food, not finding ANY food. I came to find out that these were assumptions of some of the ways I would view the “privileged” if I were in Lyle’s shoes…he is much more mature than I.

Every Sunday at about 3:30pm I show up at the shelter and hang around with my new friends. Al the Chef stands outside the kitchen among all the folks lining up for the meal and smokes his pipe(tobacco!)with a smirk of pride at having finished cooking a meal for 200 people. He doesn’t talk much, but with a Sherlock Holmes-like pipe…there is no need for words. Every once in awhile I will bring mine and stoically stand next to him. I feel like a 4 year old trying to imitate my father reading the paper with coffee in hand, but instead of coffee mug I am using a sippy cup and reading an Elmo picture book.

Although at times it feels like a burden to commit this time to hang out with my new friends, once I am there I can’t imagine missing out. After standing next to Al the Chef like his little padawan, I milled through the crowd of tooth missing, 7 layer wearing, long beard toting Inhabitants of the Kingdom. Through the crowd I saw my friend Lyle. He saw me right away and counter to my assumptions, it didn’t take him long to remember our conversations. In fact, one of the first things he said was, “you invited me to lunch!” We got to catch up for the next 15 minutes before I went back into the kitchen to take my post in the food line.

Every week I learn new names and hear new stories. My intentions are to be the embodiment of Jesus to my friends(Matt. 5:48), but in reality I have the opportunity to smile into Jesus’ face with each passing tray of stew.

Janny and I were coming home late and had to stop at a gas station near our house in Santa Cruz. As I pumped gas, a gentleman with a covetous beard rode up to me on his bike and asked for some money. I offered to buy him some food, so with a muffin and warm coffee now in his hands we began a rich conversation. He told me his name was Lyle and that he had lost his job in construction, which resulted in him being homeless for over a year. He shared about his past travels and relationships with hope and nostalgia, but would then come back to the somber reality of sleeping under a tarp night after night. After about 10 minutes, I said goodbye and he left me with a hearty smile of gratitude.

Challenged and inspired by my renewed understanding of the Kingdom of God and its “unlikely” inhabitants(which I spoke of in my last post), I tried to live my daily life with an open eye to the face of Jesus as seen through the poor. With this said, I had the opportunity to share a meal and conversation with a variety of folks, but I kept running into Lyle. A few weeks after our initial conversation and at the same gas station, Lyle and I were able to share an extensive conversation over a cup of coffee. I had grown to admire his resolve and optimism in the midst of a painful story. Needing to get home, I asked if we could continue over lunch the next day at a local taqueria. I told him there was no pressure, but that I would be there at 12pm either way. I understood, but sitting at a table in the taqueria anxious to continue our conversation, was disappointed when he never showed up.

Towards the end of last year, I started volunteering @ the Homeless Service Center; which has a food pantry, homeless family housing and serves up to 400 meals everyday. Not knowing exactly what was needed, my friend Michael and I decided to just show up and offer our help in any capacity. With dozens of homeless folks milling around the dining area, I connected with a full time volunteer named Rick. His first response was a combination of confusion and gratitude at my willingness to serve. Rick was homeless and now is able to live in an apartment on campus as compensation for his working full time for the center. After floating around and sharing conversation with my new friends for an hour, I was introduced to “Al the Chef” who wasted no time equipping me with a hair net, plastic gloves and instructions in how to run the food line. For the next couple of hours, Michael and I had the unforgettable honor of serving each one of the 100+ faces of Jesus a warm meal, accompanied by a heaping portion of love articulated through our huge grins.

It became clear that this would be the only meal of the day for many of our new friends. For that reason alone, this meal/place symbolized life. It wasn’t only the nourishment of the food, but the warmth and care that our friends desired. There weren’t many volunteers, but each one treated the homeless folks with dignity, love and mutual respect. As I witnessed these dynamics and served each meal with a smile, the humanity of each person was being realized. If even for only a short time, we were all equals without the dividing lines of society. Heaven was crashing into earth and the Kingdom of God was at hand.

Which leads me back to my friend Lyle…

This is a very insightful video that I had watched before, but that Nathan George reminded me of. Click here to watch.

This is “kinda” a follow up from Red Can post…

I recently listened to a great sermon on finances from Nathan George, founder of Trade as One. He began by asking how many of us had had a shower in the last week. He said that those of us who had are rich and that 4 of the 6 billion people on earth hadn’t been so fortunate. I got up late for work yesterday and didn’t get my DAILY shower. I felt gross all day and my hair was kinda sticking up like Alfalfa…

Last semester I took a class @ Fuller Seminary titled, Jesus and the Gospel of the Kingdom of God. My professor, Daniel Kirk(who wrote this book)had us read PLENTY of commentary on the Synoptic Gospels(Matt., Mark, Luke)outside of class, but in his lectures he never picked one up. He read straight out of the Greek Bible and translated to us as naturally as I read the english versions. The humanity of Jesus came alive and the Kingdom He inaugurated took a hauntingly (maybe I’ll explain why I use that word later) tangible form. So much of the WORDS and DEEDS of Jesus centered around His interaction and justice for the “least of these (Matt. 25).” Jesus’ face was illumined in the face of the stranger, the hungry, the prisoner and the homeless. Yes, Jesus spent alot of time preaching this Kingdom to the wealthy and highly religious, but He embodied this Kingdom through His deeds and interactions with those who inhabited it…the poor(Luke 6).

I can live a life with multiple degrees of separation from these inhabitants of the Kingdom of God. I sleep in a warm bed with a heating blanket, they sleep under a tarp with a newspaper. I eat fresh produce, they eat my leftovers. My possessions rest in cabinets and closets, theirs rests on their backs. It’s a strange tension…should I feel bad for having what I do. No, I think I should feel thankful, but in order to be fully thankful, I am finding I must have an understanding and heart for those who don’t. Not just a “oh that sucks for them” kind of understanding, but a “how can I learn from your story and be part of its healing” understanding. As I mentioned in my “Red Can” post, I believe it is often my “blessings” in the form of material excess that sometimes keep me from full participation in the Kingdom of God(Matt.19:24)…

So by serving, learning from and hanging out with these Kingdom Inhabitants, does the Gospel Jesus came to proclaim through WORD and DEED come to life?

This is what Dr. Kirk challenged me to unpack and what leads me to my friend Lyle…