I have more than 25 collection agencies on my back. I drank one too many whiskeys last night and I barfed. That was a very first. I also used several curse words out loud, which is highly unusual for me. I’m not proud of myself that’s for sure. Talk about hitting new lows! A young crackhead offered me sex for $5 – I asked her to please stop banging on my door. She looks like she has scurvy. I feel like I have scurvy.
Billions of Little Problems
October 10, 2007 by
One thing that bothers me – is the billions of little problems that come along during the day. They take up the whole day. For instance I’ve been staying at this motel for about 3 months and I can’t get internet for more than 5 minutes at a time, so I have to time exactly what I’ll do for those 5 minutes.
I need to send some faxes, but since I no longer own a fax machine, this has become a chore. Sending them isn’t tough, I just walk a few km’s to the store when I have enough pennies. Receiving them, that’s a whole other story. I actually sent out an important fax, walked home only to find out that it wasn’t received and had to walk all the way back. I’m using a prepaid cell phone because my regular phone was cut, and I don’t always have money to fund the phone, so I’m missing calls and lack the ability to return calls.
The 90’s Were So Much Better To Me
September 26, 2007 by
One of my good friends from the 90’s, Rachel is married, her 2 children are doing well, she’s in Georgia for now but considering moving to Alaska. Jenn is doing well. We chatted for a bit and that was a fun walk down memory lane.
After talking to Rachel, I can’t help but feel hurt that the 90’s was so much better for me than this decade.
Fund Raising Movie Night
September 8, 2007 by
There was a Rwanda fundraiser movie night that I was invited to, but I was reluctant to go because I’ve cut back a lot of what I’m doing just to survive. I usually receive invites to 1 or 2 events each week. I walked there and stayed for a short while, slipping in, and slipping out quietly. I walked home, it took a long time but all the lower calories and walking is helping me to lose fat and get into shape. I’m exhausted but always willing to support a good cause. I’m still giving a percentage of my income. I’ve always done that and I’ll always do that. Even if it’s $0.01.
Michael (not the archangel, the other one)
August 30, 2007 by
In 1988 I was in Brandon Gate public school. Mr. Wood’s class. There was a black boy one grade ahead of me, in the same classroom (We used to share “pod’s” with another grade for some reason) his name was Michael. He was a rough and awful person at the time. He would get into fights and arguments and trouble all the time. One time he was fighting and he kicked a female teacher very hard in the neck. He was a huge dark skinned boy, bigger than the biggest bullies at our school. At least that’s how I remember it. Mrs. Leahy is the name of the teacher that got kicked. I thought he was such a loser and I always remembered him that way. Until now.
Fast forward to 2005, when I would regularly pray for people I went to school with, even though I don’t remember them all by name, I remember certain events or little things here and there. I was flipping through the channels and I saw Michael, of all people, on tv, giving his testimony about how Jesus changed his life. I was floored. I mean honestly I had to sit down. I was literally praying for the guy, and now here I was watching him on tv.
Just a few months later in 2005 I met him in Longo’s while doing grocery shopping. I re-introduced myself, of course he didn’t remember me from such a long time ago. I praised God for being so amazing. He takes the people who we think will never be different and he changes them. I shook Michael’s hand and went about my day. Who would think that I would ever shake his hand? He was an animal the last I remembered him. He beat up my friend Gidget’s brother Charlie. I met Gidget in 1986 while jogging. She was a champion jogger at the time.
Fast forward to last night, August of 2007, I was flipping through the channels here, the reception is very poor but sometimes but I can wiggle back of the tv and sometimes I get lucky.
On CBC the host was interviewing an ‘educator’ who was proclaiming that there is no God. I change channels and there is Michael, yes Michael on a major game show. He won over $150,000 and was giving half to his new ministry, which will help troubled youth stay off the streets via sports programs.
Jesus is amazing! Oh yeah, I forgot – I met Gidget in Woodbine center in 1997. She gave her life to Jesus to. And I’ve started going through my old yearbooks which are safe in storage, turns out a number of my old friends who were Atheists, Muslims, Hindus, etc are turning their lives over to Jesus and their lives are being transformed.
Even with all the noise around me I can hear my stomach grumbling
August 20, 2007 by
I guess there’s a motorcycle gang or club nearby because there is constant motorcycle engine noise. Constant sirens. Yelling. Screaming. Sometimes laughing. The sound of bottles being broken against the concrete. Crack whores yelling outside my door. My phone ringing. There is so much noise going on around me and yet I can still hear my stomach growling. I’m in a pretty bad situation right now, and I’m a bit shaken.
Losing a few inches off my waist is good news
August 10, 2007 by
The thing about helping the poor is that they can never really help you back.
I had a meeting with a new potential client and I realized that 1.) I don’t have enough bus money so I’ll be walking for about 6 hours today 2.) I lost my beautiful ties when I lost my home but I do have enough for a $1 tie from the dollar store.
The tie I purchased feels like it’s made out of paper, lol. The meeting went okay though. I’m really hungry and I’ve been drinking a lot of free coffee. I’m living out of a suitcase and a bunch of garbage bags, and the garbage bags are starting to tear.
God Of Wonders Beyond Our Galaxy You Are Holy
August 1, 2007 by
My income has dropped drastically over the past 18 months, almost all my clients are struggling, few have been able to pay me, nothing is going right. I’ve lost my car, my phone(s), cable tv, internet, furnishings, and on Thursday July 26 2007, I lost my home. Thank God I don’t have children in my care at the moment.
I tried to get an extension on the back payments but I was a day late and a dollar short. Story of my life. It was rough moving out. The day before I tried cutting a deal that would save my butt but it was a no go. Very close, but still a no go. The eviction meeting was in south Mississauga and I could barely even come up with the bus money to get there on time to defend myself. I used a transfer for the ride home, which was very difficult for me. And it took like 4 hours which was extra annoying. There was a bizarre crazy man on the bus making noise to make things worst for us all.
I sold as much stuff on kijiji as I could, for a fraction of the price. The TV Was the only thing sold at a reasonable $250. Anyway, I used that money in anticipation for moving out on the early morning of the 26. I was up at 4am.
Packing a small suitcase with my valuables and the rest of the stuff I could carry in garbage bags. I don’t have a car, and little money and no resources for a moving truck and nowhere to go so I’ve had to forfeit much of my furniture, including my very first sofa, a futon I purchased from Ikea – I saved up 6 months for that in the 90’s, when I was a youngster. While I was moving out my stuff, I put my bike outside for about 5 minutes hoping to use it for transportation and it got stolen, haha.
Unfortunately because of my transportation or lack thereof I could only take what I could carry, and that included a couple of valuables and just the clothes on my back.
I’ve moved 5 times in the last 5 nights. I’m now living literally day by day in a discount crack motel with no internet and crack heads walking around yelling at 3 am. I wore the same socks, underwear, pants and shirt for about 6 days. It was so gross. I got some money together after a few days and got socks and underwear from a discount store.
It was very hard saying goodbye to my great paintings, furniture, my desk, my beloved plants. I’m literally using my pennies to survive right now. I had to look around for pennies on the ground just to get bus money to get to Toronto to pickup a clients payment so I could get it right away instead of waiting for it to come to me. I haven’t looked around for pennies on the ground since I was a child hoping to gather up enough to play a RoadBlaster video game at the convenience store on Rockhill Road. I gathered up enough for a one way trip on the bus. I picked up my pay, cashed it right away at some store, had a real meal, purchased supplies, and here I am, sitting at my computer typing this. This room is tiny and doesn’t have air conditioning, it’s sweltering so my shirt is off. There’s no fridge so I can’t store food. Druggies are in the hallway throwing stuff at doors and yelling. This is a bad situation.
After 6 full years I’ve read the Richard Wurmbrand issue of Voice of the Martyrs. A magazine I’ve been carrying with me for 6 years. It helps to put things in perspective. I’m also thanking God that all the missions projects that I’m involved in, I’ve funded them already for the year, so I won’t have to default on anything but I won’t be doing anything new for a while. There’s a store nearby that sells samosas, a delicious food for about $2, which is my daily budget for food at the moment. Dollar store food also. I’m surviving day by day and it’s not easy. This is a bad situation.
Money is gone friends are gone
July 20, 2007 by
This is the way life works in every country in the world: Lots of money, lots of friends. Little money, little friends.
Polish Girls Are Taller Than Me
July 11, 2007 by
Caroline and I went for a 3 hour bike ride on Saturday. I’ve sold almost all my valuables to make ends meet this week.
Won’t Be Watching Scrubs For A While
July 3, 2007 by
My cable tv has been disconnected – I couldn’t pay the bill(s).
Old Technique No Longer Works
June 20, 2007 by
I used to get back $26 in income for every $1 I spent on advertising, now it’s down to $3. The economy is taking everything away from small business owners. I don’t know how the general consumer is doing. I’ve been telling all my clients to cut back and I’ve been cutting back also. I’ve already cut back on my expenses by over 50% so far this year but I need to do further cuts.
I don’t have a car anymore. It’s gone, the repo man took it. On a brighter note I got 14 fathers day cards this year so far. :)
Losing stuff I don’t even own
May 25, 2007 by
I got an angry call from a repo company telling me they were coming after my Mustang. Problem is, I don’t have, nor have I ever had a Mustang. The car I do have, probably will be lost soon though.
30 Hour Famine? Please We Grew Up That Way
May 23, 2007 by
30 Hour Famine. It’s where you don’t eat or drink for 30 hours and raise money for missions work. White people are awesome. For them 30 hours of not eating is called “famine”. We went entire weeks and months without proper food when we were growing up. The youth stayed over at the church from 6pm to the next afternoon and most of them didn’t sleep much. That was a blast. I made a lot of connections with the youth but my days of staying up all night are pretty much done. I loved how most of the youth thought they were doing something amazing by not eating or drinking for 30 hours. I tried to explain to some of them that most of the world has no choice but to live like that and they couldn’t believe me. This is the future of Canada – a generation spoiled so rotten that they won’t even know about 3rd world life and culture.
I’ve been having trouble focusing on school, so I will have to pause classes for a while and get zero on my current classes. DOH!
Current missions work is going perfectly fine but I’m not able to start any new projects. This is okay because I have so many ongoing projects that I don’t feel completely bad about that. But you know me, I like doing more. Maybe that will be my downfall? Any way the reports coming back are good good good.
The Hills Have Eyes 2
April 27, 2007 by
On April 5 I treated myself to the movies, The Hills Have Eyes 2.
At this stage, I’m helping so many kids with college, and doing so much missions work, I’ll be bankrupt in short order. I’ll have to cut back on this, and at the same time I have to be careful how much I cut because I’ve been working with some of these kids for 10 years promising to one day help them with college. It’s just a lot of pressure on me during a very tough time.
My income is still dropping rapidly this year, I thought last year was bad but this year is several times worst. Last year I barely barely broke even, this year I’m so far in the red it’s insane. I’ve lost over $1,000,000 so far this year. A lot of the payments I’m receiving are bouncing, and for the first time in a long time one of the cheques I wrote bounced. I couldn’t believe it and I was so embarrassed when I found out. For the first time in a long time, I’m borrowing money. The last time I borrowed large sums of money would have been 1997. My credit cards are almost completely maxed out and few of my clients aren’t paying me on completed projects because they themselves are struggling.
Out of control – that’s what this year is so far. Very few things are working right no matter how hard I try and every time I get a nice big success it gets taken away a few days later with losses.
My camera store is turning sour. It was sour when I bought it, and I thought I would turn it around but I’ve made things worst. One of my courier shipments came in completely destroyed. The courier handed it to me like nothing was wrong. The box was almost completely smashed. He told me to file an insurance claim. Another shipment I sent out is gone without a trace. Yes there’s a tracking number but the system just shows that it’s been stuck in transit for some weeks. I’m at my wits end.
Yorkview Public School in Willowdale Ontario
March 30, 2007 by
I couldn’t sleep. I drove to Yorkview Public School at like 5am, eating breakfast and Mcdonald’s. The drive there was long, wow I didn’t realize how far it was.
I parked my car in the parking lot of the school for the very first time and walked around. I stood at the baseball field where I fought that gang of boys to defend a girl so long ago, checking the wood and metal for any remnants of my blood. The whole school and property looks so old and small. I remember how huge it used to feel. I wonder how my old buddies were doing. There was Randy who was like half black half white and an amazing sprinter, Matthias who was fresh from Hungary and a math super genius (they skipped him several grades in math). There was my grade 3 sweetheart Kaitlin Moore (who all the boys fought over), Teresa, another one of my girlfriends, a quiet blonde girl who spent all her time doing jump rope. While I was enjoying my walk around the property I received about 8 calls from angry creditors.
When I was like 6 I would go to a convenience store at Bathurst and Finch, buying candy and then re-selling it here on the grounds of Yorkview. That’s how I used to solve my money troubles. Ha ha. I had to do something. I was missing all the field trips and special events. Eventually I was paying for my own trips and supplies and signing fake signatures on my permission slips.
We used to have pizza days at school and my parents would just tell me to stay home those days, but the most embarrassing was in grade 5 at Brandongate Public School when Mr. Wood had the entire classroom do a traditional Medieval Dinner. We were to have our parents (lol) cook food and all bring a dish, and I remember everyone asking me what my parents would be cooking. I made up some nonsense and then skipped the day, later saying I was sick. I really felt a lot of pain in my heart though, not only did I get a hard beating for asking my parents to cook food for the dinner, but I really enjoy Medieval times and the entire teaching that Mr. Wood did. He knew I enjoyed it and he himself was disappointed in me for missing. That part hurt the most. He asked me if I would miss the Niagara Falls grade 5 graduation trip, which of course I wouldn’t. I forged my parents signature and paid for the damn thing myself using the money I earned selling gumball machines door to door and delivering the pennysaver newspaper. I had to fight my way through my early years and it looks like I’ll have to fight my way through my latter years also. And I don’t mind.
A Couple Of Turkeys
March 13, 2007 by
Last week Thursday Mason walked to my house after work. Took him 2 hours. I told him to enjoy that kind of energy while it lasts.
Anyway I figured we should reward ourselves with a trip to the local art gallery. It was really neat, but some art is extremely overpriced. We looked at fine art, photography, clay, wood sculptures. My favorite was a massive 8ft x 5ft play dough sculpture. Mason accidentally slammed the door on some painters painting what I believe to be a half horse half human figure.
And Mason and I found the coolest arboretum to hang out in. We sat there for like 30 minutes or more just relaxing and chatting it up. It’s like our new hang out spot in Burlington. We talked about how life would be 20 years from now, with wives and children and our own giant arboretum (with big screen tv and snack kitchen).
My Wallets Gone, My Wallets Gone
March 10, 2007 by
Protect your identity! Here are some tips I received from various sources over the last few months:
1.) Do not give out your driver’s license or social insurance number unless it’s absolutely necessary. You never know when paperwork will get into the hands of malicious people or professional identity thieves. As a small business consultant I’m constantly in the position of verifying my identity (especially when dealing with sensitive company information) and this can become a complicated situation.
2.) Don’t answer telephone surveys that ask too specific information. Again, I probably had telemarketers and phone survey people calling me at least once a month. When you run a small business you’ll end up on a lot of mailing and calling lists.
3.) Be careful of what links you click on in email. If the email looks suspicious, that should raise a red flag. Almost every popular website that holds personal information now has links regarding email security.
4.) Monitor your credit report at least once every 3 months. Most credit bureaus allow you to subscribe to a special service where they will contact you if a drastic change has been made to your file. Although it is natural for mistakes to show up once in a while, being vigilant will protect you in the long run, and don’t sweat the small mistakes, they can be corrected (although not necessarily quickly).
Any way, moving on. On Thursday I went to the doctor, and while sitting in his office waiting in ONLY my Homer Simpson boxers, he opens the door and I realize his office is right across from the waiting room, thus allowing everyone to see me.
On Friday the guys at youth went to a gaming place and we played computer video games for 2 hours. The last time I played a computer video game was on Mason’s computer about 4 years ago, and the last time I played any video game for 2 HOURS was probably 10 years ago. I don’t believe adults need to play video games that long.
What’s up? Nothing Much! Or At Least, Nothing Good
February 17, 2007 by
So last night’s youth group was pretty good. I finally got to explain about the prayer board we’ll be using from now on. A good old fashioned cork board where we’ll post prayer requests on the left side, and answered prayer on the right side. There are already several prayer requests on the left side and I know that in 12 months there will be a full right side because God is faithful.
Sis came home from school for ‘spring break’ like 1 week before I thought she would. She’s at my mom’s place and doesn’t have a key to lock the door behind her, so she can’t go out anywhere until my mom comes back. This makes me happy :)
I’m cooking chicken and rice tonight.
February 2007
February 1, 2007 by
We all went to mandarin to celebrate. It was awesome and it’s one of my favorite places. Last night on Wednesday I had a great day of work and a great day at church. That’s a perfect combo.
My camera store is bleeding money, I’m running into trouble after trouble. I have a case of cameras here sent to me packaged in the wrong boxes, brand new, that I can’t sell, so I’m just giving them away at way below cost to at least bring in an income.
I realized a customer was tricking us by purchasing, using and then returning camera equipment for a refund. One of my employees realized that he was ordering under slightly different shipping addresses each time. Loss of $15,000 total. Sigh.
If you like burgers, check out Lick’s.
January and I’m Already Tired
January 23, 2007 by
On Friday my sister came home from school for a few days. I picked her up and then we picked up Mason and Eggbert and went to church. At church we had a fun service with worship and prayer and discussions. After we all came back to my place for a sleepover. Mason fasted from food Wed / Thur / Fri and I fasted Thur / Fri. Eggbert fasted Fri.
We watched a movie and went to bed. I slept in the kitchen and pretended I was in a space ship. The next morning I woke up and did my prayers, I made them all toast, eggs, sausages, pancakes. We then went to A&P and purchased $70 in ingredients, then bake lots of goodies for the church bake sale. I don’t believe in church bake sales, they aren’t a good idea. You spend more money on the products than you bring in. In my opinion, just give the money to church.
After we relaxed and watched some tv, ate roti and curry for dinner that we got from Bramalea City Centre. We showered and I took a nap.
Around 930pm (Yes the day went FAST) we went to watch a movie at the theatre, something I rarely do these days. Sis and Eggbert watched something with Hillary Swank (Freedom Writers) and Mason and I watched The Hitcher which is a horror. Don’t know how girls watch such boring movies. Around 1am we drove them home, and went home.
Sunday I dropped sis off to school in Waterloo and then went off to church. I took the LONG way unfortunately so it took forever.
When I got there we had a nice service, and then we sold our $70 in goodies for like $30. LOL. Church math.
4 letters can describe this situation can you guess what they are?
January 21, 2007 by
This week I received 4 letters in the mail congratulating me on my approval for 4 different car financing / purchases. A fifth letter came apologizing for a decline for my car financing application. Problem is, I haven’t applied for any of these.
Numb
January 5, 2007 by
Missions work is going very well, lots of great reports from everyone. So is the homeless outreach I do in Toronto. Street evangelism is also going well with the one downside of being threatened once in a while. My group was talking to a group of people about Jesus and a Muslim man listening threatened to “ruin my life.” lol. Church ministry projects are going very well. Work isn’t going so well, on the upside I’m enjoying the winter weather. My favorite season is Autumn, my least favorite is summer.
$1 Million Cash On My Coffee Table But I Rather Have Jesus
December 16, 2006 by
Overall, I didn’t make a profit this year. One business made money but the other lost, one investment went up and the other went down. When everything is all said and done, I lost money. I won’t know how much until an accountant preps my books but I’m sure it’s at least 5 figures. I worked like a dog. I worked all day. I took only a few days off. I pushed and pushed but it just seems like things didn’t work out. I’m exhausted.
Some of my notable 2006 expenses:
– $4,054 food
– $3,259 travel
– $3,086 banking
– $5,078 phone
Add that all up, multiply by 10 and I gave slightly more than that to outreach, evangelism, missions and new churches this year. Unfortunately I didn’t save anything, and I have a bad feeling about that.
So lets end this on a super happy note.
As I started driving out to Guelph for Dana’s wedding, it dawned on me again how fast life flies by. I met Dana online in 2002. We’ve become the best of online friends since then and met in real life in 2006. We only spent a little bit of time together in person, but hundreds of hours chatting online.
Dana’s dad and mom are pastors and missionaries. They’ve been all over the world saving lives. Their family and friends are missionaries as well. This kind of thing means the world to me. Dana grew up on the mission field and it’s molded who she is today.
The long drive to her city was a bit tiring for me, and I’ve done the drive many times to visit my sister at school. When I got to the church my jaw dropped, partially because from the outside it looked like it was sinking into the ground, partially because it looked like it was 1,000 years old. It was covered in beautiful wood and stone.
I met J for the very first time but I heard about him from Dana a lot. J’s family are also missionaries and J has been all over, especially Indonesia where he tells me his hobbies included swinging from vines in the jungle like Tarzan. I setup my camcorder and camera equipment and recorded the short and beautiful wedding ceremony. After, I gave Dana and J their hugs and went about my life for a few hours while the professional photographer took photos.
The reception was in a beautiful updated community centre. When I got to the reception we did more videotaping, we ate the most delicious foods from all over the world (seems like almost everyone was a missionary so they knew about all the different kinds of foods from all the different cultures). It wasn’t catered, people from all over the world cooked food. I had some delicious basmati rice with red curry. Most of the people there were white but collectively they had done church ministry work everywhere worldwide. The food was beyond amazing. The fact that a white person made curry better than brown people made me think.
I walked around and talked to men and women, children and adults, young and old. Many people were simply on break from a 2 year mission trip. Some were heading back to the airport in a few days to start a new mission trip or continue one. One young man told me he won’t be going into missions. “I’m going into business, someone has to stay here and pay for these missionaries to go do what they do, someone has to provide the money, it doesn’t grow on trees you know.” hahahaha! A man after my own heart. He was currently in business school and everyone in his family were full time missionaries. I had a good conversation with him. I talked to teen girls who weren’t into the latest pop music or celebrities but instead talked endlessly about 3rd world villages being transformed by the salvation message of Jesus. Can we trade some of these teens with our spoiled brat teens?
After the reception was over, I helped pack away the reception hall as is my custom, and to my shock all of the young people helped as well – without being asked. They were picking up and packing the folding tables themselves and doing it more efficiently than me. I was amazed and remembered again that missionaries have a lot to teach us. These kids aren’t concerned with what they can get for Christmas, but what they can give. I work with teens everyday and I’ve been trying and trying to teach them these values.
I said my farewells to everyone after it started getting late and I drove home that night in amazement of God. Even right now as I type this, I’m just floored. All those missionaries, in one room at the same time. If we could get them to stay in one city of Canada for 2 years they would transform the city. It’s one reason I’m happy to go overboard funding missions work.
On a silly note, while at the reception I was also honored to be the only colored person there. Everyone was white except for me. That is until 4 of Dana’s friends from school showed up late who were brown and black. After everything was finished I sat down with them and we all laughed about how cool it is to be a minority sometimes, especially when everyone else is so nice.
You know what, I can’t stop talking or thinking about this. I met over 100 amazing missionaries, yes I counted over 100 and talked to almost every one of them. I walked around the room shaking peoples hands and introducing myself. Dana’s whole family are missionaries for life and so are J’s. People of all ages, all educations, all kinds of skill sets, who have collectively been to almost every country in the world representing Jesus. Countries I’ve never even heard of! It was one of the most amazing experience for me to be in their presence.
Let me explain this better:
I was 17 years old. Summer. It was approaching evening. I had a home office packed with regular customers. The doorbell rang. 2 large black men came inside. They didn’t say a word. Both were carrying a Price Chopper grocery bag in each hand. 4 bags in total. They emptied the bags in front of me, on my fake wood coffee table.
$100 and $50 bills, Canadian, American and Euro currency. I stacked that money into separate piles of $30,000 each. It was so much I had to call my friend Steve to help. Steve was in the other room (my home office) dealing with some of our clients. When he saw the pile of money he was literally speechless. I mean literally. I thought he was going to faint. He stuttered a few words and then started counting. Steve’s been my buddy since grade 3.
We made over 30 piles, and counted almost $1 Million in cash. We sat there, looking at the money like it was a super hot girl. After we finished doing that, we packed the money neatly in a suitcase and rolled it over to the bank. The lady at the bank snapped at me saying “this line is for business only.” When we opened the suitcase a bit to show her, her mouth opened up so big I thought I could fit my head inside. Because of the sum of money some paperwork had to be done to make sure everything was in order, then we deposited the money just like we were depositing a paycheck for $400. Most of the money was then wired to Germany. When I got back home I logged into my dial up internet access, using my Cyrix 686 with 32mb of RAM and sent an email to a German company: “Hi, I’d like to introduce myself. My name is Asif Zamir, and I’ve just wired you $XXX,XXX.XX Please send the shipping container(s) to this shipping port and address…”
I should take a moment to mention the following:
– the whole thing was completely legitimate and fully legal
– nothing illegal was going on
– i never have that kind of cash in my home
– the cash wasn’t mine
– the shipping containers were filled with food-commodities going to a developing country to be sold at retail.
– cash was being used because the business owners involved were used to dealing with only cash. Later on they switched to more updated payment methods.
– it only sounds very shady when I talk about it
Needless to say, that was an interesting day for me, a 17 year old boy. But this day, this wedding of my great friend Dana and the reception where I met and talked to and prayed with 100 missionaries, and having some of them pray over me – and hearing about hundreds of thousands of souls being won for Jesus, about communities being changed and lives being completely healed, about the expansion of the faith and hundreds of new church plants doing well – this is truly more amazing to me than all the money in the world.
2006 by Asif Zamir
December 11, 2006 by
Each day I’d wake up, do my work, do some school, practice guitar. Of course I’m at church 4 or 5 times a week. If you only go once a week then you’re an amateur, and if you go less than once per week you’re a Catholic. Tuesday Mason takes the bus to Brampton and I’d drive him home, sometimes we’d hang out at Margaritas house eating delicious Jamaican food and playing boardgames. Thursdays I drive downtown Toronto to pickup Mason and Cassie and drive them home. Saturday is party night. Now by party night I don’t need booze and drugs, I mean movies and pizza and planning our volunteer and ministry work. What I like about my friends and the people I hang out with: If I invite them to feed the homeless with me, they don’t argue, they just show up. If I challenge them to stand on a street corner with me to share our faith in Jesus with strangers, they rise to the challenge and sometimes out do me.
We do weekly homeless ministry, special kids ministry events, and mostly I work with teens these days. I’ve started reading fiction books again! It’s because of my sister. She left this annoying looking book called “King Jerry” in the bathroom cupboard where I keep my books. I ran out of Archie’s so I was desperate. I picked it up and I couldn’t put it down! Next I found myself reading “How I paid for College”. I actually stayed up and read that for 7 hours. Now I’m back to reading new Gordon Korman books. I know they are only for young people but who cares. Youth is wasted on young people. (By the way Son of the Mob 1 and 2 by Gordon Korman). I haven’t read fiction books in over 10 years. I’m loving them again. On the other hand I read non fiction books daily. I read at least 1 per month on any topic. Business, real estate, finance, investing, marketing, law, Canada, history, American history, firearm safety, survival. You name it. Church is my favorite place to be. The library and bookstore is my second favorite places to be.
This week we are taking a group of teens paint balling. Then Mason and Eggbert will go off to London for their Christmas vacation for 18 days.