I was shopping yesterday at my local Trader Joe’s (which is arguably the best grocery store ever), when I decided making dinner just seemed like to much work.  So I headed right next door to pick up some Panera when I noticed that my local neighborhood Panera had turned into a Panera Cares Community Cafe.

I think this is such an amazing concept!  Their motto is, “Take what you need, leave your fair share”.  There are no prices or cash registers, only suggested donation levels and donation bins. Which means you basically have three options and one huge moral dilema to sift through by the time you get to the front of the line.  

The suggested donation price of the tuna sandwich I went in for was $5.69. So, I had to decide, do I pay the $5.69, do I pay less or do I pay more.  While I was trying to decide in my mind I changed the word pay to give.  Do I give $5.69 to an organization whose concept I fully support and will more than likely cover the persons meal behind me, or do I give more.  Not giving at all was not even an option.  Normally paying $5.69 for a tuna sandwich would send me into a rant about how I could make twenty sandwiches at home for that same price.  But, when you change the word pay to give it doesn’t seem so bad.  In fact, it makes it seem like a bargain.  I have given way more at fundraisers, bake sales and art shows for things of the same value.  I gladly gave money year after year to UBC’ers who were trying to get to Kenya one cupcake at a time.  Why was this any different?  So, in the end I gave $5.69.  I felt good about my decision, but on the way home thought I should have given more.

According to some online articles I read about 60 percent of customers pay in full.  20 percent pay less and 20 percent pay more.  Those who have nothing don’t have to pay a penny, or there is an option of working for an hour for a free meal voucher.

Right now, there are three other Panera Cares Cafes.  The first one was opened in St. Louis, next was Detroit and third was Portland.  Locations are chosen carefully based on economic need and easy access from public transportation.  Two more locations are reported to open this year across the country.  The bottom line with these new Community Cafes is to make a difference by offering the Panera Cafe experience to all, those who can afford it, those who need a free meal and everyone in between.

I love it & it makes me love Panera more.  If you have a Panera Cares Cafe in your area eat at it and give often!  Countless people survive on just one meal a day and more than likely have no idea where that meal is coming from.  By giving just $5.69 you can eat your sandwich and pay for someone else’s at the same time.  Even if you don’t have a Panera Cares just eat at a Panera.  At least your money is going to an organization that is trying to make a difference.

Since Portland is known as Bridgetown I thought I would do a little research on each of its eight bridges.  And since I live four blocks off Broadway, I thought I would start with the Broadway Bridge.  From the north it is the third of Portland’s eight bridges.  It connects NE Portland with downtown and the Pearl District in the NW.

The bridge was opened on April 22, 1913 at a cost of $1.6 million.  It was the first drawbridge built in Portland & at the time was the longest drawbridge in the world.  It uses a Rall-type counterweight system for raising & lowering and today is the longest Rall-type bridge in existence.

The bridge is 1,742 feet long, 70 feet wide and has a clearance from the bottom of the bridge to the Willamette river below of 70 feet.  As of 2001 the bridge carried 27,000 cars per day and opened for river traffic 25 times per month.  It is also one of the main bridges for bicycle traffic crossing with other 2,000 cyclists crossing per day.

The Broadway bridge is painted Golden Gate red, also known as international orange.  I didn’t even know there was such a thing as international orange.  And if I think about the Golden Gate bridge I would think it was red, but apparently its orange.  The spacesuits that NASA uses are also international orange.  Neither of those two things match in my mind.  If anyone comes across a NASA spacesuit & is in San Francisco please take a picture of these two things together so we can compare and contrast the two. 

Most famously the bridge was featured in the climax of the movie I know you all saw, “Untraceable” staring Diane Lane.  In the film, Diane Lane becomes stranded on the east end of the bridge by a serial killer who hacks into her car’s computer.  The scene was filmed on the actual bridge.  

It’s also really heavy.  Don’t try this at home.  I’m a trained professional.

We loved being back in Texas for Christmas.  It was so fun to be home with friends and family!  We’ve only been here for four months, but being 2200 miles away makes it seem like we’ve been away from family so much longer.  

Here is how most conversations went: 

Them: “Do you love living in Portland?”

Us: “We really do.  Its just so fun and pretty. There is just so much to do.”

Them: “That’s great!  Does it rain there everyday?  How about snow, is it just freezing in Portland right now?”

Us: “You know, it does rain a lot, but not as much as you would think.  And its really not that cold in the winter, its actually about as cold as Texas would get.”

Them: “Hmm.”  (Which I took as, “I don’t believe you.”)

So, I thought I would do a little research.  The average temperature in Portland in January is 33.5 degrees.  The average temperature in Waco is 33.3 degrees.  Ha! We have Waco beat by .2 degrees.  The summer temperatures are where Portland really pulls ahead.  In July the average temp in Portland is 79.5 degrees.  The average temp in Waco is 95.9 degrees.  The number of days in Waco that are 90 degrees or higher per year are 109!  Now come on, that’s hot people.  And not just a little bit of hot, that’s hot for over three months.  That’s 109 days of sweating the minute you step outside and not being able to touch your steering wheel or buckle your seatbelt without risk of third degree burns to your hands.

Here’s the crazy part.  The average annual rainfall in Portland is 37 inches.  The average annual rainfall in Waco is (wait for it…) 36 inches.  What?  But how can that be?  (You’ll find out how if you keep reading) The average annual snowfall in Portland is 2 inches, the average annual snowfall in Waco is 1.4 inches.  Ok, you have us beat by a little there, but not enough to go out get a beer and brag to your buddies.  Those numbers are not that far apart my friend.

The annual number of days it rains in Portland is 151.  The annual number of days it rains in Waco is 80.  Portland doesn’t get good ‘ole fashioned thunderstorms that Waco does.  When it rains in Waco its not messing around. There could be a flash flood in a matter of minutes.  Here you get more days where the rain is just a light mist. I actually stood outside & had a conversation the other day for an hour in Portland’s famous light mist rain & hardly got wet at all.  This is how our annual rainfall in inches isn’t really that far apart.  Waco gets the same amount of rain as Portland, it just rains in Texas twice as hard as it does here.

The annual number of clear days in Portland is 75.  The annual number of clear days in Waco is 89.  And here’s where we are about to lose the race.  The annual number of cloudy days in Portland is 222.  The annual number of cloudy days in Waco is 53. Ouch.  That one hurt.  Pair that with the annual number of cloudy days in Portland being 75 versus 53 cloudy days a year in Waco and we’re down for the count.

But, you know what?  I wouldn’t trade it for anything right now.  Sure it rains here, but its amazingly lush!  You just don’t get trees like this without a little bit of rain.

Or amazing flowers.  My mom & mother-in-law just about die when they visit.  Plants that are normally 2” big in the rest of the world are 20” in Portland.

I mean, sure.  Waco is pretty.

But, you just can’t beat greenery like this.

So for now, I’ll take the rain.  I’m sure I’ll be sick of it come spring when we’ve had over 100 days of rain.  But I’d much rather have rain right now that seering, unrelenting, makes you want to never leave the house heat in the summer in Waco.

Portland is full of really amazing local artists.  With Christmas quickly approaching I thought I would give a shout out to some of them.  If you are looking for some great presents this holiday season, check out some of these great Portland artists.  Or, even better, check out local artists in your city!  They are out there making beautiful things, I promise.

Seaworthy is one of my new favorite jewelry lines.  They take vintage pieces & turn them into great necklaces & other goodies. 

Matte Stephens is one of my favorite artists.  Its just good ‘ole fashioned mid century fun.  

Berkley Illustration is another great artist.  Come on, how cute is he?  So dapper.

Gifts by Sarahoo. Look at these guys. So cute! 

Bishop Art is another great local artist.  You can find all sorts of fun goodies at their Etsy shop. Candles,magnets, cards…I love these Bingo cards.

Esoule. Love, love this photographer.  Her pictures are just so dreamy. 

J Duct.  For the man in your life.

Walnut is Ben’s new favorite bike accessory maker.  Nothing says Christmas like a hand-tooler learther PBR holder for your bike.

Dutchdoor is in San Francisco (not exactly Portland, I know) but you can show some state love by buying one of their amazing birds and blooms prints.

You can also by from AHeirloom &  love your state by chopping jalapenos on it.

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year!  See you in 2011.

I just got a really great job at a non-profit called The Mentoring Project as their part time Business Administrator.  I had to make my resume for the first time in my life and was nerve wracked for days over the interview.  I’m really bad at selling myself.  It just feels strange.  Needless to say, I got the job & am so excited about it because it’s a really great organization.

Here’s our cute office and some of my co-workers.  Shawnte is the Director of Operations & pretty much the everything woman of the organization.  Trevor is Director of Church Relations & singlehandedly sets up & maintains all of The Mentoring Project’s church partnerships.

Here’s my little desk.

TMP was founded a couple of years ago by Donald Miller and is now being run by our fearless President, John Sowers.  The mission is to respond to the American crisis of fatherlessness by inspiring and equipping faith communities to mentor fatherless boys. In most cities across the nation there is a waiting list of kids wanting to be paired up through organizations like Big Brothers & Big Sisters.  The Mentoring Project serves as a go between to get that waiting list down to zero.  They partner with churches, train mentors & start mentoring communities in cities across the nation. 

I didn’t realize the statistics on fatherlessness, but some of the numbers are staggering.  63% of youth suicides are from fatherless homes.   85% of all children who show behavior disorders come from fatherless homes.  80% of rapists with anger problems come from fatherless homes.  71% of all high school dropouts come from fatherless homes.  75% of all adolescent patients in chemical abuse centers come from fatherless homes. 70% of youths in state-operated institutions come from fatherless homes.  85% of all youths in prison come from fatherless homes.

The Mentoring Project is trying to change those statistics.  Things are going on all over the nation if you want to get involved.  There may already be something in your city or if you really feel led, you can start a chapter of The Mentoring Project in your city. Become a mentor, or become a National Church Partner.

If you want to read more about fatherlessness John Sowers has a great book he’s written called “Fatherless Generation” that talks more in depth about the problems & solutions to kids growing up without a father.  Donald Miller also has a book called “Father Fiction” on growing up without a father.   

Ben & I started leading mission trips to Kenya starting in 2006.  UBC did not have a long history of taking mission trips, or any history for that matter, so we thought why not just jump in & go to the farthest place we can think, Africa.  Baylor had just started taking mission trips to Kenya the year before & through a series of coincidences we ended up partnering up with them to take our first trip.  It ended up being such a blessing since showing up in a country 8,000 miles away with no prior knowledge & eighteen college students would have been a tad overwhelming.  

We ended up making some amazing connections on our first trip.  The first was with an orphanage called Shelter Children’s Rehabilitation Center.  They were overloaded with 120 kids and very little funding.  Over the years we were able to plant fruit trees, set up a drip irrigation system for their farm, set up a bio-gas system that gives electricity to the orphanage, paint, provide countless clothes, school supplies, toys & basic necessities.  

The second connection was with Pastor Bonafice.  He single handedly runs a ministry for runaway street kids in downtown Nairobi.  Three mornings a week before the sun comes up he gathers the kids & gives a short sermon encouraging them and just basically letting them know someone is there that cares for them.  He then feeds them breakfast of bread, milk & sometimes sausage which is probably their only meal of the day.  Just this past year he has raised money to build a transition home for the boys who are willing to live off the streets & start building their lives back.  So far he has three boys that live in the house.

The third connection was with Pastor Edward who is the pastor of City Harvest Church in downtown Nairobi.  He may just be the most amazing guy I know, aside from my husband that is.  He leads his church & ministry with the outlook of being a missional community.  City Harvest has probably around twenty ministries in & around Nairobi.  They have an AIDS clinic, a ministry to the Pokot tribe, a hair salon in the slums, an amazing microfinance program for church members…the list goes on & on.  He has never ending vision & ideas & has been such an inspiration to us over the years.

The Christmas for Kenya project started in 2008 as a fundraiser for UBC’s December trip to Kenya.  We made close to $3,000 selling the cd which went farther than you could even think with our partners in Kenya.

It was just so amazing we had to make a second CD the next year.  We raised close to $2,000 which went towards building a well for the Pokot tribe in partnership with City Harvest.  

This year Christmas for Kenya 3 is helping our friend Sarah Satterlee.  She spent the summer working with City Harvest & started an organization called The Kianga Project which is a non-profit set up to help women with AIDS who have small craft businesses to be empowered with design training and providing markets for their goods.  It’s a great ministry & we are so lucky to be able to help her this year.  In the past the artists have been mainly from Waco and Austin.  This year some of our new Portland friends made songs for us which is so exciting.  We’re taking this thing worldwide baby!

You can download all three CD’s here: www.christmasforkenya.com.  Feel free to take is as our Christmas gift to you, but if you want to make a small donation to the Kianga Project this year, no matter how small, it would be a blessing to her ministry.

Merry Christmas!

I’ve never know a city to have so many nicknames.  Rose City, Rip City, Stumptown, PDX, Bridgetown…the list goes on & on.  If you think about it, its pretty sweet.  You usually give nicknames to things that you love.  It is a term of endearment and one of the ways to show someone or something that you love and accept them.  

When I met my friend Josh Carney I first knew of him as the guy who gave people nicknames.  He’s a ask you ten million questions about you when he first meets you kind of guy.  Then based on what he learns, he will instantly give you a nickname.  I know secretly this is just a way for him to remember your name.  But, what he is doing is bringing you in instantly to a deeper level of friendship and acceptance. Then, when you next see Josh doesn’t it seem sweeter to you when he says “Hey Jamtrain” instead of “Hey…you”.

People love Portland.  And with good reason.  Its a pretty amazing city and has so much to offer.  Which is why I think it has been given so many nicknames.

PDX. This one is so clever.  It’s Portland’s airport code.

Rose City.  In 1905 Portland’s Mayor Harry Lane declared that the city needed a festival of roses.  Two years later the first Portland Rose Festival was held & is now Portland’s major annual festival.  The nickname is also linked to Leo Samuel who founded the Oregon Life Insurance Company in 1906.  He would plant roses outside his home & put shears in the garden for people to take roses as they wanted.  This encouraged others to plant roses outside of their homes and businesses to share roses with the city.  Portland’s climate is also amazing for growing roses & today you will see them all over the city.  The International Rose Test Garden was founded in 1917 and is home to 10,000 plantings and over 500 varieties of roses.  

There is also Peninsula Park in North Portland that packs in 9,000 rose plantings in a little over two acres.

Bridgetown. Portland has eleven bridges in total crossing both the Willamette (this is how our landlord taught me how to pronounce Willamette..it’s the Will-am-ette dammit) and Columbia Rivers. Eight bridges cross the Willamette to the central parts of Portland and from the North are St. John’s, Fremont, Broadway, Steel, Burnside, Morrison, Hawthorne, Marquam, Ross Island and Sellwood.

P-Town. Another clever one and probably self explanatory.  Portland starts with a P and is a town.

Little Beirut. This nickname was coined by a former staff member of President George H. Bush after violent protests during his visit to Oregon in the early 1990’s.  It was then carried on to President George W. Bush who was met with so many protestors and demonstrations in Portland that when he ran for re-election in 2004 he sent his staffers to campaign in Oregon for him.

Rip City.  This nickname came from our basketball team the Portland Trail Blazers.  It was coined in 1971 by the team’s play-by-play announcer Bill Schonely during a game against the Lakers.  Blazers guard Jim Barnett took a huge long distance shot that went in giving the team hope against beating the mighty Lakers.  Schonely shouted out “Rip City! All right!”  He admits he has no idea what it means or where it came from.  Nontheless, it stuck.

Stumptown.  Portland was nicknamed Stumptown way back in 1847 when the town was just forming.  The city was growing so fast that the stumps from trees cut down to make roads were left until manpower could be spared to remove them.  The stumps remained until well into 1850 when it was declared there were more stumps than trees in Portland.

Beertown.  With more brewpubs per capita than any other U.S. city Portland has recently earned the nickname Beertown.  At last count there are 28 breweries within the city limits.  Most times when you hear the beer list at a restaurant it will include Bud Light, Miller Light, Shiner (if you are in Texas) and many other mostly recognizable beers.  The beer list at most restaurants in Portland goes like this: Fool’s Golden Ale, Proletariat Red, John John Dead Guy, Morimoto Black Obi, Chipolte Ale, Santa’s Private Reserve…to which I say, eh?

Soccer City USA.  That nickname was earned when the Portland Timbers drew huge crowds for games.  With close to 15,000 people coming to games, soccer is a huge deal in Portland.  The Timbers Army is a little bit crazy, but amazing to be a part of.  They are some of the craziest fans you will ever see at an athletic event.  They chant the whole game, have rituals, throw sunflowers onto the field…it’s amazing.