Jerry doesn’t have a home, but he has three daughters that he’s crazy about. He told us he was trying to make enough money playing his tunes for anyone that will listen so his girls could eat and have a “good life.” He turns 55 on October 5 and can still remember his father locking him in his room… forcing him to practice his guitar for hours on end. “It’s just ‘guitar,’” he said, in response to my asking if his guitar had a name, “I keep it simple.”

Jason and I were loving every word he was saying to us. So much life under his belt. So much hurt. He’s seen the intensity and tragedy of war and the loneliness of a jail cell. He kept repeating over and over again, “I’m just tired, man.”

I asked him why he decided to look up while I was talking through posing. “I gotta keep looking up,” he said with a shrug.

Jerry is why I love photography. Jerry is why I blog. He is “the least of these,” whom we have the privilege of caring for well. I’m honored to hear and tell his story. I’m thankful that I could walk out my front door to meet him.

May I never forget how I’m called to live.

still processing what the last year has done in you?
yup.

what am i doing now?
living in midtown and working for north metro church college ministry.
photography on the side.

what are you doing at nmc?
anything from video work, production, photography, communication pieces, web stuff, graphic design/series art
meeting tons of new folks along the way.  they are way trendier than me…(not that it’s a contest, merely an observation)

why is this your first post in over a month?
well, i landed on the july 27, started work on the 2nd, and just now do i have a chance to relax and begin to settle down.

where are you living?
in the heart of midtown ATL, loving it.  i’m 3 blocks from piedmont park, (i have no excuses not to be active/run.)

here’s some of what i’ve been working on.  (i didn’t create the echo logo)

So, that’s that.

I really wanted to remember my last night in HK… I wanted to remember their smiles, their laughs… all of it. I wish all my friends could have come, but many of them were tied up with school or out of town.  We decided to eat at our favorite Chinese restaurant, Crystal Jade, then hit up a Chinese dessert place.  Our night came to a close on top of the New Town Plaza mall terrace looking over Hong Kong and talking about the year… perfect.

How’d we meet?

From L to R – Joe, Javen, Peter, Dennis, and Justin.

The guys pictured above are all from various provinces scattered about Mainland China.  They all decided to come to Hong Kong Polytechnic University to pursue and complete their prospective graduate degrees. They also all decided, because they would be in HK for a year or two, that they would check out a Sunday afternoon conversational English class/program offered by a local church.  It just so happened that our team was volunteering for this Sunday afternoon program.  Over the course of the fall semester, I went from relying on name tags and seeing them maybe once a week, to hanging out with them 2 – 3 times a week and loving the fact that my iPhone finally had Chinese contacts in its address book.  It’s crazy to think how quickly we moved from surface questions like school majors, favorite eats, hobbies, etc. to authentically embracing our culture collision, and allowing the roots of friendship to grow deep.  I feel like you can gauge a lot from a friendship by the sheer number of shared inside jokes.  OK maybe not completely, but think about it.  Boy, we had tons, and for that I’m eternally thankful. I’m thankful that these guys broke that silly Auburn/US bubble I so easily operated in.  I’m thankful our path’s collided in Hong Kong even if it was just for a year… although looking forward, I hope I’ll see them sooner than later.  They stretched my theology and challenged me to really learn to articulate why I live the way I do and value the things that I value. Did I mention we laughed a TON?  To say I’ll miss these faces is an understatement.

What else am I thankful for?  Skype.

I’ll share 5 describers for each guy in hopes that you can at least feel like you kinda of know them:

Joe //  crazy, random, quick-witted, he referred to me as “baby face benson,” athletic

Javen //  thinker, genuine, caring, button downs, intentional

Peter //  ladies man, incredible language skills, consistent, athletic, questioner

Dennis  //  joyful, badminton, leadership, wisdom, consistent

Justin //  silly, sometimes quiet, ping pong player, fashion, he gets a new pair of glasses every week

I can’t wait to see how our paths cross in the near future, guys…

Being t-minus two days until I leave HK, I had to visit this spectacular view one last time. Victoria Peak is located on the western side of Hong Kong island and towers over the city at 1,811 ft. No, it’s not the tallest point on the island, a honor given to Tai Mo Shan (3,100 ft) in the New Territories, but it certainly remains one of my favorite spots in Hong Kong. I’ve been up to the peak numerous times and it just never gets old. This bird’s eye view gives you an accurate picture of this amazing melting pot of a city. You can see the affluence. You can see the grit and grime. You can see the street vendors trying to make ends meet selling anything from the ever popular fish ball to those tasty waffles drowned in syrup and butter. The bustling harbor reminds you that HK is the shipping mega center into mainland China as well as other parts of Asia.

I’ve always wondered how much Hong Kong spends per year to power this skyline. I might have to look that up and get back to ya.

I think a perfect description for this place is a city built in the sky. Don’t you?

Greater things are still to be done in this city.

Tuesday through Friday, Biscuet and I had the opportunity to go to Shanghai to film some promotional pieces for ELIC’s summer teaching program.  This trip marked my first visit into Mainland China since I’ve been in Hong Kong, so I was super excited.  Even though we only had a few days at the boarding school, where the filming was taking place (north east of Shanghai), we packed every minute.

Night time arrivals into a new destination are always interesting.  You so badly want to see the sleeping city; your eyes straining through the car window as it pulls away from the airport.  Being disappointed with the lack of sightseeing, your imagination takes over as to what this new city might look like after your night’s sleep.  It’s always kind of like Christmas morning.  You just never know what you’re getting until you see it.  I was really surprised to equate the area of Shanghai that we visited with Europe.  Yup, I don’t lie.  It was quite strange to feel like your walking around Paris, but surrounded by Chinese people and Mandarin.  The architecture was very similar to that of parts of Europe. Crazy.

So how’s Shanghai different from Hong Kong?  Well, here’s a few observations:

>  HK speaks primarily Cantonese and English.  Shanghai speaks Mandarin as well as some other local dialects.

>  Mainland is much dirtier (MUCH).  I now fully understand why Chinese people politely take off their shoes when entering someone’s home.  You really have now idea what you’ve been stepping in, and it’s best you just leave it all outside the home.   Walking around HK, I’ve seen people quickly clean up after their dog.  In Mainland, let’s just say that the world is their toilet, they don’t even bother cleaning up after their children.  I could go into details, but I’ll spare you.  I’m probably exaggerating (a little) from the shock.  I digress.

>  We’ll state one obvious – their monetary systems.  Hong Kong uses the Hong Kong dollar, while Mainland uses the RMB.  The RMB is 6.75 to the our $1.  Don’t ask me what that stands for, I don’t know.

>  While Hong Kong and Shanghai share the same amount of city hustle and bustle, it did seem that Shanghai locals were a bit warmer…more smiles and laughs.

>  I’ve never seen so many bikes and mopeds, in HK it’s BMW’s.

>  I almost got run over numerous times while crossing the street.  The green walk man was even flashing, telling me to walk.  I now only trust the green walk man in HK, not Shanghai

>  “Copy watch, handbag, or custom suite, boss?” I hear this all the time in certain areas of HK, usually coming from street venders of Indian descent.  Obviously you can always spot them approaching or perching on a street corner; I usually just ignore them or look lost and distracted.  It works most of the time.  In Shanghai, these jokers are CHINESE, you can’t avoid them because they all blend in!  Tricky tricky.  I do wonder if those iPads are real though…

On the home front…

Shanghai was a blast and I wish we would have had a bit more time in this amazing city.  Perhaps I’ll return someday for another project.

It really seems like June flew by and it feels like I’m about to miss July if I’m not careful.  Be sure to check out some of the projects I’m working on this summer here.

I’ve had the amazing opportunity to capture some of the Camp China teacher training in HK  and meet some awesome college students from all over the states.  This next week will be another full one.  I’ll be running around HK to see how the teachers are doing in their classrooms.