NorCalUrban

We hosted the Bay Area Reload event yesterday. We had a wonderful and successful event. The Bobby and Lawrence from Urban Youthworkers Institute said we had about 280 leaders in attendance - about a 50 leader increase from last year. I was particularly encouraged by the fact that when I asked, about 90% of the leaders who attended hadn't been at last year's Reload or at the national conference each year in Azuza. I really believe in what Larry Acosta and the UYWI folks are doing - I appreciate their hard work and passion to train urban leaders. A special 'shout out' to the planning committee who came together to promote the event including Greg Moder from Patten University, Angie Ibarra, Pastor Ben Guerrero from Maranatha Christian Center, Eld Billy Dixon from COGIC, Kirk Davis from Younglife and many others... Afterword we headed to San Francisco for pizza at Tomassos and Cannolis in North Beach with Jenni and my parents who are visiting. Good times! BTW - I was bles...

It's been a long week. Last weekend I was blessed to again attend 'Larry's Party', the annual Urban Youthworker's Institute conference in Los Angeles. I did a workshop on "Building Strategic Partnerships". By the way, you can hear select previous year's sessions and workshops here. Thanks to the UYWI staff for again putting on an excellent conference for those of us banging it out in the trenches. It was great to catch up with many close friends at the event. Max Torres made a surprise visit. Saw Chris Brooks for a minute. (Pray for Chris, he was in a car accident last week. Check out his blog for more information.) Of course saw fellow bloggers Rudy and Jeremy (More about him later.) A close friend and now 'country' pastor in Gilroy, Angel Ruiz, stayed with me in my mod. It was a great time catching up with him and calling him names like, "Chongo". I took Samuel with me again. Honestly, the most fun is having him there. He enj...

Sam and I are headed to the Urban Youthworker's Institute conference in LA. We come back Saturday. On Sunday I head to NYC to do some research with area credit unions. This is part of a strategic planning initiative for our project here in EPA. Posting may be sparse... Looking forward to seeing everyone in LA. Jeremy found us tickets for the Yankee game on Tuesday night - vs Boston no less! It's definitely the bright spot of the trip!