One Day Without Shoes
On April 8th you have an opportunity to help change a life a child across the world. Toms Shoes is an organization helping children across the earth with one simple need that we don’t think twice about everyday. Shoes.Most children in developing countries grow up without shoes. They play, and do chores, and go to school everyday barefoot and these children are at risk.
•A leading cause of disease in developing countries is soil-transmitted diseases, which can penetrate the skin through bare feet. Wearing shoes can help prevent these diseases, and the long-term physical and cognitive harm they cause.
•Wearing shoes also prevents feet from getting cuts and sores. Not only are these injuries painful, they also are dangerous when wounds become infected.
•Many times children can’t attend school barefoot because shoes are a required part of their uniform. If they don’t have shoes, they don’t go to school. If they don’t receive an education, they don’t have the opportunity to realize their potential.
On April 8th here in Panama City I am hosting a Toms Shoes event all day. What do you have to do? Don’t where shoes. All day. Go to work, go to school, go outside and play, go on a walk, go anywhere but don’t where shoes. Now, business men/women. Think about how much of a statement it would be if you walked into your profession work place without shoes. Immediately you will probably get looks and a question as to why you are barefoot. This is an opportunity for you, for me, for everyone who joins us to spread the word about Toms Shoes and about the children all over the world who grow up without shoes. Join me April 8th. Go to http://www.onedaywithoutshoes.com/ and register under the “Barefooot By the Beach” event and walk with me on April 8th to help change the world. If you have any questions or ideas just leave a comment or email me at robertjhill@me.com.
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Media Missionary
I’m at a very exciting point in my life. Over the past couple of months you may have read some of what’s going on or what is coming soon to my future but I have something coming up very soon that I have waited to tell people until I really found out all of the details, so here it is. Like I have said before I am going on full-time staff at Northstar in May. My job will basically encompass more media projects for each ministry in the church and on top of that I will be working a lot with missions through Love Come Rescue. This is old news. The new news is that with this job I will be traveling to Kenya, Africa from June 17-26, 2010 to capture a group of about 30 people from Northstar’s journey to help a community in need. I will finally be living my dream of a media missionary. Besides capturing the life changing event I will be hands on with helping build a well and working throughout the community. I have felt God calling me to the mission field for a long time and especially Africa. This trip is something that I know will change my heart and help me fall even more in love with the author of life. I’ve never have reached out to friends and family before to try and raise money for something but this opportunity is bigger than me alone. I am trying to raise about $3,500 for this trip over the next 6 weeks and I can’t do it alone being a poor college kid living paycheck to paycheck and so I ask, Will you partner with me in this calling I have and either help by donating money or help by committing to pray for me and for the rest of the Northstar team that is going on this trip that God will move in amazing ways. I will be sending out letters soon to as many people that I can think of as well but if you want to help by donating you can send checks by mail to the address below. I am so thankful for the gifts God has giving me and it would mean the world if you could help by donating and/or praying. ANY amount is amazing whether it be $5 or $500. Thank you for taking time to read this and I will be constantly updating on the status of the trip.
For Checks:
Robert J Hill
2379 St. Andrews Blvd.
Panama City, FL 32405
(Make the checks out to Northstar Church)
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Found In You
Have you ever thought about how the sunset is different every single day? Literally there is never a sunset that is like any other. The clouds are different, the position of the sun in the sky is different, the water is moving in a different direction or at a different angle. I love going to the beach at sunset during this time of the year because the sunsets almost seem cool (rather than warm). The beach is completely empty, very rarely you’ll see an old man walk past you on his daily stroll but for the most part it’s deserted. It’s louder than you think at the beach. Being such a large area, the sound the waves breaking and winds rushing past your face really makes up most of the sound you hear. You could scream and most likely no one would hear you. I took a stroll down to the beach with my lovely Autumn this afternoon to catch the last glimpse of sunset. By the way, Autumn is my pipe, a dark cherry wood Dr. Grabow smoker with a black mouth piece stamped with a unique looking spade and two leaves etched into her body. Since my best friend (who also happens to be my girlfriend) couldn’t join me for my stroll, i went to the beach solo this afternoon. I really have enjoyed going down to the beach alone lately as it gives me a moment to sit and relax. A moment where nothing is distracting me. A moment where I can gaze upon the majesty of Jesus and worship him. I stood, looking out towards the horizon and with the bittersweet taste of imperial on my tongue I sang the words “I’ve found myself in You”, over and over again. There’s so much going on lately and i’m probably more joyful lately than I have ever been with what God’s doing in my life and with everything crazy going on around me I sometimes loose focus that I’m found in Christ. I think we all do. Life get’s crazy. We try and juggle school, work, family, friends, smallgroup, church, and next thing we know we are back at square one wondering where the passion for Christ is in our hearts. Psalms 46:10 says, “Be still, and know that I am God”. Take a moment today and stop what your doing for a couple of minutes and focus on Christ, and what he’s trying to say to you. Christ is all I need and I found myself in Him.
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Concrete Jungle
5 years ago at the awkward age of 15 I set off on a journey that would open my eyes to a new world. A world where dreams are made of and there’s literally nothing you can’t do. I an my friends set off at about 1pm on a Thursday afternoon (if i remember correctly) and drove 24 straight hours through the night and arrived just in time to step out into a darkness shed light in every direction. The place that i’m referring to is the one and only New York City. We stood right in the midst of Manhattan awe struck looking up at “all of the pretty lights” and from that moment on my view of life changed. It was like a drug, I couldn’t get enough of it. We stayed one week, trying to fill our eyes with every sight, our mouths with every delicious food, and our minds with every dream about one day coming back. That one day ended up coming just one year later. Now this was with our High School Television Production crew but every year no matter what else was going on in my life, the annual NYC trip was also sitting in the back of my mind with a countdown for the number of days until we left again. I started calling it home, now of course it was a home that I very rarely got to “come home to” but there was something about the place that drew me in, day after day, year by year. After going three years in a row, me and the friends who joined me on this trip over the years graduated and then there was no more school planned trip to “The Big Apple”. So, we decided to plan our own, but not only going in the midst of the cool month of April, we wanted something more. Then we thought, let’s go big. So we decided that we would travel “home” for the biggest party in the world. New Year’s in Times Square. After months of planning we packed our bags, drove to Jacksonville Florida and boarded a plane. It was the most amazing, fun, freeing feeling of my life. At the time I had saved enough money to go up there and not care about money. It was free reign, all day, every day. No budget, no chaperon’s, no parents. We had it made, we endured the cold day/night of new year’s eve and stood with literally millions in -16º weather in times square for 12 hours waiting for the ball to drop. But the day ended up coming to go home. That was 417 days ago today and like I said, NYC is like a drug to me, and i’m having major withdraws. I have to get back there soon or else i’m going to end up leaving in the middle of the night with a backpack full of clothes on my back and walk there without anyone knowing i’m gone. Let me tell you, if you haven’t ever been to New York, go. It will blow your mind. Go into time square at night (yea it is lame after 20 times of seeing it, but the first time is amazing), go watch the sunset over New Jersey on top of the Empire State Building, take a stroll with your boyfriend, girlfriend, husband, or wife through Central Park (it will be a walk you will wish you could make everyday). Everybody needs to go see the Statues of Liberty, and Rockefeller Plaza, and jump and scream and try and get on The Morning Show. NYC is endless, there’s always going on. There a pulse that you can feel under the streets that you can’t find anywhere else. Jay-Z and Alicia Keys just recently released a song called Empire State of Mind and and they word it perfectly. It really is conrete jungle where dreams are made of. So, who wants to go to New York?
Download “Empire State of Mind” Here:
http://itunes.apple.com/us/album/the-blueprint-3-deluxe-version/id32965797
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Amarthaluri Rambabu
Wow. I just got off a 35 min. skype phone call with a Pastor from Tenali, India name Amarthaluri Rambabu. He runs an orphanage with 25 children and 2 disabled adults all by himself. He told me of how he randomly found me on facebook and he just felt like God wanted him to add me as a friend. And look at that. we may be able to truly help his village with their needs through lovecomerescue. That’s crazy! God work’s in mysterious ways. Rambabu is our first of many partners with Love Come Rescue and his ministry really needs help. If you want to donate to his ministry and help sponsor or just give a one time donation to help feed the children in his village check out his website at www.gloryministriesindia.com and click donate. He explained to me some of the needs they have in his village. Above all they have very little food and no clean water but besides that they need clothes, blankets, and land for their orphanage home which costs $8000. Recently their village flooded and the raging waters destroyed a lot of their village including homes and businesses. Christianity is definitely on the rise throughout they village because of Amarthaluri. He was raised a christian has felt the past couple of years that God was calling him to start an orphanage home in Tenali and with that he started sharing the gospel throughout this village and now most of the people in the village iare christians. This is crazy how God has connect lovecomerescue and Amarthaluri Rambabu but i definitely dont find it a coincidence. Please pray for them and for us as we continue to reach out and find those in need across this world and make sure you keep checking back with lovecomerescue.us on ways to help change lives across the earth!
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Where’s Waldo?
This week has been rediculous yet enjoyable with work. I have gotten to do work this week that I haven’t had the chance to do in a long time and that’s web development. It’s always been something that I loved doing with expage to xanga to myspace and now lets face it facebook doesn’t let you do crap. But besides that i’ve did web development when i was 11 year’s old (WHO REMEMBER’S EXPAGE?! PLEASE TELL ME YOU DO!) and I have forgotten how much fun it can be. HTML coding is something that most people would look at be instantly bored but I look at it as a Where’s Waldo book. You want to change something on your website, but you have no clue where is is and somehow someone in world learn how to make a picture really look like, HTML>script:<br/>(“where’s waldo”)-@#48opix-qp, and you have to find that within all the other mumble jumble and change that 480 to 479 just to make it perfect. I have been working on two sites this week every chance I could get to launch them as soon as we can. One of them is the lovecomerescue.us site and the other is an all new Northstar Church website. For those of you who go to Northstar or have been to the webstie this is what it looks like now…
all pretty and nice, done for a lot of money from a company out of another state that only give us few capabilities as far as changing things goes. Well we have been in development of a new site and for one you’re not allowed to share this with people because who knows I could be killed for showing you this. BUT, our all new site is giving us endless possibilities and it’ going to include so much stuff to comstantly keep you involved and up to date with thing going on at Northstar. drumroll please, brbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbr, here is the all new Northstar Church Website
Now I have deleted out all of spots that it gives the new name because we have changed the URL and i can’t tell you that yet but we will be releasing it soon and you can go and explore every there is to explore in the new site! Also we have been working on the all new lovecomerescue.us site which we launched the other day. It’s still under construction but what we really NEEd up is up now.
There is definitely more work to be done on both of our new sites but when they’re are done trust me you’ll like it.
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Don’t Worry Be Happy
Holy cow! This has been such an amazing week. It has literally felt like I have been non-stop every single day this week with something new every single day. I had some BIG news come my way a couple of weeks ago and it has changed my world in a way that is making my life so enjoyable in every aspect. I work for Northstar Church in Panama City, FL. It’s an extremely unique church in the sense that you don’t come in seeing choirs or pews, but a rock-n-roll band and some crazy production stuff. Now yes, a lot of churches are like that these days but there’s something about Northstar that I can’t even explain. It’s the feeling when you walk in the door and you can just feel God moving and changing people’s hearts. I’ve been attending Northstar for about 10 years now and I have working part time on staff doing all of the media arts stuff for a little over 2 years now i believe, maybe a little more. Basically, if you see it any graphic on a screen or on on piece of paper, i had something to do with it. I love my job, I work amongst amazing people everyday and I can see on a weekly basis how my art is helping change people’s hearts and bring them closer to Christ. A couple of weeks ago I was told that Northstar wants me to come on full time so we can be even more effective throughout Panama City with the church, and I can’t even explain how this makes a college think. Now I know you’re probably sitting there going yeah if I could be on salary in college i’d love it too, but it’s not about the money at all. It’s completely about the fact that I know at least for the next several years what i’m going to be doing and I can finally sit down and focus and put all of my efforts into something AND it’s changing the lives of people, literally across the world. As well, this is the first time in my life where I haven’t had to worry about the future. I never worried much about it but all college students know that somewhere deep down you worry about the future because you know everyone in your life is wondering what your going to do as well and everyone’s pulling you a different way. The self portrait above is one I drew last semester and I thought it was perfect because of my expression. I get stressed when a lot of stuff is going on and this week has been one of the busiest weeks of my life but its also been one of the most enjoyable. I loved every minute of work this week. Mission’s have always been a huge part of my heart and helping people in need is a dream of mine, and i’m finally able to live that dream. Creating media and helping people is what I have always felt that I was created to do. For those of you haven’t heard about Love Come Rescue yet, I’ll be posting another blog about it because it needs a whole to explain the purpose and vision of it but it’s part of my job and it’s an organization that we created that is slowly starting to take off across the world and I can’t explain how stoked we are about the future. This blog was a little different from the rest of my other one’s just because I haven’t posted anything in I think the past week and a half because I literally haven’t had time to. And I just wanted to give an update on a little of what’s going on, thanks for reading and check out the stuff on robertjohnhill.com Thanks
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Will Work For Beer
Everyone has a story. Over the past several months I have been inhaling this statement and slowly i’ve been exhaling things such as generosity and love to those in need. It’s hard sometimes, we live in a ridiculously selfish world and as much as we all will argue and try and justify, all we care about sometimes is ourselves. As far as international means of helping, social justice and helping those in poverty has started to become one of the biggest passions in my life. But apart from the people in africa or haiti, there are still people here in the united states that are in need. I guarantee you have driven down the road and seen the homeless vet with the little dog on 23rd St. if you live in Panama City. People are in need all around us. Today I did something I never have done before. One of those things that you talk about doing and how that’s what love is but you never seem to get around to doing it. And before I go on, I do not say anything of this to try and lift my name up in anyway, but I say this to try and life Jesus’ name up as high as possible. I was driving home from work today and home for me is Panama City Beach. I came over the bridge and took Front Beach Rd. like I always do and I noticed i guy standing on the side of the road by subway (across from Mikatos) holding up a cardboard sign facing away from me. Obviously he needed something whether it be food, work, beer, or cigarettes. I drove past him thinking to myself, eh, i’ll keep going i couldn’t see his sign anyways. I got to the next parking lot and just felt like I need to go see what was up with this dude, so I turned around to go back. I pulled through the subway parking lot and back out on the street and pulled up next to this guy to see really what his sign said and to see if I could help him in any way. His sign read “Stranded, Need Help”. So I rolled down my window and asked him if he needed help (here’s your sign). He said he was stranded and needed to get to Enterprise, AL. Now instantly I sat there and thought, ok so really you need money to go across the street to Newby’s and buy some booze, which still wouldn’t have stopped me from helping him out. He told me he needed $32.00 to get a bus ticket to travel there. So I thought about the nearest bank and told him i’d be right back. So I drove to the bank and on the way I thought to myself, “i’m going to give this dude like $40.00 and he’ll be shocked and either for sure make it to Alabama or be wasted by 5:00?. So I came back about 15 minutes later and he was still standing there on the side of the road, holding his sign, and I parked and walked up to him. He looked a little shocked that I actually returned, and I asked him if he had eaten. He said some lady gave him a little piece of something and so I decided to ask him to have lunch with me. He seemed pretty grateful and we walked into Subway together. I asked him what he wanted seeing as he probably doesn’t get a choice like that often and he went on to make a very interesting sub, or one of the most interesting ones i’ve ever eaten. It was a meatball marinara sub with lettuce and banana peppers on it, and I wont lie it was actually pretty good. So we sat down and started talking. His name was Wayde and he has lived in Panama City for about 12 years. He did frame work and concrete work for a living but he went on to tell me that it’s nearly impossible to get a job around here these days. So he was trying to get Enterprise because he has family over there and there’s work waiting for him. He has a 14 year old daughter that lives with her mother off of Hwy 79 and he very rarely gets to see her and his life has been falling apart for quite some time. He started telling me how he was a believer and how he was so grateful for me wanting to have lunch with him. He went on to tell me about the time he recently spent in jail and how he really clung to God’s word in the midst of everything going on. I asked why he was in jail and without hesitation he told me that one night after Monday Night Football he and a couple of buddies of his were extremely drunk and decided they wanted to go to a Van Halen concert in South Florida and they didn’t have a car so they went to Lincoln Mercury Car Dealership and stole a car. It landed him 18 months in prison. We made small talk after the bulk of info was out on the table and we ended up finishing up lunch and walking out the door I got to share a couple of things about Northstar with him and told him if he was ever in town to come check it out. Then off we went to go get the rest of his cloths, that were supposedly soaking wet, out of the bushes from across the street to go call the bus station. Now after saying all of this, I really hope no one is sitting there thinking something like, “Man, that was pretty awesome of Robbie”, or “Amen, love the homeless”. God calls us to love the widows, orphans, and those in need. So why is it such a shockingly awesome thing when someone does something drastic like ask a homeless guy to have lunch with them. We are here to live together. Everyone has a story and there’s more people in need out there than we can fathom. Across seas and across the street. I think it’s great when people give money to the homeless, or when they buy them a hot meal, but why not sit down with them and talk. Buy them lunch or dinner, take them somewhere nice even, make them feel like they’re loved and like they’re importsnt. Now girls, I totally understand that you can’t necessarily go and do this own your own because there are risks but go grab a guy friend of yours and then go. The second greatest commandment that we were given from God was to love our neighbors as ourselves. If it was you on the side of the road, what would you rather have, a nice meal in an air conditioned restaurant away from the heat or cold, or would you rather have someone hand you $5 bucks and say “God-bless you!”. Wayde and I got to pray together after eating and he sat there praying for me, telling god how “I saved him” and how he was so grateful for me, and then I got to pray for Wayde and just asked God to help him get his life back on track. I’m going to continue to pray for Wayde and if you could take a moment to pray for him as well. He really seemed like a cool guy that just seemed a little lost in this world, and who knows maybe one day he’ll show up at Northstar, maybe not, but at least hopefully now love has started rescuing Wayde. Check out more about Love Come Rescue at facebook.com/lovecomerescue
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Love Birds
Love. It can be used as a noun, a verb, an adjective, and an adverb by adding ly. It’s everywhere. Love is passion, love is commitment, love is Christ, love is love. We all experience love in some manner in our lives and most likely we experience it in almost every way possible. But aside from all of the ways that love can be used, taught, learned, given, or received this post is about the mushy gushy lovey dovey love. You know like the first kiss kind of love. We grow up going through school and we have our girlfriend/boyfriend in kindergarten/elementary school, then it starts getting a little more serious when you start kissing in middle school (or at least i did) and then high school comes and you have your high school sweet hearts, and some of us end up getting married and havings kids and going from there (Note: I do not have kids although I am taken..). It seems like we grow up trying to find love or someone to share love with (a.k.a bgirlfriend/boyfriend) and it’s always this growing process of learning and trying to understand the other sex and it becomes a struggle at times to try and understand love.
I fortunately have had two people in my life that I am close to that have showed me love more than any other human has ever shown me. These two people weren’t the typical couple by far. They met way back in the old days of 1958. It was a march afternoon and they met at a little beer pub in Colorado called Dundas. They instantly fell in love, yet he was only in town for about a week. So what do they do, they decide he’s going to leave to go on leave with the navy and he would return one day to marry her. Sure enough about four months later he returned and like he said he married her. They went on in their life having several kids and growing old together. I didn’t meet this couple until about 12 years ago and they still weren’t done growing up. In the past twelve years I’ve gotten to live life with this couple and experience them falling in love with Jesus at the ages of 68 and 70. I watched them get baptized in the gulf of mexico and devote the rest of their lives to growing in Christ with other people. I shot shot pictures of them at their 50th Anniversary and I wouldn’t have changed it for the world. I say all of this to say that this is couple that showed me true love for the first time in my life. Together they fell in love with each other and together they fell in love with Jesus and did everything they could to make his name higher than their own. This couple happened to also be my grand-parents Jim & Carolyn Bowman. I can’t explain how much of an example they were for me when it comes to what true love is. My grandmother Carolyn passed away almost a year ago on February 25th, 2009 just after celebrating her 73rd birthday one year ago today January 28th, 2010. I’ve been thinking a lot about her today just remembering how different life was when she was with us and remembering what kind of love she showed to me and my sisters. She definitely was a huge part of our family and we all miss her deeply. Now if anyone reading this knew her and would like to join me, i will be eating a Wendy’s frosty for her birthday tonight (they were her favorite)..
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Sunset to Sunrise
I was driving home the other day and thinking about how much I don’t take advantage of where I live geographically. Seven years ago I went to a camp called Big Stuf which is hosted at the Boardwalk Beach Resort every summer, all summer long. This camp is when I decided to finally give up my life to live for something bigger and better than this world, which would be Christ. I remember reading scripture for the first time that week on the beach as I watched the sunset and just started to understand and see God’s art or his masterpiece. I remember sitting there trying to fathom God, trying to fathom the idea of what my life could be. And i kept looking at the sunset, just in awe of the majesty of it, and I swore to myself once i started driving I would come out to the beach as much as I possibly could and read and study and stand in awe of his glorious creation. Now seven years later I driving home from Wal-Mart or the bank and somehow that memory just jumped into my mind and i remember my thought from that day.
More than sunsets though, I have always been even more captivated by sunrises for some reason. Maybe it’s because of the idea of something new, maybe it’s the idea that i’m one of the very few people awake at that hour, but i love going out and watching the sunrise on a cool morning. Listening to the water break on the sand or against the dock and watching pelicans and herons glide by just above the water. I feel like I can think better at that time than any other time. This morning I got up and went out to the marina and watched the sunrise. I read some scripture and took some pictures of the pelicans and it just continually took me back to that day seven years ago. I’ve been reading a lot in 1 Corinthians lately and today i was study chapter 4. Paul was talking about being imitators of Christ and how when we are reviled (cursed) we should bless, when we are persecuted, we endure it, when we are slandered, we should entreat. I kept going back to a worship song that has always drawn me in. It’s by Hillsong United and the bridge lyrics are
Heal my heart and make it clean
Open up my eyes to the things unseen
Show me how to love like you have loved me
Break my heart from what breaks yours
Everything I am for your kingdoms cause
As I walk from earth into Eternity
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about a ton of stuff, and these thoughts or ideas about life may spring up several blogs in the next couple of days, there’s a lot coming up. But besides all of that, pick a day in the next week and go to bed earlier than you usually would, and go out and watch the sunrise. It’s crazy to see another piece of God’s majesty and know that not many people are going to experience that specific sunrise ever. I’ve posted a couple of shots from this morning that I took as most of you know that I love taking shots. Which is another thing I miss doing and I hope I can get out more and do.
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Love Come Rescue Store
