j-lou gives love to the marin foundation

well if it is not bad enough that evan is struggling in kindergarten... still in not out so that is a good thing. than my beloved trojans have to play like the care bears and loose to the frickin beavers.... this all could be pushing me off a cliff sooner than later. but great friends like andy marin from the marin foundation get me involved in stuff that matters and reminds me why i am roaming around socal like a mad man these days challenging conservative urban churches to rethink their perspective on creating dialogue with the glbt community.

i grew up in la habra as many of you know and that is not the greatest place to grow up with a perspective of anything but a negative stereotype of people dealing with glbt issues... throw up the churches i landed in and you have pretty much someone not to open to dilogue with people in the glbt community. it was about two years ago that i first met andy marin and it was through a number of phone calls and than he spoke at the 2007 UYWI conference for me. i was a little nervous, but from that day forward we have been working together on projects in one way or the other. this has led to the formation of a coalition and an ongoing duscussion here in socal on the issue... i could try to explain here but jump over to andrews blog and see what he has to say. it is a privilege to walk and do bridge building with andrew and the team. we are moving forward to the next few events that i will talk about here on october 8 and the big training day on novemeber 15.

you always have a different perspective toward issues when you have a relationship to give the conversation context. early this year before this conversation and coalition was formed. i was introduced and would say became friends with a few people in glbt community. i was a little nervous, but always enjoyed the time me and my friend hung out with her sisters. i think that experience also prepared me to better understand how to join the conversation.