Oh, and the reason it’s titled “tentative” is because nothing is ever certain with these sort of things. If you’ve been involved in missions before then I’m sure you can relate.

(Note: Paul & Susi Childers are the PhotogenX leaders. Susi is a photographer from Germany and Paul is a speaker/leader from New Zealand. It’s an… interesting pairing, haha.)

The main purpose for going to Panama:

• to release Voice For the Voiceless (V4V)  in the Spanish speaking world
• to establish a PhotogenX Center in Central America
• to come alongside with ministries in Panama and help them with these issues:
  • US Embassy
  • Ministries with orphans
  • Indigenous tribes: help them develop communication tools to reach other tribes
  • Help indigenous tribes in Panama

June 25
Leave for Panama – first 4-5 days for orientation – give a real taste of culture and overnight stay in tribal village

July 2
Susi Childers comes back from Germany to model what photography and missions looks like in the context of Panama City

July 7-14
Time with indigenous Panamanian tribes

July 15-17
Work with pictures for Art Festival

July 18
PhotogenX led Art Festival – remaining time following contacts with churches and work on specific projects

July 21 – August 11
In Panama, working on photo projects

August 11-31
V4V in Spanish with US to churches. Go out into the greater Central America. 2 ½ weeks in various countries. Discover what there is to discover in Central America! What are the issues? What will you leave behind?

• Colombia
• Nicaragua
• Cuba
• Costa Rica
• Guatemala

August 31
Everyone comes back to Panama, rests and prepares for South Africa

September 4
Down to Capetown, South Africa

September 7-12
Un. of N. Conference: (A Global YWAM Conference every 2 years)
Celebrate my birthday!

September 13-16
Leave Conference, Debrief

September 17
Debrief Ends

September 18 – October 25
Figure out what I’ll be doing on my extended tour!

October 26
Share with my supporters all the amazing things we were able to partner with God in doing. Talk to anyone who wants to hear!

Here I am, at the end of my venture with New Hope Diamond Head, about to embark on the epic journey that is “YWAM,” wondering what I’m actually going to do for the next three months of my life. I had a bit of a sobering conversation with a friend who works with YWAM and was informed that it’s basically lectures and schooling with a strict schedule. *Oh goodies! Just what I’ve never wanted…*

Really? Three months of classes that I paid for? I thought I was avoiding college with this missions endeavor. The first thing I thought was, “Uh oh, I’m pretty sure the teachers aren’t going to like me.” Mostly because I’ve never taken the time to do just school before. I don’t even think I have the patience to focus solely on classes and books. If anything, I’ll probably end up doing a lot of extracurricular work in my free time, just to find a release.

I can now count the amount of days I have left at Diamond Head on one hand which is equal parts: exciting, terrifying and convenient. I think my biggest fear is coming to terms with losing my desktop and all that comes with it. No more 22 inch monitor with loud speakers. No more Adobe CS3! If you really want to break it down I’m basically giving up graphic design for photography, my seditary desktop for a portable netbook, and my nocturnal lifestyle for that of a loser (read: regular person). Let’s be honest, school has never been the main focus for any given time of my life. There’s always been something else to accompany and overshadow it. Unfortunately for these YWAM teachers, they’re going to have my full and undivided attention. *Maybe I should apologize in advance?*

Don’t get me wrong, I love learning and I love people, but my tolerance level is usually so high that I go ADHD if my requirements aren’t met. And right now, I’m not holding out hope. Who knows, maybe it’ll be a completely mindblowing and submersive experience. Ultimately, I’ll have to get through it if I ever want to leave the country and take photos abroad since that’s the goal, after all.

What else…?

• Oh, I’m completely obsessed with LifeHacker.com right now. I think their tagline says it all, “Tips and tricks for getting things done.” I must caution, though, that perhaps there’s a point where you have so many tips and tricks that you won’t get anything done. Right now my goal is to find that point! But seriously, I could have used a lot of these programs and features about five years ago and it’s only until just now, right before I have no more use for them, that I find them. Great timing…
• Other good news is I’m finally winding down on the transition from my desktop to netbook. Most of my files are already over and I’m pretty comfortable on it now. Oddly enough, I disabled half of the multi-touch functions on the touchpad because they got annoying. *Score one for minimalism!*
• I still haven’t installed the extra gigabyte of RAM in my netbook either. Somehow I keep forgetting to ask Kamu for the screwdrivers. Hopefully I’ll capitalize on that soon as well.
• I’m also almost done making my list of contacts for YWAM support letters (oh the lucky few).

Ok, I think that’s it for this entry, even if the ending falls a bit flat. It’s sort of like those movies that you love up until the last half an hour.

And, going back to procrastination, you can’t really do that unless you have something to preoccupy yourself with, right? Well, luckily for me, I just got my new netbook a little bit ago and I’ve been tinkering with it and loading it with all my favorite programs and media. I have to admit, I’m definitely impressed with this little investment! I think it’ll serve be well during my YWAM trip, internet connections not withstanding. I’ve even put it through the course and it’s passed most of my tests. It handles the internet like a champ and I might even try and see if I can’t get Lightroom working on it as well. Honestly, I don’t know how I called myself a photographer before Lightroom. There’s nothing better than being able to handle your entire photo workflow process in one unified program.

On a different note, I’ve really had to ask for forgiveness lately when it comes to my unrealistic expectations. I didn’t realize how much I expect people to have a firm understand of the principles of design. Obviously that’s just not the case though! And yet, somehow, I fell into the trap of setting my bar of expectations at a level so high I could barely reach it. As an artist I think I’ll always struggle with wanting perfection from myself but this was a case of that bleeding over onto other people. But that part that really caught me  was when I realized that’s there’s no possible way people would even know these sort of principles of design that I do. They haven’t had any training, formal or otherwise. It’d be like me, as a teacher, requiring my students to pass a test I haven’t prepared them for.  I really missed the boat, didn’t I?

The good news is, there’s still time. I now feel more empowered to actively teach and equip those around me whether it be in graphic design or any other area of expertise. I think I’ve spent plenty of time giving people fish without ever really teaching them to fish. And the worse part is that doesn’t help either of us in the end. Ahh, I smell co-dependent tendencies!

So that concludes the “personal” portion of this blog.
Now I get to dive into the “rant” section…

First off, directly following in the spirit of the last few paragraphs, this will be a much more educational and productive rant (if there ever was such a thing).

The topic: Facebook.

I’m not exactly happy with the new design change that Facebook underwent. I now have a completely useless and irrelevant “Highlights” column on the right that I can’t even remove if I wanted to. But that’s not really my main point. The thing I really don’t like is the now chaotic “feed” on the homepage. I feel inundated with information now more than ever before. And my problem is I usually try to assimilate all of it. Obviously that’s not healthy either so something has to be cut, but how? Well, I’m glad you asked! It’s a little thing called “Friends Lists.” It’s actually a new feature that rolled out a week or so before Facebook redesigned the whole site. It’s a feature that lets you create a list and add any friends you want to it. Pretty simple, right? Well, the payoff is in the fact that now you can filter down your “feed” by clicked on one of your custom built friends lists. Now, if I only want to see people from Mountain View I can just click on that list and my feed will reveal only people I’ve added to that group. So far I have a group for almost every circle of friends! Without this key feature I probably wouldn’t have lasted more than a few days on the new Facebook. And that’s why I also wanted to share it with you, too. This sort of qualifies as my “trying to teach others” for the day. I hope it all makes sense and is immediately applicable to you. I don’t aim to waste your time, that usually just happens naturally!

Lastly, because of the previously mentioned Lightroom, I’ve really found my passion for photography again. With that said I spent hours cleaning out my old Flickr accounts and bringing them back up to speed. I’ve poured in enough time on the front end to really benefit from it during the rest of my YWAM trip. So be sure to check out some of my photos, too, when you have the chance.

They’re even displayed right over there, on the right side >>>
(maybe up a little higher though)

You can also check out my flickr site directly at flickr.com/photos/kalel559

*Yay! Yahoo! w00t! Yippeee! etc…*

But now reality is beginning to sink in, as it usually does, and I’m starting to panic a bit. I was totally fine with the idea of raising some $5,000+ in funds for all the YWAM expenses like travel, room and board. No problem, God will provide, I’m great. That is, until I joined the YWAMconnect.NET online community for my PhotoGenX team. I’m totally camera insecure! People are talking about lenses and tripods and flash and battery and …. *make it stop!*….. *tears*……

I didn’t think the next struggle would be with jealous and insecurity around material things. Honestly, that’s never been a struggle for me, I guess, until now. I think the problem is I originally made the decision to give up all those great camera upgrades this year so I could go on YWAM. So all of my personal funds are going towards financing my trip instead of  the tools and equipment I’ll be using during the trip. Oh the irony! I think God still has a sense of humor.

I want it all! I want the new Canon 5D Mark II with a new flash, extra batteries and a vertical hand grip, along with a netbook or Mac to download all my pictures to. That’s not too much to ask for, right?

*Oh wait, reality…*

Maybe I should find some secret rich benefactors who want nothing more than to shower me with lavish gifts (ok, now I’m just being ridiculous and delusional).

The facts:

It’s still going to be a great trip. I still have a camera and some great lenses. And I’m pretty sure using my camera for one more year won’t be the worst thing that’s happened to me. I need to be grateful for what I’ve got. This whole jealous/rant will pass eventually. In the meantime I need to just keeping praying faithfully for the Lord to provide (something I’m already convinced of spiritually, maybe not-so-much mentally, if that makes any sense?). Seriously, I don’t know why I’m so worried. God was the one who spoke so clearly to me a year ago and lead me out here in the first place. I didn’t even know the first thing about YWAM, like what it stood for (Youth with a Mission). And now I’m here, in Hawaii, three weeks away from starting an epic six month journey around the world (well, at least half… and I bet it’s the better half!) with a whole new group of people.

PS. If anyone seriously wants to buy me some new equipment I can send you the links to amazon.com and b&hphoto.com.

James Natchwey, Photographer.

So I’m at a point where I just have way too many ideas floating around in my head and yet I’m too OCD to actually bookmark every link so I’ve decided to start powerblogging. Yay?! We’ll see how it turns out…