Day 5: Santa Cruz- Golden Gate Bridge- Half Moon Bay – Sebastapol
• Lounging in RV
• Russell biking into town with 3 loads of laundry in reusable bags strapped to the baby seat with his computer backpack and coffee to go cup in the water bottle holder, just like a local Santa Cruzian!
• Mauricio videoing and photographing the boys
• Sarah took us to Kelly’s French Bistro – cool vibe!
• Being able to exit the RV and use Meg and Chris’ old house to go potty, hot bath, have a picnic dinner on the floor, and bake fresh scones!
• Buying some new pottery
• Finding notebooks for Rohan and I for 75%off!
• Seeing cool roadside pumpkin farms
• Driving through Half Moon Bay
• Getting skunked out of Petaluma (we found out they just laid cow maneur)
• Rohan getting to drive in his ‘special drive’ spot looking out the window and pointing everything out in sight – the look of joy on his little face.
• Last minute visit to Sebastapol- where we parked in Patty and Tom’s driveway and played in their living room until 11pm!
Day 6: Sebastapol- Santa Rosa- Healdsburg- Trinidad- Prairie Creek Campground
• Hot shower
• Tom gave us a tour of the homing pigeon operation (bathing, breeding, staging, and flying!)
• Rohan loved “Tom and Patty” and left with movies, stickers, stamps, and a wooden pigeon egg!
• We got to ride in our special drive spots – Rohan up in his bedroom (cab over) peering outside on his belly, Royce and I in the back bed to nurse. We all fell asleep – Rohan with his egg in hand and Royce snuggling in my arms, so special!
• Drove through Santa Rosa
• Healdsburg – Bear Republic Pub, good brews, food and quaint town.
• Drove through Trinidad late – population is 311! What?
• Too cheap to pay $35 camp fee at 11pm to park at Patrick’s Point and leave in am – so we kept driving N on the 101 – trying to find a safe place to park for free until we ran into Prairie Creek Campground amongst the Redwood forest which was out ultimate destination for the next day! Because we got in after midnight paid 1 night fee.
• Challenge – making time when we are not doing pastor visits or workshops part of our PEACE trip, We are not praying or planning.
Day 7: Prairie Creek – Redwood Forest
• Wake to a chilly morning
• Busted a move to town (Orick) to get cell service for a client session
• Waited for deer to cross
• Worked for 2.5 hours while parked on the side of the road in town
• Russell came back to RV to announce Grants Pass was confirmed! Amen!
• I was just praying – again getting discouraged and God threw a big nugget! Thank you! I needed that.
• State Park beach – Beautiful!!!- Royce crawled around and played until his feet were cold, mouth full of sand and heart content and made his way right into my arms and fell asleep in the sun. Rohan and Papa combed the beach for stones, drift wood, and crab shells. We ate lunch.
• Saw deer in meadow – which there is Elk viewing but we didn’t see any
• Back at camp – Papa made a fire and I took Rohan on his trike by the creek
• Cooked dinner on fire
• Rohan missed his nap and was uncontrollable – ugh. More our fault but hard to handle.
• Put kids to bed and enjoyed our special Hot Cocoa (from Chocolatier), talked, prayed, planned and got back on PEACE track!
Day 8: Prairie Creek – Kalamath River – Cresent City – Jedediah Smith State Park
• Snuggling with Royce in am
• Interpretive hike through the Redwoods…ahhh nature
• Finding a Monarch caterpillar – haven’t seen one since childhood.
• Ro’s quotes, “I want to see Meg, Chris, Lily at Aunt Nancy and Uncle Jacks. Chris has to do workshops. Lily is talking to Shasta. I am a good reader (reading signs on hike). My legs hurt (biking up hill), work- hops, work- hops – I am not saying it. Work-shops, yes, that’s right. He knows when he is not pronouncing something correctly. Look at her long legs (it was a girl in a book on her hands and knees nose to nose with a dog and the page cut off at her chest. He saw her arms were her legs, because the rest of her body was not pictured. He is a leg man – I couldn’t stop cracking up trying to get him to see her position and they were her arms. He even pointed out her “hammy’s” (which of course were her triceps) and her feet (hands) in the grass. Oh he and I laughed.
• Drive through Redwood forest
• Kalamath River Scenic Overlook – where the river meets the ocean, Breathtaking view. There is an area where whales stay and do not migrate, we saw some blows. Stayed for 2 hours, ate lunch while boys napped and met people from all over the world. Namely a German couple married 40 years who when asked gave us the relationship advice to “stick it out, stay committed. Young people give up on everything to easy. When you are angry or things aren’t working out – it is like a wound that HEALS!”
• Cresent City – fishing beach town. Very small. Visited light house.
• I drove RV for first time – not too shabby!
• Got a river spot at Jedediah Smith campground! When pulling u at 6pm, “Bones” told us you need to be here by 3 to get those!
• Praying together, connecting with nature/God in hike, realized being in RV with family has been more peaceful than anticipated
• Got ahold of Nick – we are all good to stay at their Retreat next week!
• Went on a river walk – beautiful sunny day.
• Peanut butter M&M’s by campfire with Kate Minor singing “Better is One Day”
• Challenges- have not blogged, sent updates, Russell having BPO’s and no internet service, Rohan and Royce a but frustrating at the 8pm hour – we are trying to get dinner cooked when they should’ve eaten at the 6 o’clock hour – but we wanted to take advantage of sunlight.
• Russell doing work every day, taking on so many new BPO’s, not trusting God, not taking time to write Children’s book.
Day 9: Jedediah Smith – Cresent City (October 7, 2010)
• Woke and drove into Cresent City to get internet access for Russell
• Boys and I played at park and took a walk. Royce loved swinging. Rohan picked me a flower and learned what a light house was.
• Rohan fell getting up into cab over while driving – I walked away thinking he is fine, he does it all the time, not realizing we are driving and of course it was right at the time Russell pushed the gas to go and he fell and slammed his head on the floor! Scary! But he was fine. We made sure to wake him that night of sleep.
• Enjoyed camp spot with a river view
• We played at the river beach as a family
• Russell caught 2 little baby frogs for Rohan in his bucket
• I read and wrote at the river’s edge – when the kids napped.
What a beautiful day. I am sitting shoes off in a comfy camp chair enjoying one of those, “I could be behind a cubicle with fluorescent lighting getting mad at customers, but I am here” moments. Not that if I weren’t here that is where I would be, but some people are, ormuch worse! I am grateful to be here. I have all of my senses engaged and in tune with nature. The river is flowing over rocks, what a soothing sound to me. Stellar Jay Birds are chirping, a muffled cell phone talker can be heard off in the distance (oh, wait that is my husband), the partly cloudy-partly sunny sky shimmering on the water, ½ grasshopper, ½ butterflies are launching themselves and flying a few feet (have you seen these creatures? I know there is a scientific name for them but they look like ordinary grasshoppers until they jump and spread their butterfly like wings and fly. Neat.)There are oversized bright yellow buttercups. I am surrounded by Redwood trees – oh the things they have seen/heard over the centuries. Plants and grasses blow in the soft and pretty warm wind. The air smells crisp and fresh. Much like a Southern Cali smog. (side note to explain my facetiousness: One time while driving to LA, Russell noticed a wildfire off in the distance and he began to check his cell phone for a news update. Nothing. That’s because it was smog!). That is what we choose to breath. My car just failed the smog test. I don’t even know what that means. It was my first test. I am guessing it was putting out too many pollutants.
The warm sun is hugging my face(not necessarily kissing my face, just a gentle hug).
It is a beautiful day. And no I didn’t forget the dear taste buds in explaining all of my senses. I just licked some con queso dip from my lip and found a surprise piece of chewed carrot from my inner cheek crevasse. As I said, I am engaged
The kids are napping.
So far, the trip is going great. Both Russell and I had expectations that weren’t met the first week. I envisioned lots of family hikes in highly traveled National Parks; Just us four, meeting friendly strangers who are so eager to hear about our journey. We have been on a few secluded short hikes. Strangers we meet give us a cordial, “Oh.” When sharing our ‘inspirational’ trip.
I pictured Russell and I playing cards, working on kids books, reading and laughing together at night in the RV after the kids go to sleep.
We have kept the kids up so late they don’t know which end is up – they are not peaceful. But we finally are enjoying some QT when they go down. But if there is internet access it is work.
I figured I would be blogging at least every other day- building interest and inspiration. I haven’t updated the blog at all or the facebook fan page since we left.
We are at day 9 and haven’t even touched a church sidewalk. However we did confirm 4 meetings. The ministry does not equal time giving workshops or that would be 6 hours for the month long trip! The ministry equals Rhythm of Love as a family: meeting goals, vision, praying, reading, sharing and connecting with strangers, family and friends, sitting with pastors, praying for churches, conducting the workshops and planting seeds. Sometimes I feel guilty for so much family time and sometimes I wish we didn’t have any work to do and could just hang. And most of the time I am asking God to use us to fulfill His purpose and be helpful in this journey.
Since everything is scheduled in the last half of the trip – it will fly by. I hope to take the time out each day at naps or night to reflect. It doesn’t really feel shocking that we are really on this trip. It doesn’t feel like ahhh, this is the feeling of joy, family adventure and purpose I have been dreaming of – it feels like we are grateful to be doing this but we are supposed to be doing this!
Day 10: Jedediah Smith – Gold Beach – Harris Beach
Smiles and Trials:
• Royce peeing on the bed – having to take everything off – sheets, bed cover, etc
• Playing at river with Russell and Rohan - catching lil baby frogs and bringing them to the corral that they built. Rohan then let them go back into the river one by one.
• Rohan getting muddy – biking and helping Papa pack up in his Dragon rain coat and boots.
• Russell talking out loud to himself through emptying the black and grey water! Job well done Papa! I wasn’t nice in offering a chocolate brownie cliff bar in the process
• Me falling on my butt while riding and Rohan saying “be careful” from then on
• Um…Russell stopping at the bank coincidentally right next to a Dairy Queen! I got me a large mud pie blizzard! It did last 3 days
• Randomly running into Tu Tu Tun (www.tututun.com) Resort. I just read about this place in Sunset magazine! I marched right in and asked the reservationist if I could ask an outrageous question. “Could we park our RV in the parking lot for a small fee and use their restaurant and grounds?” “No, I am sorry.” Jocelyn was very nice and we talked a while but they don’t even allow kids under 10! It was that nice!
• Russell talking to Gary Tobin about fishing
• Russell praying for Dave – the gas station attendant – his grandpa just died.
• Doing a 20 mi loop around Gold beach and heading right back down to Harris beach to camp.
• Harris beach was very pretty on the ocean.
• Took a hike around grounds
Family Ali
Monday, October 18, 2010
ROL Tour - Days 1-5 (San Diego -Sebastapol)
Day 1! September 30, 2010!!! We are off! San Diego -Long Beach - Ojai
Smiles and Trials:
• After picking up the RV in Orange County yesterday and taking it home to pack up, having the Divona’s, Sonja, Stevo, and Janet all stopping by to say good-bye and send us off!
• Our RV trip began in pouring rain! I can’t remember the last time rain fell in San Diego. Russell was yelling and frustrated, Rohan was throwing banana and honey nut cherrios, Royce was hysterically crying trying to sleep (which he does once a month!), and me having banged my head, my face, dropped multiple items, doors swinging open left and right like a haunted house (I swear I hear muahhaha) coming out of them. Oh the irony!
• Turning ourselves back to love and getting into the love of the trip.
• Grandma Simi really enjoyed playing with Rohan and Royce and giving us treats of course
• We made it in time for a delicious meal at Nick and Fanny’s. Kids slept the whole way!
• We weren’t too critical of ourselves starting our inspiring journey shamefully!
Day 2: Ojai-Big Sir
• Slept in underwear it was so hot!
• Went to swim hole and played in water
• Went into town, played at park, walk with Fanny
• Drove to Pfiffer State Park (kids slept again)
• Were notified of our ¼ mi. hike into group camp
• Took 2 umbrella strollers packed with gear through a beach 1/4mi. trail and a board bridge over the low river (this was over the river and then through the woods to group camp we go – Cali style) – pitch black out- we laughed at the absurdity
• Had a bonfire with Meg, Chris, Lily, Dio, Jessie, Matt, Heather and Mallen – ate dinner, roasted s’mores and laughs.
• Finding humor in our haul
• Trying not to get frustrated with a 2 yr olds defiance and non-stop energy
Day 3 : Big Sir – Federal Beach
Smiles and Trials:
• Having some chill family time in RV in am
• Hanging at camp with crew
• Rohan and Lily playing soccer – laughing
• Our Beach Visit!!! So amazing – like another country. We hung out ate lunch. Then Rohan, Russell and I went up a giant sand dune and rolled down like kids! We went on a family walk along the beach. And watched Matt and Dio play Frisbee and Matt “Catch Frisbee and fall off the cliff into the water.” Says Rohan
• We didn’t give up on going to the beach after an hour of debating if or how to go and then all piling in the RV only to get there and see a “No RV or Trailers” sign! We went all the way back and piled in separate cars.
• When we drove all around trying to get to beach and right back to where we started when we got out Rohan says, “Are we at the beach?”
• Thinking, “There’s no place I would rather be”
• Matt hearing a ‘troll’ behind him (Royce asleep in the stroller behind him, waking up)
• Matt dropping 4 roasted starbursts in a row into the fire
• Everyone turning everything that was said into a sexual innuendo
• Rohan falling asleep in Auntie Booty’s arms
Day 4: Big Sir- Santa Cruz
• Haircuts by Meg Pie for Rohan and I!! Yipee.
• Having lots of loving time with Royce – nose nuzzling and breathing his sweet baby breath while in the ergo
• Hike to private beautiful swim hole with Matt and Heather
• Taking off shoes to cross river 2x
• The joy of Russell seeing the incredible coastline of the Northern coast
• Taking our 1st ‘special drive’ where Rohan could ride up in the cab over while we drive – The joy on Rohan’s face! Precious.
Day 5: Santa Cruz- Golden Gate Bridge- Half Moon Bay – Sebastapol
• Lounging in RV
• Russell biking into town with 3 loads of laundry in reusable bags strapped to the baby seat with his computer backpack and coffee to go cup in the water bottle holder, just like a local Santa Cruzian!
• Mauricio videoing and photographing the boys
• Sarah took us to Kelly’s French Bistro – cool vibe!
• Being able to exit the RV and use Meg and Chris’ old house to go potty, hot bath, have a picnic dinner on the floor, and bake fresh scones!
• Buying some new pottery
• Finding notebooks for Rohan and I for 75%off!
• Seeing cool roadside pumpkin farms
• Driving through Half Moon Bay
• Getting skunked out of Petaluma (we found out they just laid cow maneur)
• Rohan getting to drive in his ‘special drive’ spot looking out the window and pointing everything out in sight – the look of joy on his little face.
• Last minute visit to Sebastapol- where we parked in Patty and Tom’s driveway and played in their living room until 11pm!
Smiles and Trials:
• After picking up the RV in Orange County yesterday and taking it home to pack up, having the Divona’s, Sonja, Stevo, and Janet all stopping by to say good-bye and send us off!
• Our RV trip began in pouring rain! I can’t remember the last time rain fell in San Diego. Russell was yelling and frustrated, Rohan was throwing banana and honey nut cherrios, Royce was hysterically crying trying to sleep (which he does once a month!), and me having banged my head, my face, dropped multiple items, doors swinging open left and right like a haunted house (I swear I hear muahhaha) coming out of them. Oh the irony!
• Turning ourselves back to love and getting into the love of the trip.
• Grandma Simi really enjoyed playing with Rohan and Royce and giving us treats of course
• We made it in time for a delicious meal at Nick and Fanny’s. Kids slept the whole way!
• We weren’t too critical of ourselves starting our inspiring journey shamefully!
Day 2: Ojai-Big Sir
• Slept in underwear it was so hot!
• Went to swim hole and played in water
• Went into town, played at park, walk with Fanny
• Drove to Pfiffer State Park (kids slept again)
• Were notified of our ¼ mi. hike into group camp
• Took 2 umbrella strollers packed with gear through a beach 1/4mi. trail and a board bridge over the low river (this was over the river and then through the woods to group camp we go – Cali style) – pitch black out- we laughed at the absurdity
• Had a bonfire with Meg, Chris, Lily, Dio, Jessie, Matt, Heather and Mallen – ate dinner, roasted s’mores and laughs.
• Finding humor in our haul
• Trying not to get frustrated with a 2 yr olds defiance and non-stop energy
Day 3 : Big Sir – Federal Beach
Smiles and Trials:
• Having some chill family time in RV in am
• Hanging at camp with crew
• Rohan and Lily playing soccer – laughing
• Our Beach Visit!!! So amazing – like another country. We hung out ate lunch. Then Rohan, Russell and I went up a giant sand dune and rolled down like kids! We went on a family walk along the beach. And watched Matt and Dio play Frisbee and Matt “Catch Frisbee and fall off the cliff into the water.” Says Rohan
• We didn’t give up on going to the beach after an hour of debating if or how to go and then all piling in the RV only to get there and see a “No RV or Trailers” sign! We went all the way back and piled in separate cars.
• When we drove all around trying to get to beach and right back to where we started when we got out Rohan says, “Are we at the beach?”
• Thinking, “There’s no place I would rather be”
• Matt hearing a ‘troll’ behind him (Royce asleep in the stroller behind him, waking up)
• Matt dropping 4 roasted starbursts in a row into the fire
• Everyone turning everything that was said into a sexual innuendo
• Rohan falling asleep in Auntie Booty’s arms
Day 4: Big Sir- Santa Cruz
• Haircuts by Meg Pie for Rohan and I!! Yipee.
• Having lots of loving time with Royce – nose nuzzling and breathing his sweet baby breath while in the ergo
• Hike to private beautiful swim hole with Matt and Heather
• Taking off shoes to cross river 2x
• The joy of Russell seeing the incredible coastline of the Northern coast
• Taking our 1st ‘special drive’ where Rohan could ride up in the cab over while we drive – The joy on Rohan’s face! Precious.
Day 5: Santa Cruz- Golden Gate Bridge- Half Moon Bay – Sebastapol
• Lounging in RV
• Russell biking into town with 3 loads of laundry in reusable bags strapped to the baby seat with his computer backpack and coffee to go cup in the water bottle holder, just like a local Santa Cruzian!
• Mauricio videoing and photographing the boys
• Sarah took us to Kelly’s French Bistro – cool vibe!
• Being able to exit the RV and use Meg and Chris’ old house to go potty, hot bath, have a picnic dinner on the floor, and bake fresh scones!
• Buying some new pottery
• Finding notebooks for Rohan and I for 75%off!
• Seeing cool roadside pumpkin farms
• Driving through Half Moon Bay
• Getting skunked out of Petaluma (we found out they just laid cow maneur)
• Rohan getting to drive in his ‘special drive’ spot looking out the window and pointing everything out in sight – the look of joy on his little face.
• Last minute visit to Sebastapol- where we parked in Patty and Tom’s driveway and played in their living room until 11pm!
ROL tour - Mission, Goals, and Rules...
Family Ali Rhythm of Love RV Tour – 2010
Mission, goals and rules for Family Harmony
Mission
To make ourselves available to God for service, encouragement, hope, renewed love and redemption for those He puts in our path (physically at churches, in our family adventures and electronically).
Goals
1. Present to 4 churches
2. Maintain love and harmony as a family
3. Write a Children’s book
4. Introduce at least 1 new person the love of Christ
5. Restore Faith in relationship of others
6. Experience miracles like never before
7. Play flute at least 1m daily
8. Return home safe and accident free
Rules
This is a “Love Lair”
1. If you are coming from fear for longer than 5 m you must go to the calming cave (back room) until ready to be a happy camper
2. Respect husband, love wife
3. When driving – Russell gets meals, music of choice, temp of choice and a 3 minute massage per hour of driving
4. Pick up nightly
5. Set work hours to avoid frustration
6. Pray daily
7. Debrief nightly – go over gratitude- what worked, what didn’t in the day together, renew commitment for next day
Mission, goals and rules for Family Harmony
Mission
To make ourselves available to God for service, encouragement, hope, renewed love and redemption for those He puts in our path (physically at churches, in our family adventures and electronically).
Goals
1. Present to 4 churches
2. Maintain love and harmony as a family
3. Write a Children’s book
4. Introduce at least 1 new person the love of Christ
5. Restore Faith in relationship of others
6. Experience miracles like never before
7. Play flute at least 1m daily
8. Return home safe and accident free
Rules
This is a “Love Lair”
1. If you are coming from fear for longer than 5 m you must go to the calming cave (back room) until ready to be a happy camper
2. Respect husband, love wife
3. When driving – Russell gets meals, music of choice, temp of choice and a 3 minute massage per hour of driving
4. Pick up nightly
5. Set work hours to avoid frustration
6. Pray daily
7. Debrief nightly – go over gratitude- what worked, what didn’t in the day together, renew commitment for next day
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
Finally an uodate!
Hello friends! We are alive and well...the simple excuse for not updating all of you is that getting online with the comupter has been more challenging that anticipated. I have been keeping a paper journal (what's that?...I know)and will post it soon with all of our day to day adventures.
As for a quickie...we are in a heavenly place! Check out www.pleasantcreekretreat.com! A great story - but a pastor gifted us this retreat while in Grants Pass Oregaon to do a workshop! Seriously look at this place. Yes RVs are nice - but its slummin it compared to this place. It is 119 magestic acres, we just had to wait for Mom and Bambi to pass as we drove out.
It is gifts/miracles like this that let us know we are on the right path.
Our workshop is tomorrow night...pray for our words to be exactly what they need to hear. Pray that they are lifted up.
Russell has been an amazing driver, we have seen some beautiful nature, Rohan is loving the RV trip and turning on the "generator," Royce is happy as a traveling clam. J
As for a quickie...we are in a heavenly place! Check out www.pleasantcreekretreat.com! A great story - but a pastor gifted us this retreat while in Grants Pass Oregaon to do a workshop! Seriously look at this place. Yes RVs are nice - but its slummin it compared to this place. It is 119 magestic acres, we just had to wait for Mom and Bambi to pass as we drove out.
It is gifts/miracles like this that let us know we are on the right path.
Our workshop is tomorrow night...pray for our words to be exactly what they need to hear. Pray that they are lifted up.
Russell has been an amazing driver, we have seen some beautiful nature, Rohan is loving the RV trip and turning on the "generator," Royce is happy as a traveling clam. J
Thursday, September 30, 2010
RV is packed!
It is nearly 2am and we are 92% ready to depart. We have packed the RV and left some big things for last minute. Of course Russell (who did go to bed at about 12:30am is waking at 4am to finish what he needs to take care of with his Real Estate business (which he has an assistant helping while we are away). Many have asked, probably because they are wondering what on earth he does for a living that he can just pack up and go for a month. I tell them we are trust fund babies. Ha!
We love our Rv and are excited to begin our life and spiritual journey.
Tomorrow we are off to visit Grandma on the way to say good-bye and then to our brother and sister in law in Ojai! We will stay there the night to enjoy them and be closer to our Friday destination of Big Sur.
I have heard Big Sur is one of the most beautiful places on earth. The song, "I think I'm gonna like it here." from the movie Anne comes to mind. However, my next thought is Tupac's "Get rich or die tryin" song.
We love our Rv and are excited to begin our life and spiritual journey.
Tomorrow we are off to visit Grandma on the way to say good-bye and then to our brother and sister in law in Ojai! We will stay there the night to enjoy them and be closer to our Friday destination of Big Sur.
I have heard Big Sur is one of the most beautiful places on earth. The song, "I think I'm gonna like it here." from the movie Anne comes to mind. However, my next thought is Tupac's "Get rich or die tryin" song.
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
Bon Voyage! -The smiles and trails have already begun.
We are picking up the RV tomorrow! We are officially going.
We have had a couple of rough weeks (enough with the Dead End phase God!Oh, right it is all your timing). We had some things fall though and others not work out, we began to get discouraged. I was working every spare minute on the trip and things were right were we started in May. We considered not going, but knew we would not turn back. I began to think, "Who are we to go and do this?"
Then while I was at a stop light turned my head to see Charlotte! She was actively manning her magnificent and perfectly spun spider web. I looked at the web of wonder and a powerful thought clicked, "If God creates that spider with such an amazing gift, and he clearly cares more about humans than spiders, than can you imagine the gifts he has given us?" And much like, "Some Pig" in Charlotte's Web, that spider wrote, "Who are you not to?" on her web, or may as well have. Thanks Charlotte!
She was right! Who are we not to? Who are all of you not to?
I declared that week - "Big Faith Week." We followed up with a little bit of emailing and calling (but not out of desperation and fear like the past week). And we prayed together, we acted as if it all was going to work out some how, some way. We caught ourselves when we didn't. We got excited about researching some stops.
And as luck, I mean God, would have it, little miracles began to appear. We booked locations. Had pastors want to meet with us. Found some cool new churches. Had a pastor offer his retreat to us for a weekend while we are in town, and it is rrridiculous! It looks like heaven. Pics to follow when we get there:)
Just really cool stuff that stems from having the faith of a mustard seed, and boast boast, I think with our 'big faith week' we had the faith of a Pumpkin seed!
I said to myself, "Never doubt, it always works out!" It has a jingle to it and is so true. Then I woke up this morning with a pea size red lump on my breast. Back to fear. But already tonight it is 1/4 of the size and it could be related to the crazy bouts of Mastitis I have had in the last 6 mos. I have a Sonogram tomorrow. I already feel at ease, that it is benign and silly:)I will keep you posted.
When I felt the calling in my heart to go and do a trip of this nature, I was only present to the fun parts. It's a good thing, because I may not have decided to go if I knew how much work and preparation goes into it. And I know that, albeit this trip is smaller than we wanted or intended, we are going through the necessary growth we need. I keep reminding myself this is not supposed to all go my way, it is God's trip and he has a plan far greater than anything I could think up. What seems insignificant and small to me, is not in the big picture.
Good night.
We have had a couple of rough weeks (enough with the Dead End phase God!Oh, right it is all your timing). We had some things fall though and others not work out, we began to get discouraged. I was working every spare minute on the trip and things were right were we started in May. We considered not going, but knew we would not turn back. I began to think, "Who are we to go and do this?"
Then while I was at a stop light turned my head to see Charlotte! She was actively manning her magnificent and perfectly spun spider web. I looked at the web of wonder and a powerful thought clicked, "If God creates that spider with such an amazing gift, and he clearly cares more about humans than spiders, than can you imagine the gifts he has given us?" And much like, "Some Pig" in Charlotte's Web, that spider wrote, "Who are you not to?" on her web, or may as well have. Thanks Charlotte!
She was right! Who are we not to? Who are all of you not to?
I declared that week - "Big Faith Week." We followed up with a little bit of emailing and calling (but not out of desperation and fear like the past week). And we prayed together, we acted as if it all was going to work out some how, some way. We caught ourselves when we didn't. We got excited about researching some stops.
And as luck, I mean God, would have it, little miracles began to appear. We booked locations. Had pastors want to meet with us. Found some cool new churches. Had a pastor offer his retreat to us for a weekend while we are in town, and it is rrridiculous! It looks like heaven. Pics to follow when we get there:)
Just really cool stuff that stems from having the faith of a mustard seed, and boast boast, I think with our 'big faith week' we had the faith of a Pumpkin seed!
I said to myself, "Never doubt, it always works out!" It has a jingle to it and is so true. Then I woke up this morning with a pea size red lump on my breast. Back to fear. But already tonight it is 1/4 of the size and it could be related to the crazy bouts of Mastitis I have had in the last 6 mos. I have a Sonogram tomorrow. I already feel at ease, that it is benign and silly:)I will keep you posted.
When I felt the calling in my heart to go and do a trip of this nature, I was only present to the fun parts. It's a good thing, because I may not have decided to go if I knew how much work and preparation goes into it. And I know that, albeit this trip is smaller than we wanted or intended, we are going through the necessary growth we need. I keep reminding myself this is not supposed to all go my way, it is God's trip and he has a plan far greater than anything I could think up. What seems insignificant and small to me, is not in the big picture.
Good night.
Sunday, September 12, 2010
Getting Geared Up
Okay so we have been trying to figure out all of the ins and outs of technology and linking/informing people. This is tough without support...so we are seeking support of someone who would give us a path to follow so we can move past this hurdle on the board of Mission Life.
I just spent 35 minutes getting a list of people inputted into a system from our Peace Plan web page and "poof" system error and nothing...Help...I have to go fix dinner!
I just spent 35 minutes getting a list of people inputted into a system from our Peace Plan web page and "poof" system error and nothing...Help...I have to go fix dinner!
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