My first visitor!

This past 10 days I had the honor of hosting my first visitor here in California. My sister in law April came to visit me and to enjoy the California sun and heat! It was so fun and such a pleasure to have her here and through her I felt like I was seeing the area through new eyes. We spent 5 days up in the Central Coast where I live and then wandered down south to the Los Angeles area for some more fun. I was also able to visit my great friends Sarah and Aaron Ortega the past few weekends. It was so nice to be with them again and hang out like old times. Here are a few pictures of our time visiting Disneyland, California Adventures, Universal Studios, Montana De Oro, Ragged Point, Hollywood, and some other sites.



















Time has flown this past month. I can hardly believe that it's been a month since I've posted a blog...it's quite shameful actually. I've been spending my work hours preparing for the upcoming DTS, fine-tuning the aspects of several committees I work with, hanging out with the homeless and seeing that ministry grow and expand, hosting our increasingly popular Wednesday night open house "inreach", and working in the office as well. It has been busy, but it has also been a much quieter time for our base since all hands are on deck with no one overseas and no schools running.


I've had the priviledge of becoming more and more involved with my local church here. I've been attending Everyday Church since February now and have been loving it. God has truly blessed me with a great community. There are several young adults at that church and we have become friends fast. Also I have been attending a women's discipleship group which meets weekly. This includes women aged 18-28 therefore it encompases singles, marrieds, mothers...the whole gammet. It's really wonderful as it provides such an array of perspectives. It's been wonderful learning about our heavenly Father's love with those ladies.


Recently I have made a personal decision to become a vegetarian. Although some may scoff at this (or simply say more meat for me!) I feel like this is a personal conviction I will carry out for an indefinite amount of time. As many of you know, or have probably come to the conclusion to, I am an idealist. I am often presented with many facts about the attrocities occuring in the world as well as here in America and usually feel helpless to do anything. Having recently learned about the methods of factory farming (not all are like this) I have decided to put my ideals into action and chose not to eat meat for some time. Again, this is a personal conviction that I do not impose on others. I believe God did say we could eat meat (Acts 11) it is not the eating of meat that I am opposed to, rather the method in which the animal is raised and slaughtered. I am open to answering any questions regarding this decision and am always eager to learn more about how the farming system works, especially concerning the treatment of animals.


Once last things to mention. As you all know there have been many wildfires in Southern California recently. There have been a million displaced people, over a billion dollars in damage, and fourteen lives lost so far. The strong winds fuelling the fires have now died down and firefighters are setting October 31 as a deadline to have all the fires contained. Please pray for the firefighters who have been working tirelessly, for the families who have been displaced, for those who have lost their homes, and especially those who have lost loved ones.