Venice Beach

Now I see why it's called Venice Beach...


It's hard to believe that those peaceful, residential canals are located just a few blocks from this:

This guy ran and jumped over 10 people. Seriously.
Then, we were offered "medical marijuana". Seriously.

Oh, and we got pupusas!
Then we drove through Malibu and said hello to all the rich and the famous.

"well they say in LA it's a warm holiday"...

Name that all-time greatest hit Christmas song!
Yesssss Tender Tennessee Christmas by Amy Grant!

We thoroughly enjoyed our warm holiday in LA. We spent Christmas Eve looking for a Christmas tree...


But decided it would be more practical to get a ficus tree that we can keep up all year long and just decorate it for Christmas. Our very own Charlie Brown Christmas tree!
We checked out a big church that is just a couple of blocks from our house, and really enjoyed the message and Suzy enjoyed the music and small Christmas play that they did. They have a Spanish service on Sundays, so we are eager to check that out.
We grilled out steaks for Christmas Eve dinner (and sweet potatoes thanks to the free Trader Joe's drop-off!) and we were all shocked and amazed to see how cheap meat and produce is here!
Then we drove to a neighborhood that goes all out with the Christmas lights before trying to get this wound-up little girl to go to bed.

Here are some pictures from Christmas morning...Suzy's favorite present by far was the "baby Jesus toys"- a nativity set just her size.

It's interesting to think that we have spent the past 4 Christmases in different cities (3 different states and 2 different countries to be exact) which makes it hard to establish traditions. However, just being together is the best tradition I can think of.
Hope yall had a very merry Christmas!

FELIZ NAVIDAD!!!

no longer keyless!

It feels good to have a place to call home.

Thanks for all your prayers...the flight went perfectly and we did not have to wait in any lines the entire day- not at the check-in desk, not to board the flight, not in immigration, not even to pick up our bags. Suzy did awesome on the 5.5 hour flight and was sooo excited about being in a plane, she didn't sleep a wink the whole time! Traveling together with Elvis and with a toddler in her own seat is 8 billion times better than traveling alone with a one year old lap baby who is crawling all over your head.

Kelly and Brian picked us up (welcome home sign and all!) and the first order of business was to get some real California fish tacos. YUM. Then we found our new apartment where we opened the door and were speechless with what God had provided for us. A beautiful, spacious, fully furnished apartment (i mean, even toilet paper, sheets on the bed....the only thing we needed was food in the fridge!) The manager told us we should just plan on staying here our whole time in pasadena, and we eagerly agreed! It is incredible and ridiculously cheap for Cali and there our 24 families from around the world staying here too, most of them are students at Fuller as well and everyone has kids for Suzy to play with in the playground with is approximately 5 steps from our front door.

One of my favorite parts is that Trader Joe's donates food to us twice a week! This week we scored lamb steaks, spinach and feta stuffed salmon, ready made fancy salads, muffins, pizza dough, etc etc etc.

Here is our street, lined with palm trees and with a beautiful view of the San Gabriel mountains in the background:
Our house is just a 0.5 mile walk from Kelly and Brian's house! We passed many orange trees on the way there:
And here are some pictures of our house!
The living room:
Dining room/kitchen which is attached to the living room (I love how it is all open which means that Suzy can run around while we cook)
Guest bathroom (with a bathtub! yes!)
Suzy's bunk bed!! She has been too excited to sleep sometimes, but has not tried to get down from the bed thankfully.

Our bedroom...there is another bathroom off of our room and closets, dresser that you can't see:
More living room/back deck:
The view of the playground from our front door!

Suzy's new kitchen set (I bought it from another fuller student when i came in july)

We spent Tuesday and Wednesday with Brian and Kelly, who Suzy is attached to the hip with now!
We ate some yummy sushi, and hit up several grocery stores to see where is the best place to buy stuff. We have found even-cheaper-than-El Salvador produce prices which is amazing. We also got Elvis' social security card, which took approximately 5 minutes to do. Love efficiency. And we both got cell phones, so let me know if you need our numbers or address!

I dropped off Kelly and Brian at the airport on Wednesday night, and they oh so graciously gave us another set of keys- to their car! We get to drive it while they are in NC for a while, which takes the pressure off of buying a car right away. We can walk to pretty much anywhere we need to go, but it's nice for carrying groceries, etc. THank you McPhails!!!!!!!!!

We are so thankful for all that we have right now, including my parents who were able to come visit for Christmas/New year's. I can't even imagine what it would have been like to have to be running around, trying to find furniture during these first few days. We feel so blessed. We are also so thankful that Suzy is adjusting so well. She is captivated by all the new stuff, and loves her new house and new sights. We feel like this is such a perfect fit for us right now. We love the multi-cultural feel of the city and its people, and Elvis feels right at home which is also very important. There are hints of Central America on every corner but many new things as well for both of us and we are loving this new adventure of exploring a new city together!

So, we have a top bunk available...who wants to come visit?? ;-)

keyless.

I just bought this keychain at church recently so we can have a constant reminder of our Ruta 3:16 community. However, I just realized that as we travel to California in a few days, we will not actually have any keys to put on it.

We will turn in our current house keys on Monday, give over the last set of car keys on Sunday, we've turned in our office keys, and we will get the keys to our new house when we arrive on Monday night. So, for those few hours, we will be without any keys.

And that's a really weird feeling...realizing you don't own any keys anymore.

I mean, keys are small and not valuable in themselves, but they represent something bigger and more valuable. They are a tangible symbol that you own something; they represent stability; they represent not just a house but a home.

Not having keys kinda makes me feel like a floater because it reminds me that we really don't have any possessions anymore, except for the 6 suitcases we are carrying, the orange juicer and winter clothes that i already left at kelly's house, and the old picture albums and such at my parents' house.

And while that's really weird to realize you don't really own anything anymore, it's also extremely freeing. It reminds me that as 1 Peter says, we really are "aliens and strangers" in the world....or as other versions say, "temporary residents and foreigners" or "sojourners and exiles". We're just passing through anyway, on our way to a much better home. I think that's why neither the US or El Salvador or anywhere else will truly feel like "home" if you really think about it.

I also think that this is a great concept to keep in mind as we seek to build relationships with immigrants in the US. We can offer them the comfort of knowing that we hope for a future home where everyone will feel more than welcome and cozy and like they belong. I like that thought a lot and comforts me even when I see an empty keyring.

happy birthday to....

...this hunk!!

ok ok this one is a bit sweeter, if you're not into the hairy chest, facial hair, borrowed glasses and napoleon dynamite stare.....

ok everybody now, "awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww..."

it's official! he's a keeper! happy 28th elvis! you finally caught up to me!

next to last weekend

This weekend was packed full...Elvis was healing from having his wisdom teeth out on Friday afternoon (you couldn't even tell he had them out if i didn't tell you!), we celebrated the wedding of our friends Luis and Rebeca who have been dating for 13? 14 ? years:

Sporting our new glasses!


Can you please check out Marlana's stance as she is preparing to leap into the air, catch the bouquet, and tumble back across the end-zone with a perfect quarterback technique?


After the wedding, we had some gracious friends come over and help us put prices on everything and set everything out for the garage sale the next day: (there were tons of things on the other side of the room too)
I was thinking back to how I came to the country with a trunk full of clothes (who travels with a trunk these days anyway? That thing weighs 20 pounds itself!), a guitar, and another suitcase of clothes and books. That's all. When we started renting our house in Feb 2006, we had a telephone and a hammock. That's it. For our dates the month before our wedding we would go by bus to our new house, buy pupusas next door, and sit in the hammock and eat them and talk before going by bus back to drop me off at my apartment. By the time we were married in march, we had a bed, fridge, sofa, 2 chairs, washing machine, stove. Not much. Now look at all the stuff we accumulated!

I simultaneously feel blessed by God's provision (we didn't have to spend money on hardly anything in our house) but also a strong desire to never accumulate so much stuff, especially stuff we don't even use anymore. Kinda makes me wanna pack up about 5 t-shirts, a pair of jeans, and fly to California with only that. On the other hand, I want to be sure we take lots of Suzy's things so that she feels at home in Pasadena. Yesterday she would see some stuff at the garage sale and say "this is Suzy's!" You can pray with us that she can adjust easily and feel secure in our love for her despite everything else around her changing. If you ask her where we are going she eagerly says "California!" and says she wants to go, but obviously has no concept of what "california" really is.

Last night, we had our Christmas dinner at church. It was lots of fun, and they took advantage of the fact that everyone was together to say goodbye to us as well. They made a sweet video of our time at "Ruta 3:16" and people shared stories about how we had touched their lives. They also prayed over us and took up a love offering for us which is really meaningful because everybody has scarce resources and pitched in to bring stuff to the dinner as well. It's hard to imagine not being in the middle of that community anymore... they aren't just our church family, but our friends and the people we spend our time with and celebrate together and weep together and visit each other in the hospital and cook together and go to the beach together and help each other out with garage sales.

Checklist

Things checked off the checklist:

• House
  

• Flights (after a 2 hour struggle, talking on two different phones at the same time while simultaneously adding more minutes to my phone via internet)

• New glasses for Elvis and me (for a grand total of $150…see why we got them here before we left?)

• One sold car

• One car committed to be sold next week

• New license plates for car (don’t worry, that process wasn’t as easy as it sounds)

• Register for classes ("Intro to Urban Ministry" and "Mission to Children at Risk")
  

• Donate clothes

• Sell big furniture and nursery stuff (still needs to be picked up)

• Flights for mom and dad to spend Christmas/New Years in Pasadena (Hello Rose Bowl parade)!

• Arrange to cancel internet, etc

• Ash and Elvis dentist visits, cleanings, fillings (fillings at $10 a pop…see why we got them here before we left?)

To do:

• Find a job

• One more wedding this weekend

• Garage sale on Sunday

• Work until we can grab our Christmas bonuses and run (sometime between Dec. 12-15)!

• Christmas dinner at church on Sunday- in charge of desserts

• Take Suzy for 2 year check-up

• Take Suzy to the dentist for the first time

• Elvis’s bday on Dec. 14^th

• Elvis’s sister arrives from Mexico on Dec. 13^th

• Christmas presents? (Don’t be offended if you don’t get one this year…)

• Buy health insurance in the US

• Pack everything we own into 6 suitcases

• Get Elvis’s wisdom teeth out tomorrow (For $55/tooth, we had to take advantage before we left the country. How’s that for last minute? What? You say the dentist mentioned this 5 years ago? Oh….)

• Goodbyes ;-(

• Simultaneously cry our eyes out and do a happy dance
  

• Etc, etc, etc, etc, etc……………

So, that’s where we are….how are you?

God just took us to the movies, metaphorically speaking

So, you remember when I was talking about how God wants to amaze and WOW us with things we can't even begin to imagine, kinda like how we took Suzy to the movie theater for the first time and blew her little mind? Wellll...... God went and dun' it, as we would say in Stokes County. He blew our minds.

We just got an email assuring us that in 2 weeks when we leave for Pasadena, we will have an apartment to live in! Hooray for not being homeless! And not just any apartment....it's fully furnished, ready to walk in and live in. Like, including forks and linens and even a crib and all kinds of crazy stuff I was wondering how in the world we would get. More than we could ever ask or imagine.

Oh, and it just so happens that rent is HALF what every other apartment in Pasadena goes for, including Fuller campus housing. And utilities are included. That's not just going to the movie theater for the first time...that's surround sound and reclining seats with arm rests that raise up so you can snuggle AND a bottom-less can of caramel popcorn mixed with salty popcorn.

It is SO obviously God and no one else because yall, we did not meet the requirements for this apartment, not one bit. You see, it's for missionaries that are coming to Pasadena for furlough and then going right back overseas. You have to work with a recognized missions agency. Required. You have to sign a piece of paper saying you meet those requirements to even apply. Well, we didn't sign it, but rather wrote a note explaining our situation, that we don't work with a missions agencies, we're not on furlough, we see the US as our "overseas mission field", and they said YES. And that's why it is completely God.

He sure kept us hanging, that's for sure. I mean, 2 weeks before we are supposed to leave? Are you kidding me? But God kept confirming time and again that this silence was not a closed door but a time to wait and trust. Just last night, we had a special time of prayer at church for people ready for some kind of breakthrough, a needed answer. I was the first one to go running up for prayer. And a close friend shared some really specific words of encouragement with me last night that we were heading in the right direction. It's nice that God sends along little hints, a cup of cold water to get you to the end of the waiting period. I have a feeling we'll need to be using these lessons learned of patience and faith again one day. Oh boy!

Thanks for your prayers and support and sharing this journey with us...I have to keep reminding myself that now the journey has just begun....we've still got cultural adjustment and job searching and master's degree and all kids of fun stuff ahead of us...whew! But at least we have a bed =)

wise words

Fear of the future is really a fear that sometime in the future God will fail us. If we deal with that, our fear of the future goes away.

-Wally Cook