Merry Christmas!!!!

We hope all of you have had a great Christmas. We have! This morning we woke up to the most beautiful sun rise I have ever seen!!! The whole sky was glowing.

We have enjoyed a nice relaxing day.

The kids enjoyed opening their gifts and have been playing non-stop (so has Dave).

Merry Christmas everyone!!!

Are we floating away?

  My mom called me yesterday saying Bakersfield had been on the news the last two days. Were we floating away? I am happy to report that  Bakersfield is Not totally flooded. Their are a few streets that they had closed off, but most of the town is just very wet. The vineyards and orchards are soaked but not completely flooded. After four days and nights of rain it finally stopped and the sun came out all day yesterday. This morning we woke up to more rain, but just a little drizzle, not a downpour. We are doing great and are nice and dry.

A Great Day

  Yesterday Kristine came up to us and asked if she could be baptized. So today Dave baptized her at the pool here at the park. It was very cold in the pool this morning! She has been radiant and joyful all day long. She keeps saying, "I'm just so happy!" We are very thankful for our daughter and her decision.

This was right after we got home.

 Kristine told me," This was one of the best days ever!!"

Happy Late Thanksgiving!!

I know it is very late, but Happy Thanksgiving!! We hope everyone had a great one. We did! With this being our first Thanksgiving away from family, I was determined to make it a great one.We started our day with happy face pancakes, home made hash browns, oranges from the tree on our lot, and hot cocoa.

Then we played at the little park here, rode scooters, played in the dirt, and the kids helped me make rolls to go with dinner.

We had a very nice day and had fun making this Thanksgiving special. We are doing good out here in California. But I must say I am NO city girl!! :-)

We made it!

Hi everyone! We are now in California. The drive out was good. We took our time and got here in two and a half days. The kids got a little sick on the way, but are doing a lot better now. Dave is sick now, so please keep him in your prayers. We found a really nice RV Park to stay at. The first one we tried was not very safe, so we were on the hunt for a better place to stay and found one.

This is a picture of the first place. Very tight and not in the best part of town. I'm not too sure if this town has a good spot. So far all we have seen is run down every thing and trash every where.

This is our "new" home. It is in the middle of an old orange orchard, and we get to pick the oranges on our lot. We have way more room here, and the kids can play out side.

pictures of getting ready and the park

In the last post I talked about the weekends and some things I learned from this experience. If you haven't read it please do.

We will be heading to California later this week. So my next up date will be from there.

What I learned

   We were very busy getting ready for this outreach.  Dave had been to the park several times to talk to them and find out what they needed to get through the winter. He then made fliers and handed them out to people all over town and a friend gave them to her costumers at her coffee shop. God moved in a lot of hearts to give to this event.  We had some late nights praying, organizing, and planning.  I don’t know the total amount of all items given for the first weekend, but we had 19 sleeping bags, 3 tents, 3 cots, 8 tarps, approx. 45 coats & jackets, lots of hats, socks, & gloves, clothing, and 99 gift bags. A gift bag contained a toothbrush, toothpaste, soap, washcloth, toilet paper, & hand warmers. We had one volunteer who was able to go with us. I will admit I was a little nervous at first with it only being us three, but God was with us and moved in the hearts of many people that day.  We got 100 pieces of chicken from City Market, biscuits from Chick-Fil-A, apples, cookies and hot cocoa. We served about 85 people. It’s hard to know for sure how many were there.  The second weekend we had 8 helpers go with us. That made it a lot easier to serve the meal and hand out supplies. I was more comfortable there the next time and was able to interact with and talk to them way easier. We had sleeping bags, tents, clothing, blankets, and coats that had been donated for the second week.

   Both weekends were very humbling and eye opening for me.  I had never thought about how cold it would be to be outside all night in the middle of winter just trying to stay warm. We talked to one man who said he saw 19 below zero last winter and was begging us to try and get a tent for him. We met several men who didn’t even have a coat. Dave had met one of them before the outreach, and he asked if we had any coats that were 3x. He had nothing but a sweatshirt.  I have never seen anyone that excited about a bar of soap, toothpaste, toilet paper, water, and water bottles; it was like Christmas to them. They were very appreciative of everything we were able to bring to them, and they wasted nothing. One woman I met dropped her cookie in the dirt, we were going to give her a new one, but she said “Don’t worry about it. I don’t waste anything. I have to eat out of the dumpsters.” I had to fight back the tears at that point. I can’t imagine being hungry enough to even think about eating out of the trash can. They were all very helpful with setting up and taking down and they were just so nice and appreciative of everything. We even had a few come up and apologize for their language, once they knew that we really did care about them.  Another thing I learned is that they want to look nice, they want to be clean, and they need to know that they are loved by God. I am so thankful that I was given this opportunity to meet these people, and to show them a little love.

The park

I have been thinking all week about last weekend, and preparing for this one. We have been praying hard that the needed supplies would come in, and God has provided in amazing ways. People have been moved in their hearts to give what they can and one person even gave us a fair amount of money. So now we can get some of the needed things. Last week we had one helper who went with us,and we ministered to about 85 people, this week we have about ten helpers, and estimate about 100 people. We have friends helping with making the food and wanting to help out in any way they can. We have been so blessed to be able to know these people and fellowship with them.

Weekend #1

We did the first weekend outreach at the homeless park last weekend. It went very well. We will be going back this weekend. Please pray that the needed supplies come in. They still need sleeping bags, tents, tarps, blankets.... I will post pictures and more about it in a few days. So much went on before and during that I still need a couple days to think it through before I write about it. But I wanted to let you all know that we did get out there, and that it went very well.

Getting Started

    Welcome to our blog.
It is our hope to keep everyone up to date on where we are and what we are doing. Although it might turn out to be where we have been and what we did :) The last three months we have been adjusting to living in our 5th wheel. I think we all have adjusted easier than we thought we would. We haven't had any major problems or obstacles. The children enjoy it and are doing well in their schooling. We have learned how to work in our little kitchen, and dinning area. We love it. This is not the life style I would have chosen for myself, but I wouldn't change it at all now.
    We are getting ready to do an outreach to the homeless in Grand Junction. We will be there for two weekends. God is soooo good and is already providing in amazing ways for this outreach. I will tell more about it later, but for now I just wanted to get this up and running. So, please follow us on this wild adventure we call our life.