We Have Been to the Mecca

Aaron and I are up in Costa Mesa now looking for Apts and Jobs while we house sit for my cuz. we wanted to talk to some one from the school but they left for a missions trip today, monday. so in order to meet up with them we needed to got to a sunday church service. we went to the 7pm service and guess who was teaching... Chuck Smith himself!

it was a lil odd cause people clapped when he came up to start the service and there was really random music for worship before the sermon.
come to find out the music on sunday is always a toss up. so week to week it can be very different. the guy who was there last night was from some band in the 70's that first came to chuck when they were still meeting in the tent as hippies.they wanted to do music so he had them play a few songs and he knew right then that it was God working in this. so he put them on for the service that night and they became huge during the Jesus Movement.

So the Sermon was good but heavey. they are going through Rev and it was chapter 12 last night. you know when you are reading other stuff or you just had a conversation about something then you hear a sermon about it and how cool that is? it happend a couple of times last night and it was fun. i really enjoy thoes moments.

After the sermon we go down and wait to talk to one of the guys Aaron has been emailing but they are a bumch of people and pastors down there reciving people for prayer. there were around 20 guys down there and we have no idea what the one we are looking for looks like. then i see a dude with an ear piece in and i ask him if he works here and he tells me that he serves here so i ask him if he can tell us which of these guys is the one we're looking for. he doesn't really know but he says he'll find out for us. so we finally figure out which guy it is and while we're waiting we talk to this guy. his name is Matt. we talked about the service (that how we found out about the music stuff) and about looking for an apt. he said he would keep his ears open for us if he heard any thing about someone in the church looking to rent out a room or something.

so fianlly we talk to John the guy we been waiting for and he was very nice. he took us to the main officee and made us a copy of a local realtor who he has worked with before and she even has some apts across the street from the school where a lot of people stay. and his wife leades the wives club and so it was pretyt cool.
already we have seen a fresh and easy and and in n out so now i'm sure we can live here :)

we miss you guys!

please keep praying for us while we are here. that our time spent will be fruitful and that we will find something we can afford. we also are attempting to tackle employment. but above all else we want to be where God wants us and be examples of His love to others.

wedding pics

Aqui
here are some of the pics from the wedding i'll post more when i get a chance but until then enjoy!

great video

wedding stuff!

this is the look on my mom's face pretty much the whole day of their vow renewal. "I felt like I was in a big hug all day long"

how great of an example do i have with my parents? they have shown me what it means to work for your marriage, because after 25 years together it takes work. they have shown me how to love unconditionally and how to give each other respect that is needed. thank you God for blessing me with them and i know their years together will only get sweeter.

next thought

i feel very accomplished now that my family has survived this tsunami of insanity ( also known as house renovation coupled with my parents' renewal of vows for their 25th anniversary)
and everything else seems pretty easy in comparison, thus making me wonder if i'm fooling myself about the current status of the wedding. i believe however that things are going great and rather smoothly.
i'm surprised and how easy some things are that i worry about and put off and how insane it is to try and accomplish seemingly simple tasks. for instance i was terriffied to start birth control because i thought it would be a huge hassel to get everything figured out, all i had to do was make a few phone calls. where as trying to figure out what the guests would use to hold their jellybeans from the candy buffet was a pain in the tush for some unknown reason??!

any who i need to bake some cupcakes or there will be none for the big day. so for all you reading this know that i am excited and happy and i can't wait to see you guys in a very short time !!

are you kidding me?!

“Atheists, who might feel themselves a particular target with the declaration of a biblical year, aren’t even worried about Broun’s effort.
“Right now, we’re seeing atheism on such a rise,” said David Silverman, vice president and national spokesman of American Atheists, a group dedicated to fighting for the civil rights of atheists. We are seeing Christianity on such a dramatic decline that we’re not particularly worried about it. We’re thinking that this kind of old-style George W. Bush Republicanism is about to go away,” Silverman said, referring to the latest Pew Forum survey of American religious life, which showed nonreligious Americans as the fastest-growing group."

i read the quote above from this article and honestly the article is not that special but the quote its self is alarming.
i know this is not new to us that the world around us is looking bleak, but for me when i read this i felt like i got socked in the stomach. it was like satan was taunting me and rubbing in my face that there are more and more people choosing to turn away from God and pursue their own desires. "we're not particularly worried about it..." like their efforts are nothing more than a gnat. ok now here's the thing, i'm not really for or against this year of the bible thing, but his attitude that we are already defeated should cause alarm for us.
this has strengthen a resolve in me to pray for our country and the people that i come in contact with so that i may be prepared to speak the truth into their lives when i am called to.
your thoughts?

this might shock some of you.. but i hope not

i'm in this weird in between place in my life where i'm not having sex and i'm not really supposed to think about it but i'm getting married in 57 days. how can i not think about it? and then after the wedding a switch is supposed to go off in my head and be like ok let's sex each other up baby!

it's kinda confusing.

sometimes it makes me uncomfortable to think about being that close to some one and to be that open and revealed( both literally and figuratively) then other times i can hardly wait ( although i'm not entirely sure what i'm so excited for. i just know that everybody wants it so badly. in fact it can be the driving force behind many people's actions)

i guess i'm becoming more aware of this part of me and i'm not sure entirely what to think of it. i'm not even sure why i'm writing about it other than it's been rattling around in my mind.

that being said i need to finish up my hw for our pre married class.

Donna out.

making plans

it's funny to me how many times i have started to make plans to go some where to do something and they just fell apart. not in an overly dramatic way, they just didn't work. i get to a point where i think i have waited an appropriate amount of time and i can start moving forward with my life. i would like to note here that generally this means i am tired of whatever is or is not going on in my life and i feel i need to make a change in order to be following God.
but often those plans are the exact ones that fall apart because i've taken the weight of my life in to my own arms and have figured that i can hold it on my own for a while.
And i can... sort of. it's like when we go to Costco and and buy dog food in the 50 lbs bags. i can carry the bag from the van to the house all the way back to where the dog food area is but i really can't do any thing else. all my focus and effort is in getting the dog food from one point to another. and my arms are completely full, i have to cary the bag like i'm giving it a bear hug which means i couldn't try to give some one a real hug if they needed it. i am so focused, in fact sometimes when i am coming through the house if there are people in my way i will tell, not ask, them to get out of my way.
now i'm sure we are all seeing the correlations between taking control of my life and me trekking around with the huge bag of dog food. but i've noticed that it's easier to put down a bag of dog food than to give back my life to God.

i am thinking about this now because aaron and i are trying to figure out what/ where is going on after we are married. i don't want to take control again i want to follow both aaron and God in this. and i am trying very hard to make sure that i don't pick it up again, cause as heavy as that bag of dog food is it's even more straining to carry the direction and path of your life in your arms.