Sacrifice

What is it Lord that have asked of to sacrifice for your name? I look
around and see a greedy society... People always wanting more. When they
get what they want... They continue to want even more as if what they have
is not enough. I think goals and dreams are important, but when those goals
and dreams consume your thoughts more than than the will of God then it is
time we start sacrificing. When Jesus asked his disciples to follow Him,
one asked to wait so he can bury his family and another wanted to say
Good-bye to his family. But Jesus told them, No, to follow me you must
leave everything(Luke 9:59). Isn't that what we are supposed to do also
with out faith? God says don't stop along the way to finish your business,
I put you here with a purpose. The hardest part of our life, is figuring
out God's purpose for our lives. Yes, we are to witness but in what ways
has God asked of you to witness to those around you? Do you encourage your
fellow believers to not JUST believe but to have depth to their
relationship with our Savior? To not stop at what's comfortable but move on
towards areas that are out of your comfort zone? To not be satisfied with
where you are spiritually? To be teachable? What is it that God has asked
you to do that you have ignored or flat out refused to do?

When I read Hebrews 12:1-2, throw off everything that hinders us and
entangles us...throw off!! That means not letting that $ an hour distract
you from your devotion to Christ. Sometimes we have to throw off the many
things that we want for the greater purpose in life. When I sit before God,
He's not going to say why didn't you get a house? He's gonna look at me and
say, while you were so busy trying to get that house or that more money you
missed the opportunity to help someone or encourage a fellow disciple.
Ouch! I don't want that! I would be grateful for a house for a family but
at the expense of God's will for me... That I will not do just so I can get
a house. I am so thankful Lord, that you saved me. Thank you Lord for
remembering me when I am crying and in pain. Your are so faithful Lord, I
praise you Father for all you're doing and all you are going to do.

Need hardcore prayer!

Yesterday, I went to my Dad's house to find him off of work. So, I asked
him why he was home so early, they sent him home early. My Dad currently
has been working for the County of Riverside for 15 years, and due to
retire next year. Where he works is called Van Horn, it's similar to
Juvenile Hall but these teens stay there long term because of their
behavior problems, or getting into trouble. They go to school at Van Horn
and sports, etc. My Dad counsels the kids and the parents to understand the
reasons for the behavioral issues, he also has been a coach for
Cross-country for these kids for about 10 years now!

My dad has been able to be such a great witness to his co-workers and his
kids and over the years has been able to bring some to Christianity. It has
been such a blessing to my Dad.

Yesterday, my Dad told me that one of the kids came up to him and told him
that she had a headache, can you show me the pressure points to try and get
rid of the headache? So my Dad, showed this girl her pressure points on her
head... Meanwhile he is in a classroom full of kids and adults. One of the
probation officers thought it was inappropriate and reported him as
touching students inappropriately!! My Dad never touched anything below her
neck. Human Resources is now investigating the situation, and he is off
work and with the kids until they come to a conclusion about the situation.
The probation officer that reported didn't like my Dad to begin with which
was more of the source of the report than what he was actually doing.

Bogus!!! My dad has cared for these kids deeply like he would his own, and
gosh darn it... He's good at what he does.

I pray that Satan would not get a foothold in this situation, that Human
Resources would see the truth of the situation. I pray that God would
reign, I truly believe that Satan has used the probation officer to try and
attack my Dad because he is one of a few Christians in his workplace. Pray
that God would be sovereign, that my Dad would be able to stand strong.
That the people being interviewed would use the right words to clear the
investigation. Lord, we need you to reign through this situation, we need
you to take a hold of this investigation and bring to the surface the
truth. Wrap your arms around my Dad and let Him know that you love him and
you have a purpose. Rest your love upon my Dad as he goes through this
trial.

A new chapter!

Well, we thought we were going to begin this new chapter in our life. We
spent most of our afternoon looking at land properties or houses. No luck
on this aspect of our lives, too many were out of our price range. We even
said we would buy a not liveable house and live on the land til we can
re-build but that aint happening either :) The realtors were very helpful
and knowledgable just can't find the price we need right now. So I think
that was God's way of closing the door for us... Right now anyway.

Andrew and I were talking and looking at each other like.... What the heck
are we going to do???? We both shook our heads and said " I have no idea!"
Our plan is this: We are going to buy a different 5th wheel... Not new just
one with a better floor plan. Hopefully near the same price we bought the
other one for. That way we will actually be spending less because of the
interest rates. Yeah, we won't have a house when we have a baby but this is
God's plan for us as crazy and how scary it might be, it seems to be the
only road that God has lead us. Financially, it's better for us just to
save what we can.
So, after being not so sure this morning about all these plans. I got a
wonderful opportunity to talk with my co-worker who is a Christian and has
4 children. She asked me when we thought we were going to have kids and how
many. I told her that I was scared because of our living situation. She
smiled and said, When I got married I was 28 years old and me and my
husband waited 2 years before we started to have children. Within those 2
years we had all these things we wanted to get before we had kids... like a
house. And when we realized that these things were not going to happen
before we wanted to have kids. We just said what the heck, we are gonna
have kids anyway. You put aside all those pre-set ideas you had and you
make the best of the life we had. We didn't have much, but we didn't need
much either just food on the table and a roof over our heads. I had
girlfriends that made a lot more money than me and my husband and she had a
very nice house filled with expensive furniture. She was so worried about
getting it dirty,that even her own children were not allowed to sit on the
couch. She said, I see that and didn't want to live my life that way. We
bought multi colored couches and carpet so dirt wouldn't be so obvious and
our kids could actually "live" in the house. I never wanted too nice of
things, because I realized they were just that... Things! I am excited for
you to have kids, you'll never regret them no matter when you have them,
it's when they get older and they don't want to hug you and cuddle with you
that kinda hurts. I wished they could go back to being little ones again.

Listening to her talk made me smile and made me feel encouraged in my own
life. That people can make it work for them, even if you don't have a nest
egg and "planned" financiallly to have a family. Because of the life we've
chosen, ministry, we will probably never make a lot of money. Whoever says,
people get into ministry for money, is kidding themselves! It's so hard to
decipher God's will for us right now. I feel like we're kinda just
wandering around looking for the right path. The right path and knowing
that the one we're standing in front of is the right one, is hard. The last
thing we want to do is step away from the will God wants for us. Crazy!
Crazy! Thank you for bringing this co-worker to me so she could encourage
me :)

The flash is here!!!

I am so totally stoked right I just can't contain myself.... My flash is
in!!! I just can't wait to actually use it :) Anyway, I just had to write
that really quick !

Land for sale?

Hey everyone- If you know of any land for sale in your areas please let me
know as soon as possible. We are looking to buy a piece of land. Just send
me the number for the realtor and we will call them.

Thanks!!

I don't need your pity

I am so sick and tired of people's reactions towards where we live. When I
say that they automatically assume that we are so poor beyond compare that
we can't afford anything. I mean we don't make 100,000 a year but I feel
like people who make that kind of money just pity us and I am so stinking
sick of that kind of attitude towards me. I don't need you to feel sorry
for me. God has blessed is many other ways than money. I never wanted to be
make a lot of money, because money distracts people!!! People who have
money depend on it for their lifestyle and I won't do that. I will depend
on my Savior for my provisions and my blessings because greater is the
woman or man who depends on the unearthly God of Heaven than on earthly
matters. We are only here for a short time, and when you sit at the throne
of God... He won't ask you to pull out your checking, savings, or 401K and
ask how much money you have or made. He'll ask you, where is your heart?
Was it with me here in heaven or there on the earth? My heart lies within
the hands of God, I rest in his arms because I know that from that I will
grow closer with Him.

** venting through a hard day today**

Mobile Homes

Well, we checked out the mobile homes within our park yesterday and from
the outside they don't look that spectacular but we are going to try and
schedule a time for us to go inside. It's 4 bedrooms and 2 baths just
recently remodeled so we will see....
Also, Andrew and I are endeavoring into possibly buying a piece of land in
colton with another young couple we know and make sure the land is big
enough for 2 houses and either build a house or put our own mobile home on
the property. There is a lot of land for sale in the area we live in Reche
Canyon so we are looking into the prices of the properties for sale. Some
are like 10 acres of property!!! We will see, the couple we went camping
with are also in youth ministry like us... I think this would be soooo
cool! We will see the prices first before we get ahead of ourselves here :)

Weekend at San Clemente w/ Fitzpatricks

Friday night after work headed to San Clemente State Beach for camping with
another married couple Eric & Becca Fitzpatrick. We will be there til
sunday. This is a picture of all of us on the shuttle, we are on our way
now to the Harbor Days in the Oceanside Harbor. Before that we came from
the Mission Del Rey off the 76 hwy. More pictures to come from our trip!!!
Hope you all are having a nice weekend :)

Beautiful Sunset

This is the day that the Lord has made, I will rejoice and be glad in it.

Thank you Lord for making this sunset for me :)

14 lbs...

Whooo hooo.... I now weigh 134 and I am still looking to lose about another
10 lbs and I will be satisfied. I messed up on meals here and there and had
fast food one night bu overall I feel I have been disciplined and been
picky on the foods I have chosen and eaten. I am slowly but surely getting
back to where I want to be and I feel so great and energized most of the
day. I don't normally get tired as early. I am so proud of myself cause
everytime I try to lose weight I fail, but this time is totally different
and I love the foods.

** P.S. A mobile home in our park is for sale for $55,000 4 bedrooms and 2
bath. We are going to take a look this weekend and see how we like it. Keep
us in your prayers that God will would be done.

Barefeet dodgeball

We played Dodgeball with our youth group, we didn't keep points or try to
hurt each other. We did, however, have a lot of fun! Pictures are low
quality because they were taken by my phone. Wish more kids could have been
here for this one! Totally hilarious :) Play for Barefeet and continual
additions to the youth group. I am working on door hangers we can make, we
will be heading out to the community to put these on doors to hopefully
make our numbers increase.

Is this God's ministry for us? Is the lack of growth and decrease of
numbers due to us? Is it because we are doing something wrong? Oooh Lord,
we call upon your name to reveal to us what we are doing that may be wrong
or what it is we need to do to make your kingdom flourish even more? Lord
show us your wisdom and show us the true answers according to your will! We
call upon your mighty name, use your power, Lord, to bring more kids your
youth group Lord. We thank you Lord, for your marvelous Love and endless
renewals in our life. We come before you Lord, humble and open, that we may
know more about your will for our lives.

Production work

Here is an example of one of the wedding invitations I have made, my own
creationg!! Hope you like it.

Life's frustrations

I can say that no more than 2 weeks ago, that for sure God spoke to us and said just stay where you are and don't worry about getting a house. Start your family when I want you to and don't worry about the rest. Andrew and I are faced with some questions now because of the recent turn of events that arose with us having to pay our own utilities now through the park. We've searched and searched every possible resource on the internet to see if there were other places we could move the 5th wheel to but unfortunately, it seems like the park we are in is pretty much the only decent one to live in this area. So, we looked on the internet at apartments that might be cheap... nope, no luck there unless I want to live in a gross area that would be dangerous. Looked at condo's, nope, once again still too expensive. So, now we are faced with quite a dilemma. Right now, yes, we are going to stay here. A few months down the line, rent will go up again and we will be faced with a problem where we will be paying as much as an apartment. We are working to pay off Andrew's truck as soon as possible so I started helping him on my side to help with the payments and get rid of it. Other than that, we still have no idea what the heck is going on with our future. We thought for sure we were going to buy a bigger RV and start a family, but we cant afford the bigger RV with the raise in rent. I am a little confused as to what direction God truly is trying to lead us. We will start a family next year still, but now we're faced with quite the pickle. Gosh, if I could just be pointed in a general direction that would be so helpful but no... nothing yet. I keep praying relentlessly for now 3 or 4 months about this living situation and yet I am still waiting for an answer. We are still paying less for an apartment now, and come January I should be getting a raise too but I don't know how much yada yada yada. Andrew, feels strongly called to stay at his current job (even though it doesn't pay very much) because we has been able to minister to a lot of the employees there. We've been given a great gift of having somewhere to live at all with the income we have. By now means, am I ungrateful for God providing for us. Money, is and hopefully never will be the focus of our lives. If anyone knows of any inexpensive apartments or living areas in the Riverside, please let me know so we can check them out :) Thank you for praying for, continue the prayers that God will show us the direction to take.

Tears up my heart

An employee came in this morning and her daughter in law gave birth 2 weeks
ago and the baby was premature by 2 months. The part that killed me was,
she went in for a check up and the dr told mom to come back in 1 week. In 1
weeks time, the mom started gaining massive weight quickly... When she went
in for her check up the baby went from 4 lbs to 7 lbs in a weeks time. The
employee said she could see panic in the Dr's face when he realized this.
The mom was scared to death so they had to deliver the baby. The baby 2 mos
premature wa swollen up like the pillsbury dougboy. The Ob/Gyn said he has
never seen a case like this in the 30 years he has been doing this. Mother
has health problems, unexplained, and so does their baby girl. The mother
has 2 older boys... The employee explained in tears that they were going to
be pulling to plug on the babies life support this afternoon. Pray for
Shannon and baby girl.

A Wedding and an Engagement session

Alright, So I have scheduled a wedding for November 18th at a local church, so this is my chance hopefully to prove myself worthy as a photographer. Luckily, Andrew will be by my side helping me with some more creative shots also. Also, some friends, Aaron and Jolene are engaged and going to be getting married Sept 2007. They asked me to schedule them for an Engagement photo session, I am thinking the beach area like Aliso Beach not sure yet. That will be scheduled in December. Is it possible that people might actually want to hire me for real? Totally cool and yet I still feel a little pressure especially for the wedding in November because I have yet to purchase my flash and I really need to get practicing on it so that way I will know how to use in come November... yikes!!!! Not a lot of websites have tips on using a professional flash, unfortunately. If you know of one... please let me know. Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, I am so totally stoked for this wedding :)

Side note, we are home from the desert, I took some funny pictures of people innertubing, jet skiing, and misc. I will be posting them on my flickr account pretty shortly here. Also, SOME (and I quote, some)of my photo work in on my Flickr account also, Most of my work can be found on www.BeeZion.com.

Youth Specialties conferencce

Andrew and I registered for a Youth Specialties Conference in Anaheim Nov
2nd-6th. It will be going over a lot of issues with the youth today and we
will be going to a critical concern class on Digital Discipleship:
Transforming teens through today's TECHknowledgy- digital, dynamic,
do-able. Should be a really cool conference. Downside is that we have to
wake up at the crack of down to be in Anaheim for 5 days, can't afford a
hotel :(

Woe to the rent!

Well, as of November 1st, 2006 our park decided that we were going to have to pay for our electrical separately. Since we've been here our space has always paid a flat rate for electrical and water... which til now has been great because we can use as much as we want and still pay the same amount. So, we got a notice from our park that each space will be paying separately for their usage of electric. Yikes! Okay we started out paying very little like $600/mo that's with what we pay for the RV we purchased. So, it went up again a few months back. So we were paying $700/mo including the RV rent. Now, we are looking at somewhere around $750 to $800/ mo. Well, we were saving a lot of money going this route, now Andrew and I are trying to figure out if God is trying to tell us something. So, I have been researching some alternative ideas so that we can maybe live in Riverside or something. We are going to be praying hard for the answer that GOd is hopefully trying to send us. Gosh, it's like one thing after the next, you'd think that our sewer line breaking and DSL going out the last few days wasn't enough. Ahh, well onward to my prayers so maybe God can show me something and then off to sleep I go. I am so excited tomorrow is Friday and this weekend is Labor Day. I hope all of you stay safe this 3-day weekend :)

I can't believe it

I have lost now 10 lbs in 5 weeks, I am so unbelievable stoked!!!!! I
messed up on my eating here and there, like 1 small piece of pizza, tacos
one night, fried chicken... Which kinda surprises me even after I ate all
those horrible foods I am still losing weight. A lot of people tell me it's
because of my age and not having children yet, but I still believe I had a
hard time keeping weight off and that was mostly in part to eating too much
and of the wrong things. I think I have 1 pair of work pants that actually
aren't falling off my waist :) The best part is I eat starches (which are
my favorite) and I still lose weight. The part I hated about other diets
was they cut out my favorite parts of eating and I always lost the battle
because I had a craving for the foods. My goal weight is 125-128lbs, I am
at 138lbs now... Only 10-12 more lbs to go!!!! I should be able to do in
only 4 more weeks... Yeah!!
Best advice yet on eating: When buying foods, read the ingredients... If
you don't know what's in that food like maltodextrin, you shouldn't be
eating. Ever seen a maltodextrin tree? I haven't :) Buy organic foods
whenever you can. Stick to whole milk dairy products (no low fat), and
there is no limit on fruits and veggies servings so EAT UP!!! Cut in half
what you would normally serve yourself, eat slower!! And if after eating
that smaller portion you are still hungry than you may go back for a little
more. Remember it takes your brain 10 minutes to comprehend that you are
full. Never eat til you are stuffed, you want to shrink your stomach :) Any
questions... Just let me know, I have been completely happy with my results
:)

Untaming the heart

(1:7) For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love and of self-discipline.
(1:8) So do not be ashamed to testify about our Lord, or ashamed of me his prisoner. But join with me in suffering for the gospel, by the power of God, (1:9) who has saved us and called us to a holy life—not because of anything we have done but because of his own purpose and grace. This grace was given us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time,

Andrew's sermon from last sunday was on these verses. Speaking about how we have been given power by Christ. Don't be tame about witnessing or ministry, why are we tame as Christians? If you have ever seen a Tiger starving, you'd see how weak they look as a creature. But untame and fully fed they are majestic and powerful creatures made by God with a purpose!!! Take a hold of God's power today and live for Him.

Life changes

So, with being a wife to a husband in ministry it is difficult to put roots
down somewhere and then maybe be moving. Andrew and I prayed and have come
to a conclusion that with ministry being so unstable that it wouldn't be
smart financially to buy a house for the time being anyway. So we have
discussed our other options for babies. Andrew's quote recently "There is a
lot to be said about living a humble life".

Andrew recently met a man who had everything income of $6K a month a 10,
000 sq ft. House and it was all taken away... Right before he lost
everything and they had just purchased this RV and now him and his 5 kids
live in a 31 ft trailer. The man said " It had to happen this way for me
understand life isn't about money. It's about my family".

Our conclusion, to wait for the Lord on what to do. We both want to have
babies so bad, so that's why it's so difficult to fathom having them in an
RV. But we also think, at least our children will know it's not about the
stuff and that won't distract them. We are still considering just upgrading
our current RV to be more liveable so we can start a family. Somehow, we
both just have this funny feeling that we need to be mobile so God can move
us if called, We won't be tied down to a mortgage. I don't want anyone to
look down on us because we want to start a family but don't have a house
for them. Our kids will be loved so much no matter where we live, I used to
have this idea that we should own a home before we have a family but I am
throwing that out the window and go with God's plan for us and ahh well we
live in an RV. It's pretty great living the simple life!