Tidbits..

So I decided to just show a few, random shots of our life here in CA. 

It's going pretty good here! We've met more of our neighbors and are getting to know our church family better, which is so fun to us! It feels like connections are slowly starting to happen. Unfortunately, relationships take time. I think there should be a way to make them happen faster. That would be a nice quality of life, I think. :) 

I do miss home though. Home. Family. My friends. 

This is nobody's fault he says this (and it really is so cute), but my nephew Logan is probably sometimes the hardest little person to answer to. "Aunt Gi, you should come to Gwamma Wapps house again! You haven't been there in a wwwwoooong time!"....and he always asks me why we're in Canniforna. Then I tell him we're here to help God. To tell people about Jesus. Then he doesn't know what to say. :) Another time he said, "Was your house here just too teeny tiny?"....haha um no. No, cause our house HERE is just too teeny tiny (Secretly we love this house, but our NY house was bigger, I think.)!! Also secretly, I love love skyping with him (Okay, Gina?). I think it's hard though, mainly cause of course he doesn't understand why we moved. And somedays it feels like I don't even know why we moved! I'm not meaning to sound depressed, cause I really am not. I do like it here and it is exciting what God will do!

We've been really blessed, you know that? It is so true. God is so good.

So pictures. Here are a few. 

 A fun sun beam one evening. Those always feel like a God-thing to me!

 Eating pizza on the way home from picking up some furniture (our kitchen pantry!) at Goodwill!! 

 THIS place. This place, this place. I love it. It is MY juice it up place! If you come, I can take you!

 Two of my close friends. The gps and the freeway. :) 

 I don't know if I'll ever stop being amazed that I live in the same state as these trees. I just think they're so cool. Even old ratty ones like this.

 This street kinda reminds my of the street we lived on in NY, Florence Avenue. Except the trees should be shorter. The street a bit skinnier. And I think there should be snow on the ground, apparently! 

 Fun date night! 

 These cool mountains I also love. 

 And then allllmost every day, I homeschool myself in Spanish. And I have to wear those McDonald's type speaker things....

 In order, they mean: "We are your teachers!", "Bye, Mom!", "The doctor is writing.", and "The bicycles are white."......someone please correct if i'm wrong. cause that'd be embarrassing. 

 Slowly but (hopefully) surely, I'm tryyyying..

 Kinda a taste of home to me. Cause we had one right in town. And CA doesn't do Dunkin. 

 A pretty plant that my neighbor lady gave me (I have no idea what it is!)!

 Latest DIY project!

 My little mountain view every morning...

 The latest read..

 The view coming from Tujunga going into LA. 

 These happen all the time! (Ehhh, Patty?!)

 This is where we have church. Mr. Hosea & Miss Ana host church in their house (Thank you guys!). Our church starts at 2:30 Sunday afternoons. After church, we always have a carry-in meal.

And then this is where we eat. This is also where we have the service (in the Sanchez' backyard). I'm sorry I didn't get a picture of the service, but I guess I just didn't feel like being "that" person. :) 

And I had to end on this cute picture. :) This was last Christmas in Mississippi. :) Cute, cute, cute.

Hope you enjoyed! Have a great week!

HOUSE PICTURES!

This will be one of those fun blog posts that all there is to it is a bunch of pictures. :) Of our miracle house. 

Finally, right? :) 

 This is the front of our house.  Do you like our stone yard? :) Notice that tiny grass part? Half of it is ours. I mean, that's our front property line. That garage to the right is our neighbors'.  Ps. Our gardener (Seriously. It's true. Everyone has gardeners out here.) even installed a few sprinkler systems for all 5 feet of our yard. Bless his heart. :) 

Then we have this little side section. The "side" property lines are wide enough for a pathway on each side of the house.  

You walk in and to your right is our living room! 

And to the left is our tiny "reading" corner, which currently consists

a bookcase, a giiiiiant beanbag (that converts into a queen size mat!

Thank you Sheila for that kind gift!), and a giant sock monkey. :)

 A fun diy banner my precious Patty friend sent me. :)

 Straight ahead you'll see our kitchen! Check out the

super high cabinets. I can't even reach the second shelf

on one of them....and theres like 5 shelves. Weird. 

 Our current junk corner to the right of the kitchen(we're waiting till we see a good

deal for some kinda of "jelly cupboard" or kitchen pantry).

That door to the left leads to our back yard. 

 I don't know if I mentioned this, but the whole house was

remodeled right before we came. So that's a pretty nice

feature about this house. :) So this bathroom is pretty nice.

The bathroom is to the left of the kitchen, "down" a tiny "hallway".

 The bedroom is to the left of the tiny "hallway". 

 That closet has been a lifesaver. Thankfully CA has mostly

gorgeous weather to make for some outdoor storage. :)

 Our back patio! We have big plans for this!

Oh. And more stone yard. :) 

 Detail. A piece of home from my momma. :) 

coughit'salmostgonecough 

 Check out this adorable face! A few weeks ago, we had 

a "double" set of company! Dustin's cousin, Kristi Miller,

and her husband, Lavonne, and their baby Justin came! 

Kaylie came over that time too!!! It was so so fun having

company. We love love company. Ok? :) 

 Her she is! 

I see these trees. Everyday.  

 I miss these kiddos SO BAD!

Look at Alli...in all her glory. Stuffed animals and an animal book. :)

THE END! Of course it won't actually fall into place until you see it for yourself! Come anytime! 

Our "Miracle" Home! :)

Two disclaimers before you read :) 

I'm sorry it's so late! &
It's long. There is no way to shorten this story, I am sure of it. :) 

When Dustin and I came home from house searching the "main" day, he immediately sat down and started writing out this story. :) I was so impressed! And then he got busy, so I finished it. 

Enjoy!

01/16/2013

Dustin:  I can’t believe all the things that happened today. Even though I’m not a writer I feel like I need to just sit down and record on paper the things that happened.

Starting back last fall, Gina and I were making plans to move to L.A. for 2 years plus. We had come out here earlier and were excited about the church and were encouraged by the believers here. So I kind of casually told Gina that we are going to need two things if L.A. is where God wants us. We are going to need a place to stay, and some type of job/income. I hoped I wasn’t asking too much. Within about two weeks we had a temporary place to stay and a job lined up.

So….. I checked out homes on the web but didn’t commit to anything because we were encouraged to get to know the area better. That was good advice. Our first day out here was spent looking at the surrounding areas, and we looked in two apartments and the outside of a few more. We went home a bit overwhelmed with how there were so many different apartments and how expensive they were. I looked online for some more leads for our second day. We decided that since there seemed to be apartments on every block, we should just drive to the area that we liked and start calling numbers that were posted on the signs. Out here one block is very different from the next block, so looking online didn’t really give us a very good feel for what the neighborhood was like.

We drove up to a pretty community in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains. We knew that area would be a nice half way point between the church activities and work. The first place we called was very expensive. The second place we call was too expensive as well, but I just asked if he per chance would know of any other place we could look at. I knew those agent guys kind of keep their heads together on what is on the marked, and I was hoping he could help. I told him we are looking for an apartment or small place for such and such amount of money. He right away said that the area we were in was known for its good school and that it would be really hard to find anything there, but he would check. In a little bit he got back with me of a little house in some ones back yard that was available for rent…..out here they call them back houses. Sounded good to me. Our own little houseJ without the noise of an apartment sounded like it would be worth looking at anyway. So we drove over there and took a look. We talked to the tenant in the front house and he took us back to the back house but wasn’t able to get in, so he called a guy and came back with a name and number of an agent that would come out and show us the house at 2:30. OK, we went down to the store and got a bite to eat, then to the grocery store for some more things but it was still only 12:00 or so. So we got in the car and I punched in the closest park into the gps and we went over there to kill some time. On my way there I got the question in my head that maybe I was supposed to call this guy, Sean , and schedule the appointment for 2:30. So I just called him to double check. He said he was already at the house and wandered where we were…… Uh, OK. Be right over!!!!

Sean (the Realtor) was the nicest guy you could imagine. He had a strong accent and a somewhat semi-professional way for being nice but wasn’t too pushy. His jaw was shaped similar to the one on Jay Leno. He opened the door and without even looking at Gina I knew she loved it!!!!!! It was just remodeled. New paint, new kitchen, new appliances, new bathroom, etc.  A little small with only one bedroom, but the living room was nice and open. After we talked about it for a while, we got an application from him and got in the car. After I shut the door I said,” WOW, now I guess it’s up to God!!” We were both smiling from ear to ear and we hadn’t even really talked to each other about it together really. I could tell by Gina’s comments that she liked it, and I did too but I was trying to not let my feelings show.

We went back to our friends place and filled out the applications to send to him……..with one big problem. We had to have my driver’s license number for the application, but I lost my license while driving in Mississippi. I had previously scanned a document into my computer that had the number on it, so I was able to find the number without having my license. The next question was the expiration date and I didn’t have that. OK, so I had talked to the sheriff’s office in MS and learned that they had found my license and had sent them back to the address that was on the front, New York. After a while I receive a text from my mother in law that she sent it in the mail and it was supposed to get here Tuesday. So I keep working on the other stuff and we get as much of it done as we can. Mr. Sean asked us to send copies of our driver’s license and our social security cards to him along with the applications. I told him the situation with my driver’s license, and he said he would go ahead but that I should get that to him as soon as possible.

Gina: Dustin’s next time talking to Mr. Sean, he said that he called Dustin’s boss that was on his application to confirm Dustin’s employment, but the guy who answered the phone didn’t know who Dustin was and told Mr. Sean that no, Dustin doesn’t work here. It’s funny now, but basically every time we thought we were getting somewhere, it turned out to be a dead end! As it turned out, Dustin talked to his boss & the guy who answered the phone and then also to Mr. Sean, explaining what happened. Mr. Sean was able to call again and get an answer that YES, Dustin does work here J

Mr. Sean had set up a meeting for us on Wednesday or Thursday to finalize things, but then postponed it because of getting sick. Not that we were glad he was sick, but it actually worked really well because of us not having all our ducks in a row. J He emailed Dustin, rescheduling the appointment for Friday at 9:30 am.  In this email he also said that he would need a copy of our social security cards, Dustin’s license, and a security deposit. 

Thursday was a crunch day. J That was the day he had emailed Dustin and we had none of those requirements.  I personally was at the point where I was praying that we’d be ok if we didn’t get the house at all.  Mr. Sean had told us earlier that for some reason he kept coming back to our application.  He kept running into problems with the other applications (“God? Is this You?” J ).  But yet we couldn’t understand why Mr. Sean stuck with us. He was extremely patient with us!

Back to Thursday.  I remember thinking that we MIGHT get Dustin’s license (since it was supposed to get here Tuesday in the first place), but that there is NO possible way that we’ll get our social security cards.  Dustin and I were both VERY sure that the box they we were in was in Dustin’s truck (I drove our car and Dustin drove the truck to MS, where we had his family’s Christmas.  From there we went in the car, and one of Dustin’s friends was going to drive his truck out for us a few weeks later .), which was states away! Even if the ss cards could be found, to overnight them in the mail wouldn’t get them here in LA till noon probably! I remember thinking it’d take a miracle for sure. 

Dustin called his buddy who’s driving our truck out, and asked him to just tear our packed truck apart and find those cards! So they started digging! Meanwhile he asked me to search the car, just in case.  I went out there PRAYING! J Dustin had told me what the box looked like (that held our documents), so I carefully looked in our backseat, even though I knew there was no box there. Nope. Nothing. I popped the trunk and carefully started removing things. Then I saw a box. I remember kind of holding my breath, just hooooping! I quickly took the whole box inside and tore into it! Here, out of who-knows-how-many-boxes-we-packed, WAS THE BOX WE NEEDED!!! In it I found our SOCIAL SECURITY CARDS!!!!! I quickly sent a picture to Dustin. J This was just amazing to me, because Dustin said he remembers that box being in the front seat of the truck. He doesn’t know why he moved it to the car because there was ROOM in the truck and/or teardrop camper!!! And. That box was the only one in the car. Everything else in there is just odds and ends.

A few hours later, we got the mail, and Dustin’s LICENSE came!!

The last hurdle was getting the security deposit.  I’m not even sure how to explain it because Dustin mainly worked with that, but the issue was with us not having set up a bank account out here yet. The SD had to be like anything but a personal check which was basically our only option.  After trying so many different routes, a guy from the church here pulled out the amount we needed and we reimbursed him!

We felt so overwhelmed with God’s GOODNESS AND FAITHFULNESS that night. We had so many miracles that day.

The next morning at 9:30 am, we happily walked into Mr. Sean’s office!  After a few signatures, some talking, another descriptive showing of the house and it’s features, Mr. Sean handed us the keys! 

Even through the whole process, we felt like we got to know Mr. Sean better! He mentioned once, while pointing heavenward, that maybe there was something bigger to us getting the house.  He also said he went so far as to think that there were people praying for us (The first people he guessed were our moms J )! I’m not sure if he’s a Christian or not, but we were blessed with how he tried so hard to help us. He was very patient and friendly through it all.

So now, we officially say…THIS is our miracle house!

We’re not moved in yet. We’re still waiting on a few things & details to work out, but we are oh so excited to make this home!  Hopefully we’ll officially move in this weekend or beginning of next week.

Also, Dustin has started his job! From what he has said so far, he likes it! For those who don’t know, he’s working with a company called “Ground Breakers Construction” (gbreakers.com ). An excavating company is the best way I can think of to describe it. He plays with “big boy toys”. J I think he’ll really like it once he gets the swing of things.

And me? I stay busy with random things! I went grocery shopping with Carita Witmer yesterday. That was interesting. If any of you want to move solely for the reason of cheap, good produce, move to CA. J And the other day I cleaned my house. People have been so nice and welcoming to us that it’s easy to feel at home (away from home) here. I’m sure homesickness will kick in, but honestly right now for the most part, I’m doing fine. That is the grace of God. J

I feel like since I’ve been here I’ve been challenged over and OVER again to just pray. Pray about everything and anything. And then to literally trust God. Leave it to Him, because it was SO stressful when it was all “us”. God has even answered prayers that I didn’t even pray.

And so the journey begins… J

Ps. Thank you to ALL who prayed for us these past few weeks! Please continue to pray as we start settling in! 

Oh. and thank you for taking the time to read this! :) 

Leaving NY

Here comes a pretty scattered post. 

We are leaving so soon! :( It's so sad. I don't even know how to explain what I'm feeling.  Like I just said, I'm so sad, but also I think this is as ready as I'll ever be. I really don't know how much more of this "last time" stuff I can take. :( 

This is basically what we live right now: We just had breakfast with some good good friends for the last time. We eat at Mom and Dad's like..every night (cause we'll miss them so much,PLUS all my ingredients are...I actually don't know where they are!).  We have so many boxes in our house. I still have some last minute packing to do. It actually feels like a lot of last minute packing. I have to think if it's the last time I'll see someone every time I see a friend. We try going to every (extended) family event because it's "the last time"? I'm going shopping with my brother and sister and husband because it sounds fun. I really don't have time, but it'll be fun and I'll wish I went later. That's really how I sum up this paragraph. We are SO busy because we do everything because we'll wish for it later...I just dont feel like this paragraph makes sense. :)   

As of now, we are planning on leaving Friday sometime.  We'll load up both vehicles as much as we can and drive down to MS for some Graber time! We're actually stopping in VA to see some relatives on our way to MS, which is a nice break up point. We'll stay overnight Friday.  Then Saturday we'll finish our drive to MS. I'm not sure how long we'll be there, but after that, Dustin and I will take the car to CA and a friend of Dustin's will take our truck (thankyousomcuhFredcauseIdon'tthinkIcoulddriveouttoLAbymyself) out a few weeks later. So those are our plans! That should get us out to LA like middle of January, I think? 

Please pray for us! For traveling mercies. And also that we would just be prepared for the end of this week...for moving! 

I WILL learn....

SPANISH! I will learn Spanish.  

(PS. It took me like...5 minutes to remember how to sign in to my very own blog......cricket cricket...this blogging might take a while to get used to. NBD. Cause I obviously figured it out. :) 

But anyways. Yes, I'm going to learn Spanish! Now that I've said that like 5 times now, I'll explain.  

First off, DNI (The "mission board" we're going under) I think requires taking like a year of Spanish before you move to LA. I could be wrong, but that's just what I remember hearing/reading. So here we are like a month from moving, not knowing any Spanish. Except like gracias and de nada and espanol...I could so not get by with those words. 

Now here is an exciting part. My former boss, Kent Lapp, was super gracious by giving us his Rosetta Stone program! All I've heard about that program is great things...it's apparently the way to go when learning Spanish.  But me and Dustin have kind of lacked commitment to it yet (Don't worry, Kent. We'll use it. :). I'm guessing we'll start once we're actually out there.  

Now here is a sad story. The other day I was at the post office and there was a young Mexican (I guess?) guy in front of me.  He was just kind of mumbling something and the clerk said, "OH! You're waiting on a fax! Well, I don't have one. Nothing recently came through." Silence. Then more mumbling from the guy.  "Oh you want to fax something?".  More mumbling. Super broken English.  "I'm sorry, honey, I just can't understand you." Then she looks around the room and says, "Does anyone here know Spanish?" And you know what? No one did! He just turned around and left.  He looked kind of frustrated/defeated/embarrassed.  

CAN YOU IMAGINE HOW FRUSTRATING THAT WOULD BE?? 

I felt so bad for him! So that's when I reminded myself that I AM learning Spanish..someday...SOON. 

Keep us accountable, guys! 

Reasons for my blog and such..

Hi! So here I am...finally getting my blog started. Believe it or not, I am a procrastinator, not just a trend follower. :) Either way, I do have a main purpose for starting a blog. 

Wow.

Where do I start. Some (hopefully many) of you may know this story already. 

Dustin and I have always known we've wanted to get involved in missions.  He was up at NYP for a year of voluntary service, and I was up there for their six week summer camps (that's actually how we met), in addition to both of us doing other short term missions.  We both loved mission work! It's so fulfilling to us, and not at all that that should be your sole purpose in doing missions, but it just felt..complete or something.  I don't even know if I can fully explain it.  

Anyways so we've always know that even before we were married.  We figured we'd settle in somewhere for a year or two, then pursue some mission opportunities.  

We actually didn't really know where to start "looking"!  We both loved NYP, but at the time, there weren't very many positions open.  Dustin has had a fascination for the west since he was a kid, so that seemed like a starting place at least!  

This past summer we took a 2 or 3 week out west trip.  It was like..the funnest thing ever. :) We drove all. the. time. That part wasn't the funnest.  But we saw tons of beautiful mountainous scenes (In real life! Not just in pictures!), met old and new friends, toured a lot of different places, and checked out 2 or 3 missions (Secretly, that was our main purpose for the trip.).  

We came home and prayed about the opportunities we saw while out there, but one kept coming back.  I think secretly we knew which one we'd end up at.  We had felt so much peace there--Dustin personally and me personally.  That in itself was a breath of fresh air...a big go-ahead from God, it seemed.  So we started making plans.  

We are going to move to Los Angeles, California!  It honestly looks so big and scary right now.  I do know though that I am excited to see what God's going to do and what I'll learn there. 

When we decided on LA, it was amazing to see the doors opening up.  Dustin got a job lined up soon after that (he'll be working as an excavator or something similar to that).  The pastor there opened his home up to us while we look for an apartment or house to rent.  We got people lined up to help us make the drive out there.  God is so good. :) 

So yea, it'll be more like a "lifestyle" ministry if that makes sense.  We'll be helping out with church planting there, just trying to build relationships with anyone we meet.  I don't know for sure if I'll get a job or not..I think I'll play that one by ear.   

We'll be moving a few days after Christmas of this year.  We'll have Christmas here, drive both our vehicles down south for the MS Christmas, then from MS drive to California. 

I personally have so many mixed feelings about it.  It's hard to imagine actually living somewhere else.  It all seems so surreal.

Basically this blog post has two reasons.  I didn't feel like all my friends knew about it, and I wanted to take time to explain it to them.  Also, I want to keep up with it up until and after we're out there!

Please pray for us if you think about us! 

Thanks for taking the time to read my post. :) 

Gina