We are currently on the road, coming home from a 4 day trip to San Diego. To say we love San Diego is a complete understatement. Personally, I could live there, but as much as John loves it, he prefers just to visit. We stayed at a “luxury” RV park in Mission Bay. There is nothing like full hook-ups and being right on the water! We did lots of bike riding (well, John only did a little since his knee isn’t 100% yet) and relaxing. The girls are on “contract” with school this week, so they did “school” each day.The highlight of the trip for me was joining our friends, Derek and Christiana, in their ministry in San Diego. They are friends of ours that are missionaries in San Diego that minister to the homeless, broken and marginalized people in the community along with training other leaders in missions. We have been big supporters of them since they first answered God’s call for them to go. I helped a lot as they organized, raised support and transitioned into full time missions. We support them both prayerfully and financially and are so honored to be a part of their lives. They have 2 adorable daughters, a 2-year-old and a 2-month-old. I joined them Sunday evening for church, which they do in someone’s home with other people from their missions team. We enjoyed a delicious meal of
soup, salad, homemade bread and pies. After the meal, we gathered around the living room as Derek lead us in worship with his guitar while others helped with percussion. No words can describe how uplifting it was to listen to Derek do what he does best. He is so talented! I always tell them that I’m their biggest fan (Christiana has a beautiful voice too!). In fact, they released a great CD a couple of years ago titled “We’ve Got the Victory.” (Please let me know if you would like a copy.) Back to the story, we also talked a lot about prayer and its importance and what it means to us. It was a great honor for me to join them and share in just a small part of what they’re doing in San Diego. Then on Tuesday, my entire family got to have lunch with their family at my favorite pizza place, Filippe’s Pizza Grotto, in Little Italy. It was a great time of fellowship, laughter and the best pizza ever, in my opinion.As always, the trip went way too fast! Now we’re headed back to reality with more laundry to do and housework to catch up on, but at least we’re relaxed as we reenter the “real world.”
Last week marked 50 years of marriage for my in-laws, Jean and Roger. Fifty years of marriage certainly deserved a great celebration (especially since their marriage was able to survive 4 children, 4 rambunctious children I might add). Jean and Roger were introduced to each other in November 1959 by their close friends Paul and Carol. At the time, Jean was living a carefree life with some girlfriends on Coronado Island, working at a bank in the morning and hitting the beach, just a block from her house, in the afternoon. Roger was a young engineer working in San Diego. They were married March 25, 1960 attended by their best friends Paul and Carol. 
