Annalisa & Lindsay

So, I (Holly) have been wanting to do this post all school-year long, but now I am finally getting to it!

We have two adopted "daughters" the Lord has brought to us here in Isla Vista - Annalisa & Lindsay, two UCSB students who just finished their sophomore year...

Jason first met them and some other freshmen last school year (the '07-'08 year) through their involvement in Jesus Burgers. They went to Campus Crusade (Real Life) and somehow started coming to Jesus Burgers. Then we invited them and some other freshmen over for a bbq at our house, the rest seems to be history!

But seriously, it didn't take long for us to connect with both of them (they are roommates), and pretty soon we found that we were getting to play a role of being their adopted family while they were away from their biological family. It has been such a blessing getting to know these two girls and pour into them; they are so hungry for God and to grow in Him!

We love getting to speak into their lives, and they bless us so much too with their hunger for God and the ways they serve and bless our family -- they have done a lot of free babysitting for us and they also often pick things up for our family when they do their grocery shopping! What a blessing for mom!

It has been like having two younger sisters/two older daughters around for me, and they have become some of my closest friends this last year!

Annalisa is in Turkey over the summer on a mission trip with Campus Crusade, and we are already missing her so much. Thankfully Lindsay is here all summer, taking summer school and just hanging out!

Thank You Lord for blessings like these that you bring into our lives as we serve You in IV!

Hope & Daddy Time

Last week Hope and I went for a walk together...there are a few cool trails located on the outskirts of IV. For both Samuel and Hope their 1-on-1 time with dad is their favorite! They love mom so much, but when they just get dad alone they both think that it's the best!

Hope is so funny - in the last picture we came to this enclosed area, picture 3, and she told me, "we need to be quiet daddy because their are baby lions over there and they want to eat us." She kept putting her finger to her mouth and telling me what was about to happen if we did not keep quiet, as you can imagine great fear came upon me :-)

Rest

Sometimes in life, you don't realize how tired you are until you rest.

This last week I decided to try to fast people, you know, not meet with people. It kind of worked out, but not fully...that's okay, it was still a great week! I had more alone time Jesus, more time in the Word, more time with the wife, more time with the kids, and more time in general.

I felt God asking me last week to pull away from people this week, which is hard for me to do as we live in a city where our home at times feels like a revolving door of people coming in & out all the time.

I realized too this week that I still have a problem saying "no" to people, which sucks! I thought I was farther along on this issue of being free from pleasing people...again, resting has a way of revealing stuff that when we are busy it's hard to see.

Jesus had something to say about pleasing people (ie. seeking the glory of man) in John 5, "How can you believe, when you receive glory from one another and you do not seek the glory that is from the one and only God?" Ouch, man pleasing is a form of bondage, a hindrance to the glory of God, and extinguisher of our faith.

I discovered a little nugget in Scripture this week too...God worked 6 days and rested 1, which is really a blueprint for our lives; however, man was created on the 6th day, which means man's first day was a day of rest.

Life should flow out of rest!

Our 1st day on earth was a day of rest, not work. As believers, our rest is a Person, not a vacation to Hawaii...learning to live from rest, not striving, is something that brings God glory. I believe only when we come to the Giver of rest can we begin to experience the life He intended us to live that is free from a man pleasing & self-pleasing life.

You got to love the words of Jesus:

"Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and YOU WILL FIND REST FOR YOUR SOULS. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light."

DP House

The DP house (so called because of its location on Del Playa street) has in some ways served as the home base for IV church over the course of the last 7 years. Before we became a church family that consistently gathered together on Sundays in IV, we already had a home on the infamous party street known as Del Playa. For the city this house has become known as the “Jesus house,” mostly due to the Jesus Burgers being served there on Friday nights during the school year. Yesterday, when I was at the house, a group of people walked by and I heard one of the guys say to his buddy, “Hey bro, that is the Jesus house, those people rock!”

This next year is the greatest turnover of people we have had at one time in the home – 12 out of 14 people will being moving out & 12 new people will be moving in! This last weekend the gals who lived upstairs this last year all moved out, which marks the first time in 7 years that the house has been completely empty. Yesterday I went by with Hope & Barnabas (our dog) and snapped some pictures on my phone…Derrin put Hope to work, while Barns surveyed the place.

"Backyard Fun" aka FIELD SALE

So, for a good chunk of the month of June, we get to enjoy the entertainment of Mitchell Greene's Field Sale...right in the backyard! Well, to be technical, it all happens beside and behind our yard in our neighbor's/landlords yard, but it is very much all around us. Fortunately, me (Holly) and the family love Mitchell and all of his stuff he collects and then sells, it is quite entertaining for us all!

It is really amazing how much stuff he is able to gather simply from collecting stuff off the side of the road! Check out these pictures...

I have been able to almost completely refurnish our house with new-used dressers, shelves, coffee table, etc. in exchange for my old furniture I don't want and helping him out by being the cashier and assistant!

Our Fun Summer Location!

For the summer, our Sunday services are going to be at a park in IV... today was the first one and it was great! It is a cool park right on the cliffs overlooking the ocean. There is a sand volleyball court, lots of beautiful green grass, and tables and benches there. We hung out and a bunch of people played volleyball for about the first hour today, then we gathered together and sang some songs, then Jason shared his brief message about Father God. Then we barbecued some hamburgers and had a nice dinner together! It was great fun! The kids really loved getting to be there and play with everyone.

One of the crazy things about today was that at the park there was one other group of people there with us, and they happened to be a bunch of the people who work at the Isla Vista Food Co-op! That was so crazy to me because that is one of the main places I shop for food now, and I have been getting to know (or at least recognize) a lot of the people that work there. God has given me a huge heart to see that place and the people come to know Jesus! So, I was really excited to see the Lord continue to confirm that He desires to work in those people's lives! They're beautiful people :-) Holly

Father's Day

"How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!" (1 John 3:1)

God is the Father of fathers...I am grateful for the love of our Father who is in heaven. First and foremost today is truly a celebration of Him. At church I talked about the importance of knowing God as Father, since a father gives identity, security, and provision to his children.

Overall, today was amazing! I am thankful to have a Godly father in the natural and a family that loves Jesus. My parents, auntie Melissa & Michelle, and uncle Dan & Erik visited us in IV today. We ended up going to a park in town and having lunch together, it was simple and lots of fun!

The stillness before the storm...

It is that time of year, beginning today till the end of the month…couches, desks, bookshelves, lamps, tvs, clothes, toasters, and much much more gets tossed onto the curb in IV. Every year, for who knows how long, students have to move out and do not have room to take their stuff home - most of which they did not buy with their own money…so what they end up doing is dragging it all to the curb allowing whoever to come and take it for free. My good buddy Mitchell has made a killing to say the least on picking up this stuff and reselling it to the students in the city a few weeks later. I love Mitch, but the sale is in my backyard, so for the next three weeks it is on, hence the stillness before the storm! The first two times he did it he used this massive lot next to Shiloh, the house we lived at with twenty plus people. Last year he worked out a deal with my neighbor using his backyard, which is the same place my office/shed is located…anyway, it’s a crazy extravaganza always making for a deeper dependence on the Prince of Peace and some funny stories afterward. I am wondering if we ever move to a different place in IV if Mitchell will follow us there???

Final “Jesus Burgers” of the 08-09 school year

Our final “Jesus Burgers” of the 08-09 school year was this last Friday…the family and I were down in San Diego getting ready for my little sister's wedding on Saturday morning at 10am. I officiated the ceremony and Holly helped with a lot of stuff the day of the wedding, as well as being a bridesmaid. All of the kids were in the wedding too, so it was a whole family affair!

The fruit of Jesus Burgers this year was amazing! God did some incredible things with many different lives – we are grateful to see this ministry gaining momentum and influence in this city over the last 7 years.

Our beautiful sister in Christ, Alexa, took these pictures for the ivsod.com website that is near completion.