Rice Field

This weekend we’re hosting a 4 day Road Trip to San Diego. Probably not the kind of Road Trip you’re thinking of…..

Throughout the year, each NieuCommunities site (South Africa, Vancouver and San Diego) hosts what we call “Beyond Borders Road Trips,” made up of about 5-10 people who come visit us from 4 days to 2 weeks.

Here’s a little description that I helped articulate as we describe for people what a Beyond Borders Road Trip is all about.

On a missions trip you go to help people.
On a road trip you come to be with people.

On a missions trip you go to accomplish something.
On a road trip you come to be transformed.

This weekend we have 6 people joining us for a Road Trip. We’ll learn the history of San Diego and we’ll share our life stories with each other. We’ll spend a day and a night in Ensanada, Mexico serving in a homeless shelter for women and children. We’ll worship God as a community of people, exploring what it means to join His heart of reconciliation for this broken world.

Will you pray for us? Derek will be leading daily times of worship and spiritual formation. Christiana will be leading a discussion on what it means for God’s Kingdom to come and His will to be done on earth as it is in heaven.

The appraiser came on Saturday at 1:50pm. I guess I pictured an appraiser as a professional business person, dressed nice, clip board in hand, leave their business card type deal.

Our appraiser was quite the contrary.

We answered the door and in walks a couple of middle age, middle class guys in scruffy T-shirts, shorts and flip flops. Maybe they were on their way to their kid’s little league games.

One was the appraiser and the other was his friend in training. The friend saw Derek’s keyboard and a cross on the wall (I’m assuming) and said, “hey, who plays the keys?”

Derek said it was him and the trainee immediately responded, “do you play in church or something?”

“uh, yes, I do,” Derek said.

“He does too!” The appraiser called out as he measured the floor space in our kitchen.

This began a somewhat humorous conversation about playing music in church. Both the guys were Christians.

The long awaited appraisal process (is that what you call it?) took about 15 quick, very casual minutes. They asked Derek if we’d done any upgrades and they wouldn’t take the comps we had printed out to show them the comparable properties that have sold or are on the market in our condo complex. I guess its against policy to accept comps from the seller??

Was it God’s favor that we got a Christian appraiser? Does that really make any difference? I’m not sure but, needless to say, it was a different experience than we had anticipated.

Glad its over and now we just have to wait for the bank to tell us what our property is worth. Hope it doesn’t take another 2 months! (Its estimated to take about 10 days. I’m not quoting you, Uncle Jim!)

by Christiana

We’ve been waiting for over 2 months for our bank to send out an appraiser to appraise the value of our home. Finally today we got a call setting up an appointment for the appraiser to come tomorrow at 2:00pm!

We’re in the midst of trying to short-sell our condo (like a foreclosure). We cannot afford to keep our condo as we move to San Diego.

For us, selling this condo is more than just a real estate situation in the midst of our world’s current economic struggle. For us, this is an experience faith and hope, testing our integrity and patience and perseverance.

We thought we’d be in San Diego by the end of January. Now we’re nearing the end of March and we’re still here in LA, just barely seeing movement forward in the short-sale process.

The whole thing is very complex. Our circumstances don’t seem to be as desperate as others who have stopped making their mortgage payments, who’ve shown empty bank accounts and who’ve written elaborate grievance letters that may or may not be fully true. If the bank decides that we’re not desperate enough, they may try to take any money we do have in our bank or make us pay a $50,000 note (a number that was quoted to us as an estimate) because they think we can afford it. We certainly cannot afford it. At that point we’d have to walk down an alternative path.

Renegotiating the loan may be an alternative path but its hard to know what we would qualify for because of our significantly decreased family income.

God is a God of order. He says, every step of a righteous person is ordered by Him. So, as we seek to do what is right, we trust that God will bring order to these complexities.

Will you pray with us?

by Derek and Christiana

Naomi was born on March 14, 2008. Of course we’ll never forget the day she was born but I don’t think we’ll ever forget her first birthday party either.

Though we had hoped for a typical Southern California sunny day, our party started off cold and cloudy! Naomi was wearing a dress and tights which was not nearly warm enough. Good thing Grama Toni Lynn is always prepared with a costume for every occasion! Grama had a warm flower costume for Naomi that she wore the whole day (except while she ate her Birthday cake).

Our family and dear friends were all there to celebrate the first year of our little girl’s life. Each person brought a potted plant or flower to share, symbolizing life and growth. The flowers were so beautiful and Naomi fit right in as we sat her on the flower table in her flower costume.

Most people stayed for a couple hours but some of us stayed at the park ’till 7:00pm! That means we were there for 8 hours! We played basketball, soccer, croquet, kick ball and more. And we sat in our camping chairs, wrapped up in blankets and talked. The whole day was a refreshing expression of love and celebration and enjoying the simplicity of spending the day at a park. Literally the whole day!

by Christiana

Wednesday was Naomi’s pre-birthday party. She and her friend, Finley, who is 3 days younger than her celebrated together at Memorial Park in Claremont. We had party hats and cupcakes and took lots of pictures!

Every Wednesday Naomi and I go hang out in the park with five Moms and their little ones. We’re all first time moms so we share the joys and struggles of learning to me mothers.

Oh, and Naomi is the only girl!

It all started about 9 months ago when I was on a walk in Claremont. I saw some mom’s with their newborns in baby carriers. I struck up a conversation and from then on we’ve been meeting weekly!

Sometimes being an extrovert has its perks!

These women are fascinating. We’ve got a Pediatrician, a University English Professor from London, an Acupuncturist, a Peace Core worker, a Yamaha Race Car Employee/substitute teacher and….. me.

We all come from different backgrounds and faiths and yet we’ve found a beautiful common friendship around our children. I believe God brought us together and I’m deeply grateful for these women in my life.

The only catch is I didn’t think I’d have to talk to Naomi about boys this early!

Almost every weekend we drive down to San Diego to be with our NieuCommunities family. This past weekend, our NC team of  8 adults and 8 kids took a retreat together in the small town of Provenir, in a beautifula valley east of Ensenada, Mexico. Some friends of ours graciously gave us their home to stay in and connected us with a young woman in the neighborhood to help care for our children. 

Its amazing to be an hour and a half south of San Diego and find yourself in a whole new world! 

As soon as you cross the border, you suddenly see evidence of Mexico’s rich culture and uniqueness. The pace of life is slower, you can’t drink the water, there seems to be less commercialization and the culture is community oriented with children running through parks and unkept yards and neighbors sitting on their porches watching kids play and chatting with store owners.

With Naomi strapped to my back, I walked down the dusty road behind the house where we stayed. I breathed in the magnificent beauty of Porvenir; animals roaming through the streets, wild flowers, unfamiliar sounds and smells of another culture, beautiful scenic mountains and fields, bright colors of Spring and Mexican artistic expression….

There was a simplicity to the little town we stayed in. It certainly wasn’t what you’d normally picture as a retreat spot.

We ate local street tacos, played games, spent time listening to God and worshipping Him through music together, shared our life timelines with one another and just enjoyed each other’s presence. 

Before we drove back to San Diego, we stood outside in the grass, all 16 of us holding hands, and prayed together, thanking God for blessing us with this retreat weekend, offering ourselves collectively to Him, and asking the Spirit to unify us as family and help us to love each other well. 

Our expression of love for each other is an expression of Christ to the world He loves. 

As we approached the border to re-enter the United States, I realized my passport had expired in Nov., 2008! Since having Naomi, we haven’t traveled internationally so I didn’t think to check! There was nothing we could do at that point so we handed my passport to the guard with no explanation, of course. We all made it through and the guard either missed the expiration date or gave me a break! 

I’m grateful either way.

by Chistiana