Is California really that big?

The answer is YES!  Wow, we arrived in California on Saturday, June 16 and left this morning.  We have seen so much of the state from the mountains in the west, through the desert (I think 2 or 3 of them) to the beautiful coastline and the wine country of the Sonoma Valley we have experienced California.  God has created an area with so much diversity and beauty that with as much as California has to offer in terms of the kinds of fruits, vegetables and nuts they grow, I can't even begin to image what the Garden of Eden must have been like!

My brother Todd lives in Visalia, CA on the edge of what I think is the Mohave Desert.   The valley that he lives in was once a seabed and has some of the most fertile farm land in the entire country.  Thousands acres of trees that grow oranges, lemons, plums, pluots, apricots, almonds, walnuts, pomegranite, pistachios and so much more.  Grapevines for raisins, wine and fruit.  Fields planted with every vegetable you can think of.  We came across truckload upon truck load of garlic and onions! And yes, you could smell them for what seemed like miles!  And then there are the dairy ranches.  Thousands of head of cattle that produce the milk for our tables...and yes this coming from a Wisconsin girl!  I never knew that California produced so much of our country's food supplies and for that matter the world's food supply.  As we drove past all of this food you can only wonder why there are so many people on earth do not get enough to eat every day.  Todd and Cheryl were great hosts and we were treated to the best of the best that California has to offer.

Rob has already told you about Sequoia National Park. Well since then we gone to the coastline near Pismo Beach, the sprawling San Francisco Bay area including Fisherman's Wharf, crooked Lombard Street and Ghiradelli Square where we ate FREE chocolate!  We also got up into the wine country of the Sonoma Valley to see my high school friend, Ann.   Here we saw grapevines for as far as we could see!  That's a lot of wine!  Beautiful hills with gorgeous wineries and estates surrounded us.

Then on to drop Brad of at Stanford University.  What a gorgeous campus but HUGE!  There are 570 high school students in this summer program representing 35 countries and 37 US states.  During the regular school year the campus has 7000 undergraduate students and over 8000 graduate students.  Just a little bigger school than Brad's high school!  I think the campus itself is bigger than the entire city of Elk River!  We pray that he can stay grounded in his faith and that he can find a campus ministry to get involved in.

Then a long ride to Los Angeles and a great breakfast this morning with my Aunt Sheila and brother Todd.  We literally went from top to the bottom of the state in 15 hours with a 5 hour stop at Stanford!

So YES, California is that big!  But God has been faithful throughout our time in California.  We reconnected with friends and family that we haven't seen in many years and we saw some of the most beautiful things that God has created.  If He has blown us away on the first week and a half of this trip....

We can't wait to see what the rest of the country has for us!

God Bless!

Jackie

As I did my devotions Thursday morning, it was talking about the things we might do to show our love for God. One of those ways was our baptism and how God responded in love to Jesus baptism. Though we may not hear an audible voice, God surrounds us with signs of His love for us. This has been so true as we traveled out to California. From the farmland of Iowa and Nebraska to the mountains in Colorado with the long horn sheep along side the road we saw these signs. 

From the deserts of Utah and Nevada to the canyons of Arizona that love was evident and then we saw the view in the picture above and we saw the beauty that came from destruction. The Grand Canyon was created by a series of earthquakes and the raging Colorado River.  Viewing the immense canyon that was started from an earthquake, you begin to wonder what we our really going to be seeing as we get closer to the end of times when Jesus says these things will get worst like birthing pains. 

 

 In Sequoia National Park in California you walk up to these magnificent trees and think, WOW. Some of trees were alive when Jesus walked on this earth. Oh how it makes you feel to stand next to something that old. Some of these may have even been one of the first things that started to grow after the flood of Noah. Some may be over 4,000 years old. Can you imagine? These groves of trees also take destruction to continue to multiply. The forest fires are essential to their seedlings as it cleans the forest floor and fertilizes the seeds with the ashes. The fire also breaks open the pine cone shells so they can germinate. As I think about our new up coming ministry the destruction we will see may be essential for newfound Christians. The floor must be cleaned and the hard shells must be broken open for us to reach hearts with the Gospel. As we look with terror as these things happen, Jesus is looking on it with joy and beauty as new Christians are formed.   Please take a look around you today and see how God is showing his love to you. Pray that we can do this everyday even in the little things. We must look at it through Gods eyes.

Today was a day of driving and looking at what God created and wondering.... Wondering how anyone could ever believe that God does not exist.

Looking at the plains and forests of Nebraska was beautiful.  You may say...are you the only one that thinks Nebraska is beautiful?  Do they have more than cattle and corn?  Yep!  Trees, rolling hills, and turkeys.  Those are just a few of what we saw in Nebraska today.

But...the realization that God created this beauty came in when we were in Colorado and all of a sudden you look up and see the mountains.  The majestic peaks made me think of God and how much He must love us to make such a beautiful sight.  It was put there for our pleasure!  God even thought of that!  Making sure we had this backdrop to live our lives in.  Snowcapped mountains, rock formations, and long horn sheep (yes 6 feeding alongside of the road in the mountains) bring out such a sense of gratitude for our Lord and King!

Tomorrow we drive to St. George Utah where we will stay with a high school friend of mine.  So looking forward to catching up with her and sharing what God has done for us and through us over the years.  God is good all the time and I can't wait to see His goodness each and every day.

Blessings to you!
Jackie

A whirlwind week!

It's Monday morning of the week we will be leaving for our "Around the USA in 46 days" trip and trying to get our blog updated, our newsletters out, our packing done and our house cleaned and my list just keeps getting longer and longer.  We plan to leave at 3 AM on Wednesday in hopes of making it to Denver by that evening!

We will then go on to see a High School friend of mine in St. George, Utah.  Excited to see Jane and catch up with her.  She will see us off on Friday morning for our trip to the Grand Canyon to see how God carved out one of the most beautiful places in the world.  I am really looking forward to sitting on the edge and spending some time with God.  Clearing my mind and asking for His wisdom and strength for this journey.

What's news?

It's been a while since we have posted here so I thought I'd catch you all up a bit!

What a month it's been!  We started off May in Phoenix, AZ at a workshop called "Sharpening Your Interpersonal Skills".  Now you say...what's that all about?  Well let me tell ya, it's all about finding out how God wired you, how you respond to others and then how you SHOULD respond to others. 

I think we all know that how we do respond and how we should respond are two different things!  The bible tells us this in Col. 3:12-14  "Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.  Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.  And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity." This is what I found out...that the key to all of this is "Bear with each other".  Not everyone has my opinion of things and not everyone should have my opinion of things.  Hmmm...novel concept huh?  How about this...Treat others the way THEY want to be treated instead of the old axiom of "treat others the way YOU want to be treated". You'd think it never occurred to me that maybe not everyone was wired the same as me! And the way I figure out how they want to be treated is by listening to them.  What I found out is it's as "simple" as listening!  It's hard to listen when I am always talking so being quiet and listening is key to me.  


This also translates into my spiritual life.  If I am always busy talking to God or "doing things for God" how am I going to listen to what He has to say?  "Be still and know that I am God" is in the bible for a reason.  "Do not be anxious about anything" is also in there for a reason which brings me to the other part that God taught me during the workshop.  Creating and keeping "margin" in my life in order to have the time to listen to God and to others is the key to the peace and joy that God wants all of us to have.  I made a list of all the things that I thought brought stress into my life.  My list filled a whole page!  Then we were asked to cross of the things on the list that were other people's things and the things that I was stressing over that weren't really stressors and my list went down to 4 things!  Seriously, 4 things!  That was the most freeing thing about the entire workshop for me.  


Now I have learned to Bear With Each Other, to create and maintain margin and the way to do that is to eliminate the stress that I bring upon myself.  With that said, I still need LOTS of work in these areas but with God's help and your prayers this will become my way of life vs the way others live their lives.


What else is going on?  Well......WE'VE BEEN ACCEPTED!  We are officially commissioned Missionaries with ReachGlobal the missions agency of the EFCA.  We go to orientation next Friday and then leave on a 7 week trip around the country building our Ministry Partnership Team.  I have taken a leave of absence from my job from June 8 through August 6.  That alone relieved  a lot of my stress.  If you would like us to visit you or would like to join our Ministry Partnership Team, please contact us at jackie.passer@efca.org or rob.passer@efca.org and we can sit down with you and tell you about God's call on our lives and how that all came to be.


Pray for us over the next two months.  We will be updating the blog from the road and may have to change the name of our blog to the "Wandering Vagabonds"!  


Be blessed and be a blessing,

Jackie