A Lenten Message from the Pastor

Brian doesn't get a chance to blog much (or ever) because he is generally pretty busy writing and rewriting other important things, like sermons, and newsletter articles. I thought you all would be interested in hearing from him for a change, so here is a Lenten message from Pastor Brian. It is copied from the upcoming April Newsletter at church.  Enjoy!

April Newsletter Article
Our Journey with Christ

On March 9th, Ash Wednesday, we began a journey to remember Christ’s road to the cross. On that day, we were reminded of our sinful nature. Without the mercy of Christ, we are no more than dust. We neglect God’s love, and we even push this love away. However, by an act of sheer mercy and love, our God came to us anyway, but it is amazing how quickly we can forget the significance of this.
We are all so busy with work, school, and countless other activities, and sometimes taking extra time everyday to focus on what God has done can feel like a burden. We are in the middle of our Lenten Journey, and these 40 days can become long. As we stay so focused on the sins that are imprisoning us, we can become tired. We can be worn out by our constant failure to follow God’s path. In these dark moments, we long for the celebration of Easter. I have heard people say that we should remove a few weeks from Lent and just tack them on to the Advent season. Doesn’t that sound better, celebrating the gifts of God, rather than mourning over our inadequacies?
If only life were that simple. The truth is that this life will always be difficult. Lent is a time to focus on where our sins have led us. Who are the people we have hurt? Who are the people we have forgotten? We live in a world that often tries to cover up pain through celebration, but that is a deception. We can tell ourselves that we deserve all the blessings we have. We can tell ourselves it’s okay to ignore people who are less fortunate. Our sins can be pushed aside as we find something else to celebrate and cheer us up.
However, Lent does not let us escape these sins. Jesus did not come into the world to tell us not to worry about our sins. On the contrary, he said our sins would destroy us, but Jesus does not leave us there. Christ went to the cross to free us from the death brought by sin. So as we look forward, we have to take a good honest look at where we have fallen short. I would also like to encourage you not to take the easy way out. We all need to take a look at where we stand, and we need to come to some honest conclusions about how we live with others. We walk on a difficult path, but Jesus walks with us, and it is important to remember that at the end of the journey Christ will bring us life. Have faith in that!

May the strength of God be with you this season!


Pastor Brian

We had a visitor!

Last weekend we had a wonderful time with my sister Jenna who came to town to visit us!  She was in need of a vacation, and in February, who wouldn't want to come to Southern California?  The weather here is perfect.  In fact, I was talking to some kids at work the other day about Spring, and they asked if it was Spring or Fall right now.  That is not something a kid from Colorado or Minnesota would ever be confused about. Of course out here the kids have no idea what season it is, because it is basically Spring all the time!

While Jenna was here we got a chance to explore more areas that we haven't seen yet.  The first day she was here we went out to Laguna Beach.  There was an art show on the side walk near the beach, and the weather was just perfect to be out walking along the beach.  Laguna is known for its tide pools, that usually have some fun creatures to see.  We all enjoyed exploring the tide pools and seeing the sea anemone, mussels, little shell crabs, and some sea stars (star fish)! 

Then we went back to China Town and Olvera Street, since we liked it so much the first time, and we knew Jenna would love it!  We ate amazing taquitos and enchiladas at a tiny restaurant in the market area, and tried some homemade Mexican candy (candied sweet potato, and a pecan flavored candy). We also went over to Little Tokyo while we were in downtown LA, since we hadn't seen that yet. It was a great day exploring the ethnic neighborhoods.

Jenna and I relaxed the following day.  We went to see the Kings Speech at the movie theater, and went to the mall.  Then we got dressed up for an evening out at a fancy dinner. We chose the Beachcomber for our restaurant; a small beach side restaurant, which is a bit obscure, though well known.  What a great choice! I wish I could adequately describe the place to you all, but it is hard to capture the ambiance. We went for a late dinner, so there were only a few tables full of people, lit by little lanterns. They give you blankets on the chairs to keep warm from the beach side breeze, since the restaurant is outside on a porch. The food was absolutely delicious too!  Jenna had sea food potpie, and I had truffle mushroom mac and cheese (the fanciest and best tasting mac and cheese I have ever had!).  Then we split a big tropical cocktail, and beignets with chocolate sauce and ice cream for dessert. The dessert was so decadent and delicious, and we both just fell in love with the restaurant!  So good!    

Thanks for visiting me Jenna! It was such a fun time.

Catching Up: Some Hiking

We are always looking for new hiking trails and places to explore around Orange County. So a few weeks ago we were trying to get to a trail in Chino Hills, but it had just rained and the park we were headed to was closed so that the trails didn't erode with all the extra mud.  We were very disappointed, because we were excited about the hike we had planned. So we drove to the other side of the same park, and there was a county park right next to it called Carbon Canyon Park.  It was still open despite the rains, and even though it doesn't have as many trails and hills to hike, we went there to get a little exploring in.  Brian had previously been there, and knew that there was a patch of Redwoods in the back of the park, so we hiked a mile or so to the Redwoods area.  It was a fun park to explore, and would be a good place to take a family picnic if people came to visit, or if there was a church event.

Just yesterday we were exploring our area again.  There is a nature preserve just a mile or so from our apartment that we have passed several times.  We decided to go see what it was all about after getting some other errands done yesterday.  The area is called Robert E. Ward Nature Preserve, and we always joke that it's our relative Bobby Ward's place :)  The area was really cool, but we were a little disappointed at the lack of accessible trails.  I guess because it's a nature preserve, they don't want people wandering around it too much. Most of the area was fenced off and we could only walk on trails along side it, next to the neighborhoods and houses.  I think it might be a part of what is called Coyote Hills, which is in debate around town because the city wants to sell it for housing developments.  There are lots of signs to "Save Coyote Hills," but we don't know exactly where the area is. Bobby's nature preserve was filled with cacti; rolling hill after rolling hill of cactus growing all over!  And lots of birds wild life.  It was kind of neat to see. 

If you look closely you can see the snowy mountains in the distance.

There were also some flowers that were blooming.  A side story here:  The first year Brian and I were dating he went to Guatemala on a trip with the seminary.  I thought it was a little out of character for him when I saw he had taken lots of pictures of the flowers in Guatemala.  He said they were for his mom, and sure enough, Annette loves pictures of flowers and seeing different species of flowers from all over.  So now I am in the habit of snapping shots of flowers when I see them to share with her. So these are for you Annette!  I especially think it is fun to have pictures of flowers blooming in the middle of winter!  How crazy, huh? 

Catching Up: China Town

Loriann and me in a Chinese candy store

You know how Brian and I love our Mondays off together.  It's a totally relaxing time, when we have very little to worry about, and a whole day in which to do something adventurous.  Well last week on Monday we had plans to meet up with Loriann, who was a student teacher with my mom last Fall.  Loriann recently got married and moved to Santa Monica last month with her husband for his job. It was great to meet up with Loriann and share stories, since we were just in the same place as them, getting married and moving to L.A. shortly after.  And it's always good to have a connection to someone when you move to a new city.  Loriann had lots of nice things to say about my mom, who she greatly enjoyed working with for her student teaching experience!  And we enjoyed our time getting to know Loriann, and we are excited to meet her husband Kyle and hang out with them more in the future!

We thought it would be fun to see something new, since we had an excuse to get out of our area to meet Loriann.  Downtown Los Angeles is kind of in the middle of Santa Monica and La Habra, so we decided it would be great to explore the city!  There is an "ethnic neighborhood" area in L.A. that we have heard about, with a China Town, Mexican Mercado area, and Little Tokyo.  So we met up in China Town, grabbed some delicious Chinese food for lunch, then explored the area a bit.  We made it to Olvera Street, which is the Mexican Street, with food stands, Mexican goods, and a plaza with musicians playing.  The whole area is so fun to explore!  We will definitely make it back there.

Of course it wouldn't be a Monday if we didn't get a good workout in. We had thought about taking the metro train into Downtown L.A. to make it fun and adventurous, but then of course we decided to bike it!  It was a great decision.  The round trip was just under 50 miles, which we have done a couple times before, so the biking was a challenge, but we knew we could do it!  And the neighborhoods were so fun to see on the way. We went through East L.A., and saw so much more of the city than we ever would have if we had taken the Interstate or the train.  I recommend to everyone to explore their own city on a bike!  It is great!

Brian brought a change of clothes, so he made me look silly in my biking gear

Catching Up: Vegas Trip

I have not been good at keeping up the blog posts this last month. I'm sorry to our parents especially, as I know you look forward to seeing pictures and hearing stories about all that we do out here in California.  So I am spending some time today to catch up on the last month's activities, in several blog posts with pictures.  Enjoy reading, and maybe as you see all the sunshine it will make you want to come visit us!

At the beginning of February I got the wonderful opportunity to join my good friends Lauren and Jacob in Las Vegas with some of their friends and families to celebrate their upcoming March wedding.  They had a combined bachelor/bachelorette party in Las Vegas, and invited me to join them in the weekend celebration.  It was so much fun to catch up with Lauren and Jacob, and my good friend Sarah Butler, who flew in from New York City for the occasion. It was also great to meet Lauren's other friends and family.  One night we were sitting at dinner and I looked around the table and thought that I would have a great time sitting next to anyone there, they were all such fun people. Which is such a testament to who Lauren is. She is a fun, energetic, encouraging person, who has such wonderful friends and family.

During the weekend, we got to see a show at the Treasure Island Hotel (which is also where we stayed) called Mystere. The show was a cirque du solei performance, and it was awesome!  It was the second show in Vegas I have seen, and I loved it.  The Cirque shows are so amazing, I recommend to everyone to see one someday.  We also rode in a limo around the Strip one night, explored a lot of the hotels and malls, and ate at a couple fun restaurants. As many of you know, I was born in Las Vegas, but I have never stayed in a hotel on The Strip, and hung out for a while as a tourist. So that was fun to experience that part of it, even though it was the people I was there with that made the trip exciting. It was such a great weekend to hang out with friends, and celebrate Lauren and Jacob, who will be married this month!  Congrats you two. Thanks for the fun weekend!