The Journey

Our drive south to the Calvary Chapel Bible College was a great blessing for us. We planned ahead to leave the day after Mailey's 2nd birthday party and took 8 days to get down to Murrieta, California where we will be staying til mid-July. Our close friend, Jessica, made the trek down to northern California with us, caravan style, since she has family there and our trips worked out at the same time. We all stayed the first night in Eugene, Oregon, then on to our friends' house in Redding, California where we love to go and stay as a family. We left Jessica there and she went on to see her family. We stayed for four days in Redding, swam in the pool, relaxed a little, and then drove south to Monterey, California and enjoyed the great blessing of the ipad for the kids, since we got stuck in traffic and they got to watch cartoons in the backseat! We visited "the carnival" in Santa Cruz then hung out in the adorable town of San Luis Obispo for an afternoon. We made it to Ventura for Sunday morning worship at Reality Ventura, Britt Merick's church. He wasn't there, but we were so encouraged by the message from the Reality pastor from San Fransisco. The worship was also a great blessing to us! We had one last night in Laguna Hills before finally arriving at the Bible College Campus in Murrieta.


For those of you unfamiliar with Calvary Chapel Bible College, let me tell you a little bit about it. :) Calvary Costa Mesa purchased the Murrieta Hot Springs Resort several years back and converted it into a combination conference center/Bible College for students. The whole campus is basically still set up as a resort environment with gardens, hot springs, swimming pool, prayer chapels and hidden places for quiet study, prayer, and conversation. There is also a small man-made lake with ducks, and a "beach" front where our kids love to play with their shovels and buckets. We are very spoiled in the beautiful environment where there are about 15 guys doing the "Fit for the Field" church planting program. Five of these guys are married and have their wives and kids here with them--more on that later. :)


We arrived here at the Bible College on Monday, June 13th and met the group that we will be basically living with till we finish up here in July. We had a family BBQ and pool party and met Pastor Kevin Fitzgerald and his wife Amanda from Ireland who are leading the course. We had a little bit of time to visit, then settled into our room.


We are living in a dorm facility with our kids in the same area as the other families. Jeremiah and May are in twin beds, and Daniel and I are sleeping in two twins pushed together in the middle of the room. Hey, it works! We have our own bathroom with a shower only, so our kids have taken to bathing outside in a plastic tub. Again, whatever works!


So, we got settled, and classes have begun, and the journey down was completely covered in prayer. We are so thankful to have made it safely with relatively few bumps along the way! God is so good!