Show and Tell

We had a great weekend in California! We packed as many meetings into a 72 hour period as humanly possible. We came home exhausted and inspired to continue in the adventure God has laid before us in Durango. It was great to see so many friendly faces and catch up with good friends.

One of the highlights for me was meeting with a couple students from my Santa Cruz days (over ten years ago). We had lunch with Hillary and her mom and her new baby boy. About five years ago, I had the privelege of marrying Hill to her husband, Sonn. It has been an amazing thing to watch her grow up handling the joys and responsibilities of being a wife, a school teacher, and now a mother. I am so proud of how she has brought God's Kingdom into the world through the context of the life she's developed. It seems like just yesterday that I was trying to convince Hillary to go down a hill on an inner tube with way too many people stacked on it!

I also got to see a kid (now a man) named Dan. In high school, Dan's younger brothers used to show up to church with sharpie tattoos covering their arms. After high school, people weren't sure about the wisdom of Dan apprenticing at a tattoo shop. Today, there is a six month waiting list to get a tattoo from Dan. He's opened a shop with a couple other guys and is respected for his art as well as his faith in an industry that tends to pride itself in its distance from God. It was so amazing to sit with Dan and hear about his journey. Of course, I also took advantage of the opportunity to let Dan put some of his art on me. There is a wide spectrum of opinion on the issue of tattooing. I personally see it as a combination of art and expression of what matters most to a person. For me, it has been an opportunity to illustrate my love for Christ as well as his for me--in this case, I was able to add to that the experience of supporting a guy who I couldn't be more proud of and inspired by.

We also met with about sixty of the people who have been supporting us over the past year in Salinas. It was so exciting to show them what God has been doing in Durango. I think the benefit of the meeting was as much for us as anyone. It gave me fresh perspective on the beauty of God's mission for us here. It affirmed his call on our lives and this community and gave me a renewed energy to reach out to the people in Durango who have given up on church, but still burn with a need for God. Over all, the trip was a great success. It provides a fantastic transition to whatever it is that lies ahead for us.