A New Start

The air was clear on our drive through the northern Los Angeles area yesterday. Rains the previous day had blown out much of the notorious smog, drawing the skyline into stark contrast with the brilliant blue sky and the rugged green mountains. It was the greenest I had ever seen Los Angeles. The greenest I had ever seen the area leading out of Los Angeles on Interstate 10 towards Palm Springs.

Eventually, the green died. The desert took over once again with more subdued and respectable tones of brown and more brown. The windmills were clicking away outside of Palm Springs. Almost every one of them was on - something I haven't seen too often on my various journeys through that rugged region.

My wife and I were driving East, leaving our home of the last two and a half years - Camarillo, California. Nestled in Ventura County's hills about ten miles or less from the coast, we enjoyed our time in that peaceful little community greatly. But change was afoot. My last day as pastor of a small congregation in the midst of upheaval was Sunday, February 28, 2010. It had been my first Call. Now I waited for a new one.

Without an income, staying in Camarillo - or most anywhere in California for that matter! - was not really an option. Rather than camp out in the living room of family for an undetermined number of months, my wife and I decided to launch our family of five on a cross-country tour of indeterminate length and distance. We don't know where all we'll go, or how long we'll be gone. We trust that God will provide the details as we go along.

But yesterday, the first part of the adventure was to lead my last worship service in Camarillo and drive east with my wife to Phoenix, AZ. There, in the city we had called home for years before uprooting to the midwest for Seminary and then the coast for vicarage and ordination, we would reunite with our three children who had been whisked there earlier in the week by my wife's parents.

We'll spend the next two weeks getting our bearings. Figuring out how best to pack our 2004 Toyota Sienna mini-van and roof-top carrier. Then we begin driving east, with tentative stops in Albuquerque, OKC, St. Louis, Indianapolis, and then...who knows?

This blog will give us a chance to share our thoughts, our experiences, pictures, and provide ourselves and our friends and family with the opportunity to travel along with us, if only virtually. Trust me - you wouldn't all want to be crammed into the mini-van, despite my near-legendary packing skills. So just login and enjoy from the comfort of home. Your prayers will reach us wherever we happen to be staying - and know that our prayers are surrounding you as well.