Is it really October?
So I’ll be the first to admit, keeping up on blogging is impossible, do you agree? We got our kids to school and we picked them up again; none of them are hungry; we’re grateful for that and feel like we’ve accomplished something!!
We had a great summer, but it already feels like so long ago, we’ve been staying pretty busy. During the summer, we got a chance to run up to Grant’s Pass in Oregon and have an evening of worship with U-Turn for Christ up there. From there we headed up the 5 to Calvary Chapel Marysville, made lots of new friends, and got to worship with some of our Washington family. (I’m so grateful for Pastor Joel and Pastor Tyson and the other pastors who have opened their doors for us and allowed us to serve alongside them.) When we got back from the Pacific Northwest, we had a full summer in SoCal teaming up for services with Refuge Huntington Beach, Armor of Light, Voyage Calvary, CC Romoland, The Garage, Living Hope in Oceanside, CC High Country, and Hope Central Watts. We also got to have nights of worship at Refuge Huntington Beach’s Resonance and at CC High Country’s Koinonia Night. (We also did a night of worship at the Happy Hen’s Chicken Farm in Ramona. It was before the summer, so it doesn’t really fit smoothly into this paragraph, but it was still an amazing night!) We get to serve in so many different ways, and we enjoy all of them, but the dedicated nights of worship and fellowship are special to us. We seem to always come away refilled, ready to be emptied again 🙂
One of my prayers, a little over a year ago, was that God would open some doors for us to serve in Los Angeles. It’s a long story and probably more personal to me than anything, but the inner city church is super close to my heart. God opened doors for us to serve with Pastor Jose at Hope Central in Watts, including an outreach in Nickerson Gardens, with Pastor Clint at CC Compton, and later this month we’ll be at The Ark in Montebello.
Labor Day weekend we got to spend some time in beautiful northern Utah with CC Kanab, CC St George, and some of our oldest, and favoritest friends (Richardson’s we’re looking at you) and family at the Promised Land Resort. We had some fun outdoor acoustic worship times and got to lead with the St George worship team in the tent. No broken bones this year.
We finished the summer off and started the Fall at the U-Turn for Christ Pig Roast. This event has been super important for us each time we’ve got to do it. It’s hard to put into words, other than it’s the gospel. From the morning to the evening and into the night, the good news is proclaimed, not just to those in recovery, and to broken families looking for even the smallest hope, but to those that serve year round, ministering to a neverending stream of broken individuals and families. EELB got to lead worship for one of the worship sessions, and Elizabeth, Frank from OC Christian Fellowship in Orange, and myself got to setup and run sound for the whole event. We also had our friends, Daniel Mamora and Mark Catan from CC South OC and Vision Church come out and lead a worship set; we’ve always been blessed to serve alongside our IE brothers.
Into the fall, we’ve got to serve with some long time friends and family at CC Anaheim and OC Christian Fellowship and we’re looking forward to joining our family at HopeAlive and CC High Country. Erin Elizabeth has been staying extra busy doing women’s ministry during the week. Isaac is working on his Music Degree at CBU and playing in their orchestra. Gavin is playing with the Corona Conservatory. I’m working on making next year’s NAMM exciting. Into the holiday season, we’ll be teaming up with CC South Bay and Pacific Hills Calvary Chapel to provide some strings to their worship services.
I’m praying about one more roadtrip in November, so if you’re in Nevada, New Mexico, Maryland or wherever, and you’ve been praying about a night of worship or letting your team have a weekend off, let us know. We haven’t planned anything in the new year yet, so let us know if God puts something on your heart.
-abe