What Fun!

This week we had the privilege of spending some evenings with Gary and MarieAlena again. On Wednesday Andrew, Hannah and Lucy joined us for the evening. Andrew is leaving for the Air Force in 4 weeks so it was good to talk to him. We hadn't seen Lucy, Gary's granddaughter, for a year so she had really grown up. She will be 2 in Aug. She does love her grandpa. Hannah, MariaElena and I had fun shopping at Home Goods, a unique store with prices even a Dutchman can appreciate. Hannah was a help in picking out the couple things I wanted/needed. We had a good "girl" time. On Friday night we celebrated Gary and my birthdays and Andrew and Hannah came too. The picture is of their house. MarieAlena loves flowers and has been busy putting out many different kinds in front and backyard. They are beautiful.
We spent one day viewing and walking on the beaches. We were at Newport and Huntington Beach and also several others. The weather here has just been amazing perfect. It sprinkles a few drops occasionally but the temp is just right. The ocean was just right for surfers and that was fun to watch. And, of course, having a new camera I had to try out the 24X zoom. It is all I had hoped it would be and could take non-blurry pictures of ships way far out.

We also spent time at El Dorado Park Church. It is the church Brian and Donna attended and Brian worked at when he was at Fuller Seminary. The church is very attractive but the picture fails to show how beautiful the grounds are. Four retired men spend every weekday morning tending to the many flower beds and other landscaping spots. The roses were beautiful but so are all the other types of flowers.

While Brian was at this church Barry Bruce also was at the church. Soon after that Barry and his wife decided to start a mission in Hawaiian Gardens which has a different address than El Dorado Park Church but is basically just a block down the road. Barry's ministry is called "Way Out" and it is an outreach to the mostly Hispanic people of Hawaiian Gardens. They now have a church, a school for 7-12 grade and many other ministries in the area. They had the 12th grade graduation ceremony on Thursday night which we attended. It was held in the Japanese Gardens at a University near here. The gardens had the unique characteristic only a Japanese garden has. I got shutter happy and took a lot of pictures of the gardens. Only 4 students graduated but there were quite a few people there. They had chairs scattered around the pool and the graduates marched across a little bridge to get their diplomas. It was impressive. No Japanese Garden pool would be complete without a lot of colorful fish and this one was no exception. Don't know just how the background got to look like this because it wasn't that full of fish but it must be the reflections through the water.

Saturday we moved the RV from Anaheim to our new spot for the week, the parking lot in back of the Way Out church. The parking lot is fenced and gated for safety which is great but it made parking rather tense. I think Wilmer lost sleep trying to imagine how he was going to maneuver the RV into the gate and still not be in the middle of the parking lot. Well it was with a little sweat and tension but he did do a terrific job and did turns and maneuvers with the pickup and RV that he nor I had ever seen before. Yes, where there is a will there is a way. Just glad the RV wasn't 2 feet longer. It looks mighty strange to see a pickup move a RV at a 90 degree angle. We learned it can be done. Or maybe we were too proud to say we couldn't do it. Take your pick.

Anyway tomorrow we start working on the project of Way Out. This is not an RVICS project but a project of Central Reformed Church. We will be sanding, painting, removing linoleum (oh no) and other such jobs. We have 9 in our crew and I think the job description doesn't look too difficult for the 9 of us to handle. Today, Sunday, the crew had breakfast at our RV and also a hamburger fry. It is so convenient because we are right outside the back door of the church. After the church service we had many little kids who wanted to "tour" the inside of the RV. They couldn't imagine a home on wheels. They were so polite and appreciative of the attention we gave them. Hope we see more of them throughout the week.

That's it for another week. We are grateful for all you dads out there and pray you may continue to be guided by the Spirit as you continue to be the Dad that your kids need.

Love and best wishes for the coming week.

Mom and Dad/Marilyn Rensink