If there is one thing that California excels at it, it’s the weather!  I’ve never had so much sunshine in six months.  It does wonders for your mental health, to walk out into bright skies every morning.  Even when you have clouds or fog in the morning, it is usually going to burn off.  I did drive through some medium-intensity rain the other day and it was a welcome sight.  Kitty and I do miss lying in bed and listening to thunderstorms.  I guess for Christmas I’ll get her one of those electronic weather/mood machines that you put by your bed and listen to.

Also, we are already experiencing winter here.  It’s brutal……40s  at night and 50s & 60s during the day.(ha)  It’s blowing me away how our roses are doing.  I’ve never seen roses like this in November-December.  Incredible.  Makes me look like I know what I’m doing!  We have these all over the yard, front and back.

Sunday night I got to play with one of the best group of musicians I’ve ever played with. Mark Averil, from Westgate Church put together a worship band of all worship pastors from different churches. We lead the worship times for the Beautiful Day Celebration.

I did lead one song, but the rest of the night I got to just be the lead guitar player. What a blast that was! I tried to get them all to quit their jobs and join my worship team, but they declined….

80 Hot Dogs, 50 bags of chips, and 75 drinks later!  We had a great day with about 30 kids and various adults from Almaden Terrace Apartments. 

 we gathered and prayed together!

We had some professional bike repair guys there fixing tubes, doing tune-ups and making the kid’s bikes like new.  We ate lunch, played soccer and just had some hang time.  The weather was perfect at 70 degrees and not a cloud in the sky…typical San Jose!

   Fixing Bikes

This was a great first introduction to these kids and families.  Hopefully it will lead to some new relationships and opportunities to share Christ.  Relationships take time and this was a perfect start!

  Carson and Allen

  Kitty, Blanca

Tomorrow night we gather with the 35 other churches in San Jose to do a celebration service at our church.  The new Mayor Elect and many of the city council have called and asked if they could be there.  What a great sign, that we may have an open channel with the city government to have conversations on how the Church can bless San Jose!  I also get to just hang back and be the lead guitar player instead of lead…I’m really looking forward to it.

My mother-in-law has been so excited to see what our new cat looks like.  His name is Valentino.  Here is he is!  He can’t wait to meet his Nana.

We had some new friends over the other night to grill burgers. Hector Barrazza and his daughter, Vernon and Alice Hills and their two kids joined us to celebrate the upcoming Beautiful Day event.  Hector is the frontline neighborhood worker for CityTeam who is responsible for introducing us to the families at Almaden Terrace Apartments.

This is a picture of Kitty (KeKe), Jia and the Barrazza and Hills girls.

Today will be cool…we’ve been planning it for 2 months.  It’s 5:30am here and I’m getting ready to meet a bunch of people at our church at 7:00 to take 40-50 hispanic kids to the park and ride bikes, play soccer and eat hot dogs.  They all live in an apartment complex four blocks from the church.  Kitty and the kids will be joining us with their bikes as well. This should be a great time just loving on kids and families different than us.  I’ve been practicing the 6 spanish words I know.  I guess I’ll know more by the end of the day.

Hands and feet of Jesus…best part of this “pastor” gig…and I think it’s somewhere in the Bible.  I’ll post pics tomorrow.