the art of being

"come and rest" mixed media by cierra

Jason painting

more to come from Jason :)

acylic art by cierra

photography and collages 

Welcoming March

March is here!

We are excited to see what it will bring.

Mission trip preparations, revelations, beauty, divine appointments perhaps?

What are you hoping for this month? :)

New job for Cierra!

Praise the Lord!
I now have a job!  I am really excited about it.  One of our friends in our marriage class is also a Massage Therapist. He works from home and at a spa. He referred me to his manager at the day spa, and the next thing I know, I'm talking to the manager about being an on-call massage therapist! Within the next couple days I gave massages to the manager and the head Massage Therapist, and they both loved me! Hooray!

You can check out my new job on their website: Urban Retreat Spa

Jason has been in contact with a painter who has been trying to transplant his successful business here in Redding, but is finding it a hard task. Pray that he will have favor and that Jason can work for him doing something he loves!

Thank you to all those who have supported us in prayer and financially. We are still asking that you lift us up in prayer in this time!

Blessings,
~C

Full of hope

 We are in an interesting place right now. We are really feeling the weight of no support or income.  I (Jason) have been continually applying for jobs and was blessed to be able to do a few days work for an intern at our school who needed some remodeling done.  Its like a roller coaster ride every day.  We applied for food stamps and they just went through last week, right in the nick of time, so now we don't need to worry about food...praise the Lord!  Our phones got shut off this last monday, so we are phone-less. One of the hardest things during this season, since Christmas, is the silence we have felt from friends.  Our best friends have remained in close touch but we have heard almost nothing from others that we normally communicate with.  

Our relationship as a couple has been strengthening tremendously, but not without moments of perceived despair or conflict caused by growing pains.  We are doing a class called Love After Marriage that is put together by a pastoring couple at Bethel and it is AMAZING!  It has been super challenging but the tools they use are SO good and the end result is a strengthened relationship with God that is reflected in the marriage.  I would look into their material if you are married...i have never seen anything like it (and by seen i mean heard of from our limited  perspective of being married only 3 years haha!)! For the class, we meet once a week and are divided into tables of 4 couples, including ourselves.  We were selected to lead our table as "table facilitators" and know that God has put an emphasis not only in strengthening our own marriage but in bringing freedom and life to other marriages as well.  We are only a few of weeks in and can't wait for more!

Last weekend Cierra and I found ourselves weeping by the closing prayer of Bill Johnson's message.  He touched on areas that God has been stirring in our hearts as of late; Authority and Power.  Authority is like the badge that a police man wears, signifying that someone higher than him has given him permission to do what he is assigned to do.  Authority is given to us as children of God, when we receive Jesus.  Power is like the gun that same policeman carries, a practical tool that that can be used in a very impact-full way.  Often people think that they are operating in power when they are merely under a corporate anointing that God's grace is on.  What Jesus modeled was not simply him, as God, doing miracles by the authority of God.  He showed that only our own personal history, or intimacy with the Father is what makes us true living witnesses with power to a real, living God. Power and Purity are one of if not THE life messages of Bill and the need for us to dig our own wells of intimacy with God is of great importance.  

The book that we are finishing this week is Heavy Rain, by Kris Vallotton.  I could talk about it for hours!  As Kris discusses, the Church needs fathers.  People who create a family and who put an emphasis on maintaining relationship and not on rules or doctrine.  The church also needs teachers and so forth within the 5-fold ministry (Ephesians 4:11 and I Corinthians 12:28) in full operation.  Check it out!

Fun stuff.  We have never felt so full of hope and yet so challenged to express it on a daily basis.  God is good. Thanks for listening to our hearts poured out. 

" For this reason I bow my knees to my Father ... that according to the riches of His glory He may grant you to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith  -that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen."

Ephesians 3:14-21

More than ordinary significance

art

[ahrt] 

 –noun

1.

the quality, production, expression, or realm, according to aesthetic principles, of what is beautiful, appealing, or of more than ordinary significance.

Being in what we call "Bethel Culture" has inspired what is already in us to come out, in the most creative and expressive ways I could think of.  I painted my first painting just a couple of months ago, and had a blast!  Since then I have ventured to create more pieces with mostly acrylic paints.  Jason and I have been having so much fun experimenting with art to express our worship to our King.  He is, after all, our CreaTOR, who made us creaTIVe beings.  He is beautiful, and I love being able to make beautiful things for Him. :) Here are the first couple that I painted.

Getting ready for my very first go at painting. Worship music, canvas, paints and brushes!

   Painting each other paintings for our 3rd Anniversary

just the beginning.

California coast weekend

Last weekend I had the privilege to "tour" the coast with one of my best friends! The occasion? Her engagement! I am so excited for her and her new fiance' as they embark on a new journey together! I have the honor to be in their wedding and support this lovely couple. I was able to find a ride to meet her in San Jose. From there we drove to San Louis Obispo to meet her fiance' for dinner, and then we carried on to her sister's place in Santa Barbara. The drive flew by as we chatted away about life. While in Santa Barbara with some of her close friends and family, she tried on a bunch of wedding dresses and me and some of her bridesmaids tried on bridesmaids dresses! After a long day shopping, we said goodbye to her friends and drove right back up to SLO! After spending the night in a garage (haha, that's another story), we continued our journey to her studio apartment in San Francisco. What a cute place she has there! It was fun to galavant around the city and sight see! It was a fun weekend that I won't forget :)

Here are some snapshots...

A little Anthropology

... and David's Bridal

San Francisco!





















Oh, H&M..




Our date night in, provided by Trader Joes!

Beautiful Golden Gate Bridge

 

Jesus HA ahaha

It was almost 70 degrees outside today!

Cierra and I are constantly overwhelmed with creativity in this culture.  Its so much fun...

Here is a piece I painted a few days back...Cierra did an amazing one too, I will have to put that up soon...

God is destroying old mindsets, one of which is a poverty mindset!  We now are looking at the world in a completely different way!

Have You Ever Had a Sobering Thought? What About the Opposite?

It has been exciting this week getting back into the swing of things here in Redding as we dive into school and homework! This week has also been tough on us financially. I have been trying to set up massage appointments for some extra money ( I'm a Nationally Certified Massage Therapist in case you didn't know ;) )  and Jason has been keeping his eyes open for jobs. It has been hard to balance the "rest" that we feel God calling us to and the "responsibilities" of working.

We are in need of monthly support to help pay our bills and groceries. We have decided to stop driving our car and have downgraded our phone plan.    School is completely paid off and we just need a little more for our upcoming mission trip in March, $140 for me and $95 for Jason.  Praise God!  Just yesterday, friends handed us $60 in cash that covered the rest of our utilities for January.  We can easily survive on $800-$1000 a month.  We are open to your ideas and financial support.

Pride tells me to not ask for support at all, that God will provide no matter what I do.  Love compels me to be honest and vulnerable, relying on others.  Thank you!

Testimonies! (as shared by Jason)

This last Thursday we hit the streets for our weekly treasure hunt and got to see God touch peoples lives in amazing ways!

We stopped a guy and his wife about to go into a chinese restaurant and after praying for his newly replaced hip we saw his mobility go from a 10 (not very mobile but able to walk with a cain) to a 4!  He walked right in to get his food, holding his cain under his arm.  They were both encouraged and exclaimed how they felt special that we had stopped just for them.

After praying for a few other people we came across a young guy who asked us if we had any money...which is sorta funny considering the first part of this post!  I asked if we could pray for him and he exuberantly said YES!  He went on to explain that every time he closes his eyes he sees a pentagram, lifting up his sleeve he revealed a festering red scar where he cuts himself in worship to demons and he then shared with tears in his eyes that his little daughter was being molested by people in the house that he is staying in.  My heart broke for this young man and I was burning for love for him as we immediately began to minister to him.  The more we prayed the calmer he got but after only a few minutes he quickly excused himself to be able to catch the bus he was waiting for.  We watched him run off, knowing that God was not done with him, even if we were for that time.  God's love is jealous as the grave!

Have you ever had a sobering thought?  For me its often times finances or "the future" or something.

Have you ever had the opposite?  For me, its what Jesus did for me on the Cross! HA
I don't have to work for his love.  I don't have to try and do "things" for Him.  He gives me gifts to play with and joy to make me smile. Once I realize how God sees me,  holy, righteous, as royalty...then I stop acting like what I was before I met Jesus, a sinner.  HA ha.

Just last night we were invited to a "Jesus Party" at some house we had never been to before.  Needless to say we met some amazing people from Oregon and spent about 2 or 3 hours prophesying and ministering to a group of young people in town for JESUS CULTURE.  

I painted again last night while listening to Benjamin Dunn.  Check out his new album Circus of Love on iTunes! Or go to his website HERE.

 
Click HERE to donate! Love you guys!

Happy New Year!

Can you believe it's 2011?!

For Christmas, Jason and I got the opportunity to spend the holiday with my family in southern California! We had such a wonderful time with my family and extended family on my dad's side. It was fun to watch Jason's responses while we were celebrating with my amazing, loud mexican relatives. Such different family dynamics create so much flavor... I love it! It was great to see family I hadn't seen in a while and a couple of my best friends added a warmth every Christmas should have! It was hard saying goodbye to my family after 10 days of visiting. I don't know if I realized how much I missed them!

It was nice to have a change of pace and be refreshed by the love of my family. For new years, we had a chill dinner with a couple of our new friends from BSSM and counted in the new year with a youtube re-run of New York's celebration. Ahh, the simple life :)

Many Blessings from the both of us to you and your family this new year! We are excited to see what God will bring. :)

c

The Ecstasy of Loving God

This past Monday my roommate invited me to go with him and his visiting brother-in-law to the local Catholic Christian bookstore here in Redding.  I had nothing else going on, so I agreed, bringing with me the latest book I am working on,  looking forward to some good reading!

I set my book down on a coffee table and decided to look around for a few minutes at the store.  Just from what's on the shelves at this place you can tell this store owner is an active follower of Jesus.

I found myself in the card section and was putting a card back with a cartoon of Jesus "clearing the temple" on a skateboard when a high school aged guy comes up to me and asks if I am the owner of the book about ecstasy.  Before I can even answer he then asks me what I think about ecstasy.  Having no idea of his background or where he was going with the question I asked him if he wanted my opinion on the greek definition and biblical explanation on ecstasies in God or if he was wondering about what I thought about the street drug.  He seemed to get a little bit confused and ended up wandering off as my roommate interrupted with a question about what kind of coffee I was going to get at the cafe there.

For some reason this guy is just drawn to me and after a few minutes he asks me if a want to play guitar with him in the back corner of the store.  He introduces himself as Pauly and before I know whats happening, he's jammed out a nirvana song and has his laptop open showing me his favorite skate videos on youtube.  After about 30mins of chatting it up, I discover that he is the foster child of the store owner and has only been with their family for about 2 weeks.

He keeps wanting to talk about this "super hawt chic" at this new youth group that he is going to but I start sharing with him some testimonies of what God has been doing in my life recently.  I go on to share how God totally showed up on a recent treasure hunt (see past blogs about what a treasure hunt is if you're in the dark) and how two random guys at a disc golf course got to encounter the love of God through prayer and prophecy recently.  After a few minutes I ask him if he knew Jesus and he kinda didn't know how to respond.  I then proceeded to ask him if he wanted to.  He admitted being curious but didn't really know what to do with Jesus.  I got so excited, I started explaining the power of forgiveness and all the things that God has done in my life as I've learned to walk in forgiveness!  I then shared how Jesus was the ultimate model of forgiveness and what He had done for us through his death and resurrection.

I asked him how he was doing, to which he replied that his heart was beating out of his chest.  I told him mine was too...and that's because the Holy Spirit was right there with us!  By this point my friends were signaling me that they were ready to leave, to which I was trying to signal back "just 5 more minutes!"  Looking Pauly in the eye I asked him if he wanted to follow me in prayer to meet Jesus.  He said yes!!!  After we were done you could tell he was deeply shaken and not really sure what to do next.  I had time for just a few more minutes of encouragement as they were in the process of closing the book store down for the evening.

Looking back on that afternoon I had no idea that I would be heading into an Jesus encounter with a high schooler.  God is so creative.  The Holy Spirit totally used Pauly's curiosity in a book about ecstasies in God to lead him into an introduction to Jesus!  Praise God...

Then!... just today, four of us went downtown to bring some clothes to a person we had befriended on a street corner when salvation broke out again!  As we handed Willy his new pair of jeans and a coat we started chatting with another guy there who was clearly inebriated and looking a little worse for wear.  Within about 5 minutes of us being there he begins to share his life story with one of our crew, Philip, who faithfully listened to him pour out his heart.  Phil then began to prophesy love and life into the guy and within 20 minutes he has led him to the Lord!!

Its safe to say that momentum has been building in our hunger to see people encounter Jesus in a tangible way.  True love, real love is as strong as death and His jealousy as fierce as the grave.  Cierra and I both are on a journey to see the true potential of love stirred up in us for others.



p.s.s  Thank you to all who have sent support!  God is such a good provider! These testimonies belong to you as much as they are ours!!!