A Sorrowful Yet Joyous Goodbye

Okay, so here goes. This is the first post for my new blog and also will be the last post for this, my old blog. Believe me, this is no small undertaking, nor is it done without much thought and prayer. It is difficult to leave something behind that has been my companion, my outlet for so long.

God has been prompting me again, quite insistently as He does at times, especially when I am not listening to His still small voice. He has instructed me to start a new blog totally dedicated to our mission, Bethel Grace Abbey. He has prompted me that RV’ing the Dream needs to be left behind. I cried out to Him that I would lose all my followers if I stopped writing on RV’ing the Dream. Our Benevolent Father assured me, however, that those who are meant to follow, will continue to follow even if I leave my old blog behind. God assured me that when I switch over to a blog totally dedicated to our mission, Bethel Grace Abbey, He will populate my online community far more than the few (His word) who follow our adventures on RV’ing the Dream.

I argued with Him, as I often do because I am human. I argued that this is the most popular my blog has ever been. The number of hits soar daily. So it is difficult for me to leave behind something that has finally come into its own. And maybe that’s the problem. The Dream was never to be “its own.” The Dream has always been His, even though at first I imagined we would be on a wonderful journey, traveling these beautiful United States of ours, for at least five years.

But as you can probably tell, as time has passed, the entire flavor of my blog changed. Everything I do is now in pursuit of the calling He graciously placed on my heart many years ago. My whole life is consumed by His calling. As each day passes, the mission, the dream, the calling becomes clearer and clearer in my mind and in my heart. As each day passes, more and more of my time and energy are spent in pursuit of His dream for my life.

So it is with reluctance but also with great anticipation that I now leave “RV’ing the Dream” behind and start anew on this new blog, “When He Reigns” that He wants me to write. I am placing a link here on RV’ing the Dream so that all who desire to continue to follow, can.

Please find it in your heart to bless this mission of ours by spreading the word about our mission to humbly serve the heartbroken and homeless of Southern California, because when He reigns, it pours! And I can feel we are on the brink of something huge and glorious happening in our lives.

Thank you all for seeing me through all my heartache and pain, my trials and fears, and for continuing with us on our journey into this glorious new day.

In His Holy Name,

Jennifer Joy

 

P.S. If I have recently given you one of my business cards or told you personally to seek us out for help, I apologize that I am now changing things up. Sometimes that is how God works in our lives. Please follow the link to our mission. My email and phone numbers are still the same. The only thing to change is my blog. I love you all. Hang in there. Help is coming soon!

By The Salton Sea

Our intended destination for Wednesday’s adventure was The Salton Sea. However, since we dawdled an awful long time, taking in the gross extravagance of Palm Springs and that surrounding area, we ended up with very little time to explore the area surrounding The Salton Sea.

Harrumph. We will just have to return another day, I guess.

This beautiful graffiti was found on the fence surrounding the abandoned community pool.

We did get to explore a rather sad little community called Desert Shores, which is right on the edge of The Salton Sea. At one time, it probably was a nice little place to live; however, the economy, the housing crash, or what have you must have took its toll, because very few businesses remain open today. In fact, we saw an ambulance service, a motel, and a church, and not much else. Thank God there was a church so that the community would not totally be forsaken.

It saddened me that the community pool and the fire station stood abandoned, along with many private businesses. There were a few nice houses interspersed, but most of the housing was probably for the workers from the surrounding produce farms.

We did get some beautiful pictures, and I am pleased to be able to share them with you.

In our next post, we shall see what Ken was so interested in viewing. Until then, keep searching for your joy.

Love,

Jenni and Ken

Glorious Fun

Oh, it has been a glorious week so far, and it is only Wednesday!

I’d love to just blurt out all the goodness that God has been bestowing on us as of late, but I will take my time and parse it out properly over the next few posts.

Yesterday was an absolutely beautiful day. I spent it with my daughter, doing not much of anything, just mom and daughter stuff. We made gluten free peanut butter cookies (recipe to follow) and she highlighted my hair . . . wait for it . . . wait . . .

PURPLE! And so now with my natural silver/gray, I’m sporting the Sacramento King’s colors! Too funny. That one’s just for you, Dale! (Okay, so it doesn’t show up all that well in this picture, but my hair is tinted purple on the ends.)

Those of you who know me personally might notice something else about the pictures. I’m losing weight, although I am not sure how much because I have not stepped on a scale since Portland. Needless to say, I am down a few sizes. Yea! And it is simply melting away without all the usual starvation and torture. What’s my secret, you may ask? Well, when we started our journey, we basically changed our entire lifestyle. That, and I give thanks to God for this, another blessing in my life.

Okay, so I am blurting out an awful lot of the goodness all at once.

On to the cookie recipe. It is the simplest and most delicious cookie recipe ever. Even if you are not gluten intolerant, you may want to try these. They are amazing.

GLUTEN FREE PEANUT BUTTER COOKIES

• 1 cup peanut butter
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp vanilla

That’s it, unless you are hankering for chocolate with your peanut butter, then add some chocolate chips and you are good to go.

Bake for 10-12 minutes in a 350 degree oven, and I promise they will disappear right before your eyes, even before they have had a chance to cool. Better double the recipe, folks, it is that good.

Love and blessings to you all,

Jenni and Ken

New Life From Old

While we were in the mountainous region above Banning, which I spoke of in my last post, we came upon what remained after a recent wildfire. From a distance, the area looked, charred, desolate, devoid of anything good or life sustaining.

As we approached, I meditated on how life’s trials can leave us charred, alone, wasting away for want of that certain something that will renew our souls.

Then I walked among the burned relics, the charred bushes, the melted debris left behind earlier by litterbugs.

And this is what I found, life striving to survive despite all odds. The char was falling away to reveal glowing, vibrant branches beneath.

I was awestruck, speechless. The beauty I found in the midst of this destruction astounded and refreshed my soul.

Thank You, Lord, for all Your lessons and Your grace. Amen.

Love,

Jenni and Ken

Banning

The other day, we decided to take a drive into the mountainous region above Banning. Our end destination was to check out an RV park called Silent Valley. Though it was technically only ten or so miles outside of Banning, those ten miles were winding, sharp, and steep in places. When we turned off California State Highway 243 onto Poppet Flats Road, the elevation was at least 4000 feet.

The snowy peak we had seen in the distance, now appeared to be within our grasp, just over the next ridge.

Although Silent Valley appears, for all purposes, to be a wonderful place to stay, being essentially a town within itself, we decided not to chance taking the Raven up that hill. For now, we are just bouncing back and forth between Fisherman’s Retreat and Cherry Valley Lakes, and we will most likely still be bouncing back and forth come Christmas and New Year’s.

When I prayed about whether we should move on or not, (since Ken had itchy feet and wanted to get to Arizona before any snow falls on the passes), God gave me peace about staying in this area for now.

Besides, we are making connections here. God is presenting us with good, new relationships and He is healing old ones. We’ve hooked up with a local pastor and his wife, and they have been blessing us with their goodness. And Ken, being the gregarious one, has made several other friends as well. There are good people, here in Beaumont.

I feel good here, soul-wise. I feel at home. Ken is happy either way, whether we move on or stay, so long as a decision has been made. So for now, we stay.

Blessings to you and yours,

Love,

Jenni and Ken

Banning, as viewed from Hwy 243

Blessings Abound

Have you ever stopped to consider how often the blessings of God grace your life? How everything, even the simplest of things, has been touched by His hand?

Have you stopped to study the intricacy of a single bloom?

Or stood silently in awe as a great egret took flight?

Or marveled at the glow of the approaching sunset? God can even take LA’s pollution and make it beautiful.

These are but a few outward examples of His love for us. For He also gave us friendship and love, laughter and tears, compassion and forgiveness.

The blessings in my own life are too numerous to count. All day long, I praise His Holy Name for giving me glimpses of heaven.

All of this, I witness and find joy in, not in spite of my pain and illness, but because of it. For through my struggles, He has taught me much, and I am ever grateful.

Where can you find blessings today?

Love,

Jenni and Ken

Just Ducky

At Fisherman’s Retreat near Beaumont, California, we learned the story behind these rather stupid white ducks. It seems they were pets, kept locked up at a local elementary school, for the edification and pleasure of the young students.

When they arrived at Fisherman’s Retreat, there were five in total. Within the first several nights, two disappeared, most likely to the coyotes, as we heard their joyous calls, barks, and yaps, signaling a recent kill.

When they first arrived, they did not even enter the water, preferring to stay under a tree instead, and they had no fear of humans. I guess they were kept in a cage with no large enough water source for swimming.

When they first arrived, they did not know how to eat what ducks normally eat in the wild, and would not eat anything but bread.

And this really saddens me.

I understand the need to educate our children about nature and give them a hands-on experience with animals, but if a school must keep animals in such an unnatural setting as these obviously had been kept, then they need to take responsibility for the animals for the rest of their natural lives.

These zebras are privately owned, as far as we can find out, in Redlands. We were told that they also have giraffes and big cats on the property, but our information is only from word of mouth. They appear to be well cared for.

The Lord charged us with caring for the fishes and fowl and beasts of the land. Not with destroying them.

I will get off my soapbox now. At least the three surviving ducks are learning what to eat and how to survive in the wild, or semi-wild of Fisherman’s Retreat.

Blessings to you and your feathered or furry friends,

Jenni and Ken

Absenteeism

When life gets rough

And I sit on my duff

I’m tempted to cry

And wail and moan.

I feel so alone

When I ache to the bone.

But nothing

Offers comfort to me.

As I survive

And once again come alive

I know it wasn’t me

Who brought me through.

For The Lord is my shepherd,

And His dove, His holy bird,

Leads me out of my torment

Once again.

Thank You, Lord. I praise Your holy name for bringing me through the past several months, when my health was sliding rapidly downhill. Though I am still not as well as I would like, You give me the hope to believe that I am on the mend and will soon be able to participate in life more often.

Thank you, also, to all my readers who have stood by and waited patiently to hear why I have not been writing. The regimen I was on most recently for my Lyme disease took its toll worse than usual. That, coupled with the extra stress of traveling, was just too much for my body to handle. My pain and fatigue were unrelenting, and I could not do much more than survive. I depended wholly on The Lord, Ken, and Tinker Belle to get me through.

I do not regret making this journey, not in the least. Though we are in a rather barren area, with brown being the predominant color, I absolutely love it. The lack of rain and subsequent humidity has been a Godsend for my arthritis (bone pain is a whole other matter), and even though it is nearing the end of October, we are still enjoying temperatures in the 80’s.

Besides, I’m near my daughter, and our relationship is flourishing as I get to know her as an adult, rather than as a child. We are blessed to have this opportunity.

I cannot make any promises as to how frequently I will be writing in the future, but I hope it will be more often. Please forgive my absenteeism and know it was for a health reason.

Love,

Jenni and Ken

Cooling Our Heels

We knew this day would come. We knew we would run out of money before we ran out of month. Why wouldn’t it? It happens to everyone, everywhere, who lives paycheck to paycheck. Being on the road doesn’t make us immune from these everyday woes. It actually makes us more vulnerable.

Our home is one wheels. When it breaks down, we become, essentially, homeless, as happened back in July in Yreka. This was a major financial setback, but (knock on wood) we have not had any problems since.

Over this past month, every semi-annual bill that could possibly come due, did. Therefore, after our valiant push to get down here to Southern California, we now must cool our heels. Kick back and relax. Stay awhile.

As for my mission, God has me working on abiding right now. That’s a word we in this modern time rarely use. We tend to want everything right now. Microwaves ruined us in the kitchen. And on the computer, we get frustrated if a page takes longer than two seconds to download. We cannot even wait to make purchases anymore. If we cannot afford it, that’s what credit was invented for.

With everything available at our fingertips, simply for the asking, we’ve really gotten into a me-me-me attitude, and it sucks. Sorry, but it does.

Stop and smell the roses, already. There’s more to life than the tip of your own nose.

So here we sit, biding our time. God has me in a wait mode right now with my mission, anyway. Maybe that was in response to me complaining that I was so tired and needed a rest, for when I prayed for answers about my Hesperia dream, I was told to be patient and to wait.

When we drove through Hesperia two weeks ago on our way to Beaumont, I was so tired that God could have placed a neon sign directly in my path, and I would probably have missed it.

Friday is moving day again. We will be traveling a whopping six miles down the road to Cherry Valley Ranch.

I like this waiting mode. Besides, it gives me more time to spend with my daughter and, after payday, we can also travel westward to the Los Angeles area, to visit other family members. Seems we’ve got family everywhere and plenty of time to visit!

Love,

Jenni and Ken

Blessings, Divine

Please forgive the lapses in my postings. Life tends to get out of control when one has a chronic illness. Sometimes I feel like a tumbleweed, tossed around at the mercy of the world’s winds.

Since we arrived at Fisherman’s Retreat in Redlands, I have spent most of my time indoors, recuperating. Sometimes I feel left out, as Ken goes on his daily walks without me. I’m just not up to such long walks right now.

There are blessings even in this, for without me out there taking pictures, Ken has been honing his skills. He has become more intentional in his photography. I’m even considering turning that branch of creativity over to him totally, for a time, anyway. It is much too much, all that I try to accomplish with my creativity. And it is good, very good, to give him this special chore.

So, from here on out, the majority of the photos I will use in my blog will actually be Ken’s contribution. The Lord has blessed me once again, through my husband and all this beauty.

May you be blessed in your comings and goings and doings and being,

Jenni and Ken

High Maintenance Hottie

Have you ever stopped to consider how others might see you? Of course you have because you know as well as I do that we are talking about all those labels we try so hard to get rid of. If we step to the side for just a moment, or we change the wording a bit, we might actually be able to laugh at our labels, instead of cry. It’s the whole, “I’m not fat, I’m fluffy,” attitude.

I had never really thought of myself as high maintenance until recently. I’ve always tried to remain independent, not wanting to put upon others and wear out my welcome, so to speak. But, when one has a chronic illness, sometimes she needs help. So I had to drop the façade of independence, in favor of a more congenial, less stubborn reliance on the help of others.

As a disclaimer, despite our grandson’s proclamation that I am always in a good mood, I most certainly am not. I just work really hard to not let others see me, as I go off the deep end, but my poor, dear, sweet husband gets the brunt of it every time.

I have wicked migraines that come on strong and fast and slur my speech and steal my words. I can be in normal conversation one moment, and then the next, I’m a babbling idiot. These meltdowns also come with an emotional flavor. After one incident, I cried and begged Ken to forgive my two-year-old behavior. He said, “Two? More like eight, because you know better.”

One evening during a whopper of a migraine, I insisted on arguing about my jeans and his shoes. I cannot tell you why we were arguing, essentially about the proverbial apples and oranges. I haven’t a clue because it didn’t make sense even as I tried desperately to argue my ridiculous point that night.

It is during my migraines, when I become belligerent like a child, that I am most high maintenance.

When my pain and fatigue shake me to the core, this is also when I am most high maintenance.

When I whine and cry because I am too tired to think straight and I interpret Ken’s gentle coaxing as aggressive pushing, this again is when I am most high maintenance.

He is such a gentle, giving soul, and yet he quickly gives me the evil eye if I am overstepping. It is then that I pray, very loudly, “Lord, please help me to be patient. I know I can be pushy. Please teach me to be satisfied with what I have, Lord. Please let Ken know how much I appreciate him getting me a third glass of water. Lord, I know I am so needy, please forgive me. And thank you for putting Ken in my life. Amen.”

Then he softens, knowing that if I didn’t really need help, I would not ask. Besides, he has opportunities for revenge (oh, you sadistic puppy, you), and he pokes fun at my faux pas (all in good fun, nothing sadistic here). He gets to take a cold, wet washcloth to my fiery body, to extinguish my hot flashes. After all, I do seem to be of that certain age, when women can be overheard saying, “I’m still hot. But now it comes in flashes.”

Moral of today’s story: Laughing at ourselves can be good medicine.

Peace,

Jenni