Life is Good

Oh how blessed we are! I'm so amazed how time flies - much has happened since my last post. We had a fabulous Christmas back home in Idaho with both of our families and now we're already well into 2016! Here's a recap of life lately and the lessons the Lord has been teaching me.

We brought in the New Year with an awesome party with our youth students. We took them on a trip to Spokane for shopping and time at Get Air. Then we brought them back to the church for games, food, and more fun. Life is busy in ministry but oh so blessed! One of my New Year's resolutions is to spend intentional time each week with at least one of our students - taking them to lunch, coffee, etc. It's been such a neat opportunity to share life with these students! We care about each one very much! Something Alex and I often have to remind ourselves is that they are in God's hands, we can't "fix" all of their struggles and brokenness. However, we can point them to Jesus who is the ultimate healer and restorer. One of the best pieces of advice I received before we entered full time ministry was the importance to recognize that we will never be anyone's "savior" but must point them to their true "Savior". Trying to be someone's "savior" will not work and will only burn us out. My dad often says "nobody can do everything, but everybody can do something. So good! We believe God's Word is powerful and life changing and so it is an absolute privilege to be in ministry and show others our wonderful Jesus. We've been really blessed to connect and build relationships with people in our church and in or community also. It's amazing how easy it is to fill up our schedules! So a great lesson Alex and I have learned is being more intentional about creating a Sabbath for us, since Sundays our one of our busiest days. God is so wise and I am now understanding why He emphasizes the need for a Sabbath rest. It's amazing how this helps me be a more pleasant person, is so healthy for our marriage, and refreshes us to carry on ministry throughout the week. I can't help but brag about my hubby! He is an extraordinary husband and also an amazing pastor! A couple weeks ago we were interviewed for the final step in his Pastoral licensing process. Hearing him tell the panel his heart for the Lord and ministry was so inspiring! It was also so neat to talk about how the Lord gave us many opportunities to be in ministry together long before we were ever married. What an opportunity to prepare us for full-time ministry as a married couple. They loved him and he passed with flying colors! He will receive his official license by next month. Alex and I are also excited about the recent opportunity to be teaching a Christian release class at the highschool called Launch Pad! In addition to church ministry, I began volunteering at Crossroads Pregnancy Resource Center. It is an amazing, Christian organization which helps young women facing crisis pregnancy situations. I love the women I work with and the young ladies/families we serve! I am passionate about the pro-life movement and supporting women during this precious, yet challenging stage of life. I am currently volunteering as a Parent Educator/Advocate and have more news to come about future opportunities with the organization :)

So that's ministry life. Now: married life. Oh how sweet it is to be married to the love of my life! Alex loves to spoil me and is treating me to a vacation to Hawaii for our first anniversary in May!!! It's now less than 100 days until our departure! I'm so excited for a vacation with my hubby! We've been wanting to invest in a nice camera for vacations such as this, family moments, and for a fun hobby together. So...we bought one a couple weeks ago! It's been really fun to learn photography and editing together. Alex has such an artistic eye for it and a desire to learn so he's been teaching me a lot! Since we will be at Winter Camp during Valentine's Day weekend, we celebrated an early Valentine's Day together last weekend. It was absolutely wonderful! I had decorated a little bit on Friday, but when I awoke on Saturday Alex surprised me with 14 handwritten hearts with the words "I Love You" in 14 different languages hung from our doorway. There were rose petals leading from our bedroom to the kitchen table where 10 cards and a gift bag were laid out. On each card he wrote something sweet about me and a date coupon to use at any time (so sweet, sentimental, and creative)! Words are my top love language so this meant so much to me! The 10th card had a coupon for me to pick out my favorite wedding picture to order on canvas! The bag was filled with my favorite chocolates and a cute hat I'd been wanting for a while. I made us strawberry, nutella stuffed French toast for Breakfast, we played a game I had gotten him for Valentine's day, and then we read a book together! We finished out the evening with a dinner date to Olive Garden (my favorite restaurant). I had him open six gifts throughout the day and we had a wonderful time spoiling each other. So fun!

At the beginning of this week, we were privileged to participate in a training with Project Six19 which teaches sexual integrity at schools and churches. We are looking forward to seeing how God will open doors for us to use this material within our church and community! We had some fun afterwords taking pictures in downtown Spokane. Then we headed over to my dear friend, Kortney's to spend the evening with her family! So grateful to live closer to her now!

Well there's a glimpse of what's been going on lately :) May God bless each of you abundantly!

CdeBaca Family Christmas :)

Jensen Family Christmas :)

Having fun with our new camera :) I have a very handsome model ;)

Valentine's Day decore

Oh how I love my Love!

Rose petals!

One of my gifts for my hubby :)

"I Love You" in 14 different languages

Nutella, strawberry stuffed French Toast

Another gift for Hubby :)

My Valentine :)

The 10 love notes from Alex :)

Spokane

Alex was so great with Quinn (Kortney and Bryce's little boy)!

Thankful

As I write I'm listening to Christmas music, sitting in our cozy living room, gazing upon our beautiful Christmas tree and the snowy scene outdoors. Oh how I love this time of year! There's something about it being so cold outside and so warm inside that's just special. More than the warmth of our home, its the warmth in my heart that means so much! I love all of the Christmas gatherings and festivities with the ones I love - church family, friends, and family. I could go on and on about why I love this season so much! This year is so very special because I get to spend it with my husband for the first time ever!! We get to create our own traditions and carry on ones from our families. My heart feels full with him by my side :)

Alex and I were so blessed to be able to go home to Idaho for the week of Thanksgiving. My parents were in Montana with all of our relatives so Alex and I spent the whole week at his family's home. While we were there I got to go to lunch with my long time friend Tierney, we visited Sierra and Danika's (two of Alex's sisters) home school co-op, had a triple date with Alex's parents/sister and her husband/and aunt and uncle, went on a double date with my oldest brother and his wife, had a game night with friends, and spent lots of time with family! Alex's siblings kept us busy, always ready to play something :) Of course a highlight was getting to cuddle with our adorable nephew. I enjoyed getting to help Alicia (Alex's mom) cook, bake, and prepare for hosting Thanksgiving and also tagged along with her for some Christmas shopping and errands. Speaking of Christmas shopping, Alex and I took Danika and we accomplished most of our Christmas shopping - yay! The week flew by!

We have so much to be thankful for this season: God has truly blessed us by preparing the way for us to be in Washington. I know without a doubt that we were meant to minister here. Our youth students mean so much to me and I've been so blessed to make dear friends here! God has blessed us with a beautiful home and life here. I'm constantly reminded of what amazing families we have! I can't wait to spend Christmas with them! Words can't describe how much I love my husband and how incredibly blessed I am to be married to him. Most of all, we have a Savior who loves us and daily shows us His grace - that is something to be very thankful about!

I pray you all enjoy this wonderful season of thankfulness, spending time with loved ones, and celebrating our Savior!

After visiting Sierra and Danika at co-op we stopped for some yummy holiday coffees!

Oh he's such a cutie pie!

Playing trucks and cars with Aidric (Alex's brother) and August (our nephew)

After our triple date we took August to visit Santa :)

Thanksgiving Day with my hubby! :)

lol Alex found a bear head while we were Christmas shopping!

Time to decorate!

Our beautiful Christmas tree!

Merry Christmas!!!

A Change of Seasons

Hello friends and family!

It's been a while since my last post so this post has great potential to be filled with random thoughts :) Let's start with a recap of recent events.

Life is so good. I have SO much to be thankful for! First of all, being married to Alex is such a dream come true! We're learning a lot about each other, about how to combine two lives, about how to be in full time ministry together, and about this whole thing called "adulthood" :) I'm so absolutely, totally, thankful and amazed that I get to learn all of this with Alex...THE Alex! He's such a sweet hubby and takes such good care of me. I'm so thankful I get to help make his dreams come true and he wants to make my dreams come true.

Ministry life has been a huge part of our lives in this new season of marriage. Today marks 3 months of being in ministry here in WA and Wednesday marks 4 months of being married. God has done so many fantastic things in the youth and worship ministry during our time here and we know He will continue to do His work! We've been busy with youth services, Bible studies, boat parties, paint days (for the youth rooms), guys and girls nights, bowling fun, outreaches, foot ball game, and hangouts with our youth students. It's been so neat to build relationships with the students and see the enthusiasm they have for the youth ministry. Ministry definitely keeps us busy but it is totally what God has created us for! We are passionate about it and love getting to be in ministry together!

In addition to ministry life, I've been loving being a homemaker! :) I so enjoy cooking, baking, keeping out home tidy, decorating our home, and making it feel cozy and welcoming. It's such a blessing to hear Alex say how much he loves coming home and being home. We've really enjoyed having lots of company between friends and family from out of town and also hosting get togethers for our church family. My heart is so happy to be a homemaker and wife :)

I've been told by multiple people that I'm an over-thinker lol. This personality trait totally has both strengths and weaknesses. Anyhow, here's a conglomeration of some thoughts I've been processing lately:

1. I'm an imperfect perfectionist. Perhaps some of you can relate. Alex has certainly helped me in overcoming this (I still have a lot to learn). We had a conversation the other day about how I'm constantly trying to make myself better, my relationships better, my home better, etc. He gently but honestly said "You're going to drive yourself crazy and burn yourself out eventually". Wow. True. Aiming to be perfect is a ridiculous goal since it's absolutely impossible. 2 Cor. 12:9 is a great reminder for those who are perfectionists "But he said to me, My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in weakness. Therefore, I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me."

Lord help me to aim to honor you, all the while resting in Your grace, and not aim to be perfect. Lord help me to aim to love others, not aim to please them.

2. As I begin forming new relationships, maintain old ones, and re-unite with previous ones, I'm learning more about how messy relationships are. People are each designed SO uniquely and differently. I was raised one way; they were raised another. Their norm is far different from my own. I say and mean one thing; they interpret a completely different thing. I'm thankful for differences because when we learn from each other's differences, we become stronger/more rounded individuals. My "clock ticks" by pleasing others. But there's a major problem with that: pleasing everyone is completely impossible! However, that's not an excuse to give up on aiming to love others and bring them happiness. I've come to several conclusions: 1. If my conscience is clear that my intentions in how I'm interacting with others is out of love and with a good heart, then God is honored. 2. Try to see things from other's perspective - no matter how "off" it may seem to me. 3. I will hurt people; people will hurt me - Jesus, forgiveness and grace are the answers to healing and reconciliation. If forgiveness is something you are struggling with (as I have at times) I encourage you to be honest with Jesus about the hurt in your heart. Sometimes, we'll never get the apology we long for, but give that to Jesus too. It's not someone else's apology that will heal hurt, it's Jesus who heals. I also encourage you to listen to "Losing" by Tenth Avenue North and "Forgiveness" by Matthew West. I love this line of "Forgiveness": "So, let it go and be amazed By what you see through eyes of grace, The prisoner that it really frees is you

Well there's the latest update and some thoughts that hopefully will encourage you. Here are some pictures of recent happenings! God bless!

Alex doing an awesome job of leading Sunday morning worship

Alex preaching at one of our Sunday morning services. God has truly gifted him to be a pastor!

Fall is here so I just had to decorate for the new season! :)

I love being a home maker!

More fall decore :)

We got to visit home! We love our adorable little nephew!

Sierra and Danika (Alex's sisters) road up with us on the camping trip. Such wonderful girls!

Oh how I love my Papadee!

Hugs from Mommy are the best :)

So blessed to have a visit from Bryce and Ashley before they returned to Boston

We spent a lovely weekend with our wonderful friends, the Blairs

He brings me so much joy! So in love :)

Our New Home

Alex and I have been in our new home for just over a month and we have SO many blessings to count! We love our church family, our youth group, the new town, and our home :) God is so good! Not only is this a wonderful place to live, but we know that God has prepared our hearts to be here; we have so much peace about living here and so much excitement for what we believe God is going to do here! Alex is very busy with church life and I've been loving being a homemaker and pastor's wife :) We've already had the wonderful opportunity to do a lot of hosting in our home and we love it! We've had the youth group here, a group of young adults from the church, and the friends we've been making here. Also, we've had the wonderful blessing of having my cousin Susan come for a visit, my dear friends Kortney and Olivia and baby Quinn, my parents and brother, and my RA from college! And more friends and family are already planning trips to come visit us in the coming months. We were also blessed to get to meet our first nephew!!!!!! He is SO precious, tiny, and amazing!! Alex's sister, Latisha, and her husband Brent (long time great friends who are now our family) welcomed into the world August Nathaniel on June 17th. Alex and I were able to make it back to see them all over the 4th of July weekend. Such a blessing!

Well there's a bit of a recap of events lately. And here's pics of our new home! "Give thank to the Lord, for He is good; His love endures forever" -Psalm 118:1

Olivia, Kortney, Quinn, and Susan :)

Picnic with my family while they were visiting 

Our sweet nephew, August!

Welcome to our home!

My favorite part of our dining room is our view of this beautiful tree :)

It's amazing how pictures of our loved ones truly make it feel like a home :)

Our guest room/office/craft room 

My Aunt Karen gave me my Grandma J's and my Great Grandma's tea cups and shelf for my wedding. So special!

My bridesmaids and friends bought these beautiful tea sets for me! Can you tell I like tea time? :)

I'm so thankful to share this home with my amazing husband :)