Twice a year, once on Shannon’s birthday and once on our Anniversary, we try and escape sans kids. A few weeks ago, Shannon and I escaped for a few days while her mom watched the tribe.

The budget is tight, so we have to get creative, and the last two times I’ve scored nearly free beach pads via friends of friends. This time, we went to a BIG beach house (literally on the beach) in Capistrano Beach just south of Dana Point proper and where HWY 1 meets I-5 along the pacific coast. The gal who lives in the house is a grandma who travels now and again and when she does, she opens the house up to friends and family to stay for a small cleaning and housing fee. So we had like 3000 square feet all to ourselves.

We watched the sun set both nights.

We made a trip to the store to stock up with food and such so we didn’t have to leave much and could relax. I made fruit and toast for breakfast each morning and chicken quesadillas for our one lunch we had there. We ate out one night and found a place that was beautiful and out of our price range but by the grace of God, was 50% off food and beverages if you sat down at your table before 6pm. So we had arrived early and got super lucky! SCORE!

I enjoyed watching the birds do life on the coast, a seal or two, and even had a dolphin pod sighting off our deck 🙂

Finally one indicator that you are in a place you can’t afford to be in: the neighbors pay the gardener to rake the sand on their property between their house and the high tide mark. Yeah, American’s are stupid.

…with 2 things this fall:

#1. SOCCER FOR THE SEASON. August to November, my world is filled with hours of practice, names to memorize, games to attend, athletes to train, goals to set up, fields to chalk, and so much more. It is all encompassing as all 5 of our kids play. It finished on Saturday.

I coached TJ’s U-14 boys. We finished tied for third.

I also coached Tyler’s U-10 boys team. We also finished tied for third.

#2. PIANO FOR BOY NUMERO DOS. I’m not musical. In any way. I can’t sing, play any instrument, or even call out the latest and greatest artist on the radio. So I don’t coach anything regarding music. Instead, they can coach me. 🙂 But if you want to play an instrument in the Berrytribe, per the family mom rules, you have to learn piano first.

Tyler finished his season of training and graduated on Sunday with a recital. You go Ty. Now he’s off to play drums and he can school me 🙂

I’m not sure what just yet, but something’s broken.

Maybe in me.

Maybe in my ministry.

Maybe both.

But it’s clearly broken and I’m not sure how to fix it or even that there is one solution.   I know of some things that are broken that I can and should fix.  I know of other things that are broken that I think I could fix if someone holding that thing would just say, “Ok, I agree it’s broken.  Let’s fix it together.”  But this thing that is broken is deeper than either of those.

I can’t describe it or put my finger on “it”, but I’m hunting.

Tonight I walked into my house and shannon and I unanimously said, “What is that smell?  Something is dead in here.”  I’m not sure if a rat died in a wall or the milk is rotten in the fridge, but something is not right.   I have that same feeling about several other things right now.  “Something is dead in here.”

I also checked my snail mail tonight.  Bills came and so did an advertisement for a conference I normally would not attend.  It features another pastor who I don’t have a lot of respect for his methods or at times his message.  I actually hadn’t heard his name in a while and then I read this conference ad and inside was this quote:

“In a recent and important book, Michael Horton has made a compelling case that the American church has been willingly taken captive by American culture and ideals including consumerism, pragmatism, self-sufficiency, individualism, positive thinking, personal prosperity, and nationalism.  As a result, we have pushed God aside and trivialized the faith.  Instead of the gospel, we proclaim a therapeutic and moralistic deism.”  

I have not read this book and I don’t know that they are right.

I don’t know that they are wrong either.

I do know something is broken and I can’t fix it with my hammer, my computer, or by myself.

I’m on a quest.

I have come to love Mexico. I thought moving 30 minutes from the border would mean I’d take hundreds of students every year… but the truth is, we’ve taken waaaaaay less in San Diego than we ever did in Nor Cal. My largest trip here is still about as big as my smallest trip team from there.

Part of it is because local Mexico news is local news here, so people are actually more afraid of the border here than they are in Nor Cal. We tend to believe the news and lately, Mexico is a fearful place to go filled with drugs and waring and you’ll likely die if you go.

Yeah… well… we keep going, but now that they require passports (something I’ve required from Nor Cal for years), we are taking fewer and fewer students. This time it was 4 high school girls, 5 from the Berrytribe (we didn’t take Becky and Billy cuz we thought it was too soon a transition for them and a variety of other reasons), and some of our adult volunteers- all in all totaling a nice size group of about 15 of us for a day trip in honor of the Veteran’s day off.

But regardless… I’d go with my family alone. Why?

• CUZ I’M RICH: It’s good for my kids to get around a culture that reminds them they have too much. It’s good for me to be reminded I’m rich. Today I went to a wedding rehearsal in Rancho Santa Fe. In the hour before the rehearsal that Shannon had to be there, Jake (who is a ring bearer) and I went to a coffee shop. Rancho Santa Fe is the land of 10 million dollar homes. Really. The church the wedding is in is sitting around MULTI-million dollar estates. Jake and I had coffee in a place where my car was clearly lower class and we went window shopping for fun at a real estate broker next door and there was not one house for sale under 2 million. The largest we saw had 9 bedrooms, 9 bathrooms, 2 pools, a grass tennis court, and was going for 16 million. Yeah.. hang around in Rancho Santa Fe and you’ll feel poor. Now drive south of the border for 15 minutes, spend the day there with a family we sponsor who has no car, no phone, no refrigerator and 6 kids who live in a 200 sq foot home and you’ll shut up about being poor in a hurry.

• CUZ IT MAKES ME HAPPY TO SEE THEM HAPPY: I love seeing kids play. I love sharing food and serving along side those who could use my help. I love bringing them food and sharing the abundance we have with those who could use a little more.

• CUZ OF THE FOOD: Ok.. I go for the taquitos and the ice cream. Truth be told, if you told me I couldn’t stop for taquitos, I think I might question motive one and two in light of motive 3. I LOVE to eat in the hole in a wall open air taco places. I’ve yet to get sick. I always pick one whose reputation is good among the locals and looks good and clean and yeah… we just roll in and eat till it hurts. It’s really the best thing about Mexico. They are good cooks 🙂