getting to the heart of the matter...

Whew! we haven't written in a long while, but that's not to say we haven't thought about you.  have you ever been in the midst of an experience that you absolutely knew was where God wanted you to be?   As though if you doubted it for even a second, you would have to laugh because you were just that certain that it was part of your destiny.   that's what this time is for Seth and I.  it is part of our destiny.  does that mean that there aren't rough patches?  i don't think so.  In fact, this experience is probably more "destinential" BECAUSE of its rough patches...it is essentially DEFINED by its rough patches.  And i am not saying that the rough patches have been terribly rough, but they have been significant moments for us.  For instance...i am about to get really personal right now, so if you were looking for superficial, light and airy, or a recounting of our recent travels, this isn't it.  check back in two months (wink:o)...for instance...seth and i were talking before we went to bed the other night, and i realized that i have an unfortunate pattern forming in my life.  ever since i was a little girl, when i have moved on from a school, or a town, or a community, i have almost completely written off the people involved.  When we moved away from Riverside, i never really talked to the kids i grew up with again.  When i left high school i only talked to the girls who went to college with me and even then, i eventually cut them out of my life too.  If your reading, i am sorry.  And then, after my last, hardest and best year of college, i moved home and didn't want to go back to Santa Barbara for a long time.  I think the wedding planning trips were the first times i didn't fully cringe when returning to SB.   What the hell is that about?  The reason this came up, not that i haven't thought about it before, is because Seth has been talking about going back to Golden Bay to intern with this guy who has a very cool business setting up folks' edible gardens.  For those of you (probably most of you) who don't know what Golden Bay represents for me...it is the place where we took the Permaculture course that lasted three weeks.  

(This is a picture of a skit seth and i performed at hippy school).  Without being overly dramatic, they were a hard three weeks for me, for us (we are one now). I was stretched so far out of my comfort zone.  I had to ask our group of students (whom we were living in community with a.k.a sharing toilets and showers) TWICE to please keep the nudity out of public spaces.  I couldn't demand it because frankly, i was the minority there. But they were kind and did their best to respect our unique preferences.  The culture there was like none that i had lived in before.  I couldn't see any boundaries, physical or otherwise...some seemed to have them, but for the most part, i felt quite alone in my thinking.  There were even moments where it felt like other people's boundarylessness was forced upon me. I wanted to scream and run away from there unsolicited hugs and smiling faces.  I didn't know how to hold myself together in the midst of a culture that made me really uncomfortable.  Bless Seth, because He held my hand through the whole thing, encouraging me to speak my mind and make my needs known.  In the end, i was able to speak more boldly about my convictions, my faith, the love of God, my insecurities, etc...more boldly than i ever have.  I am thankful to each of those people for how they challenged me.  However, i don't want to go back there EVER again.  this is what i am talking about guys.  That experience, miserable high school moments, confusing/regrettable situations in college and damaged relationships...places of discomfort or awkwardness...who wants to relive those?  but isn't it sad to think that i would cut out these huge, important chunks of my life?!  and the people?!...the people that i have ceased to talk to because i don't want to go back to the moments that they represent, sad.  Praise God i have friends from those times that push through my defense mechanisms.  Praise God He cares enough to show me my fear and insecurities.  Because i don't want to keep cutting people out of my life when the memories get unpleasant.  

So, the other night as i let Seth into the dionna-dysfunction, i found a safe heart...someone who loves me even though i am broken and at times unkind.  He can't fix it, but he can help me process the old memories.  And hopefully, God will heal that part of me that wants to run...or else i will always be running.  Seth encouraged me to dare to go deeper with my friends...to trust them with the bits of me that don't look so good.  can you handle it?  I need accountability.  when you see me putting on my running shoes, please call me out on it.  i probably won't like it, but i think i will come around.  

For those of you who lasted this long, thank you for reading.  This is the kind of stuff that's coming to the top of the bucket, so to speak.  God is taking this time of seth and i being away, to bring the grit out.  New Zealand is beautiful, but learning to trust God and my husband with the yuck that i have collected in 26 years, is life-altering.  God's grace is calling me out of hiding.  My prayer is that He would show me how to live in His love and walk confidently in the steps that are ahead.  Maybe i will be going back to Golden Bay...

I hope i can be a safe place for your grit.  email, phone, skype, whatever, i can handle it.  thank you for teaching me about love. 

Many days passed

Hi everybody!!! a month flies by really fast when you are in an alternate universe....more on that later.  but here is a blog that seth started about a month and a half ago.  he didn't really finish it, but i told him that i am learning we just have to give out of where we are and what we got.  i don't think God asks us to be more than we are.  It's He who is greater and bigger in us that makes the difference.  so, here are some seth words....

So it has been nearly a month since our departure and i write to you from a small beach town on the west coast called Raglan.  On my previous journey to New Zealand my sister and I spent 8 days touring the north island and Raglan was by far favorite stop.  Off New Zealand's central Highway 1, Raglan sits just 45 minutes to the west.  The drive out to the coast is like a time warp to old Laguna Canyon Road at time when it was two lanes, there were cattle, and most importantly Irvine Company hadn't made its mark.  This is one of those roads you might find up in Mendocino County or along the central coast.  Where images and emotional stirrings force you to contemplate God's hand and at times my thoughts drifted to our beloved California and the open space we once knew.   I can remember my mom with the video camera recording the pastures of Newport Coast and telling us to take a good look, because it is all going to be houses some day.  So many times I tried to catalogue our experience as if it would be our last, yet there were no bulldozers or hungry developers waiting to make a buck.  The beauty kept unfolding, and I gave up my visual feeding frenzy,  trusting that New Zealand would continue to expose itself anew.  

This country is roughly the size of Oregon and California put together and it has only 4 million residents.  The New Zealander's know they live in a special place and they are quite keen to experience it all.  The country is set up to exposed and experienced.  With plentiful road signs, amazing camping facilities, and a solid effort at preservation 

Just a side note on Raglan...I stopped at the local garage to see about getting our power steering belt tightened (its got the squeeks) and I was greeted by another happy go lucky auto repair mechanic. (second side note...Dionna and I have discovered that all the auto mechanics in this country, who spend their lives in the dirt and grease, are enjoying life to its fullest, while all the health food stores who claim to change you life through organic food and eco-friendly cleaning supplies, have been nothing but stuffy and unwelcoming. Go figure)  After the mechanic wrote my name down I asked him what time i should bring the car.  He replied with, "what ever works for you no one ever sticks to the appointment times...this is Raglan"  Works for me...I knew i liked Raglan... "see you tomorrow."

For those of you contemplating marriage or if you have been at it for a while it is something I highly recomend.  My time with (Dionna sidenote: i wonder what he was going to say here!!!)

South is our current direction and we plan to board a 3hr car ferry come February 6th.   Dionna and I have enrolled in a Permaculture course on the south island starting the 7th.  The course runs 3 weeks and ends with a Permaculture certification and loads of hands on experience.  In case you are wondering what permaculture is I will try and give you a basic definition. Sustainable living whereby the land and the human can mutually benefit by working together. (Dionna sidenote:  essentially, it is a holistic approach to farming/gardening/taking care of the land.  it it is the kind of "farming" that came long before what we know in the middle states of the US.  It is what native peoples did.  we learned about assisting nature, doing what it does best.  permaculture is also about community.  it's about making space for people to connect and work together...that is permaculture in a very brief form).  The course will give us a great introduction into this (Dionna sidenote: now that i have completed the course i can tell you that it gave us a great introduction into permaculture certainly, but in a much bigger sense it gave us an introduction to how Seth and Dionna do life together and create boundaries in a place that is very very different from what we know.  more on this later...)

Hey guys, i have been in the computer lab for 4 hours and i am at the end of my rope.  the images are being a pain in my backside to download, so please forgive me if this blog has only one picture. but we have plenty, so we are going to try to start a flikr account or something.  please stay tuned.  

ps. we love you and miss you community

love dionna and seth

Honey Ankles

All day i watched flies lick my flea-bitten, honey coated ankles.  My ankles had honey on them because i was told at the "honey centre" that honey can cure most any ailment.  I got flea bites within the first week of our trip and i wake up most nights itching them to hell.  I am determined to itch them right off my ankles, but of course i am only hurting myself.  So, i resorted to honey. Other than give the flies a sweet treat, i don't think it worked.  In fact, i think they might have multiplied just to spite me.  In usual Dionna fashion I wait until discomfort reaches an all time high, and THEN i do something about it. When we went into town today, we stopped at a small organic shop.  The gal working their tells me that tea tree oil will do the trick with the damn flea bites.  Two words...thanks Mom.  You know what i mean.  Anyway, the gal who is saving my legs, seems to have an extensive knowledge of medicinal herbs, so i say as much to her.  In a snooty sort of tone, she says that she has lived her life by these herbs...my question for her, why'd they make her so grumpy? hmmm...

Before the flea-bite solutions, but after the bites, Seth and I spent a solid four days pursuing the perfect vehicle for our New Zealand adventures.  The used car market for backpackers is grueling work.  You have got to sift through the vans with lice infested, pre-installed (previously sweated in) mattresses that smell like mildew, the soccer mom Previas that aren't quite big enough, you have to fret over whether to wait the four weeks before you can get the pimped out van of your used car dreams...OR save yourself the headache and decide that it is better to notch down your expectations.  The beauty we finally chose, inside which i am now writing this blog, upon our clean duvet that sits on top of our freshly installed bed frame, is a metallic turquoise, 1994 Mitsubishi Delica.  We never knew a van could be this cool.  And now, it's home. 

 

God is good folks.  Seth and I don't know every step of this journey, but our desire is to stay the course (right dad?).  We set out to buy and kit-out a van, and God provided.  Through the process we learned that you have to expect the unexpected or you end up being disappointed a lot of the time.  We also learned (and ARE learning) that we, Seth and I, are two different people, with different ways of thinking and unique ways of processing...as we have to make decisions and choose paths to take, God is showing us that without his leadership, Headship, we can get easily sidetracked.  

Pride is something else i am learning about, and surprise surprise, I have it in spades.  Pridefully, i never thought i was a prideful person, hah!  Praise God for Seth and his gentle way with me.  I think I don't want to come across as incompetent in any way.  But the truth is, i am incompetent about a lot of things i don't know.  You are probably going to hear heaps about this in the coming months.  Hope for the future:  letting go of my fear, embracing His peace, stepping into safe vulnerability among those who love me, trust in Him growing deeper and stronger...it might be awhile...forever maybe...but there's time.  

Seth wants to write some stuff too, so i will let him do that in the next blog.  Thanks for reading.  It feels good to write to you instead of my journal.  Your love is real to us and we think about you often.  We pray that God is blessing you and keeping you...His fabulous face shining on you.  

Days 1 through 4

How do we tell our story?  You all were there for the beginning, but now comes the part where we are away from your preciously familiar eyes.  If you know Seth and I, you know that part of arriving in this new place involves some wrestling...wrestling with our own minds, wrestling with our insecurities...our fears that perhaps people are secretly hating us underneath those smiles.  Needless to say, we are head-trippers.  Even as I am writing this blog, i am thinking that my writing is not REAL enough, not gritty or compelling.  Like so many areas of my life, i want to be ten steps ahead...i want to write with the experience and insight that i don't have yet.  However, I am reminded to stay the course, to stay put in the present.  God has us in our shoes. 

Seth is on the computer at the moment, diligently searching for a trusty steed for our adventures.  We are looking for a camper-van that will keep us mobile and always with a bed to sleep in.  I love the way Seth refuses to settle.  He is tenacious in his pursuit for efficiency and quality.

As for our recent adventures, we spent a tropical weekend at a beach community called Pauanui (that's what all the pictures are from).  We were welcomed into the homes of new friends who greeted us warmly and with great hospitality.  Sitting around tables with a bounty of food, Seth and I were struck by God's provision.  Last night we ate yet another delicious dinner with our friends' family, laughing and telling stories around the table, and then headed back for Auckland.  Sitting in the back seat, being washed over in the light of a full moon, I basked in the blessings of the moment.  As the car followed the curves of the lush mountain road, I looked at my new husband and i thought of a specific provision that he represented.  More than I knew, God hand-picked this man to help shape me.  He reminds me of my need for our Saviour...reminds me how much sweeter life is when I trust our good and gracious Poppa.  Seth is a perfect blessing.  At times he is like a soothing salve to the wounds of my own fragile person.  We have both experienced our own insecurities since arriving in this place.  As we navigate our own individual process, we can look outside ourselves and see the other...a picture of God's own love standing next to us, holding hands, learning to trust, loving, wrestling, crying, smiling, laughing, seeing, bonding together...we are learning to lean.  God is good all the time.

We think of you often.  You are in our prayers before we go to bed.  We love you.