While Stranded in San Francisco...

If you read our last post, you know that we've been granted an unexpected mini-vacation in San Francisco, CA due to missing our flight to NZ on Thursday night.  The next available flight wasn't until Sunday, so we decided to make the best of things and get some rest and spend some time together seeing the sights.  Here are some pics and a short description of some of the things we did...

San Francisco Transportation - We got an all day pass for the subway, bus, cable car and trolley systems... not the easiest with 6 and a stroller, but made got us around and made for some first time experiences!

Westview Mall - After getting in the city, we needed some snacks to re-energize.  Amazing food court, went back later for dinner too!  I even found a cafe that serves the treasured fresh ground, pour over coffee and had a taste!

Ghiradelli Square - I'll give you one guess on who's idea it was that we go here...Ok, all of us wanted to go there, but Amy made sure there was no chance of an unfavorable vote :0)

Lombard Street  - We took a walk down San Francisco's "Crookedest Street", Amy wanted me to go back with the rental car on Sunday, but I refused...ended up driving down something almost as curvy and more precarious, see note on Muir Woods Park.

Haight-Ashbury Street - I know, those days are gone, but it was fun to see what's left and there are some pretty cool shops down there.  Found another pour over coffee shop, this one even better, oh, and we found gourmet chocolate there for the girls too!

 

Golden Gate Bridge - Took the traffic filled drive up 101 North to drive across the infamous bridge on our way to Muir Woods.  The fog was settling in right over the bridge, made for some cool photo ops.

 

Muir Woods Park - Ok, no one warned me that we had to risk driving off the side of the road with hair pin curves and no hand rails, but it was well worth the risk as the sights were amazing!

 

San Francisco Airport - Ok, not the sight everyone typically puts on their list, but we spent as much time, if not more, in this location during our 2.5 day stint in the city, so it's worth mentioning.  Found lots of great food and shops and some very helpful people too!

The Adventure Begins...

Well, our adventure has officially begun! Preparing for this point has taken a lot more than we imagined, but we made it with lots of help from friends and family and are presently in flight on route to New Zealand. Traveling by plane is a new experience for most of the family and so far it's going well, even for Mala. Lots of Z Bars and Yo Gabba-Gabba helped to keep her content until now and just moments ago she dropped off to sleep.

We left our house yesterday around noon after some hectic last minute packing and re-packing to meet our 50 lb bag weight requirements. It's amazing how hard it can be to choose between those last few items... after a 2.5 hr drive we made it to the airport in plenty of time, only to get delayed for 2+ hrs. We made it to San Francisco, but too late to catch our connection. The next flight isnt for two days, so we are getting a surprise mini-trip to SanFrancisco! We have a 12 hr flight to New Zealand that leaves Sunday night, we land at 5:40am NZ time and from there we take the final 3 hr leg by bus to our home for the next 12 weeks in Matamata.

Our next post will likely be from NZ after we've had a few days to acclimate and get details on what we will be doing, in the mean time, here are some areas we'd love your prayer support in:

Adjusting: Between the new location, time zone change and lifestyle change, we've got a lot of adjustments to make! We don't want to lose any time jumping into our training so we're hopingto be quick learners.

Outreach Location: As I said in a prior post, we will be determining our outreach location in the coming weeks. There will be several options, and we certainly have some thoughts on what we do (and dont) want to do, but our hearts desire is go wherever we can be a blessing to others.

Longer Term Plans: A big reason we are going on this adventure is to take some time as a family to figure out what we will be doing moving forward. We've certainly learned a lot in the last 15 years as a family, but are anticipating some new direction, just not quite sure what yet! We know we want to get more involved in working together as a family and helping others along the way.

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Transitions

We have less than one month until we leave for New Zealand. We are all getting very excited, this will be our first international adventure as a family!

Our family has been focused on transitions - I (Carl) have been transitioning work responsibilities (last day is Friday!), Amy has been turning over her women's ministry responsibilities and the girls finished dance classes for the year (pic to right is from the year end recital) and are wrapping up homeschool for the year. Now we turn our attention to preparing for our adventure...



We are so thankful for those that are praying for us, here are some things you can stand with us on:

•  Preparations - As you can imagine, we have many things to prepare and every day we find more! We have our list and are working at staying at peace as we work to accomplish all that is needed.
• Health - In the busyness of life, we've not been as disciplined as we should and as such have a little bit of physical tidying up to do. We are just wrapping up a 21-day "purification cleanse", are generally feel much better and are praying that we can continue on in our new found disciplines so that are bodies are more prepared for the challenges of international travel.
• Family - Besides re-locating our family, another big change for us is that we will be together 24/7 for the next 6 months. We are super excited, as this something we've been dreaming of, but it's a little scary too! We've already been hanging out and doing things together more and are trusting that we'll continue to grow in love!

Prelude

We are the Lefever family (from left, Amy, Ascher, Mala, Bente, Carl & Soren) - pretty much a standard American family, living life and growing as a family, and as you can see from our picture, trying to have fun together along the way. We recently made a decision as a family to do something a little different from the norm…in July we are departing on a five month journey in volunteer missions that starts in New Zealand and ends up somewhere else in the world - we don't exactly where yet!

 

I know…pretty exciting and scary all at the same time, but we really feel like this is significant and are expecting this to be a milestone event for our family! We will be leaving the US on July 19 and then spending the next 12 weeks on a missions base a town called Matamata, which is on the northern island of New Zealand (if you've watched the Lord of the Rings trilogy, this is the town where the Shire was filmed). The base is run by an organization called YWAM (Youth with a Mission), which is a large missions organization that runs over 1,000 bases across the globe. While in Matamata, we will be going thru training with 11 other families like ours for about three months and then afterwards, participating in volunteer missions work somewhere else in the world, potentially in New Zealand or another part of the South Pacific or Asia regions, for at least another two months. As of right now, we are planning to return home in December, but are open to potentially spending more time doing similar work depending on how this adventure goes…

 

We'll be posting updates on our journey along the way, we hope you enjoy following us on our adventure!