Who I am in 2019

After doing some very rudimentary market research, I decided this blog will be about my personal experiences – such as they are. My research was to brainstorm different ways I could reactivate this blog with a Christian focus, and then to ask for feedback on Facebook as to which type of blog those who follow me there would like to see. Besides focusing on personal experiences, my ideas were a journalism style blog in which I would give practical and timely information (possibly by interviewing others who know more about a topic than I do), and a blog in which I would take passages of Scripture and show how to apply them to real life.


I’ve had three friends respond to the question so far. One is a friend of more than 50 years. His feedback that I “look forward” instead of reflecting on my past. My other two friends are Jurupa Valley residents, and they both said they would read a blog about my life experiences. And they both know I’m still figuring out the direction my life will go next.


So, my plan now is that I’ll tell you – at least once a week –  about the things I do. Quite frankly, I’m not sure how interesting most of that is. The vast majority of my time I spend either driving my husband to and from his substitute teaching jobs, cleaning my house and writing. Pretty boring stuff, and I’m not likely even going to touch that niche of blogs that tries to make housework seem like an exciting ministry opportunity. (For the record, I read those to try and get excited about doing housework.)


 Four times a month or more, I attend meetings of an organization called Healthy Jurupa Valley. Now this very well may be where I get some of my most passionate blog posts in the future. The organization’s mission is to promote the health of Jurupa Valley by focusing on five pillars. It strengthens the community through “action teams” (subgroups of the larger organization) that address each of these pillars. I’m doing something with Healthy Jurupa Valley at its monthly collaborative meeting, at three of the five monthly action team meetings, and (often) when these and the other two action teams are putting on a community project.


One of the community pillars is health care. The others are economic prosperity, arts and recreation, access to good nutrition through gardens and markets (both Farmers’ Markets and making sure even the little grocery stores have healthy food) and public safety. I’m interested enough in economic prosperity and developing arts and recreation that I volunteered to join both of those action teams. The Gardens and Markets team, before I joined, formed with some people I genuinely enjoy being around, so I accepted their invitation to participate in that as well.


One other thing that keeps me busy, twice a week, is attending Sandals Church in Riverside on Sunday mornings and participating in its Local Outreach Team on Thursday evenings. I’m sure I’ll have more to say about the worship experience at Sandals as time goes on, since it has been my church since 2005. But I’m kind of new to this Local Outreach Ministry, and it will be my next blog post.