Jon Huckins

The past month or so has been a pretty tough one for me. While I have great peace about our recent decisions that have us living in Santa Cruz, teaching in the public school classroom everyday and working intentionally towards living out “the Church” to the community around us, I have been going through a rather brutal detox from past life/church/school rhythms. My tendency is to try to stifle or ignore my depressed thoughts, but I’m finding that a symptom of the very system I’m am trying to recover from. It is amazing the new, fresh, difficult, angering and very enlightening perspective I am gaining when I embrace the realities of my past and present through these eyes. Very important.

With that being said, this past weekend I had two of my best buddies in town for a few hours each. Between rich conversation with Ryan Mcrae on Saturday and my long time mentor Chip Johnson on Sunday, I came out very encouraged and hopeful. Not hopeful in a “well that was an insightful month of detox and now it’s time to move on” kind of way. But a hope that is centered in embracing and growing in and through these uncomfortable and vocationally confused times. For me, it is in these times of wrestling through the good and bad with those that are closest to me, that the Kingdom of God is more visible and present than ever.

Thanks fellas…jonny

The last two weeks have been eventful to say the least. With about 1 week left of time in Europe, we got news that my Grams was really sick. She was in the hospital with double neomonia and a bad heart condition. When we heard this, we made a bunch of phone calls that turned into LONG conversations with airlines, insurance and ticket brokers. After a few days and a schedule that’s new priority was “get home to grams,” we stuck around the Frankfurt Airport to see if we could catch a flight. This is when it got ugly…but humorous. Over the course of 48 hours we were unsuccessful on 3 stand by flights and decided that we needed to save money and didn’t want to stay too far from the airport. So what did we do?? Yes, we paid to simply sleep in our rental car in the parking garage of the Frankfurt Airport. It was about 12 degrees outside and after hanging a bunch of my clothes in the windows and waking up every 30 minutes to turn the heater on, we got arguably the worst night sleep in human history. See pics below…

The next morning we actually got the first flight back to San Francisco and after a short time back home in Santa Cruz, we packed up our car and headed down south to San Luis Obispo to see grams. By the time we got there, she had fought her way back to some better health, although still very weak and tired. It was great to get/give some hugs and kisses.

From there we were able to keep heading south down to North Hollywood and spend the night at my bro-in-law Jason’s place. It was great to be with him, especially since he is leaving to move to Kansas City tomorrow. We soaked in our time together…

The next afternoon Janny and I drove up the mountain to Big Bear where I was speaking at a Junior High Winter Camp for the weekend. The weather was terrible on the way up(of course driving our Honda with no chains!), but once we got there, it ended up being a beautiful weekend. We were hooked up with a small cabin in the snow and had a great time connecting with students and counselors. Getting back in that context defintely sturred up some memories of all the years we had with our kids at Harbor Chapel. At the same time, watching all that the youth pastors did and were responsible for gave us great peace about our decision to step away from that role/context.

On the way back up north we stopped and gave grams some more love and now we are back in Santa Cruz trying to figure out what life will look like. We are both subbing and I will be coaching a local H.S. golf team starting in a couple weeks. Should be interesting!!

We have some fun pictures and stories to add, but haven’t had the ability because our computer with all of our pics has decided to no longer charge and when it does it overheats. Quality machine. We will get it back soon and give an update. It has been an eventful week or so!

Hello all!!

Since our last post we have been the island of Malta, Barcelona and then flew up to Germany where we rented a little car we call Hanz. Pretty funny seeing us drive around in the smallest car in history on the autobahn, with ice and snow all around us. We are now in the town of Heidelberg…Pretty amazing. We ran into a little hostel with a REALLY friendly owner names Martin. Fun talking to him about life, politics and a little about religion. He has a big group from Azuza Pacific coming next week to stay with him for 3 months. Random. Here are some pics.

Janny and I on a lunch boat ride on the Nile in Egypt.

Overlooking the Island of Malta. We were able to go to the shelter where Paul stayed after his shipwreck there.

Playing some cards with our new friends Dan and Monica

Trying to stay warm on a famous bridge in Heidelberg, Germany

Wow…We haven’t had any internet access for a week now and we are currently in a small cafe on the side street of the VERY chaotic Alexandria, Egypt. The past week has been full of unbelievable sites, experiences and conversations. We don’t have much time, so we will give a picture tour rather than a written tour. We will write more later, but since our last post we have been to and experienced: Rome, Corinth and Athens(Greece), Ephasus(Turkey), Cairo and Alexandria(Egypt).

At Vatican City just after the Pope came out and held a Mass for the Three Kings holiday.

In Ancient Corinth where Paul spent alot of time. This is in front of the Temple of Apollos.

Standing on Mars Hill where Paul preached next to the Acropolis in Athens.

Standing on street in front of the ancient Library in Ephasus where Paul once walked.

Janny and I on a camel in Cairo overlooking the Pyramids and the Spinxs