Living the American Dream, Backward

As a young girl, Valerie had tremendous faith. Her mom shared with her the stories of Jesus and Valerie embraced them wholeheartedly. Full of faith, she felt she nothing was impossible. But her mom and dad didn’t share the same beliefs which caused conflict. “I grew up in a family where only one parent believed in Jesus,” Valerie said. “The difference in beliefs in my parents caused a lot of tension.”

The conflict in her home life pushed her to search for attention in all the wrong places. She turned to dating to satisfy her needs. “I liked the attention that I was getting from the boys,” Valerie confessed. “That was my interpretation of love.”

She eventually found herself pregnant, and alone. Her choices drove her further and further from the people she loved most and the attention she craved. When she broke the news, her friends and family weren’t very supportive, forcing her to grow up overnight. “I remember when I first thought I was pregnant — when it really hit me, I realized at that moment, I have nothing.” She was pressured by friends to get an abortion, but she knew she wanted to keep the baby.

Although many of Valerie’s friends were reluctant to accept her over the next few years, one friend reached out and invited her to participate in a Filipino coming-of-age celebration. There, Valerie met Allen, her future husband. Allen wasn’t like the other men Valerie knew. He respected her and welcomed Leilani, her daughter, with open arms. The young couple married soon afterward and began their new life together.

Things looked promising for Valerie. The couple was very much in love, but they still lacked a sense of purpose and direction for their life. “We still struggled,” Valerie said. “We came into the relationship carrying a lot of the baggage from past relationships and hadn’t worked out any of our issues.”

The young family thought they were on the right path. They had good jobs and moved into a new apartment, but Valerie still felt something was missing.

One afternoon, while driving through the City of Lake Forest, Valerie saw a street sign that read, “Purpose Drive.” It reminded her of a conversation she’d had as a pregnant teenager. Her mom shared a line out of The Purpose Driven Life with her: “While there are illegitimate parents, there are no illegitimate children.” Valerie cried out “Hey, that’s the church!” and explained the story to Allen as he sat beside her in the car. The next weekend, Allen and Valerie found themselves sitting in Saddleback Church. 

“I’ll never forget the first service we went to,” Valerie recalled. That weekend, Pastor Rick spoke a message on purpose and even mentioned the same line about unplanned children having purpose that had meant so much to her as a young mother. Allen and Valerie felt excited to get connected to a church family and continue their journey together with God.

“God was getting us planted into a spiritual family so we could grow out of the things that happened in the past,” Valerie said. “We started getting involved, joined a small group, took all the classes and felt like everything we needed to learn fit right in perfectly with each step along the way.” However, a subtle dissatisfaction still lingered with Valerie. She felt she should be doing more.

When Valerie attended PEACE Night to learn about outreach and global missions, a fire ignited in her spirit. She’d spent years trying to overcome her own struggles and make a better life for herself, and now she felt inspired to help others.

Allen was supportive, however, he didn’t share in Valerie’s enthusiasm for going on a PEACE Trip. He told her to go for it and he would stay home and watch the kids. Valerie felt uneasy about Allen’s unwillingness to join her. She prayed about a trip but felt the time wasn’t right yet.

Valerie knew she should be helping others through the PEACE plan, but felt uneasy about making a commitment without Allen by her side. Her unrest festered as she felt her life drift away from her purpose. “I had worked so hard to succeed and got into a great job and a great position,” Valerie recalls. “I told myself just to be happy but I felt like it wasn’t right. I should be happy but I’m not happy.” 

“Allen encouraged me to take some time off work to figure things out,” Valerie said. Her boss gave her permission to take a 30-day sabbatical to think things through. Valerie immediately set to planning her time off. She organized a schedule to maximize every moment while she took time off. Valerie did not want to waste this opportunity.

The next weekend in church, they saw a retreat coming up at Saddleback’s Retreat Center and decided to sign up. At the Retreat Center, God reached out to Allen, igniting a passion to serve alongside his wife. “It was such a great moment; it was like God’s Word came alive for me” Allen expressed. “God needed to do that in my life in order for us to get to the point where we could work together and fulfill God’s plan.”

As Allen and Valerie worked together now to get more involved, their kids changed as well. At 9 years old, Leilani began to ask about her purpose in life. Valerie read through The Purpose Driven Life with her and asked what she learned from it. Valerie recalled Leilani’s response: “We all have purpose — we may not know what it is right now, but you’ll discover it along the way!” The entire family has a joy that radiates on their faces when they’re working together. “Caring for the least, last, and lost is now a life mission with my family,” Valerie states. They’ve learned to pursue God’s purpose and dreams together as one family.

Since the retreat they’ve been involved in several Global PEACE initiatives. They have taken trips across the globe to help local churches and share Jesus message of hope both near and far. Their children have even accompanied them in PEACE Trips to New Mexico and Baja.

“No matter where you are in life, God has a calling for you,” Valerie says. “The typical American dream is to go through school, get a job, get married, buy a house, and then settle down. We are supposed to be at the point where we’re settling down,” Valerie says. “But we’re doing it backward — we want to follow God’s dream for our lives.” The couple recently sold their home and moved into an apartment to have greater flexibility to be involved in The PEACE Plan. Allen, Valerie, and their two children are preparing for a long-term trip to serve local churches in Rwanda next year.