Get to Know a Garden City Member: The Salinas Family
We are the Salinas Family! Shea, Julie, Gabriel (5), Jude (3), and Eden (1). I (Shea) am from Texas and Julie is from South Carolina, but we have called California our home for the last 9 years. I have played professional soccer now for 13 years and it has taken Julie and me on a journey around the continent. We lived in downtown Philadelphia and in downtown Vancouver, Canada each for a year. It is amazing the see now that during our years of moving around God was growing us so much through our church communities and the cities we were living in. We know he had specific people he wanted to place in our lives to teach us about His character. In Philly we learned about being real and vulnerable and that we are able to do this because of God’s grace. In Vancouver, we learned about contributing to a community and not just consuming. When we finally arrived in San Jose in 2012, we started to learn about the importance of a gospel-centered church, and that lasting hope, peace, and joy are only found in the gospel.
Santa Clara is now our home and we have an awesome, crazy life of raising three kids. Our life group and our neighbors are a huge part of our family and they love us so well. God is using this time in our lives to encourage others and to depend on God and others for help.
We love house projects, we have 5 chickens, and we are getting into urban farming (we have a long way to go). We really like Chip and Joanna Gains (Claim to fame: Chip and I went to the same High School – but several years apart). Our favorite thing to do is to have our neighbors over for dinner, but that has not been possible for a few months now. Instead, we have focused more on having intentional conversations with our kids during dinner. Sometimes they are fun like, “what superhero do you want to be and why?” and sometimes we get the opportunity to speak into their hearts about who God is.
Our hearts break for our family members, coworkers, and neighbors who don’t know Jesus. We ask you to pray for us as we seek wisdom on how to best display and talk about the value of having a relationship with God. We love you and can’t wait to see you all again!