On our way home!!!

It's now 9.23pm, we just got on the i5, and should be home around 12.00 midnight.

Pray for a speedy border crossing!! 

See you all at trinity CRC!

Well it's 11.30pm, our time here is now down to just 5 more hours.

Memories have been made.
Friendships formed.
T-shirts bought.

Lives have been changed.

Tomorrow morning at 3.30am out alarms start going off, and our journey home begins. At 4.30, our vans leave the parking lot and at 6.10 our train leaves the station.

42 hours later, we'll hopefully arrive back at trinity CRC!

Good night, and very soon, good morning.

our day to day ...

from the minds of Chantelle Floris, Carissa Berger, & Courtney Styba:

Today we had a full action packed day. The morning was a typical morning, which included an early breakfast, teaching session, and preparing for the day. To change things up a bit, we did some skits and original raps (stay tuned for videos!) in order to learn about true discipleship.

After the skits we broke into two groups, one group went to the basement of our church and helped organize food into bags and handed t all out to homeless and needy.

Meanwhile, the rest of team began landscaping a garden, that a team before us started here on the church property. This consisted of many wheelbarrows of dirt and a whole lot of team effort. Much sweat was shed, and dirt was spread. This continued for hours.

When all food distribution was complete, three youth took it on themselves to fill their time up with evangelism, they found two leaders, bought flowers, water, granola bars, and fruit snacks and went out to bless people - anyone they came into contact with - while praying for their needs, and also sharing the story of Christianity. It was truly a spectacular, live changing experience for all involved.

Once all groups regathered, and ate dinner, we left for the VBS ministry, where relationships with the kids continued to grow and flourish.

Back at the church we shared our high and low moments of the day - with many entertaining and heart felt stories.

Each day keeps getting better and better!

~ Chantelle, Courtney, & Carissa.

future thinking ...

So today, I was invited to go into Mexico, with our hosts to see what YWAM Tijuana was like, and what possibilities are there. It was quite the experience, as they are doing amazing things, in supplying people who need homes, with homes.

Teams like ours, go into those communities and build those homes.

This trip, has had a large evangelistic focus to it, as opposed to service focused. Our group, including myself, was expecting more service, and less evangelism. And we have grown - oh how we have grown. Our group is learning how to approach people, and share their faith - that has been amazing to be apart of, as well as watch.

I currently am at a cross roads as a future thinker, as already I am dreaming about what kind of mission/service trip that the Lord desires for us to do.

We potentially have this opportunity to directly serve a family (YWAM Tijuana) in building them a house, and working with an orphanage in the same community.

We could do this exact trip again (outreach focus, anywhere in North America), as well, or many others like it. And then, what do we focus on:

Evangelism? Service?

Can we do both on the same trip?

Our community of Living Hope is made up of many skilled, hard working, hands on people - people who love to see immediate results in their work. Direct evangelism, might be difficult, or at least extremely uncomfortable for most, but in this team, those fears and discomforts are being overcome.

Hence the cross roads. If you have any thoughts or opinions, would you please email me (rather than using the comment box below): adam@lhyouth.ca.

Thanks.

our day to day ...

Again, a written summary of the day by a youth, Kassie Jansen.

Today was am amazing day, it started off with a wonderful fruit and muffin breakfast, and afterwards time was spent in devotions, prayer and a session with our great speaker (facilitator) Martin. We did a very scary thing for all of us today. We made up posters that had 'hooks', or sayings that were intended to draw people in from off the street. Some of these consisted of,

"broken"

"?"

"you are loved"

and others. After we ate a wonderful bacon wrapped mexican hot dog delight, we went out to talk to actual people, and evangelize, using our posters to draw people into discussions about our faith. It was an amazing experience where we talked with a few really interesting people, like atheists, and muslims.

Following that, we left that area and made our way to the site of the VBS. On the way, one of the vans had a major set back and we ended up a little later than planned. God was watching over us, protecting our group - thankfully no one was hurt!

When we pulled in to the school holding the VBS, we had an amazing dinner from SUBWAY! We ate quickly to get into the happenings of VBS, which is an amazing place to be. The kids are so accepting of us, and I can tell you that God brought us here for a reason when I see each of their unique and beautiful faces.

All in all, today was absolutely fantastic, and I can't wait to see what God has in store for us!

We miss all of you back home, pray for us, and everyone we come into contact with.

God Bless!

~Kassie Jansen.

pictures say more than words ...

a few of us on our prayer race around San Diego

[Saturday afternoon]

learning about intercessory prayer on top of Mt. Soledad, the highest point in all of San Diego [Monday afternoon]

the view from the mount, which in our terms, is only really a high hill ... the guy picture here is Fred (from Germany), a YWAM staff member. he's working here in San Diego for the next year with teams such as ours.
[Monday afternoon]

corwin leading team building exercises at a trolly (aka, sky train that's on the ground) station (while awaiting a team who got 'lost')!
[Saturday afternoon]

want to see more pictures? go over HERE to facebook. if that doesn't work, you'll have to wait until everyone comes home!

a different perspective:

I was thinking today, with thanks to Terril, that perhaps you might not want to always read my opinion, but rather that of someone else. So following this, is words from Alicia Zak:

This morning a few us woke up early to on a beautiful sunny run, which in the words of the others, was simply amazing. We all had a wonderful cereal breakfast, followed by personal devotions and quiet prayer time. We then ate lunch and drive to Mt. Soledad (the highest point in San Diego, with a full 360 view) where we prayed for San Diego. From there we drove to our VBS site, where we ate authentic, home cooked burritos, rice, and awesome 'new' cookies for dessert.

All agreed tonight that the highlight of the day was the VBS program, where we met new people, sang, and played with the kids.

God blessed us with a wonderful day, and we're looking forward to tomorrow and the rest of the week!

~ Alicia Zak

Another picture from our photo shoot in front of the church on Sunday after the morning service.


Prayer requests:
- that we would be continually stretched, and that while being stretched, we would remain open.
- that our time in downtown San Diego, sharing the love of Christ with all, that the people would be receptive and open, while we would have the courage to be upfront and honest with our faith.
- that at the VBS, more and more kids would come out.

thanks everyone! (keep those comments coming below!! - I read them out to the group everyday, so if you want to leave messages for them all, or individuals - go ahead!)