another picture from our trip...

i forgot to mention that we made it to a studio while out in cali...my great, great uncle was the door man at the warner brothers studio...we stopped by here in route to there...and had my picture taken. fun stuff!

roadtrip

by way of






leaving @ 3:30 sharp ~ 07.29.07

coming home

emmah's view out the window...

each one is different...

day five...

we finished up the student leadership conference with a final round...sort of an encore to the taco bell olympics. once again 6 crunch wrap supremes went flying...and i do mean flying in the middle rows of tent 3. fun stuff. taffy, the worship point person at saddleback walked us through what worship should be. they kept the best till last. he was excellent and right on point. for him the definition for worship is straight from the Word...Romans 12:1-2 So here's what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don't become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You'll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.



we ended our time with communion and then it was off to lunch and off to the ocean. we tried a new place called hot off the grill. it was very good. once we got our beach duds we headed to west to huntington beach. we all spent some time getting wet, the water was about 65 degrees, but after a few minutes it seemed very comfortable. we spent about two and half hours there and then headed south down the pacific coast highway we stopped by laguna beach for a walk around and then drove farther south to dana point. we watched the sun set there. all three beaches were very different. it was cool to see the contrasts. we wrap up our travels tomorrow, hopefully seeing Harry Potter on the IMAX screen at irvine and then to the airport for our early morning arrival at columbus. don't forget we've got our first july road trip down to the new grounds cafe' in sugar creek...we'll leave the church no later than 7:15.

video from yesterday's 1st annual taco bell olympics. that was the crunch wrap discus toss competition. the gal that threw it hit the 12th row. impressive. found out she was on the track team at school.

take your pick...

the best is yet to come

sitting here in the quiet of the hotel room at the end of day three. the guys are all asleep and i'm putting up some pictures from today's exploits. there are always many good stories from our adventures. my biggest moment came early this morning when during our warm-up session we had the 1st annual taco bell olympics. i'll post some view later...but we had crunch wrap discus tosses, taquitos tosses, and a few more that i'll save for use at //the.evolution. during the taquitos toss i actually got smacked in the head...and we we're like 19 rows from the front. very fun stuff.

we also got a chance to hear kay warren's passionate heart for the whole hiv/aids thing. she talked about being "gloriously ruined" for Christ.

there's more to be said, but pictures will have to suffice for now. blessings!

day two....i think sort of?

this traveling to the west coast thing like crazy. but we are having fun. yesterday was a full day. spent the morning working on the recycling/trash bin at harambee and then rudy suggested we visit his favorite mexican diner. rosarito's...GREAT food!
then we headed off down to lake forest and laguana hills. mitch found some rest on the way...and the best quote was his "did i fall asleep?"...like yeah...30 minutes ago. there's many stories that i'd like to share but all i can say is this...living life intentionally and seeing how God shows up is amazing.

we lounged by the pool...under the palm trees for a couple of hours and then off to saddleback. the place is HUGE! great conversation with good folks all night long. the theme of our time last night is BE FILLED. Doug Fields kick it off after some really crazy group games. more i hope later, but thanks for being part of our community.

some pictures

things will get easier by later today. its just been crazy. i've posted a few pictures of yesterday's exploits. beyond the air travels and the crazy journey to the airport we put a bunch of miles on the van. we visited the hollywood sign... met some interesting folks from texas. went to home depot to pick up supplies for our mission project, grabbed dinner at a real Mexican restaurant...ran through rodeo drive in beverly hills and actually got nine hours of sleep. it was on the floor, but after the day it didn't really matter. oh yeah in the midst of the tourist stuff we sat and talked with rudy the executive director of hamambree. very interesting conversation about mission, the church and life in the intercity. plans are already gelling in my mind about what we could do here as an outreach from our outpost. leave a comment so we know you stopped by! more later.

on the ground in california - the journey begins.

we've been here for about 12 hours. good stuff...but sort of bleary-eyed. woke about about 3:05 thanks to melinda and then finished packing the car and emmah and i headed south to l-town. met up with kaitlyn and stephanie and then waited on mitch. that's a story will save for later...maybe. anyhow got to the airport with just enough time to walk up the gangway and find our seats. of course we passed charles and christian on the way to our seats.

the trip went fast. hit the ground running. we grabbed our rental car and off we went to find some breakfast. we stopped at jack in the box...only because i've never eaten there and melinda worked there while in high school.

right now we're pulling together a mission outreach with a new friend at www.harambee.org. the director has been a friend via the internet and now we've met face to face. some good things to come from that for sure.

more in abit....stay tuned..