San Diego

Having just touched down safely back home, I think that we are all tired but excited about the week we spent in the City Heights neighborhood of San Diego with Harbor Pres Mid-City. Here are a few of my takeaways from our week:
1) What a great God we serve who allows us to participate in His plans for San Diego.
2) Although we did fairly simple and mundane tasks all week, they were needed and important tasks and through them, we were able to directly touch, encourage (hopefully) and relate with at least 5 different groups of people while we were there: the UN refugee children, the city heights children (160 of them), the city heights day camp counselors/interns, Pastor Stephen and Bradford Phelan and Marnie, the charter school visionary who had just moved to the neighborhood.
3) Although we weren't the teachers or organizers of the camp and haven't yet heard any debriefing from the week, God allowed us to learn about 2 of the interns and 1 of the campers accepting Jesus as their Savior.
4) For almost all of us, including the 8 children in our group, it was our first mission trip. In our time of reflection toward the end of the week, many of us shared how encouraged we were by our work and how satisfying it was to see and feel God's hand at work through us.
5) With a couple of exceptions, we were not close friends with the others on our MBCC team before the trip. Now, after a week of shared positive experiences, we feel drawn closer as brothers and sisters in Christ.
6) Finally, we learned more about ourselves than we knew before: who knew that Erle was difficult to follow as a van driver or that he could paint trim on the level of a professional painter? Who knew that Jerri Lynn could sprint through an airport with 1 shoe on and force the attendant to open the closed door? Who knew that when Darlene Lewis raises her hand and says "SALAMI" big boys, little boys and counselors snap to attention? Who knew that Mike Thomson and I could each sleep in bunk beds made for people 5'5" and shorter?
In short, we had a wonderful trip and are thankful for the opportunity to be a part of an MBCC mission trip.