First Day in Cali

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A group of us from BCM/FBC Fayetteville are in San Diego to help plant a church, Cross Church in a local high school. The pastor, Brad Graves, was the pastor of the church in New Hampshire that Steve Moore also helped with. They're first service is on Easter Sunday. They've had a lot of obstacles to overcome and we are here to try to help get the word out. So, after a few minor delays (including one of our names being the same as one on the no fly list) we all safely arrived in San Diego with all our luggage. We ate a quick lunch at a Mexican restaurant (hey, we're only 30 minutes from the border). After checking in to the hotel we watched the disappointing Hogs game and/or napped. Since we got up at about 1am California time, we were exhausted. We used our fancy new GPS system to find the church/high school. We drove around the parking lot of the school which looked like a movie set. We didn't realize schools like that really existed. We finally found the place where they were having the dry run for church next Sunday. We arrived at a weird time that we couldn't really help set up so we ended up prayer walking around the school for about 30 min. This was a new style of prayer for some of us so it was a great experience. We were there for their "dress rehearsal" in which they had the band play and the pastor speak. For never having done most of that before, it went pretty well. They shared some of their hardships with us and we just ask everyone to pray that things will go smoothly on Easter Sunday. Brad shared the passage from 2 Samuel 23:20-21 with us. He challenged us to each chase down our lions (challenges) and defeat them. He asked us to help them chase down their lions of getting this church running smoothly. After the service we helped tear down the stage and we went to a park to eat and hang out. For the first time we really realized the kind of influence we have on the others who are there helping (they're all junior high and high school students). We are the only college group and, those kids definitely enjoyed us hanging out with them. There is definitely potential for relationships to build there. Tomorrow we have to be at the church at 8am to begin our day of handing out door-knockers advertising for the Easter service. Pray that God will give us a good rest and that we'll be able to work for Him tomorrow.

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Photos

The gang
Start at the top going clockwise: Chris Venable, Cori Bridges, David Lachut, Steve Moore, Kacie Thomas, David Lee, Holly Graddy

Jumping
The guys ruined our jumping picture. We'll work on some more later.

The guys jumping
They got a lot higher off the ground than we did.

Comments

[Sarah B.]

Wow
Sounds great guys! I can't wait to see ya'll again after Spring Break. Keep up the good work and I will continue to pray for God's guidance and blessings for you and the church.