It's been one week

Well I've now been in Santa Cruz for one week! Here is a little run down of my week so far and some of the awesome things God's been doing out here:


Monday: I flew out of Dallas and arrive in San Jose around 1:30 California time. I took a shuttle to the Peter Pan Motel where I am living this summer. One of the girls from CRU on my shuttle was studying to be a wedding planner also which was pretty cool. we are both overly obsessed with weddings which was pretty fun to talk about for the ride over to the motel. So we got to the motel and long story short met everyone. Everyone was so sweet and it was a lot easier to get to know everyone than I thought it would have been.

Tuesday: This was a very chill day. We still kind of played some get to know each other games and such things. Then that afternoon we had orientation which was where we basically got to know some of the materials will be using. We also had a police officer come talk to us about safety out here. It's a pretty dangerous city so we got a lot of helpful information from him about gangs, homeless, not wearing red, drugs and night safety things. Later that night we went out to dinner with our Action groups. Our action groups are groups of about five to six people of the same sex. Most of them are in our assigned rooms. So my action group consists of all six of my girl roommates - one of which is our action group leader who is on staff with CRU. Any ways, we went out to dinner at this amazing Italian restaurant called kiantis. It was very yummy. After dinner we didn't do anything exciting (unless you count sleep as exciting) because we all still had a little case of the jet lags.


Wednesday: This was one of my most favorite days! We started off the day by having a soul to soul with the girls in my action group. We basically carved 5 hours out of our day for the five of us students to basically share our life stories, where we are and have been in our relationship with Christ and basically just the highs and lows of our lives. It was so amazing! It was awesome to hear all the stories. When coming to Santa Cruz I felt really alone in that no one else had gone through what I had, or shared the same struggles or highs. But to my amazement they had. We spent the entire morning/early afternoon on the beach soaking up some sun and sharing our lives together. About half way through we decided to take a little lunch break and ride a few rides on the boardwalk. It was such a lovely little afternoon. After we were through with our soul to souls we had "fun time" with dinner. This was when I took all of the seal pictures. We split up into teams and had fun little competitions. We did a Frisbee game, an egg toss, buried someone in the sand, and did a little scavenger hunt. It was great bonding time with people I hadn't had a chance to get to know a whole lot. That night, that I recall, nothing exciting really went down.



Thursday: honestly I don't remember at all what I did on Thursday... sorry :/ lol
Actually maybe Thursday was the day we were assigned to our service projects. There are six or seven different service projects that we have the privilege of serving on this summer in order to make sure the project runs smoothly. We could choose between the following: Meeting Coordinators, Administrative, Special projects (aka the yearbook, newsletters etc.), Social/Community, Outreach, and that's all I can remember right now. I chose to be on, of course, the Social/Community project team. Our group is in charge of planning all of the events, parties and so forth for the summer. We are also in charge of creating a sense of community and unity among the project. I will explain later some things we have done so far. Also I think on Thursday night I went to the beach and played football - 13 people per team... it was insane! Afterwards my roommate Brittney from UNC Wilmington, Matt from OSU and I went and got some yummy ice cream from Marini's and walked and talked for a little while.



Friday: We had job orientation! YAY! SO I got to know all about what I would be doing at one of my jobs on the boardwalk. In case I had forgotten to mention, I have two jobs this summer. I will be alternating weekly between working in food service on the boardwalk and working as the project chef. Another girl, Angela, and I will be trading weekly between those two jobs. So since I wok on the boardwalk the week of the 8th, she will be the project cook. Next week we will switch and so on throughout the summer. After orientation we had more evangelism training at High Street Community Church. Once that was finished we went to this amazing winery to have dinner and worship. It was UHHHmazing!! If you know me at all you know that I have a tiny dream of one day owning my own winery! Okay tiny was definitely the wrong word... I have a huge dream of owning my own winery!!! I of course want to be an event planner, but having an estate is definitely what I would love. Worship was so amazing out there. It was so beautiful! We were in Soquel on a mountain that over looked the vineyard and the ocean. It was so perfect!



Saturday: Today was my first full day of work! I worked at pizza hut! Yum! It was the 1st time i had ever worked in the food business so that was kinda cool i guess. after work i think we kind of just chilled and did little fun things around the pan.

Sunday: All of us here are divided up by rooms into four different churches to attend on Sunday. For this summer there are 6 guys and 6 of us girls that are helping out at Highstreet Church. So today was out first day at the church and I loved it! About 4 or 5 of us worked in the 1's through 5's. Its was the best time ever! I love playing games and readying books and being imaginative with kids that age. Its was so great to hear how much they already knew about the Bible. It was very impressing! After church we all went to Wendy's a few towns over. It was so yummy, but the menu wasn't the same as the one in Texas. So that was kind of disappointing because I was really craving home style chicken strips but I couldn't have them :( BOOOO! That evening was chill. 5 of us went downtown and at at Taco Bell. Then I came back and watched Les Mes with some girls. it was such a good movie!! It is definitely one of my top 5 now. After that I passed out.

So that was my week in a nutshell. Please have patience with me as I try and get everything up. Once I get caught up in my blogging I will hopefully begin posting a little bit every day. Lets pray that by Tuesday evening I am caught up.

On a serious note right now I would really like to ask for prayer from anyone that reads this. My anxiety is really starting to worsen since I've been out here. The past few days I have had bad headaches and today I had a pretty bad migraine. Emotions are so high out here and I would love it if y'all could pray that I begin to put my trust in God. Please pray that I give all my worries and fears to Him and that He takes those feelings and turns them into a desire and a hunger to proclaim His word to this lost city. Also pray that I have compassion on my coworkers. At times it can be frustrating when working with them because of their rejection of Christianity. Just pray that I have compassion on them because they are lost and they don't know the love of Christ. I want to be a light to them and to this city and I would love to be encouraged in prayer by whoever reads this.

Love you all!