First Night in San Diego

So I wrote this Friday night after we settled into our host home. I just haven't been anywhere with wifi to upload it until now. Sorry it's so late. I'll be posting an overall weekend reflection tomorrow.

We’re Here!
After months of having it on the calendar, it’s finally here. The youth group down here, and their youth pastor Nate, are great! It’s a small group, but they seem very excited about having us here and all that we’re doing.

We pulled out 18 minutes late, much to my chagrin. I hate pulling out late. But we still made good time. There was, of course, some traffic, but it really wasn’t all that bad. We made it from Highland to Rancho Bernardo, South of Escondido, in just a little under two hours. Not bad for rush hour.

After getting here, we all enjoyed dinner at In-N-Out. (I mean, how can you not enjoy In-N-Out? Seriously!) After dinner, we split up into teams of four. Three from Immanuel, and one from Cloudbreak. We split up and went all over a busy shopping center, talking to people. The goal was to engage people in conversation, invite them to the concert tomorrow night, and if possible share the Gospel with them. We weren’t on a mission to just hand out flyers. The goal was to engage people in conversation and see where the conversations led.

I haven’t had a chance to hear every group’s story, but I heard of at least one young lady who prayed to receive Christ! The Gospel was shared at least a few other times, and one group was told by a Security guard that we couldn’t pass out flyers here. Now to be fair, we weren’t really “passing out flyers” so much as we were giving them to people who were interested. But after the security guards started zeroing in on us, we ended up herded back to the In-N-Out, where we started. I would definitely call it a successful evening!

Then, it was off our separate ways to host homes. From the text messages I received, all the groups have great host homes! So far, Cloudbreak has proven themselves to be an awesome church! Their hospitality is great. One text read “we’re getting pampered. Popcorn, drinks, coke, candy, food, and movies! LOL I’m loving it!”

So we’re off to a great start! Tomorrow, some “down time” at the beach, then back to work. Prayer walking, more flyers, and hopefully some more engaging of people.
I’ll be doing some magic (or “illusion” if you prefer) and sharing the Gospel at the concert, so keep that in prayer. Nate (the youth pastor who’s coordinating everything) has 24 confirmed “yes’s” and 84 “maybes” on Facebook. Let’s pray that the “maybes” turn in to “yes’s”

Have a great day! I know we will! God is good! All the time!
Rob
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