(Some reactions from our experience - evening of July 27)

We went to the Plaza Hotel to worship and to feed the people living there. We split off into groups to go to the different floors to knock on doors to hand out packages of food. We encountered one women who instead of taking the package greeted us with a smile on her face and offered us candy instead.

- Amanda

After the lady offered us the candy, I felt very dumbfounded by the gesture. We were up on floor 6 of a low income hotel and the lady that we were offering food to looked like she really needed it. She was skinny, her teeth were yellow and crooked, yet she was offering to give us something instead of us giving her the food. Some of the smallest things can feel the most impactful.

- Tyler

Güten Tag! When we went to the Plaza Hotel, I had the most interesting time. I had met a man that I have some very mixed feelings about meeting. All of my memories from the past few days have been positive. The man I had met shared with me his views about what we were doing around San Diego. He sat down with me and told me how he disagreed with our attempts to help the homeless, and  shared some pretty strong material. It terrified me, and yet opened my eyes. We knew coming into this that some people disagreed with our views. It made me feel conflicted, but I am thankful. The positive and negative memories we made have created us and these days have been incredible and inspiring. 

- Jillian 

Star Date 7.28.2016

Today we took the kids from VBS over to the San Diego Zoo. We had a lot of fun taking these kids to the zoo, some of which had never been before. Whether it was stopping for breaks because of the heat -or- seeing animals the kids had never seen, everyone always had a smile on their face. Their smiles made us smile with them even when the animals weren’t moving or doing anything exciting, they were still amazed and happy to see these animals for the first time and that made us happy. After the kids left the zoo at 1 pm our group had a little bit of free time. From 1-5 pm the whole group did some group bonding and developed a great connection with each other. We concluded the night with devotions going over how we saw God in the kids we worked with and sharing stories about the kids that filled our hearts with joy.  The joy we saw in the kids, remind us to appreciate the little things, like finding so much in watching a bear a bathe, and all the little joys continue to remind us that God is all around us.

- Lane, Amanda, Tom, Hannah, Ron