Good morning everyone! We made it to the airport, waiting to board the plane. We are scheduled to arrive at 9:50 on Southwest Airlines flight 1175. We are looking forward to seeing you all soon! Just to prepare you all....we're a little sleepy!

Wow!!! We have been so completely busy that we haven't had a moment to update the blog!!!
First of all, I want to make sure everyone knows that our flight arrives at 9:50am on SouthWest airlines, tomorrow morning. The flight number is 1175.
We left the YouthWorks site this morning and are going back to the Fisherman Wharf area to tour around before our big surprise tonight. Chad just let everyone know we are going to a SF Giants game tonight!
We all have so much to share from this trip! It was amazing and I believe everyone truly had a great time, hard work and all!! We are all safe and sound, but please continue to pray for safe travels home and a safe and fun day in the city today!!
Thanks to all of you for your wonderful support. It was truly appreciated by all!

I'm sending these updates from my phone and it will only allow a certain amount of characters before I get cut off. Anyway....the next project is:

The Food Bank: The youth will work on whatever project they need to get done at that time; it varies weekly. Much of it will be re-packing bulk items, and sorting through produce in order to get it ready to be delivered to other organizations.

The last project is the kids club. The youth will work with up to 60 kids from a primarily Hispanic community. There are organized craft times, reading times and outdoor games. The youth help to keep this a successful summer program to keep the kids in a safe and learning environment.

So that's a brief summary of what we've been up to. Tonight we took a trip to the Golden Gate Bridge after we had dinner. It was a beautiful evening! We all loved it and took lots of pictures that Jeff and I will work on posting soon!

Hello All,
Today was our first full day of work. They have us distributed among several projects that I'll briefly try and explain. We are here with another high school youth group from Minnesota. The programs are as follows:
Project Open Hand delivers hot meals to people who are homebound because of HIV/AIDS and also to other terminally ill people who are homebound. They have expanded to include a grocery center and nutrition counselling. Their goal is to ensure that the ill have nourishing food to help in their struggle against disease or debilitating health conditions. The youth will primarily be working in the grocery center and help with preparing meals.

Salvation Army Warehouse: the youth will be helping to sort and inventory donations. They will also be sorting toys into age appropriate categories. They also will be putting together hygiene kits for distribution.
More to follow on next entry...

We made it to the YouthWorks site safe and sound. We met all the leaders, all very nice! We'll have dinner and then orientation meetings and then we hope to post pictures tonight.....Jeff arrived safely today and has the lap top!
More posts to come.....

We are walking around Fisherman's Warf and Pier 39 before we head over to the Youth Works work site, where the work will begin!
We've been blessed with another beautiful sunny day in San Francisco! We're all doing well!

A very important honorable mention........we finally got Shane on a rollercoaster and he actually liked it!!
Woooohoooo!!!!

Hello All! We're having a blast at Great America! It's another beautiful day here, not too hot. We left the park to get some pizza for lunch. After lunch we stopped at the hotel, everyone grabbed their swim suits and we're going to the water park at Great America We plan to stay until it closes. We'll send another update later.

Good morning! During our devotion last night, Chad asked us all to be thinking about our purpose. As we prepare for the week ahead of us, we are asked to think about our purpose in life, to God, ourselves, friends, families, peers, community, and our world.
Chad read the parable from. Luke13:6 that speaks of the man who had the fig tree that didn't bear fruit. He wanted it cut down because it had no purpose. The man who took care of the vineyard asked to have one year to nurture and fertilize the tree. We will be thinking about this today as we enjoy the day, before our work week begins. We wish you all a good Saturday morning.
Updates to follow...

It was a unanimous decision to have dinner at In and Out. Lots of double double's animal style were ordered! Mmmmm! Everyone is swimming, burning off those calories playing sharks and minnows, Marco Polo and chicken fights! We even had a belly flop contest. Chad pulled the Baby Ruth trick. Eeeewww!!
We're taking lots of pictures and we'll be able to post them once Jeff joins us on Sunday with the laptop. We're all doing great and looking forward to tomorrow's trip to Great America amusement park! Woooohooo! We wish you all a good night!

We made it to the hotel safely! It's a beautiful day in the bay area! Crystal clear blue sky and about 70 degrees. We're about to head to dinner and then back to the hotel to swim!
We'll send another message soon! Thanks to everyone who drove us to the airport!!

Mission Trip 2009 - We are off

We are off and running. Thanks to everyone who helped us go on this awesome mission trip. We hope you keep us in your prayers and follow us on this blog. We are planning on posting updates and photos as frequently as we can.

Peace.

From Mission Trip 2009