God is so gracious to allow us to be apart of His work in winning people to Jesus Christ. The rest of the trip went great. We helped put on a Kids Camp on Saturday and an event for the community on Sunday Night. CrossChurch sponsored it and its purpose was to help them personally connect with people....Nick asked me what the highlight of the trip for me was ...without a doubt it was seeing one of the girls at the Kids Camp pray to receive Christ. I will tell her story by her picture that is down below....enjoy.
(Nick surprised everyone and took us to see the Cowboys play on Sat. night.)
This is Nick with Brad Graves, the pastor of CrossChurch...the church we were there serving.
ha....great view isn't it??? Well...our seats were in the very top row of the whole stadium...ha! It actually worked out really well....I could see over the back of the stadium as the sun went down...it was beautiful...(Well I was doing that when I wasn't zoned into the game 100%...ha) Thanks Nick for the surprise...it was awesome!
This is the view behind the wall we sat up against. Brad said that David Jeremiah's church is over to the upper left of this area. The weather was amazing in San Diego. I had no idea weather could be so pleasant in August. I think we get so used to the heat in Texas...
On Sunday we were told to go visit another church b/c CrossChurch wasn't meeting this particular Sunday....we were going to do a community event at the YMCA that night instead. So, we decided to go to NorthCoast. We wanted to go to Saddleback, but it was 1 1/2 hours away...and decided it would be too much driving b/c we had that event later that day....NorthCoast was cool, very different. They actually have several services on Sunday, 4 different locations in San Diego. The location we went to has different venues you can choose to go to....Different styles of worship, with the same message simulcasted on the screen. You could pick Southern Gospel, the Edge, Coffee Cafe type service...or Live. We went to the Live service....where the preacher actually taught live...He had a great message on Jesus taken from Acts 1...I will never read Acts 1 the same again. God was speaking....also he taught from Jn. 15. That was a great reminder for me as I was on a "missions trip"...so easy to try to "DO" in my own strength..I needed to be reminded that "Apart from me meredith, you can do nothing". So, I enjoyed the church...they are reaching a wide variety of people as you can imagine.
Sunday evening we had a community event at the YMCA. They had a great turn out and were able to personally connect with about 43 people (I think). So, that was great! One awesome thing is that Beth was able to pray with a lady, raised mormon. Mike shared the Gospel with the girl working the YMCA...Mike's nickname is "the Machine"....b/c he is constantly sharing Christ. He is a great example to us all. We just did whatever they needed us to do and tried to connect with the people at the same time... as God opened doors.
Ok, about the little girl who prayed to receive Christ (I actually took out the picture for security....) One of the cool things about these girls was the fact that their aunt played Elizabeth in The Nativity Story...ha! How about that? I love that movie...and when I first saw one of the little girls...I thought to myself...she looks like Mary on The Nativity Story!!!! ha. Anyways...the cool thing was that we didn't have many kids show up at first and Beth and Lori were trying to kill time by coloring with them. They were coloring the story of David and Goliath. They had never heard any Bible stories besides one about "two brothers"...Jacob and Esau I assume. I believe that they were Iranian Muslims. The coolest part is that her dad later told us that they want to get into a good church...are going to come to CrossChurch!!! (The whole time we were sharing Christ with this girl, I was thinking that her dad was not going to be so happy with us b/c they were Muslim and here she was coming to Christ....one thing I learned this week was to never say "no" for someone else... God is so amazing how he works thru even unbelievers to accomplis HIS purpose) We also shared Christ thru the Evangecube with her, then we had her share Christ with us thru using the same method. CrossChurch gave her the evangecube to take home. They are also going to follow up with her and her family. Also, one other thing...the whole experience reminded me of how the Bible talks about "childlike faith". To this young girl, why would she not want to accept Jesus and ask for forgiveness for her sins? It made sense to her. Thank you God for 1 more saved...I pray that You would now use her to save her family and many others, living passionately the rest of her life for you....
The Graves Family
Beth praying with a mom that brought her 2 daughters to the YMCA event. Go Beth! We think she got saved...had alot of questions...coming from Morman background.
FUN TRIP!!!
As you can see...San Diego is very diverse...had more non-white people than white people at our events. People from all kinds of backgrounds...all kinds of belief systems....but again...I remind myself...never say "no" for someone else. I just never know what God is already doing in their hearts and what He is waiting to do.
