Santa Barbara, CA

 Welcome to First Baptist Church
with Jim Schettler as the pastor!

 They had amazing facilities!

It's a large Christian school.. about 350 total.

They had housing for some of the staff on campus as pictured above.

 I visited here many times... :-)

the office was the door on the right.

 They even had their own coffee shop!  Very cozy, too! :-)

 Ariel wanted to get a picture with the gym since her

name means "Lioness of God" :-)

 Their basketball court

 The church auditorium

Since Pastor Schettler has been at this church

(about four years now), the Lord has really used

him to see it grow!  I would guess that on

Sunday they probably had about 350!

 So, the guys were told that they were gonna stay

in a motor home.  They had to decided which one

of them would stay there.  DJ finally piped up and

said, "Okay, I'll stay in the motor home.  I'm just

gonna do it by faith!" :-)  Well, when we got there

this is what we saw... (pic above)

 Thankfully this is really where they stayed! :-)

 Not too bad!  DJ gives it a thumbs up! :-)

Actually, he was giving a thumbs up for the door.

He thought that was pretty cool so he could sneak

out late at night!  Now, to go where I'm not exactly

sure, but he still thought it was pretty cool :-)

 Aquila and Matt inspecting the trailer...

or, snooping around should we say! ;-)

 Well, Steph didn't want to use the front door to come

outside & visit Ariel and me who were eating out there... :-)

 It looks like all we do is eat, huh?! ;-)

This is our Sunday afternoon meal.  

We ate in the coffee shop.
It's a really cute, cozy place...

It even has massage chairs!

DJ enjoyed eating his lunch here... tough life! ;-)

Any of our team could also go and get coffee here, too.

DJ was super excited to hear that!  Ariel & I tried it too

a couple times... a bit too strong for us, though!

Hence why it's called "Common Groundz", I guess ;-)

Aquila also enjoyed the massage chair! :-)

Sufferin' over here in the US!

I loved this cute little pamphlet telling about the church!

Such a clever idea and so cute! :-)

The War Room

It was a pretty awesome teen room!

It was like a perfect room to set up with the War

banners & flags!  Looked pretty awesome, I thought!

Gettin' ready to "fiddle" again! ;-)

Welcome to our "school room"!

Actually we used the lobby area of the women's

bathroom!  Worked out nicely, though!

Need I make any comments about this one?? :-)

Splash Ball

I gave my testimony on Wednesday morning in chapel.

Actually this week was a bit unique in that they had

two chapels a day and a devotional time each morning

because it was their "spiritual emphasis week".

So, I ended up singing twice, all of us gave our testimonies,

and the girls played two or three times, I think...

it was a busy week but what's new, right?! ;-)

Janna's amazing creativity! ;-)

Theory time with Miss Ariel :-)

Also, this week was a bit different with how the War

nights worked.  We actually only had a full War night

on Thursday night.  Wednesday was a "preliminary

night", basically a shortened War night, and then

Friday the girls had a volleyball game, so we were

done by Friday afternoon!

Stephanie & Janna have enjoyed getting involved in

the competition more... well, Big Ball Bowling at least! :-)

I loved seeing the "mountains" in the distance!

Spoke Tackle... pretty much in the dark, too!

We stayed with two teachers... this is Jasmine :-)

And here they both are... Elizabeth (Winnie) and Jasmine.

It was so fun to stay with them!  They were awesome!

Actually both were former graduates of West Coast, so

we both knew some of the same people so that was

fun! :-)  Also, "Winnie" and I had a lot in common

with the nickname thing :-)  Few people at college

even really knew her as Elizabeth, I guess.. 

sound familiar?! ;-)

It was funny!  Jasmine reminded both Ariel and me

so much of Lauren Thompson! :-)  And then Winnie

reminded me some of Sarah Magnuson, although I

haven't really ever met her person... maybe from what

I imagine she might be like and some from her looks,

too :-)  And Winnie also reminds me of Summer :-)

I think it was more in the way she acted!

Made me miss you, Sum!

So, this was Thursday night's skit.

Matt, DJ, and I did the waitress skit on Wednesday

night.  At the end, when DJ is supposed to throw

water on me... well... he got me square in the face!  

I think he enjoys that just a bit too much!

As Mrs. Van and I were trying to find some lights

one night, she pointed this note out to me... :-)

It was so awesome!  Thomas recruited a lady and

her friends who ended up coming out on Wednesday

night.  This lady, Arlene, had brought with her a

younger boy, her boyfriend, and another friend.

All four of them responded to the gospel message

on Wednesday night.  Well, then on Thursday night

she came back with more people!  Actually, it was

 a whole family!  During the invitation that night

both the husband and wife responded to the message!

Mrs. Van was able to talk with the wife and Thomas

talked with the husband.  I believe that they both

accepted Christ as their Savior!  The boy in the picture

on far right was their son who had come on Wednesday

night and had responded to the message already!  It

was just absolutely awesome to see the Lord bringing

this whole family to Himself!

Anyone want some Zucchini???  Cause the girls didn't!

We had testimony chapel on Friday afternoon instead

of our normal Friday evening since we weren't going

to have a Friday evening service.

Honestly, this week was a harder week... we were

praying but it was a week where you didn't see

too many obvious answers to prayer... until

testimony time :-)  It was so awesome to see

the kids one by one (and many of them!) give

testimony of all that the Lord had done in their

lives and hearts this week!  The Lord was

definitely working "behind the scenes" as

testimonies were given one after another

for about an hour!  It was a unique

testimony time for me...  I was the

"mediator", as Mrs. Van referred to it :-)

I was standing behind the Seals team and

a younger girl came back sobbing.

DJ suggested that I talk with her, so

I took her out into another room so

we could talk.  She was broken over

how she'd treated her brothers!  I

encouraged her to get it settled right

then, so, after a short intermission,

I sent her outside, and I motioned

to her older brothers, who were both

seated in the War room, that they were

needed.  It was so precious to watch

them get "reunited"! :-)

And then, soon after, another girl came

back and went to Matt.  Matt motioned

her on to me, and so I took her out

to talk to her as well.  I found out that

she was bitter at a girl in the school,

so I told her to stay and pray and that

I'd go get the girl so she could talk

with her.  So, back in I went to get

another one! :-)  The girl I went to get

was crying already as well, so I'm guessing

that the Lord had been working in her

already too!  When I took her to talk

to the girl who was waiting in the

other room, she basically ran to her

and they embraced and then talked

for a while!  It's never quite

happened like that for me before,

but I was thankful to be the

"mediator" that day! :-)

On Friday night after supper we were cleaning up

our school room.  There were a couple wheelchairs

that had been in our room that we'd moved out,

so we were going to put them back.  Annaleese

wanted to give me a ride on one, though :-)

We had a grand, fun time! :-D

On Friday night, I "accompanied" the guys and some

of the teenage girls to Coldstone Creamery for some dessert :-) 

This is our ride for the week!

 

And here's where we stayed

Thanks so much, Winnie and Jasmine!

We had such a great time with you both! :-)