La Mesa, California

 The view from the front of the church.

Do you see the houses up on the hill?

 The "inner court" :-)

 They even had a fountain!

It was a very small school, but they had some nice facilities.

 On Sunday we went to the Hometown Buffet.

No gift cards this time, but we had a great time! :-)

We had fun trying on each others' glasses.

 Dark rims for me? :-)

 Because it was such a smaller school and because

people were absent, Janna and Stephanie had the 

opportunity to compete in some of the afternoon competitions.

 What a save! :-)

 On Tuesday night we went out recruiting with some

of the Spanish teens from the Spanish ministry there.

Such an awesome ministry!  God is really working!

We enjoyed getting to know these special teens!

 I walked past one day to find DJ just sitting and

talking to this little girl.  It was pretty cute :-)

Definitely a "picture perfect" moment :-)

 Ready for WAR!

 The recruits roll in!

 Thanks to the youth pastor, I have some

amazingly clear pictures to post! :-)

 

 This cute little girl came up to me, stuck her hand

out, and shook my hand :-)  She didn't say much

right away but she was super friendly!  We hit it off! :-)

She was pretty adorable!

 For a small school, we had a pretty good crowd on

Wednesday night.  I think each of the nights stayed

right around 40 to 45 teenagers.

 

 Big Ball Basketball on Thursday night

"This is basketball, not soccer!" ;-)

 Spoke Tackle... "America's Roughest Race"!

 

 

The sunset that night was BEAUTIFUL!

There's nothing quite like seeing 

palm trees and the sunset... :-)

 A girl that I had recruited and her friend came on

Thursday night.  This was one of the wallpapers

for their phones.  I thought it was hilarious! :-)

 Getting ready to do our Dinner Decisions skit

 Can you tell DJ's just a little bit annoyed with me?! ;-)

 I was "gritting my teeth" after DJ threw a cup

of water in my face... of course, I had asked him

to try to not throw it directly in my face!

Bad thing to do... :-)

Crystal had fun "preachin" to the Spanish teen girls ;-)

 They were an awesome group of teens!

Although we were all different, in Christ we

had so much in common!  It was so special!

On Thursday night, the girl I'd recruited and her

friend who came both responded to the salvation

message.  Well, the friend responded right away,

but the other girl was sitting there in her seat

for a while.  She had raised her hand a couple

times expressing her need of a Savior, but she

didn't respond right away.  I was watching her

and she raised her hand during the invitation.

Obviously she had a question.  Dr. Jim saw

it and mentioned something.  Ruth, one of

the Spanish teens, went up to talk to her

and see what she needed.  I also went up

to her to check on what was going on.

I could tell she wanted to talk, so I told

her to stand up, open her eyes, and come

with me.  When we sat down to talk she

said she had just been confused as to what

she was supposed to do.  When I was asking

her if she thought she was a sinner, she said,

"Oh yes!  I trash my parents, lie, and take

God's name in vain.. I probably do more, but

those are just three things that I remember

the preacher said that I know I do."

It was so cute! :-)

That night she and her friend were gloriously saved!

 Friday morning scavenger hunt in chapel

 Crystal has also been inspired to learn sign language! ;-)

 Friday Night War... Tug-of-War!

 Once again, a beautiful sky and palm trees!

California is pretty awesome! :-)

 Short-Range Bombardment

 

 That night as well the church had a "Hobo night".

Basically it's their substitution for the kids to have

fun and get candy without going trick-or-treating.

Here's the pastor with some kind of "tractor ride"

he'd configured up! :-)

 While the teens were doing their second competition,

we went to the "fair" :-)  The girls enjoyed playing

the games and winning prizes! :-)

 The pastor's wife, Mrs. Sherwood :-)

She's all dressed up for the occasion!

 Stephanie trying to do the penny toss

 Here's their "hobo soup"!  Everyone brings a can

of a different kind of soup and they mix it all

together!  This is what it looked like!

They also have "suicide punch" where everyone

brings a different kind of pop that they mix together.

I'd never heard of it before, but I thought it was a

unique idea! :-)

 Trying the "hobo soup"!  We were brave! ;-)

 I think this picture speaks very well for itself... ;-p

 Matt makes too good of a nerd.. it's scary!

 Thomas the Mugger

 B.O. Man

 Pleading for mercy... ;-)

Senior Citizen Man

 The youth pastor, the pastor's son, and his wife.

A disclaimer that I told the youth pastor I would

put in... he doesn't normally look like this.  He

was dressed up for "hobo night" too! ;-)

 Some fun after the War

Of course, Thomas doesn't usually have trouble

having fun or making friends of all ages! ;-)

 The youth pastor and the guys had fun doin'

some fiddlin' before the night was through!

 Thomas enjoyed getting the 

audience involved, too! :-)

 Saying goodbye to our Spanish girls!

Me with Martha and Ruth

 Martha, Crystal, and Ruth

 Bye girls!  We had a great time with you all!

We're gonna miss you!

 Since we never got pictures with the

princesses at Disneyland, it worked out

perfectly that there were princesses on

the walls in one of the rooms of the 

house we were staying in! ;-)

 Before we left on Saturday, we had to get a picture

of Crystal with her new truck!  I think this one is

better than the brown one from Pleasant Hill, don't you?!

 Here's the hill we walked up to go to 

the church in the mornings!  

It was great exercise! :-)

 Gotta love the palm trees!

We walked to a nearby gas station before

we left... Crystal's all ready now 

with her energy drink!  

Can you tell she's excited?! ;-)

Ready to move on to Long Beach

to do it all over again! :-)