Been away a bit

Hello friends! I went to the East Coast for an annual get-away/retreat with friends. We are graciously invited year after year to this little piece of heaven on the South Outer Banks, N.C. This is a special time to be blessed spiritually and emotionally. We held Bible studies and worship times, and lots of talk time as well as celebrations! Thank you Powell and Anne Harrison!
I am home in Southern CA now and writing more letters to partners, trying to get in touch with everyone. I can't keep from doing some NextGen work though. I hope to have support confirmation in time to get moving on some great ideas that my colleagues and I are dreaming up. One is a Youth Workers convention in November. We want to pick the brains of youth pastors and workers about how we in my organization, can help them help their teens to think about missions.
I have so many ideas I want to get started. Once we hear from all my partners I will be free to "go at it"!
I attended my first youth group last night (Wed) at Sunridge Community. We played a giant game of "capture the flag" (hilarious) and then a teaching time followed by hang out time. Some of the kids were willing to talk with me and I got some hang out time too! :-) After youth group the leaders go out for a late dinner. For you CT people, this restaurant is open the latest in town....*drum roll* 11:00pm!!!! Missin' those New England diners! :-) So, I'm going to attend this church again this week and go from there! It was really sweet to be with youth leaders again. I must say though, CA kids are so different! I was told they are quite sheltered and you can tell. Some of these kids have never been outside of Temecula, even going to San Diego is a stretch for them!!! Wow! I would never have thought that! The culture of these more well-to-do kids is gonna stretch ME. There wasn't a single "Emo" kid in the group. I'll miss that kind of kid. I'll have to get used to the "popular" crowd. Who said ministry was easy or comfortable?? :-)
To end I'm going to include some more pictures of "where I've been" the last two weeks! In case you want to know what heaven might look like! :-) Thanks for checking in AGAIN!