Friends from NY and friends with airplanes!

Last week was a pretty full one! Don and Elaine Eli were out here in California visiting their son and my friend Doug, and they stopped in Hemet to see me and join me for dinner at my house! It was a neat experience to have friends from out East here at my house in CA. In fact, Elaine was one of the first two people I met my first night at Calvary Church in Trumbull. She was also the first youth group leader of my first small group in high school in CT. It meant a t for them to visit. The very next day I joined some friends in San Diego and volunteered for Fri/Sat/Sun at the Miramar Air Show with the Warbird West Museum. I helped "man" the MiG-21 cockpit that they use to raise some funds for their other airworthy aircraft by charging people a couple dollars to climb in the cockpit. Of course I love being around the airplanes and it is my privilege to know these fun people. Particularly the owner of the museum, Jim Ostrich who has been so kind to include me in the museum's various activities. He has blessed me in the area of aviation and continues to, as well as in the area of my local relationships. Without being of the same spiritual persuasion, he has certainly been a kind of "dad" to me here in San Diego. I was able to continue to develop these relationships during the weekend.
Youth group has been quite different this year. Our youth pastor left in June and we now have a somewhat permanent intern. The group has dwindled to around 30+ every week, but my group of now "Sophmore" girls has remained mostly the same. One friend of the group of girls just lost her Mom to a deadly disease as of this Sunday. Please pray for Samantha and her family. She is so young to lose her Mom and this circumstance has really affected those that know her as they watch her deal with the pain of it. My girls have been doing something special to encourage her. The Lord has blessed our conversation times in small group the last few weeks and I have left youth group totally charged up about how He chooses to use me. It's really exciting to watch the girls "get" new concepts about God! The last picture on this post is our group of leaders that met after youth group this week.
For work, I was able to meet with a young lady who is interested in working for my organization in the area of journalism. We have both had a lot of fun discovering the ways she could serve. She has agreed to join me and another recruiter as we begin to write a book that we hope will be a resource for youth pastors to teach their interested students about missions. We began working on this book last week and will meet next week to keep the writing going! I also met with a group of youth ministry workers from the LA area, this week up in Lake Arrowhead. I was able to enlarge my circle of influence and learn about what God is doing in youth ministry in this Urban area. Met some really amazing people! Wow, some people are seriously motivated!
I stayed with a relatively new friend Jennifer for the first time this week. She has offered to let me stay at her house which is near my work which would allow me to shorten my commute some during the week. We had a good time connecting and she has graciously allowed me to stay when I need to.
Well, that was probably enough to read! I will be traveling to CT next weekend in order to see family and to attend the missions conference the following weekend!
Thanks for checking in again! There was a lot to write about and there were some things I left out!
Dagney