Hello!

Well, my first week has flown by so fast so I thought I would try to take a breather and give you an update on what's going on. Things are going really well! After the weekend in Santa Cruz I had the day off on Monday. Made a trip to Target and Costco, still can't believe how close by everything is! Also did a lot of organizing - and still have a lot to do. On Tuesday morning I purchased a desk and bedside table from Ikea - so fun. . .but today I realized how much work it is to try to put that stuff together, especially when your brothers aren't there to help! :) I've also been working on cleaning out the garage underneath our apartment and taking inventory of all the resources (100s of Bibles, books, CDs, and other free give-away stuff) we have to put into Freshmen Survival Kits. . .we're praying big with the hopes of giving away 750 FSK's on Monday and Tuesday! Wednesday and Thursday were spent in East Oakland at Operation Jumpstart, a leadership retreat that the movement team and staff organized for the students of CalJourney. Not as many students were able to make it as we had hoped (about 20 people all together) but I found the 2 days to be a huge blessing because it wasn't overwhelming and I feel like I'm getting to know the students well. These students are SO COOL and really fun for me to connect with. They are very different from SLO students in several ways. For one, hardly anyone wears flip flops day in and day out here. So different then in SLO! Also, these students enjoy talking about their classes and have a pretty large vocabulary - they're not trying to show off. . .they're just a different breed then Poly peeps. :) And another difference is the diversity of students involved with CalJourney (which really just says a lot about the diversity at Cal in comparison to Poly) - what a sweet mini-picture of what it will look like to worship with people of every tribe, nation, and tongue in heaven. I just feel so incredibly blessed to labor alongside such awesome students! Tomorrow they're coming over to put FSKs together. . .which means I'm off to bake some cookies for them. Oh, and it's still a goal of mine to get some pictures on this blog - patience, my friends! :)