Day 1 - San Francisco

Sunday, July 1

Our morning started off early as we met at the church at 6:15am to check in before leaving for the Boston Airport. Several Elders came to pray for us, along with family and friends. Thank you to those who came early to send us off.

The flight was uneventful. It was a 6 hours trip from Boston to San Francisco. The in-flight movie was less than exciting, Blades of Glory, but the company was great. We were seated all together in the middle of the plane.

During the flight we completed our devotions for the first day. Today’s theme was, “I Am a Servant First” based on 1 Tim 1:12-17.

After landing, we quickly got our luggage and got into our 5 rental mini vans, we are a group of 27, to drive across the Golden Gate Bridge. We stopped near the bridge to enjoy scenery, stretch our legs and take some pictures before heading off to the Center for Student Missions (CSM) for
check-in at 5pm.

Just as our last van pulled in, Jeremy Sutton was dropped off at CSM. He had been in the area for the past week visiting his grandmother and arrived to spend the week with us. It was pretty cool that we all arrived at the same time.

We are staying in a church in two large rooms, one for the guys and one for the girls. We are sleeping on bunk beds and everyone has a mattress.

After settling in and having a brief orientation we headed out to supper to a Vietnamese/Chinese restaurant. The food was outstanding and we all had to eat with chop sticks.

After dinner we headed out in our vans for a prayer tour of the city. This was a combination prayer time and information session. We learned tons about the city and the people who live here….both the wealthy and the poor.

We prayed individually and in groups but mostly our eyes were opened to the plight of the poorest of the poor. As we looked out over the lights of the city we were challenged to be light to the world for Christ. The final question posed by our guild as we completed the tour was, “where would Jesus be hanging out if he were in the city tonight?”

Our evening ended with a debrief of our day’s devotions and the prayer tour . Matt Tomasetti sent us off to bed at 11pm (2am Boston time) with a worship song and we all quickly fell asleep after a long day of travel, anxious for the day ahead and hopeful of the week ahead.

It doesn’t appear that I will have internet access so the updating of the blog will occur as time allows.