Home Stretch

So we are now entering the last "real" week of project. I have really mixed emotions about things winding down. Today was my last week at my job, at Whiting's Foods. A Random fact: if we sell 50 "beach bottles" (huge souvenir cups with Pepsi in them at 5.99 a pop) over the summer we get a $10 gift card to best buy, and if we sell 100 we get a $25 gift card. Well I ended up with 93 for the summer (not bad for only being there every other week) but I was 7 short of my goal. I'm thinking about taking up an extra shift next week to get the last 7 :)

I am kind of relieved about being done with work though. It was a good job, not too hard, depending on the location. Serving dippin' dots all day is easy, while deep frying twinkies and shrimp get kind of old and icky. All in all I have been able to form pretty good relationships with my coworkers, though not as well as I'd like since I'm only there every other week. God has really given me peace about it though. They know who we are and refer to us as "The Crusaders." We have made real open relationships with them, they love hanging out with us and coming to eat dinner with us and have told us they are really going to miss us when we leave. We have shared the Gospel and our lives with them and they have seen a difference in us.

Tonight was also our last official outreach. It went well and there were many successful stories shared afterward. One person decided to accept Christ and even came back to share time with Erika! Praise God for him!! He flies back to Dallas (where he lives) tomorrow so pray God puts someone in his path to disciple him when he gets home.

Tomorrow is the last day at our respective churches. We will serve in our different areas (I help with the coffee shop at Vintage Faith church) and then we say goodbye. Vintage has been an interesting experience. Most people are bothered that the "sermons" are not really sermons at all, but more like peptalks, talk shows or movie reviews...literally. I think the church really does have a good heart and good intentions for reaching the community and are trying to do it in a way that's relevant and inviting. While this is really important I hope that they can start basing the message off of passages of scripture and then relating culture, not vice versa.

This week will also be my last week cooking for the team. I am really excited to come up with some tasty meals for my great new friends and to finish out with a few classics.

I have a lot of work to do before this whole thing is over. The project DVD is basically all in my hands, and I haven't begun editing. Luckily I have all the footage (except for a few random clips I may need after starting the editing process) and have all week to do it. I kind of feel like it's pointless though, since we arent handing out hard copies of it this year. Oh well. The three minute shorter one will be fun to make. I'm just kind of dreading the longer one.

The last week of project (Aug 2-Aug 8th) will be spent with a group trip to Yosemite, followed by our appreciation banquet for our employers and a dance party just for us, then a few days of breaking down and cleaning up.

Mom's coming a week from Friday to fly me back to NC! Hooray, Boo and everything in between to that.

I'll try to post a few more times before leaving! Thanks for faithfully following my adventures in Santa Cruz!