So begins the job searching...

So I was totally going to get up and go to yoga at 6:30 this morning but I didn't make it. We all met at the bus stop at 8:25 and took it to a small church area. We had a little meeting where we learned the history of Long Beach Summer Project and learned somewhat about why there is so much diversity in this city. Today I learned that if you put Long Beach and Los Angelas together is the second biggest port in the world next to one in China. I also learned that Long Beach has the second largest population of Cambodians next to Cambodia. Interesting, yeah? We got put into leadership groups today. I'm in the Community Group and we get to plan the Tuesday night parties! I'm so excited :)


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So, I started writing this blog like 6 days ago and never got back to it. It's so easy to be distracted here. With 50 other college students there's always something going on. Plus, we conveniently have a pool right outside all our rooms. Anywho...I love it here. I love making 50 new friends. Not only that but 50 new Christian, God-loving, friends. -Real- friends. It's amazing. It's so encouraging...I'm not used to having friends that want to pray immediately when there's a problem or someone is feeling down. We pray so freely and openly, it's pretty much the greatest feeling ever.

I can't really remember the order that things have happened in the few days so I'll just summarize this week. We've pretty much been going out everyday looking for jobs. We've had a few orientation meetings. We also had evangelism training for two hours one night. After that was over we had an hour break before another two hours of training us how to use satisfied booklets. Along with that talk was how to be filled with the Holy Spirit. Alan Toigo did that talk and it was really convicting. After the talk my room came back and some of us were crying so we prayed together and talked about it for awhile. I believe all of that happened on Monday.

The only thing I really remember about Tuesday is that we had a pool party Tuesday night. Our staff bought us pizza and there was like 30 of us in the pool at a time even though the pool capacity says 10...haha. The guys have this love of throwing girls in the pool when they don't want to be in it. So there was a lot of that going on.

All I really remember about the next few days is that we walked around a lot, got rejected a lot, went swimming a lot, and ate a lot of Yogurtland <3 ! Yogurtland is this amazing place where you fill your own little (or big) bowl of frozen yogurt (pretty much just tastes like ice cream) and you can have however many different flavors and toppings that you want. They just weigh it at the end and you pay according to how much it weighs. LOVE IT.

It's Saturday morning right now and Casey, my rooms Discipler, will be here at noon to do a Bible study with us. I love Casey, she's really awesome and sweet and I'm really excited to have her as my Discipler. She will meet with all my roommates and me once a week to do one on one discipleship. I'm really looking forward to that. I'm gonna peace out because I need to take a shower before we have our Bible study.

My New Home

Well after getting up at 4:15, two long flights and a ride in the Super Shuttle...I finally arrived at the BPH. AKA: The Beach Plaza Hotel. This is home for the next ten weeks. I met 3 people that are on this project before I even got to the Hotel. One I met in Denver Airport, one in the Long Beach Airport and one on the Super Shuttle. When I got to the hotel I got registered, handed in the rest of my support, got some ideas for places to apply. I was supposed to get to put my things in my room and relax in there, but our room wasn't finished yet. They had just put new carpet in, the beds weren't made and there were still a few things that needed assembled. I met all the staff and some more of the girls and then a big group of us decided to go to eat. 10 of us took the bus to the Pike and had lunch at Islands (a burger place). When we got back I was finally able to get into my room and the rest of my roommates had arrived.

These girls are awesome. There's 5 of us in our room and I'm really looking forward to getting to know them all over these next ten weeks :) We had a bonfire last night and it was really cool just to talk to everyone and starting to learn about them. I've almost got everyone's names down...there's like 50-60 some people here including staff. I'll get them eventually. So I've been seeing Jeremiah 29:11 everywhere here. It's on a lot of people's stuff and I think it's such an encouraging verse, especially to college students. It's comforting to know that God does know the plans He has for us, even if we don't yet.

I love being here with a bunch of people that know and love Jesus and just want to be consumed by Him. Yesterday I was having a terrible time just standing on the beach. It was windy and the sand shifts and I was having trouble staying in one spot. My friends and I were laughing about it and we were talking to one of the staff members and saying how I couldn't stand on the beach. He replied, "That's because the only firm ground is Jesus and he's the only one you can rely on." It was so neat to hear that. He's totally right. It pretty much fits my life right now. I'm at a point where I really need to stand firm and here is the perfect place to start.

By the way, I'm 20 today! Isn't that exciting?! :)