A Cleverly Titled Beach Day

Yesterday a large crew of us spent the day at Seabright Beach in Santa Cruz. This is an annual tradition the first Wednesday after the Arizona Outreach and always a highlight of my summer. I took a small group of Middle School students along with a couple MSM leaders. There were about 60 or so people at the beach in total. I got there at about 2:30 and played some football with some guys. It was a really nice day and good just to get out and play on the beach. Some of us walked over to the Boardwalk for a bit and played volleyball on the nets that were on the beach. It was splendid. I thought about it a lot while I was in Arizona, and I was reminded again at the beach, about how fortunate I am to have such good friends. I won't rehash stuff I already talked about on here but it is a cool thing to have such a tight knit group of people that I love and love me in return (most of the time). Tony, Charles, and I had a bit of a photo shoot as well which was equal parts fem and fun. We took a ton of pictures and some of them came out pretty fun. After the photo shoot we had a bonfire, played some songs, and shared stories from the mission trip. It was a good way to cap the day. Here are some more of the pictures that we took. They are ridiculous.

Some of the girls doing their ever-so-clever jumping pose.
A pyramid. Much less impressive than those in Egypt.
9 People.

After the festivities of the evening we went to Marianne's Ice Cream where I was fortunate enough to enjoy the best ice cream my mouth has ever come across. Oatmeal Raisin Cookie Dough. A fat kid's dream come true. Try it.

Melissa and I went with my grandparents on Sunday night to see the African Children's Choir at First Covenant Church in Oakland. The choir is comprised primarily of kids who have lost one or more of their parents to disease or violence in their native country. All of the children in this choir were from Uganda. Prior to the kids coming out on stage, their director explained a brief history of the program and told a little bit about the kids. Melissa and I held up pretty well until the kids ran out from the door beside the stage, dancing, clapping, and singing, while smiling the biggest smiles you've ever seen. Melissa (not normally a crier) had tears streaming down her face as she laughed at the simple beauty of these kids and the joy that poured from them. My eyes welled up as well. We are suckers for stuff like this. It reminded me of the kids that I met at the second orphanage we visited in Ukraine. They were full of life and a love for the Lord. I am really glad that we got to go see the kids sing and dance.

Afterwards, we went to Tucker's Ice Cream in Alameda. We ate more than our fill of ice cream. I felt like a little kid again, eating ice cream with my grandparents on a warm summer-ish night. The only difference was that instead of having Justin there, I had Melissa. Dreams really do come true. That was mean.
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This was a prayer that they handed out that I though was pretty cool...

May God bless you with discomfort
at easy answers, half truths, and superficial relationships,
so that you may live deep within your heart.
May God bless you with anger
at injustice, oppression, and exploitation of people,
so that you may work for justice, freedom, and peace.
May God bless you with tears
To shed for those who suffer pain, rejection, hunger, and war,
so that you may reach out your hand to comfort them and turn their pain into joy.
And may God bless you with enough foolishness
to believe that you can made a difference in the world,
so that you can do what others claim cannot be done,
to bring justice and kindness to all our children and the poor.
AMEN