Update!

Support update:

For those of you who are curious on where I am with support. I am 68% funded for the monthly amount that is needed in order to report. Thanks for all of your prayers. I continue to meet with people and share with them the vision and importance of reaching Latinos for Christ.

Many of you have been asking me when is the new moving date? The real answer is only the Lord really knows. I am praying to be able to report in December. It would be a good time as the students will not be in classes and I would have time to get myself settled. However, as said before, that is up in the air. Please be praying for the 32% of monthly support that I still need in order to serve out in California.

Also I would like to say this is all very normal. For staff with Cru, raising initial support in order to report to campus can take anywhere from 6 months to a year. I have just always chosen to pray boldly and feel extremely blessed that in 4 months of raising support I already have 68% of it.

Fall Retreat & vision trip:

Ever since receiving my placement back in June I have felt a peace about serving out in the LA area with Destino. I will admit I was a little nervous going out there this past month to meet my staff members and students. I think I was nervous because I have been waiting for this more permanent move for awhile. While I am grateful for the past two years that I have had working with Cru, it was a lot of moving around. I have been wanting to stay in a place and really invest in students for awhile.

With that said, I arrived on Thursday to the LAX airport and was picked up by one of my coworkers. I was able to get to know her more on the car ride to my director's apartment. I stayed with him and his wife the week that I was in LA.

Friday we drove up early to Lancaster, California for our fall retreat that weekend. We spent the afternoon going over the schedule for the weekend, praying for our students, and getting the place prepared for the students' arrival.

The weekend was full of worship, talks coming out of Ephesians 2, games, small groups, and not so much sleep! :)

I got a chance at different points of the weekend to sit down with students and get to know them more. As different students started opening up to me, time and time again it was a story of a very broken past, different traumas, and many issues that some may think students in college do not have to worry about.

Fall retreat gave me a glimpse of what doing ministry and life with these students will be like. So many of them have come from broken backgrounds but love the Lord. I was greatly encouraged to hear many of their stories and how the Lord has brought them through it. There was a time at the end where students were able to share how they were impacted that weekend. Some said that through this weekend they were inspired to go back to their campuses and continue to reach out to others. Others confessed past struggles and openingly sharing them to encourage others who are currently going through hard times. I was astounded at the vulnerability from many of our students, but then again they understood what we were talking about that weekend. There was no more reason for shame; they belong. They are Christ's.

After fall retreat I was able to go to Cal-State Fullerton and Cal-State Long beach and see the different campuses. One thing was for certain...I definitely think the Latino population of Fullerton is higher than  30%. There is so much diversity in general!

I will include some pictures taken while I was there:

Putting up signs to help direct the student drivers. 

In the back of truck with Alice (to the right- a coworker) and Sue (student at Long beach)  

Joel, my coworker, posing for the picture

 The turn out was so great for Fall retreat we actually had to put the men in tents outside. 

We ate great! Look at all those eggs to make breakfast for Saturday and Sunday.  

 Student filing in to start Fall retreat

 Destino Fall Retreat 2012 

 Cal-State Long beach

 Destino weekly meeting at Long beach

 Staff and student stopped by a festivity after the weekly meeting. It was the Day of the dead and some students got their faces painted. 

 An interesting vending machine found at Fullerton. Looked more like a huge refrigerator door. 

 @Fullerton with Paul my director

 Some of the housing on Fullerton