Day 23 & 24

Hello world.

Once again we are morphing two days...

Yesterday we woke up in Oceanside! Woo hoo! It is the ocean's side :)

Encounters (of yesterday):

• We found a mom who's one daughter had mickey on her shirt (clue!) and the other daughter was holding pooh bear (clue!).
• Sonja at the mall, who was totally touched by what Brooke said to her and even gave her a big hug :)
• We went into a dog store, where I (Kiersten) was just talking with an older lady about the dogs and where she was from. I finally saw that there was a dalmatian (clue!) on her purse and she had a mickey watch on. Her name was Darlene, and she was awesome :)
• Family of 3 with tons of clues on them... and stood by these signs that said "Sold Out" which was a clue.
• Family of 3 coming out of Best Buy
• We were walking and talking about how one of our clues was coffee beans... just then we passed a lady holding a place mat covered in coffee beans...
• Felix was a name we had on our list, and we finally found him in Walmart!
• We have the clues 4 and Oreos, and passed a Muslim family in Walmart with FOUR BOXES OF OREOS in their cart.
• Late that night as we were going to bed we talked with Jennifer, who asked about the writing on our van, for a while about what we were doing. She had lots of questions for us.

This morning we drove to Grossmont College, in San Diego. We met up there with my (Kiersten) awesome friend Ginger, her boyfriend Brian, and friend Josh. A privilege to be able to share about how incredible God is between all of our encounters today. Ginger is in San Diego doing outreach/summer project ministry with Campus Crusade. We got to walk around campus with them and experience how they were witnessing to people and sharing God's love. It was awesome! We also went to the ocean and baptized one another! It was kind of a statement of returning home completely changed... with even more passion for the kingdom of God. Then we went to dinner with a bunch of people. We got a free shower here!! Score! Thanks Ginger :)

Encounters:

• So it was really neat because with Campus Crusade we were given this cool sheet that let us approach people on the campus to say we were taking a "survey", but then the questions would lead to deeper conversation about Christ. We split up, and Josh came with us around campus. I was telling him the story about the anchor tattoo when literally not minutes later we pass a kid with an anchor on his shirt! Haha... God's so good. Josh pointed to him and we got to talk with him. We told him he was the treasure that God loved. He (John) said it was the most interesting presentation of God's love he had ever heard in his 23(?) years in church.
• Next we came across this girl reading, and started to ask her if we could take a survey. She said another group had already approached her. We started to walk away, but Josh asked her what book she was reading. She said it was by Laura Penny (CLUE!) and that it was a mystery novel. As she said that I realized... on our list we had the clue "someone saying the word mystery" and this girl SAID IT. So we proceeded to tell her the whole treasure-hunting thing, and she was super happy she was the treasure.
• We went to the bookstore to find oreos (clue) and a man asked Dani a question. She answered him, but then realized that he had asked her a question... which was a clue! Someone coming to us and asking a specific question! He started to walk away, but she realized he was the treasure.
• We had the number 55 as a clue, so we went to building 55. Brooke and Dani were able to talk with a Muslim girl about the survey. They spoke about all the different beliefs, and they listened to what she believed. The cool part was that she told them in their religion they get to heaven by doing certain acts, and Dani/Brooke talked with her about grace.
• While they were talking with her, Josh and I got to speak with Omar. He was sitting on a bench actually reading scripture on his phone when we approached him. More than anything he touched our lives. He found out we were Christians, and told us how much he loved Jesus. He explained that God had saved him over a year ago, he was completely set free from the life of drugs, being in a gang, jail, etc. He told us how he went to church with his mom one Sunday and lifted his hands surrendering everything to God. Now he's in college, in his first class, working towards being a parole officer. His faith and love for God is something so indescribable. What a guy. We got to pray with him... it was probably one of my most memorable experiences on this trip. When talking about God's love, Omar said, "it's the kind of love a mother can't give you, you know..." So awesome.

Goodbye California - and all the amazingness God gave us here.

Bye Ginger, Brian, and Josh!!!!!!

bdk