Finally Here

Hey friends, family, and FOS!

So, as I'm writing this, I'm sitting in the cafe in the Dream Center.  We are all beginning to get settled in, and I just got done ordering seven pizzas for our team.  All in all, it has been a long-ish day.  We began by going down to Huntington beach where our team worked our way through a series of team building exercises...  I felt like the team building exercises were a lot more productive this year then they were last year, solely because instead of leaving the team building up to the students to interpret as they would, we instead had discussions about what was important with that exercise.  

After our team building exercises, we went down to the water and got to play on the beach!  It was loads of fun, and we got a lot of pictures... (I'll upload them a little later... I don't have my cameras USB cord with me right now...).  Later, we ate at In-N-Out Burger, and went over to Wal-Mart to grab some sunscreen, towels, and whatever else students needed.

When we left Wal-Mart, we all got into the cars initially planning on going to Hollywood, Sunset Strip, and Santa Monica for some sight seeing (not for the sake of sight seeing, mind you, but rather for builing a base of comparison for the things we'll see in the coming days).  We ended up not going to Hollywood, but rather heading over to Beverly Hills and driving around looking at houses.  This is where Joey Vela almost got hit... by SAMUEL L. JACKSON!!!  I was so excited!  Not that Joey almost got hit, but rather that I got to see a friggin' movie star!  Anyways, we got some great pictures and video of Beverly Hills which I'll post later.  

Soon we traveled over to Sunset Strip.  There was a lot to see, and it inspired a lot of pictures, laughs, and inside jokes in my car (which consists of Margot Knight, Erin Rice, Katelyn Ritchie, and myself).  After we left the Sunset Strip, we somehow managed to navigate our way over to the Dream Center.  Needless to say, California traffic was the worst.  However, we finally got here.  After lugging Erin's MASSIVE bag up a flight of stairs, we began to get settled in...  Although, I soon learned that instead of a room, the guys have the great pleasure of sleeping in the gym for the remainder of the trip... Bummer, huh?  I'm sure that this is what God wanted for our team though.  Tomorrow, we have a tour of the Dream Center in the morning, followed by a ministry called "Food Truck".  This is where we get to load all sorts of food on a truck (hence the name), and go to several neighborhoods and distribute it to several families who wouldn't have enough food for the week if not for this service.  I'm stoked for what promises to be a powerful week of minitry.  Please keep praying for us, and I'll make sure to upload pics/vids as soon as I can.  

God Bless,

-Davy Butler