A compilation and continuation of updates from my week long AMI West mission trip in July 2021 to the quaint community of El Cajon, California.
Hi howdy hello!! Nicole here, thank you for encouraging me through your words, reading along with my updates, and keeping our 11-person team in your thoughts over this past week :) Our group is presently all back home, with some sprinkled across OC, LA, Fremont, and a few still in SD. Once again, thank you for following along with my reflections, and I've truly enjoyed getting the chance to share with everyone what God has been and is continuing to do in this city, and the great joy it has been to join oh so briefly in on it.
I think for anyone who has gone or missions, or honestly has traveled, a common question is:
How was it?
And I've really struggled at times to answer HAHA because there's so much I feel like I want to say...but also know I should keep it concise, and without visuals I often feel like I'm taking up time, space, and just blabbing on. I've had a tug of war with words for a while, but in this year, God has really used them to show me their subtle power and what can be shared through them haha - so please bear with me as you read this and I pray that there can be something that encourages or reminds you how precious you are, the unfailing and constant love God has for this world, and how good He always is :)
Managed to make these updates after each day had closed during the week (high-key fell behind after Wednesday...) This happened to be on days that I had a little more time or energy to do them, and put both pictures and words together. Yes I did sleep pretty late but! counting it all joy cause I really enjoyed reflecting over the day and flipping through the many pictures we took this week!!!
we encouraged weird a lot out here haha
tiedye things using the hose behind the house and stomping on shirts :0
quiet morning hours .
'what time is it?' GAME TIME
Thursday I think was our longest / busiest day and this might be the longest recap :0
If I haven't mentioned already, each morning kicked off bright and early at ~6:30AM so that the team could eat breakfast together and spend time in prayer and quiet time before we headed into the rest of our day. Thursday was our second day of VBS, and I felt so excited going back into it, crew-leading my silly kiddos, and letting loose to have fun through dancing, crafts, and games ~ Not gonna lie, as a late sleeper, it was challenging having to remind myself that I needed to sleep early and get my rest, and I constantly found myself saying a prayer asking for God's strength and energy to fill me and help me love on all these kiddos and hear and see them/what they were sharing with me!!
These are selfies I took at snack time with my kids HAHA ~ as you can see, I am once again Stickkie Nikki (stickers galore) but they all knew my name as Nicole/Nikki too which made me smile soo much
Vivienne, Taylor, Cameron, Coach Sarah, Teagan
I loved getting to sit and be with each of them, and hear how some of them loved to share about things they liked and their enthusiasm as the day went on :-)
Rosie, David, Colin
LIvya, Zelda, Kaiden
Liliana