Fish and Fry. Done.

Last few days on project. It has flown by so quickly. I feel so normal being here. Although I have gotten to know these people really well in these 10 weeks, I also feel like I am starting to get to know more about the little details of their personalities. Santa Cruz has been wonderful. I have absolutely loved being here, but it isn't home. I am sad to leave but not so much the city as the people. The 58 students God has brought together for this summer have been more than I could have dreamed of. Through out the summer each of us has had to give our testimony at one of our meals, which is not just us crusaders but any friends, co workers, or whoever, that we have invited. All though each of our stories are different, each one ends the same way and points to the same thing: it is a relationship. God does all the work. God provides whatever strength or power and He gets all the glory. When you hear 58 students who all have completely different backgrounds all say that in the end it comes down to God being the only true satisfaction and that it is not about rules and traditions but an intimate, personal relationship with Jesus Christ, how could any one not believe in the salvation that comes from Christ?! It is absolutely beautiful!

Our stories are intricately woven and beautifully crafted! Through them God is able to point a light towards Himself and say "come to me all you who are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest" (Matthew 11:28) We all are on in the process of learning that we all feel a deep longing within us and each one of us tries to fill that longing with something, whether it be relationships, sports, food, control, beauty, perfection, success, whatever it may be, each person in this world was made with a deep sincere longing for the Lord. But instead of acknowledging that the Lord is the only one who can fill that longing, we try to fill it with things of this world. I had a conversation with one of my coworkers the other day about this exact topic. She has been trying to fill this void with boys and relationships but still feels so alone and empty. I was reminded the other day that God's Holy Spirit is living inside each one us whether we chose to accept it or not, He is there. It is up to us whether or not we are going to call upon the Lord and allow that Spirit to work inside of us.

I know I have not shared on all of the spiritual conversations the Lord has placed me in throughout the summer or the ones my friends have gotten to be a part of. There are soo so many. I wouldn't even know where to begin or how to word them so they would not be to lengthy. I already make each of my posts rather lengthy for you followers. But I am always up for sharing so got questions or want to know more call or email me :))

I am flying back to school next Wednesday and I am a little nervous to leave the community I have had here at the Pan. God is good. He has my back for next year. Who knows what he has planned for me next

I know it has been awhile so there is a lot to catch up on. A couple funny stories to start us off.

1) There was an explosion. An ice cream explosion. Here was just another normal day at work making a chocolate dipped ice cream cone for a lovely gentleman when I go to use the ice cream machine, pull the lever, and BOOM! Ice cream is everywhere! All over my face, all in my hair, up and down my legs and arms, covering my shirt and shorts. It had to be the funniest thing! Priceless. Not to mention there is a line outside forming to get ice cream and I am now covered in it. Hahahahaha It was great. Please just picture vanilla ice cream all over me and tell me you are not laughing.

2) I also had an encounter with money. So this particular day I am working with someone. (I know, with people! Not just me, it is a miracle haha just kidding) So I am working with this girl for the first time and we had just had a conversation on counterfeit money and what you do if you get one, and what her experience was when she thought she got one once. Small talk you know. Anywho, then she proceeds to take her 30 minute break. Literally within 5 minutes of her being gone two ladies order and hand me a 20. This 20 was definitely not looking legit. I held it up to the light to see the president's face and there wasn't one. Ok first red flag. But it had the censor strip sooo what am I to do? I couldn't decide if it was fake or not so I was kinda slow to ring them up and what not as I contemplated. The girl I was working with had told me to call the supervisor and make up some excuse that my register wasn't working while the super heads over to check it out. Well since I wasn't really sure if it was fake or not I decided instead that I would just make a good mental note about what these two ladies looked like. Again, right after they leave, the girl I was working shows up for something she forgot and I tell her about the possible counterfeit. Here is where it starts getting epic. She looks at the bill and says" This is totally fake. I am calling Louise. (the super)" I am starting to laugh and get excited because there is ACTION going down! Louise comes and says it is real. It was just an old 20 so it isn't made like the new ones. But wait, then runs in 4 security officers. O great. My head shoots down and I am just chuckling (I mean you have to laugh) at the fact that I just said I had a counterfeit and 4 security guards just came. You may be thinking this shouldn't be a funny matter but you would have to understand the atmosphere in which all of this took place. It is not like I was the only one laughing. We all were. I was just the fool and the one being laughed at. Good times.

So now moving on to just some fun stories.

1) Surfing. Yep I can say that I have surfed in the great state of California and in one of the most famous surfing cities in the world. Santa Cruz. Last Friday me, Lauren (my roommate who happens to be fabulous and such a God sent), and Charlie go out at 7:30 to surf. So stinking fun! I had surfed once before in Costa Rica and was able to get up. However this was with my dad pushing me into the waves. This time I was without dad. Now I had to paddle fast enough to get myself into the wave. At first this was presenting some challenges. I was so close every time but I was barely missing them. Then I got the hang of it. Surfs up. I was doing it. The place we were surfing however is like bumper surfing. People everywhere! The last couple of waves I tried to catch I was knocked off by some little kids. Literally insane the masses that crowd the waters pretty much daily. But totally worth it. O and did I mention I was in a wet suit! 50 degree water! Lets just say after about 2 hours the wet suit, although fabulous and miraculous, still leaves you saying "I am a bit nippy".

2) My final story to tell is one that involves you golf lovers and Clint Eastwood fans. My friend Stu's birthday was last Monday and he is a huge Clint Eastwood fan. For his special day he wanted to go down to Carmel to eat at Clint's restaurant. Let me tell you I fell in love with Carmel. It is so sticking cute! Clint's restaurant, Hog's Breath, was really really good. It had a great atmosphere. If my camera was not a piece I would post pictures on here to show you. Soon enough you will see them though. After lunch we drove down the 17 mile drive which starts right next to Carmel in, you guessed it, Pebble Beach! Now I am no serious golf fan but for some reason I was just super pumped to see this! AWESOME! Tiger you need to get your act together brother because you are one lucky man to be able to play there. It was absolutely beautiful! ahhh just wait till you see the pics although they don't even do it justice. So naturally while doing all of this I had to call my dad and brag. haha love ya dad :)

There you have it. A small glimpse of a few of the things that have been going down. But those are only the minor ones. SO SO MUCH is happening and God has His hand in everything! I could never write about what all He is doing. And my blog would never do it justice. Heck I barely can do these little stories justice.

Boys listen up!

One of the things Campus Crusade (aka CRU) is big on doing is creative dates. Last year at school we had one, other students on project had them at their school, etc...Well here on project is no different. Each room is called an action group and those are the people you have Bible study with each week and honestly the people that become your best friends. So each guy action group was instructed to ask a girl action group out on a creative date. So fun right?

Last Friday at lunch the boys who had our room came out and sang us a song, that they wrote themselves, to ask us out! And this was no hoky song either. They sang really well together and everyone knew the words and it was great! I have a video of them singing it again that I will try to post. Ok, so they asked us last Friday and we were so excited! They were so excited to have our group of girls which made us even more excited. Now, while they had mentioned some of the things we would be doing in the song they sang us, they were still be secretive.

Last night was the big night.

AWESOMEEEE!

We started at 4 in the afternoon. First thing on the agenda was lazer tag. Then a few arcade games to buy some time, which we didn't know why at first, so with the arcade tickets we won we got spongebob tattoos, stick on earrings, and chinese handcuffs for the entire group. Yes, the boys were sporting stick on earrings. Then we proceeded back to the Pan (aka the peter pan motel which we are staying at) to get the cars. As we walked to the Pan we had paired off and had put our fingers in the chinese handcuffs with one of the guys. We deemed this the new trend in Christian dating. Chinese handcuffs eliminate the awkward hand holding hahaha (not that we would actually be holding hands, it was just a joke)

Now we are back at the Pan. Time to head off to the unknown destination. First stop TOGO's for dinner. We order our sandwiches to go as instructed and pile back into the car. We drive for about 15 minutes, exit the freeway and drive through a pretty neighborhood. The road then T's off and straight in front of us is a gorgeous beach shining through some huge and beautiful trees. We make our way from the cliff down a path to the actual beach and it is picture perfect. Not many people, pretty sand and if you look to your left you see Monterey, to the right Santa Cruz. Pretty Sweet.

The rest of the night proceeds with dinner, flying kites, exploring, making a fire with smores and banana boats, the boys playing guitar and singing songs, telling stories, star tipping, and taking glow sticks, breaking them open and splatter painting the sand! The sand looked sooo awesome!! The guys continued the surprises by bringing us all our favorite candies and then even after we pull back up to the Pan at midnight they tell us they will be right back, they have one more surprise. They come knock on our door about 20 minutes later and have a picture frame for each of us with the group picture we took that day on the beach! These boys made us feel so special and it was probably one of the best nights on project. O and to top it off before we left the beach to come back one of them prayed us out. How awesome is that?! Needless to say we love the boys of room 60. They put so much thought and planning into our date and nailed creative right on the nail.

Five weeks in. Can you believe it? I have been in Santa Cruz now for five weeks! I feel like this is normal and I don't want to see us leave. But tonight we said bye to our staff team. The rest of the summer has now been left up to the 58 of us students. What an exciting time! Yet we need a lot of prayer. This is a wonderful opportunity for growth and we can do this but not without God's guidance. The staff have been wonderful and so encouraging. Ask anyone on project and they will tell you their staff member really impacted the first part of summer. And with that, God has given us the second half of summer to take what we have been shown through the staff, trust in Him, and follow into the second half of this summer. Take a moment and pray if you would for our those students who have been chosen to take over as director of our project, the students who are leading the action groups (Bible studies), and the project as a whole as we enter into the last part of this amazing summer.

So today I just feel like blogging. I had the day off today. BEE-U-TIFUL! There is this neat little coffee house down town on one of the side streets called Pergalozi (not sure if I spelled that right.. what's new) It is this old victorian house with a huge front porch and lots of trees and flowers and is just super quaint. I found myself a little spot in the corner under a tree where I could feel the breeze and not the sun. Which is good because I went to the pool yesterday for 45 minutes and I have major short tan lines! All I wanted was to relax under the sun because the sun is so great. I didn't want any sun, but by golly I got it! I have a feeling I am going to leave here a whole nother race. So watch out because you might miss me. haha.. just kidding.

A cool thing of the day: I am sitting doing my quiet time and a man comes and sits at a table next to me. He says "beautiful day." Next thing I know we are talking about his life and how we was born and raised in Santa Cruz. Then he proceeds to ask me about me and if I am student here. This is always the forward into, "I am here with Campus Crusade for Christ and we are here for the summer growing in our faith in Jesus and sharing it with those around us..." etc or something around those lines. Next he asks what I believe and just more about the Christian faith. I ended up talking with him for about an hour about what a relationship with the Lord looks like, the hardships I have gone through, and how the Lord is the only way to satisfy all the emptiness I have been trying to fill myself for the last 18 years. I shared the Knowing God Personally book we have and he was really appreciative. Overall it was a really great conversation as well as another opportunity God presented to me to trust in His Spirit filling to actually do the talking. I am merely a vessel.

The funny thing about this is that apparently this is how all my spiritual conversations get started: "Beautiful day." A couple of weeks ago I had walked to one of the lighthouses for quiet time again and a man was walking his dog and says to me, "Beautiful Day." Seriously! When I least expect it I tell ya! God is a man of surprises and doing things when we least expect it. So with the dog walking man after he says that, literally within a minute or two literally he is telling me of his life story and how he lost his daughter when she was 8, then his wife divorced him, and now he has been trying to find his way through life ever since. We also had a great conversation, one that really meant a lot to me.

So, Beautiful day isn't it :)

Another week has come and gone. I know I am a little late in getting a new post up. Currently I am listening to a song by Hillsong United called "To Know Your Name". I encourage you to go to Youtube and search this song and listen. It is so powerful!

On Monday nights we have what we call Monday Night Live. This is a time when we have an emcee, our band plays, and we have a speaker. Anyone can come. This is one of the ways we outreach to people we meet or work with. I wanted to share what our speaker talked about this last Monday.

First here is the question: Do you just know God or do you EXPERIENCE him?

Good question right? I think so many of us know him more than experiencing him on the intimate level the Lord desires. I know I was one of these. I was more about following the do's and don't's of the Christian walk and was missing out on so so much.

"The church of North America has become so success oriented," writes Eugene Nida, "that we go from seminar to seminar on how to use God, but few are sitting in quiet holiness asking, 'How can God use me?'"

God made me and you so we would need him. God does not need me to speak to his lost children. He needs me to enjoy him. We are to learn from God, not be God.

John 15 talks about how we are merely branches. Branches. Branches are nothing fancy. God is the gardner and Jesus is the vine. As branches we are cut so we may be pruned and bear fruit. Even when we do not see the fruit, God is committed to lifting us up so we do not break. Our speaker used this illustration: Branches in the winter become brittle and if you are not careful when you pick up these branches they will just crumble. God does not let us crumble. When he prunes us, he picks us up with two mighty hands and gently lifts us up. Awesome right! Think about those times when you are in the dead, miserably cold winter and how beautiful it is to have the Lord bring light and warmth to your brittleness! God does not need me but he wants me!

In experiencing God, the Lord just asks that we participate in the dance he has already created. Christ is already here whether we acknowledge him or not. We are here to watch the beauty he is unfolding. God asks us to be his dance partner. We do not know where he is leading us but we know he is moving, so we follow. We follow in his grace and experience the most intimate dance man has ever seen.

Thank you. Thank you to all my supporters who allowed me to follow God's prompting and take part in a summer full of the Lord. Coming into project I heard this will be the summer that changes your life and a time when you build lasting friendships and a lasting intimate relationship with the Lord. Well folks, that is exactly what it is. And it has only been two weeks. My friends, I am at a loss for words right now. The Holy Spirit is real and fills us to the full. Throughout this last week, all of you have crossed my mind and I so desperately wished we all could be here, hearing the Lord and experiencing all He is doing and wants in each of our lives! Guys He loves you! He wants us to surrender our whole lives to his majesty and TRUST him! Trust him with all you have. I all too often and easily forget how mighty our God is.

Let me forewarn that I do not know how to accurately articulate everything that has gone in within the last week so these will be thoughts and highlights -

Last night we went out on our second outreach opportunity. We divided into small groups of 3 and literally went out to the streets in Santa Cruz. My group's first conversation was with a community of homeless. Guys, I have heard about the "unique" people in Santa Cruz, and said to myself " O this is like Austin. I have heard about this. Nothing new." Well, after 2 hours last night it was as if these ideas of people choosing to be homeless, believing that our parents can be our oppressors, being angry with God, wanting to be "free" and one with the universe, etc.. became a reality finally. And I was hurt. I was hurt to know that these are not just ideas and practices people talk about but are a harsh reality that people somehow buy into. Guys people are lost. Jesus is needed so much! And this is what the Lord has called us to do, go out spread the Word.

This morning at church a missionary gave the sermon and it was really convicting and inspiring. His main point was that Jesus uses the "least of these". As the body of Christ we need to lower the bar and learn from the Word that God uses those we might least expect and is capable of transforming the hearts of the homeless hippies I encountered last night. My heart can break for them but my heart can rejoice because our Lord saves! Jesus uses those including the homeless hippies for his ministry. How awesome is that?! He can transform their hearts and bring them to him! Don't get me wrong, it is not that I had never heard these ideas before. But the Lord is bringing these truths down from my head and moving them into my heart. There is such joy in that and love! I desire to love the Lord with my heart, not just my mind. Despite growing up in the Church, I still felt I was missing an indescribable burning love for our Savior. And that is because God's word is more in my head than my heart. God is pulling me in though!

We just got back from girls night and let me tell you that to start of the night the boys came out of one of the rooms in a single file line singing my girl and each boy had a rose. After singing to each of us they escorted us to our cars! How precious is that?! So while we had girl's night, the boys had man time (haha). Girls talked about how loved and precious we are in God's eyes and how he wiped away everything. We struggle but we are not alone. We are precious in His sight and meant to be loved intimately by our Lord. Only He can fill any of the holes in us, whether that be attention from boys, love, weight, acceptance, or whatever. Only the Lord fills us and that my friends is something to sing praises for!

Anywho, I challenge all you lovely readers to dive into the word this week and learn about the awesome God we serve. Stop trying on your own. Surrender.

Master of the Cones

Alrighty first day on the job and the boardwalk is hoping my friends! I work for Whiting Foods which is a company with around 20 various food places around the boardwalk. One of the perks about my job is that I switch locations through out the week so I am not just at Pizza Hut all summer long. Because that would be boring. So today I started at Carousel Cones which, you guessed it, is all about ice cream. The beginning of the day began with more training which included learning how to make the perfect ice cream cone, which is harder than you would think. It took me and my friend Kelly around 10 trys or more and each time we looked at one another as we witnessed each perfectly good cone (well perfect not in looks wise but taste wise ) be thrown into the trash can. Not even a taste! A taste! If you ask me we should have been allowed to try it because I later had a woman ask me what was better and I sadly had to explain to her that it was my first day and I had never tasted anything. She was slightly disturbed by this and jokingly said she would write the manager so this no tasting thing could be fixed. haha. Anyways, past the ice cream.... It is awesome because leading up to our first training yesterday we have been told numerous times that people know when the Campus Crusaders ( or Crusaders) come into town. This is sooo true!

We showed up to work today and the others I was thankfully working with ( because often we don't work with people) knew we were with Crusade! They would say " so yall are the Crusaders right?" Then we would say yes and they would say "yaaayyy!!" After 20 years of Campus Crusade coming to Santa Cruz God has established quite a name for Himself and His ministry. Pretty cool huh?

Along with work training, we also started training yesterday and today on evangelism. Honestly yall, things are starting to click. God is bringing me to that breaking point I asked Him for at the beginning of spring semester. I asked Him to break me of the things that were not of Him and bring me into a new, deeper love for Him that I have never known and He is doing just that. It has been no easy task either. I am talking months He has been involved and continuing to lead me down this path. Which is awesome and I rejoice in that! Well most of the time, through the hurt there is still that small trumpet that plays. Where I am going with this is that God is displaying a bigger picture currently and it is not appealing to look at. This morning during my quiet time I was rejoicing in what He is showing me. But since the middle of training tonight I have found it hard and found myself not wanting to face it because nothing happens/changes instantly. Changes are made in God's timing but also made when we finally surrender and stop being the controlling, want to know everything, think we are angels, fearful, humans we are. You following me?

Here is the thing.

My action group leader, Kristen, recommend a book to me 2 days ago, The Prodigal God by Tim Keller. I started reading it and let me tell you, I am all up in that book! Tim writes about the parable of the lost or prodigal son and how the story is not just about the son who takes his inheritance and wastes it all only to return to his father's good graces. There is a whole other side to this story. The story about the son who stayed with his father and "did everything right". You see, that is me. I am the son who does everything right. And that my friends is a really tough place to be. To know that you are the proud, selfish son is a great thing to recognize, and it is not to say I didn't recognize this, I did, but not like this. It is like all the sudden it clicked. I mean really clicked.

-This is completely random and a different topic - I don't think I can even explain what just happened in my room with my awesome roommates.

Mary Gordon aka MG - " So I bought two of them. And now we have friendship cacti. Like it is not everyday that that happens." ... a little later... "they are certified! This ends in September 2011"

us - "what does that mean?!"

MG - " You can't travel with them!"

BAHAHAHAHHHAHAHA I was crying yall!! I know you don't understand.

Back to my seriousness for a wrap up after that short intermission... Yall I need your prayers and your encouragement. God has placed me here for a reason, some which He is revealing now. But I know there is more to come. And I am thrilled!! The process is just hard and God never said it would be easy. I know this was long and slightly all over the place but I am so grateful for all of you. Thanks for reading!

Hola!

First day in Santa Cruz happened yesterday and I am proud to say that it went pretty swell! A couple of things that stand out so far:

- There are sea lions! Did you know there are sea lions here?! No, I had no idea! They are fabulous. Big, fat seals that make a lot of noise especially when you get close to them. So word to wise, don't.

- On the same note as sea lions, there is an abundance of marine life that we Texans do not have in the lovely Gulf of Mexico. This would include one my favorites, Sea Otters! We saw one this morning after our run floating on its back and it was the cutest little thing! At the same time this morning we saw dolphins, sea lions, were told there are whales farther out in the ocean, and saw bright orange star fish! Lets just say the Pacific Ocean has a lot more to offer!

- The weather here is fabulous! Yesterday when we arrived it was probably 80 degrees and give me a big hurray for no humidity! At about 7ish when the sun started to set it dropped about 20 degrees. It gets chilly here that is for sure. A girl also told me that rain is supposedly pretty rare here so that is exciting.

- The whole town reminds me of Austin. Very hippie, organic, bum, free spirited and I love it.

God is definitely going to rock my world this summer. I am not sure what that is going to look like but I am excited to find out. The people he has called to this project are a special group of us and I can not wait to find out more about them and get close to them. Everyone right now is talking about the 10-15 pounds people on project supposedly gain. So in loo (sp?) of that pretty much the whole project woke up between 7:30-8:30 to go run or walk. We had several groups to choose from depending on your wok out preference. We had the fast 4 milers, the 2.5 mile runners who went downtown, which was me, and then the walking group. It was great. We also had some solo-ers. It was a really nice run but we shall see how long this running goes with the whole group haha.

Well you may be wondering why I named my blog Vera La Cruz. This past weekend I was at the Christian book store and bought one of those fish or cross thingys for your car. However this was a new one I had not seen before. It was called Vera la Cruz which means "see the cross" in spanish. I loved it! You know me all about the espanol :) So this design for this car sticker thing is a silver christian fish (which I can not spell the name of course) and then the tail has a cross that is gold. It is very spiffy. Anyways.. when I was coming up with a name for my blog earlier this morning I didn't just want my name or something boring and the car sticker came to mind! So here we are Vera la Cruz! :) I like it

I am actually pretty glad I listened to Diana Urbanovsky and then the others after who encouraged me to start a blog. At first my thoughts were that I would not be able to keep up with it or that I didn't really have the personality for a good blog, but I think I am going to like this. This is going to give me a great outlet for sharing my faith and what the Lord is doing in my life. So thanks to all of you who have supported me and encouraged me not only to blog, but for this summer project, and in my daily life and walk with Christ.

Please continue to pray for me and this entire group and project. Prayers mean everything and the encouragement means more than you know. O and if you want to send me loving mail here is the address:

Lauren Davenport

Campus Crusade for Christ

Peter Pan Motel

313 Riverside Avenue

Santa, Cruz, CA 95060

Much appreciated! :)