Week 3

The week started off Sunday with our second official beach party!

Another part of being a student on Elevate means being on a team that coordinates specific events for the project to allow for us students to implement our ideas, take leadership, and make Elevate our own. 

The teams include Campus team, IN team (organizing fam nights) OUT team (organizing fam outreach) Sunday Service team, and Beach Party team. Every individual is placed on different teams by their room leaders which allows opportunities to work with people from across project who share unique abilities that contribute to each team’s roles.

I’m on the Beach Party team, so our role includes setting up and tearing down the picnic tables, volleyball nets, party lights, etc. Our purpose is also to make sure the beach party runs smoothly while reminding the rest of project to use this time to focus on outreach.

It’s been so awesome to see us all work as a team to make the beach parties as successful as possible. Being on the Beach party team also allows us to bring the entire project together and watch the lord create amazing opportunities to reach the people of San Diego. In other words the beach parties aren’t for us, but rather to farther the Kingdom of God

To get a better idea of what exactly goes on during our beach parties, we start out with a playing volleyball, longboarding and having a barbecue picnic. We provide food for everyone on project plus any coworkers we may have invited or anyone else who wants free food that’s hanging out on the beach. Food can always bring people together and it's a good way for us to bring people into our community. 

​After sunset, we transition to the dance party and set up lights on the palm trees and turn up the music. We play everything from classic throwback songs to country music so we can swing dance. I’ve only swing danced a couple of time before coming on Elevate, but it's been so much fun learning how!

 I don't have any photos from the dance party because its so dark by that time, but here's the sunset from this night. This picture doesn't do it justice but you could see the rays of light shine through the clouds and reflect off the water and it was BEAUTIFUL. God is such an artist. 

Last week I talked a bit about feeling pretty drained and tired from the constant fast pace of elevate but this week has been pretty trying as well.

 I usually need quiet alone time so living with seven other girls has been challenging to get that needed time by myself. Last week I mentioned that the lord has been telling me to spend time with Him but it’s hard to find time between all of our responsibilities and the craziness of life. It’s also hard to train yourself to find rest in the Lord instead of finding rest and comfort in the things of this world (which are really distractions in disguise, because only true rest can come from the lord).

In other words, its has been hard lately to tune in to what God is trying to tell me when I do my daily devotionals. This is partly because we do them very early and very late in the day, and also because we've been doing them for three weeks now and it’s hard not to let it slip into something that’s merely routine or just another thing that I have to check off my to-do list.

I can’t say right now that I’ve mastered this but I’m trying my best to push through and work on making my devotional time as valuable as possible.
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It wouldn’t be a week in La Jolla if we also didn’t go on at least one adventure so this Friday we decided to check out Coronado which is an island right off of San Diego. We watched the sunset on the beach then walked over to where a couple of hotels sat on the beach and watched vacationers dance the night away to live music.

The second photo is of me and Karissa, we ended up matching so we had to take a picture together.

 I know that I’ve said this before, but I’m still in awe of how blessed I am to live in a place where vacation spots are my backyard. While walking on the beach we met another group of Christians that invited us to dance. We were able to have some cool conversations with them to explain what we were doing down here. It blows my mind how living on mission, a concept so foreign to this world, is part of our purpose and it’s so amazing to see others taking the gospel to the ends of the earth as well.

Afterward, we got In-N-Out, which isn’t that notable but the burgers were pretty bomb, and I got this photo so... yeah :)

The rest of the week I spent mostly working, but I look forward to week four! Talk to you soon!

All love,
​Sophia Rose