Day 8

6/14 - (Brian and Thomas)

It was a pretty interesting start to the day, given that we woke up well into the night, and especially considering how it's not even the start of the day. It was 11:31 PM when I checked my phone, and the most interesting part was that I found some of our groupmates still outside. So I went outside and the first thing I saw was Allen and Samuel trying their best not to be seen on the second floor, and unfortunately everyone kind of ended up noticing them. Either way, the rest of the people were downstairs in the courtyard working on the blog, so I went down the stairs since at the time I had no idea what they were doing out this late at night. I was even more surprised when I was invited to do the church clap with Alyssa, Cindy, Elijah, and Jasmine. I guessed that it would just take longer for me to call back the boys to sleep so I decided to join them. After that, we'd headed over to the prayer room for a more productive atmosphere to finish the blog.

 I tagged along and we felt compelled to worship, so we all participated in singing and playing songs in praise of the Lord. I'll keep it simple and leave a timestamp of all that has happened while we decided to stay up late.

-Allen and Samuel join us in the prayer room, (12:40)

-Joking about sending them back, 

-Getting some water and spilling said water, (12:50)

-High low buffalo from the YWAM trip, (1:05)

-Eating a banana, trying out the peel, immediately regretting the decision,

-Listening to sermon on YT (pt.1), (1:30)

-Getting tired,

-Petition to kick Allen out for being annoying or something for the 77th time,

-Stretch/break outside,

-Going back to listening to the sermon and devotional time, (2:30)

-Chaos and throwing slipper at Allen, (2:59)

-Returning to bed (we're really tired), (3:20)

-Going to the beach (just the 8th and 9th grade girls since everyone else slept through it), (5:30)

We woke (back) up at around 7:20 AM as we started our day as a group. Thankfully I had already finished packing the night before which gave me some breathing room to be more prepared for our departure from the Ensenada base. We were called down not too long after for breakfast, and I heard that this time there were pastries like muffins and similar things available to us. Either way, we said our goodbyes to the friends we've made throughout our trip, and left for our return home by around 9:15 AM!

We were driven to the border and the airport in two vans, driven by the MA staff Bri and Joseph. We got to the border and crossed it after 11:30, and we took the opportunity to stop for some lunch afterwards at Panda Express. We also had the chance to go shopping door-to-door except all we ended up buying was some Jamba juice since I didn't feel like spending any money and the others didn't have any to spend. Afterwards, we got to the airport by 1:30 PM and we were so eager to return that one of us forgot our bags on the van and almost left without it. But it was the home stretch, and we had a safe and smooth journey back! (Other than getting stopped at TSA for liquids and a can of sunscreen,) But we could only praise the Lord since we all returned in one piece!

We hope that this first step for all of us in participating in a way to serve the Lord but also grow in our faith and knowledge of the Lord in our ministry dedicated to him! Thank you to all the people who made this trip possible for us and your faith in what the Lord has in store for all of us! Until next time!