Divine Connections

Saturday was one of the most fabulous God-arranged days ever.

First of all, it started off with Dougen and the boys coming over to make us French toast for breakfast, which was great. We decided that next Saturday we will make chocolate chip pancakes. Then most everyone relaxed for the rest of the morning while I arranged our afternoon plans - complements of Tracy (the guy/dad I met on the shuttle to Redding) and one of his sons, Cody. They had invited us to come to Whiskeytown Lake with their family which is about 15-20 minutes outside of Redding. It took us a while to round up everyone and get on the road; somehow we managed to have a group of 18 people total! Apparently almost everyone we know was very keen on joining in on our Saturday plans. I didn't even really know where we were going either; all Cody had told me was that we were going to "the lake."

After passing the Visitor's Center where we were supposed to turn off and therefore having to turn the whole carpool around, and taking twice as long as necessary to purchase day parking passes, among other minor communication setbacks that occur with a group of 18, we finally met up with Cody. Next we had to hike down a rather steep path through the woods and finally arrived at this beautiful little alcove beach overlooking gorgeous mountains and Whiskeytown Lake!

Cody's family was so hospitable, you'd have thought we were a regular part of the family. They let us use their grill to make hot dogs, shared their beach space, and offered us cookies (or "biscuits," as Tracy learned from the Aussies the the Brits). Cody also took many of the group to use the rope swing he had made for people to  swing into the lake, and many people also got to go tubing on the lake or for a boat ride! Along with all of this it happened to be Tracy's wife's birthday, so we had brought her a birthday card that everyone had signed and she loved it. This honestly was the most incredible God connection I've ever had. We were so taken care of and it make me so happy to see everyone having such a great afternoon. Tracy even made sure to let us know to call Cody for more plans next weekend.

Later that night as our group finally got smaller, the boys and our apartment of girls had a spaghetti dinner together and ice cream for dessert and spent the entire night talking with each other. At one point we showed each other the street view of our houses on Google maps in the UK and the US, which was so much fun!

I never would have guessed that God would be blessing me with so much fellowship time here. I didn't even have in mind that I would be meeting such great people; I thought that God was going to push me a lot individually - which I'm sure is still coming - but I've just been in complete enjoyment this entire week! Wow.