Sorry it has taken so long for me to make a post about my missions trip to San Francisco. I thank all of you who had our team in your prayers, and believe me when I tell you WE SAW your prayers answered and we felt them. What an amazing trip it was. We stayed at YWAM San Francisco which is located in the Tenderloin District of San Francisco. The Tenderloin is known for homelessness, drug addition, prostitution, etc. I cannot put in to words what we saw and experienced while we were there. We saw hundreds of homeless people right in front of YWAM each day, we had drug deals happen right in front of us, we saw people smoking crack right in front of us, we were yelled at by some, but accepted by most. We saw God in action in San Francisco. We formed relationships with the "least of these" in San Fran, and were able to look past the homeless and see the person. We heard some of the best sermons ever from the mouths of these people. The first night we were there we did a hot chocolate evangelism. We went up to a homeless man at a bus stop to offer him something to drink and he gave us a message on Ephesians 6:12-17 that we will never forget **As soon as you finish reading this blog, grab a Bible and read that for me please**. We had sacked lunches at Hippie Hill located in the park near Haight Ashbury. The students and adults engaged in conversation with people while sharing a lunch with them. We had a love feast which is near and dear to my heart. We had 134 homeless people come in to YWAM and our students served them a meal. I remember watching them serve with ALL THEIR HEARTS and with SMILES OF PURE JOY. I saw them engaging in awesome meaningful conversations, praying with them and serving them a meal and a few were even washing their feet and cutting their toe nails. I heard one student engaged in a conversation about his faith that he will never forget. Oh, the stories. We also did a homeless plunge where we were homeless from 10 am to 4 pm. We had to wear the clothes we wore to bed, could NOT brush our teeth or hair and had $1.50 (adults) and (.50) students to last us all day. It was enough money to get you a bus fair back to YWAM. We did prayer walks in the Tenderloin which is full of homelessness, massage parlors, drugs, prostitution, liquor stores, adult cinema theatres. We had awesome devotions as a team and I saw many students share their struggles with their peers. It was an amazing trip.
I remember 2 men that my group spent time with and prayed with that were homeless, Curtis and Alex. They are good people. I wish I could have spent more time with them. And I can tell you that when we left on Thursday July 17 that many of us including myself had tears in our eyes as we left the Tenderloin and YWAM. We went on a night time tour of San Fran Thursday night and it is a beautiful city!!! I think I could move there tomorrow if I could afford it. It was in the high 60's every day and windy. Cold at night. We went over the Golden Gate bridge in the open top of a double decker bus. The next day we spent some time at Fisherman's Wharf and went to the San Francisco Giants game against CC Sabathia and the Brewers. Saturday we flew home. I think we all missed home but found it difficult to leave. We went to San Fran to work with the homeless and help them, but I think they helped us more. Thank you for your prayers. I could go on and on about how prayers were answered so if you see me, ask me and I will share some stories with you.
God is good!
Nate
The story of the Mills' Family. Nate and Carol have been married since 1997. Taylor was born in 1998, Drew was born in 2001 and Toby was born in 2005 and joined our family forever in 2007. Here is our journey, where God leads us, we will go. That is my prayer.
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