419 San Francisco

Last day..

2011-07-12T13:49:00.001-05:00

We've had an awesome time!

Yesterday we went and served this homeless at St. Anthony's where some of us hung clothes for their clothing distribution and the others served lunch and cleaned tables. We all picked a seat and ate with several of the homeless. It was a humbling experience!

We then went to the church offices and helped stuff envelopes for all the members and contributors of Epic Church.. We knocked about 5 hours of office work in about an hour..

We then went and checked out the Golden Gate Bridge (you just can't come to San Francisco and not see the Golden Gate Bridge!)

We then went to the Ferry Building where we ate dinner at Gotts and then walked around Fishermans Wharf.

This morning we went to Alamo Square Park which is where the opening video of the tv show Full House was filmed! I think some of us adults appreciated it more than the students! :-)

We are about to depart from our hotel and make the trek back home...

We love San Francisco, it's been an amazing trip!

See you all at home soon!

Brian Bunch

Sunday

2011-07-11T00:52:00.001-05:00

Long day!

We left our hotel at 6:15 this morning to walk to the W Hotel (where Epic Church meets). We helped unload the van and trailer of all of the equipment (speakers, pipe & drape, microphone stands, screens, rugs, stage lighting and other sound equipment). We hauled it all up the service elevator through the kitchen of the hotel and set it all up on the third floor.

The band began practice about 9:00 and we had a quick break to Starbucks or McDonalds across from the hotel and got back by 9:30 to begin praying for the service and the people that would attend.

The service went from about 11-12:15 and then we took everything down, repacked, took it all down the elevator and loaded it all back onto the trailer and van.

It's crazy to think they do this every week! We are spoiled to have the church we have!

It's so cool to see how they do church here and the way the staff really loves the city and the people of San Francisco!

We have really enjoyed working with them!

We then had a late lunch at the food court next to our hotel and the we headed out to have a little fun.

We wound up walking a lot tonight (being the weekend the trolly/bus system take less trollies and buses, but sometimes tend to have more traffic. So we walked up and down the hills of San Francisco today! We've been fortunate thus far that we really haven't done that a whole lot!

We walked to Chinatown and Little Italy (where we ate some good pizza at North Beach Pizza)!! It was good!

Tomorrow we will get up and go serve the homeless at St. Anthonys Foundation from 9-2.

Things are going great!

Here are pictures of this morning at the church of some of our team praying for the service, during the service and a couple of pictures of Chinatown!

Brian Bunch

2011-07-10T01:27:00.001-05:00

We are having a good time and everyone is doing a great job!

We began our morning with a prayer walk... We split into two groups and covered different target areas in the neighborhood. We saw a lot of people and businesses we prayed over. The group I was with we all prayed over the W Hotel (the location of the church service.

We then met up with some of the Epic Staff and ate lunch then went with volunteers and the Staff of Epic to serve at the San Francisco Food Bank again. We saw some of the same workers from yesterday and enjoyed working with them again. Today we unpacked and repackaged 1,620 pounds of pasta into 1 pound packages. These will be distributed to families who are unable to have adequate meals.

It was cool being intermixed in serving alongside the church staff and members. Our team is doing awesome!

We then enjoyed our night at AT&T Park where we watched the Giants defeat the Mets! The view of the Bay was beautiful from the ballpark!

All is well and we are having a blast serving together!

Our day begins at 6:10 AM as we head to set-up for the church service.. Pray that God reaches out to those that attend tomorrow's service.

Here are a few pictures of us prayer walking, serving at the food pantry and enjoying the ballgame:

More to come...

Brian Bunch

2011-07-09T23:32:00.001-05:00

We had a blast at the Giants game!

We are headed back to our hotel on the train with thousands of other Giant fans..

I'll post more about our day a little later when we get back and settled in!

Our students are doing awesome!

Brian Bunch
Lake Pointe Student Missions

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

2011-07-09T01:12:00.001-05:00

Today was awesome!

We met Lindsey in the hotel lobby this morning at 8:15 and went tot the church offices where we made several goodie bags and wrote thank you cards to the volunteers of Epic Church. These volunteers are anywhere from the set-up crew, band members, production, hospitality, kids ministry or tear down crew. These volunteers give up there time to poor into the ministry of Epic Church.

We are fortunate to be working with an awesome staff that has an awesome heart for the city of San Francisco and it's people.

We then went to lunch in the neighborhood of the church and then went to the San Francisco Food Bank where we divided out good and bad oranges. We went through 10 tons of oranges weighing at 20,050 pounds!! Orange juice anyone? Haha...

These oranges were given to the food bank that came from local farms that weren't quite "pretty" enough to sell but are still perfectly fine oranges! The oranges that we kept will go to local schools or communities that will have food provided for them.

We had a good time serving together as a team. We will get to. G back to the food bank again tomorrow and work alongside members and staff members of Epic Church.

We then went to Fishermans Wharf and had the lovely In-N-Out Burger! Delicious! We then went to Ghirardelli Square and got us some chocalte and hot chocolate (it got to be rather cool tonight).

I was so proud of our students to reaching out and starting conversations with people as we ate our dinner. They met a guy named Chris that lives here and works at Rain Forest Cafe in Fishermans Wharf. They told him about Epic and the times the church meets.

Here are a few pictures of our day!

Continue praying for us!

More to come...

Brian Bunch

2011-07-07T23:52:00.001-05:00

Today has been a good day. Long, but good.

My day began about 5 AM our time and is winding down at 9:15 PM San Francisco time (11:15 PM home).

We landed here about 10:15 and met Lindsey, our contact for Epic Church.

She met us at the baggage claim and traveled with us on the train to our hotel. We went to lunch at the food court across from our hotel and then had an orientation with the Epic Church Staff (Ben, Lead Pastor, Tim, Executive Pastor, Lindsey, Outreach Associate). It was great hearing there stories about how God brought them to San Francisco and the things that have been happening in their ministry since this February when they began their weekly church services at the W Hotel.

We then went rode the trolly to and from Fishermans Wharf and Pier 39. We ate dinner at Pier 39 as a team. The captain of the trolly on our way back to the hotel was giving us a hard time because we were from Dallas, we had fun joking around with him. I informed him that Dallas gave them a heck of gift back in November when the Rangers lost the World Series! :-) We've had a blast!

We are excited about getting some rest and serving in and through Epic tomorrow..

We just had our team meeting and everyone is having their quiet time and headed to bed..

Be in prayer for us!

Brian Bunch

All aboard!

2011-07-07T08:49:00.001-05:00

We all met up at 7:30 and checked in at DFW..

We have boarded the plane and are about to be in route to San Francisco!

I'm excited to see what God has planned for our team as we serve alongside our new partnership, Epic Church.

Please be in prayer for safe travel..

Brian Bunch
Lake Pointe Student Missions

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone