Thanksgiving

We are getting pretty excited for Thanksgiving this year! Of course, those who know me (Rebekah) know that the fall is my FAVORITE time of year, so Thanksgiving coinciding with that just makes it even more fun. For the first time in four years, I am not in charge of the turkey, so I'm taking it as a welcome break! We are headed to Fulsom, near Sacramento, to spend Thanksgiving weekend with some great friends from church and their family. We're planning on eating a lot of course (all P90x approved of course!), playing a lot of Wii, I'm sure some football watching will go on, taking walks in the woods around their house, and on Friday we're headed to a cool place up their named Apple Hill. It's an apple orchard where you can pick/buy apples and apple juice/cider. I've never been but heard it's beautiful, especially this time of year with the leaves changing. As we head home on Friday, we are also stopping in Modesto to see some great friends who recently moved back to Charleston, but are visiting for the holiday. I can't WAIT to see them! South Bay is hosting a Thanksgiving event of their own this year at one of the clubhouses here. We invited everyone who wants to come and celebrate Thanksgiving together. A lot of the staff families will be there, and I have to say I'm a little sad we will be missing out on that part, and being with our new church family. Man what a difference a year makes. Last year this time, it was just the 6 staff families, and we didn't hardly know a soul. We had just had our first preview service for the church, and we celebrated in a very small mostly Southern way :). This year, we're renting out a clubhouse, having tons of people come to eat together, and it will definitely be multi-cultural. Everyone will be bringing food to eat that is from their own country. Here is a picture of last Thanksgiving. We'll be sure to post some after this Thanksgiving.





What are your Thanksgiving plans?

It's about time...So,

I received a friendly reminder that we haven't updated in a while... If you notice the last time we updated, it was in May - the beginning of summer. The beginning of PURE craziness! I know it's like this for almost everyone, longer days, working more, vacations, visitors/guests, weekends packed to the brim - but for some reason, starting a church fitting in the middle of all that makes it seem busier! :) If you couldn't already tell, life has been very hectic. We have had an absolute blast this summer. Here are just a few things that have been going on -

1. We've had about 8 different people come and visit. What a blast! We have become expert tour guides in San Francisco and surrounding areas, and really have felt like we're getting somewhere in tackling how to get around in this giant place. There are still more places we want to see, but we'll get to it eventually. We've felt so blessed to have everyone come, and so many people have been a huge part of our support. It's been awesome for all of them to see South Bay first hand, experience what it's like on Sunday morning (or a typical weekend for that matter), set up church with us, and meet some of our new friends! Here are a few pictures!





2. We went on vacation home to South Carolina. Man was it hot! That's all I could say all week!! The humidity was almost more than I could take - I could feel it as soon as I walked off the plane. You wouldn't have thought I grew up there. :) But it is funny how easily you forget what it really feels like. We've been so spoiled by this amazing weather out here. We had a great time visiting family and friends, jam packing every second of every day with something. We had a fun time out on the water with Rebekah's parent's new jet skis and visiting some of our favorite Charleston haunts. We definitely hit up the REAL barbecue at Sticky Fingers, had some sweet tea, cupcakes at Sugar Bakeshop, and a lot more that we probably shouldn't have! :) we had such a great time seeing our friends, and meeting new ones. It was like we never left!






3. For the past five weeks, South Bay Church has been having it's services outside! The school we meet in was doing some pretty hefty cleaning over the summer and using the gym (where we meet) as it's storage facility. It's the only place in the country that we can get away with this in the middle of the summer, and still be ok. We set up a very large tent, toned down our music to acoustic style, and just worshiped together in the great outdoors! It has been an incredible time of challenge and growth for our church, and we are so excited about the fall! Last week was our last week meeting outside, and we had 217 people attend!! Lots of new guests. We feel so blessed. We have talked about possibly doing a few outside services every summer because it has been so much fun.

We hope you are all doing well! We want to hear from you! What has been the most exciting part of your summer?

Beyond Words

I'm speechless today as I write this. Today was South Bay's first baptism service. What an incredible thing to witness. We had people sign up for a few weeks before the service stating their interest to be baptized, and had 9 people signed up. During the service, Andy spoke about the importance of baptism, the reason we do it, and the things that hold us back from taking the step. At the end, he challenged everyone to take the amazing first step in their walk with Christ to become baptized. We had 18 people come forward to be baptized today!!! It was amazing. The excitement in the place was overwhelming. People were clapping, hooting and hollering like a true celebration! We were in awe as some of the people who we have been praying for came forward to get baptized. Four people from our small group decided to take the step of faith, and we were in tears as all 18 of them were baptized. It's amazing to hear the stories, the different walks of life that each person has come from. Anything from growing up Catholic and now choosing to become baptized as a Christian, those who were once Buddhists and only in the last few weeks have made decisions for Christ, to a child of a Hindu priest and their son who will now no longer be considered part of the family because they were baptized as Christians. What an amazing thing to witness. Archie and I feel so blessed to be a part of this church and to be in service to our Jesus! We'll have some pictures soon, but for now, here's a video that Archie put together for today with some of the amazing stories of a few of the people who were baptized today!

Baptism 09 from South Bay Church on Vimeo.

Please be in prayer for those who were baptized today. Pray for protection and continued commitment! Thank you all for your prayers, support and encouragement!

Hey Blog fans.  I know its been a little while but we wanted to catch you up on what's been going on with us out here in California.  For the past couple months we have been making California more our home.  We have had a lot of visitors from back home to help us out during big weekends for the church.  We even had a visit from Bekah's parents last month which was great.  The church has been going really well.  This past weekend for easter we hosted an easter egg hunt for our community and had 2000 people attend!!  It was incredible!  We had some mission teams come in and help us stuff 6000 plastic eggs by hand with candy.  We even did a few Willy Wonka style golden tickets that kids could turn in for really cool prizes.  Things like tickets to a Giants game, build a bear gift cards and various other fun toys.  It was a blast to be able to show our community the love of Christ and ask nothing in return.  We had all walks of people there- Hindu's, Muslims, all receiving a touch of kindness from Christ.  We had planned this for months but it worked out to be good timing because the week prior that same community experienced a major blow. 5 people, including 2 children had been shot in this community of million+ dollar homes.  Things like this just don''t happen here.  So it was nice to get people back out of their homes to laugh and enjoy the sun and of course, get some candy. :) Here are some pics: 


Our church is now about 10 weeks old and we have been running about 130-170 every sunday.  We have been so blessed by all the volunteers and people willing to give of their time to make South Bay Church happen.  We held 2 Easter services this past sunday and had 285 people!  We had 9 first time decisions for Christ, and 35 first time guests!  It was an incredible weekend for us as a team!  

Coming up this next week, our pastoral team will be heading to LA for the first time since we've been here to attend a Christian Leadership Conference called Catalyst http://www.catalystwestcoast.com/  We are really excited to get out of town for a bit and get inspired and renewed.  I will try to post some pics from my phone this week, it should be pretty incredible.  

On a personal level, Bekah is still enjoying her job and traveling around to homes to work with kids birth to 3yrs old.  It takes a special person to do what she does.  I joke with her that I'm going to have to live in her mansion in heaven (because she's such a good person).  Right now she has a new OT shadowing her as she's driving around and will soon be in a new office space during the week.  I have been continuing to take guitar lesson from a friend and improving my skills.  I have been playing more lead guitar on Sunday mornings which has been a goal of mine, instead of playing acoustic.  Also, we needed to buy a car because Bekah uses ours for work and I have been borrowing a car from our Pastor, Andy since Sept.  We recently got church offices and I now have a need for my own transportation since we are no longer working out of our homes.  We have been saving since Sept to buy a second car in cash.  So this past week I found a car that I have always wanted and it was at a great price and since I only drive around town... I got it.  A 67 Ford Mustang.  I've only had it a few days but already have met many people who want to talk about the car.  Rebekah and I were praying yesterday and we were saying that Jesus wants to use anything we will give Him to reach people, including a Mustang.  Already it has been a great in-roads to build relationships with people.  

Thanks so much for all your prayers.  We are excited about what God is doing here among us.  We are seeing many people come to Christ and lives being radically changed for His sake.  We are so thankful to be giving our lives to His calling.  

South Bay Launch!

We are so excited to share with you about the launch of South Bay Church! First of all, I have to apologize that it's the Saturday after the launch and we are just now updating, but we really do have a valid excuse! :) Besides the fact that our life will now be crazy since we are starting weekly services, my parent's, Cal and Tina were in town for the week, so we have been spending time with them. It was so great to have them here in order to witness this amazing event with us and celebrate the launch of South Bay!

So, our launch started at 7am Pacific time. The launch team arrived to help unload the truck as well as the two mission's teams we had in town to help (one from Lake Point church in Texas and another from Pleasant Valley church in Kansas City, MO). Everyone helped unload the truck, which we have already gotten down to a science. We are now able to unload the entire thing in only 20 minutes. Everyone is assigned a specific job, and knows exactly what they are supposed to do. Things are pushed and moved all around the room in what appears to be chaos, but really everyone knows their exact purpose! We joke about literally working while stepping on top of each other! By about 8:20, all the instruments and stage, chairs, and most of the room was completely set up. The lighting and stage design stuff was finished a little later. At 8:30 we started practicing with the band, and we were able to practice for about an hour! This is a blessing, because in the preview services, we have felt rushed and haven't had enough time to practice. We ran tech rehearsals in order to make sure everyone knew what they were supposed to be doing and video's were started on time! All the volunteers were amazing, knowing exactly what needed to be done and doing it as well as stepping up and filling in any position they could!




Archie opening the truck - it's still dark!






the team arriving!

People began arriving around 10, and the place started to fill up. We had a lot of new people, and all of the team was able to talk to a bunch of new faces and help them feel welcome. It was a very exciting service, and the crowd could feel the excitement too, often times clapping and shouting with us in the celebration of starting this new church!

-All in all we had 279 people in attendance last Sunday morning, including over 30 children!
-We had over 65 first time guests, and a lot of returning visitors from our preview services.
-There were 17 people who recommitted their life to Christ as well as 9 people who made first time commitments to Christ.
-There were 20 people who indicated they wanted to be a part of a volunteer team
-and 40 people who indicated wanting to be a part of a small group!

We are so excited for this opportunity! And what a blessing it was to have my parents here for this event! They were here for over a week, and we loved every minute of it! We were able to spend some downtime just at the house, they went and visited a few placed while we had to work, and then on Thursday and Friday, Archie and I took off work and traveled with them around the area some. We really enjoyed them being able to visit out here, see where we live, and allow them to meet some of our new friends. It's hard to believe it had been 6 months since we had seen them. They left this morning, and we miss them already!

So, tomorrow is Sunday again, and we have church again! We are definitely looking forward to it, but already tired thinking about it - but a good tired! Please pray for us as we begin this weekly adventure. All of this is possible only with the grace and blessing of God on us and our church! We greatly appreciate your support, encouragement and prayers.

As a last request, We could really use some prayers for band members. Because we are so new, we don't have a band really. Right now, we are just using a lot of band members from neighboring churches who are willing to help us out occasionally. We are so blessed to have them help, but we really need something more permanent, and something we can rely on every week. Please be in prayer with us, that God would send people to our church with musical abilities to help us out in this area! Thanks so much!

We love all of you, and look forward to updating you on the progress of our church!

Prayer

If you have time, we would love if you would consider partnering with us in prayer for our GRAND OPENING!!! South Bay Church is having it's official launch service this Sunday, February 8th. We are once again participating in 48 hours of prayer leading up to the event and would love it if you could be a part of this. Here are the directions:

Enter our google calendar here: https://www.google.com/calendar/render
Login with: southbayprayer
Password: prayforsouthbay
Find a 30-minute slot that is not taken and write your name and location in it.

Just remember if you are in South Carolina or not on the West Coast, the time listed is Pacific time, so if you sign up at 6:30, you would actually be praying at 9:30.

Here are some of the things we are in need of prayer for:

1. That the mailers we have sent out would be received with open hearts and that people would respond - we have already been getting a lot of phone calls and emails in response to these mailers.

2. That the staff of South Bay Church would be able to accomplish what God has called us here to do. This is such a critical time, and the enemy is here to steal, kill, and destroy! Please keep us in your prayers!

3. The attacks of the enemy would not be able to harm what we are doing this weekend. In the past, at preview services, we have had people sick, printers and computers jam/crash, and all sorts of attacks. Already this week, one of the members on our launch team was playing basketball with the group and tore his ACL, and they just lost their insurance due to a job loss! Please keep all of our launch team families in your prayers as well as that nothing would get in the way of God's Word being spread to His people.

4. We have 2 mission's teams and several visitors in from all over the country that will be arriving for the launch. Pray for their safety in traveling, as well as while they are here.

5. Pray for the hearts of the people at the launch. We desire to see God's hand move in a mighty way! We are so excited about the number of people who will be in attendance who may have never heard the Gospel of Christ!

Thank you everyone for your prayers and encouragement! We love each of you guys and can't wait to share what God is going to do this weekend!!!

The Crazy Cat Lady

Just wanted to let you all know that we had an amazing service this past Sunday! Thank you for your time, dedication, prayers, and support. We could not be taking this amazing step of faith without you guys. We had 188 people attend the service, 1 person make a commitment to Christ and 10 people recommit their lives to Christ. What exciting and amazing news to see how God is moving mightily in this area. Everything went smoothly, and we really did a lot of hard work! We can't believe that the launch of South Bay church is only one month away.... where did time go??? :) We are so excited, but already tired thinking about going to weekly services. It will be so amazing. We have been super busy here in the prep and working. Again, thank you for all your support.

On a side note, just wanted to let you know that we have officially become the crazy cat lady! On our back porch about 3 weeks ago, we noticed this:

Archie put out the blanket that you see because he felt bad for him. We have never fed him though. but he kept coming back.... then a week later, we now have this one and a black cat taking up residence on our back porch.... cats, cats, go away, before you bring ten more!!! ;)

Pray for South Bay

Hey everyone, we're doing a 48 hour prayer chain again leading up to our 3rd and FINAL preview service. If you want to sign up, follow the directions below on how to sign up for a time. We really covet all your prayers for this weekend, and we are waiting in expectation of good things from God! If you are on the East Coast, when you sign up on the calendar, be aware that the time is West Coast time - 3 hours behind. So, for example - if you sign up for the 3am time slot - it's really 6am your time!!! So that would help us out alot :) ....

Go to: www.google.com/calendar/render

Sign in: southbayprayer@gmail.com
Password: prayforsouthbay

Thanks guys, and we'll update soon

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas from Sunny California! :) It's been awhile since our last post, so I'll try to give a quick and simple update that you won't still be reading till the new year! :)

2nd Preview:
The second preview was amazing! Everything went so much smoother this time around. Our set up was quicker, our volunteers were on top of it! We could not ask to be more blessed with such amazing volunteers and launch team! And we had a wonderful missions team from Pleasant Valley church in Kansas City, MO. They were amazing as well! What a wonderful team of people with such great servants hearts willing to jump in and do whatever needed to be done. We made some great friends that weekend! Overall, we had 154 people attend the service and 2 people make commitments to follow Christ. I feel like I have to explain the attendance numbers a little! :) Last preview we had 175 people come, but about 40 of those people were volunteers from a local supporting church of ours. This time, that church was hosting their own annual Christmas production, so most of those people were involved up there. So, we had less overall numbers, but a greater number of people from the community and the city of Santa Clara! Praise God! Here is a picture from the morning (sorry it's not very good)
Anniversary - On December 14th, (the same day as our second preview, ha) we celebrated our 5 year wedding anniversary! we could not think of a better way to celebrate than to be serving the Lord together! We made this decision together to follow Christ and move to the Silicon Valley, so it was the perfect way to spend the day - serving Christ and living out His calling on our life! We did decide we were going to go to dinner as well, but haven't been able to do so yet! :)

Christmas - well, this is our first Christmas away from our parents, and to think it's completely on the opposite side of the coast as them. We went to a church about 30 minutes away for Christmas eve service with Andy and Stacie and then went to dinner. On Christmas morning, we celebrated with each other, doing our normal traditions of reading the story together, eating orange danish rolls, and opening gifts. It was quite different this year, because on top of opening our gifts to each other, we opened gifts from friends and family all right then. It felt weird, but we still had a really special Christmas morning. We spent the rest of the day with the Wood family, eating meals together, playing Wii, and just really enjoying each other's company and making wonderful memories of our first Christmas in California. Of course we miss our family and friends this time of year, but it truly was a very special Christmas. Here are a few pictures from Christmas Eve, Christmas day, and a few of Capo (cause we haven't put him on here in a while! :) )

Christmas Eve - all dressed up

The church we went to for Christmas Eve - Westgate church
Archie showing off his yoga moves on the Wii fit
Believe it or not, it's been cold in California the last week or so, so we decided to bundle Capo up!
He looks thrilled!

Merry Christmas everyone. We pray blessings on you all, and miss you dearly!

Christmas is here (and the second preview!)

Christmas, quite possibly one of my favorite times of year, is here again! Of course, this year it's quite different since we are in California. This will be my first Christmas away from my family. I've never not been with my parents, sister, and her family on Christmas - or the week after. We normally go on a vacation the week after to the beach. So, I'll definitely be missing it this year, but we are also excited about starting some new family traditions here, and continuing with some of our old ones that we have always done - just in a new state! :) We went and got our first Californian Noble Fir Christmas tree. It smells incredible, and I quite like it! Now, decorating the tree has always been a huge family tradition on the Woods side - eggnog, Christmas music, appetizers, the whole family, turn off the lights accept for the Christmas tree lights, maybe have a movie on in the background. I always remember it as such a fun time growing up - I especially liked to dance to the Christmas music! :) Archie and I have continued this tradition, and always made it a really fun event. Even though we just go to Lowe's to pick out the tree (we went to a tree farm with a real horse drawn carriage in the snow in Omaha growing up), it is still so much fun!!! This year was no exception - We went, picked out the tree, took pictures, decorated, sang and danced to Christmas music (I recommend Christmas remixed: Holiday classics re-grooved for something fun to dance to, and Frank Sinatra: A Jolly Christmas - Great stuff) The two workers at Lowe's asked us if this was our first Christmas - HA! I said, no, we'll actually be celebrating FIVE in a few weeks.... Archie said, I hope they'll always say that!

We celebrated Thanksgiving here, and Archie just celebrated his 31st b-day on December 1st. We celebrated by all of us and some new friends going to Cheesecake Factory for his birthday, and all of the families cooked and we went to the Santos' house for Thanksgiving. It was a lot of fun, and overall had a great day! Speaking of celebrations, we will be celebrating our FIVE year anniversary on December 14th! I can't believe we've been married for five years already. It is amazing, and we were saying the other day how each of us have changed so much since we got married, but it is so much a result of the other. I feel so blessed to have married such an amazing man! And to know that we are following in God's direction together makes me feel so great!
Thanksgiving at the Santos'
The yummy cheesecake - they even put his name on the plate
Archie Blowing out the candle
We found the perfect one! :)
The Lowe's man cutting off the end
Christmas tree - sorry it's a little blurry!
Christmas table decorations!


So, our second preview is this coming Sunday, December 14th. We are so excited! We want to encourage you guys to really help us in this effort and pray for the meeting this Sunday! We need your help in as many prayers as we can get! We are hosting another 48 hours of prayer leading up to this event. We have a team of people here, hoping to have a lot of you, and other people throughout the nation sign up in increments of 30 minutes for the 48 hours preceding our service, to cover the service in prayer. Here is what our pastor, Andy, had to say about it:

"Won't it be awesome this Sunday to realize that there are some people whose eternal destiny will change and we get to be a part of that! There is nothing like it! I look forward to watching this vision continue to unfold as we serve together as a team. Please join me in believing God for incredible things this weekend. He is capable of so much more than we can imagine. I can see that so many of you have already signed up for 30 minutes slots on the prayer chain. If you have yet to do so please find a slot and pray for 30 minutes between Friday morning and Sunday morning. I will be praying for you as you invite your friends and get the word out about Sunday. I believe we are going to continue to build momentum and see God do even greater things in our midst."

You can be a part of this vision also, by helping us pray... here's what you do:

• Go to http://www.google.com/calendar
• Sign in- username: southbayprayer password: prayforsouthbay
• Click on calendar link at the top of the screen.
• Find one of the 30 minute time slots and put your name there! (remember that all times are pst)

Love you guys and can't wait to share the amazing things God has done here this weekend! We'll update with any other news this week also!

The Big Day

Wow we have been pretty slack in quite possibly the most exciting time of journey here, sorry!  Last week we had our very first public worship service for our new church.  We sent out 32 thousand mail pieces to homes in the area.  We had a mission team come into town from Texas and they spent 2 days going around the community putting door hangers on doors to invite people to our service.  We all put countless hours into our preparation.  We flew most of our band and sound guy in from South Carolina.  We had a local church give us almost 50 volunteers to come and help us serve and it was amazing!  We had 175 people show up!  And 5 people give their lives to Christ for the first time! That is really amazing for Northern California.  I (Archie) was so proud to have been used by God in such an exciting way.  We are meeting at an Elementary school in the area so we have to set up and tear down every time we meet.  That morning we started loading in everything at 7am for our 10:30 service and we still ran out of time for a few things, but nothing major.  It is just one of those things that will get better and faster every time we do it. When I got up on stage to lead worship I and I said "Welcome to South Bay Church!"  a cheer went up from the whole place, it was very exciting.  Worship went well and people connected to the songs but for me it didn't feel like home yet.  I felt like I was just leading worship at someone else's church.  That morning from 7 right up till 10:30 I was busy unloading and directing people to plug things in and move this here and that there, I really didn't have time to process it all because I had been so busy making sure that this whole thing was going to come off :)  I was in charge of buying all the equipment!  So I was looking at this thing from a very different way than everyone else.  Like did I buy enough extension cords (by the way, I didn't) It wasn't until I sat down after worship to listen to Andy speak that it hit me.  A great sense of accomplishment and joy came over me as I looked around the room at all the people that had come that we didn't know, we've only been here 10 weeks, and curtains surrounding the room, and the cool stage, and Andy up there speaking and my guitars on stage, and all the sacrifice that we had made to come here- It hit me- this is our church!  This is what we came here for!  This is our church!  It was amazing to be in that room and to feel God and all the potential that He has for this place.  The thought even hit me on sunday, "we are going to quickly outgrow this place! 

           Because our first church service went so well we have been getting calls and emails from all over the country from other church planters wanting to know how we did it and what steps we took to get there.  We have taken a statement from a popular author and made it our own.  "Work like it depends on you and pray like it depends on God."  We followed some strategies,  read books, worked very hard, and asked a lot of questions to a lot of wise men but at the end of the day God is the one who blessed us.  If I can quote another book we're reading called Go Big, it's kind of the christian version of From Good to Great, It says that "God will give you all you need and more if make it about His kingdom and not about you."  I can honestly say that this is the heart of our team.  To make it about His kingdom.  Don't get me wrong, we were really jazzed about having 125 people from the community come, but there are 7 million people in the bay area and 95% of them don't know Christ.  We still have a lot of work to do.  I pray that we never allow it to be about us or about our comfort as a church.  

      One really cool thing that we did as a new church that I was really proud of was that we received about $2000 in our first offering and we as a church decided to give it all away.  We are giving half to serve those that serve our community like, the police, fire fighters etc. and the other half went to some organizations that help the needy in our community.  That felt great to say to the world and to our community and the people who came into our church with a wary eye toward Christianity to say "Christ came to serve and not be served and we are here do to the same."   

      We will have some professional photos of our first service up soon, we haven't gotten them back yet.  But here are a few to give you an idea.  These are right before the service started.  You can see me up on stage, and Bekah on the keys to the left, Marion from Charleston playing Bass,my brother Sam is hidden behind me on drums and Filipe is bending down tucking something under the carpet at the last minute with 33 secs left before the start of service- see I told you it was close!   

    

On a more personal note, I have lost 12 lbs by running and switching to diet drinks and splenda in my coffee instead of sugar,and I have started recording some original music on my new computer (nothing to show yet but hopefully soon) Bekah is also lookin' skinny these days and liking her new job working with families in their homes.  We are missing family and friends a lot.  Thank you to those of you who ask about us and pray for us.  We love you and cannot thank you enough for believing in us and for your prayers. 

Archie 

New website!

Check out the new and improved, updated South Bay website - southbaychurch.org

ONE WEEK!

Sorry for the break between updates! We'll post a longer one soon - lots of good things to update on! :) Just wanted to post real quickly and ask for your prayers. We are having our first Preview Service exactly one week from today!!!! We are so excited... lots of preparation, prayer, and energy has gone into this event - and it's been something all three families have been envisioning since the beginning stages of this - even before moving to California! Please pray this week during your prayer times. We are praying for the people we have met to come, the time of worship to portray who we are as a church as well as for people to connect with God, and lastly for those who come to have a welcoming experience and see this as their home. We are sending out 30,000 mailers to the community this week, and they are top notch! Very professional looking. We are very excited to see what God is going to do.
If you are interested in becoming a part of our prayer team, this weekend we will be conducting a 48 hour prayer! I will post the link at the bottom of the google calendar, where you can sign up for a 30 minute block of time to commit to pray for this first preview service. How powerful to know that leading up to our event there have been people praying for 48 hours straight! Please consider being a part of this - if nothing else, the East Coasters can take the 6am - 9am times and save us from getting up at three in the morning!!!! ;) We are also having our launch team here pray! Thanks again.
Google Calender -
Login - southbayprayer@gmail.com
password - prayforsouthbay
P.S. the picture is the sermon picture that will be on the mailer and the topic of Andy's message the first meeting.

Feature

Anybody watch the new show 11th Hour??? It was my first time seeing it, and I only watched it because of the preview, but our new home was featured. San Jose, Cupertino, and Palo Alto were all spotted in the show. The mountains, vineyards, and everything. Thought it was kind of cool! :) The show is sort of like CSI, and it was actually pretty good!

Our Big Backyard

So, yesterday evening, Archie and Andy (our head pastor) went to Las Vegas to observe a church plant there that is completely mobile. I dropped them off at the airport... the San Francisco airport. it was definitely an adventure. there are so many lanes, and people, and signs are constantly telling you which way to go. But luckily I made it! It took me about thirty minutes or so to get back home from dropping them off, and it was still pretty early, so I felt somewhat adventurous. Many of you who read this know I like to run, and someone here told me that they had this great trail a few miles down the road from where we live. I figured since I already had been very adventurous, why not discover something else new about our city. It was like the car took over and immediately took a left off the interstate instead of a right. I drove for a while, not seeing anything except for tons of buildings as part of a water treatment plant, and thought, maybe I was wrong, and almost turned around, but something inside of me made me keep going. Just when I thought, I was going to turn around, I saw it! I knew it had to be it. It was BEAUTIFUL! In fact, it wasn't just a trail, but it's actually part of a wildlife reserve and a bird sanctuary. I pulled into the parking lot just at sunset! It was amazing. Luckily, I had my camera on me, so I hopped out really quickly and shot a few pictures just before the sun went behind the mountains, but a lot of the birds flew off. I happened to snap a few. I just couldn't believe this was so close to me. It's gorgeous. And to think, I was going to just go home!!! I have to pick them up again tonight, I wonder what other kind of adventures I can find! :)

Beautiful lake and sunset

You can see the birds flocking in the distance. I couldn't get them to come closer, I even called for them. ;)
Little baby birdies! they flew away too.

Happy Birthday Stacie!

Today is Stacie's birthday! Just wanted to wish her a very happy birthday and a wonderful year full of blessings! This morning, Mandy and I surprised her while she was at Starbucks and took her a giant card. Then we were able to spend some girl time just chatting. It was really nice. Then all the families went to Macaroni Grill to celebrate! We had a wonderful time and it was so great to celebrate her! I made a giant chocolate cake since she likes chocolate, and it was really yummy!

Me with the giant cake!

Stacie cutting her birthday cake

The whole gang celebrating at Macaroni Grill

HAPPY BIRTHDAY STACIE!!! WE wish you many more to come...............

What a fun week! It has been so busy here. You can tell we have begun a new phase in being here, because we are really beginning to get busy. This week has been filled with meeting new friends and neighbors, continuing to explore our area more, and visiting with good friends! We are continuing to build our launch team and our meetings on Sunday nights have been good. We usually have about 20 adults coming, which is a great start! We are so excited to continue to see that number grow as we continue with launch meetings, meet people who are interested, and begin preview services in FOUR WEEKS! That's so crazy. The launch meetings on Sunday night have consisted of Archie leading the group in a few songs, Andy speaking and ministering to the group, and Filipe praying and sharing from his heart a little as well. We have a time of fellowship before and after, and have children playing together in the other room. We are getting used to the quick set up and tear down since we are renting a clubhouse, and we know it's just preparing us for the day when we will be mobile and have an entire church to prepare.

We have been having neighborhood lunches on Saturdays. On Tuesday and Thursday nights the three families will go around and invite all our neighbors in one of the apartment complex to a grill out on Saturday. It has been such a great way to meet people. Last Saturday, we had 50 people come!!!! It was so exciting. We were just able to talk and meet with them and get to know each of them and their families! And I think the neighbors liked it also as a way to get to know each other. We had a really fun time. We met people from all different countries including Japan, Canada, Mexico, India, South Korea, and I'm sure others. Everyone had different languages and backgrounds, and it's so neat to listen to them all. I love asking all of them where they work as well - Yahoo, Apple, Cisco systems, it's hilarious. I'm still blown away. I don't feel cool enough to talk with a guy who helped create the I-phone and is currently working on the 5th generation I-phone! :) Here are a few pictures from our last event. Some of our current launch team even came to hang out, which was really exciting.

On our day off, all the families went to a town called Half Moon Bay. It's a gorgeous little city about 45 minutes away right on the coast. We went to a pumpkin patch and took the kids. This is really my excuse to go to pumpkin patches. I love fall, corn mazes, hayrides, haunted houses, passing out Halloween candy, pumpkins, fall decorations, leaving the windows open when it's chilly, bonfires - you know, the whole bit. So every year I force Archie to take me to a pumpkin patch so we can go through the corn maze, pick out a pumpkin, and all that fun jazz - but I usually take my nephews so they have fun and I don't look like a giant crazy woman for loving the pumpkin patch as much as I do. Unfortunately, my nephews aren't here :(, but we went with all the families, so their kids were here and I could jump around like a kid. :) we had so much fun. I love watching the kids have so much fun too. They are so cute.




We received a wonderful gift from our friends back in Charleston before we left and it arrived this week! A Nintendo Wii!!!! How cool is that! We are so excited, and we have already scheduled a Wii party with some of our new friends. Thank you so much guys! We created our Wii mii's to look like us, so here they are! I think they are hilarious.



















Over the weekend, Archie and I drove to visit some good friends! Tron and Katie live in Modesto about 1 1/2 hours away. We had so much fun! Those two make me laugh more than anyone I know, and a time with them is guaranteed to produce hours of laughter. It was so good to see good friends who know you and understand you! It reminds you of home for a little bit. They are also from Charleston and so understand missing it. On Sunday, they did the nicest thing ever and made us a BBQ lunch with ribs and yes, STICKY FINGERS SAUCE!!!! Talk about delicious. It was so good. Thanks Tron. We played some Wii with them and had so much fun, and even got Nani, Tron's grandma in on the action. You will definitely enjoy the action here.






AND THE WINNER IS....



Lastly, we got to visit with a friend from Charleston who was in town for the weekend. Jason played with us in the band at Crosstowne. We were able to meet up for a few hours and it was good to see him. It was so surreal seeing someone from Charleston here though. It didn't feel right. I mean, we are always going down the road, seeing a car we recognize and saying, "Oh, there's so and so... oh wait, they wouldn't be here!" :) Then, when we really saw someone from Charleston, it was so weird! It was still good to see him.
Hopefully it won't be so long between our next post! We promise we'll update again soon! :) Love you all!