Day 5 started super duper early. For some of us, it started the day before since they pulled an all nighter. The crew got up at 2:30AM and were ready by 3. The all nighter crew so generously brought us coffee from a 24 hour coffee shop down the street (thanks for providing that, God). We drove to a place downtown called the clean and safe department and this is a government funded organization that helps advocate for the homeless and find out what they need in hopes to alleviate their situations. We were greeted with friendly faces for 3 AM, so I knew that they did that a lot. They explained to us that we were conducting a pilot survey to figure out kinks for a very important survey that will help advocate funds for this community come January. Hear our golf squad (Daniel, Carlee, and Bogle) talk more about their experience!
https://belmontbruins.com/genrel/SanDiegoDay5
After this, we came back and ate some breakfast. Our next task was to help out with the women’s breakfast they were having by watching the kids! Even though we were all exhausted, this was one of the best parts of the trip!! A room full of cute babies, what more could you ask for? We took shifts doing this task while the other half got a good nap in! All of the little kids were gravitating toward Hayden and it was so cute to watch!! We saw all the women going into the breakfast and felt grateful that we could help out by allowing them to experience that!
Once we were done with this, we had free time for the rest of the day. We decided that we were going to go to Coronado island! It is a little island right outside the city with a huge resort and streets full of cute little boutiques and restaurants. We were so pumped to get to see the ocean again and jump on in!
When we arrived, we had about 1 hour until sunset. We took in the beauty of the waves and decided to jump on in!!! We only lasted about 10 minutes, but spent time jumping into the waves and riding them into the shore. Once we dried off, we found a spot to watch the sunset. It was crazy how fast the sun disappeared behind the ocean, and the chill set in. We washed our feet off and went on our way to eat some PIZZA! We were all starving and ready to chow down on some good food. During dinner, we talked about the morning and about what everyone took away from this. We all agreed on the fact that the way you approach someone matters and kindness changes things. This really put into perspective for me that these people are more than just a stranger you see on the street- they have a name and a family and a story- and these are important. The survey we had to conduct had some personal questions attached to them, and this was a barrier that we had to overcome. For some, it gave the person and opportunity to share their story. It was really cool to watch and be able to pray with these people.
When we got back from pizza we had our nightly devotional and (tried) to play some cards. We were all exhausted from the very long day and were out like a light when our heads hit the pillow!