California Trip End Days

Hey Guys,

So the reason there has not been many updates about the last few days is this, we have not been around Internet long enough to write something up and also we decided to come back a little bit early. We had to church this morning! I have not updated everyone in a while and I would encourage anyone who has been reading these blogs and knows anyone who went in person to talk to us. There is SO much more that went on in each peoples personal life.

So we ended up staying at my Aunts house for both Thursday and Friday night, and I have to say it was great to connect with some family. One thing about my family is that we do not know my mom's side that well. The 'Grober' family is huge and has some amazing people in it as we are finding out :) She brought us into her home Thursday night and gave us food, encouraged us and gave us some young kids to play with. That night we ended up going to the San Diego Seaport after it was closed and just walked around. At this point in our 'trip' it was told prophesied over us that San Diego would be a time of rest and that is what is was. We walked around Thursday night, relaxed and were just near the ocean and something is always relaxing about the ocean. When we finally got back we were exhausted and decided that it was time for rest.

Now instead of doing the logical thing which is sleeping for a while, we did the much cooler thing which we volunteering and Invisible Children. Invisible Children is a non-profit organization that is trying to help, support and stop children soldiers. They are a pretty sweet company and we helped them get prepared for 25. What 25 is, is a day where you stay silent for 25 hours to honor and fight for the children who do not have a voice. So we spent the entire morning getting packets reading, packaging materials and overall trying to help out as much as we can!  As much as it was hard work it was relaxing because we knew we were helping out. It was nice to do something practical to help the kingdom of God. For most of this week we were being given gifts, blessing and anointing and it was nice to give back.

After this it was time for me to connect with my aunt. She took me to which is now my favorite place called the Soup-plantation. For anyone who knows me well it was the first time I have eaten salad willingly in my life. It was actually pretty good :) My and my aunt talked about the trip and gave me ALOT to think about. I told her about the question that have been placed on my heart and also about the awaking that has been talk about. The number one thing that has been talked about over this trip has been an awaking. This is something I am still trying to figure out and will most likely write about it and just talk about this idea of an awaking tomorrow or the next day.

This mark the end of our trip in alot of ways, the rest of the night we relax, watched some films ate some great food and prepared for our epic journey back! It was epic! Anyone who knows us is that this trip knows that we did now have many plans or places to stay. Well we had a place to stay Saturday night so we could come back for Sunday. BUT guess what? We decided we were going to drive right through the night!

We left Le Mesa, California at 8am Saturday morning and arrive back at TWU at 8am Sunday morning. Yes that is a true fact we drove virtually straight from San Diego all the way to Home. The ride home was extremely interesting, we left Cali just as there was a storm the night before and as we were driving the sky was blue and the hills surrounding us were covered in snow :) It was a beautiful sight and that basically summed up the trip for me. Was just admiring all God had done, and how great the whole trip was. I just want to thank everyone who has followed us on this trip and has prayed for us. I would ask that if you want to know more about everything that went on talk to any of us in person we would love to share about what went on.

Goodbye for now,

Christian Sawka

California Trip Day 6

Hey Guys,

So as this trip my blog is going to go back to somewhat more of a normal routine. But there is still alot of things that God is putting on my heart. These are the two things that have been on my heart and I am going to be writing about them in this blog. Is TWU dead spiritually? and what happens after the trip? These are two huge topics that have been on my heart today. I have been feeling a little bit of burdened by it trying to figure out these answers and I know it is not for me to know the exact answer. But here are my thoughts and such after I quickly go over what we did today!

So we went to this random park that I think was called Balboa Park. We were going there to finally get some alone time with God and away from people, not that we do not love people but sometimes we need to get away. Sadly one thing was that we were unable to get some warmer weather, we found out that last week it was mid 80's so 26 degrees in San Diego. Oh yea by the way we are officially in San Diego! Our day started off waking up way to late probably the latest we have woken up on this trip which was 11am! We woke up had some breakfast after Steph so nicely opened up her home to us and then we drove down the coast to San Diego. Now let me tell you this the coast of San Diego has to be one of the most BEAUTIFUL places I have ever seen in my life. This whole trip I am continuing to see the BEAUTY of God's creation. Well back to what the day was like we all arrived and this park and began to walk around and it was just absolutely beautiful.

 

 This is where the Day/Group started to spread out. We walked around for a little bit but after a while we split a little bit to do some reading. I left the group and walked around until I got into this Japanese Tea Shop. It was interesting because I got some food and was just sitting there and randomly started talking to these two ladies about our trip down from Cali. I found myself telling about the trip and sharing some stuff that happened etc.. and it just hit me really hard right then and there. What is going to happen when we go back home? what happens when life gets back up and running will things be the same or change? Often this question gets asked after like a inspiring conference, or a great speaker or bible camp. I am asking this now though and the trip is winding down what is going to happen when we return, there are plans to talk again, debrief and share but what is going to happen a week from now, a month from now and a year from now? God calls us not to be luke warm Christian's and I feel like for the majority of my life I have been a Lukewarm Christian at best. These last months after my depression/suicide thoughts have been the most rewarding and best months for me and God. I am not saying that I am perfect or that my walk is great yet but atleast I know I am not lukewarm right? These are my thoughts that I am fighting out with God right now is my calling for next year and what that looks like. I have been fighting God these last few days not only about what I am going to be down but also on the level of boldness he is calling me. I am a pretty loud person but when it comes to me faith I am quiet. God has been telling me to step it up and currently we are fighting, I will tell you how that fight goes okay?

 This is the next place we are staying at. Now let me tell you this the people we are staying with right now are the nicest, greatest more awesome people ever! They are so caring, considerate and understanding! They are also my family! My mom side of the family and they have been so great about having us all over. I cannot wait to talk to her tomorrow about everything that has gone on she has so far been such a blessing! She said something that was really interesting and affirmed my thoughts in a way that the Church's today are dead. Dead in the way of unbelieving of a living God. In so many ways I did not believe God will still present among us today I did not believe in healing, tongues, prophetic words, dreams, vision, spiritual warfare etc... God has shown me this week who he is and how great he is. Back to the story though she made us a great dinner and we ended up staying around the house for a while before going to Seaport in San Diego. We met up with a few people and just had a great time by the ocean, taking a few pictures! We are back at home a  little tired everyone has crashed a long time ago.

 

So that was our day again which was a little less eventful but tomorrow should make up for that! Tomorrow we will be at invisible Children for the morning, the maybe the beach for the afternoon and we will see after that. We are continuing to see God in everything that goes on and hopefully tomorrow we can get a little rest before we start to head back again.

The last thing I wanted to talk about and this will be a mini-series of blogs I am going to write about but is Trinity Western University spiritually dead. I am not trying to offend anyone or attack anyone I am working through my own thoughts and this is my blog. Disclaimer I love TWU to bits and love the impact it has on Christians. This trip has been eye opening to what I believe is a living God. Stuff I have never seen before in my life that kind of upset me because I read through scripture again and it hit me, God was not just talking about the past healing and such but healing today. This is never something I experienced at TWU. At Bethel I saw some great things, I still do not understand everything about that school but the one thing I saw was people wanting to come. To the university from around the world. Maybe I am being too critical but I am wondering why is this not a TWU? How come we are not experiencing healing, revival and blessings around Trinity? I may be stepping on toes or egg-shells here but I am going to be going into if my university TWU is a dead campus spiritually.

If you disagree with me please comment and show me I would love to be shown wrong nothing would make me happier! Continue to keep us in your prayers and thoughts!

God Bless,

Christian

California Trip Day 5

 Hey Guys,


So pre-warning it is pretty late when I am beginning this blog so if my sentence structure and grammar are worse then usual sorry ahead of hand! Well today Day 5 is completed! Praise be to God that there was no rain, we have a place to stay and everything for the most part has worked out!


We spent the last night at Biola University that I want to call the American version of TWU. It was bigger, richer and had a real soccer field. But more to the point it was a blessing last night that Stephanie found us and home and gave us a place to stay. We (Me and Dan) stayed with some great dudes who gave us a place to stay and offered us anything the could. I know I have mentioned this before but people offering up their home, their food or anything is such an amazing blessing. I think we are at the point where we feel bad because usually we are coming under one of three circumstances: 1. We are out of options, 2. We just arrived in town, 3. You were the first person to pick up their phone at 1am :) But today was the "FOCUS" of our trip which was to go down and go to Disneyland.

This was the first thing that stood out for me was this sign posted on the bridge entering Disneyland which said "Here you leave today and enter the world of Yesterday, Tomorrow and Fantasy". Which totally bugs me because I believe it is a little no with scripture but that is alright it is Disneyland :) It was good to finally be there and have fun for a day but as we are starting to find out having fun and being filled with joy are two COMPLETELY different things. 

 This is how our day went! We started off in the morning pretty earlier and started off strong, we went to the Matterhorn Mountain. Side not Aaron a guy that has joined us these last few days has NEVER been to Disneyland. After the MM we went to Pirates of the Caribbean, Hunted Mansion then to Thunder Mountain. That was the start to the day and some where along the time we took this picture of us in a tea cup. Epic though right??? Yea it was fun to run around all day as a group of 8 19-21 year olds.

This is where the day started to become extremely interesting... as I will post a video later. Rides began to break down on us left, right and center. First was the Big Thunder Mountain Roller coaster. We has waited in line for a long long long time and then we finally got on and we started up the first incline and BOOM. Ride shuts down, now the difficult thing is this you cannot exactly just get off. You have to wait for someone to come, let you out and walk back in a orderly fashion. So we missed our first big big ride but that is alright. They gave us a free fast pass to another ride. So we decided to go to space mountain and the moment we got there BOOM ride broke down just as we were about to enter the line up. We were thinking at this point maybe we should stop breaking down Disneyland. So we figured we would use our free pass to go to Indiana Jones adventure which was awesome! Probably one of my favorite rides and then just as we were about to end BOOM ride breaks down. At least this one we were able to do the whole ride and were able to get off within a few minutes. This was a pretty weird experience for all of us but you know what whatever. The end of the day we still hit a lot of rides and only a few broke down. It was not until the very end of the day were the actual Tram the brings you back and forth lost all power. BOOM!

This is the Pirate of the Caribbean, this was my absolutely FAVORITE ride growing up as my mom and family will tell you. I LOVED this ride and was so excited to go on this ride. I was telling Aaron how amazing it was and how great this was etc... We waited in line for about 25 minutes and I was getting excited to excited. We started down the path like it always does, we heard the pirates warning and then down the first drop into the track. But then something was off, the ride had changed, it was not what I remember and the excitement was gone. This was sad for me, I ended up call my mom that night and telling her the ride had changed because it was that big of a disappointment for me. I know it seems crazy and dumb but that was one of my fondest childhood memories that I had was this ride. But it made me realize something, they things in this life are not forever that these worldly things are going to end one day and what will we have in the end? This trip has really opened my eyes to what is truly important in life. I intend of making sure my actions from now on not only live up to that but exceed those expectations. Just like the enjoyment of this ride has ended for me, the memory that once was will be there for a long time. The memory of being close with my parents and feeling loved will not leave. As much as this was such a surface level thing it showed me something deeper that maybe Disneyland is fun but it is not where near the happiest place on earth!

Guess what I got to do today! Meet Micky and sorry to burst some bubbles he is WAY shorter then I remember. It was pretty disappointing too I was hoping for this epic time in Disneyland and in a lot of ways it fell short. It was such a FUN trip and so nice to walk around see everything but it did not bring me joy like it use to. This joy I talk about if you can remember is as a kid where nothing eles mattered you were so excited to be in Disneyland or to be by Micky or anything! That joy was no longer there... I have something epic to share at the end of the blog that will talk about this overcoming Joy :)

FOR THE RECORD, McDonalds has wifi, they are extremely nice and I want to personally thank Tiffany that was the assistant manager at the McDonalds we were at. I think it is one thing to receive hospitality from people you know and another thing for a complete stranger to give you hospitality. After Disneyland we did not know where we were going to stay... AGAIN! so we went to McDonalds at around 10:15pm. We sat there talking, relaxing and just trying to figure out where we were going to stay for the night. Eventually we decided that we were going to stay in a house and Stephanie opened up her house to us :). She needed to drive back to Biola. So we sat there and did not realized that this place closed at 11pm, they ended up asking everyone to leave except us. They allowed us to stay there and wait until Stephanie and Aaron returned back. On top of that they allowed us to charge our phone in the breaker, laptop next to the register and other electronics around the kitchen area. There was not an outlet in the whole store except the ones in the Kitchen area. It was pretty epic Tiffany was so nice and generous she opened up McDonalds for us to rest and recharge (figuratively and literally).

Tonight we are staying at Stephanies house in San Diego which is so awesome. I for one loving having a roof over my head and a place to sleep. But that is not the point of these last paragraphs I want to share with you guys a miracle.  I am going to keep names out of it but last night in Biola we were there and one of Andrea friends was there and Rebecca felt as though someone would have back pain so we came together and prayed for her for spiritual and physical healing. I ask for spiritual because I felt as though she was carrying and huge burden that was causing her pain. Turns out there was some health issue with her mom so we prayed for her again. Today at McDonalds she showed up and was talking, was joyful and then she told us something amazing. ZERO BACK PAIN, she said she woke up this morning and had no pain. She said she was shocked that she started to test it, to see what she could do and see if it would hurt and there was NOTHING. Funny note she said that while she had horrible posture just because she finally good without pain. Do you want to talk about Joy now? Tell me here for a second what do you think brings me more joy right now... the fact that in God's name and power we as a crew healed her or going to Disneyland?


This lady is and should be an inspiration to all, she is going through so much had to leave her life and come back to LA to take care of her mom. Yet she still praises the Lord. She still gives thanks. She should be a new understanding of the word joy and I think I speak for our team the act of being apart of God healing her was inspiring and created a immense amount of joy. For me personally I wanted to jump up and down, run around, do flips and scream. Does that remind you of anything? The image that I was thinking of is a kid receiving a toy, going to meet Micky for the first time and being given a surprise. I felt today like a child that has just gone to Disneyland for the first time and was overwhelmed with joy. The moment I knew God had healed her, was working through our lives and was alive here, today. MAN I wanted to jump up and down and sing songs of praise! Doesn't that want to make you do it too?
Philippians 4:4 (New Living Translation)

 ⁴ Always be full of joy in the Lord. I say it again—rejoice!

Habakkuk 3:18 (New Living Translation)

 ¹⁸ yet I will rejoice in the Lord!
      I will be joyful in the God of my salvation! 

Be Bless, Be Joyful and Rejoice in the Lord
Christian Sawka


P.S. Additional Pslam if you got the time to read and rejoice!

Psalm 33 (New Living Translation)

Psalm 33

 ¹ Let the godly sing for joy to the Lord;

      it is fitting for the pure to praise him.

 ² Praise the Lord with melodies on the lyre;

      make music for him on the ten-stringed harp.

 ³ Sing a new song of praise to him;

      play skillfully on the harp, and sing with joy.

 ⁴ For the word of the Lord holds true,

      and we can trust everything he does.

 ⁵ He loves whatever is just and good;

      the unfailing love of the Lord fills the earth.

 ⁶ The Lord merely spoke,

      and the heavens were created.

   He breathed the word,

      and all the stars were born.

 ⁷ He assigned the sea its boundaries

      and locked the oceans in vast reservoirs.

 ⁸ Let the whole world fear the Lord,

      and let everyone stand in awe of him.

 ⁹ For when he spoke, the world began!

      It appeared at his command.
 ¹⁰ The Lord frustrates the plans of the nations

      and thwarts all their schemes.

 ¹¹ But the Lord’s plans stand firm forever;

      his intentions can never be shaken.
¹² What joy for the nation whose God is the Lord,

      whose people he has chosen as his inheritance.
 ¹³ The Lord looks down from heaven

      and sees the whole human race.

 ¹⁴ From his throne he observes

      all who live on the earth.

 ¹⁵ He made their hearts,

      so he understands everything they do.

 ¹⁶ The best-equipped army cannot save a king,

      nor is great strength enough to save a warrior.

 ¹⁷ Don’t count on your warhorse to give you victory—

      for all its strength, it cannot save you.
 ¹⁸ But the Lord watches over those who fear him,

      those who rely on his unfailing love.

 ¹⁹ He rescues them from death

      and keeps them alive in times of famine.
 ²⁰ We put our hope in the Lord.

      He is our help and our shield.

 ²¹ In him our hearts rejoice,

      for we trust in his holy name.

 ²² Let your unfailing love surround us, Lord,

      for our hope is in you alone.