Finally warm in Palm Springs

I laughed when I was packing to tour Souther California, Arizona and New Mexico.  I knew the later two would likely be cold, but I expected SoCal to be much warmer.  Until yesterday and today, I'd been sadly disappointed.

I'm here with the folks at North Gate Community Church in Cathedral City (Palm Springs), CA.  As always, its been great getting to know the real people who make up the Christian and Missionary Alliance.  As an added bonus, the pastor of the church is and old friend my father's-in-law, which neither of us realized until last night.

After a great dinner at a Mexican restaurant last night, complete with live music we met at the church for a presentation on Kosovo.  Then this morning I met with the men's Bible Study group and had a fantastic breakfast.  In fact, I think this may have been the best men's breakfast I've ever attended.  Any time you can have eggs made to order it's a pretty good breakfast in my book.

This after noon I hung out with some of the youth of the church, hiking through the beautiful mountains that overlook Palm Springs.

I got to share with this gang what an awesome privilege it is to serve the Lord in Kosovo and challenged them to fully surrender their lives to the Master as the only path for their futures.

God's doing some good stuff in this historic church.  I learned from the pastor over dinner tonight that the building that the church once occupied was the oldest in the valley.  Originally built as a small chapel in 1817, it was significantly expanded in building projects in the 1920's and 1960's. 

That original building was sold several years ago and new construction will begin shortly on the church's new home.