Sunday at the Smith's

We had a great time hosting some sailors from my ship yesterday after church. In all, six guys met us for church services at Clairemont Emmanuel Baptist Church and eight folks joined us for lunch at our house in Serra Mesa, a neighborhood of San Diego. In addition to having a total of seven sailors (including me), we also had two wives (Alicia included) and a local Navigator missionary named Dave Yumen.

One of the sailors in attendance was Preston, who I baptized two weeks ago. Also in attendance was another sailor-turned-seminary student, Ryan, and the two men who's salvations I had the privilege of confirming. It was great getting to regroup after being on post-deployment stand-down. We also enjoyed getting to show the guys our house and letting them know that this is a place they are welcome to and safe in. Finally, I was glad to introduce them to Dave, who is a very capable guide. Hopefully, Dave will get the chance to minister to some of these guys in the coming weeks and months.

Here are some pictures of our fellowship:

We played an icebreaker game wherein we each wrote down 5 questions we wanted to ask God when we got to heaven and 2 things we wanted to do in heaven. Then we passed all of our sheets, without names, to a designated person and as they were read off, we tried to guess who the author was. It was a great exercise! I won't share the deeply personal things, but I thought a few of the lighter ones might be interesting.

5 things to ask in heaven:
-Why are there so many things we don't know?
-Will our loved ones remember us?
-What was the thorn in Paul's flesh?
-What would the pregnancy/birthing process be like if there was no sin (from one of the ladies)?
-How did you pick Mary to be the mother of Jesus?

And here are some of the things we wanted to do:
-Meet the disciples.
-Sing praises to God.
-Hug Jesus.
-Eat and not get fat.

This wasn't my first time to have sailors over to the house, but it was the first time I did it with a purpose of building the lives of men. Investing in these sailors is a dream come true for me. It rocked!