Trip to San Francisco

11

Oct

I just came back from a trip with my teammates, Timothy and Phoebe to San Francisco. We went there primarily to attend Paul Baloche’s worship conference on the 8 oct 2011. Thank God for this trip, for all the ups and downs!

We woke up very early the day of our travel, at 3.3o am as our flight was at 6.10 am. However, when we reached the airport, we realised that the flight was delayed by 1 hour. After a trip of about 1 hour plus from Quito to Panama, we were told to proceed to the next connecting flight. However, when we reached the departing gate, we were informed that it was closed, and we couldn’t go onto the plane!  We were quite shocked by the turn of events. That totally changed our itinerary! Copa airline changed our flights from Panama to LA, and from LA to San Francisco. We were supposed to reach San Francisco at 5 pm in the evening on the same day, but due to the delay, we could only reach at around 10 am the next day. To compensate for this delay, the airline gave us 2 complimentary meals at the airport’s food court, and also a hotel stay at LA.

We went on a city tour around Panama city for a few hours to kill some time. There was nothing much to do in the city and it was pretty hot. Our tour guide cum driver (more driver than tour guide) was a tad bit grouchy and did not really explain much to us about the city. Thank God, there was one saving grace of the tour which was the visit to the Panama canal which is a 77 km ship canal in Paname which links the Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific Ocean. It is a key conduit for international maritime trade.

When we finally took the plane from Panama to arrive at LA, it was around 1 am in the morning and we were supposed to go to a hotel from the airport as advised by the Copa airline staff. Hovever, the shuttle to the airport didn’t arrive. In the end, we went to a hostel which was a bit strange. Ha, the lobby was decorated with “cobwebs” and Halloween looking stuff. Anyway, we slept for like 3 hours and then we were on our way to the airport again to catch our flight to San Francisco! Really tiring!

When we finally reached San Francisco, we were sure tired but also excited. We took a train (BART) to downtown San Francisco and walked to our hostel. Haha, Tim was dragging his luggage across the streets of San Francisco. There was a black lady dressed sloppily in her PJ and bedroom slippers with socks who approached us and said that she would show us the way. She brought us across several streets and then asked us for some money for the “service”, so we just gave her like 2 bucks. After a few more streets, we finally found our hostel, which was pretty decent and clean. We checked-in and then after that we went out to explore the city and to eat something.

We went to downtown chinatown and ate some dim sum. It was quite nice! After eating, we went to explore the city a bit and then went to do some shopping. The city is full of shops, with lots of starbucks (nearly one at every corner), lots of fashion stores, Macy’s, Victoria secret, Forever 21, Zara, Gap and so on… too many to count. We even found Coffee bean & Tea Leaf in San Francisco! Amazing! After shopping, we went to buy a fisherman wharf pass which allowed us to visit a few places of interest. For the first night, we went to visit a wax museum, and the famous sourdough museum at Boudin where it showed how to make the bread which has a sour tinge. It is quite interesting that the bread is made from mother dough was kept for 162 years! We went to eat clam chowder and some seafood at the fisherman’s wharf.

The next day, I was more refreshed after resting. We went on a duck tour which was very interesting. The tour guide cum driver was very animated and gave us a tour around San Francisco. We were even given a quacker to wear around our neck and our tour guide led us to quack along some music. It was very fun and interesting! Later in the day, we went to a cruise to see the Golden gate bridge and to tour around Alcantraz island where some of the worst criminals used to be housed. At night, we went to visit another museum with interesting exhibits at Ripley’s believe it or not. They featured things like the tallest man on earth, a woman who had no legs but was able to give birth to a baby. Incredible! We ended the day by going back to our hostel in a cable car! But this cable car is not in the air, but on the road. It is like a tram. The down town area is pretty hilly and it is quite amazing to see how the cable air goes up and down the steep roads!  We finished the day by enjoying Japanese food! Nice!

We went to another part of the city, in Mountain view near Palo Alto, somewhere near Steve Job’s house the subsequent days. We went there to attend a concert and also a worship conference by Paul Baloche. When we reached there, we had a pleasant surprise as we were told that we did not need to pay for the conference which was like $60 per person. After that, we asked the personal assistant of Paul Baloche and he told us that since we came from Ecuador, we have paid a lot already! Thank God for their hearts of blessing us!

We had a smashing time of learning and worshipping God at Paul Baloche’s worship concert and conference. On Friday, 7 Oct, we were allowed to join in their sound check before the concert and we were real up close and personal with Paul Baloche. He is really a humorous, sincere guy and I could see that he really love music and love worshipping God! God used him and his band powerfully to bring about His presence during the whole session!  I sensed the presence of God strongly during the morning session of the worship conference. It was great worshipping God and being touched by Him.

God spoke to me to surrender my life to Him during the conference and also through a verse that Paul Baloche shared in Philippians 1:6 “being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus”. I was also reminded that God is sovereign through a sermon at the church on Sat after the worship conference. He is sovereign, meaning that he is in control of the situations in my life and he knows what is best for me. God is great!

I pray that God would help me to be a good praise and worship leader or keyboard player who is first a worshipper from Mon to Sat and to bring the presence of God to the people on Sunday whenever I lead or play any instrument during praise and worship sessions! Indeed, the heart of worship is Jesus himself, however the rest of it (the music, the skills, the songs etc are also very important, they are there to create a conducive environment for people to encounter God. What a privilege to be in the praise and worship ministry! I do not believe that I have much natural talents in music, however, I want to trust God that he would use me to minister to Him and to His people through me, whether I am singing, leading, playing guitar or keyboard! Help me O Lord to be diligent to improve on my skills and grant me your anointing to bring forth your presence during every praise and worship session that I am involved in! Thank God so much, Lord!

Thank God for this blessed trip and also for my Timothy and Phoebe who blessed me very much by being there with me for this trip! I couldn’t imagine myself having so much fun without them. Thank God for PR who is good at directions and helped us to navigate the streets of San Francisco! Thank God for Paul Baloche, his band and his assistant, Frank de Jong.

If you have read until the end of this article, congratulations…it is super long! Ha, I was in my long-winded mood. Please pray along with us that Tim and Phoebe would get back their luggage soon. It was delayed and there was no way of knowing its location for the time being. Pray that it would be recovered soon and they would not lose anything.

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