Saturday morning early update from Santa Cruz

Good morning. We had our first rain of the whole week on Friday afternoon here in Santa Cruz. It was a great day of weather before the rain started in the later afternoon - with the visit to the historic mission in Carmel (see the previous post for the link) and a drive along the gorgeous 17 Mile Drive pf the Monterey Peninsula. The day concluded here in Santa Cruz with a stop on the Santa Cruz Boardwalk, on the ocean --- then a performance at Trinity Presbyterian Church for their Friday night meal for homeless men. A number of congregation members were also there and the church provided a nice spread of punch, cookies, and other goodies for the Agape Singers and leaders. The kids got a real kick out of that. Once again, these young people made us all proud with their spirited performance and you could see some real smiles and toe-tapping among many of the homeless men and there were alot of "thank-yous" as the group left. Here's the poster that they put together for the Agape Singers' performance.

The weather forecasts for today and tomorrow are supposed to be back to the great weather we've had ALL WEEK. This morning, we head out at 7:45 am on the bus for Ano Nuevo State Park, up the coast, to visit the Elephant Seals Birthing Ground. Here's the park's website to learn more. Be sure and click on the PARKCAST podcast for a brief audio background on the Elephant Seals and the park.

Later today, we'll head for our last stop on the tour, Portola Valley and the beautiful Valley Presbyterian Church. The minister is conducting an improvisational drama workshop for us mid afternoon, then the group will spend the night with families of the church. Tomorrow morning, we'll attend 10:45 am worship there, then perform a concert at 11:45 am for the congregation.

We head back on the red-eye Sunday night all night, arriving at Metro around 5 am on Monday.

NOTE: I discovered that I left out a letter on the email link in yesterday's post. If you'd like to email the group, just send it to agapesingers@gmail.com. I get the emails on my Blackberry and read them to the group when we're on the bus (which we will be for an hour or so this morning) or when we're in a central location. THANKS again for ALL of the many emails that we've gotten. It's really helped to reinforce with the kids how much they're a part of the extended UPC family.

I'll write more later.

THIS JUST IN - FINALLY I was able to upload a couple of videos from Wednesday's performance at San Francisco's majestic Grace Cathedral (one of the biggest in the US). Read more about the cathedral on the LINKS and in a previous post. Here's one of the two videos from there: