Hey guys!
My name is Ethan Hijazi and I’m super stoked to have the opportunity to be this weeks blog post. The past month and a half of our journey here at Joshua has been so eye-opening and it’s just been so amazing to see the ways that God is moving. I speak for myself and my whole class when I say that we are super blessed to be where we are. The past week at SoCal was so refreshing to just be able to get out of the building and out of a learning perspective and just serve with manual labor for others. My duty, this past week was to cut down the various willow trees around the hume SoCal campus, and we threw the willow branches into a chipper. it was very difficult at times and there were moments where I wanted to just take a break and give up, but I powered through because i realized we were working for christ and we were working for this new ministry that needed our help.
Before going into Joshua, I was sort of nervous for the long car rides and flights but after the car ride that we experienced going down into SoCal, I’m not worried about it anymore. I had a really good group of people in my van and it was just a blast to sing along to corny pop songs and play silly travel games in the car.
During our time at SoCal, it was super refreshing to not have any devices and just be able to live in the moment with God. I find at times I can still be distracted with my phone even though I have no access to any games or media outlets so it was just a great experience to be close with God in the wilderness. The weather was beautiful and the sunsets were breathtaking.
This week at the Joshua building is Philippians testing week, which means that every student in the building has been locking in trying to memorize the first chapter of Philippians. I am extremely blessed to have a group of guys that we can just come together and really focus on what matters when it counts. The other night me and a group of guys went into a guy‘s loft and just studied Philippians for three hours straight and it was just a sweet time of fellowship. That night helped me out so much and it made me realize that I can accomplish more with the help of others and that it’s good to utilize your peers.
I am just so incredibly blessed to be here and it feels so amazing to know what it looks like to have a healthy relationship with Christ. Even through my pain and suffering and various trials Christ still prevails and I’ve learned so much out of my low moments here at the building. I’m super excited to see what God has in store for me and my brothers and sisters the next couple months.
Shoutout to my family, I miss y’all and love y’all more than words can explain.
Shoutout Texas.
-Ethan Hijazi (Current Student)
SoCal Blog!!
Heys guys it’s Sydney and this is how my SoCal trip went!! This trip was a total blast! Besides the driving for 6 hours, I truly had a wonderful time. In my van was Sam, Hijazi, Mykal, Ryder, Noah, and Elana. Becca was our faithful driver and I was the passenger princess 👑. Our drive was full of folk music and screaming out TikTok songs.
I had never been to this part of SoCal, so I loved seeing all the mountain communities as we made it to Hume! Even though this campus was much smaller, I was surprised by the way it felt like Hume.
After unloading all of our things and eating dinner, Dallas took us all to an incredible lookout place called Vista Point. There, he introduced us to staff members and gave us the low down of what we were gonna do for the rest of the time! I was pretty exhausted after the trip, so my roommate and I went to bed quickly after.
My first day of work started off with morning prayer hosted by Jen. It was a sweet time of praying over Philippians (testing is this week!!) and starting the day focused on God. Following that was breakfast and getting split into our work groups! I was put on the Raking Masters crew with Becca, Lily, Sebastian, Faith, Sam, and Katie. Our boss was Tyler Reid and lemme just say he made the job so much fun. As a past Joshua student, he talked of his experience as we raked pine needles and leaves around the cabin areas. Even though raking is a very repetitive job, I appreciated working outside and the fun conversations we had during our work days.
After work, the Reid’s hosted a BBQ at their house with hot dogs, hamburgers, and homemade marshmallows. Another slay of the day was the gluten-free graham crackers, I literally jumped for joy when I saw them. The rest of the night was filled with campfires, conversations, and monopoly deal.
Day two of work started off strong with more raking and helping each other study Philippians. Katie was such a queen learning to drive the truck with the massive trailer in the back and helping us move it from place to place. After work we went back to vista point where Asher led a worship night. Worship has always been my favorite thing and being able to sing to God while looking at a beautiful sunset made it ten times better.
We finished the night off with free milkshakes (shoutout to the staff🫶🏻🫶🏻) and more card games in the snack shop.
Thursday was our last full day of work! I slept in for as much I could then went off to finish the week strong. By this time, our team had pretty much finished all the cabins necessary, so we then moved to work at the boneyard with Elijah, Ryder, Ty, Precious, Aspen, and Asher. Our new job was to move a bunch of scrap metal into a C Train and it was so fun! We got to chuck so much stuff, that’s was definitely my workout of the day. Towards dinner time, it suddenly dropped like 20 degrees and felt like winter so everyone was bundled in jackets and sweatshirts.
The activity of the night was something everyone was looking forward too…KARAOKE NIGHT. Let me tell you, I was so extremely nervous and almost didn’t do it, but I ended up doing 3 songs! I had a blast and so many laughs were shared over Joey and Aj’s performance and the staff’s version of wrecking ball.
This trip really helped me get out of my shell and also work with people I hadn’t gotten a lot of time with yet, so I am so thankful for the SoCal trip and already miss the people there!
-Sydney (Current Student)
Hey all!
Brooke here, driving back from Hume SoCal. This week has a lot to unpack so I’ll try to make this short. First off, the drive down… 6 wonderful hours. I got the blessing of being in Jen’s car with Rachel, Precious, Ava, Joey, Jeremy, and Daniel. We listened to lots of music, answered almost all 500 of “Jen’s Big List of Many Questions”, played the alphabet game, the license plate game, memorized Philippians, and took a couple naps (all except Jen and Rachel of course).
The first night we walked to vista point and watched the sunset and got a little debrief of the week.
Then we hung out in the game room! Lots of pool, ping pong and card games! We had a blast until about 8:30 when my roommate, Sydney, and I decided we were exhausted and decided to go to sleep.
I woke up around 6:15 and went to early morning prayer, led by Jen, and it was truly moving. As you may know, Joshua students have to memorize the book of Philippians! Chapter one testing is next week and Jen decided to break up that chapter one into parts and we prayed over a different section each morning. When I say I loved it, I truly did. At 8 we started work! I was in a group with Myles, Elian, and Mykal and we got the task of rebuilding victory circle. I wish I could tell you we knew what we were doing but the whole week was Holy Spirit led. Our supervisors were amazing but also had no clue what was happening. Elian and I tore down and rebuilt 5 steps and Elian labeled them as “magnificent”. Mykal and Myles built some solid steps too 🙂 That night we hung out and had burgers at the Reeds and went back to the game room, a chill night after a hard day. I later walked up to vista point alone and talked to God. That was one of the first times I was able to truly talk to YHWH as a friend, completely open and honest about where I am with my walk with Him and could feel His presence. The next morning there was prayer, breakfast, and then back to work! My group, aka the miners, dug for about 6 hours and laughed for 1. It was a good day. My proudest accomplishment of day 2 was breaking rebar. It took some massive clippers, about 15 minutes of constantly throwing my body weight on it, and ending up on my face in the dirt but I did it!! We ended the day at vista point with worship led by Asher. Day 3 of work was good, I’m pretty sure my grouped laughed more than we dug but the critical thinking skills were put to the test again. Luckily, we had a jackhammer this time. We finished victory circle exactly at 5 and it was used that very evening! That night the biggest blessings came to visit me! My sister, Marin and our friend Garrison. They both attend Concordia University Irvine and decided to come visit me for an evening. Little did they know that evening was karaoke night. I deeply enjoyed hanging out with my sister. I miss her more than I can express.
I didn’t know Garrison was coming and that was also a fun surprise. That leads me to karaoke night… I don’t know where to start. Dancing alligators, Buffalo falling off the stage, AJ jumping off a chair, and the entire staff singing wrecking ball. That night brought me back to camp. I had a sad goodbye to my sister and we wrapped up the night around 11pm. Friday morning we headed up to main camp Hume and I am writing this in my van, 1.5 hours left!!! We stopped in Rancho Cucamonga for a few hours to grab lunch and hang out. I got some boss Thai food and an epic $7 jacket.
As we drive up, we are listening to worship in English, Spanish, German, and Thai. Multilingual worship is my absolute FAVORITE. In Rachel’s words “we are so blessed and I can’t get over you God” I’m going to end it at that! I can’t get over my God.
Wish you all the best.
– Brooke <3 (Current Student)