The Beauty of Community

This weekend seven of us from the house drove up to hang out in Newport Beach with my buddy Mike for the weekend. Going up there we had no idea what the weekend had to hold, Mike told us his family was out of town so we just figured that we would just take some surfboards and hang out on the beach all weekend. It had been a long week so we were all looking forward to fleeing the madness for a few days. So Friday night we rushed home from work, packed our bags, and hit the road. When we got to the OC we were greeted by Mike at his cousin's beautiful Newport home. The house was incredible, fully suited with a basketball court and in ground hot tub. We could tell it was going to be a great weekend. Saturday afternoon we all headed to the beach to take in some rays and check out the surf.

When we arrived at the beach we were introduced to this incredible community of people, who were assembling a Thanksgiving feast fit for more than a hundred people. Mike was introduced to this group of people through his friend Nado who he had just met the week before. Without ever having met any of us, they wanted us to come to this Thanksgiving party they were having. So we hung out on the beach all afternoon and helped the people get ready for the party on the beach. As we got to know these people it was so inspiring just how genuine and loving they were. As the sun set and people started to show up for the party it was incredible how community began to assemble. They had invited a so many different people to the party; close friends, random neighbors, co-workers, people from church, anyone and everyone. They really just wanted to gather people together to invest in their lives and bless them. It was really inspiring to me how they loved people and held nothing back along the way. The meal resembled something out of a move, a full course Thanksgiving feast; and there was live music with a beach fire surf videos playing on the side of the house. It was like something you would do for your best friends but they had invited everyone from every area of their life.

Not only was the weekend so relaxing and a great release from the day to day grind but it was just so encouraging to me, inspiring me to love people in ways like that. It was so refreshing to see community lived out the way I believe it was meant to be lived. Because of Mike's desire to serve us and have us up to relax for the weekend we were able to become apart of this whole other loving community. This is so much proof to me that God is always at work using us to love each other!