A Weekend In San Francisco

From Thursday afternoon until Tuesday morning I was in San Francisco. I went with 11 men from our church on a mission trip to one of the churches we sponsor in between South Park and Mission Bay.

We went to do some repair work on the second floor parsonage for the young pastor and his wife - repairing water damage from a leaky roof (fixed previously), installing new door knobs and locks in the apartment (my job),

putting some new signs on the windows of the church on the ground floor, and painting the living room/dining room area. We also put new venetian blinds throughout the apartment.

We took a break from work Saturday afternoon to have lunch with a man who works as a church planner in the San Francisco area. We met him at a place call "Aunty April's Chicken and Waffles and Soul Food."

Being from Ohio I'm not a chicken and waffles kind of guy. I don't think I'd even heard of it until I moved to Texas. But several of the guys ordered one version or another. I had an outstanding fried fish sandwich.

Auntie April Spears is a rags to riches kind of story. She had a regular job, working for someone else. Friends and family kept telling her she should open a restaurant because her cooking was so wonderful. She said one day she got tired of cooking for large groups (people who would come to her house for dinner all the time) for free so she took the plunge and opened her own restaurant. She has won numerous awards for her cooking and her entrepreneurship. They hang all over her restaurant walls.

April is younger than I imagined. She's friendly and outgoing and it was a pleasure to meet her and talk to her. And her food was excellent.

We spent time on Friday evening and Saturday evening in devotional periods with Eddie Williams, former fullback with the Washington Redskins, Seattle Seahawks and Cleveland Browns, turned pastor. He will soon be opening a new church in Bay City, the very poor part of San Francisco in which he grew up.

Eddie is a fascinating speaker and a dedicated Christian man who wants to serve the Lord by ministering to a poor, multi-ethnic neighborhood that will soon be surrounded by wealthy high tech geeks. He hopes to bridge the gap between the two opposite societies through our Lord Jesus Christ.

We went to another sponsored church in Oakland on Sunday morning. They meet in a local high school and have a team of volunteers who arrive at 7:30 to set up for the service, child care and Sunday school classes. We helped with the setup (for which they were very grateful) and then went to breakfast at McDonald's before the 10am service.

While at McDonald's we encountered a woman who was asking for money to buy a cup of coffee. Rather than give her money, one of our group invited her in and bought her coffee and a meal. We invited her to go to church with us just two blocks away at the high school. She said yes and when we were all done eating we got her into one of the vans with us and took her to the school. She went inside, still with her coffee, and sat in the front row as the band warmed up. She was still there a little while later, just before the service began. But by the time the service was over she was gone.

The pastor at this church (called “The Movement”) is Ed Paz. He's another extremely accomplished and engaging speaker whose enthusiasm is contagious. Their band is similar to ours and they don't have a lead guitar player. (Following the service I introduced myself to the acoustic guitar player.)

Part of Ed's sermon was a simplistic but in-depth explanation of the Lord's Prayer. We all know that Jesus used it as an example of how to pray but how many of us know that God is praised in nearly every line of the prayer? I plan to write a blog about that tomorrow or the next day.

After church and after we assisted with putting things away we headed to lunch at the Black Bear Cafe. I had a dip sandwich made with Tri-Tip. and potato salad. The sandwich was excellent. The potato salad just OK. (For those who may not know what Tri-Tip is - it's a cut of meat from the bottom sirloin that is very popular in Central California.)

From lunch we headed North from Oakland to Berkeley to go by Pixar Animation Studios, then on to the University of California at Berkeley. In between those two sights were numerous homeless camps – one on the side of a road that was at least 200 yards long.

When we got to UC Berkeley I had a strange urge to get out of the van, begin screaming in protest of something and breaking store windows. Fortunately the other guys in the van wouldn't let me do it. But hey – when in Rome....

From Berkeley we crossed the Richmond/San Rafael Bridge over to Marin County so we could go to the Golden Gate Bridge for some pictures before heading to the pier area for dinner and a nighttime bus tour. You cannot get off of the 101 Freeway and go to the scenic overlook on the Marin County side when driving South. You have to cross the bridge and turn around. We didn't want to do that so we went to the visitors' center on the South side of the bridge. It was still impressive and I haven't done that before.

That night we moved on to Pier 39 and took an open air bus tour of the city. At one point we drove halfway across the Bay Bridge to Treasure Island. It was absolutely freezing on top of that open air bus but I had on 3 t-shirts, a long sleeve button down and a lined windbreaker. I was OK. Out of the 11 that were on the top level of the bus when we started out – only four of us stayed up top.

After our tour is when I got cold. I was chilled from the ride back across the bridge to San Francisco. Some headed to a restaurant while others, including me, headed back to our sleeping quarters.

Monday morning we got up, packed for our return trip to Dallas, and went to breakfast. The plan was to eat then drive up to Muir Woods to see the giant, ancient Sequoia Trees. We ate at a place called Sweet Maple. I don't like maple bacon or sausage so I ordered an omelette made with Dungeness crab, spinach and Swiss cheese. It was outstanding. But about halfway into it things changed.

One of our party got a call on his cell phone. The man on the other end said he just found three back packs and one of them had a Bible in it that contained a cell phone number. Someone had smashed the back window of one of our vans and stolen 3 back packs plus one suitcase.

Chuck (the guy who got the call), Kevin (who also lost a back pack) and I (security) headed to meet the man who called. Of course I suspected him of the crime and waited to see what he looked like and whether or not he asked for a reward. The man who returned the back packs was an elderly gentleman driving a contractor's truck. He wanted no reward – even when I offered. He honestly felt badly for us and said “Welcome to San Francisco,” sarcastically.

When we returned to the scene of the crime one of the other men, Randy, said he lost a suitcase. We got back in the van and went to look around the area where the back packs were found but had no luck. Fortunately for Randy, the only thing in his suitcase were clothes. Kevin lost a work phone and a camera.

After the event was reported and Budget Rental was providing a new van it was too late to go to Muir Woods. (The police didn't even respond. They have up to 75 smash and grabs per day in the city and don't really investigate them.) We decided to return to Pier 39 for a couple of hours before going to the airport. I got to go to Boudin's for sour dough bread and got to take pictures of the sea lions and Alcatraz.

We rode the cable car from one end to the other – ending up at Fisherman's Wharf. I was less than impressed.

I made a stop at Boudin's to buy three round loaves of authentic, fresh sourdough bread. Fortunately, I had the forethought to ask the clerk to package them in plastic bags so they wouldn't dry out overnight. Turns out that was a great idea.

Finally, we got into the vans and headed to the airport. When we arrived and began to check in electronically we were told by the computer that our flight was canceled. Airline staff said it was due to predicted bad weather in Dallas. It was 2:30pm and our flight was scheduled to leave at 5.

Without going into detail I will tell you that we were booked on a flight at 6:05am Tuesday morning and spent the night (all 15 hours) at the airport. Can't begin to describe how much fun that was...

The entire trip went really well until Monday. Turns out the Great North Texas Blizzard of 2018 turned out to be a little sleet and a few snow flurries. We could have flown out Monday on schedule and been back in Dallas by 11pm. As it was, I got home around 1:15pm Tuesday.

One side note... while we were still there someone in the city launched a web site that allows citizens to see where the areas are that have the most human fecal material on the streets. I kid you not.

City officials long ago decided that with such a large and ever growing homeless population, public urination and defecation was no longer going to be a crime. As a result, human waste on the streets has become such a wide spread problem that people now feel it's necessary to warn citizens and tourists which areas to avoid. It's truly sad. (San Diego has the same problem but I don't know if anyone has created a web page for it.)

I enjoyed being in San Francisco again. It had been 29 years since my last visit. A lot has changed but a lot has stayed the same.

A shout out to Stu Cocanougher for another great trip. We did some good work, met some wonderful Christian people and got to see some pretty incredible things. I missed out on seeing the giant Sequoia trees but that can happen another time. And oh - that sourdough bread...