Quick Moments So Far

At VBS, Sam Marcoly taught two girls the verse John 3:16, and also taught them what it meant. The two girls have never heard that verse before today.

Sophie Basalone met a homeless man named Thomas L. House when the team took him out to breakfast. She learned that not all homeless people are homeless for the same reason.

Bret Yourstone found Ted Chan from Channel 4 News in Little Tokyo near a starbucks. He is very excited about this fact.

Paul Green’s comfort zone was stretched when he walked into a house that looked like it should been on the T.V. show “Hoarders.” He learned that some people have sacrificed everything to serve those in need. Even to the point of giving up their house to store clothes for the homeless.

Kristoffer Swodeck served bread to 730 hungry people at the Midnight Mission. He noticed how thankful everyone was for their meal. He is a little more thankful for what he has today.

Jeff Sipple prepared dinner at the Midnight Mission which serves three full meals a day to the people on Skid Row. Jeff opened hundreds of cans of beef stew which filled two 10 gallon buckets. If you ever need a can opened... ask Jeff!

Aly Moon has been hanging out and playing with little Carlos everyday at VBS. Carlos doesn’t speak English so Aly has been teaching him to count in English along with practicing her Spanish. They won’t leave each others side.

Jaden Johnson read the Bible to 3 little girls this morning. These girls had no idea what the Bible was, so Jaden explained it. She sat down and started from the beginning, got to Jesus, and shared John 3:16. The little girls were hanging on every word.

JJ Farrell has been playing soccer with the neighborhood kids everyday for 2 hours straight. Because of this, JJ is hungry. So it was tough when we went out for some Thai food and JJ had to eat slow, being that it was his first time eating with chopsticks.

Tatum Havard made helped a-lot-of kids make hand puppets out of brown paper bags. The kids laughed with her as she helped them figure out how to draw faces on the bags.

With his group, Josh Duran took a homeless man to breakfast who was mentally ill. He learned that God loves this man just as much as God loves him.

Emily Carmen had to find the Omni Hotel with her group on a city wide Scavenger Hunt. It took forever, but hill after hill, they finally found it. L.A. feels a little more familiar today.

Derek Moon has become quick friends with neon green duct tape. He was a hole in his shoe, and has been keeping it together with the tape. Despite this fact, Derek has been teaching the kids at VBS every soccer move in the book.

On a breakfast search, Kevin Sykes learned that he had to love anyone, even if they weren’t appreciative of the food that they were given for free. Kevin found that God can still use and teach him about Himself, despite the outcome of a situation.

Dillon McKinley checked in peoples bags for storage at the L.A. Mission. He had countless conversation with the people who walked in. He is learning that not all-of-the homeless are there because of drugs and alcohol, but some have just fallen on hard times.

Scavenger Hunt

We woke up excited for what was in store today!

For the most part, what we are doing everyday is a surprise to the students. They do not know where we are going, what we will be doing, or how long it’s going to take. They’re going along for the ride! It’s been fun to see them get excited, and I think there just now getting the hint that I’m not going to tell them!.

After breakfast, we drove into downtown L.A. were we did our team “city search”. We split off into smaller teams and did a scavenger hunt in the city so that we could become familiar with it. Every team was given a map/guide through the city with specific instructions with where to go, and what to do. The students were left to ask people directions, talk to police officers, talk to the homeless, find specific locations, take someone out to lunch they just met, and find out from the people of L.A. what it was like to live in the streets.

The stories that came out of the scavenger hunt it were amazing!

Paul Green, Derek Moon, Jeff Sipple, and Kevin Sykes’ group were on the task of talking to a homeless person and the next task was taking someone out to lunch... they chose to do both! They met a elderly man named Roberto (Picture above) who had been living on the streets for years. From their conversation with Roberto, they learned that he was from Guadalajara and came to the states when he was 21, straight out of the army. Roberto was very funny, warm, and witty. He kept us laughing all throughout lunch! After lunch, he took us and showed us the architecture of the Bradbury building, which is in many hollywood movies like “Blade Runner” and “500 days of summer”. After his tour we asked why he was living on the streets. Roberto shared that he struggled with alcohol and right there, in the streets, he asked the boys to pray for him. They can’t stop talking about Roberto.

In the afternoon we all headed over to Wyvenwood Garden near downtown L.A. Wyvenwood Gardens’s is a huge apartment complex where hundreds of young families live. We will be going this ministry site every afternoon this week to run a VBS type program for the kids who live in the apartments. We started out today playing soccer in the grass fields of the apartment complex, and instantly the kids came out to play! Sophie Basalone brought some soccer balls and goals so it is literally non stop soccer. After the games, we invited the kids over to the shade of a tree and shared a bible story with them. We’ll be going over the story of Jonah for the next 4 days. Most of the kids, when asked if they knew about the story of Jonah just shrugged their heads and said, “No”. Many had no idea what a bible was. So our students are very excited about sharing Jesus with them!

Tonight we’re eating Peruvian food!! We’ll see how it goes.

Already stretched.

Just pulled from the first night, and what a night to start off the week! CSM (Center for Student Missions) is packed with students this week so we were put in overflow housing at the World Impact Church.

We headed out to the Honduras Kitchen tonight in south L.A. for some authentic Honduras meal. It was fun to see the students look at the menu and not know any words but “Pollo” and “Asada” and then order blind. I can honestly say that everybody loved the meal!

It was so fantastic! I’m still full.

Everybody wanted seconds.

After dinner, we headed out for our team “Prayer tour” through the heart of L.A. We asked the student to stay quite during the ride and just pray through what the saw and the people they encountered.

What we saw was tough.

Our city host’s (Alli and Jonalisa) explained what we we’re seeing as we went in and out of every district. The most incredible moment of the night was driving around skid row and seeing the thousands of men, women and children sleeping on the streets. What a amazing thing to see! Where our only experience of sleeping outside on the ground is camping, these people do it every night.

We left very grateful.

The students tonight were hit with the harsh realties of a broken world that needs Jesus and we where challenged to hear God’s call to care for those in need. We prayed tonight in front of City Hall while laying on the assault in the parking lot.

We prayed that God would mess us up this week.

That He would grab hold of our hearts and shape us radically to become more like Jesus.

Needing sleep. More tomorrow. Peace.