Tuesday (July 16th)
I was super excited for this morning. Today was the day we were going to start helping with the Manna Room starting at 5:30AM! I am definitely not a morning person but after being around Hope and all the people working in the Manna Room just for the last 2 days, I was excited to finally dive in. Jed & I got up and got ready to head out. Alice got up with me and she was hoping that Aaron would go along too. After a few failed phone calls & texts, I volunteered Jed to go get him. Let me tell you how thrilled he was to have to do that! Jed really tried to wake Aaron quietly but it clearly startled him and he about jumped out of his sleeping bag from what we heard. We clearly wore him out over the past few days and he just told Jed he would text Alice to let her know. It was pretty funny from our side of the hall.
So at 5:30AM, Jed, Alice and I walked over to the entrance of the courtyard at Hope and the gate was closed! Locked & Closed! We sat around for a few minutes trying to figure out what we had messed up. It was so early we don't want to bang or be loud as we could wake people trying to sleep. So we hung our heads and walked back to our sleeping bags and got a little more sleep before we tried to start the day again a little later.
We started again with breakfast at 7:30 followed by our bible reading at 8:00. After bible reading we met with Pastor Ed. It is truly amazing to hear him talk about the history of this church building. This church has been in existence for a really long time and has a crazy history that I won't go into but the highlights/interesting facts that stuck out to me the most in listening to Pastor Ed were:
1. The original church (where Hope meets now) was pretty much a celebrity status church, movie stars and the upper crust use to be a big part of it. As the neighborhoods changed around the church, so did its members.
2. This old church LOVED its choir and even more then the choir, the choir loft. It was a big deal. For generations, the choir and the choir loft stuck around as the attendance and dynamics of the church body constantly changed. On Pastor Ed's first Sunday as Pastor of the current church, he took a sledge hammer to this old, beautiful, prized possession of a choir loft. He believed that this loft had become an idol and felt that it needed to be destroyed. Any member of the church that still wanted to be a part of where the church was headed, he made them take a swing at the loft, if not, he asked them to leave the church. Tell me that is not crazy!! He talked about how people wanted to keep pieces of it as a "souvenir" or as a reminder and how every piece was destroyed and it was all thrown away. It definitely made me think of some things very differently.
3. Pastor Ed was instrumental in the Kairos teams move out to LA and because of the relationships people had with Pastor Ed, we ended up renting the secondary room from Hope. Instead of investing the money that Kairos had raised to put a down payment on church, Kairos instead invested that money in renovations to a room that they still use today. It is a cool partnership. The most amazing thing about it was when Pastor Ed talked about that from the investment that Kairos had made in renovating that room, that investment has grow SIX fold. Because of that investment, they were able to create the programs they have today. They have created a recovery center, the Manna Room program, a preschool, redone the second floor to the preschool to allow people that have graduated from the recovery program & many others to get on there feet. It has allowed teams like ours to make a trip like ours possible by giving us a free place to stay. It definitely reminded me of how one small decision can impact so much. It reminded me that everything is linked and that we all really are one big team and I felt honored. Honored to have been a part of the team that came to LA with no clue what I was doing but knew that it was the right thing to do.
It was a very memorable time listening to Pastor Ed and I felt that we could have listened for many more hours but we had work to do and we were excited to get started.When we finished talking with Pastor Ed we all headed downstairs to help and the second van of the day had just gotten there. When the van pulled up, most people that are living, hanging out or volunteering at Hope stopped what they were doing and started grabbing bags from the over packed van. So we jumped right in!
All of the bags get brought to one room to be sorted and organized. At first it seems like total chaos. There is literally food flying everywhere. This morning we worked with a very excited lady that taught us the ropes in the room. She continually total us that if we saw something we liked and wanted to eat, to take it. They called it the Boaz Fields. It was hilarious. So we set aside a few things and kept right on going. After about an hour or so it is all put in the areas that it needs to be and there is a small calm before the next van gets there and the process starts again. It was a lot of fun! I had no idea that sorting, unpacking and repacking could be that crazy and enjoyable!
As we finished in the Sorting Room, things were starting to heat up in the kitchens. The first meal is be served at 10AM so it was time to follow Sean's lead in the kitchen. Sean is one of the many people that volunteers his time to cook a few times a week. He was so patient and calm as entirely way too many of us constantly asked, "What could we do?" about 100 times. He had us cooking, chopping, prepping and washing dishes and before we realized it, it was time to start serving our first meal.
I think after the first meal, we were all hooked. We loved it. We loved screwing around in the kitchen laughing and cutting up; we loved being helpful; we loved being about to sit and eat and talk to people that came for the meal. It was all such a fantastic experience. They served the meal from 10AM to 11AM and then it was time to clean up everything before the next van load of food got there.
It was such an amazing process. After the last van of the day came and the room was sorted and put away we grabbed some lunch for all the food that had come in and the Neighborhood Bible Club team at some point in all the crazy fun headed off for there first day with the neighborhood kids. The remaining 8 of us went to met with Greg.
Greg is that Pastor of South LA Christian Life. Greg was a part of the Kairos church plant a while ago and when the time was right, he started a church in downtown Los Angeles with a team in part from Hope and in part from Kairos Hollywood. Jed & I were really looking forward to seeing Greg, Julie and a ton of other old faces we haven't seen in years. But before the festivities, Greg lead the 8 of us on something he called a "missional walk". The intention of a missional walk is to be intentional about checking out your surroundings. It causes you to slow down and see things that you might otherwise walk right by and never know. The goal of this is to understand different neighborhoods better and see ways to meet needs in specific ways. Many times, missional walks can turn into prayer walks as you walk around just praying for the different neighborhoods and having the chance to meet people.
Our first walk was through part of Hollywood right by where the church is located. We walked from the church to the subway station. We had all had an opportunity to walk around this neighborhood but like many areas in cities, it is constantly changing and the people you see and meet can always be an adventure. And that was the case for us this afternoon. As we walked a very unique individual started cozying up to Scott. He kept trying to talk, patting him etc. He started to "act" like Superman because we had just walked by a little boy that had a Superman shirt on, he even took a detour with the random kid but came back to our group. Next, still not making much sense, he approached Greg. He was looking for a sandwich and when Greg let him know that he didn't have one, he grabbed Greg's face, yelled, let go and off he went a different direction. You just never know what you will find.
We made it to the subway station and headed into downtown Los Angeles. I was pretty excited to use the subway system since we hardly used it at all when we lived here. We all rode the subway down to 6th and Figueroa to walk around down there. As we walked out, I thought I had stepped off the subway in NYC, the people, the smells, the tall buildings surrounding you, the restaurants, and shops. It was pretty nice. They have done some major work downtown over the past years and I loved it. Our final stop was the campus of USC. I think the most striking thing for me on campus was USC's the old entrance fountain that read:
THE UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA ESTABLISHED HERE JULY 29, 1879.
TO THE GLORY OF GOD AND TO THE PRESERVATION OF THE REPUBLIC
AN INSTITUTION OF HIGHER LEARNING
DEDICATED TO THE SEARCH FOR THE DISSEMINATION OF TRUTH
TO FREEDOM OF THOUGHT AND DISCUSSION
TO INTELLIGENT, UNBIASED ANALYSIS OF THE FORCES THAT
HAVE SHAPED THE PAST AND WILL MOLD THE FUTURE
TO THE DEVELOPMENT OF MANHOOD AND
WOMANHOOD FOR CHRISTIAN SERVICE AND FOR LOYAL CITIZENSHIP
It was interesting to think about how things get stated and the foundation they start with. I really liked it. After walking around a bit, we made it to there new prized possession, the USC School of Cinematic Arts...
This place was fantastic. I can't believe we were on a college campus walking through some of the buildings that Spielberg & Lucas helped build here. It was amazing.
After our time at USC, we hopped back on the subway and walked the rest of the way to Greg & Julie's house where we meet us with the rest of our team and a group for South LA Christian Life. Many of the people that were there were friends that had moved out to LA the same time Jed & I moved out. It was so much fun to be able to see and catch up with so many of them.
Once we got back, Scott, Katie, Jed & I took a side trip for donuts! There are tons of donut places all over LA. We drive by them all day long, many are even opened 24 hours. Of course the night that we won't donuts, we can't seem to find any opened! The best ones are the mom & pop places but we had to settle for Winchell's.
We all had a great laugh, offered Scott some of our non jelly filled donuts and enjoyed the night.
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