Last week was incredible and the Lord answered many prayers … thank you all that thought of us and prayed! First, a picture of Farmboy and me with Superman:
Oh, what people will do for their 15 minutes of fame! This was when we were sight seeing in Hollywood (BTW there are not a lot of sights to see in L.A.!) at the Walk of Fame and Mann’s Chinese Theatre. Is that the skinniest Superman you’ve ever seen?
Okay, so on with the story. This may be long, this may be short, this may not encompass everything (probably won’t) but here’s how our week went …
Monday evening after a long day of traveling and sight seeing (not!) I was tired and, quite frankly, wanted to get on the next plane to go back home. But I didn’t 
and I woke up bright and early the next morning for our tour of the Dream Center to kick off our week. Little did I know that would be the beginning of an awesome week with the Lord and His people and the people that He loves.
I learned a lot about the Dream Center and their ministries. But that afternoon as we loaded up on the food trucks and went into the heart of the city to pass out food to the hungry I began to get a real taste for what God is calling Farmboy and I to do. If anyone would have asked me how I was doing that afternoon I would have burst into tears … happy tears, sad tears, “God-is-speaking-to-my-heart” tears. As I was bagging up food the Lord spoke to me and reminded me of James 2:15-16
If a brother or sister is without clothing and in need of daily food,
and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and be filled,”
and yet you do not give them what is necessary for their body, what use is that?
And I began to ponder those words … “What use is that?” … as we looked into the faces of hungry and hurting people in inner city L.A. I began to realize and repent of my sin of saying “be warmed and filled”. We returned and the guys had much to tell us because they had gone with another group to South Central L.A. That night the girls went to a ladies’ meeting and the guys went to a disciples meeting.
Wednesday: woke up at 5:30 to be in the kitchen at 6 a.m. to begin working on lunch. Their kitchen open at 3 a.m. to prepare breakfast for the homeless and hungry that come there for a hot meal. But there are no free handouts … they must attend a chapel meeting first, whether it’s their first visit or their 1000th visit, in order to get a voucher for a free meal. Many have come to know the Lord through this ministry alone. They serve hot meals 3 times a day and 7 days a week. Later that day we went out on the food trucks again to different areas of inner city L.A. and it was again, very moving, very eye-opening …
Wednesday night we went to Santa Monica to reach out to homeless youth there. It was nothing earth-shattering … just being Jesus-with-skin-on to the people (What a concept!!). We walked through the promenade there and invited any youth we saw that were homeless to meet us at the cannon at 8:30. At that time we fed them and hung out with them and prayed with them. I must confess that I was EXTREMELY cold and tired that night, so I mostly just hung out
Thursday: woke up early again to work in the kitchen again … what a major operation that have going on there! And Thursday afternoon … that was, again, another eye-opening and very moving day as we spent the afternoon on skid row with the homeless and the hurting and the hungry. We gave them a hot meal and treated them like the PEOPLE that they are. We saw many interesting things, many interesting people. One thing that our leader, who does this every week, said that struck me was this: “many people don’t want to minister to the people we are about to go visit with, because they don’t want to see other people’s pain.” I think he’s right. And that desire to look away from pain has kept most of us from ministering to the sick that are in need of a doctor (Jesus)! Thursday evening was their mid-week service and that was wonderful!
Friday: in the morning we met to help load up the buses for adopt-a-block (I’ll explain that on “Saturday”) and then went out that afternoon with Metro Kidz to take “Sunday School” (for lack of a better term) to the streets. That was tons of fun and, again, eye-opening and moving (are you getting the picture that I have my eyes opened to many things?!).
Saturday: adopt-a-block … the heart of what they do and every other ministry sprang forth from this one. We went to South Central Los Angeles … yes that’s right … the toughest neighborhood in L.A. … probably in the country, really. Gang-infested, drug-infested, poverty-infested South Central L.A. We knocked on doors to see if there was anything that the people needed, we brought things that had previously been requested (things like toilet paper and laundry detergent!!) and picked up trash and hung out with the kids. Here’s a picture of me with a sweet little girl that lived in the projects there:
That night was the youth service and so we rode the buses back to South Central L.A. to pick up anyone who wanted to come, we sat with them during the service, and then we rode home with them again that night. It was a blast!
Sunday: that morning was the regular weekly service and it was great, as we expected it would be.
We were tired, but blessed beyond measure by the Lord during our week’s stay. Leaving to come home on Monday morning was bittersweet as we wanted to, obviously, come home to see our families, but we had fallen in love with the people at the Dream Center and the people that they minister to.
Guess what? What they do on Sunday morning is a tiny fraction of what they are all about. The Dream Center’s people spend the vast majority of their time ministering to their community The Dream Center is not a “center”, it’s not a ministry organization, it’s not a mission … it’s a CHURCH! Go figure! A Church! Oh, I have so much welling up inside of me right now that I want to say ….. and I know that I have done a poor job recalling the events of the past week. I am still trying to get over the jet lag and the tremendous amount of work we did (and the 2 showers I had all week – there was no time!) and just process all the Lord has shown me.
I’m going to have to stop for now. I do plan on sharing the things that the Lord has shown me, but the hour is late and I am tired ….
Blessings!
, but nevertheless as I learn more about the Lord and His Word and what it truly says, the less I realize that I actually know. Does that make sense? I am a know-it-all … really. I have a terrible tendency to think that I have “arrived”, that I “get it”, that I have all this knowledge & wisdom when, in actuality, I don’t know squat.
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