I wrote this blog early this morning to update our status. I couldn't connect to the network for some reason at that time, so here it is a bit late...
It's early Wednesday morning—the halfway mark of our trip. I believe today will be the most challenging day of our trip. We are working with a ministry all day called "Under the Bridge." Our ministry is an outreach to Skid Row—a several mile stretch where homeless youth and others live under bridges and on street corners. In the morning we'll canvas the area inviting people to a meal in the afternoon. After lunch we'll have a ministry time with those who come. It should be a real stretching day for our team—we're excited about it.
Yesterday had three aspects to it:
We started off with our morning team devotional. We met for an hour and a half after breakfast reading our Bibles, praying, and discussing what we read. It was really a great time. It's awesome to see the hunger in each student to experience transformation this week. We're reading through Psalm 119 and 2 Corinthians 3:17-4:18. Pray God continues to plant a hunger for his Word and presence deep in the hearts of each of us.
After this time we took a tour of the Dream Center—which is always a great way to start the first ministry day of the trip. I was struck by how everything that they do is intentional and connected to their mission. Everything is missional. They think of so many ways to bring in money, raise awareness, and reach out to this community. Before the tour we had a mini-service put on by their discipleship program (a la Masters Commission) called "The Movement." They started a Masters program 4 years ago with 17 students, and this year—as they've re-wrapped it and upgraded it to "The Movement" they have 120 students. Imagine having 120 on-fire students 18-25 in your church who have committed to 10 months of intense discipleship training and focus on what God wants to do in their life. The production that they put on was pretty powerful. The big idea was "End the Wait," challenging students to step up and respond to God's call to reach their city. It gives me Goosebumps thinking about it as I write this a day later. There was barely a dry eye in our group as we experienced their 30+ minute musical/dance/dramatic presentation. Wow.
After the morning activities we took part in our first ministry on the streets of LA with the Food Truck ministry. We went out in 3 vans following the giant green "food truck" which stopped in 2 very needy neighborhoods to pass out food. It's a great ministry. We get out of the vans and basically form assembly lines to get everything unloaded and set up. After about 30 minutes on site we've bagged over 500 sacks of groceries—filled with different items sorted into categories. A line of over a hundred families at each site gathers to receive the food. After we finish the setup the line comes through and we hand to each family what will be many of these families only food this week.
After we got back to the Dream Center we met for over an hour to discuss our impressions and the impact this ministry made on us. It was a powerful time. We went around and every person shared what God had done in them through this experience. I have a little Sony digital voice-recorder that I made each person talk into as we debriefed. A little funny at times—but now I have over a half-hour of verbal testimony—ON TAPE—of our students and leaders expressing the transformation happening in them right after our high-impact ministry time. No....I won't use the tapes for blackmail—just for discipleship.
Pray for us today.
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