It is the end of another long day at the Dream Center in LA. We are all in bed and accounted for, and I think most were asleep when their heads hit the pillow. They adopted a block of Los Angeles this morning- walking for about an hour and a half and picking up the garbage in the California sun. We returned for our afternoon devotional time and lunch, and then hit the streets again for our “Hope For Homeless Youth” ministry assignment. We had lots of guesses as to what this would be, but I don’t think anyone had it down! We headed down to Hollywood Boulevard to search for homeless 18-25 year olds to bring the gospel to. We walked possibly the most famous street in the United States and sought out young people who had come to Hollywood in search of stardom. They were hopeful actors, singers, stars, and ambitious at one point- and now they are homeless, broken, lost, hurt, disillusioned, and bitter. Most of them are on drugs to keep their mind off of what has gone wrong. In all honesty- I wasn’t sure how the kids would respond to it. The entire layout was so different than what we were used to- and they were going to be forced to pray with strangers and have real, deep, meaningful conversations with people they didn’t even know. I WAS WRONG! They stepped out and stepped up. Kids 15-18 were sharing the gospel with a smile with Hollywood’s lost stars. It was incredible to see.
After this ministry, we turned towards our night ministry (of course after eating dinner). We laced the shoes back up and headed to Santa Monica Pier to feed the homeless in the area. The Dream Center has been providing hot meals on Wednesday nights for the homeless in Santa Monica for the last 12 years, EVERY WEEK! It is an incredible ministry. Our first job was to walk the famous promenade and inform any homeless people that there was a dinner. After this was finished, we were privileged to join with the other teams and connect with these people while they ate their dinners. We talked with them, prayed with them, laughed with them, and some even shed tears. It was incredible to see the disparity between the people with money shopping on the promenade, and the hundreds of people looking for a hot meal- literally around the street corner.I cannot wait for you to hear some of the stories from this night. These are kids- but the compassion in their hearts for hurting people so moved them that they would be willing to talk to a 40 year old man or a 35 year old lady strung out on heroin and on their last leg- just to bring them a little hope and love with their chicken pesto pasta. I was in awe as I saw the amount of conversations going on, and the love lifted from that place. Hope was in the air, and for most of those men and women in was an unfamiliar smell. I think they liked it.
Our night finished with grabbing Ben & Jerry's and stuffing our faces. It was a good day :)Pictures coming when internet access is BETTER!
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