The Holidays

As I get ready to head home to spend Christmas with family and friends, I figure I would update everyone on what has been going on the last month or so. Work at Door of Hope has been going well. We had our big Christmas Party this past Thursday, and 50 families that were either past or present residents came and enjoyed some really good food, Santa, and presents. It was really cool to see the family type atmosphere created out of a program like Door of Hope.
Our neighborhood ministry has been something that I have really enjoyed being a part of and watching evolve. Thanksgiving was a great time. Some families and kids from the neighborhood came by to spend some of their day with us and eat a really good meal. The bible study on Wednesday nights has continued to go well and I have really enjoyed getting to know the teenagers in our area.
Last night we had a Posada at our house (A Christmas festival originating in Latin America that dramatizes the search of Joseph and Mary for lodging.) We walked around a couple of blocks holding candles singing Christmas carols. At two different houses, Mary and Joseph knocked on the door to ask if there was “room in the inn” (we designated each of the two houses ahead of time and the occupants read a little script basically telling Mary and Joseph “no.”) We ended the journey at our house, and this time when Mary and Joseph knocked on the door and asked for lodging, of course the response was “yes.” So everyone then proceeded to enter, where the kids and their families were welcomed to deserts, gingerbread house building, and a piñata. A great time was had by all.
Merry Christmas!!!

2 1/2 hrs

4 days a week I spend a total of 2 1/2 hours a day riding on the bus. The 780 Metro Rapid is the exact one, Hollywood and Vine to Colorado and Los Robles. You would think that riding on the bus that long would get really old and boring, but it has been a time that I almost catch myself looking forward to. I ride my bike up the street a little over a mile and begin to wait for the bus. I have waited on buses anywhere from 2 seconds to an hour, but usually around 10 minutes. I put my bike on the front of the bus, tap my TAP card (prepaid card each month) on the machine, and head to find a seat. I usually head to the back and hope for a corner seat in the back row because that gives me a little more leg room and a window to lean on, but sometimes I just have to sit where I can find a spot. Friday afternoons are the most crowded on my way home from work for whatever reason, it's usually standing room only, but most of the time there are several seats available at my stop. Most days I have my headphones in listening to either some soft Christian music or some country songs to make me feel at home. I choose that music because I try to read and listen at the same time. I typically read a chapter or so and then try to spend some time in prayer and just being silent in the midst of the busy traffic. I have found this time to be exactly what I was missing in my relationship with God over the last four years. I didn't take very much time in college to really just be still and quiet with God. Sometimes though the bus can be far from quiet and peaceful, which can be very entertaining. I have spoken to the broken about Christ, answered difficult questions about my faith, seen some of the craziest looking folks in the world, listen to others share their faith with me, seen a gun readjusted in a boys pants, listened to people talking to themselves out loud using some less than appropriate vocabulary, seen people want to fight the driver, fight each other, and just about anything you can imagine. Through all of this I have seen God more in those 2 1/2 hours than I could have ever thought possible. My time of prayer and reading has been refreshing and even my conversations with a few complete strangers.

Everything is going great and I am enjoying the beautiful fall weather here in L.A. I have now seen a few celebrities, started to exercise, seen some live music, and enjoyed the biggest Halloween parade/gathering you could imagine with my roommates in West Hollywood. Close to a million people walk the streets in some pretty amazing costumes. I miss my family and friends but I know God is at work, in this house, at Door of Hope, and in our neighborhood and am excited that He is letting me be a part of it.

Prayer request - Papa my grandfather who has cancer for comfort and healing, Ben my best friend in Uganda who is getting over Malaria, and just strenght and energy each day. Thanks for all the prayers already and support, it means a lot to have people praying and thinking about me.

Just Excited

Tonight in our community house, a group of about 13 youth who had previously asked if they could just come over on Monday nights to have a safe comfortable place to have a bible study came by. My roommates and I had no previous expectations of what it might look like and what these teenagers would talk about (most of them are just beginning their walks and some are just there out of curiosity I think), we had just decided to sit back and see what God was going to do. A 19 year old boy named Charlie who had organized the gathering stood up and began telling the others why he wanted this group to meet and sharing his testimony. Charlie has lived in this neighborhood his whole life and everyone knows him. Charlie grew up and was heading down the wrong path to say the least. Charlie has gone to jail 4 times already and was involved in a life style that so many young men around here live. The 4th time that Charlie was in jail, for come to find out was just being in the wrong place at the wrong time and a group of cops who acted in lets just say a questionable manner, was given a bible to read by a fellow inmate. Charlie didn't believe in God but thought he would just read it like a regular book because he was bored. He started with the New Testament and he said Matthew 15 changed his life. That fear of being left behind on this earth when God comes down to take his people scared Charlie. He asked God into his life and went on to share an amazing transformation in his life. Charlie accepted Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior in April of this year in a prison cell and now just 6 months later God spoke through Charlie to his friends and neighbors as if he was the next Billy Graham. He had the room in tears and was quoting the word by heart. Charlie is thinking about being a preacher and has asked God to give him the words so that his friends and family may come to know Christ. He went on to tell stories of how is home life has changed from one where no one really even spoke to each other, much less love on one another, to a home where the gospel is spoken and lived out daily. Charlie said God has given him a vision that this whole block will be saved and after tonight I can't wait to see what God is going to do here!!!!!

This week was a week of first. I started the after-school program at Door of Hope, we began our tutoring and having kids from the neighborhood over after work, I had my first Crohn’s flare-up, and we also are starting a Young Life club in our community house. It was an exciting and yet draining week.

Everything at Door of Hope is going great so far. Just getting to know the kids and see improvement in different areas of their lives already is motivating. The people I work with have been more than helpful and a pleasure to work with. Miranda, a little girl that attends our after-school program told me the first day she met me that I talk like a farmer (ha). As I tried not to laugh too much I said, “most people where I am from talk like this.” She said, “girls talk like that too?” Laughing I said, “no but pretty similar.” We now have an agreement that she can call me farmer john as long as the other kids don’t call me that too. Today one of the kids told me I sound like a cowboy, which I liked a little better. I have the longest commute of any of my roommates by far, since I go to Pasadena everyday about an hour fifteen each way, so I don’t get to spend as much time in the evenings here with the neighborhood kids, but I do get to spend some down time on the bus reading and listening to music, which I have found to be a great time to replenish and just spend some quiet time with God after a busy day.

A little while back my roommates and I were having dinner over at the Kerr’s house, an elderly yet extremely active couple at Hollywood Presbyterian, when Jack Kerr pulled me aside to hand me an envelope. Jack went on to tell me that he used to play tennis for USC a long time ago and went 3 years without losing a match and they also had won the national championship one year. For his accomplishments USC gave him honorary lifetime tickets to any USC sporting event. He told me that he and his wife had a wedding on Saturday to attend and he had heard that I was a huge sports fan. I opened the envelope to see two fifth row USC football tickets. So on Saturday night my roommate Alex and I went down and tailgated with some people I had just started conversation with a few minutes earlier and went to the game, which was a great way to just get to know each other better and have some fun!

Man #1 If God is real and loving why does He allows so much suffering and poverty in this world?

Man #2 Why do you? God made us in the image of his Son and we are to be his hands and feet.

Congratulations to Matthew and Darcie on the birth of their baby girl Charlotte and to Forrest and Ginny on the birth of my little niece Ruby!!

HELLO and WELCOME to all who are reading my very first blog entry. I am hoping that this blog will help those who have helped and supported me in so many ways get an idea of what my year and day to day life is like. I am not a great writer, as you will see, nor am I a mature young adult that could be mistaken for a biblical scholar. I am however a simple sinner who received God's good grace, somehow. I will be attempting daily to follow Christ along with my four roommates here in Los Angeles and Hollywood. This year I will be volunteering with an organization in Pasadena called “Door of Hope”, and continually working in our neighborhood here in Hollywood in a variety of ways. Our neighborhood is nestled in between several major congested busy streets and attractions. The "side streets", like ours, as you could call them, are mostly made up of apartment complexes and crowded modest homes of immigrant families. Our home is made up of Will (my roommate from Cinci), Wendy (Wichita, Kansas), Kenna (Tucson, Arizona), Alex (Atlanta), and I.

I have now been in L.A. for about 10 days and I am settled in and starting to build relationships with my roommates and getting to know the city. It is just like Mississippi basically (besides the people, the traffic, the weather, the smog, the fires, and really just about anything else). A couple of mornings ago we were able to volunteer preparing and delivering meals at Project Angel Food, which prepares and delivers around 1600 meals to the terminally ill every day and is right next to where we live. I left with a blister from cutting to much turkey, but it was a really good time in the kitchen I must say. We have now been grocery shopping together, cooked together -although I really just wash dishes-, eaten meals as a family (we have a food stipend of $85 a month each), taken a hike up to Griffith Observatory, seen a taping of “The Soup” (Joe Mchale “the host” goes to Hollywood Pres. and his wife gave us tickets), been invited by our neighbor Rosie to eat dinner with her and her family, gone to the circus that is Venice Beach, met several kids in our neighborhood, and have really just started to get to know each other and each other’s stories. We all begin our placements on Tuesday morning and are all five really excited about getting started. I was able to visit and tour Door of Hope yesterday and left thanking God for what seems like a perfect fit. Thank you for all the support, donations, and prayers, I am so truly grateful.

Matthew, who is our City Director, is awaiting the birth of his 1st baby girl Charlotte. So pray for Matthew, his wife Darcie, and their new baby girl!