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!