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!!