LA

On Monday,August 15, our quite diverse team of 22 youth and young adults headed for Los Angeles California. You might just wonder, what kind of 'missions trip' goes to California? sounds more like a vacation. Yes, it may sound that way, but i really was a life-changing week for many of us.

Monday was our travel day. once we got to LA there was to be no official agenda. On the plane Ronnie and i realized that the Blue Jays were in town for three games against the Angels. The first of which was that night. We got the wheels turning and figured that if we hurried we could get to the game not too long after the first pitch. Little did we know what truly was in store for us over the next 12 hours.

We hurried off the plane to figure out how much money it would take us to get to Anaheim. the cheapest shuttle could get us there in just over an hour for $48. Ouch. that puts us at the game in the 2nd or 3rd inning and that's not cheap either. we did it anyway.

As the shuttle was approaching the stadium we started to think about getting some tickets. On the sidewalk we saw some homies that looked like they could be scaplers. we rolled down the window and within minutes had 2 tickets for only $20. nice. good seats too.

the game ended up going 11 innings with the Angels finally winning. it was a great game. but now our next challenge; we gotsta get to the Dream Center. #1 we have never been there and just have an address. #2 we're in freaking LA #3 we dont know how the public transportation system works.

Through the advice of some other homies we went to the M-Track (train) and found out we missed the last one. Eventually we had to take public transit. the good news is it was only about $6 for the both of us. The bad news is that since it was so late very few buses were still running. we took the first bus to the end of the line at Long Beach. then took another. the next bus wasn't running for another half an hour so we chatted with the bus driver about baseball and how to get back. (it's now nearly 1am) His bus took us for an hour and a half to the end of the line in downtown LA. (slightly nervous) At this bus stop we met a fine gentleman named Art. you may ask, why the heck are these punks from sask doing meeting people from downtown LA at 3:30 in the morning?? we asked many of these same questions people.

So Art was a great guy and lived somewhat near the dream center so he offered to show us the way home. we finally crawled into bed at 4:30am. unreal experience. until 6:30 am when the alarm went off. not fun.

now the important part - the ministry. We were at the dream center for 5 full days. each day after breakfast we'd meet for our morning assignments. we were one of about 5 teams at the dream center so they broke up the 80 or so volunteers into the different ministries. we did everything from cleaning, to prep for ministry, to phone calling, organizing a warehouse - basically whatever slave labor needed to be done. then after lunch we'd go as a team to one of the ministries. we went to Skid Row, Santa Monica, delivered food in the food truck, helped with Metro Kids and Adopt-a-Block.

Skid Row was crazy cuz i knew it would be stretching so inside i really didn't want to do it, especially right at the beginning. but i knew that poetic justice says that Skid Row would be our very first afternoon ministry. Skid Row is the area of downtown where a large amount of people live on the streets. You can actually smell when you get down there (the whole week after we were there Amy was convinced her clothes still smelled like skid row) Our team split into three with a Dream Center volunteer leading each. My team picked 5th Ave. Our only task was to greet people and enter into conversation with the ones that looked engaging. It was way better than i thought it'd be. Ronnie, Ashley, Kaylene, Amy, Tyson, Stephen, Brittany and a nice girl from England were all on my team (any evangelistic team should have Ronnie on it). I loved having no other agenda but to talk to people. my favorite was when Tyson, Kaylene and I were sitting on the dirty dirty sidewalk talking to one man. or more like listened. he talked lots. he said something profound too. he said, "if you go hungry down here, you're either stupid or lazy." interesting thought.

So many of the ministries were great - that's just one of the highlights. my eyes were opened in a lot of ways. there are soooo many hurting people in this world that just need love. that gotsta be our only agenda in life - to make people feel loved.


Saturday night we left the dream center for Anaheim. Sunday we went to see the Red Sox vs the Angels. another great game - Manny and Renteria went deep and the Sox won. Scalping tickets for that game was a crazy ordeal but was really fun. **Scalping tip of the day - look for the guys who are going to the game but just have extra tickets. They're way nicer and cheaper than the guys that scalp for a living. Tip #2 - if you're really desparate for cheap tickets wait till after the game has been going on for a while. sure you'll miss some but it'll cost way less.

Monday was Disneyland!! Fun Stuff. I'm not a rides guy so i didnt really partake in most of that jazz but the rest was cool. Maybe not the happiest place on earth but cool nonetheless. Everything at Disneyland is sooo professional and well done. they spare no expense. i like that. so many times i found myself thinking that as good as it was it would've been that much better if Sarah was with me.... but that's ok. there'll be plenty of opportunities to make other awesome memories in the future. yeah, that'll be great

K, this is me signing off on quite a long post. i hope you've enjoyed. one thing though - you must leave a comment. thanks and come again.