A Full, Awesome Day

We rose early this morning to serve breakfast at the Midnight Mission on Skid Row. Many in our group were reflecting on Christ's words regarding serving the "least of these" as we had simple tasks but knew that these seemingly menial acts were making differences to people. After we served breakfast to about 400 people we took a tour of the facility which was facilitated by a former resident of the shelter who has only recently obtained sobriety 9 months ago. His story was powerful and seemed to impact us more than the actual tour. I wish I had more pictures of this experience but we have been trying to focus on serving and respecting others instead of using them for our own memories.




After serving at the Midnight Mission, we went to Grandview Retirement Home to spend some time with the residents there. Our main event there was a rousing, hour-long game of Bingo! This was definitely one of the more amusing places we've served as many of the conversations the residents had with us were not for a family-friendly blog! Our kids did great though and really loved on the people there even when some of the residents couldn't mentally hold a conversation with them.




Next we spent some time prayer-walking in MacArthur Park. It has been really special to be in prayer so often with our students on this trip. As we broke into 3 groups I was incredibly impressed with the group of boys that we're in my group as we walked around the park and were in prayer for 30 minutes straight! High school boys, in prayer, out loud, for 30 minutes! God is good!
We then went back to Las Familias to help with the after school program and continue building our relationships with those kids. Our challenge was to know a total of 10 kids by name by the end of the day and I think our whole team is very close! I know all of them know at least 5 names and I think could get close to 10 if we quizzed them.
Last we had an INCREDIBLE time of worship, discussion, and time in the word together around a campfire on the beach tonight. It has been so humbling to watch our students seek God's will for them this week and also think about what He's
telling them about situations back home. I LOVE our team and have been so blessed by them.
















Thank you again for following our blog and praying for the team! God is alive and working in Los Angeles and in our team!
Blessings,
Jeff
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Location:California