The New Normal, by Dweller Alayna

Discover Participants with DOOR Staff, Edzel, serve together.

Life has become pretty “normal” here. When people ask me how things are going, all I can think to say is “good.” I have nothing new or profound to say. I am no longer overwhelmed by the big city, and I’ve grown accustomed to work that was once beyond what I ever imagined doing. It’s just…regular. Normal.

But when I stop to ponder what “normal” is to me now, I smile.

Normal is tending to our beautiful, blooming community garden–pulling weeds in the cool of the evening, greeting the neighbors who walk by.

Normal is telling my housemate I’m going to water the garden and having a little girl’s face immediately pop out of the a second-story window next door – “You’re watering now? Can I help?!”

Normal is driving through the streets of Glendale, searching for our homeless friends in back alleys and parks.

Normal is getting texts like these from our high schoolers: ”Hey, are you guys open now?” “What’s up” ”When are you getting back?” Most of the time they just show up and yell for us to let them in.

Outreach making a first contact with a homeless person

Normal is giving the woman next door a ride to the store so she doesn’t have to haul groceries on the bus. She, in turn, takes care of us by sending over tamales or using the tomatoes from our garden to make us salsa.

Normal is staying late at the shelter to read a book with the sweetest little homeless boy.

Normal is biking or walking a mile towards the Hollywood sign every morning to catch my bus.

Normal is a Saturday night spent playing an impromptu game of 3-on-3 with our high school boys then sitting on the porch hanging out till their parents call them home.

Normal is running into one of our teenage girls as I walk home from work, listening as she tells me about her latest boyfriend troubles, feeling honored when she asks for my advice.

Normal is hosting the most diverse dinners and cookouts and parties I could imagine; businessmen and women, homeless people, Hollywood hopefuls, neighborhood kids with their Spanish-speaking parents–all coming together in our backyard. I imagine God smiling as He looks down on those gatherings.

Sure, life is normal. But normal is pretty awesome.

-Alayna, a current Dweller, living in intentional Christian Community with 5 others, plus an entire neighborhood.

The Word.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning.  Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it.  John 1:1-5, NIV

Click here for more photos from the week.

An amazing Discover group from Abiding Hope Lutheran church in Littleton, Colorado joined DOOR Hollywood this week.  One of the main themes was paying attention to the words we use to describe ourselves, to describe others.  It got me thinking about words, and I started pondering the many words and phrases I heard, or read, throughout the week.  Our prayers are with you as you return, Abiding Hope.  Come back someday soon:

….Uuh. “Those” people.  Albert.  Compassion into action.  Dehumanize.  Two hours on the street.  That quick.  Snap.  Identity.  Theft.  La Casa.  What do I deserve?  Arroz con Leche.  Jesus.  Yes Man.  MEND.  Losing our house.  Engine death.  Toni.  Sleep on sidewalk.  See.  7,500 hours of work.  Unified.  More life and soul.  The wrong idea.  Monkey on the ground.  In a van.  73. Broken spirit.  Too spicy Mommy. Security footage.  Organized!  Tapatio.  But.  I.  Love.  You.  A little paranoid.  Downsizing.  Happy Birthday!  The one we were waiting for.  Mobile shower.  GettLove.  College degree.  One eye open.  Greater things.  The face.  Everyone kind of pushes past one another.  Us.  Gwen.  Looked at us weird.  Pluto.  Rode the bus all night long.  Bless. Hairnets? Boxes.  Boxes, boxes, boxes.  Ryan Reynolds.  Really big.  Of God.  Entitlement.  Surprises happen.  Sticky hands.  Angel Food.  Y’all.  How to react.  PATH.  A little crazy.  Carolyna.   Our new friends.  Hand the keys over.  The planet that shall not be named.  Them.  Rejection was very difficult.  Gated homes in gated neighborhoods.  Waits for six clicks.  In the city.  Multitudinous.  Door of Hope.  Freeze!  Swoon.  Pollo Tostadas.  Gentrification.  He’s gonna take my shoes.  Green Lantern.   Broken arm.  Brought it upon yourself?  99.9% similar DNA.  See myself in you.  Bankrupt.  Compound.  Broken back.  Kickline.  If I falter, if I fade.  Now, God is something I can’t stop thinking about. 


Someone I can't stop thinking about.

Beauty in Vulnerability, by Alex

When I first signed up to serve as a YAV, I really felt that this would be an incredible opportunity for me to spend a year doing something completely different with my life. Now, my year is beginning to draw to a close, and I am realizing more and more that what I have been learning and doing this year is not simply a year-long project that I will look back on with fond memories, but rather a stepping stone to beginning the life I truly want to live. 

This year has been uncomfortable in many different ways. I moved into a house with five strangers (and four of them guys!) and was instructed to share my life with them. Together, the six of us share one car, about $80 a week for house groceries, living space and work together to run the community house where we live.  

I’ve had roommates before and I love them all deeply, but I have never been challenged to share my life so intimately with others. We all come from different backgrounds and have different perspectives on politics, budgets, eating habits, cleanliness, disciplining methods, communication, God… (just to name a few). We work high stress jobs and live on a shoestring budget; we’ve gotten to see each other at our bests and worsts. You can’t fake it all the time or hide from people you share so much with.  

I had never spent quite so much time with the same people… and it has been really hard for me. When the year started, I would daydream about having an apartment all to myself when the year ended. I’m not exactly sure when the change occurred, but my perspective has shifted. The house feels oddly empty when no one else is home. The house can even seem quiet with all six of us without the two or three house guests who always seem to be around. 

I’ve also had incredible opportunities to build deep relationships with people outside of my house in LA, most notably the women in my small group Bible study. Each week the women pray for one another. We don’t just pray surface level prayers and joys, but we have begun to open up to each other about our fears, doubts, pains and mistakes. We lift one another up, text and e-mail updates, meet for coffee and fellowship. We have come to share one another’s burdens. I have never been involved in a Bible study group so intentional. Sometimes though, it’s really hard and uncomfortable. You open up and later wish you hadn’t. You wish you could have just held everything in… been composed. Yet, I really don’t think that is a true model of life. Life is messy. We all fall apart from time to time. To deny doubt and pain is putting on a front or showing others a lie. Sometimes opening up can help others feel better about their own pain.No one wants to be the only one suffering in a room full of people with perfect lives. And no one ever is.

This past weekend we had an incredible opportunity to help friends prepare for a major life change. They asked us to come over to their home and help them prepare to move. It was such a beautiful day for me. It was the first time I had been in their house when it wasn’t spotless and everyone perfectly composed. There were some dishes in the sink and toys on the floor. They were stressed, tired, and on one another’s nerves. They may not have wanted us to see them in the state, but I felt incredibly blessed to be there. I love that they felt comfortable enough and trusted us enough to share their stress with us. I don’t feel that Christianity means not having drama, pain or conflict, but rather Christianity is demonstrated in the way we respond to these universally experienced emotions.  

Everyone has pain and struggles. Everyone makes mistakes. Everyone has quirks. The beauty is in sharing them with others and building relationships. We are not called to walk alone but to share our lives with one another. I am blessed to have had this year to begin to learn how to truly open up my life and love others. Now, I need to take what I am beginning to learn and step forward to create a community of love, openness and vulnerability, wherever I go next.

Summer 2011

Crystal

Edzel

 Summer 2011 is upon us.  God has delivered DOOR Hollywood an exciting Discern team, with young people who have grown up in, or near, Hollywood Presbyterian Church.  These young people, Crystal, Erin, Edzel, Isaac, Kyle, & Sean, have missions experience ranging from YoungLife, Bible camp leadership, and short term work worldwide.

Sean

Kyle

Please lift these six young people up in your prayers, as well as the hundreds of traveling Discover mission groups coming to serve and witness God here in Los Angeles.  We pray for them all, as well as those who have been impacted by the recent disastrous weather, and need to change their plans and missions.  May God meet and work through all of this and all of us, and may we be blessed by the relationships we build here in Hollywood this summer.  To keep up with the program this summer, "Like" our facebook page here: Discover Hollywood!

Erin

Isaac

See the marvels of God!  He plants flowers and trees all over the earth, bans war from pole to pole, breaks all the weapons across his knee. "Step out of the traffic! Take a long, loving look at me, your High God, above politics, above everything." - Psalm 46: 8-10, The Message