Emotional Kaleidoscope, by Wendy

This week's blog entry comes from Dweller Wendy, (pictured below on the left, with City Director Matthew and fellow Dweller Kenna), who's complete blog can be found athttp://roadsidetamales.blogspot.com/

I have a definite case of the warm and fuzzies and yet all I want to do at the moment is curl up and cry. I am overjoyed and overwhelmed and so confused by the sudden and intense alternating highs and lows here.

The week is over, the weekend has arrived, and as I suddently have the time to stop about what has happened in the past two weeks (last weekend I didn't have a chance to stop and breathe) all the emotions are crashing upon me simultaneously.

First and foremost, our house has felt the pain of another family loss. Kenna is back in Arizona for over a week and we have all felt the grief and the love that spills from her heart this week.

We have come together in prayer as a household to lift her up and her family - which is a joy because in the midst of this tragedy, our house feels more like a home than it has so far . . . I don't know how I feel in the midst of all of it. I am dismayed by the intensity of my own sense of loss.

This past weekend we went as a house to a seminar as a house, one on the Song of Solomon. Granted, none of us are getting ready to enter into a marital relationship, but this was another chance for us to all worship together, of which we have taken very few. This also was a joy, and we spent the day with Matthew and Darcie and Charlotte as well - it was so incredible to hear their take as well!

On outreach on Wednesday we dealt with one of our problem clients - I say problem client not because he is so bad in himself, but when we first brought him in there was some miscommunication and he did not have a TB test. Before we even got a chance to get it taken care of, he ended up back in Cedars Sinai hospital. On Monday he was discharged, but the bed that we had for him was no longer available - and nobody was working because it was President's Day . . . so we had to tell him that we couldn't still take him in.

This Wednesday I played cello in the Ash Wednesday service - which came off quite nicely, but required a good amount of preparation . . .

. . . and on Wednesday I left work at 9am to spend the day with Kenna up until her flight home. The service was quite emotional for me.

Afterward I recorded some things (don't tell Dad (: It's a surprise . . . actually I think I told him last night).

Thursday . . . was a long day. And then came today. Today we did data entry at the office until around 2pm and then took one of our clients who finally moving into his own home grocery shopping and then to his apartment. The furniture is set up already and he has all of his linens and his pots and pans . . . I am soo soo happy to see this finally happening. It has been almost 5 months since he finally agreed to come into shelter. It has been over a year since he began the process of getting a section 8 apartment. This is his first home as I understand it in 13 years. He is 68 and in so many ways reminds me of my own dad. It will be weird not seeing him around the shelter. My only hope is that he finds a way and a reason to stay active.

And then when we got back to the shelter, there were the girl scout cookies that I ordered *finally*

I am just so tired after all of it. I don't really want to take a nap, but I don't particularly want to stay up either.

My time here has been amazing beyond all of my expectations and I have no doubt that it will take me years to understand all of the things that I have seen here so far. As I was riding my bike home tonight, I couldn't help but think back to the first Tuesday here, I think it was our second day overall? When the tamale man raised his voice in our alleyway, that is when I realized that this place really was different from Kansas.

On the way home there is always a fruit vendor with mangoes and strawberries on the street corner by a couple of schools and along the streets there is always someone selling chips and ice cream from a push cart and in the large white box trucks that seem to live in our neighborhood there is always fresh produce.

Sometimes I forget that this place isn't the one that I grew up in. It is so easy to become accustomed to the sights and sounds around us and almost become comfortable. This week there have been reminders of the discomforts in this neighborhood as well. I have about three posts worth of things in my mind that could use sharing.

Truly this neighborhood is ministering to us as much as we are to it, if not infinitely more. I have so much to learn here, if I remember half of it, it will all have been worth it.

Holding to Hope, Thoughts from Will

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“Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful. And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds. Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another- and all the more as you see the Day approaching.” -Hebrews 10:23-25

In the mornings I work with the finance department at the Alegria transitional homeless shelter (right outside of downtown LA), finding ways to save on purchasing and free up more money for their struggling budget. In the afternoons, I have been tutoring many kids that are behind in school, both at work at Alegria House and in the neighborhood. There are a total of around 10 neighborhood kids and 20 kids at the transitional shelter’s after school program. To get an idea of how many schools struggle out here, one high school in the community has a 30% graduation rate. It has been humbling to serve the kids and to love on them as Christ would, especially since many of them come from broken families or have a parent that has HIV/AIDS. A high majority of these kids don’t realize the extent of the hardship in the life ahead of them. However, being able to tutor and also give them a glimpse of the love of Christ through encouragement and playing with them has been a privilege for me. I am starting to see how tutoring and positive role models are crucial in the complexity of escaping poverty and finding hope for their future.

Aside from my placement at the homeless shelter, we also have a neighborhood ministry in urban Hollywood. During the second week a couple of Hispanic teens in the neighborhood, who were new in their faith, came to our house asking to start a Bible study. It started small and grew to 35 kids last week, where they are coming either to search out God or continue to grow in their faith. Two teenage boys shared testimonies that were very powerful. Both were once involved in gangs, alcoholism and drugs, and were nearly killed. One went to jail four times. But God has radically transformed their lives as they now are active in their church and reaching out to their friends that have the same struggles they had. There are no explanations except God’s gracious working. I joined a soccer team with most of the guys, which has been great opportunity for mentorship and getting them off the streets into a positive environment. Please pray for these kids in their growth, that they flourish in good soil, instead of falling back into the rocky paths or thorns of the inner city. (Matt 13:1-23)

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