Thursday, December 29, 2011

#1 Pasadena update


December 29, 2011
Hi and greetings from sunny California,                         

 On Wednesday we flew from Des Moines to Denver and then to Los Angeles.  After claiming our luggage, and every piece made it just fine, we headed for Enterprise where we picked up our 5 vehicles.  From there we drove to El Segundo to our California home.  Everyone settled in, ate the delicious dinner prepared by the hotel, and most went to Ralph’s grocery store for supplies they might need this week. Many of us sat outside near the pool to visit and share late in the afternoon just because it is the end of December and it was warm enough to just wear our petal pusher sweatshirts. We did it just because we could!   We know Iowa is also having warm weather, but it’s much nicer here.  The smell of freshly mowed green grass greeted us as we arrived at the hotel.  Seems like summer and we love it!

 Later that evening we sorted all the items we had brought from the churches in Iowa to get ready for our time to help serve the homeless on Jan. 3rd.  We had piles of toothpaste, wash clothes, combs, school supplies, tooth brushes, deodorant, soap, lotion, etc. all around the room.  What a beehive of activity.  The pastor and his wife, Gerald and Kimberley who work with the homeless on Skid Row, came to meet us at the hotel and to share about their mission work. 

 This morning we ate a great breakfast at the Residence Inn in El Segundo where we are staying.   Then we were off on Freeways 105 and 110 with our five vehicles and drove to the Rose Bowl building where floats are being constructed.   We saw hundreds of fellow Petal Pushers as we arrived and hundreds more other volunteers. Many were high school age, all waiting to enter the building and begin work on decorating the floats.  Petal Pushers are volunteers who donate their time and talents to help spread the love of Jesus by decorating the Lutheran Hour and other floats that will head down Colorado Blvd on January 2nd this year because the parade is never held on Sunday.



 We decorate not only the Lutheran Hour float, which most of you know is the ONLY Christian float in the Rose Parade, but we decorate others as well.  That donated time is credited to the Lutheran Hour float which helps pay for the expenses of the Lutheran float.  Pretty cool deal. Someone had a great idea on that!!!!  This is the 61st year of proclaiming Jesus to the world by way of the float in the Rose Parade.

 Some of our group worked for hours on scaffolding putting silver leaf on the Bank of America float while the rest of us worked to get the silver leaf ready by removing leaves from the stems, trimming them, and putting glue on the backs of each one.  I would hate to guess how many thousand leaves we prepped that were glued to the float!  It is a huge float so watch for it in the parade.  Hopefully they will mention the silver leaf that covers so much of it and see what a great job our team did with it.   The best channels to watch the parade will be HGTV and RFDTV because they usually show the entire parade.  Some network channels conveniently decide that it is a great time to go to commercial when the only Christian float is heading toward them down Colorado Blvd.

 We worked hard from 8 to 3 and had a great time interacting and visiting with others who are working on this float with us. Most of us took breaks to visit the flower tent where there are truck loads of flowers waiting to be placed on the floats.  It is indeed a sight to behold!   When our shift ended, we trained the next shift and left for the day only to drive in rush hour traffic back to our hotel in El Segundo. We were almost back when Ellie decided to take everyone to the ocean for a short time.  Unfortunately, fog had moved in and it wasn’t so pleasant as we had wanted, but the young among us took off shoes and socks and were in the ocean, just to be able to say they did it.  By this time it was getting dark so hundreds of flash photos were taken with girls jumping on the beach when waves hit.  A good time was had by all even if it was for only a few minutes.

 Back at the hotel, we had a few minutes before supper was served.  The room was filled with laughter and frivolity from our group as we waited.  It was so much fun to see everyone have a good time.  Later we met in the meeting room the hotel graciously lets us use while we are here and we had some fun activities, shared ‘pows and wows’ about our day, and absolutely laughed our wheels off again!!  This group is such a fun loving bunch.  Everyone is bonding and connecting as a team.  Ellie closed with devotions on the theme “Life”.

 Now most are sleeping so I will attempt that as well.  5:30 wake up comes early here in California.  That is even before the sun comes up!!  Tomorrow we will work in the other building where floats are being created, the Rose Palace.  This is the building where the Lutheran Hour Float is being decorated so hopefully some of us may get to work on that during our shift tomorrow. The weather man is promising another day in the mid 70’s and sunny all the while we are here.  No rain on the parade this year!

 So, I am signing off after two days of this IOWAY mission trip.  Time to sleep for we have big jobs tomorrow.  Not only will we be decorating floats, but Ellie has challenged us to all take a number of witness bracelets on our arm tomorrow and witness to people and have them all given away before we return to the hotel tomorrow night.

Good night from the western edge of the continent!!
Lynn Menz


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