Monday, January 30, 2012

Pasadena Reflections: Lois, Pat S., Kathryn, Sadie, Steve

 Lois Brant, Trinity,  Jefferson
Friends are asking how the trip was and I suddenly realize I cannot describe the trip to them.  I can tell what we did, but that hardly touches what really happened in only one week.

There are so many levels!

·        There were absolutely marvelous people on the trip working with so many Christians.

·        Seeing how a float comes together.

·        The people who saved us front row seats on Colorado Blvd. How do you explain that...how to explain how much work that was..and they do that because?

·        Watching the parade with pride....thinking I did that.

·        The opportunity to witness to people just because we were dressed alike or because our sweatshirt said Petal Pusher.

·        The fun of giving witness bracelets to people, how surprised and pleased they were and how that made us feel. 

·        Just saying thank you to the crossing guards and others that helped us and how they appreciated that. 

·        The look on the faces of the homeless, realizing how they try to take pride in themselves, how hard they have to work to get out of that situation and to be part of the people who are helping them. How do you explain the feelings that we had from that day? 

·        How to explain the renewal of faith and the feelings that I have from this week....and it was only one week!!!

·         I feel like I have 22 really important friends. (I already knew Ellie, Lynn, Sandy, Brenda)

 Special thanks to you, Ellie

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Pat Stofferahn, St. Paul, Ankeny

This trip was so much more than I had expected.  I knew we would work on floats but I never imagined how much we would witness for God.  I know some people thought of this as a vacation but it wasn’t.   The floats were just a part of the trip.  Giving out friendship bracelets, talking to others about Lutheran Hour Ministries, Petal Pushers and nightly devotions were just some of the other things we did.  We were totally immersed in God’s work.  I can’t leave out the trip to Skid Row and the homeless shelter.  Seeing the smiles when we would give out underwear or socks was amazing.  I truly felt we were serving a need.  I came back with a new lease on life.  I know that I can make a difference in my family, my church and my city.  I can’t wait to continue my work for God whatever it may be.  Thank you Ellie, for organizing this trip.

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Kathryn Sprecher, Trinity, Des Moines

Just imagine.  Just imagine a hot meal while sitting at your dining room table.  Just imagine pulling up the covers in your nice warm bed.  Just imagine… The 27 members of the IOWAY team were privileged to visit the Urban Street Mission located in the area known as Skid Row and distribute health/hygiene items as well as undergarments.  We also helped to serve meals to the residents at the shelter as well as those who came in from living on the streets.  I visited with a man who had come to LA to drink himself to death.  I was able to share that, though our lives had followed different paths, God still loved and cared for us.

 This visit followed four days of working on several of the floats, including the Lutheran Hour Ministry (LHM) float, for the Rose Parade.  Theme of the 2012 parade was “Just Imagine”.  The LHM float had the theme “God’s Promise for All“.  Just imagine.  Millions of people either saw the float as it passed down Colorado Boulevard or on television and they read “He who believes in Jesus shall never die but have eternal life“. 

Just imagine how God worked in the lives of those on our IOWAY team as well as those we visited with and those who watched us as we worked to serve Him.
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       

Sadie Heetland, Faith, Adel
When my mom originally told me we were going to California, I wasn’t sure what I was getting myself into.  Boy, am I glad I went.  Working on the float and talking to all the people was so much fun.  All the work that goes into one float blows my mind! They were just beautiful.  Seeing the final product driving down the street and knowing all the millions of people all over the world watching was very rewarding.

Going to Skid Row was exciting yet sad.  I wasn’t quite sure what to expect.  Some people were very grateful and happy to get anything and others wanted a specific one and wanted the best.  One lady came in with her daughter and was on the phone, not paying attention and pushed her daughter our way.  The look on this little girl’s face was so sad.  She was so scared so I talked first and gave her a health kit.  I asked her favorite color and said pink.  I asked if she wanted a hat and she shook her head yes.  I gave her a pink hat. Her face lit up, she smiled, showed her mom and was so excited.  That made me feel good that one pink hat had changed that girl’s mood.  That was the most rewarding part.  As we left for the day and walked by the ladies who were in the shelter at Skid Row, they clapped, said thank you and all smiled.  They were so happy with so little and we lifted their spirits.

Our group was amazing!  We had so much fun and I am so blessed to have gotten to spend it with them and my whole family.

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 Steve Kruse, Zion, Ogden
 (written 1/3/12 – his dad’s 81st birthday)
This trip made me more confident and wanting to really go out and witness to get more people at home involved and sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior.

I helped with other floats, but when I did work on the Lutheran Hour float, it really made me proud and wanted to do my very best, for our witness to the whole world. When the float went by on Colorado Boulevard and heard the song “I Can Only Imagine” it brought tears and goose bumps to me.  I was very proud of it!  People that sat next to me praised the float and said, “That was the best. Great job, Petal Pushers.”

Left missing my family and went home missing my new Christian friends. We did a lot of smiling, laughing and crying all together. We experienced many adventures together. The experience made me feel great, knowing we were all showing that we are Christians by God’s love.

Sunday, January 29, 2012

Reflections....by Afton, Don, Lynn H. and Jena


Reflections from the amazing Pasadena team J

 Don Hoffman

What a neat experience A-Z!
Ellie, God has given you a great gift and you use it to the fullest. 
Our goal is to make a difference in life for our Lord.  I know we had that chance.  God has opened the door for us to make a difference.  We had the opportunity to help. Now it is up to us to carry through.
At Skid Row, it was neat to see the eyes of children as we opened packages of socks and underwear. 
I would recommend a follow-up visit next year.
The Rose Bowl game was great.  Couldn’t have had a better seat!  Wrong team won, that’s okay. J

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    

Jena Nahnsen

Working on the Rose Bowl parade float was an amazing experience, especially since I could spend it with such a fun group of people.  Seeing the whole process of the making of the floats and watching them go together was phenomenal!  Some jobs were interesting and a pain at times, but they were worth it in the end.  At one point, I worked on the head of a T-Rex and it was a pain but was totally worth it because that float won an award!  Seeing the final product go down the parade route was indescribable.  It’s awesome being able to say I worked on that float!  God gave us the ability to help and it’s a great, fun way to witness and be a servant of God.

 Skid Row is a real eye opener.  There’s no way you can understand the situation going on there unless you go and experience it for yourself.  It’s so great to see how the people’s faces lit up when we gave them just the littlest thing.  One man who was a resident at the Rescue Mission told us his story of being addicted to drugs and how he’s now part of a rehab program.  Then he prayed for us and I thought that was really cool.  God blesses us with so much!

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 Afton Kahler

This trip meant a lot to me in so many ways. I am glad I got to experience this with my grandma and uncle. The best part was making new friends with the group. We were all family for a week. Working with people on the floats was very fun, getting to know them, and how their faith is in Jesus Christ. Jesus is in our lives as we go from day to day. The scenery was one of God's gifts to us to experience.
My faith has strengthened from being on this trip. I believe strongly that Jesus died for our sins, and forgives us. Everything happens for a reason, with God's will. The memories from this trip will last a lifetime. If you believe in Jesus your life will be awesome! :)

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 Lynn Heetland

This has been an amazing trip for my family.  We have not taken many family vacations but this is one my three girls will never forget.  I am so glad that we were able to do this together as a family and with the extended family of everyone on this trip.  We have shared so many stories and many, many more laughs.  Life is so busy that we don’t take time to slow down and enjoy it.  We all need to do more of it.  We truly have so many “things”, but somehow seem to think that we need more and more.  I hope and pray that each of us will look for other ways locally that we can help the needy and homeless.  I was fortunate many years ago to be one of the many people that toured the floats before the parade, but still had no idea of everything that goes into making the floats.  Every day was a totally new and different adventure as we were given new floats to work on and various different tasks from gluing or cutting or placing flowers.  It was so exciting at the end when all of our hard work was further beautified by the addition of all of the fresh flowers.  The flowers so drastically changed the way the floats looked.  We were all so blessed to have been able to work on several floats.  How proud we all were of our specific parts of each float as it went by us during the parade!  I was especially proud to have helped with the Lutheran Hour float.  What a great way to get God’s message of eternal life in front of so many people!  Words cannot express the fun that we all had on this trip.  My group, the ‘Red Light Runners’, shared so many laughs during our daily road trips.  Never a dull moment!
A special “thanks” needs to go to Ellie for all of her hard work in organizing these wonderful adventures and thanks also to each of you for making this trip so memorable.

In Christ, Lynn Heetland


Sunday, January 1, 2012

Pasadena Update #3

Pasadena 2011-2012 Update #3
Greetings Everyone,
Saturday, December 31, started early with wake-up calls at 5:00 A.M.  What a way to start the last day of the year!!  It was still so very dark and very foggy.  We had a quick breakfast set out especially for our group at the Residence Inn since we were leaving so early, short devotions and left the motel at 6:00 for the Rose Palace on special assignment.  One of the float judging events is judging the workers and how well the crew chiefs are using their volunteers.  The IOWAY group was chosen to come early to be the workers for this judging before the rest of the shift workers reported for duty.
After an hour’s drive, all five IOWAY vehicles rolled in right on time and reported at 7:00 A.M.  We were disbursed to various floats and put to work.  The judges arrived shortly afterwards to begin their first look at the floats.  Final judging is when the floats are finished tomorrow.  We had a long day because of the early start but so much was accomplished and the floats are progressing nicely.  The shift that followed us will finish them for judging tomorrow morning. We left the Rose Palace at 3:00 but before we left, we took a group photo by the Lutheran Hour Float.  The scaffolding had been removed and the float looks so great!
 Today we did a great number of interesting jobs.  My jobs included crawling up onto the City of Los Angeles Float with a can of white glue, a box of celery seed and a sponge.  The legs of one of the dinosaurs on the float is covered with celery seed and I touched up and finished any bare spots I found.  Later, Jennifer, the crew chief of the Lutheran Hour Float asked me to take a crew and bring over 2,000 pink roses, hot pink roses, and two colors of Gerber daisies to the float.  Many people from our group spent the next hours adding them to the float.  Everyone did an awesome job arranging.  Some put evergreen boughs around the float and some added asparagus fern greenery.  A number of others worked all day petaling, a very tedious process where you glue individual overlapping carnation petals onto a surface.  Some worked on large rose forms that will be added around the bottom of the float and others worked on the sign on the float, covering each 3-D word with overlapping carnation petals. 
Other tasks our group did today on various floats included adding carnations, blowing into roses to ‘fluff’ them before installation, cleaning float surfaces of spilled seeds by blowing them clear, gluing bark on trees, carrying huge flats of roses and other flowers from the flower tent, getting dry materials from the seed tent, arranging moss, gluing rice, flax seed and tiny peas onto float surfaces.  Popping carnation heads from their stems was another activity today.  TV stations are sending reporters to report on the progress in each building. Lois had her hands photographed close up while she worked on a detailed project and Pat and Delores were interviewed by KXNO TV.
When we left work we drove to the Soup Plantation in Pasadena for our evening meal, a wonderful place to eat.  Then we journeyed the hour back to our ‘home area’ and went to the $.99 Store to purchase personal care items for the homeless who we will be serving on January 3rd.   27 crazy Iowans, wound up after a fantastic day of excitement and all wearing matching sweatshirts, created quite a stir in the store!  Can you visualize over $755 of soap, shampoo, conditioner, deodorant, razors, etc. in shopping carts with each item costing just $.99?  With our tons of stuff in toe, we headed back to the hotel for assembling the health kits, devotions and sharing time.  Joe Mitchell, one of the main members from Christ Lutheran Church surprised us with a visit while we were meeting.  His church is a Nehemiah church where Ellie and the gang work during the summer mission adventure.

We finished our evening by toasting each other for the new year with sparkling grape juice and headed to our rooms exhausted!  I doubt very many will stay up to see the new year arrive.  In the morning we are up early again heading for the other building, Rosemont, where floats will not be finished until later in the day so there will be work to do for our group.  It should be another very exciting day to see the floats drive out of the building and see their animation begin to work for the first time.
There you have it, a brief summary of the happenings of the IOWAY group on the last day of 2011.
God’s Blessings and Happy New Year,
Lynn Menz 
from Ellie:  I received a call this evening from Ardie, a friend who we work with each summer at Christ Lutheran Church.  He shared that his grandmother had died a few minutes earlier.  Please pray for Ardie and his sister Andrea.  Their grandmother raised them.  I suggest that those of you reading this who know Ardie and have worked with Ardie and Andrea at Christ Lutheran write or contact them.  The IOWAY group is very important to them.
HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!!!!!!!!