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


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