Iowans working in California

Greetings from cool California,

The 2012 IOWAY team arrived in CA on July 4th.  We'll send you some of the cool breezes.... 70 degree weather.

The team headed out of Des Moines on July 4th.  They were welcomed by Gerald and Kimberley Fortier at LAX.  They transported us to the Residence Inn and served us Gerald's famous barbecue meat, potato salad, and beans.  It was a welcome meal and it was nice to sit down and enjoy and evening of conversations.

We work with Kim and Gerald each year at Skid Row.  Spencer Owen had the pleasure of presenting them a $250 check for the purchase of broasted chicken for the meal for the homeless. That will be  on Saturday, July 14.  We also presented them with 106 completed health towel kits that we will distribute along with Bibles, clothes, and food.

There are twelve on the team this year. Thursday morning, the team divided into two groups and one  headed to Christ Lutheran to canvas and prepare lessons for next week. The other team headed to Hope Lutheran to do the same. They worked until 1:30 and then both teams headed to Faith Lutheran to help get things set up for next week's VBS at Faith.

Friday, we did a repeat of Thursday:  planning lessons, deciding who will teach or lead each part of the outreach, practicing skits, canvassing the neighborhoods of the three churches, decorating, working on the music selections, etc.  We have some very talented, artistic people on the team.  If you walked into the churches, you would see a huge sun, large paper trees, and tents made from bedsheets from the rafters to set the scene of a tent city of the children of Israel.  The team is working hard with the local church members, having fun and being on-the-spot creative.

We took a 2-hour break in the late afternoon and headed to the mighty Pacific at Imperial Beach.  Beautiful day to be at the beach but a bit too cool.  Did not seem to matter to the tough Iowans.  They had a great time in the ocean and on the beach.

For our devotional time we are viewing sections of a DVD and discussing creationism vs. evolution.  Very interesting and thought provoking.

 Saturday, was the day to sleep in and to get together at the meeting room at 10:00.  We worked until 4:00 on the sorting, assembling and purchasing of items for the health kits for the homeless.  Had a great time at the 99cent store.  Purchased $900 of $1 items to be put in the towel kits.  They did not have 268 shampoos though so off to the three story WalMart for the shampoo.  That was an experience!!  It was unbelievable how many people were shopping.  We did find the shampoo. Got lots of crazy looks and had an opportunity to share what we were doing with many people.

Saturday night was a fun night. We sorted all the items we purchased and filled eleven items in each of 300 more health/towel kits.  What a project!  Thank you to all of you who donated money for the health items and to those of you who made the towel kits!!!  It will be a huge blessing to many on Skid Row next Saturday.

Today we attended church at Christ Lutheran and Faith Lutheran.  Then had a good time at Faith's community outreach.  They called it 'Picnic in the Park(ing lot)' :-)

We spent six hours this afternoon and evening going over the skits, music, continuing planning the lessons and we are set!!!  Tomorrow at 7:30 we head out to Hope Lutheran and Christ Lutheran for VBS.  Pray for God's guidance for the team.  Pray that many children will come to hear about the love of Jesus..

Thanks, Ellie Menz

Thank you for your prayers and please continue to pray for our team.

God's blessings to you,  Ellie Menz and twelve super workers from Iowa :-)