Pasadena Update #5
HAPPY NEW YEAR!! HAPPY
2014!!
Today has been an emotional day for most of the team here in
sunny California. It was a new day, a
new month, and a brand new year when we awoke this morning around 4:00
a.m. What were we doing at that hour of
the morning? We were getting ready for
our last drive to Pasadena. Seats right
along Colorado Blvd were saved for us by good folks who stayed up all night to
reserve this prime viewing spot. They
asked us to be there to claim the seats by 6:00 a.m.
When we arrived, it was still dark and there was a distinct chill
in the air. We dressed with layers so we
could remove clothing as the sun arose on this very special day. We found parking places, but in a different
place than we had planned. We made our
way about 3 blocks from the cars to Colorado Blvd and took our seats as the
early light of day was dawning. People
were streaming in from all directions and the party was beginning. In all my times at the Rose Parade I had
never seen people angry or creating scenes as you might expect when you funnel
over a million people along one street.
Once again, it was a perfect morning and everyone was in a celebratory
mood. Strangers were wishing each other
a happy new year.
There were planes high overhead doing sky writing,
proclaiming that it is 2014. It is so
amazing how they do that so high overhead and have the words be so clear as
they literally hang in the sky! Street
vendors were selling cotton candy, Rose Parade programs, food items, and bubble
machines for the kids along with practically anything else you could
imagine. There was festivity in the air.
Our chairs were right on the street. More prime viewing spots were not to be
found. There is a beautiful story behind
our ability to sit here, too long to explain.
We will just say it was “A God Thing” and leave it at that. The parade begins at the intersection of
Orange Grove and Colorado at 8:00. We sit
about half-way down the parade route so it was about 35 minutes before the
first entries arrived. At the start of
the parade, 5 jets flew in tight formation and low down the boulevard, better
known as the famous Air Force Thunderbirds!
What an awesome sight as they came screaming low overhead leaving their
vapor trails behind in rows down the street!
It was official, the parade had begun!
I certainly hope all of you watched the parade on your
TV. You do get a sense of the magnificence
of it all from your easy chair. But to
be here in person with your feet on the street as the marching bands and floats
go by is a whole different experience! I
highly recommend it in case you might be wondering. The ground literally shakes as the drums call
out cadence and hundreds of feet hit the pavement at the same time. It is color and pageantry at its best with
bands from all across the nation and many parts of the world, here to be part
of it all. Of course equestrian units
are a big thing in Pasadena and they are always followed by the fun ‘pooper
scooper’ units who are usually hamming it up to the delight of the crowds.
For our decorating team, the floats took on special
significance because some were built in our building and we had personally
worked on many of them. Some of our
efforts were going past and pride overwhelmed us at times evidenced by the lumps
in our throats. So, how crazy does that
sound? Let me just say you have to be
here to understand. As volunteer
workers, we no doubt saw things missed by most. After 3 days of decorating with the final
flowers, we could identify the materials used and know the difficult process to
make them look as beautiful as they do!
We were absolutely thrilled very early after we found our
seats this morning. The Lutheran Hour
Float we had all worked so hard on, and were so proud of, had won the Princess
Trophy this year! It doesn’t get any
better than that! I know the detail on
the float was not even noticed by most of the million people watching as it
went by. It was incredible this
year! But that was alright because we
had worked on it and knew the intimate detail that was there! Just as one example, I personally glued, one bean
at a time, four rows of red kidney beans along part of the frame of one of the eight
windows on our float. It had taken a
multitude of people to do just that task and the little beans were too small to
be seen by the people along the route.
But, even though all I could see was a reddish border, I still knew it
was made of thousands of little beans all glued on one at a time. I had been part of that.
The parade lasted about two hours at which time a million
people headed for their cars. It is an experience to be part of that mass of
moving humanity. We had part of our team purchase tailgate food
supplies yesterday so when we reached where we parked, we had lunch and waited. Every street in Pasadena was clogged with
cars trying to get out of the city.
After lunch and some relaxing time, we calmly drove back to Los Angeles
and most of the team took much deserved naps.
Some wanted to go to a beach so their car headed west to the mighty
Pacific for a short time. At least one
member of the team had never seen the ocean until today! I have always thought seeing the ocean was
pretty significant. After all, one of
the first things God did was to separate the waters and give it
boundaries. Shouldn’t everyone go see
that?
We met again in the motel meeting room at 4:00 this
afternoon and assembled 436 health kits to be handed out at Skid Row on
Friday. Doing over 400 of them created
what would have appeared as mass chaos to onlookers. But, this team organized and worked together beautifully
and in a couple of hours we were done.
Gerald and Kimberly, a pastor and his wife Ellie works with in the
summer, came with four young girls to help with this project. They will be with us at Skid Row on Friday
since this is where Gerald does a good part of his ministry.
At 6:00 we headed back to the streets of El Segundo to the
Hometown Buffet for our evening meal with Gerald, Kimberly, and the four girls
as our guests. Good food, good
fellowship, and good grief, did we all overeat!
Later, back at our meeting room, we discussed our “free day” tomorrow
where some will go to the Battleship USS Iowa for a tour, some will drive to
the Ronald Reagan Museum in Simi Valley, and a number of people are planning to
start early enough to do both in one day.
A few of our team will stay at the motel and catch up on sleep and
rest. We also have two who are not
feeling well and we certainly pray for quick healing for them.
The last activity on Ellie’s agenda this evening was to
share “faith stories” as she calls them.
As some shared, emotions came to the surface. We were all affected in one way or another by
what was shared. So, that ended our very
long emotional day in sunny California.
Please consider yourself updated!
In case you might be wondering, we are not missing the cold
and snow back in Iowa, not even one little bit.
It just feels so right to welcome January of 2014 in shirt sleeves! May the warm California sunshine eventually
reach the cold and snowy wasteland of Iowa!
God’s Blessings,
Lynn Menz – Bone tired, California freeway driver, float
decorator and Pasadena update writer
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