Pasadena UPDATE #6 1-2-16

Pasadena UPDATE #6   1-2-16

Today was scheduled to be our “free day” and so it was.  Some people drove to Simi Valley to visit the Ronald Reagan Museum and to see the beautiful country in that part of California, north of where we are staying.  I asked a few of them about their day when they returned and I heard how they very much enjoyed the trip and the visit.

Some people drove south to the San Pedro area to the Battleship USS Iowa.  I was in that group.  We had a tour arranged but due to some technical difficulty it didn’t get scheduled.  However, there was a tour guide, a volunteer, who happened to be there on his day off so they asked him to take our group.  We were treated to over a two-hour tour of this magnificent ship even though the tours are slated to be one and a half hours long.  This man had so much information at his disposal, including much technical information about the ship, its armaments, operation, times it saw action and people who had served on this ship.  What a fantastic day we had!

Some people stayed at the hotel to simply take a break and rest from the long hours we have been keeping.  Still others took a shuttle and went shopping on a pier at a nearby beach.  From what I understand, and from a cell phone photo I saw, they ate in a restaurant that is built out over the water.  I also was told they had a delicious meal which included eating shark!  And I am betting they had some great shopping experiences as well.

Most of the people also worked in a trip to the beach.  Our group came back from the battleship and headed for El Segundo Beach.  Heather had never seen the Pacific Ocean but she has now connected with it as a cold ocean wave came rolling in and washed over her bare feet.  Cheryl also immediately had her shoes off and walked on the sand towards the water.  As the next big wave came in, she began rapidly backing up to avoid getting her pant legs wet.  She ended up getting really intimate with the mighty Pacific for she stumbled and ended up sitting in the sand as the wave caught up and sloshed past her.

We posed for photos on an outcrop of rock before returning to the hotel.  We had a nice tour of the town of El Segundo in the process because our fearless leader forgot which street would take us to the ocean and we had to drive around a bit to find it.

At five o’clock we all met in the hotel meeting room, received purchasing instructions, and drove to the 99¢ store to buy the remaining items to fill the towel kits we will be handing out at Skid Row tomorrow.  Back at the hotel, we unloaded everything onto tables and filled the waiting towels with all the personal hygiene items.  All the suitcases we had filled back in Iowa, and all those we just assembled, will be traveling with us to Skid Row tomorrow.  We will also be taking socks, underwear, coloring books for kids and boxes of Bibles for distribution.

Kimberly, a friend and teacher who has an amazing ministry in a very poor section of Los Angeles, met us at the store and we purchased about four hundred dollars worth of school supplies she needed for her classroom.  She is an amazing and dedicated teacher who requests all the middle school students who are problem kids.  She does so because she understands where they come from, why they act the way they do and knows how to deal with them.  They respond to her love and her discipline and dedication to the teaching profession.  She tells them she is praying for each of them and will love them and there is nothing they can do about it.

Kimberly came to the hotel and spoke to us afterwards about her teaching experiences and gave her personal story and testimony in her riveting presentation!  We were spellbound for nearly an hour as she spoke.  She told us about how she pushes her students and requires more of them than other teachers.  Gangs live in her area and she talked about how she deals with members who put graffiti on her property.  This beautiful woman stands upon the word of God and refuses to be fearful.  I am sure it brought a new perspective to all of our lives as we listened to her amazing stories.

She had also brought cupcakes and two cakes  that she had baked.  Amazingly, in this year’s Petal Pusher mission team, there were seven December birthdays so we all got to sit around the cake table while everyone sang Happy Birthday to us.  Then we dug into the cake.  We were not prepared. We were without silverware and plates but the hotel provided plastic plates and spoons from the breakfast area.  We found that cake can be cut with the handle of a spoon but it produces a lot of crumbs.  Eventually someone went to their room and returned with a real knife and all was well.

Today was a free day but it was filled with so much activity that it was exhausting, especially for those who did the driving.  It is past midnight and we are just getting to bed.  Tomorrow will come early as we are scheduled to leave at about 8:30 for our service project at Skid Row in the downtown area of Los Angeles.  That adventure awaits.

Good night!

Lynn Menz – one of the December birthday cake eaters