Dancing at the Dream Center

So when someone meets Caleb they remember him for a long time, and that was not good sometimes.

Friday night we met Jonathan while at Skid Row, he was one of the Dream Center leaders and he was really nice. Well he was also the mc Saturday morning after prayer and he asked someone from San Diego to come up and dance, I asked Caleb to go ha. It was so funny to see him there hoping he really wasn't. We had a great time cheering for him though and he just laughed the whole time so it was ok. Next time I won't push him to go though.

Isn't it crazy how many people came for prayer, most of them youth too; I love it!

Leaving the Dream Center

Before leaving the Dream Center we had lunch with my friend Aaron who is currently working at the Dream Center. We went to Malibu and he shared his testimony with us and told us about all the thins he does at the Dream Center. I hadn't seen Aaron in about 3 years so it was nice to see him and see what God is doing in his life and through him. Hopefully we'll get to see each other again soon!

Adopt-a-Block

Saturday Morning we woke up early, had breakfast and headed towards the gym at the Dream Center for a big prayer meeting; it was great and after Caleb was asked to dance which was actually pretty funny but I'll show that video later. After the meeting everyone divided into teams and we headed out to different areas in LA to bless the community. 

The outreach is called adopt-a-block and every week hundreds of people go out and knock on people's doors asking them if there is a way they can bless them. It's amazing. There is a variation of it which consists of putting all the things they have been donated in groups (food, medicine, toiletries, household items, etc) and giving it to people as they come and go through the different sections.

We were a part of the second type of adopt-a-block. Caleb was organizing the lines of people waiting to go through, Jennifer and Marissa were helping in the food areas, Tranica helped with the toilettries and I was helping with the medicine since the vast majority doesn't speak English and we wanted to make sure they got the medicine they needed and they knew how to take it.

We were there for about 4 hours and handed out hundreds and hundreds of different goods; it was a great experience. We learned a lot for our First Sunday Ministry, so we'll see some modifications to First Sunday this year.

We were honored we got to be a part of adopt-a-block and learn so much from it, we are now excited to see how First Sunday becomes so much better from what we learned in LA

Food trucks

Friday morning we spent loading trucks of food and right after we headed to communities in need and handed out the food after sorting through it and putting it in bags to make sure everyone was getting the basics. We couldn't take pictures at the sites so I snapped a few while loading the food and left my camera and phone behind. 

We did it twice so we ended up doing this all day Friday since loading takes a few hours and taking it to the sites, organizing it and handing it out takes quite a while too. It was a great experience.

The people at the sites were so grateful they were receiving food, at the end of the line there were a few of us that spoke Spanish (a lot f the people were Hispanic) and we were able to talk with the people, offer prayer to them and invite them to church. I was surprised to see most people were not only open to the idea of church but they wanted to be prayed for and were comfortable sharing some of the struggles they are currently facing. It breaks your heart to hear what they are going through and not be able to do much more than pray for them; but it helps to see their local church is doing a great job at caring for them and showing them God's love. 

Church at Angelus Temple

After Skid Row we went back to our room at the Dream Center to rest for a little bit and then head out to service. 

I had been to the church at the Dream Center before and every time I've been amazed at their passionate worship; I am also secretly wanting to steal their screens and amazing projectors all the time I am there but let's not share that with them. 

We had a great service and we headed back to the rooms to sleep after a long day. It was the first night Caleb and I had slept in different beds and even though we were sad and wanted to sneak into each others rooms we just texted until we fell asleep and woke up early to say good morning with a kiss.

Serving food at the Jonah Project

We arrived at the Dream Center Thursday morning and after orientation and lunch we started serving at a ministry called Under The Bridge. We went to Skid Row where most of the homeless people in Los Angeles gather to offer a meal and prayer to everybody there. 

 The Dream Center partners with the Jonah Project, a church located right in the heart of Skid Row. They opne up their facilities to everyone in the community and they allow for the Dream Center to come and serve a hot meal to hundreds of people on a weekly basis. 

We were asked to actually serve the food, Caleb had to hand it out. So we put our aprons on, our fish nets and gloves and we started serving mac and cheese, veggies and beef stroganoff while Caleb added a piece of bread and handed the people their plate.

When we got done serving we went out and talked to a few people, we had a chance to pray for them and we invited them to church. So many of them are in such a dark place in life right now, our prayer is that they will find the Light and follow it for the rest of their lives.

The Dream Center

We spent the last few days at the Dream Center in LA with the most wonderful group of ladies. For those of you that are not familiar with these wonderful place, the Dream Center is a non-profit outreach dedicated to serving the needs of inner cities. They not only work hard to meet their physical needs by providing food, furniture, clothing and other basic essentials; but they work hard at meeting their spiritual needs by having a discipleship program designated for those in the community who desire to make a radical transformation in their life. They also have church services on Thursdays and Sundays and they take buses all over the city to pick up people to their services. 

We went to the Dream Center to learn from them, Urban is in San Diego and we see many of the same needs the city of LA sees represented in our community, so we decided to serve alongside the people of the Dream Center taking notes so we can have a better grasp at how to effectively reach our city.