Hollywood Strip Club Ministry... Church/Angelus Temple... Echo Park

So last night starting at 11pm eight of us went to Hollywood to pass out roses and gospels and pray with anyone willing outside some strip clubs and high populated prostituting and transvestite streets... Met a lot of interesting characters! we actually built better relationships with some of the men out there then actual prostitutes... but let me tell you something just hits your gut when you see women walking down the street wearing so little that they might as well not be wearing anything at all! And they there is just something wrong when you see 3 cab drivers in a 20 minute period get pulled over and arrested but there are pimps and their prostitutes 20 feet away and no one intervenes there... I mean call me silly, but I thought prostitution was illegal in California! Not that I want prostitutes to be arrested, I would have loved for their pimps to be somewhere else so I could give them a hug and a warm coat and pray with them, but it is just the perspective of what is "OK" here... like in Santa Cruz cops walking by and do nothing about the hippies smoking pot right there in front of them! What kind of world is this!! OH GOD PLEASE HAVE MERCY ON US!!! ... but we got to meet some interesting people and talk about their lives and just listen, further the relationships that the full time people at the Dream CEnter are building and then on both Hollywood Blvd. and Sunset Blvd. we got to get into these big circles with these dues with all kinds of backgrounds and pray out loud right there on 2 of the busiest streets in Hollywood!!! Isn't that awesome, probably the best time I have had since I got here!!!

Well after that we drove a couple people home that Michelle the group leader haas been building relationship with... and they said it was close, bless their hearts... it took 35 minutes with absolutely no traffic to get there, which would have been totally chill but it was 3 in the morning by the time we left the streets... we got home/back to the Dream Center at 4:30 in the morning... I slept through (accidentally) 7am breakfast and woke up at 9:20am... I really needed a shower but church starts at 10:00 and the last shuttle to church leaves at 9:45... church is only a couple blocks away but I had never had to walk the way before, especially by myself and I was only half sure how to get there... but I took a shower and got ready to go by 10am... knew it would take bout 15 minutes or so to walk there.,.. I figured I could be a little late and it'd be ok, sometimes it is nice to be able to slip in the back when no one is looking and be able to just chill with Jesus! but the more I walked the more I started to get insecure, what if everything was quiet when I got there or the pastor was right in the middle of preaching and one of the ushers insisted on seating me and this 2000+ church was all staring at me... but I just prayed that God would help me get there safe and at the right place and that it would be really simple for me to slip in... I found it and got there and there was a couple other people just getting there and I actually knew the usher who seated me, it was shelly (whose outreach I went on yesterday) and he was really polite and discreet about it and I actually got a really close to the front seat, like 10 to 12 rows back! it was so good, the pastor preached on not letting out dreams outgrow our spiritual growth... our personal growth with Jesus in our souls should always out grow our dreams and visions!!

After church I got to walk to Echo Park... it is right next to the church... it is the only real (somewhat real) piece if nature and tranquility I've seen since I got here! It was beautiful, I'll upload pictures tomorrow!! There were actual geese and ducks there!! there is a lake and a bridge and it is right in the middle of west LA... funny...

Adopt a Block!

So every Saturday at the Dream Center is Adopt a Block!! They sent out teams to a hand full of housing projects and needy neighborhoods in the LA area... they have been building relationships with these neighborhoods for months and years! They go to the neighborhoods and give away bus loads of donated food and then go door to door asking if anyone needs prayer, hanging out with the kids in the neighborhoods and then inviting to take any kids from the ages of 12 to 19 to come back to the Dream Center to hangout playing games, getting fed, and going to evening youth group church and then they will be bused back to their neighborhoods....

So when I went to breakfast this morning, I ran into a guy that I met last time I was here named Shelly... Last time I was here he told me I should have gone on his adopt-a-block because his is the best, they go to the neighborhoods right around the Dream Center... so I ran into him, he kind of remembered me and said something along the lines of great, so you'll join us today right? perfect! We're short handed today, lets go you can help us get all the food ready to ship out for when we leave after the prayer meeting!! So off we went!

It was a good time, had a couple of the people in the neighborhoods yell at us, they didn't really want Jesus at all! That's ok...



Right now I am reading "Tramp for the Lord" by Corrie Ten Boom and I read the awesomest thing in there last night... "'Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world' Matthew 28:30... what I spent , I had; what I saved, I lost; what I gave, I have..." I just thought I would share that! It has definitely been different here, not simply because I am in a big city I don't live in (...yet), but also because it isn't the community of people I am used to, but God is faithful to be my Father and comfort and he is faithful to break my heart for the people here when I ask for it! I'd be nowhere without him!

--Happy Blogging
kim

First day at the LA Dream Center :)

So I am in LA right now!!! I arrived at 8:45 this morning and my friend that was supposed to pick me up from the airport for got and I waited for almost and hour and a half before he got there.... so that was an interesting start....

but I went on a food truck outreach today where we fed and handed out food to broken neighbor hoods and probably served around 300 families! I helped bag up 1000 64oz cans of Apple Juice! and 2000 pounds of rices and lots of donated veggies from grocery stores!! I am officially way more buff now! I was mainly on apple juice detail! It was so much fun actually...

We went to 2 different neighborhoods and at both of them a couple of the neighborhood women helped us and they were working just as hard as us; busting out all these tons of food as fast as they could, sweating with us, not complaining... all of us serving each other and working together as family and none of us even knew each other!! It was so amazing... these women come from broken poverty stricken homes and God totally showed me how beautiful they are! I know with out a doubt that those women are Jesus' favorite!!! There is such a natural beauty of the soul that God puts in these women who have nothing but will do and have done everything they can to provide for and take care of the children.... These women have seen harder things then I could ever imagine and they still smile and serve us and their neighborhood with a christ-like joy!.. and i don't know if they even know him... but the relationship the Dream Center has with them shows potential for it.... they aren't the type of organization to not maintain relationships with the people they outreach to, its really awesome!

happy blogging all! I'll post more later!! tomorrow is Adopt a Block... we go to housing projects in inner-city LA and bring food and clothing donations and hangout with the kids there and invite them to church and feed them and love them! it should be amazing!

Here is my Trip's Blog!!

So hello everyone out there! I'm Kim and I am taking 33 days to experience life!! May 29th I am leaving on my voyage... off to see the world!!

I have titled my blog "traveling abandoned..." this means that I am abandoning safe, normal life for this short glimpse of my life and I am going 5 different places that I want to visit... also on a more spiritual note... "traveling abandoned..." means that I have abandoned my self to following Jesus... or at least trying to... pressing into him day in and day out, going where he has and will lead me... crying out to him to birth in me a heartbreaking love for him and his people (which is you!)!!

I am going to be going to Los Angeles, CA for 6 days to volunteer at The Dream Center (www.thedreamcenter.org), then I will be flying to Denver, CO where I will be visiting family and going to my Cousin's wedding, then I will be flying to Arcata, CA where I will be staying with some friends from the Arcata Vineyard Church for 6 days and working at their non-profit coffee shop called Mosgo's for a couple shifts, then from there I fly to Seattle, Wa to enjoy drinking some of the best coffee in the world, getting ideas for my future coffeehouse in Hollywood, CA, and communing with Jesus and preparing myself for my missions trip to Amsterdam, The Netherlands, then I will be flying to Sacramento, CA where my roommate Kim will be meeting me and the 2 of us will fly to Amsterdam (the same day as my 21st Birthday!!!) and we will be working with and serving and volunteering with a ministry called "The Cleft" that is part of the YWAM (Youth With A Mission) base in Amsterdam... The Cleft is right in the middle of the Red Light District and they seek to minister to and help women in prostitution, drug addicts, and homeless!!

That is the basic outline of my trip I will blog later tonight or tomorrow sharing some of why I am going to these particular places and some of what God has called me to do in Redding, CA with Yaks Koffee Shop and the Vineyard City Church!!

I think all of you are great and please feel free to catch up on what is going on and feel free to invite others to check this ot as well!!

--kim