Wednesday, December 9, 2009

"Miss Eugenia, is it true that God lives on that cross?"






Yesterday started a little different than my regular Tuesday. It was the morning after a rainy day in the city which generally results in a beautiful skyline as the smog clears, the streets are cleaned and the foliage is drunk with being over hydrated. My time on campus was incredible as Micheal Sylvester (USC AIA director) and I checked in on the teams working with Athletes in Action on our 1st Annual "Warm Clothing Drive for Skid Row." This initiative was actually begun by the head women's soccer coach after coming out to one of our homeless karaoke nights. He realized what a great need there was for warm clothing and blankets as the temperature begins to drop at night. He presented the clothing drive proposal at a coaches meeting last month and got every men's and women's team to sign on! The Lord works in mysterious ways- I am already taking trunk loads of clothing down to Skid Row...no complaints here!

After my morning on campus, I headed downtown to Skid Row. Tuesday is "early-outs" so we pick up the kids at the bus at 1:30 instead of 2:30. I have to admit that picking up the kids every afternoon is defiantly the highlight of my day. As the bus turns onto San Pedro from 5t St. you start seeing the little hands waving through the dark bus windows. Every now and then the rebels manage to stick a hand or face out the window before being reminded to sit down. As the bus pulls to a stop, their little bright faces are smiling SO big and their hands are waving frantically to be acknowledged. Row by row the bus driver lets the students off the bus. They carefully proceed down the stairs and run and jump into my arms. Some run and leap, others do a ran and slam, and some wait their turn to be greeted with a hug and kiss on the head. Each child greats in a way that lines up perfectly with their personality. As the hyper greetings wind down, the kids begin doing their inevitable "Miss, I gotta goooo" bathroom dances so we headed down the block to the big green doors that mark the portal to Central City Community Outreach.
On Tuesdays, the 'event of the evening' is Inner-City Arts. Inner-City Arts is dedicated to bringing the best of creative experiences to the thousands of children who live in the downtown area, and attend public schools in the Los Angeles Unified School District. Working with LAUSD and community partners, Inner-City Arts offers programs during the instructional school day as well as after school serving over 8,000 children from 55 area elementary, middle and high schools. While Inner City Arts is relatively close to our program, walking the kids would take half an hour. Because of our need for motorized transportation, the volunteers and myself each load up our cars and drive the kids.

On this particular Tuesday, I had the pleasure of driving 5 of the 2nd graders in my little Honda Civic. We skipped, jumped over cracks and played the "guess which car is my car" game all the way to my car-very creative, i know :-) We all loaded in and headed off for our destination! As I pulled up to Inner City Arts, Duriel leaned over and smacked the cross hanging from my rear view mirror asking, "Miss, is it true God Lives on that cross?" What an innocent but beautiful question!

Duriel's question sparked a greatest Q & A I have ever experienced. They asked questions like 'why did God make the devil'- 'why did God send the devil to hell'- 'how is God with us if He is in the sky'...these are 7 and 8 years olds! I felt so blessed by the way the Lord granted me the 2nd grade vocabulary to teach them the Gospel. One of the final questions was 'how do I go to heaven'- and 'where do all the bad people go?' I gave them a 2nd grade variation of "If you declare with your mouth, 'Jesus is Lord,' and believe in your heart that God raised from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you profess your faith and are saved." (Romans 10:9-10).

After answering their questions (to God be the glory) I asked them if they believed in God and wanted to be able to go to heaven to be with Him forever. I received a resounding YES! So, naturally, I lead them through a prayer to invite the Lord into their hearts, asked the the Lord be with them and grow them the rest of their lived, and to proclaim their faith and desire to rely on the Lord. Not only was this moment beautiful, but it lead to each one of the kids wanting to say a little prayer of their own! Their prayers included:

-thank you God for my family, for the universe, for all the people, for my brother/sister/ mom/dad, for the mission, help all the homeless peoples to find homes, thank you for Say YES (CCCO), thank you for coming into our hearts, God please help the good people go to heaven and the bad people to become good so they can go to heaven too (I kid you not!), we want to be with you forever, we want to be with you in heaven so we can play with you and be happy forever, etc...

Sweet Jesus, thank you thank you for these 10 minutes! I will never forget this moment for as long as I live. The day that 5 of my 2nd graders prayed to accept Christ! Please be praying for them and all of us at central city community outreach!!! GOD BLESS!

PS. The pictures are from today's ice skating trip! SOOOO MUCH FUN!!

Sunday, November 22, 2009

Jesus loves the little chilren, all the children of the world

Jesus replied: "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' This is the greatest commandment. And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself." (Matthew 22:37-39)


Tylor (below) and Brianna & Lyric (above) at Park day- Every Friday the Skid Row LAPD clear out, clean up and stand guard at Gladys Park so that the local kids may have their weekly romp in one of the only grassy areas on Skid Row. Several local groups, along with LA Parks and Rec. bring activities for the kids to do, organize games, lead art projects and 'referee' soccer, bball and football games. I frequently leave the park with sore arms from lifting kids onto the monkey bars and turning the jump rope for 4 hours :-) worth it!



Katana- She taught herself to swim, literally :-)

Desiree and Duriel at the Biola Halloween Event-Biola University (Christian Univ.), does the local community a great service both on a weekly basis as well as on Halloween night! Not only do we have a great deal of consistent mentors from Biola that come work with our kids, but on Halloween night one of the girls dorms decorated itself like Candyland the game board in order to provide a safe place for kids to go trick-or- treating! The mentors that come during the week put on a carnival for our kids then divided up to take our kids through Candyland. Praise God for all our volunteers!

Wednesday, October 28, 2009

My favorite night in Los Angeles began with a flat tire!



How would you feel if you got a flat tire on Skid Row? I never actually contemplated this question myself, but as I walk to work every day and watch people lock their doors and roll up their windows on their drive down San Pedro or 6th St, I can imagine most would answer that they would be terrified. Scared of what you might wonder? Scared of that which they do not know. Last night I got the chance to experience firsthand the blessing that it is to have a flat tire on Skid Row…in all seriousness, one of the best nights of my life!

Yesterday, work ended like normal; children running everywhere, balls booming against the wall 2 millimeters behind my head, incredible goodbye hugs and getting permissions slips signed for Saturdays Halloween party. After all the kids that live next door at the Mission were picked up by their parents, I gathered up the 4 kids that I drive home every night. Because they live in the hotels, we offer the service of taking them home after the Say Yes program. I usually park on Towne St. which is 2 blocks from where I work. This is by no means too far but the afternoon returns to my car are always very interesting- why? Because every night there is a food distribution on Towne which means the street is lines with locals waiting for what could possibly be, their first meal of the day.

As I approached my car and began loading the children into my back seat, a couple gentlemen waiting in line pointed out to me that my right front tire was flat…woohoo! Seriously!? I have no skill in changing a tire, safely anyways, and I had to have the kids home in 10 minutes! Have no fear…God provides :-)

Several of the men in line offered their assistance and many others offered words of humor and encouragement. After accepting the help of a couple of the men, I informed them that I needed to make care of the kids first and then would be right back with my co-worker and friend Shaun. I was able to send the children home with another co-worker and Shaun and I headed back to Towne St. After re-soliciting the help of 2 kind men that had previously offered their services, Chaco, Dillon and Shaun set to work.

The tire was off pretty quickly but they couldn’t get the jack to lift the car up high enough. After trading several ideas on how to get the car lifted up, the men decided to lift the car up and hold it long enough to get the other wheel on. Within 30 seconds Chaco and Dillon had solicited the help of others in line and about 5 other men got hands on deck to lift my car…yes, these men quite literally he-man lifted my Honda Civic…what a beautiful picture! What a sense of loyalty there is on Skid Row (this isn’t the first time I’ve seen it)! As one stepped out of line, his buddies would hold his spot- they shouted encouragement and playful remarks to one another and they were all entirely appropriate and helpful with me as I got to spent my time “overseeing” the tire change and getting to know the men and women in line. Let’s just say that the tire change quickly grew into a source of entertainment for all parties involved.

The flat tire was finally pulled off and the spare put on. As Chaco and Dillon loaded the tire back into my trunk, I racked my brain, searching for the words to express the depth of my gratitude. I went to shake their hands and before I could thank them, they thanked me…they thanked me? Do what? They did all the work, I literally did nothing, why were thanking me? They thanked me and said God Bless you to me. I was so confused by their gratitude but attempted to thank them nonetheless. As I said God Bless you to Dillon, he remarked, “God always takes care of me.” I was blown away (again). This man, who was holding all his worldly possessions in a plastic grocery bag by his side, was telling me in complete confidence that the Lord always took care of Him…what a beautiful and inspiring faith! I came to find later that both of my knights in shining armor are strong believers…what a blessed night, my goodness!

As Shaun and I got in the car, our new friends waved goodbye and returned to their saved spots in the food line. Could this night possibly get any better? Of course it could, my spare tire was flat, lol. Oooooookkkk now it was time for Triple A. As Shaun and I walked back to the church where we work so I could wait inside with the remaining kids for the tow truck, he commented that changing my tire had probably been the highlight of the night for those men. This comment made me recall their thanks and I asked Shaun what he meant. Shaun proceeded to explain to me that one of mans greatest fears is to feel useless and out of control/ powerless of their lives and the circumstances they find themselves in, and why this is such a strong issue that homeless and jobless men deal with. Biblically we are shown that men are built inherently with the need to be needed and to provide for their families- this is why poverty 9lack of provision) rocks them to their core. While he neither excused drug dealing, drug and alcohol abuse, nor gang banging, Shaun did explain that the root cause of most of these problems is the crisis of masculinity. WOW! I had never realized this. Those men last night got to be my heroes, they were needed, they put their talents to work and were able to solve my problem. Praise God!

My flat tire experience on Towne St. was seriously an incredibly fun night! I felt so at home among the Central City residents, so loved and cared for, and so protected by these people shunned by society. I could have stayed there all night! AAA finally arrived, my car was towed and the nail in my tire removed, I scared my roommates because my phone was dead and last they heard I was stranded with a flat tire BUT I must say…my favorite night in Los Angeles was the night I got a flat tire on Skid Row!

Thursday, October 1, 2009

Thank God for God!

Made rather apparent by my lack of September blogging, this month has been the kickoff of the ministry the Lord has me doing in LA. It has been a roller coaster of emotions, learning, adjusting and growth but I can say, without a doubt in my mind, the Lord is doing great things!!

Central City Community Outreach Update:
What sets up a child for success? How do I as a teacher love these children and help make up for the lack of attention, role models, security, educational growth, etc. that many face at home? The kids went started school on September 9th thereby marking our start date as an after school program. My class was set up, I had this great system in mind for how to empower the kids, charts were made, lesson plans were ready to be put into action- bring it on! The kids arrive and because I had been a volunteer at Central City last time we had interacted they didn’t exactly expect me to be a disciplinarian nor the classroom leader…how did this affect the class? The 5th graders stated a coup against their new teacher, they tested boundaries, the 3rd graders who hadn’t been with me until now (b/c they were in the 1st-2nd grade class) were totally confused and scared at the attitude of the big kids, I spent so much time disciplining and having one on one meetings to calm the class down that the kids weren’t getting their homework done b/c I couldn’t sit down and work with them…Lord help me, and of course He did!

Lisa Peacock is a child psychologist that comes in every Wednesday and Thursday to empower the staff and work in group and individually with the kids. She has a very unique ministry called “animal therapy.” She brings in the very well trained dogs and another “cool” animal every week and talks in group with the kids about their weeks. It’s fascinating because, when around the animals, the kids get really comfortable and talk about anything and everything that is going on with them. This ministry is what helped revolutionize my class. Lisa spoke with the 5th graders about their behavior to find the root cause. I have found that, especially with these children that see and endure so much hardship, their backlash is always rooted in much deeper issues.

This is what I learned:
Maslow’s hierarchy of needs dictates ( Basic Needs -->Security-->Self Worth--> Achievement)
For a child to achieve s/he must have a positive sense of self worth. In order to ensure positive self worth, however, a child must feel secure- they must feel free to sit and do their work rather than protect themselves from the actions and words of their environment, they must feel secure that the result of their efforts won’t harm them, they need structure so that, while they can’t control the instability of their home life, they know what to expect in the safe classroom space.
Though I was giving them the classroom structure they needed, Lisa found that they hadn’t dealt with the grief of losing their previous teacher. Her leaving had hurt them deeply because it seemed that she had been a pillar of stability that has abandoned them- they didn’t want to let me in so that I couldn’t hurt them the same way. Lisa instructed them that it was ok to miss their teacher but that I loved them and wanted to help and protect them. Yes the teacher’s transition annually but it was not out of a lack of love for them- they had done nothing wrong. To say Lisa was God sent would not be an understatement.

The coup has settled, the classroom environment is much more conducive to learning and security (even I feel more secure, haha) and things are finally flowing really well! I have sincerely fallen in love with these kids- every snotty tear dripping nose rubbed on my shirt, every smile when they master their times tables, every masterpiece taped on the wall behind my desk, every hug, every giggle, every child that falls asleep with their head on my shoulder as we ride the bus to various field trip destinations...wow, Jesus loves the little children. Please continue to pray for us at Central City as well as our children. God Bless you!

Next blog entry: The other half of my ministry here in LA is as an intern with Athletes in Action (a sports ministry sub group of Campus Crusade). My mornings are spent on USC’s campus meeting with female student athletes--then from noon to 6:00 I am at Central City--then back to campus at nights for student meetings, bible study and large group Athletes in Action. I can’t wait to fill yall in on my time with this extraordinary ministry. God is so great!

Monday, August 17, 2009

"Miss Eugenia"- First 2 weeks of work!







As I prepare my class room (yupp I have my OWN classroom!!) and try to organize books by reading level, divide games into education and non-educational, and decide which tubes of paint I can pour water into and ‘uncrust ‘ and which ones I just have to let go of…it has been a great first two weeks.


The first week I was here Aug. 3-7 the teacher whose position I am taking, was still around so we jointly took the kids on several fun trips! One of these adventures was to the beach where we spent the entire afternoon chasing the waves back and forth trying to catch sand crabs. My favorite part of the trip was how the kids were terribly concerned about feeding their crabs and keeping them alive.To top it off, as we were packing up to leave, they made a joint decision to all release their crabs so that they wouldn’t take them from their home and separate families…tell me that doesn’t make you smile a little :-) Another cool excursion we took them on was to Griffith Park. We hiked most of the way to the big Hollywood sign then turned around and made it just in time for the daily opening of the observatory. The kids were fascinated with the changing of ocean tides and how the moon affects the ocean- how you weigh different on different planets- how earthquakes are made- the changing of seasons and how that affects sunlight hours. Their favorite attraction was the earthquake maker where we all jumped up and down on a platform to create our own ‘earth vibrations.’ I was so inspired by their inquisitiveness and how eager they were in their question asking. I even had one kid ask me “what is humidity,” a question that literally made me laugh…oh the beauty of never having experienced humidity…another awesome component of California.


Week two I was on my own and because of the number of kids we have in the area and the absence of volunteers I wasn’t able to do too much except for a pool and movie day at my apartment one afternoon. Last week and this week are “get your curriculum and classrooms organized” weeks. For those of you who might be unclear as to my position out here—I am a 3rd-5th grade youth coordinator/ after school teacher/ social worker, for Central City Community Outreach. I am hired by Tech Mission (which is a sub program of AmeriCorps). Tech Mission focuses on inner city, Christian based work that promoted the importance of education as a tool for youth advancement. Aside from homework time every day, the kids have volunteer mentors that come in and do programs, they eat snack and dinner with us every school day and we do a daily activity (ex. Monday-Library/ Tuesday- Inner City Arts Council/ Wednesday- Lisa Peacock who does animal therapy and counseling with the kids, etc.)


Something I really appreciate about the program design is that the kids must earn everything they receive in terms of toys or trips- this is not a free handouts program. They must earn trips to the park or a new book bag , even an outing to the movies through good grades, good behavior, and attendance of our program. The children may not attend our after school program if they did not go to school that day…a fact we quickly find out from the other kids. They are very protective of their program and everyone getting treated fairly!


The Lord has been doing amazing things down here in the city, there is a mission on every corner, free clinics and dozens of case works and social workers trying to rectify the situations many Skid Row residents have found themselves in. While there is still an immeasurable amount of pain, there are a lot of people trying to bring about change too. Please keep Skid Row, and the work being done here in your prayers.


God Bless you all!!


PS. I got to watch The Soloist play yesterday. For those of you who have seen the Motion Picture “The Soloist,” it is the story of a Julliard student Nathanial whose late onset schizophrenia lead him to dropping out of school and eventually ending up homeless in downtown LA. LA Times write Steve Lopez took an interest in Nathanial’s story and has made it public to the world. I highly recommend reading The Soloist or watching the movie. He’s for real!