Adventures Ahead!

For the 36 kids who will enroll in our Adventures Ahead summer program there is a lot of excitement. Frankly, I am excited too!

Our six college interns from UCLA and CSUN have arrived. They have completed an intensive week of training with InterVarsity Christian Fellowship’s Los Angeles Urban Project. Lesson plans for the coming week are ready. Monday, the program begins.

The summer program is a life-changing experience for many kids. They crave the love, nurture, and attention that our staff, college interns, and volunteers will lavish on them. The hands-on science experiments make learning fun. The field trips outside the neighborhood expand the world and fill young minds with new possibilities.

The small (6:1) class size and individual instruction often leads to academic breakthroughs, toppling limitations and low-expectations as kids discover that they can read or that they have a special aptitude for science or arts. For many kids, the Vacation Bible School that follows the summer program will be their first introduction to a heavenly Father who loves them.

Please pray for

· great love, joy, wisdom, and stamina for our interns, staff, and volunteers who will daily seek to welcome, love, and teach the children in the name of Jesus,

· the 36 children, that they will thrive in this love, make significant advances academically, and come to know that they are deeply loved by their heavenly Father,

· safety, protection, and provision for all that is needed.

· several boys from especially difficult home situations—that their experience would be especially transformative this summer.

Crossing Over and Midway Through

Today, the Community Redevelopment Agency unanimously adopted a motion to spend $300,000 to begin sidewalk repairs and curb cuts in our community! The other great piece of news is that the repairs will begin on a street with a large apartment building owned by the United Cerebral Palsy Foundation where numerous wheelchair-bound residents live.

Yesterday, felt as though we were standing on the Jordan River’s roaring edge ready to cross over after a yearlong effort. Today, we are about mid-way across the river bed. The motion now needs a City Council committee's approval and then ratification by the full L.A. City Council before repairs can begin.

It was striking to travel to today’s meeting with my friend Diana. I saw first-hand her difficulty in navigating broken and raised sidewalks. We were at the front of the line when our bus arrived, however, a dozen other passengers cut ahead filling the bus before we could board. Turned away by the bus driver, we boarded the next bus. The wheelchair lift broke at our destination leaving us stranded on the bus. A Metro mechanic soon arrived and eventually freed us.

Even more striking was how transformative the experience seemed to be for Diana. She told me several times on the way home how much she had enjoyed the experience and how good it felt to be making a positive difference in our community. The Apostle Paul wrote, “…we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do” (Eph 2:10). Walking in these prepared works is exhilarating—a fulfillment of what we were created to do.

Our conversation turned unexpectedly to God and church and her desire to re-connect. I told her that our family sometimes walks to church and she was welcome to join us. After making sure she would not need to dress up she said, “Well, you may have my vote there too”.

Thanks be to God for his love and answer to our prayers.

A Milestone Day

One of my great joys over the last year has been working with more than 30 members of a local congregation, Church of the Redeemer, to get our wheelchair-bound neighbors out of the streets and back on to repaired sidewalks.

Church members have gone door-to-door meeting their neighbors and gathering petition signatures. We have made many new friends, become more deeply a part of our community, and grown in empathy for our neighbors with disabilities.

We have also heard many harrowing stories along the way. Several of our neighbors have been catapulted from their wheelchairs and broken bones. Others have been overturned by uneven sidewalks and have waited hours for paramedics to come right them. Still others have become stuck on curbs as they tried to enter intersections. All have told us about the long, roundabout routes they must take to find curb cuts or avoid large sidewalk breaks in order to get to the grocery store or bus stop.

Tomorrow marks an important milestone in our efforts. The City will vote on a motion to approve $300,000 for Phase 1 repairs of a three-phase project to repair sidewalks and complete curb cuts in our community. Please pray for the agency board to pass the motion and for continued favor with our local council office. Please pray too that God's glory and love would be magnified in the eyes of our neighbors through his bride--the church--who has labored in love and solidarity with those whose needs the world considers least.

Tomorrow, a couple of us will travel to the meeting by bus with a friend we met during the campaign. She uses a wheelchair and has championed this effort. Please pray for this friend to know our Creator's deep love for her as we share a journey beyond tomorrow's milestone vote.