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Day 2 - Manual Labour and Lots of Walking
“New Hope Ministries”
Our task for the day is to help build a computer room for this women’s shelter (which is located on Western Avenue). Simple enough right? We arrived at the shelter, and there was already another mission team from Arizona working at the shelter. They had already been working there for a couple of days. Needless to say, it was crowded.
They had split us up into the boys and the girls. The boys (and April) ended up doing roofing and pouring tar on the balcony. The girls were downstairs, staining 12-foot, 2×4 wood panels. We probably stained about 30 panels. Messy, but fun! The guys and Ap also applied plaster to the walls of the computer room, and the girls scrubbed rust off of steel bars as well with steel brushes and painted. It was quite an exhausting day, very trying, especially for the guys (and April) upstairs. By the end of the day, we were drained, physically, and emotionally as well. It was quite a tense situation, and people were hurting physically. Nathan, whose knees were already hurting from the day before because of the 2-hour scavenger hunt, added a strained lower back to his list of ailments. Poor guy. He was getting discouraged. Well, that would really start to discourage me as well.
“Shopping at the 99 Cents Store”
One of our plans was to feed the homeless on Thursday evening on 3rd Street in Santa Monica. So after our work at New Hope Ministries, we went to the 99 Cents Store down the street and shopped for the homeless. We were all given a $20 allowance, $10 was allotted for non-perishable food items and $10 for clothing and similar items. The idea was to put ourselves in a homeless person’s shoes. If I was homeless, and someone had given me $20, what would I buy with it? Didn’t realize how hard that would be. Putting yourself in someone else’s shoes, and a homeless person’s at that. Would I buy something I want? Or something I need? In the end, I was pretty satisfied with what I got and was happy that I was going to be able to help someone out.
“Prayer Walk”
After 99 Cents Store, we headed over to Bryan’s house to meet with his fellow World Impact Hollywood team members, Mondo and Marcia and talk to us about the Prayer Walk that we would be doing that afternoon. Practically all of us in the team hadn’t done prayer walking before, so they talked about how one would go about doing a prayer walk. Basically, you walk around a specific area in the community and pray (to yourself or out-loud) as you are walking, asking God to lead you to someone or something that might need praying for. EDIT: Prayer walking can also be just trying to listen to God’s voice, maybe through a verse or a hymn/worship song that might pop up in your head. You can say the verse or sing the hymn/worship song out-loud as you walk as well. After Mondo and Marcia had prayed for us, we all paired up and proceeded to do our prayer walk. I paired up with Michael, our youngest team member (he’s 17), and when he asked me where we should go, I told him that we should just pick a direction and then let the Holy Spirit lead us the rest of the way.
Convalescent home: I saw an elderly lady in an opened window as we were passing a convalescent home. I was just going to let it go, but somehow as we were about to pass the place, I stopped in my tracks and I asked Michael if we could just stop and pray for the place.
Tropicana Motel: Bryan told us about this place the day before (Monday) as we were cleaning up the old Tropicana night club. He mentioned that it’s “the place” where prostitutes bring their clients. We didn’t realize that we were passing that place, and got distracted because we ran into Jeremy, April and Cat (our other team members), but Michael asked me to stop and said that he wanted to pray for that place without even realizing that it was the motel that Bryan had told us about the day before.
House of Prayer: We ended up at the House of Prayer without even realizing we were headed in that direction. I just felt a tug at my heart that God wanted me to pray for this place. So, Michael and I spent time outside of the House of Prayer (the former Tropicana club) praying and lifting the place up to God, so that He would use it for His glory especially for that community that clearly needs Jesus Christ. We also prayed for the salvation of the owner.
Adult Video Store on the corner of Western and Fountain (?): While we were walking, Michael asked to stop and asked me if I could pray for that Adult Video Store right across the street from where we were walking. I got a little bit confused because I didn’t really realize what he was talking about until I looked up and saw the huge sign that says, “XXX Adult Video”. How could I have missed it?! It so huge, practically took up the whole block. I started praying for the place, and then I felt my chest tightening. It felt really heavy; I thought I was having a heart-attack. Next thing I knew, my prayer got louder and louder and my hand started to rise, well, involuntarily. I asked God to just flush out that place and get rid of the immorality and the fornication that the place fosters.
Debriefing at Bryan’s: After our prayer walk, we all headed back to Bryan’s to debrief and just talk about what we witnessed and what how God spoke to us during our prayer walk. Sharing our experiences was such a blessing and we realize that there is an intense spiritual warfare going on, particularly in that place. People need the Lord, not just in Hollywood, but all over the place, and the Enemy is working overtime to bring people down. It was quite eye-opening for all of us. After a very frustrating start for us, the day ended with such joy and rejuvenation. We completely forgot about how exhausted we were at the women’s shelter, and how frustrating it was. We realized that we really needed to be prepared spiritually especially for that week, because we knew that the Enemy and his minions ain’t gonna back down without a fight, y’know what I’m sayin’?
All our experiences seemed fantastical, but man, spiritual warfare is real and it’s happening around us. I think that experience made me aware of it so much more than I did before. This is really going waayyy beyond my comfort zone. Talk about bursting the proverbial “bubble”.
“Worship time”
After dinner, we just spent time worshipping God. Jer and I led praise and worship. We sang, we lifted our hands up, we knelt before the throne of God. It was the most amazing time! God is working in us and is using us.
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