Catch Up

Ok lets catch up. Lots has been going on these past couple weeks. First off, one of our interns had to leave this past Monday. Something back home happened and she had to leave within a days notice. It was so sad! Her name is Sara Tindall from Michigan and she is such a wonderful soul to be around! It was so awesome because all the interns just dropped everything they had planned for the night and we all got together for her and had a farewell dinner for her. It was so great for all of us to be together for once! We never have been altogether to hang out since week 1 back at the beginning of June. We all went to BJ's Steakhouse and Brewery and had such a wonderful time bonding. And we only have like a week and a half left...



So last week half of the interns went to the Scientology Center and the other half of us went to the poorest part of LA called Skid Row. Its a couple streets here in downtown LA that you DO NOT go to alone. Hundreds of homeless people fill the streets. It is so bad with the homeless generation here that the government has actually marked off these couple of blocks to the homeless. At night you could drive down Skid Row and tons of tents and sleeping bags just line the streets. It was really hard to see. When we arrived we met up with Adrian from the church who heads up SERVE LA at Mosaic which involves the church with tons of humanitarian organizations from around the city. He split us up into pairs, guys with girls, and our goal was to befriend a homeless person and buy someone a cup of coffee, a burger, or a candy bar and meet up at the end of the street. So I was with one of the guys from Germany, Fabian. He has such a big heart and is so brave. Yet we had a very rough learning experience among the homeless. We actually didn't accomplish our goal. The first 3 people we talked to were not hungry. They refused food, coffee, or anything from us. It wasn't pride or anything, they just were not hungry for food. The last guy we talked to didn't want anything but company from us. His name is Henry Lewis. Fabian and I talked with him for a good while about Life and God and the people around him. We found out these people are not hungry. They get food for free right down the road at the Rescue Mission every meal of every day. Some people actually even have paying jobs but come right back to the streets because Skid Row is their community. Just like Mosaic is my community, the streets are theirs. This was really hard for me. The only thing anyone wants is money from you...not food so that they can go and get their next fix on drugs. The rest of the people are crazy. They couldn't pay their bills from the nut house and were forced to live out on the streets. This is Skid Row. They don't welcome outsiders like me.



The Interns threw a hotel party for the college age folks for the Mosaic community last week as well. It was so much fun! This hotel lounge was incredible to say the least! Tons of crazy decorated rooms, poker tables, lounges, pool table, pool, hot tub, video game room like u have never seen, and awesome hangout spots. Very chic and retro. I was able to meet a lot of new people and really bonded with the one girl Lauren. She is actually from Marietta Georgia and is wonderful. We are trying to hang out as much as possible while here. She is brand new to Mosaic and I am trying really hard to helping her get connected to Mosaic because she just doesn't know where to start or who to meet. And that's what the interns are here for!



Just a picture of the mounds of office work that sometimes come with the job...not too bad actually when we all just goof off together while stuffing envelopes and folding paper. Work yet we actually love doing it.









Some lovely pictures of me helping clean up the Pasadena campus for Mosaic. This place needed some SERIOUS work to be done on it and we helped out for a few weeks. Really dirty work, but all the people that do it regularly is volunteer staff which means they don't get paid to clean it either. So we just joined in to help them. We do what we can as interns to make it as fun as possible! haha