Urban Los Angeles Immersion

I spent the past weekend leading students from Fresno Pacific University on an urban Los Angeles immersion. We took a significant amount of time to process a couple of biblical texts (Luke 4, Amos 8); learn about systemic injustice, sweatshops, immigration, etc.; visit ministries and agencies in downtown L.A.; walk on skid row; and talk with the homeless. Here are a few snapshots of the weekend.

Dinner at a Peruvian restaurant, complete with Inca Kola.

Learning about and praying for L.A.City Hall.

Los Angeles City Hall.

Downtown Los Angeles.

9th Street Elementary School - children who attend here are all on meal assistance and walk daily through gang territory to attend school. Many are classified as homeless since they live in the skid row hotels. Notice the lack of grass, the high fence and the signs in multiple languages prohibiting intruders, drugs and alcohol, and weapons. Here's an article from the L.A. Times about what a student faces on a daily basis as he tries to attend high school.

Filming is quite common in inner-city L.A. These trees were brought in and the street was swept clean for a Subaru commercial. In other areas of downtown we watched the filming of a movie staring Jamie Fox and Robert Downey Jr. The movie is about the life of Nathaniel Ayers, a Juilliard-trained cellist who now lives in poverty on the streets of L.A.(read here for a 12-part L.A. Times feature on Ayers) Ironically, we watched as the police kept movie sets free of local homeless people while actors who played homeless people lined up for a shoot at a mock soup kitchen. Caitlin made an insightful comment as we were walking down the street, "I'm starting to wonder what is really real in this town."

 

Another irony. The tattered and weather-beaten mural reads, "When kids read, anything's possible." There's not much hope on skid row.

Our new friend, Donny, a homeless man who helped us understand what life on the streets is like as we had breakfast. Here's a moving five-part video series discussing life on skid row (also includes footage from Central City Community Church, see below).

Debriefing at Pershing Square.

Cleaning at Central City Community Church, the only church on skid row. This congregation is comprised almost entirely of homeless people. They received a grant to install a youth room and kitchen. One of the most creative church programs I have ever encountered happens at this church. Every Wednesday night 200-300 homeless people come to the church for Karaoke. It's the happiest and strangest crowd I've ever been with. It reminds me of Jesus partying with the "sinners and tax collectors" at Levi's house.

Painting at Central City Community Church.

Sunday afternoon at Olympic Convalescent Home. It's the elderly and the children who are the most neglected. They are the widows, orphans and aliens the prophets warned Israel to care for.

Painting nails at Olympic.

A group photo at the Center for Student Missions.

The gang with Tim Peters at the Door of Hope (read a previous post on Door here). This is a Christian transitional home for homeless families. Up to eight families live at this 106-year old facility. We heard story after story of families who have made it off the streets and into stable living situations. It was a wonderful and hopeful way to end our trip.