So on June 19, 2010 I embarked on a journey that forever changed my life. I met five other people at my church and we all headed to the Oasis of Hollywood for my first missions trip ever. Here's a little download from each day:
June 19th - Road trip! The six of us got into a Ford Expedition and headed on a 7.5 hour journey. We left around 8:15ish and got there around 5ish. We settled in, made a trip to CVS for two cases of water, and a tooth brush for me. Then headed out to dinner at an "outdoor" Chinese food place and then headed back to the Oasis building, played a few rounds of pool, practiced a skit, and then called it a night.
June 20th - Father's Day - Knott's Berry Farm! Joining our team of six was my daddy. I haven't spent a single Father's day with him in about 4 years, so I am very glad I got to spend this one with him. It's exactly what I needed for this long yet eventful week. We had dinner at Knott's Berry Farm and then headed back to the Oasis building for a youth group service and to meet the other team of 16 that was also there from Wilson, North Carolina. Yup, they traveled all the way across the country for the missions trip and made our missions trip just 100x better. That night there was orientation and then we all called it a night. A long week was ahead of us.
June 21st - First real day of missions trip! Got up that morning and hiked to the nearest Starbucks and then was back for breakfast. Then every morning we had our quite time following our quite time was Praise and Worship and class. We learned the first day on the ABC's of Evangelism. Basically three basic steps to ministering to someone. Following that was lunch and then following lunch was a scavenger hunt. We were in the city of Los Angeles. Talking with people, sloving riddles, and putting into practice of what we learned that morning. We made it back just in time for dinner, then after dinner we got a tour of the Hollywood/Beverly Hills area. We were dropped off in West Hollywood where we were told to pray over that particular part of the city. Then we were picked back up were shown the Beverly Hills part of town and then were dropped off on Hollywood Blvd for time to minister to people. The North Carolina group had two human video skits that they did on Hollywood Blvd. What guts that must have took! Then we headed back to the Oasis building for debreif and then bed. What a first day it was. I thought it was a start to a very long week.
June 22nd - Getting the hang of things! The second day I was finally getting the hang of things. I just had to get out of the confined box I was in. The box of "no one's going to like me because of who I represent." I was pulled out of that box all week long and my youth leader kept having to remind me, that I was never going to see these people again. So who cares if they think I'm crazy. Let them. It's their loss not yours. So we all were headed to Vience and Santa Monica beach that day. I tried to out of that box but every time I did, I got rejected. So I pretty much gave up. I was with one of the ladies that went with us and I felt what we kept calling "the nudge" to go talk to this one girl at Vience beach. She was watching a bunch of guys skateboard at the skate park there and she was messing with her phone, so I smoothly go over there kinda sit down and ask her what kind of phone she had, and her response in an awkward voice, "It's a Blackberry." Now I'm thinking, "How am I going to keep this conversation going? What service? Every service has a Blackberry of some kind. Now we're thinking Halie." "So with what service?" I asked her. "Umm AT&T." I could see the awkwardness in her body language and her shaky voice. "So I know this werid," I told her "but let me tell you why I am here." "Okay.." she said very awkwardly. "I am from Sacramento and I am here on a missions trip with 23 other people." She started to understand now. We talked for a few more minutes, then I was joined by my ministry partner Kelly. Then thankfully for Kelly she kept the conversation alive. Then we prayed with this girl and went on our way. We met with the rest of our group and headed to Santa Monica Peir for dinner and then Third Street Promenade for some more ministry oppertunity. Well I just wasn't feeling it, I felt as if every time I talked to someone they would just reject me and I hadn't brought God into the conversation at all. Well Kelly and I were still minister partners and well my feet were killing me. (Apparently they aren't walking shoes what I was wearing and the box said that they were smart shoes. Not smart at all.) So I am going to sit down and this guy was too. It was like a race to get to out chairs. That "race" ened with a 40-45 minute interesting conversation. You could tell this guy was anger. Kelly did all the talking because I was not going to lash out in anger with this guy. All I did was pray for Kelly, that she had the right words to say. She put up a killer arguement with this guy I must say. After that interesting and long conversation we met back up with the group and headed back to the Oasis for debreif and bed. The next day was going to be longer than the day before.
June 23rd - My eyes were opened and my heart was touched at Skidrow! How many homeless people are in the city of Los Angeles? The correct answer: 90,000. Just in the city of Los Angeles. Skidrow is where the government is trying to push them too. Well me and both teams headed that way to feed and minister to them. About 2,000 hamburgers were cooked and wrapped and WOW Jam was there doing their outreach. Well after wrapping a lot of hamburgers, we were out on the streets of Skidrow ministering to people. Well at one point during the outreach there was this pushup competition between like 5 or so dads and then after the competition, the main speaker guy was like, "A lot of dad's get the horrible sterotype of things get bad and they just leave." The guy said some more things but this blog post is already getting pretty lengthy and I still have more to cover. Anyway, it went into a serious ministering time on the streets of Skidrow. It was amazing to see all these people give their lives to Christ. It was a rough day, however when we left the day wasn't over yet. We still were going to go out to Hollywood Blvd again and to some outreach and this is where an amazing twist of God's mercy and love took place. That night I was on the streets of Hollywood Blvd and I almost went into a complete panic attack because a little thought that started Saturday morning became a big thought by Wednesday night. That thought was, "You can go and try and lead other people to Christ that you don't even know, but you can't even lead your own father to Christ?" I sat on the steps of the subway on Hollywood Blvd and ended up going back early after pounding my fist into a subway information sign. Two people took me back and Kelly was one of them when we got up to the dorm room and she was like, "Ok what's wrong? You can talk to me." So I told her that thought and then she proceeded to convince me for the next 40 minutes that I need to call my dad and talk to him. So finally what convinced me? Well remember earlier in the post where I said that we went to Knott's Berry Farm? Well Kelly is like deathly afraid of roller coasters with a huge drop (I am too) so she said this, "If there was a ten minute wait in that line, I wouldn've chicked out, but I got on that ride and didn't think about it until it was too late. The same concept goes for you, you've got 30 seconds. 30 seconds to be scared and then he's going to pick up and then you have no choice, but to talk to him." Well it was almost 11pm and as I picked up that phone to call him I literally was praying, "Let me get his voicemail, let me get his voicemail." Well he picked up and I talked to him and after that cried into Kelly's chest and then told a few people what happened and then went to bed. Kelly still tells me how proud she is of me.
June 24th - A lighter day! Well during Praise and Worship the next day, the lady preaching had us pray over one another because of the drained day at Skidrow the day before. Then she ministered then there was lunch and then we were split up into three different groups. The Sactown group however was split up into two groups. The three groups were, Kidz Klub, Pershing Square, and Union Station. Two of the Sactown people went to Kidz Klub and the rest of us were up at Pershing Square. I was now paired up with Bruno, who he and I passed out tracks pretty much the whole time. Then after dinner at Echo Park we headed into an amazing church service at Angelus Temple which is accociated with the Dream Center in Los Angeles. Then after the service we all went back to the Oasis building and the North Carolina group went out to Hollywood Blvd to minister while the Sactown group stayed behind and practiced our skit for the following night. Then we called it a night, a much lighter last two days.
June 25th - Last day of ministry with the Oasis Urban School of Evangelism! So not much planned for the day. We got to sleep in! Which was a total plus. We had brunch and then quiet time at the obserbetory of the Hollywood sign. There was where God worked on my heart and got me ready for that night at Club Zion. So after that we headed back to the Oasis building for a snack and then our last outreach on Hollywood Blvd. Which we were singing Worship songs on Hollywood Blvd. Which shortly after that we were shut down and asked to leave. So some of us were in the mall trying to find that oppertunity to minister one last time on the streets of Los Angeles. Then Kelly and I went sovenior shopping for our family back home. Then headed back to the Oasis building to get ready for Club Zion which is a teen club that they do every Friday night. Club Zion was the end of our ministring in Hollywood. We did a skit for it and it was funny and powerful. Apparently 80 teens and 3 groups of ministers were there to see it. It really got me outside of my comfort zone. Club Zion ended at 11pm and I was already not wanting to say goodbye to the North Carolina folks. It was probably one of my hardest goodbyes ever, they barely knew me and they pretty much new my story. I opened up to some of them and really shared my heart. We did however share our good shares of laughs packing that night. A girl who is a bit OCD neatly packed my bag. It was a bitter sweet night.
June 26th - The real missions trip starts! Headed home! That morning as I got ready to go, I embraced myself for a bitter sweet goodbye. We all knew we were going to keep in touch via facebook. However we shared some precious memories together. One's that I'd never forget. The hardest thing for was, I had to say the first goodbye. I was headed to breakfast with my daddy. Which was pretty important. So I said goodbye to them, while some tears shed from my eyes. Had breakfast with my daddy that morning though. It was the first time that I actually saw true happiness from within him. After breakfast I sat and watched the rest of my team eat and then we headed back to Sactown.
As you can see by the long post, it was a life changing week. If you made it this far, thank you. Sorry for the length of the post, but I wanted to break it down for you a little, so you can feel what I felt. There is so much more. Maybe in the next few posts I can break it down for you a little more, just not quite as long as this one. (:
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