Today has been yet another incredible day here in the city of Angels! Our morning started out with the entire class eating together for the first time since Monday morning. Breakfast consisted of the best kind of muffins (Costco brand), cereal, pop tarts, and fruit. We debriefed what we were able to experience yesterday while we were eating breakfast. A lot of people spoke on our time at the Self-Realization Fellowship and our time getting to walk the “strip” at Hollywood Boulevard. At about 8:15 we left for our first stop of the day!
As we made our way to the L.A. food bank our van had a slight detour and we ended up at a different location for the food bank, which meant that we had some extra time in the car. Fortunately for all of us students, Sam, our van driver, has an excellent taste in music and we got to jam out and get pumped up before volunteering at the food bank for a few hours. Working at the bank was such an incredible opportunity for us as a class. Immediately we got divided into teams and each of us were placed on the assembly line in different places- everyone had a job and a purpose and we got to work together as a team! At the end of our time volunteering we ate a real simple lunch all together and got to fellowship around the break tables. One of the head ladies of the food bank came to thank us and she told us that we made food bags for 2,110 kids and 510 bags for the senior citizens. It was such an awesome experience getting to hear how many kids and people in general we were able to help provide food support for. After lunch we made our way to Santa Monica to walk around and talk with some more people.
As we arrived at Santa Monica we were told that we had until 6 to talk with people and to get our own dinner. Regina and I made our way all the way to the end of the Santa Monica pier where we sat down with a super rad guy from Italy named Luka. We were watching some street performers and joined him sitting on some steps nearby and slowly we were able to engage him more and more in conversation. After talking with him for a while we made our way back to the beginning of the pier. While on our way we cam across this man who was dressed as a monk and was meditating on the side of the pier. After talking with Bob and Jeff, Gina and I decided that it would be a really cool opportunity to talk with the man if he would let us. in order to get up our confidence we got some coffee and made our way to him while he was meditating. After startling him out of his trance we were able to engage in a very interesting conversation about mediation and Buddhism as well as creation and even Obama, at the end of our conversation he told us that his name was Raul- it was one of the more interesting conversations that we were able to have while here. After Gina and I ate dinner we decided to have one last conversation with these two ladies standing at a bible kiosk- it turns out that they were Jehovah witnesses. After engaging them in conversation for a little while we heard what some of their beliefs were and how they differed from ours beliefs as Christians even though according to them they are Christians. I definitely feel like I need to learn a little more about some of these other religions so that I can understand where other people are coming from and what their mindsets are. After our brief conversation with the two women we met back up with our group and though we were going to be heading back to the church for the night, but we thought wrong!
As we drove away from the Sears parking lot, Sam informed us that she had a surprise for us and that we were going an adventure! It turns out that all of the van groups went on their own adventures this evening but let me tell ya, our van adventure was most definitely the best of them all! I really wish I could inform you all of the specific details of our excursion, but we have been sworn to secrecy! All I can say is I had the best street tacos tonight that I’ve had since Mexico! Tomorrow is our last day in L.A., which is really sad because it has been such an incredible week filled with learning about people and getting to build incredible relationships with people both inside and outside of the Joshua program!
– Colby
L.A. 2017 – Thursday from Joshua Wilderness Institute on Vimeo.