Reflections on my Spring Break.

I was once asked what my favorite attribute of God was. Grace? Love? Power? Justice? I answered, "His sense of humor. I love how God possesses this pure, divine sense of humor that takes a lot of getting used to and requires one to pay a lot of attention, or you might just miss it."

To set up the story, let me give you some background: over spring break, I drove with seven other CCU students and one professor down to Los Angeles to help out with several ministries on Skid Row.* We left here Friday the 27th and spent a week and some days in LA, serving at Hope Again, Set Free, and the Dream Center. While there, I was doing what's called an "e-fast," which is basically fasting from anything electronic.** I therefore took notes and wrote down thoughts in a notebook. Looking over it today, having arrived late last night, I decided to blog a little about what I experienced. Enjoy.


-I wonder how much impact I have on the world. Like many things in life, I think that answer to this has to do with a balance. by this, I mean that way too many people in the world think, "I am one person among billions. I have no impact. I will live my life as such." I consider this to be one of the saddest states of mind ever. Yet at the same time, someone would be foolish to think that they alone posses the power and skills to impact the world in whatever way they want. As I experienced Skid Row, I thought about how much sway I could possibly have on this world. I re-realized that the world isn't always changed by professionals or experts. It's changed by people who want. To. Do. Something.

-How do they know it's winter in Southern California? I asked several locals about the weather patterns and received a lot of the same answers; "Well, January is pretty much like it is now (gestures to the blue skies and 65 degree weather,) We get some rain and cold winds occasionally, but it pretty much stays the same." I'm not a fan of the winter, but now that I think about it, it would be kinda disconcerting to not be able to tell what time of year it is strictly by the weather.

-Do people in cities realize the beauty around them? I think it's a more subtle brand of beauty, but it's beauty all the same. I sat on the curb outside Hope Again*** one night and just listened to the sounds for a while. I realized I was sitting in the middle of millions and millions of stories, all swirling around me, emanating from buildings or streets or cars, but most importantly people. Stories so unbelievably different from one another save for a few things. Looking up, smog and light pollution formed a bubble-like shell around the enormous city. Yet I could see planes and helicopters, high rises and antennas. Raw, unadulterated humanity spilled from every corner, every window, every desolate alleyway in the huge maze that was LA. A different kind of beauty, but beauty all the same.

-I met a man named Lenny who was the cook at a church we visited.**** After the day's work was done, Lenny took time to explain to use something about his kitchen. "You see this?" He said, pointing with his elbow to the kitchen. The floors and countertops were immaculate, everything was stored neatly away, and no obstructions burdened the floor. "You know I keep it this way? Because I want to be sure that if Jesus ever walks in and asks to eat with me, I'll be ready. I want to be sure that if He comes in and is hungry, that I can treat Him like the King He is." I realize how much of my stuff I treat with a lack of respect because, well, it's mine. But what if Jesus ever came to my apartment and asked to spend the night? Would I be ashamed to let him see my room? Hmmmm....

-As it happens, you need a lot more than 8 bottles of food coloring to dye Biola's fountain. Either that, or the water doesn't flow in a complete circle - from the bottom straight to the top - and goes out of the system somewhere along the line. Who'd have thought?

-I went to somewhere around twelve church services during my week in LA, and noticed some interesting things about each. During services in Skid Row, I felt a strange feeling throughout. When I attended Mosaic,^ I found the feeling was absent. At first I thought the feeling was nervousness... At Mosaic, I wasn't sitting next to a 40 year old man who smelled of alcohol or a woman in and out of consciousness due to some drug. But I came to the realization that it wasn't nerves at all. It was a sense of Biblical belonging. Let me explain... In the book of Acts and throughout the other books of the New Testament, the Church is almost always the audience. Paul writes to critique or encourage the Church, and the book of Acts even takes a lot of time to describe the Church. Yet I had never really experienced a church like the Church of the New Testament. I hadn't realized this until this week, but it seems like a lot of modern churches have slowly gotten away from the original intent of Church. Now, don't hear me saying that modern churches are evil or whatever. They've just changed. And going through a Church service down on Skid Row, where the music or the lighting or the attendance or the location honestly DIDN'T matter, I realized the extreme likeness of those churches to the Church of the Bible. And I loved it. I'm still unpacking what exactly made those services so different, but I can tell you right off that the most noticeable thing was the openness. I guess when people realize that money or clothes or social status or whatever don't really change that fact that we're all human and we're all experiencing life, they can let go of their self-centered privacy and really open their lives to others' help and encouragement.


Thanks for reading,

-Daniel K



*Skid Row is an area near downtown LA, known for the nation's highest concentration of homeless persons. Interestingly enough, it's also about eight miles from Beverly Hills.
**This included, but was not limited to, my cellphone, iPod, computer, any TV and even my watch.
***That's where we stayed during the week. It's kinda like a halfway home for people getting our of prison or off the streets and back into the flow of society.
****Yeah, the church had a cook. It's pretty necessary when they serve thousands of pounds of food each week to whoever wants to indulge.
^This is Erwin McManus' church, who is a moderately famous author and Christian speaker. It's held in a nightclub called The Mayan, and as such has a full array of lights, a top-notch sound system, and an incredible ambiance. It attracted a lot of white, middle to upper-class attendees.