Venice Beach

6/27/05 -2

Our first day on our regular ministry schedule was a detour. The Los Angeles Mission double booked out teams and we didn’t have a site for the week, as of yet. We brainstormed and decided to go to Venice. I was concerned that this was going to be the same dry “beach reach” that I really just don’t get that excited about; however, Jen had a good idea. We threw together the idea for a board simply asking “Who do you think Jesus is?” To which people could respond with anything they wanted. It was a simple yet powerful way to get people thinking and pondering the truth. We raced to Wal-Mart (because most stores were already closed on Sunday night), got there four minutes before closing, and three minutes later we were in line with just about everything we needed.

I love Venice. I went there for the first time on Saturday and it was easily the highlight of my weekend, a sublime moment of peace before things got sticky. I was happy to go back. Many people I’ve found have an extremely narrow and negative conception of the typical member of the Venice crowd (some people on project have expressed it without realizing it). This is not unusual, particularly for suburban Christians. However, living in Austin placed me in the middle of a crowd that is very similar and certainly very “weird” but the standards of boring and normal people. I love them, even the weird ones. I love stoners, I love beach bums, I’m learning to love the homeless even though I really struggle with it, I love hippies and people with crazy ideas. I love people, simply, not all people, not yet, but I’m learning. I feel at home in Venice as much as I feel at home in Austin. Venice is to me what Santa Monica is to the suburban project members. It’s a place were I can go and relax and chill and think and be among interesting people in a fascinatingly beautiful and interesting setting.

We were back in Venice. We set up the table and despite the relative quietness of the boardwalk on a sleepy weekday, we got some good responses. We had a few good conversations, a few weird ones, admired the canvas of humanity around us, and got the chance to hand out free water to the same “bums” that I used to ollie five times while playing the Venice Beach level on Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2 when I was a few years younger and dreaming of someday traveling to Southern California.

As we packed up our stuff into the van late in the afternoon we came to a consensus that the day was certainly not a waste. We realized that we are a special group, very unified and very focused. While I had an “ideal” group in mind before the teams were selected, I am coming to realize that the truly ideal team is the one that I have been placed on. I could sense that the team shared my love for the people at Venice, and shared my desire to grow and become capable of showing even more love to those we encounter.

Returning to the house, the van inched along the 405 and then inched slightly faster on the 10. Johndon informed us that he had landed us a permanent ministry site for the remainder of the week. We will be working at the Salvation Army in Compton. This was welcome news. We had a good day but trying to improvise projects for the entire week would have been difficult. Following burritos at dinner, we drove over to the First EV Free church (a future site for our team) for our first “coffee house”…which was fun but enjoyable. The guys all put on a skit that was a funny satire of our visit to Judson Baptist the weekend previous. After returning to the house I talked to Juan and found out that I’m still short on support. Checks that I am expecting have still not arrived. It’s just something I’ll have to take care of. I was pretty mad but kept things under control and I’m not worried about it now.