God is love and love is God part 3

(via Dream Center)

In the midst of the worst times of their lives they were encouraging me. They were speaking God 's word to me, scripture after scripture. Telling me to dream.

 

That was unbelievable to me. How could some be so happy and upbeat when they were living like this?

 

THEY were still trusting God. They told me God wasn't done with them yet and God still had a plan.

 

That was so powerful to me.

 

Some days when I'm down and feeling blue, it can sometimes be hard for me to be that positive. Especially when I'm grumpy.

 

So how is it that people who lost everything, LIVING ON THE STREETS surrounded by urine everywhere, drug addicted and hungry can tell me that God is good!?

 

When you really sit back and think about it, on our grumpiest, bad days... God is good.

God is still God.

 

He never changes. 

 

Our day to day lives are always changing but God is always the same. Always loving us. Always wanting our attention.

 

Seeing these people living in their cardboard boxes and laying on the side walk with their trash piled around them was hard. It was eye opening.

 

Street after street. Sidewalk after sidewalk..

 

It made my heart ache.

 

Their faces and words of encouragement will forever be in my heart.

 

So remember, your worst day is someone else's dream life and even living on the streets they still love God and they still can smile.

 

Be thankful for what you have and praise God for the good and bad.

 

 

 

 

God is Love and Love is God part 2

I am being reminded daily of the amazing acts of kindness and love that the people of the Dream Center showed to others. The compassion and willingness to help was also overwhelming. The love was seriously in the air. You could feel it. People from all over the world was there giving their time to help the needy. I was able to chat with people from Australia, Switzerland, Sweden, London, Poland and many others!

One of the days that I was there we headed out to skid row to hot serve meals to the homeless. Hundreds lined up and the amazing thing was that they could come through the line as many times as they wanted.

There were so many different types of people in line. My job was to walk around and talk to the homeless as they stood in line and also where they were sitting down to eat. If you know me, then you know I'm pretty shy when it comes to people I don't know. This was so far out of my comfort zone. I had wanted to serve food but God had other plans.

As I walked down the line I started with handing out flyers to let them know that there are buses that will pick them up, take them to church then drop them back off at skid row every week.

I said Hi, flashed them a smile, asked if they got a paper already and walked on. After a few minutes my shyness was really starting to bother me. I told myself that these people needed more than just that.

I started asking them how their day was going. Some said good, some said they were just hanging in there and so happy to get some food.

There were young and old and all races, all from different parts of life. Some in business suits down on their luck. Some with nothing. Some used to have it all and had lost everything. Now they found themselves in line for a free meal.

I saw a young chinese guy, probably around 20 years old. He had just gotten his plate of food and was trying to find a place to sit.

I walked over to him and asked him how he was. I smiled and he said "not good." I then asked why. He said he was alone and scared. I asked him where His parents were and how he got on the horrible streets of L.A. He then began to tell me his story....

You see his parents brought him to America and left him on the streets then went back to China. He said "they don't want me or love me anymore." "They told me to never come home. They don't love me." I asked him if he wanted to go home and he said so bad.

He then dropped his little tiny bag of chips that he was given with his meal and said, "oh no, oh no," as he picked them up. "These chips are like gold to me, it's like I won the lottery."

My heart sank. I thought to myself... it's just chips.... but to him they were everything.

I continued to talk with him then it hit me. I had to tell him....

"God has big plans for you. You weren't meant to be here on the streets but God is going to turn everything around for His glory. Everything you are experiencing is for a greater testimony. If you just say yes to Jesus, man, He will turn your life upside down. When you are scared, call on Him. When you are lonely, call of Him. He is going to take care of you. You are going to go home and God will provide you with a way. You wait and see. When you knock on your parent's door and they are going to love you and have their arms wide open. With God all things are possible. There are bigger and better things and God wants you to start dreaming again. Dream BIG.

He started to cry.

"God loves you. He loves you so much."

I told him to sit down and relax. He was safe and to enjoy his food.

I looked at him one last time in the eyes and said DREAM BIG.

It was amazing to me that I just spoke hope into his life and revived this boys dreams.

God was using me.

I will never forget that guys face. Lost and hopeless and the moment I spoke Hope, his eyes started to sparkle again.

He was just one of many that I talked to.

Be sure to check back next week for more!

God is love and love is God part 1

About 2 weeks ago I was privileged enough to go on a mission trip to the DREAM CENTER in Los Angeles, Ca. It was the most incredible experience of my life. It has forever changed the way I think about people and how God really does love us.

The Dream Center is an amazing outreach that started with one man's dream and a word from God, and that man is Matthew Barnett.

He purchased a hospital in the heart of Los Angeles and turned all of the hospital rooms into places where needy people could get their lives back on track.

Some of the programs and outreaches they have going on are rescuing girls and women from human trafficking. I just read on their Facebook that they rescue and take in over 275 girls and women a month! That is a huge amount of women who's lives will be forever changed.

Also, they go out with buses and go out into skid row in L.A to take in the homeless and addicted. If they choose to enter the rehab program then they are  given a room and also are able to go through their programs to get off of drugs and change their lives. Then most of the time those who were once addicted and lost give their lives to God and work at the Dream Center!

Another thing that they do is take food trucks out into the community and hand out food to the needy and feed the homeless. They also take buses out into neighborhoods, show them God's love and then fill the buses with adults and children and give them rides to church.


There are many other things that The Dream Center does and you can take a look at www.dreamcenter.org and they also have a facebook. Just type in The Dream Center in the search bar.

I really don't even know where to start with what I experienced. Some things were too heart breaking to even look at. There were moments when I cried, and cried REALLY hard. I was deeply sadden by suffering and hungry babies, filthy children who didn't have clothes that fit and lost homeless people of all ages.

One morning, we separated the food that was just dropped off and donated by Albertsons into  tons of grocery bags. We were basically grocery shopping with the donation pile for the families that were about to get their children taken away from CPS. CPS contacts the Dream Center and then the Dream Center is able to assist, give them what they need every week and help with the children, even teach the women how to clean and cook so they are able to keep their babies.

After we bagged up the groceries we headed out to each individual apartment to drop off groceries, diapers, wipes, baby toys and furniture and cleaning supplies.

I slowly walked up the stairs with a huge box of diapers in my hands and as I approached this woman's door you could smell the stench coming from her place. It smelled so bad. I did not know what I was about to see.

We knocked on the door and walked in slowly. I set the diapers down by the door next to the CPS worker that was observing the children.

I then realized as I looked around how small the studio apartment was. The whole place was as big as my bedroom. THE ENTIRE place. Including kitchen, bathroom and the living area was the bedroom.

In the living area there was a bunk bed with 2 twin beds stacked on top of each other. I looked at it and saw 5 small children sitting on the bed with a baby play pen next to the bunk bed with baby #6 in it. They were absolutely disgustingly filthy. The children smelled of rotten poop and potty.  I don't think they were not potty trained and would poop and pee their pants which was probably hardly cleaned.

I smiled and started talking to all the children as they all rushed around their baby sister in the play pen and looked at her.

I stepped closer and looked down at the baby girl no older than 5 months.

She was disgustingly filthy, smelled so bad and her clothes were black with dirt.

I stared at her for no more than a minute and excused myself out of the door.

I ran. I had to get away. I couldn't believe what I had just seen.

I burst into tears as images of that apartment kept flashing in my head.

The apartment was so disgusting. SO EXTREMELY SMALL for 6 kids plus the mom and mom was pregnant again.

They were kept in the tiny area all day every day with nothing to do. Not a lot to eat.

The baby girl made me think of my own 4 month old daughter. What if my kids had to live like that?

Crud smeared all over the walls and cabinets. Living in that rotten odor. Dirty clothes and hungry.

My heart couldn't handle that feeling. I was so heartbroken for those children. I wanted to take them all and bathe them, give them happy means and toys but I couldn't.

I just had to drop off what they needed and look at them while trying to smile.

The amazing things is that the Dream Center will be helping that family. They will be going once a week to clean the apartment and supply the mom with whatever she and the babies need.

The images of what I saw and experienced will forever be etched onto my heart.

Everyday at the dream center I saw the love of God working in action...

That was just the beginning of what I saw.

I can't wait to share more with you because there is so much more!