Los Angeles

University of Texas at San Antonio Baptist Student Ministry

Los Angeles: A Journey of Love, Hope and Faith

So we've been back for four days, thinking, processing and praying. What does this mean for us? How do we use principles that we saw in action, how do we transfer lessons that we learned, how do we keep that humbleness when real life sets in?

The God that was at work on Skid Row and at the Dreamcenter and in the poor neighborhoods of Los Angeles is at work in the streets of San Antonio. God loves San Antonians as much as He loves Los Angelians. AND, furthermore, we didn't accidentally end up in San Antonio. God has placed us here for a reason. And He sent us to Los Angeles for a reason.
I pray that we take what we learned and experienced there and keep remembering it. He is good and He showed us a lot of neat things while we were there.

We talked about failure, a theme that kept recurring over the week. Sometimes failure is necessary to move on. We are not always going to be successful when serving God. But the difference is that He can make something beautiful out of the broken and messy. We learn. We grow.
One thing that Brittany said that was just a beautiful picture of what we saw was last Sunday when we were talking after church. She said, 'Los Angeles is a beautiful city. Once you get inside though, it is hectic and messy and broken, just like the people.' She went on to say how her and David had fallen in love with the city and the people of Los Angeles. And we could see their love by the heart that they had as they shared their experiences and their refusal to settle for less than what God had called them to, even if others thought they were crazy.