It has been two more busy weeks...I can't believe it is already the end of May! Before I start the update, I'd like to wish a VERY happy birthday to my sister Emily. She is home from St. Joe's for the summer and preparing to embark on her own adventures abroad in the fall.

First, an update on the activities at Casa DK. Last weekend I joined Julie on a service trip with Verb students to St. Francis Center. You might recall that I took a group of Urban Compass kids there earlier this year to serve lunch.  Instead of serving a meal this time, we assisted with the pantry program. First we sorted and packages produce and cans of food and then assisted in setting up and distributing all the food donations grocery-store style in the main room of the center.

After the service trip, we joined the LA JVs at Casa Maura Clark for a BBQ to "prepare for the rapture." I'm sure you heard about Harold Camping's end of the world theory. Obviously, our party was a mockery of his prediction, but we enjoyed the good weather, pinata, and dancing to R.E.M.'s "It's the End of the World As We Know It." Unfortunately, CMC has some very cranky neighbors who insisted on calling the cops multiple times because we were playing music outside (at 3pm...). The first time they stopped by they even said they couldn't hear the music from the front of the house, but the neighbor was quite persistent and the police came back a few hours later and told us to go home. Ironically enough, we got home and our own neighbors were bumpin' tunes til the wee hours of the morning.

On Sunday, all the JVs reunited for a worship service at Emily L.'s church. Emily is an active member at a United Church of Christ community in Hollywood, and was giving the sermon on Sunday! She was absolutely brilliant and delivered not only a beautiful sermon but also a spoken word piece that she had written about prayer. Emily will start her time at seminary in the fall and plans to become a pastor in the UCC! She has a beautiful calling and gift.

After church, we all headed to the Jesuit Novitiate in Culver City where Jesuit Novices in the CA province live during their first two years of formation.  The first-years had invited us for a BBQ so we spent the afternoon chatting with them. This year I have learned all about the process of becoming a Jesuit from the novices who work at Verb. All the novices we know are about to begin a summer full of traveling, studying, and retreats, so it was great to hang out with them before they take off since we most likely won't see them again!

This past Friday, we said goodbye to one of the Jesuit novices from Verb, David, since it was his last day of work there. He took a bunch of us to a taco truck near his community at Loyola High School, and then we proceeded to a Karaoke joint in Little Tokyo. We had our own private room for three hours; it was an absolute blast! We sang our faces off to everything from Cee-Lo Green and Pink to Rod Stewart and Tool. Learning about the experience of a Jesuit has been really insightful, especially since David is practically my age.  It was a sad goodbye, and probably the first of many, but David is off to do some really special work and I have been grateful for the chance to get to know him. 

The world of Urban Compass has been pretty quiet and stable...until Friday. One of our students brought a knife to school and was ratted out by a girl in his class who is also in our program. I'm not exactly sure of the events during the school day, but he didn't get sent home was was ticked that she had snitched. I've never seen such a seething look an anyone's face. After talking to both of them, Theresa and I were able to calm the situation a bit and they were getting along fine during Urban Compass. We assured her that she did the right thing, and tried to understand why he brought the weapon. Come time to go home, however, something triggered his anger. He was trying to get at her, and Theresa and I did everything we could to keep them apart. We ended up walking her to her mom and him to his house in the projects, and were only able to get him to walk home - and not to the girl's house - by convincing him that HE should be the one to tell his parents. It was really scary and emotional because he has made SO much progress with us this year. We're still not sure what will happen with him at school, but whatever it is will probably not be good.  It's days like this that remind me of the reality of where our students live and I recognize the blessing that Urban Compass - a safe, loving place - is for them.

That's about it for now...Happy Memorial Day!

"I love my life!"

In the two weeks since my last post, this catchphrase has been used a lot around our house. Julie is known to exclaim it sporadically when really exciting stuff is going on, and it seems we’ve had a lot to be excited about lately. I don’t want to brag, but I do want to share how blessed I feel to be here in LA with these great people and fun things to do!

Cinco de Mayo: After an afternoon of Maraca making with my kiddos at Urban Compass, we went over to the JD house for a Cinco de Mayo dinner party. We brought trays upon trays of leftover food from teacher appreciation week luncheons at Verb, and John Don made a fantastic two-layer cake for Zach’s birthday. Highlights of the evening included their 4 year old next-door neighbor bursting into the house yelling “NEIGHBORS!” at the top of his lungs, and then running around the house to check on the “girl neighbors” and the “boy neighbors” who lived there.  Hilarious.  Also, one of the JV’s parents were in town and I talked with them about just how small the world is; they live in the town next to a couple of my BC roommates and know their parents from high school and summer camp!

Party like a USC Trojan:  The next night, we began our week-long quest to party like a USC Trojan, class of 2011.  USC’s graduation was this weekend, so the neighborhood has been swarmed with families and graduating seniors. Since everyone assumes we go to USC too, we embraced this by hitting up their favorite bar on Friday night. We danced so much that we probably would have embarrassed ourselves, but since not a single person knows us, we didn’t care one bit. It was as packed as Mary Ann’s on a Tuesday night, and we loved every second of it.  The following evening we met up with some of Julie’s friends who live on the west side near UCLA for dinner and karaoke at a very weird Japanese seated bar. It was one of the stranger experiences of being in LA, but fun nonetheless. Earlier in the day, Julie and I spent the afternoon with the ladies from Verb for a little wine/cheese party. It was fun to see people from work in a very different context!

No patience for “the industry”: On Sunday, we rallied and went back to USC for a taping of Simon Cowell’s new show, The X Factor .We were excited to get in and see auditions, but after waiting in line for two hours with no sign of movement towards the door, we bailed. After being harassed by some people for being “quitters” (we didn’t care one bit) we walked across the street to the newest burrito joint and enjoyed a delicious lunch on the house. (That’s what we say when we charge something fun to our house account…it’s a treat!)

UC Report: This past week at work was Mr. Marcus’s last week with us. He has worked with us part time in the afternoons since September to help out with the kids, but he just got a full-time job after a year of searching! We had a little goodbye party on Friday! Otherwise the week at work wasn’t too eventful; the kids had standardized testing all week so they were CRAZY and had very little homework, but we had fun.

Best. Weekend. Ever.:  On Friday after work, Casa DK headed to a Mexican restaurant around the corner from us that had $3 margaritas for happy hour. We thought that it would be crowded because of USC’s graduation, but we were able to get in and hang out for a while. The food was awesome, and we are certainly glad we found somewhere so fun and close to our house!

On Saturday morning, Julie, Zach and I got up early to help cook for Verb’s Mother/Son Breakfast. We didn’t get to hear much of the prayer service or reflection because we were busy cooking, but we heard the boys were super sweet!  Along with the “God Squad” (Verb’s Campus Ministry team) we helped prepare a hot breakfast for over 70 people. It was a blast!

JVs + Verb God Squad before ZBB

Later that afternoon, Casa DK met up with some members of the “God Squad” again at the Jesuit Residence at Loyola High School, which is where the Verb Jesuits live. We brought everything we needed for a tailgate, because we were spending the afternoon preparing for the Zac Brown Band concert at the Hollywood Bowl! We grilled and hung out for a few hours, then headed North to one of the coolest concert venues I’ve ever seen. The Hollywood Bowl is a natural amphitheater, tucked in between the Hollywood hills. It’s beautiful! The concert was absolutely amazing and we had such a fun group to share it with. Obviously ZBB was awesome live, and we had been listening to his new album on the way to work all week so we were ready to sing along. A highlight was definitely when he did a cover of a John Mayer song (Neon!), as well of – of course – when he played Chicken Fried. Who doesn’t love that dong!? We kept the dance party going in the parking lot for almost two hours after the show in the parking lot, long after all the other cars had cleared out. 

To top off these two weeks, we spent yesterday afternoon at Redondo Beach near the Jesuit Villa.  The Scholastics from Verb took Julie, Zach, and John surfing! They had so much fun. I watched for a little then took a very solid nap on the beach, before nearly being attacked by the seagulls who were eying up our popcorn. Talk about a rude awakening….

 

Anyway, all in all, Julie’s right when she says “I love my life.” I am surrounded by great people who are up for anything, and who love their work. It has been nice to hang out with people from Verb outside of work because we’ve gotten to know them a lot better. Now that the clock is ticking on our time here we are trying to do as many “LA things” as possible…and we’re definitely enjoying every bit of it!

Coming Soon

My hope is to transition to this blog by the middle of the summer.  Here you will find all the blog posts from my time in Ecuador and Los Angeles.

Next up will be adventures and reflections from Costa Rica, where I will be living and serving from August 2011 to July 2012. 

My hope is that one URL can provide you (and me!) access to all my past and future stories in one, easy to remember place.  As always, THANK YOU for following along!

Happy Easter!

I hope you had a wonderful Easter! 

After silent retreat, I had Thursday and Friday off since my kids were still on Spring Break. On Thursday night, I went to Holy Thursday services at a nearby parish that I hadn’t been to before. The service was really nice, with inspirational music and a former Jesuit pastor. 

Good Friday morning was perhaps the most aggravating morning of my 8 months in Los Angeles. (Very) Long story short, John and I had to reassemble our kitchen because the landlord put in a new floor while we were gone. Yes, a new floor is nice, but white tile gets DIRTY fast and SHATTERS everything. So far we’ve lost a salt shaker, 3 bowls, and a wine glass. Yes, we need to be more careful, but it’s frustrating! I miss the gross linoleum… Anyway, after that rather annoying morning, Julie and I went to a Good Friday service at the Our Lady of Angeles cathedral downtown. The service was nice, but felt kind of impersonal because it is just such a large space. 

On Sunday, we went to Gospel Mass at the church down the street! It was perhaps the BEST way to celebrate Easter I can imagine. The joyful music and the lively congregation were so inspirational, and celebrating Easter with about 20 JVs was just so cool. There’s no better way to say it – it was a really nice morning. Afterward, we had everyone (about 30 JVs!) over to Casa DK for brunch. Everyone brought food and John Don dominated in the kitchen. It was a lovely day . I realized this is my third consecutive Easter away from home, and as much as I miss celebrating with my family, I’ve had some really unique experiences. I was in Peru on Easter Sunday two years ago, and at BC with some wonderful friends last year.

 

 Along the side you'll see Casa DK with our guest of honor, Jacques, and LMU student and leader of the De Colores trip that we have all been on!  Below is some of the JV crew celebrated with us.

And finally, after we, the ladies of DK, gave up meat for Lent, we celebrated Easter with lots of Julie's favorite food: Bacon! In the back, John Don dominating the eggs. He was the all-star chef of the day!

This week we had low attendance at Urban Compass. There was stuff going on at the school and I think the kids needed to get back in the groove of things after their break. It was nice for me, though, because I was under the weather, so chasing after 15 munchkins instead of 40 was a relief! On Friday we said goodbye to the guys who volunteer from LMU with a little party.  I made them finals care packages and we said our goodbyes for the school year. They are a fantastic group and have really bonded with the kids over the course of the school year. Friday’s just won’t be the same without them! Tonight we “appreciated” some of our other volunteers with a dinner here at DK. We had four of our regular volunteers come over, and also two of the FJVs who lived in DK last year and work at verb. It was a really nice evening with lots of appreciation going on. Thanks to my roommates for their help in getting the casa ready for the party!