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!