Thank you to my parents for pampering me for my birthday!!!
I just spent a much-needed getaway weekend with my family. They live in a well-lit quiet community of southwest Bakersfield, CA (2 hours north of us). This evening I arrived home in East Hollywood where the street lamps don’t provide as much lighting as they do in southwest Bakersfield, a car won’t stop honking in front of my apartment, ghetto birds (helicopters) are hovering in the distance, intimidating-looking young people are gathered on front steps and smoking bongs – I nod to one of them as I pass by and pray for an opportunity to know him (never give up on God’s prodigals).
Meanwhile a grandma is trimming her flower garden and she tells me about her undying love for her grandaughter.
I give plums (picked off my parent’s tree) to six Guatemalan ladies and introduce myself to them in Spanish. They love the plums and tell me I look too young to have be married 11 years and have three sons… they also think Meri and I should try for a girl!
I can see multiple Latino families pushing strollers and going for their usual dusk-time walks – I love this tradition.
A family we are sharing Christ with has just expressed their excitement to get back into God’s word together now that we’ve returned.
…Ah, I’m back in the hood and it feels so good!