Great Service day today in Compton

We had another wonderful day today serving in Compton, California. We were put in touch with Emmanuel Reformed Church in Paramount, California.  The church is located near the Compton area and their pastor is Mr. Ken Korver.  One of their ministries is called the Compton initiative. One of their big events is coming up in a couple weeks and they will have at least 1500 volunteers on that day to paint, clean, and restore homes in the Compton community.  This is a ministry that has really grown over the years.

We were used to do some prep work on a couple homes to prepare for that big event. We met at Emmanuel church with our leaders Jeudy and Tyler and picked up supplies for the day. Their supply warehouse has many ladders, paint, tools, etc for the many volunteers who come to work with their program. 

After we loaded up the equipment, we split up into two groups.  One group started out at the warehouse organizing and setting up some storage shelves. We sent both vans to different houses to begin working. One of the houses was for a lady named Linda. The work there involved mostly using ladders and scraping old paint and prepping it for painting. We also used power washers to clean and prepare the houses.  Linda was a very nice lady and was appreciative of the help. After clean up, our group jumped in the vans to join our other group at the next house. 

The other house belonged to a man named Miles. At his place the job was similar but a bit more work. As our group arrived, the other group was already hard at work.  There was twice as much work here, but we also had twice the manpower.  Because of this, more ladders and equipment were brought to the site.  This area of Compton was pretty unique in the fact that many of the houses also had live animals such as chickens, goats, horses, etc in the back yards. 

Our men were hard at work doing many of the same things. the guys also spent a lot of time clearing overgrown brush from the back yard area. 

We took a short break for lunch and this was also a very powerful time as we had the pleasure of hearing from another Godly man named Pastor Arnoldo. He shared his story about living in Orange County in a gated community.  He and his wife felt a strong calling from God and Arnoldo became the pastor of one of the church plants from Emmanuel right in the middle of Compton and followed the call and moved his wife and two young kids into the Compton area. The area where they started their ministry was well known for gang activity and he shared how the neighborhood is beginning to see a change. He shared many examples of daily ministries where God's love is being shown to the community.  His story was very inspirational and we talked about listening to the voice of God.  

Our other leader Juedy had a very similar story.  As he is one of the main leaders of the Compton initiative, he also followed the call and went from living in a safe and comfortable place to a more difficult one in Watts and now actually in Compton where he serves daily. 

Once again we were the ones who were blessed today. Pastor Arnoldo thanked us for actually giving a part of our lives today. This was true and we may have been serving, but really it was a powerful learning experience for us.

The homeowner Miles was was very appreciative and thanked us for our help.  We went home for dinner and devotions to process the days events.  We are so thankful once again to be able to be used to Serve. This has been an extremely rewarding experience.