Thursday, aka Busyday

I got to HPC at 8:30am, a little later than I wanted to arrive. As soon as I reached the front door Ulysses, the gentleman who *lives* at Park Chapel, opened it for me and said that J.C. had told him I was coming and that he'd be a bit late. There were 50 or so pizzas to cook and I had no idea what the "right" way to do it. So I did it my way. By the time J.C. arrived I had all but 10 pizzas cooked and all we had to do was box them up again. Nate Landis invited me to go with him to San Diego High School for their bible club and I gladly joined him. It was interesting walking into a school that was so unlike the one I went to (I graduated from a high school in rural Kansas with a whopping 36 students in my class). The diversity, the size of the campus, the gates and guards, the schools with in a school all we so different from what I had experienced. The club was full with around 40 students and 6 adults in one classroom. Nate talked about loving and turning the other cheek. He used the powerful example of the Amish school shooting a few years ago. The Amish set up a fund for the family of the man who killed their children. They didn't sue them. They didn't rail against them. They helped them. It's amazing. The students were very quiet while Nate spoke. That also was amazing.

Robert, Mindy & Rochelle and I went to Perkins Elementary in Logan Heights. There were 25 or more students that we tried to help do their homework. We played Ultimate Ball, like Ultimate Frisbee but with a ball instead. All the students called us "coach" or "teacher." Not very many of the students actually had homework, or at least that's what they told us. I did get to help a second grader with his reading which was great because it has been a while since I've tutored in reading and he was a really good reader.


From Perkins we went back to Park Chapel for their homeless dinner. I didn't get to stay for very long but almost all the seats were full and there were almost as many volunteers as there were homeless. I hope that next week I won't have to leave so soon.