He is able to pass on what he has learned...
Almost ten years ago Edward started attending the S.A.Y. Yes! Center at Calvary Baptist Church in Compton. Edward came with a lot of pain. Just a few months prior, he was sleeping next to his grandmother as she passed away. His mother had been in and out of prison and he never had any true stability in his life. It was during a summer camping trip with the S.A.Y. Yes! Center that Edward really understood who Jesus was and how much He loved him. On that same trip Edward discovered how to search and use the scriptures for himself. A new world had been opened up for him! He absorbed all that he read and learned about his relationship with God.

Over the next few years, Edward then bounced from foster home to foster home and the Center would lose contact with him. However, he still held on to the truths that he had learned during those years in S.A.Y. Yes!

Edward just finished his junior year in high school and is already taking college summer courses at LA Harbor College. Today Edward left with the Calvary S.A.Y. Yes! Center and one team of the Here’s Life Inner City summer project for this summer’s camping trip. Now not only is he growing and experiencing more with God, he is able to pass on what he’s learned to the younger “Edwards” on the trip.

This year’s ‘Summer in the City’ project has 35 students from all around the country coming together to minister in inner city Los Angeles. Pray for them as they minister and pray for Edward and the rest of the inner city children they will be serving here in the next 7 weeks.

But you, O Lord, are a shield about me
I dropped Ramiro, a sophomore at Dominquez High School in Compton off at school this morning. We had just spent the last hour and a half in the bible wrestling with God's truth in assurance of salvation.

Ramiro has always been a 'thinker', he has always asked the deep spiritual questions from his time growing up in his S.A.Y. Yes! Center in Compton. Recently, he has really 'focused' (as he puts it) on his relationship with God more. His heart for trying to understand God's ways is truly inspiring to me.

It was when he closed the car door behind him and begun walking into the school parking lot when I heard the news on the radio about the drive-by shooting at Taft High School, in the middle class Los Angeles suburb of Woodland Hills. Three students had been shot and taken to the hospital. And there goes Ramiro, a live example of undeniable trust in the Lord, into an even worse war-zone at his school.

Then as I came into the office, I read in Psalm 3, "But you, O Lord, are a shield about me, My glory, and the One who lifts me head... (v. 3) I will not be afraid of ten thousands of people who have set themselves against me (v. 6).

Here in the city we have some many examples of God's people with unbelievable faith and trust in who Jesus says He is. Ramiro was that model for me today and each day, as he lives out his life here.

Please pray with us as we face some ministry obstacles here in the next few weeks;

- We were just notified from our main food source that there is no food available for our annual “Boxes of Love” program at Thanksgiving. This affects us in LA as well as the 5000 boxes we are to send to seven other HLIC cities.

Thank you for your prayers!