The State of Our City
The overcast November skies are finally bring some relief to our fire ravished neighborhoods. This is a real answer to prayer. Many of our staff have been manning Red Cross shelters from Canoga Park to San Diego. I believe we will feel the effects of this huge disaster for a long time.

At the same time we are still under the crippling effects of two major labor strikes; the grocery clerks and the MTA mechanics. The latter being felt much more significantly in our inner city communities.

I was at Victory Baptist church in South Central the first week of the MTA strike and heard of a member there that had to pay $40 one way to get to work. So he probably worked till noon just to pay for his transportation to get there! Victory Baptist usually feeds 1000-1500 people every Friday, partly from the food the receive from our Resource Center. However, this day during the morning hours, I only saw maybe a hundred people in the food line. They told me that the lack of numbers were directly due to the bus strike.

Because of this, I'm very excited about our annual Boxes of Love outreach this Thanksgiving. I pray that this help bring a bit of relief to families that are really struggling. Please join us on November 22nd (the Saturday before Thanksgiving) for our annual Box of Love Packing Party at our Resource Center in Lynwood. An information card is in the mail to you today.

Even though we completely lost our primary food source (due to the national USDA surplus food shortage- click here to see a Sunday, Nov. 2nd New York Times Article , on the hunger in America) we now have half of our goal of 10,000 Boxes of Love. These boxes will be distributed as an evangelistic tool by 100 inner city churches and ministries all across greater Los Angeles. The goal is to bring food and the hope of Jesus to 60,000 people!

Please pray for us in this endeavor. Would your church like to get involved in helping to fill boxes? Check out our newly designed website for more information. Boxes of Love