Highlights from the April 2009 L.A. Urban Immersion Experience
“Let me know when the next trip is, I’ll definitely do this again.” “Our host family was wonderful.” “Brian is a great teacher.” These are some of the comments from five adults from Incarnation who participated in our first ever Urban Immersion program at New City Parish in Los Angeles. This short and powerful introduction to some of the issues and concerns that we face as we try to live faithfully in a diverse culture took place from April 29 – May 3.

Each morning we began with a Bible study around some issue related to peace and justice, for example immigration and economic justice. Pastor Brian Eklund led us in study, which generated much discussion. At one of our sessions, one of the home stay hosts participated with us and that was absolutely fantastic. We suggested to Pastor Brian that he invite other folks from New City Parish to participate next year.

We learned about a Salvadorian holiday, called “Holy Cross Day.” The cross is decorated with flowers and fresh fruits, signifying the abundance of grace that has resulted from Christ’s death on this instrument of torture. We helped Carlotta and Elba and some of the other ladies decorate a large cross with many items. Carlotta kept muttering to herself and finding yet another piece of flora to decorate the large cross. On Sunday, people at St. Mark’s were asked to bring one of their crosses and share a story about where they had gotten it and the affect it had on their lives. After sharing a story, the crosses were laid on a table and the service ended by having them blessed and we sang, “Lift High the Cross” in Spanish and in English.

On Saturday, the group participated in a clean-up day at Pueblo de Dios (House of God) Lutheran Church. It’s one of the purely Spanish speaking churches in New City Parish. Pastor Samuel is a bundle of energy. We helped by cleaning and painting and were rewarded with fantastic Mexican sandwiches and liquados (cold fruit drinks). We also worshiped at Pueblo on Sunday. They have a fantastic worship band and there is lots of energy in the place. We hope to do more with these folks as our ministry partnership develops.

It seems that Lutherans love to eat, no matter where they are located. We feasted on Belizean Stew Beans and Rice, Salvadoran Pupusas and salad, fantastic Guatemalan fish and ceviche, cactus salad, and burritos that were the size of cars! If anyone was planning to lose weight on the trip, that certainly did not happen. It was a fabulous taste of international dishes that were new to most of us, and delicious!

All of the participants agreed that the home stays were absolutely the best part of the trip. The community is diverse so Incarnation folks stayed in Mexican, Salvadorian, Belizean, and African American households. The hospitality of our hosts was amazing and as we left on Saturday morning, we wanted to linger over breakfast and more conversation with our hosts. This activity will be expanded to more nights of future trips. We left feeling that we were part of families that we never could have known outside of this partnership.

God is truly present in this ministry partnership of presence that began several years ago with a youth mission trip to L.A. The youth are traveling to L.A. again August 1-9, for their fourth mission trip to NCP. Many at Incarnation remember the visit from the St. Mark’s youth group last summer.