"She spoke Chinese with a 'Bell-Jing' accent."

Dearest friends,

Today was a pretty good day, I'm not gonna lie. It started off as usual with the most important meal of the day. As we were devouring a plate full of deliciousness, we watched as thousands of people made their way to the Staples Center for MJ's memorial service. I would just like to point out that Lou Ferrigno was interviewed. He was the King of Pop's PERSONAL trainer...how sick-nasty-awesome is THAT?! One would think that with having an ex-Hulk as a trainer, Michael would have been a lot more buff...

Aaaaanyway, after watching a bit more of this spectacle, we made our way to our separate areas. Josh and I took on Montana Ave and the coffee shops. Luke and To-Mas were dropped off in Venice. And Kelsey and Stromboli (Storm) walked over to Santa Monica College.

For Josh and I, today was a pretty much a day of processing. We had to go over what we had learned about yesterday with the sign that we had made, and the people Josh had talked to. Josh had e-mailed Jeff (from Agapa, the spiritual community) and set up a meeting for Friday between 2-4 pm. They should be sitting down for about an hour or so just discussing in more detail about what we are doing here. It'd be really awesome if we could get together with Jeff and some of his friends and just have some good conversations and share our faith with one another. With that said, just continue to pray for this situation and for Josh as he will be meeting with Jeff one-on-one Friday.

Thomas and Luke had a pretty slow day up until about 30 minutes before we picked them up. They stopped by Tony's (Chi Kung master) shop just to say hello. Tony ended up offering them some tea which lead to some good conversation. Soon after Peter and his friend Ted showed up at the shop where they all got to hang out together. This was the guys' first time meeting Ted. Apparently Ted and Peter were martial art buddies until an accident almost paralyzed Ted. Now he spends the largest part of everyday on his back to build up spinal fluid just so he can walk around a few hours a day. The really good news is, he lives pretty close to Santa Monica College, which is right across the street from where we stay (and if you have been keeping up with us then you probably already know that). So hopefully Luke and Thomas will be seeing a lot more of him. Also, Peter is going to have breakfast with Storm, Thomas and Luke Friday morning. So keep them in your prayers and ask that God bless them with good conversation and fellowship.

Finally, Storm and Kelsey had an interesting day over at SMC. Storm was approached by a guy named Moses. He initially asked her if she was interested in coming to a bible study, similar to the guy last week. Come to find out those guys are connected. Storm explained what we are doing and if they find the time they may check that out sometime soon. While this was going on, Kelsey decided to go talk to a girl that was by herself. Her name was Weihung, or Wei. She just graduated from Beverly Hills High School and is taking summer classes at SMC. Her and her family moved to the US from China when she was 8 years old. Kelsey informed us that she spoke Chinese, but that she had an accent from "Bell-Jing"...

Let me take this time to explain. Bell-Jing is the city in which the 2008 Summer Olympics were held. It is the capital of the People's Republic of China and the second largest city in the country, after Shanghai, with a population of about 17 Million people. Some people may pronounce the name as Beijing, but Kelsey's AMAZINGLY accurate pronunciation of "Bell-Jing" was spot on...we think she just got Belgium and Beijing intertwined, which is very understandable.

Back to what's important. Kelsey conversed with Wei for about 2.5 hours and ended up finding out she was Atheist/Agnostic. She had grew up Bhuddist but her family had only practiced it because of tradition. Hopefully they girls will be able to continue to see Wei and build a relationship with her while we are here.

Well, tomorrow we meet with Jonathan Stockstill around 10:30 am and then Kelsey and Storm are taking off to volunteer while us guys go out into the areas a while. Ted Knapp will be meeting with us also in the afternoon/evening for a dinner meeting from 4:30 until 8 pm or so.

Ok ya'll, it's late. I hope this wasn't too unbearable to read. I usually try to throw in more humor but I am per-itty tired. I promise I will make up for it. We definitely appreciate the prayers and encouragement from you all. I will leave you with a few things to continue praying about:

1- Team dynamics. Living with and seeing the same people all day, everyday for a month gets a little tough sometimes. I doubt anyone of the others would say it on the blog, but I pull no punches (that's a lie). But I am sure they all are feeling the strain too. We all love each other but just pray that we continue to show it haha.
2- Opportunities. Opportunities. Opportunities. Whether it be from meeting new people to good discussion with those we have met. We know that God is definitely working and has been. And with faith and prayer He will for sure bring great things out of the next 4 weeks.
3- What happens after we leave. We are half-way finished with this awesome adventure. We still have a lot of time left, but we must start thinking of how to hand this off to the right people once we leave so that they may continue what we have started. We are not sure how that is gonna work yet but we are figuring that out.

I love you all and I thank you once again for everything.
God Bless,
B-Ruce