Endeavoring to Reach L.A.

Yesterday was an awesome day for me.  It started with 30+ middle school students looking into God’s word, followed by a lunch in the inner-city of Los Angeles, ending with a group of committed adults gathered in a Burbank home.

Here are six facts about both “Endeavors” we came face to face with yesterday – one was the shuttle, the other was to reach kids in Los Angeles:

Here are 6 facts about the shuttle Endeavor:

• Over the course of its 19-year spaceflight career, Endeavour logged nearly 123 million miles (198 million kilometers) and zipped around the Earth more than 4,600 times.
• Endeavour is the youngest member of NASA’s now-retired space shuttle fleet.
• Endeavour is the only shuttle to have been named by children. In 1988, NASA staged a national competition among elementary and secondary school students to hang a name on the new shuttle.
• While Endeavour debuted a fair amount of new gear — it was the first shuttle to use a drag parachute during landing, for example, and it featured advanced avionics systems — much of the orbiter was built from spare parts.
• Shortly after NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope launched in April 1990, scientists noticed that the instrument’s images were a bit blurry. In 1993, Endeavour launched on its STS-61 flight — the first Hubble servicing mission — to fix the problem.
• In its final STS-134 mission, Endeavour made another significant contribution to the ISS, (International Space Station) delivering the final big piece yet to be added to the station from the American side — the $1.5 billion Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer physics experiment.

The uniqueness of the endeavor of reaching kids in L.A. – 6 facts:

• Population under 18 – 3,000,000  (it’s actually a bigger number, but this is from the census)
• High Schools and Middle Schools in Los Angeles:  1400
• Diversity in L.A. – 225 languages spoken
• Los Angeles average house price:  $596,000 vs U.S. average of $221,000
• Traffic, which I encountered yesterday – 6 of the 10 worst and busiest freeways in America reside in LA – and yes, they also the #1 being the 405.
• Cost of Living – Los Angeles is 47% higher than national average.

We are getting ready to launch out today to another inner-city Young Life lunch club.  God is on the move here in Los Angeles.  I am so grateful to God for Alan and Sharon Smyth who have answered God’s call to this awesome “endeavor.”  Do you know anyone in LA that loves God, cares about kids, and might want to help us reach the next kid, the next school, and the next community?

“And from this we learn that everything is dependent not on man’s will or endeavour, but upon God who has mercy.”  Romans 9:16

Bless you,

Eric