Mercy

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Manny Flores and his outreach team from the North Valley Caring Services bring warm meals, hygiene kits, human kindness and even prayer to people living outdoors. Encampments, alleys, sidewalks, the wash, even groups camped inside the bushes of public parks are visited each Wednesday night. It requires just the right blend of missionary zeal, street cred and unconditional love to gain and keep trust. Some of the spots, such as the  “Trails” encampments that line the 405 freeway, are home to the hardest cases of chronic homelessness, notorious for tough, sometimes fatal living conditions. Deaths among the homeless and other street dwellers in this repressed section of North Hills are surprisingly common, and Manny talked about some recent incidents while driving his loaded-down pick-up through the night traffic between spots.

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Randy, an elderly gentleman surviving the elements and lung cancer, talks to volunteer Lauren Rathbone and her service dog, and unburdens himself to a sidewalk ministry.

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MOTEL LIFE

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Outreach includes regular visits to families who have secured temporary shelter in motels along Sepulveda Boulevard, through a voucher program provided by  Los Angeles Family Housing. Kids and adults congregate on the balconies as doors open to greet the visitors. One of the motel rooms we visited housed a family of ten…

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Mama Gloria Kim

Extraordinary encounter this morning with “Mama” Gloria Kim of the Zion Gospel Mission, who we first saw praying from a mountaintop in Griffith Park, facing the Pacific Ocean. Squeezing my arm as I escorted the 70+ year old former nurse down the steep trails of Mt. Hollywood (after she conceded that her legs aren’t as steady as they once were), I learned that she has been delivering fresh vegetable soup and other foodstuffs to the homeless in MacArthur Park for the past 27 years. Reaching the bottom, she held our hands up for an extended prayer in the Observatory parking lot, then climbed into her van (loaded with bagels and bananas) for today’s mission work. I hope to see her again….

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