A few weeks ago, members of Malibu Gathering Church invited URM kids to Malibu to learn to surf! They supplied wetsuits, boards, and lunch. It was a beautiful day and the kids had a blast.
Thanks so much to everyone at Malibu Gathering Church who made this opportunity and fun day possibly! You can view some great photos from the day on our Facebook page.
Downtown Pathway Home – in partnership with the 100k Homes Campaign – is committed to housing 450 men and women experiencing homelessness in the Skid Row community located in Downtown Los Angeles. As a way of addressing chronic homelessness in Skid Row, Downtown Pathway Home is collaborating with social services agencies in the Downtown Los Angeles area and organizing a Registry Week to assess who the most vulnerable individuals are that are accessing the courtyards and dayrooms of Downtown shelters.
During the week of September 12-16, Downtown Pathway Home will conduct its official Registry Week with the help of 100 volunteers. They are currently recruiting dedicated volunteers to help survey our community’s most vulnerable homeless individuals. Union Rescue Mission is the host site for the event, and we would love to see your support in Downtown Pathway Homes Skid Row Registry project.
Here are important dates for the registry:
• Monday – September 12, 6-9pm Volunteer Training
• Tuesday – September 13, 6-9pm Survey
• Wednesday – September 14, 1-4pm Data Entry
• Thursday – September 15, 1-4pm
HOW TO VOLUNTEER: Sign-up at http://lacpc.wufoo.com/forms/downtown-pathway-home-registry-week-sept-1216/
Questions? Look us up on Facebook at Downtown Pathway Home or Email us at DPHquestions@urm.org.
Al never had a family to speak of. Both his parents were raging alcoholics, so Al was passed around 54 times as a child to various friends and family. Later his father and sister were brutally murdered. He grew up never knowing love, safety, or trust.
“I bottled it all up and retreated into myself,” says Al, 56. “I hated the whole world and everyone in it.” And he hated himself. He was an alcoholic and crack addict who went to bed each night with the muzzle of a loaded gun in his mouth, hoping to pull the trigger in his sleep. He took up skydiving, hoping the parachute wouldn’t open. He tried provoking police to shoot him. And he served three long prison terms for robberies and violent crimes. “I was hurting,” he says, “so I wanted to go out and hurt other people and society.”
Following Jesus
But during his third term in prison, Al found Jesus. “That was the beginning,” he says. “I started praying, ‘God, if you lead me, I will follow.’” In 2003, God led him to Union Rescue Mission. Recovery was the hardest thing Al ever faced. “When I came to the Mission,” Al says, “I already self-destructed in every area of my life. And I had no clue how to put it back together.
“Most of the time I found myself grasping the edge of my bed, repeating, ‘This is where God wants you, don’t fight Him.’” Soon, Al found friendship with two men: his chaplain, Steve Borja, and his supervisor, Bob Forney. “Those were the first two men I ever trusted in my life.”
Over the next four years Al experienced love, trust, and safety he’d never known. It transformed his life. But when his friend Bob left Union Rescue Mission and moved to Oregon in 2007, Al faced another crisis: “He abandoned me, just like everyone else. I didn’t take that very good.”
Moving North
But a few months later, Bob wrote Al a letter, saying, “I bought you a trailer. I want you to come up and live with me and my family.”
Al didn’t hesitate. Today he owns the only bike shop in Oregon City, near Portland, and he’s a leader in his church. He builds bikes and gives them to children in need. He leads a ministry that reaches out to men recently released from prison and he mentors men who are still incarcerated. But best of all, he’s part of a family he never had.
“Bob’s family adopted me,” Al says. “It’s not only Bob and his wife, I have dozens of nieces and nephews, and they all call me ‘Uncle Al.’ I never knew people could experience so much love.”
Al’s story in this issue of The Mission reminds me of my own dad when he was growing up. Life was cruel to my father.
Dad grew up in an alcoholic home filled with violence, chaos, desertion and homelessness. When he was nine, his mom deserted the family, and the Des Moines Register featured his story, describing a little boy praying by his bed for his mother to return home. Then he went away to Boy Scout camp one year, and when he returned home he learned that his entire family had left him.
What saved my dad was the love he received from a family that took him in … and later, the love of a wife who believed in that boy from the wrong side of the tracks.
Over the years, I’ve learned that the most effective way to combat homelessness and hopelessness is through love. That’s why we work so hard to build healthy relationships with men and Union Rescue Mission.
Love gives them the courage to give life another try.
Blessings,
Andy Bales, CEO
The event was a blessing for people experiencing homelessness on the streets of Skid Row. The day was full of exciting worship music, fun for the kids, and a BBQ for everyone with over 1000 hot dogs and 1000 hamburgers served!
The Covering Conference Outreach Team from Full Harvest International Church visited URM recently to arrange some upcoming partnership and volunteer events. Jeremiah Johnson, Director of Church Relations, gave them a tour of our facilities and they were able to meet with Andy Bales, CEO, and Steve Borja, Chief Programs Officer. After their visit, they were inspired to do something to help people here on Skid Row.
On Saturday, August 6, 2011 they will be joining forces with URM to distribute food, clothing, and much needed toiletries to hundreds of men, women and children who live on the streets of Downtown LA and at URM.
We are so grateful for the many churches, like Full Harvest International Church and Clarence E. McClendon Ministries that continue to partner with us to help transform lives here on Skid Row!
If you have a church group interested in getting involvied with URM, please contact our Director of Church Relations, Jeremiah Johnson, at jjohnson@urm.org for more information.
This summer, the kids at URM are learning lots of fun ways to stay active thanks to one of our great volunteers. Ana Dewar has been coming down three times a week to hold fun activities for the kids as part of her project to receive the Going for the Gold Award from Girl Scouts.
Ana has been dedicated in creating fun activities for all ages that focus on health and fitness for youth.
Today, the kids went to the roof for hula hooping! Everyone had a great time, especially 5-year old Bernadette (above) who was very enthusiasitc about learning to hula hoop!
Thanks to Ana for bringing fun and fitness to the kids this summer!
For 31 years, Rodney Tanaka policed the streets of Gardena, where every day he witnessed “the worst of the worst” — kids joining gangs, innocent children getting hurt, overdoses, stabbings, shootings, and the grieving mothers, fathers, and families the victims leave behind. His goal was to retire as Captain of the police force, but God had other plans. Five years ago, Tanaka left the police force and joined Union Rescue Mission as a chaplain, where he now ministers to hurting men like those he left on the streets of Gardena.
Being a policeman, I experienced a lot of things that God used to prepare me for coming to Union Rescue Mission. Most of the guys I minister to now have the same issues as the men I dealt with as a police officer. The only difference between what I do now and what I did as a policeman is that I’ve traded my gun for a sword — which is my Bible.
I love these men. Maybe that’s because when I was growing up, I drank, did drugs, and ran with the wrong crowd. I could easily have ended up on Skid Row. But God showed me compassion through many caring people and saved my life. And I want to show that same compassion to the men here.
And it’s not hard to care for these men when you know where they come from. These men grew up with parents struggling with addictions and mental issues. Most were neglected, beaten, abused, and never felt loved or needed.
These guys need attention, support, and someone who cares about them. Without that, a man loses hope. And when they lose hope, there’s nothing left but darkness. So I care about them, and through God’s Word I show them He cares about them — and I teach them God’s rules of life and how He hopes for them to live. Many of them are now back with their families, and if they ever need help they know who to call. They don’t all make it, and that hurts. When one of my guys goes back to the streets, I’ll often go out looking for him. I think it’s important to show that you care enough to leave the other 99 sheep to search for that lost one.
I believe Union Rescue Mission is where God wants me. When I can help one guy break through the darkness and succeed, that’s what keeps me going. This is the kind of ministry Jesus did — and someone will have to drag me out kicking and screaming before I leave this place.
Seems like everyone loves Sugar Bear. On Skid Row, gangsters and prostitutes trust him. While inside Union Rescue Mission, recovering addicts confide in him, the chaplains respect him, and all the children feel safe in his strong, playful arms. He’s a legend on these streets and everyone knows him — but for most of his life, he didn’t know himself.
“Inside, I was lost from the day I was born,” says Sugar Bear, whose given name is Robert. “If you’re lost in a city or something, you can eventually find your way. But it’s hard to be lost within yourself and identify where you are. Especially when you never had a beginning.”
Born to a mother struggling with severe mental illness in Long Beach, Sugar Bear ran away from home by the age of eight and never had anyone but the streets to teach him how to live. He’s slept on streets from Pasadena to Long Beach, and Skid Row to Hollywood, selling papers, shining shoes, dancing, cooking, picking pockets, burgling cars, selling dope, using dope, and running from police. He’s been shot in the back and shot in the chest, and he even spent several years on Death Row — a story he won’t talk about.
But sitting in prison, waiting to die, he started reading the Bible.
“I always prayed and told God that I was all by myself and didn’t have nobody else,” he says. “And God told me that no matter what I’ve done that was bad, everything was going to work out. Jesus had a plan and special purpose for my life. So when I got out of prison, I quit drugs and came to Union Rescue Mission to get my life right.”
When he got to Union Rescue Mission, Sugar Bear was a broken man. “I’d been crying inside my whole life,” he says. “Then God put me here, and I found a family I never had.”
Today, Sugar Bear is a full-time volunteer at the Mission. “This is my home. I’m just a crazy man, but everyone pays attention to me here, and it’s just beautiful,” he says, laughing. “Union Rescue Mission gave me love I never got anywhere else in my life.”
I hope Sugar Bear’s story inspires you. It’s hard to imagine a human being growing up with less going for him. A traumatized little boy with a mentally ill mother, he learned the rules of life from the streets.
But today, Sugar Bear is one of the finest human beings I know — and one of my best friends. When he learns I’m going out on the streets of Skid Row at night, he joins me to make sure I’m okay. He protects the ladies living at Union Rescue Mission, the kids adore him, and every man here listens to him. He’s a big, courageous, loving teddy bear — and a walking miracle.
Union Rescue Mission is filled with walking miracles just like Sugar Bear. That’s because we offer hardened, hurting men and women more than “three hots and a cot.” We offer them love and friendship, point them to God, and teach them the truth — and the truth transforms them.
Every day, Sugar Bear reminds me that no matter how damaged someone’s life is, you can never give up on them. You might miss out on a miracle.
Blessings,
Andy Bales, CEO
Watch and hear the powerful testimonies of how Marty overcame a $300 a day drug habit and how Alex found strength to fight for her children through URM’s Life Transformation Program. Both were ready to give up on life. But now, through the power of the gospel and the loving efforts of the mission, both Marty and Alex have discovered that their lives are worth another try.
God Bless,
Tomorrow, 20 tons of snow will fall in Downtown LA! Subway restaurants are sponsoring our 8th Annual Christmas in July celebration.
Nearly 200 kids will enjoy snow ball fights, carnival games, face painting, cotton candy, gifts from Santa and more! Subway is also providing lunch for everyone.
Union Rescue Mission CEO, Rev. Andy Bales said “I don’t know what I look forward to the most, the 20 tons of snow or the smiles on the children’s faces. Santa, snow, toys, lots of snacks and food go a long way in helping children forget, even for a little while, that they are living in a shelter and not their own home. I am thankful to SUBWAY for providing this great time for our kids”.
Festivities will get underway promptly at 11:00 a.m. on Wednesday, July 13, 2011 in the San Julian parking lot located just behind the Union Rescue Mission, 545 South San Pedro Street, in Los Angeles. (On San Julian Street between 5th & 6th Streets).
For media inquiries, please contact Kitty Davis-Walker at (213) 673-4585 or (213) 507-5562, email: kwalker@urm.org
June has been a month full of celebration. We held a luncheon event to honor some friends of Union Rescue Mission, and we celebrated with 17 men as they graduated from a Life Transformation program. Unfortunately, it was also a month of tough decisions.
I hope you will please take a moment to watch this video and catch up on what’s happening here at URM. Thank you so much for your continued support.
Blessings,
Andy Bales, CEO
