Too see a generation raised up for JESUS...

Two days ago I returned from a trip to Los Angeles, CA. While I was there, I stayed at the Los Angeles Dream Center, where I lived and volunteered for a year and a half from 2002-2004. When I volunteered there we worked with kids and teens who lived in a crack house hotel in downtown Skid Row. These kids stole my heart. They were the toughest kids I have ever worked with. They lived in violence and extreme poverty... in horrible living conditions. After I left there in 2004, I have went back two times to track them down and visit them. This time when I saw them, they are all in their 20's. Many of them I didn't get to see, but heard from others that they are doing well. The hotel that they lived has no one living in it now and is being restored to be nice apartments. This trip let me see how God can take a whole generation of kids and turn things around for them. When we were there in 2002, all we did was spend time with them, any free time we had, we took them to different places they had never been and found any excuse we could to be there with them in the Skid Row hotel they lived in. As I was there this time, I saw that we were a piece of God's puzzle to bring them to Jesus. They aren't perfect but they are headed in the right direction, they have better lives than they did when we first met them. I saw what a difference simply being there and spending time with them made in their lives. Being in L.A., seeing the kids again and seeing what the L.A. Dream Center is doing in the inner city, refreshed my vision for East St. Louis and the young people here. That trip stirred up an ache in my heart to see a whole generation raised up for JESUS out of this neighborhood, out of this city. My dream is that in 20 years from now, I will see these kids serving JESUS and loving Him, pouring into the generation behind them.