Straight Outta Compton..

Yesterday, Jam and I had one of the most memorable days I've had out here in S. Cali. We went to a Baptist church (Glory Bound MBC) smack dab in the middle of Compton. For those of you not familiar with Compton, it has a pretty violent reputation in south central Los Angeles. Quite frankly, us "white folk" don't traverse those areas too often. Needless to say, we stuck out a little;)

Freda, an ex-colleague of mine had been trying to get me to attend her church for over a year, with little success because I'm always so busy. Well, the moon and the stars were aligned right and finally this weekend I decided to give it a whirl. All I can say is that her church was a lot different than the one I remember growing up. It was very "lively", to put it mildly! The highlight was probably when I had to stand up as a vistor, and say a few words to the church. Ah, yeah. Ha! Hallelujah! Amen! Praise Jesus! The service was also a lot longer than I remembered, probably because it was. Yeup, during the 3 hours a lot of stuff when down. There was someone who had a cramp and the Reverend had to coax the devil out of her, there was a man on his knee proposing, ladies crying, wild dancing and swaying, and lots of people fanning themselves as people sang at the top of their lungs, there was a passionate sermons, and one dumb white dude with a big smile on his face.

After the service we headed over to Freda's house where she had cooked a huge dinner (ribs, rice, green beans, hi-five cake) for the reverend and other church members. The atmosphere felt very much like I was among family. Then, they headed back to church for afternoon service. Afternoon service!

I'm so appreciative when someone opens up and shares something special with me. I've been lucky enough to visit many mosques, temples, churches, etc., but this was special because it was a) a baptist church like the ones you see on TV b)just about 15 minutes from my house and c)in a part of the city that many people like myself never see.

A lot of my friends often raise the point, and rightfully so, that you don't need to travel half way around the world to make a difference in someone's life, or to get a different perspective on life. Yesterday was truly one of those days.