One evening David made a surprising announcement, all
of us would be participating in an upcoming outreach in Los Angeles.
Our ministry in Eureka, was planning a big event that
they titled the LA Invasion. This was at the height of the Jesus People
movement that had been developing in Los Angeles.
There were already some communal groups from our ministry
living down there. The plan was, to join them in sharing the gospel, out on the
streets.
It was mid August 1974 and Thomas wrote to his mother,
Nadja, that we were packing up everything we needed as a family, to drive down
to Los Angeles.
Thomas told Nadja that approximately 100 brothers and
sisters from Eureka, the Lighthouse Ranch, Living Waters, the Lords Land and
the Evangelistic Team would be staying in LA for one month.
It would be at least a 10 hour drive from Garberville,
considering we would be traveling in old cars and vans. From Eureka many would
be traveling in old school buses. I recently saw some photos of those days, one
of the buses had a scripture painted on it. It said; The Bible says, the fool has
said in his heart, there is no God! What do you say? You can imagine the
reaction of fellow drivers out on the highways, and then pulling into downtown
LA, with that sign.
There must have been a lot of coordination plans
taking place between all of our communities, to arrange the housing for all of
us “LA Invaders.” Thomas and David, were responsible for organizing the
transportation of our groups from Living Waters. Adults, our children and babies
would be piling into the vans for the long ride. But most of us, had already
been used to this type of traveling, when we went out on tree planting teams in
the mountains.
We were getting excited about this adventure and were
filled with expectation. For sure, there would be a lot of singing and fun
fellowship, out on those highways. We knew though it would be a challenge,
entering into that famous city, after living quietly in our little cabins in
the forest.
The name of the city is Spanish and means the City of
Angels. Of course it is known for the sunshine, the beautiful beaches, and the
culture of Hollywood. We were aware that it was filled with both light and
fame, and spiritually speaking much darkness. Our prayers in preparation, was
that God would open peoples hearts, to receive the light of Jesus.
For Thomas and I, it would be our first time together
in LA, except for the day we landed at the airport there from Germany, in
October of 1971. It had been almost three years, since we had come to
California, with our hippie dreams of partaking in the Summer of Love happenings
in San Francisco.
We were sure that we could relate to the hippies that
lived in LA. The same scene with the Rock concerts, like I had gone to at the Fillmore
were still going on with the bands, like the Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, the
Who, and Crosby Stills and Nash. Also the New Age spiritual movement, that we
had experienced in Berkeley and San Francisco, was growing. I had talked in my
earlier episodes about our visits to the Hare Krishna temple in Berkeley, and
that we went to a large parade of the Krishna worshippers, in Golden Gate Park.
