Argentina Maldonado, a junior business major, walked down the street next to the beautiful Venice beach along with her fellow members of Brown Bag Ministries, enjoying the street performers, artists and excitement. She didn’t expect to see the countless starving people digging through garbage, eating food that could have been weeks old and picking the bugs off of the rotten food.
THE STREETS OF VENICE
Not only were they eating food out of the garbage, they were licking the residue off of napkins, aluminum foil and dirty dishes. The stench of the garbage was so strong that Maldonado gagged as she walked by. She could not imagine the horror of putting any of that in her mouth.
One fragile old lady in particular stood out to Maldonado. She had ripped clothes and no teeth. Maldonado could see despair in the woman’s weary eyes as she scrounged to feed herself.
According to a count in 2011 and 2012 through the Los Angeles Times, there are 58,000 homeless people in Los Angeles. Brown Bag is an on campus ministry that provides weekly meals to the homeless. It has been around at Biola for more than a decade.
Jonathan Mestas, a senior Christian ministries major and the director of Brown Bag, leads a group of approximately 20 people to First Friends Church in Long Beach to deliver meals to the homeless. Mestas and the team also head to the apartments four blocks away from the church to play with and minister to the kids there.
“I’ve completely fallen in love with the ministry and found myself feeling so much compassion for the homeless,” Mestas said.
BROWN BAG AIMS TO SHARE THE GOSPEL
Mestas described how the kids are surrounded with so much darkness and ugliness in the world. He really hopes that Brown Bag can be a light in the darkness and rescue them by sharing the gospel.
“Brown Bag has shown me that we really need to be the hands, feet and mouth of Jesus,” Mestas said.
Through this ministry, Mestas has seen Jesus working through the people involved in Brown Bag — Maldonado being one of those people specifically.
On Saturday Oct. 19 the team delivered meals to the homeless near Winward Street in Venice Beach for the first time. Brown Bag decided to add this venue because Mestas realized the need there.
Maldonado stated that she was deeply impacted by the trip to the touristy and colorful marketplace of Venice Beach. She described a new sense of gratefulness towards everything that she normally takes for granted — such as the Caf food or having the support of family, friends and teachers.
During the trip Maldonado met Luis, a man from Guatemala. Maldonado is also from Guatemala and speaks fluent Spanish. She felt so blessed to be able to share a common language with Luis. He said that he left his family and all of his luxuries at home to become a traveling musician, but in the process he became homeless.
Despite his homeless state, he does not ask for or collect money. However, strangers often let him into their homes and provide a shower and good meal for him.
After talking with Luis for a while and learning of his story, Maldonado asked the man if she could pray for him. Immediately he burst into tears. He said that he was in shock that his own family won’t reach out to him but a complete stranger would. She then proceeded to pray for him in their shared language, Spanish.
“It was such a blessing to be able to pray for him and let him know that Jesus loves him. People today are so critical of others’ status and won’t even take the time to get to know each other,” Maldonado said.
She explained that she realized that simple acts of kindness really do make a difference in displaying God’s love.
“We are his living testimony. We are all broken and in need of love. At the end of the day, all of the little things don’t matter in the kingdom of God, but our love and how we demonstrate it to others makes all the difference,” Maldonado stated.
