The City of Angels

After about three weeks, we arrived in Los Angeles. As we pulled into the port town of San Pedro, thousands of people were waiting on the dock in a large reception. A special stage was set up where (among others) YWAM’s leader, Loren Cunningham and Jim and Joy Dawson were waiting.

Once we were tied up to the dock, we Ship’s Kids went onstage to perform a couple of songs, people made speeches and then the onslaught began. Up to now, we had been relatively isolated. Now the ship was going to become very public. The ship was very expensive to run so raising support was vital and one way to do that was public tours. Thousands of people began to tour our home and it was a success. Support began to pour in, not only financial but also material aid for other countries and more crew to help run the ship.  

People from the United States are some of the most friendly, generous people in the world. There had been some incredibly kind and generous people in Greece but (for the most part) we had run into a lot of rudeness. Obviously, language had been a barrier too. So after our years in Greece, the United States was a wonderland of kindness. People would let us stay in their houses. There were pools to swim in. They would buy us great American food. 

Greece had had some very good food like souvlaki and baklava and it was relatively cheap too. But now (for better or worse) we were in the land of fast food and abundant restaurants. Again, we had very little money but our generous hosts treated us over and over again.

Los Angeles was the first big city I had spent any real time in and although we were on the outskirts, we got out and about in the sprawl from time to time. I discovered that I really liked cities. As it is the movie capitol of the world, seeing images on the huge drive-in screens from the freeways at night was magical. E.T., the Extra-Terrestrial was in theaters on it’s run to become the biggest money-making movie of its time.

We hadn’t really watched any TV in Greece but my parents had bought a small, 9 inch black and white television. There was a new show that was popular when we were in L.A. called Knight Rider. It was about a guy who fought crime with an artificially intelligent, virtually indestructible car called KITT. The car was a Trans Am which we guys really liked. The star of Knight Rider was David Hasselhof who went on to star in Baywatch, had a popular singing career in Europe and was a judge on America’s Got Talent.

One day we heard they were going to film an episode of Knight Rider on the dock across from us. They were filming a chase scene where one of the cars flipped over. This was too cool and we had to try get over there to watch.

There is a lot of downtime during a production and they had set up a ping pong table where David Hasselhof was playing. We got to say hi to him and play ping-pong with some of the crew. There were several versions of KITT and we got to sit in one of them. We were in heaven.

A young couple named the Bartels had formed the teenagers into a youth group by this time and we started to do stuff together. One day they decided to go on an excursion to do one of my least favorite things – camping! However, the main reason for the trip was to play in snow again so I decided to go. 

My disdain for camping was confirmed once again. The tents were set up right on the snow and it was freezing cold. The girls seemed to have no problem with bundling up together to stay warm but we were guys. Fortunately, there were bathroom buildings that were a little warmer and that’s where we ended up getting at least a few hours of sleep. The girls took the opportunity to let us know how wimpy we were.


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