SRLA

Today was the annual Los Angeles Marathon. That's right, boys and girls, 20,000 atheletes running from Dodger Stadium to the Santa Monica Pier.

Pretty much awesome.

But what's even awesomer is a program called Students Run Los Angeles (SRLA) that offers 3,000 scholarships to teenagers from underprivileged areas of the city. They get their entry fee waived and a superb pair of Nike running shoes, not to mention a poncho in case of rain, gel snacks, and the screaming support of the teachers and coaches from their school (that's where Matt and I came in).

We queued up at mile 10 and spent two hours squinting. We so desperately wanted to see the 50-ish Camino kids who have been training for this run since September. We had Gatoraide, we had pretzels, and we had lungs. Cocyx be damned, whenever I saw one of our munchins I began jumping up and down and yelling stuff like, "WOOHOO, NATALLY! GO, YOU!" and "DALIA! ROBERTO! YOU GUYS ROCK!"

Then back to squinting until we saw the next Camino-ite.

We missed church, which has considerably less jumping and screaming. But no fewer smiles from God, I feel sure. What better way to worship than to say to a young man or woman, "I have faith in you."

Great morning.