Connecting with Doug and Jana

I got to meet with Jana and Doug this afternoon to talk about the early days of Long Beach. Jana is kind of a historian in the sense that she tracks Long Beach trends. Doug and I looked through old newspaper clippings and books that told the history of Long Beach. Interesting stuff. One of the things that was pretty awesome was reading about a bible teacher named George Taubman back in 1923 who led Bible studies here in an auditorium in Long Beach. We looked at an old photograph that was taken of thousands of people who regularly attended it. Doug thinks there's something significant about the "prior church" here in Long Beach. What was it back then that attracted so many people to the Lord and what has happened since then? Wouldn't it be awesome to see that happening again here in Long Beach?

Another interesting thing we noted was that Long Beach was a "first" for many things. Some include being the first city in California to utilize school uniforms, the place of the first commercial venture in California, the first nuclear warship was called the USS Long Beach, Dr. Kevorkian first started here in Long Beach, the first female mayor in California was in Long Beach, this was the place where new fire fighting techniques were developed and also a place where new methods of making cheese were developed, and Long Beach was the location where the first steam ship was launched. All these examples came from old newspaper articles that Jana had collected. Talking to many intercessors over the past several months, many have been getting the sense that the Lord will use Long Beach to launch or start new and fresh things. Interesting stuff!