GO and be ye DOERS of the word and NOT hearers only....
You're the God of this City...
2 hours
4 girls, 2 guys
11 peanut butter and jelly sandwiches
Pretzels
Bananas
Water
Cookies
God's Word
This is all it took for Wendy, Erin, Jessie, Kenton, Eric, and I to make a difference. We put feet to the Gospel. We put God's word into action. We showed love. We put our Bible study of the book of James into practice.
Tonight we traveled into DC to impact the homeless. It was Jessie's desire to see us do this. It was her listening to the prompting of the Holy Spirit to get us off our duffs and doing something. My love language is serving. I have been hungry for serving for a VERY LONG TIME. I was so excited for this. We didn't want to take over the city. We weren't going to feed the whole capital. We weren't trying to break a record. We were just FINALLY doing something for God. We were finally allowing us to be used by Him in ways that aren't comfortable or natural or effortless.
We were all scared. But we bathed the outing in prayer by holding hands and calling out to Him for strength, words and courage. We asked God to bring people out who needed food and who needed us. We asked Him to use us.
We found people right away in McPhearson Square, a safe park with a lot of benches. We turned a corner, looking for others. It's such a different thing--LOOKING for the homeless. So many times we find them on accident, creating panic and awkwardness, or they find us. I saw one across the way, and thought....well, we'll get him next time, we are already going this way, I won't say anything. God made me speak up and we turned around and stumbled upon at least 6 other people who needed food in that little triangle of benches. Eric and I approached a man who was sleeping. I told him---You give it to him. I'm scared. He looks at me and says, I'm scared. It was good to know he was scared too. Not scared for my life or worried, but just afraid of the unknown. As we were approaching him, this guy from across the way yelled to me, telling me that he'd take some food.
That is when we met Bob Hope and Rick James. They were pretty cool, chatting it up with us, playing along with their stories. Wendy claimed to be Brittany Spears and Kenton was thought to be named Ken, which then prompted the question..."Which one's Barbie?" Jessie waved her hand and then we laughed about Kenton and Wendy's wedding being off, etc. We talked to them for about 7 minutes. Amazing.
We walked past the sleeping guy Eric approached, and he was now up...eating the sack lunch. We actually got to see our food being a blessing to someone else. We planted a seed and it was growing. Immediately. Not the seed of salvation, but the seed of love.
Another guy asked Kenton to pray for him. That was so cool. Wendy was talking to a guy and asked him how she could pray for him. He said...pray for the weather.
The weather.
How many times do I worry about the weather because of what I'm going to WEAR or how my hair is going to react and how many times do I EVER worry about it affecting my way of life? Of it soaking all of my personal belongings? Or ruining the only picture I have of my loved one? Or causing it to be a night of no sleep?
I have a bed. I have clean sheets. I have the safety of 4 walls around me. I have the promise of a full meal tomorrow and a paycheck and love and friends and health.
This has changed our homegroup. We are going to do this every month. It costs very little. It is worth VERY much. We are going to develop relationships with Bob Hope and Rick James. We are going to shine a light. We are going to get off our duffs and DO something for Christ.
Yes. We are busy. We have so much to do. We minister to kids all day and on the weekends.
We need to do this.
YOU need to do this.
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