We started the journey this week with 6 bags of clothes at the house needing to be sort. Then Janice came with more clothes. Armed with man pants, women's summer tees, shorts, and some shoes, we headed out. James, Jenny, and a small team from NFWBC tagged along. Also, Thai and Matt joined us yet again. Love those guys. We got some street musician friends who came up and played for the homeless. Praise God for Abbie and Zach. Their music was great!
The whole team was able to put together 80+ hot dogs, chips, drinks, ice, water, and bananas. With the musicians we were able to mingle more with the first and second group. The first group had a few guys standing up and praise God through the music. They were drunk, but nonetheless it was great watching them still give thanks to God. There was one person who wasn't fascinated by what we were doing, but we loved on her anyway. We passed out many of our toiletries and clothes to this group. After all the work, we made a circle and prayed. Indio and a couple other homeless guys prayed. Then came Erica, a trans-gendered man came up and had a fit. He assumed we all were condemning him for his looks. I was able to calm him down so we could finish praying. From there we took off to the second stop. But for a while we lost our friend Jennifer. Praise the Lord she found us!
Here's some thoughts from Janice:
I has the privilege of visiting with "Indio" (not sure if I have his name right) who I believe is a former preacher. We shared with each other the things we were struggling with in our lives. I was very touched that he asked me how my life was going. I rarely have anyone ask me about myself. He is struggling with a powerful common addiction and he told me he didn't have the courage to get help in order to change. We agreed that God was bigger than his problem. Indio lives in the hopelessness of his addiction and is struggling to find the courage to break free. I encouraged him to remember that God just needs him to be willing. He prayed for all of us.
We moved to a field in the back of Love Fellowship Church. There we unloaded and started calling the homeless by the gas station to that area. We first saw Elizabeth who hung with us for a while. A couple other guys stopped by to eat. Some stayed for a while just to listen to the musicians praise the Lord. It's amazing how many of them just stayed to chill with us. I'm still waiting for a couple testimonies, but there was a couple incidents where Thai was able to engage a couple guys and share them the love of Jesus. The Vietnamese guy we keep seeing on a bicycle still lives with his mother. It'll be great to help the family and provide more help. We also saw Betty again. She showed me her house and little garage she stayed at. Venita was a usual. She took much clothes and ranted about how her husband doesn't care about the family. We still love her two kids. After a while the numbers dwindled and I drove back and forth to help get more guys from the homeless area to get clothes and other necessities.
I got to spend some time with Yo and a few other guys. I managed to pray for one of them who needed some prayer for a job. I believe his name was Perez. From there we headed on to Susan's house.
Susan was not doing so well. Her husband, Aaron was at the hospital. She said she was abused and wasn't very happy. She's still waiting to be evicted but it's good to see that she's still there. Her rent and electric bill wasn't paid for so the house was still hot. We dropped off a few Gatorade, chips, and bananas. Continue to pray for her!
I accidentally deleted all the pictures this week from my phone. I was deeply saddened for all the lost pictures. I have done pictures for three years and this is the first time I lost them. I apologize for this and hope to bring the pictures back up next time. Thanks for your understanding. Till next time...
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