Fast Track

So much is happening so fast that I will record briefly some of the things God is doing here.

Maggie and I have continued to drive in to town to the homeless church in the park Sunday mornings. The church folks who run it are happy to have us come help out.

Tomorrow we are bringing some more workers God has sent our way, who are eager to help out too. This way we can fan out over the park, and with several of us there no one has to "worry about" it being "dangerous."

Speaking of dangerous, tonight the Lancasters had another bbq at their place down in crack alley. Last night we had an all night prayer meeting at their house to prepare for it. At about midnight we went walking the streets to pray and ask God to draw the neighbors in.

That was a blast. We invited whatever thieves and prostitutes and drunks and drug addicts we saw to the "block party." And tonight they came! There must have been 70 people there including the somewhat nervous folks from the methodist and baptist churches who came to help. Bless their hearts, they came...and brought their children!!! The kids took their cues from those who had done this before and ran around playing and loving on everyone, and the big boys played football with the boys and men.

Amy preached the gospel to them and a guy who had done drugs for years and now serves the Lord gave his testimony of how God saved him. One lady of the night who had recently become really hard towards everyone was there and pushing kids on the swing. During the testimony she and I sat together to the side. I asked her in her ear why anyone would sit in their house all day and do crystal meth. She told me she does it to punish herself for being in jail when both her parents died. We discussed how lame that really is when Jesus Christ took all the punishment for every crime in the world already.

Most of the folks took advantage of the clothing and winter jackets and a bag of toiletries. Some just hung around and prayed and talked and joked. Our friend David went and fetched a guy we'd met Friday night, who said he would come but hadn't shown up. He was shy and embarrased because he had been somewhat intoxicated the night before, but was as sweet as anything and so wide eyed when we said we would like to be family to him.

Maggie had prayer this morning at synagogue that God would give her an opportunity to start doing what her heart's desire is, to minister to teenagers. Good thing she had her own car tonight because she and James took some kids home, and on the way stopped for frostees and to toss a football over at the college. One of the kids, Marcel, and James discovered that 16 year old black guys with dew rags are just like white boys with Russian accents. They just like to play ball and laugh.