What you do to the least of these, you do unto me

9-5-09

Today was our frist outreach. Before I started the internship outreaches was one thing I was excited about because I knew it wouldn't be like holding bibles in our hands, standing on a soapbox, yelling at people about the fury of God. We made peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and took bottle waters with us down to the beach, to reach out to the homeless.Before we left we talked about how no matter what they said.. or what they were on we were to look at them and see Jesus in them. Which is so hard and easy to forget. When we got there we kind of broke up into partners so no one would feel bombarded. but what had happened was amazing. There was a group of homeless people and there was a group of us so it just made sense to combine them. It was so funny how quickly they became our friends. It was amazing how awesome their faith in Jesus was. Not too long into meeting them they asked us if we could "circle pray." We immediatley grabbed eachothers hands and listened to theyir prayers. One man prayed for another man who had drowned that morning. Then another man started to speak he said, Lord I don't know how to pray but I'm going to try." He prayed for his six year old niece who has cancer. then the man standing next to me whose name was Mike also known as Pops. He started to cry, what he said wasn't quite audiable but I just knew he was crying out for help. From what I understand every monring Pops wakes up and gets drunk and abuses any drug he can get his hands on. He doesn't want to be that way anymore. He wants to be the one to get off the streets. He wants to change. Pray for Pops. Another lady we met her name was Miss Linda, When you meet these people you always wonder how in the world did they get here? She talked to us as if we were freinds. She told us her marriage was terrible. Her husband broke both of her knees. She decided she'd rather live on the streets then live with him. Another intern and I kind of broke off to hand out more pb&js. We found an older gentlemen sitting on the beach. He was my favorite. His name was Gray. He didn't really talk much. He told me he loved the ocean and I told him I liked it too. We kind of just sat there with him. I so appreciated it because I think all he wanted was for someone's company to enjoy God's creation with. When Casey, the other intern I was with asked if there was anything he wanted us to pray for he said the Veterans. Casey asked him if he was a war Veteran... he said no. After he said this I realized out of all the people we had met and asked what they would like us to pray for, they never said themselves first. I was suprised with their faith. But as Susannah said, again another intern, "When you have nothing it's easier to put your trust in God." When we're at home watching T.V. with a roof over our head, and a full refridgerator, we can easily forget to have faith. As we were walking back to our vehicles we passed the first group again. They reeked of alcohol now and I started to get annoyed. I had lost sight. I forgot to see the Jesus in them. As I layed in bed that night I was reminded of a story from one of my favorite books, Irresistible Revolution. In it he says, "I have an old hippie friend who loves Jesus and smokes a lot of weed, and he’s always trying to get under my skin and stir up a debate, especially when i have innocent young Christians visiting with me…One day, he said to me, ‘Jesus never talked to a prostitute.’ I immediately went on the offensive: ’Oh, sure he did,’ and whipped out my sword of the Spirit and got ready to spar. Then he just calmly looked me in the eye and said, ‘Listen, Jesus never talked to a prostitute because he didn’t see a prostitute. He just saw a child of God he was madly in love with.’ I lost the debate that night. When we have new eyes, we can look into the eyes of those we don’t even like and see the One we love."