Downtown 4/26/2010

I started this week's trip by going to the park where I found the man from Cuba last week. It is called Lincoln Park and it's on North Main St. On the way there and on North Main St. I found Benjamin pushing a couple of shopping carts, one with recyclables and one with his personal belongings in them. I know the bag of food he received took a lot of the pressure of having to find stuff to cash in today off of him. I didn't see any homeless folks at the park so I headed into the downtown area and turned onto Ceasar Chavez Blvd which turns into Sunset Blvd. In an area called Angeleno Hts I saw a man lying face down on the sidewalk at Douglas St. I parked and walked over to him with a bag of food. He, like Benjamin, had two shopping carts. I asked him if he was OK. He responded like he was coming out of a deep sleep. I guess he may have slept there last night. He accepted the food and indicated he could use some water when I asked. I walked back to the car to get some and returned to him. His name was Santiago. I said, "Like the capitol city of Chile?" He grinned and said, "Yes". We talked for a moment or two and prayed together. He had looked into the bag of food and said, "You're a good friend." I was just glad to have helped.
I headed back into downtown and cruised around. I saw some people needing help but was unable to stop near where they were. A few minutes after noon I decided to turn on the radio to a program I like listening to. The man who normally speaks wasn't on and in his place was someone who was talking about how Muslims reject the Bible, Jesus' death on the cross as payment for our sins and the notion of God being our Father. He was beginnig a series of lectures on these subjects and how to respond to people who have these objections. I was getting a little annoyed about this presentation (because he wasn't giving any answers at this time) when I came to a signal at an intersection at Central Ave and 14th St. The light had changed to green and the guy behind me was all upset that I hadn't moved so he started honking at me. It must have been all of two seconds of waiting. I pulled on through the intersection and both sides of the street were lined with cars. The guy was still behind me (rather closely too) and I noticed an area about a half of a block down where I could pull over and let him by. As I let him pass by he shouted "a few things" at me. I had all my windows down so I could hear plainly what he was saying. After he went by, I pulled back out on the street and was following him. He ended up pulling into a place of business (it's an industrial area) towards the end of the block and as he pulled in there on the right side he had another opportunity to shout out to me some more. Well, needless to say I was a little angry although I said nothing in response. I quickly realized I was now not in the frame of mind to help anyone. I thought for a moment about just going home but decided not to. My main objective in going downtown is to bring the presence of God to people who are forgotten, lonely and disenfranchised for one reason or another. I knew I couldn't bring the presence of God to anyone without getting this anger out of me and I had to do it right away. I found a small street off of Olympic Blvd east of Alameda St called Lemon St. and parked the car. I parked just short of a freeway overpass. I pulled out a copy of the New Testament that I had with me and started reading Jesus' Sermon on the Mount in Matthew. This section describes the hearts, minds and actions of people in God's kingdom. Of course, the Beatitudes hit you right off the bat, "Blessed are the pure in heart. Blessed are the peacemakers", etc. The copy of the New Testament that I had with me had titles for the various sections. So here comes the section, "Teaching about Anger" (Chpt 5:starting in verse 21). Yeah, that was a little convicting and then came the section about "Teaching about Revenge" (starting in verse 38) and then finally I was nailed with "Teaching about praying for your Enemies". Now I'm thinking, "Oh Lord, now you want me to pray for this guy?" Well, it said plain as day that He did. So I started praying for that guy. I knew that he was just caught up in this world's system. The system where it's "Me first" and we're always impatient with anything in our way. And it's not like I haven't been guilty of these feelings before myself. I asked God to forgive me for my anger and to please take it away and get it out of me, and the sooner the better. Actually, when I acknowledged my own sin of reacting to this guy and asked forgiveness I was able to forgive the other guy pretty easily. Having accomplished what I pulled over to do I was now able to continue the trip. Remember I told you I was parked almost under a freeway overpass? I pulled out and there right in front of me on the other side of this small street was a homeless man living under that freeway! I pulled a couple of cars ahead and parked again on the right side. I grabbed a bag of food and walked over to him (I took a picture as I walked up).
His name was Charles. He was pretty young, probably under thirty years old. He had been in the Navy. I had two brothers in the Navy so we talked for a few minutes about that, he told me he was from Buffalo, New York. I had walked back to the car and gotten him some water and returned. We talked for a few minutes more and I said, "Well, let me pray for you before I leave." Then out of the blue he said, "Even if I'm Muslim?!!!!!" I said, "Even though." So I prayed for Charles and when I got to the end of the prayer I asked for His blessings in the name of Jesus Christ. Charles didn't complain or say a word in protest. We smiled at each other and parted. I couldn't believe how God used that radio program and orchestrated the last twenty minutes or so. It was quite unbelieveable when it was all over.
The rest of the morning went pretty fast after that. I was able to help Ruben at Hooper and Newton St. and Marcus on Washington Blvd. (yeah, someone honked at me there when I stopped to help this guy) and Henry off Washington and Central Ave. All in all, it was a pretty good trip. I'll end with this. A lot of people can quote you scripture, chapter and verse. But I've heard it said, "You don't know scripture, until you're willing to be changed by it." My prayer is that our hearts are always open and receptive to changing according to God's word. Until next week. --John