After leaving the Lincoln Park area I headed into town and saw Robert off Alameda and 4th St. Robert is an elderly man and seems barely able to make it. He hardly speaks above a whisper and I'm sure that living on the street during the winter, albeit in Southern California, is very hard on him. I think his only method of survival is what help he receives from the people in the area. I asked if he ever goes down to the missions that are near there (maybe a half a mile walk) and he told me no. When it rains he finds a place nearby with an overhang to stay under. He has no shopping cart and very few 'things'. When I told him I loved him, I actually saw a faint smile come across his face. It was worth the trip.
On the other side of town I saw a homeless man laying down on the sidewalk at Hope and Venice. He was laying in the sun and had his shoes off. His feet looked all swollen and kind of like your fingers look if you've been in a swimming pool too long. I pulled the car around so as to be on his side of the street when I went by and passed a bag of food to him through the car window. He struggled to put his shoes on and limped badly as he came to the car. His shoes had no shoe strings, perhaps that is because his feet hurt and that prevented him from tying his shoes tightly. I ended up finding a place to park and taking some water and socks over to him. I had to ask him a couple of times what his name was and he finally answered, "Jeremiah". I'm not real sure if that name is legit or not; he didn't actually talk like he was all there. However, he was 'there' enough to know I had the bag of food for him. I hope he is able to get the socks on; unfortunately, I didn't have a pair of shoes that would fit him.
Over by the Jack in the Box at Alameda I saw another elderly man all hunched over pushing a shopping cart towards the recycling place. He really didn't have much in the cart to recycle; in fact, I don't think it was a dollar's worth of stuff. He said he had water but could use the bag of food. His name was Walker. At the Jack in the Box I was surprised to see John Stokes (from Atlanta, Georgia) opening the door for people as they went in. We talked for quite a while as I've known John for over a year now. The police have made him move during the day from his spot under the I-10 freeway. He can stay there at night, but not during the day. He relocates during the day to another side street right by the Alameda off-ramp. It is right near where Alphonzo stays. He told me times have been very difficult lately and it's been hard to get enough food to eat. I gave him a bag of food and some water and asked if he needed a ride back to his place, but he told me he wanted to stay there by the Jack in the Box. My guess is he was working the door in hopes of getting tips from people walking in and out.
At this point I decided to drive across Alameda St. and check out the area around there where John lives. I drove across Alameda at 14th and then up a small street called Hunter that passes under the freeway. I saw a couple of homeless guys sitting under the freeway and one smiled at me as I drove by. I had opened a can of soup after leaving the Jack in the Box and was eating it while I was driving. I pulled over and was going to finish it and then drive back to the two guys under the freeway. A couple of minutes later they both walked up to where I was parked. The other guy was my friend Willie. Usually, I see Willie with Tara Lee but I hadn't see either of them lately. Willie told me that he and Tara Lee had to leave the alley where they had been staying because the police had run them off and it was getting difficult and unsafe there due to the other homeless people! Willie told me that he had seen Tara Lee a couple of times lately but didn't know where he was staying. The other man Willie was with this day was Ernest, I hadn't seen him before. I let Willie know that soon I would be coming down there on Sundays and to let me know where we could meet up with all our friends down there to have another barbecue. He told me a couple of our other friends, Billy and James, have gotten a place through the VA in Pasadena. In fact, Willie had been staying in another alley adjacent to where they had been staying. I'm looking forward to having a "family" gathering down there soon. In less than a month, it will be officially springtime (and warmer for everyone).
As I drove over to Cloud Nine Alley I drove past where Arturo had been staying by the freeway at San Pedro, but he wasn't there again. I haven't seen him in several weeks now. There was no one over by Cloud Nine Alley either. This will probably change when I start going on Sundays. I prayer-walked the alley anyway. Several years ago, some church planters told me that invariably, the streets that they would prayer-walk down before planting a church would be the streets that the people who attended the church would ultimately come from and the streets they didn't go down, they would pretty much never get those families attending their churches. It was actually kind of eerie the way it worked out. Since then, I never under-estimated the impact of prayer-walking in an area.
That leads me to the final stop of the day, skid row. As my commitment and passion for this area grows, the vision for this area is growing each week also. At this point, my goal is to pray with at least one person there each week. Hopefully, this will increase as time goes on. I hope to become a recognized person down there and have a reputation among the people who live there that they can talk to me and be prayed for. I don't think any of the missions have people going out on the streets to do this. Before it can happen, the people there have to see me often enough to be willing to trust me. That will take a lot of time, perhaps six months to a year of going regularly before they are used to seeing me and I am used to seeing what goes on there. Right now it can be a little overwhelming. The obvious prostitution and drug abuse is pretty rampant. Yesterday, as I walked by two women talking to each other I heard one tell the other, "I can get you some crack right now." This isn't the kind of conversation I hear everyday, but it's pretty common down there. Yesterday, I met James. He was sitting near where David was a couple of weeks ago and said he was enjoying the warm sun. He was from the east coast and had traveled around many cities. Southern California was by far the best place to be during the winter time. He was soon to turn 61 years old and was trying to get some help for some medical problems from the VA. He had served in the Marines from 69'-73'. We probably talked for 20 minutes or so. I told him about the Midnight Mission and how they serve 3 meals a day there. He told me that the Union Mission around the corner serves 3 meals a day too but at different times than the Midnight Mission.
When I asked James if I could pray for him before leaving he said "Sure, let me get up for this." I helped him stand up (he was shorter than I thought he was). I put my arm around him and prayed for God's blessing and protection there on the street. It was a wonderful privilege to pray for him. --Until next week. John
P.S. I have included a couple of photos I took from the last couple of weeks down there at skid row. One of the pictures is from the trip I took at night last week. Several others just didn't turn out well. The one on the right is from the courtyard at the Midnight Mission. You really can't get a feel from this picture as to how many people were actually in there Monday afternoon.
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