Downtown on a very special week-4/30/2012

The Lord is there to rescue all who are discouraged and have given up hope. The Lord's people may suffer a lot, but he will always bring them safely through. --Psalm 34:18-19

A lot has been said this week about it being the 20th anniversary of the Rodney King trial and the events that erupted quite quickly in the Los Angeles area following the verdict announcement. At the time I was still driving trucks for a living. The day before everything broke loose in chaos, I was stopped by the highway patrol at a make-shift inspection point in the Whittier area. The two officers were giving me a difficult time. The older one was yelling at me, the younger one was accusing me of doing something I hadn't done. Eventually, they let me (and my truck) pass, but I was infuriated by their attitudes. I knew enough to keep quiet and not argue with them, but I made sure I got the number of their patrol car. After talking it over with a friend it was suggested that I go and talk to the CO of the precinct so he was aware of his officers' conduct. Then the next day the rioting began. Well, I knew it would be of no use to try and talk to anyone down there, so I just let it go and moved on. During the next week I drove by many fires, but no real groups of rioters throwing things. I was fortunate. Other truck drivers were not as lucky. Eventually, things calmed down and got back to being normal. Remember I'm old enough to remember the riots of 1965 (I was 10 yrs old at the time). Although, things got back to 'normal' each time, you get the sense that human nature never changes and the discontent and restlessness that simmers under the surface in all of us is somehow always ready for release during a time of high stress.

Well, it was also three years ago this week, that I started making these trips downtown. I was also experiencing a restlessness and a level of discontent in my life that I didn't know what to do with. I could list a number of small things leading up to the first trip that played a part in 'pushing me over the edge' to doing something so radically different than I had ever done before. I guess you could start with the missions trip to Nepal in 2004 and subsequently the prayer-walking in the church neighborhood at the time. Then I took a big step and started printing up the door-hangers and the original Rightnowcounts website with the audio messages and interviews with missionaries. I met some people with amazing stories of God working in their lives. Through all this time I had an insatiable appetite for missionary stories and read countless books about the lives of missionaries both present day and in the past. I started to get the feeling that something was missing in my Christian walk if all I did was read the bible and go to church. There just had to be more to it than that. I wanted the excitement that comes when God intervenes and makes things happen. I had been exposed to the miraculous as stories I read about in books, but now people who I knew and trusted were telling me of the miraculous. Finally, I saw a documentary movie that went around the world filming God in action. It captivated my attention. This was better than any play-off ballgame I had ever watched (and I've watched a few). Finally, the interview I saw with Rolland Baker where I was challenged to find a people group where I least expected God to move and start there. I was floored. I knew of a group of people from thirty years ago that I used to see everyday in downtown Los Angeles. I didn't need to be ordained or apply for a license or get approval from anyone. Just go. Just do it. It is exactly the challenge that I was looking for. It's the challenge of living your faith where the Holy Spirit has to show up. It's the excitement of knowing that you might see, experience and learn a profound lesson about yourself and the character of God at the next encounter with a homeless person that you never would have gotten from reading a book. Now I'm not denigrating reading books and certainly not the Bible. However, something that you read in a book, simply doesn't carry the same weight as experiencing it 'live'. That's why Jesus spoke in parables, so people would see great and profound truths in everyday life experiences.

Let me give you a couple of quick examples from Sunday night's trip. It was almost completely dark. The sun had gone down about an hour before and the very last bit of daylight was just about gone behind the LA skyline. I had 5 hamburgers left and was going down this alley. The asphalt pavement ends about halfway down and it's just dirt, gravel and deep holes with trash dumped along the sides. I came up to where this man and a woman were who I've never seen before. They appeared to be waiting for someone or something. My guess is they were trying to figure out where they could score some drugs. I had the window down and asked if they needed some food. The man was standing right by the car as I drove up and he looked at the woman and then back at me and said 'Yeah'. I gave them some food and water and introduced myself. He said his name was Joe, but didn't introduce the woman. Now I've been down this ally many times before and was always warned about the people that 'hide out' at the spot where I met these two. I was told they were 'evil druggies' and to stay away from them. So it's now completely dark except for the headlights of my car and I'm in the midst of a drug infested alley! Well, I left them and drove on down the alley further where someone I do know had been staying recently. He was there, fortunately, and was hungry and needed some socks too. I got out of the car and dug through the back of the car with a flashlight to find some socks and shirts. As I was getting back into the car, the man and woman from down the alley were coming up towards us. As they passed by me the man said, "Thanks again John." I was shocked. First, that he even remembered my name and secondly that he cared enough to thank me again. It really is true, there is enough good in all of us that God deems us worth saving. Even if there isn't 'enough' good in us, He still deems us worth saving because He created us in His image. Earlier that evening, in the next alley up I met a man named Michael. He was 60 years old and a Vietnam era vet. After giving him some food and water and praying with him, he prayed too, thanking God for sending me to him! I sometimes get discouraged in this ministry. Sometimes I am blinded by only what I see and not what God is doing that I don't see. Does that even make sense? The miraculous is not just in the physical visual world that we see, but also in the spirit world that we don't see. Earlier, I made the comment that human nature doesn't seem to change and that what goes on under the surface is always ready to erupt in a negative way during times of stress. Well, I'm beginning to see that the good, that image of God that is in all of us, is ready to break-out too, given the opportunity to respond to God's love and care that we, as His children, can provide to a world that is in desperate need of seeing and experiencing it. ---Until next week. John