Downtown 9/30/2012--Last barbecue for the year

"Since you are God's dear children, you must try to be like him.  Your life must be controlled by love, just as Christ loved us and gave his life for us as ....[a] sacrifice that pleases God." --Ephesians 5:1-2

My wife shared this verse with me a couple of nights ago, and it has impacted me on so many levels ever since.  This is one of the verses that the older translations say, "Be imitators of God."  One of the objectives of this ministry is to encourage the people that I meet to simply do better, whether it's to make better daily decisions or to live at peace with themselves and the world.  We all carry baggage around with us.  Some of it is ancient history from growing up and some is more recent.  One of the men yesterday shared briefly about the physical abuse he endured growing up.  Another shared with me some of the abuse he suffered going to a Christian school in an east coast state.  Wherever and whenever these times occured, it stays with us and affects the way we look and react to current life situations.  Yet Paul's advice in the verse quoted above is profoundly simple.  Be like God is.  Does it have to be a life-long process to overcome things that happened to us as kids.  I don't know, but it probably does take a long time to retrain ourselves to being controlled by love first and not fear and anger.  The best thing about having the barbecues is that I get to spend a lot of time talking to these guys while the food is cooking.  Yesterday, was probably one of the best times for doing just that.  I got down there shortly before 4 pm and stayed til almost 7 pm.  There is a core of about 5 or 6 men who live on this alley off Hooper St and another 3 or 4 people wandered through while I was there.  Everyone was fed, everyone had a good time.  At the time of day that we started, it had begun to cool off and within a short time we were in the shadows of the buildings around us.  Chris told me that every Friday, on the other side of the buildings directly south of where we were, someone barbecues a bunch of chickens.  The smell of that barbecue reaches them and it's hard for them to endure the smell since they can't afford to go over there and 'buy' a meal.  He laughingly called yesterday's barbecue, "Our revenge."  As a first, I brought potato salad on ice.  It was a huge hit with the guys.

Testimonies are a way of reaching peoples' hearts with real events and circumstances.  Originally I began this ministry to simply be where God was working.  Little did I know that the first place He starts working is on the heart of the one who's doing the ministry.  I guess to be effective in ministry He has to start by preparing your heart.  So here is my story.  I'm not proud of it, but if it helps someone else, then it's His story.  Two months ago, when I did the last barbecue, it didn't go the way I wanted it to.  I had 'my agenda' and very little went right.  Sure, everyone had a good time, the meal went off well and I got to pray with everyone there, but something bothered me that I only shared with 2 or 3 people afterwards.  What that 'something' was, was no one down there helped me.  I was cook, waiter and busboy all rolled into one.  By wearing all those hats, I didn't get to talk as much with the people as I wanted.  So, leading up to Sunday, I was a little concerned about how this one was going to go.  After all, I'm having more difficulties lately with the physical exertion of doing these kinds of things and I knew it would be a struggle.  Yet the Lord spoke to me on this manner reminding me of something.  "John, are you my servant?  Aren't you doing this because you're  serving me?  It's not your concern what they do or don't do to help you"  I have always said these folks downtown are flawed people, their flaws just manifest in different ways than ours do.  So here I am grumbling about it.  Then it struck me right between the eyes so to speak.  Jesus' words, "Remove the log out of your own eye before you try to take the speck out of your brother's eye!"  I was immediately humbled.  I had no right to complain.  I asked for His forgiveness.  I was still a little concerned about my ability to put on the barbecue, but so what.  If it took extra time, so be it.  So when I pulled up Sunday and started to get out, you wouldn't believe what happened.  Dave started opening up the back door as I was getting out and started unloading everything.  Chris helped me prepare and serve the food.  When we were done, they both helped me load up the car!  I said nothing about my 'problem' to anyone down there!  It just happened!!  God was so gracious to me!

As we sat around after the meal and talked Tara asked me about some of the 'things' that have happened to me during my trips downtown.  So I got to share my "Muslim" story along with another story about God answering my 'desparate' prayer one Sunday afternoon when I couldn't find anyone to help.  Santa Barbara said the Muslim story gave him goose bumps.  Chris told me he's trying to get into a room down in the skid row area.  They call them SRO's which stands for single room occupancy.  He wouldn't let me leave until I prayed for him to get a room (gee, twist my arm will ya?)  Dave wanted me to just, "Throw out a prayer for me."  (I had asked him if there was anything special he wanted me to pray for.")

All in all, it was a great day.  I got to pray for people, share scripture with my friends as well as help meet their physical needs.  I have always wanted these barbecue days to be like a family picnic.  Sunday was perfect.  --Until next time.  John