Sunday night 12/2/2012

"Jesus asked a second time, 'Simon son of John, do you love me?'  Peter answered, 'Yes, Lord, you know I love you!'  'Then take care of my sheep,' Jesus told him."  --John 21:16   

After a very difficult week health-wise I decided to go ahead and make a trip downtown.  It has been raining off an on for the last 4 or 5 days and although it was raining a little when I left, I felt it was better to go ahead and go Sunday than wait and go during the week.  My health issues had interrupted my sleep schedule as well as my work schedule for the last 4 days also.  So I wasn't feeling great, but at least I wasn't hurting when I left.  I could only pray that God would lead me to those he wanted me to reach because there also wasn't going to be a lot of daylight time left either.

You may remember a couple of weeks ago I wrote about an encounter with Gary.  He asked me for a bible and I ended up giving him a New Testament.  I didn't see him last week, but yesterday I did.  He told me he had been reading Galations 4 and 5 and was caught up in the struggle between the flesh and the spirit that chapter 5 (vs. 16-26) talks about.  Wow.  Talk about getting right to the heart of the matter, huh?  We must have talked about this for 15 or 20 minutes.  One of the things he pointed out to me was the attitude he gets or at least feels he gets from people.  For example, if he goes into a store with only a few coins and is counting out the change he gets very self-conscious that people are irritated waiting on him.  If he isn't dressed very well, he feels self-conscious about that when he is out having to deal with the public.  These types of things put him mentally in a very defensive position when it come to coping with the outside world.  When I pulled up to his spot in this alley, he told me he had just put on his shoes so he could go looking in the trash behind some medical clinic on the other side of Washington Blvd.  He told me that the women who work there throw out their food/lunches that they don't eat.  But then he realized it was Sunday and they were closed, so there wouldn't be any food there.  And then I drove up right then and called out to him!  He said what a great time of rejoicing that was.  Well, I must have spent a good half hour with Gary.  I ended up giving him some shirts a pair a shoes and a blanket.  He also said he'd be more than happy to ride with me and point out some of the spots where the homeless on that side of Washington Blvd live.  I'm looking forward to it.  It's amazing how this relationship with Gary has grown in the last month.

Just before I pulled into the alley where Gary lives, I saw a couple of homeless men on the other side of Central.  I kept them in mind after leaving Gary and found them in a parking lot at the end of Gary's alley.  I don't know what your mental picture of homeless people is, but as I passed by these two latino men, I saw a pretty much iconic sight.  Both men were unshaven and carrying bags.  One man was counting out coins in his hand and the other was watching.  I don't know if they were pooling their meager rescources or not.  I pulled up and asked if they needed some 'comida'.  Their names were Jorge and Oscar and they responded like anyone who is hungry would respond.  After giving them some food and water I said, "Dios, la bendiga."  You remember I learned how to say that in Spanish about a week ago.  I put it into practice immediately and they responded warmly.  I hope I see them again soon.  At least for a while, I'll probably be spending more time in this area.

Last week I met a man named Caseem and his wife (Brenda it turns out).  There was another man with them this week whose name was Louis and he is Caseem's brother.  When I pulled up Caseem said, "You came back!  You did what you said you would do!"  It makes you wonder how many promises Caseem has heard that didn't come through.  By now it was completely dark.  Brenda looked around in the back for clothes they could use and Louis and Caseem and I talked.  Louis had actually dealt with the health issue (kidney stones) that I had been dealing with this week.  He told me what worked for him (drinking tea) and, in fact, they gave me a couple of bags of tea.  Not being a tea drinker, I was somewhat amused by the name of the tea....Jerusalem Tea (no I'm not kidding).

Just down the street from them was a sight that always discourages me.  On the sidewalk was someone with only a blanket over them.  It turned out to be a woman whose name was Mary.  She was somewhat small in build and probably somewhere around 35-40 years old.  It's hard to tell a person's age on the street and even more so with women.  One has to be very careful dealing with women alone on the street, so I called out to her when I saw her blanket moving.  I asked if she needed some food.  She kind of struggled to get up, but made it over to the car and got the food.  She had socks on, but no shoes.  I don't know that she didn't have any shoes, but she didn't have any on.  I kept the encounter brief, I'm sure this was probably more of a risk for her than she wanted to take, but she was willing to do it if she was hungry enough.

There were a couple others that I was able to help last night, but due to my own health concerns and the weather I didn't venture down to prayer-walk on skid row.  We'll have to do that next week.  Until then. --John