Well, it's been ten days since I made this trip and only now do I have a chance to write about it. I prayed to bring relief to people that day (it was a hot one). I met Arthur right about where I had seen Carlos and Kimberly the week before. Another young man named Alexander was on Essex right off of Washington Blvd and then right around the corner and on the next block west was Solo and 'Youngsta'. I had last seen them behind the auto parts store on Washington a couple weeks back. As I drove away from them I saw Grant (another man I know from the place under the freeway on Wall St where I had the last BBQ). Mixed in here was a drive down the dirt alley between 16th and 15th where I've had some other BBQ's. When I first drove down there I saw one man in the alley. As I continued to drive on down, I saw one and then two other men and they were trying to get another man on his feet. When I finally got to where they were, there were a total of five men there and I didn't know any of them. One man seemed to have passed out and two or three of the others were attempting to revive him. I offered them some water which they quickly accepted, pouring one of the bottles over the man's head, saying he had passed out due to the heat. I ended up giving out about five bottles of water before leaving. One of the men made it clear he didn't want me around. He was the one not involved in trying to revive the guy passed out.
When I got to McArthur Park I didn't initially see my other friends there, but then I did find them in a slightly different location. I stood behind them while they preached. During this time there was a man about 30 or 40 feet away talking loudly in Spanish. At first there were a couple of other people he appeared to be talking to, but after awhile he was by himself and continued to talk loudly. He had a little two-wheeled basket/cart like people take to the store when they have to walk there. He kept talking on and on and loudly too and from time to time waving his arms. It was more than a little annoying, although when it was my turn to preach I really didn't pay much attention to him. After a while a few onlookers gathered because he was kind of making a scene. I finally asked Rosalla what he was talking about. She told me that he only believes in the Old Testament. Then it finally clicked, he was Jewish. I then noticed the cap he was wearing (his skull cap kind of blended in with his hair color-gray). I was now a little ticked off and wanted to just go over to him and start reading Isaiah 53 out loud to him, but, I really don't know if he understood English or not. Now I know that Jews interpret Isaiah 53 completely differently than Christians do, so it may have just provoked more anger and hostility. When I told Rosalla what I wanted to do she simply said, "We just need to pray for him." She was so right and I was so proud that that was the attitude of my friends. I'm sure they had a much harder time ignoring this man because they could understand what he was saying. In the end, I realized we now had something else in common with Jesus.....we'd been rejected (heckled) by a Jew. I count it a blessing to be included in the sufferings of Jesus. --Until next time. John
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