"Then your light shall break forth like the dawn and your healing shall spring up quickly; your vindicator shall go before you, the glory of the LORD shall be your rear guard, then you shall call, and the LORD will answer; you shall cry for help and he will say, 'Here I am.' ...if you offer your food to the hungry and satisfy the needs of the afflicted, then your light shall rise in the darkness and your gloom be like the noonday. The LORD will guide you continually, and satisfy your needs in parched places, and make your bones strong; and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water whose waters never fail. --Isaiah 58:8-9a, 10-11 ..
By now you've probably noticed how an encounter the previous week points me in a direction or location the next week. Last week I helped a couple of young men soliciting help on the corner of Washington Blvd and Grande Vista. Well, I started there this week, but those men weren't there this time. I headed on into the downtown area and helped a couple of people with food who were by an alley off Griffin and Washington.
A friend had given me some extra resources this week so I bought extra food and was looking forward to helping a person here and a person there (one or two isolated folks at a time). Those are kind of my favorite trips, you can have interaction with a lot of people individually. However, I hadn't driven by my friends at 25th and San Pedro in quite a while so I thought I'd drive by and come up the back side and just peek over their way to see if they were still there. I wasn't planning on stopping, just seeing if they were still there. That was the plan... So as I'm driving up San Pedro I'm looking east down the streets and I came to what I thought was 25th and didn't see anyone! I'm a little taken aback by this and decided to drive around the block and check it out again. So I drove up to the next street and turned east down it and realized that this was their street and not the other one. I don't know how I got the streets mixed up. Anyway, I was there and saw everyone and Dave saw me so I parked the car and got out. Now you may remember last week I didn't take any food to my first stop where there were lots of people because I didn't want the trip to be over so quickly. And that was why I wasn't planning on stopping here today. But here I was and there was no turning back.
Dave actually came over and was opening up the back before I even got out of the car. Hiram came over and we hugged. I grabbed the bag of food and started handing out burgers to the others on the sidewalk. There were several people there I didn't know, a couple of women named Judy and a Francis and several other men. Then Becky walked by pushing her shopping cart in the street. I asked her if she was hungry and she said yes. Now I've helped Becky many times before and have probably known her now for four years, but she asked me, "What do I need to do for it?" I said, "Just give me a hug." Becky always has a couple of dogs following her and usually a cat or two in her cart. And, she always insists on giving me some of her homemade lotion. It would be impolite to refuse it, because some of these folks desperately want to give back something of value to me. So I ended up with a napkin-full of her concoction on the front seat. I stayed and talked with everyone for about twenty minutes or so. People kept coming by, but by then all the food was gone. I would direct them to the back of the car to look for clothes. I don't know why, but I had put extra socks in the car and they were all given out by the time I left, probably close to twenty pairs. Coincidence huh? I prayed with a few people separately and with the whole group before I left. I claimed that corner as "His kingdom turf" until I returned. --Until next time. John
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