Tuesday night downtown-7/28/2015

But for this very reason, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue, to virtue knowledge, to knowledge self-control, to self -control perseverance, to perseverance godliness, to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness love.  For if these things are yours and abound, you will be neither barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.  For he who lacks these things is shortsighted, even to blindness, and has forgotten that he was cleansed from his old sins. --2 Peter 1:5-9

OK, so the last two weekends I have had to work so I couldn't make a trip downtown.  Tonight I could so I went down there, kind of late.  I drove to 25th and San Pedro where I had the dinner on the sidewalk back in November, but no one was there.  That's the first time no one has been there since I've been going there for well over a year.  There were some people in the next alley towards 24th though, so I drove down there and stayed with them a while.  There were a couple of new people I hadn't met before.  One man, whose name was Miguel, was very thankful for the food.  I gave out sandwiches to everyone (about 5 or 6 people) and then handed out the last of the socks I had.  Later, when I noticed Miguel only had some sandals on I dug around in the back of the car and came up with a pair of shoes.  Socks aren't much help if you don't have shoes to wear right?  (Although socks will keep your feet warm at night when your sleeping.)  I prayed for Miguel separately and then for everyone there.  That was a good stop.  I asked about Hiram who lived on 25th and San Pedro and one of the women there said he has finally gotten an SRO place on 21st.  I'll have to find out exactly where so I can go and visit him.  I really like seeing Hiram.

I gave a couple of sandwiches out to some people in another ally behind the Auto Zone store on Washington and Griffith and then drove over to Trinity St and saw Antonio and Leticia (yes she had me pray for her too) and around the block I found Lee on Washington Blvd.  She's usually on Trinity too, but not tonight.

I was down to one last sandwich and found a guy on 9th at Maple.  He was sitting up inside his make shift boxes/shelter with just his head sticking up.  I drove passed him, but stopped and backed up so I could offer him the last of the food.  Another man was walking by him and he bummed a cigarette off him.  When I pulled up I wanted to take his picture sitting behind the box, but thought better of it because I didn't want to offend him, so I just offered the food and water.  When he got up to come over, he didn't have any shoes or socks on.  I don't know if he didn't have any, or just didn't have them on, but he kind of hobbled over to me.  I was out of both shoes and socks anyway, so I couldn't offer him anything more besides the food and water.  He was appreciative of those though.  His name was Victor.  I look for him again next time.  --Until then.  John