Monday, March 26, 2018

Downtown Sunday 3/25/2018

"Be strong and courageous.  Do not be afraid or discouraged because of the king of Assyria and the vast army with him.  With him is only the arm of flesh, but with us is the LORD our God to help us and to fight our battles."  And the people gained confidence from what Hezekiah the king of Judah said.  2 Chronicles 32:7-8  

It had been a month or so since my last trip.  I've switched back to working days for the next four months and with daylight-savings time it is much easier on me physically to make these trips now. I was really looking forward to this one, knowing I would have plenty of daylight.  Before I left, my wife asked what she should be praying for and I said pray for divine encounters and that I would meet people that really needed to hear a word from God and be able to reconnect with my friends down there.

With the lack of extended daylight hours, the last few trips I've made I've had to make the difficult choice on not going into Compton because it would lengthen the trip too much.  I don't mind being down there after dark, but it's a lot harder to find people out and about at that time.  They are usually under covers for the night soon after the sun goes down.  But on this trip I wasn't going to have that problem so I started off in Compton at a spot near Imperial and Central that I'd been going to a while back.  When I got there all the homeless people were gone!  There were probably 8-10 people living there, most of them behind a fence behind a gas station with 2-3 more living on a side-street adjacent to the gas station.  But now there's no one there.  Then I saw what had happened.  The gas station had closed and had a chain-link fence set up around its perimeter.  No doubt, the new management company had the homeless people run-off. I drove around some of the streets nearby hoping to find a place where they possibly relocated to, but to no avail.  I had no choice but to head on towards downtown.

I didn't see any accessible people to help on the drive up Central Ave and finally ended up stopping at the burned-out church just off 27th and Central.  No changes yet, but I'll keep praying for Pastor Magee and his church until something does change.  I drove on over to San Pedro Ave and up to 25th. There on the street corner I put on a lasagna dinner for folks one afternoon a few years back.  There hasn't been anyone living on that sidewalk in a long time, but there were a lot of folks living in the first alley north of there.  They too had been run-off a long time ago, but as I slowly drove by I noticed some people have started living there again.  I drove around the block and entered from the other side and came on through.  The first guy living there was Andrew and then a woman who I kind of recognized started walking towards me.  She recognized me right away, then I saw Pete there who I've known for several years now.  He told me he had had a heart attack since I saw him last.  During his time in the hospital he reconnected with his son whom he hadn't seen in 34 years!  I think I understood him to say his son is the pastor of a church a few miles away.  Well, I gave out clothes, a couple of blankets, food and had group prayer with these three.  It was wonderful.  But I was just getting started.

I drove on up San Pedro and turned down 10th Place.  There were a couple of homeless men on this street.  Both of these men were pretty good size and were hungry.  I gave them extra sandwiches (a total of 5 between the two of them-Derek got three) and prayed with both of them.  They also both needed warm clothing and I had some long sleeve shirts and a couple of jackets.  They asked for blankets too, but I had given out the only ones I had at the last stop. I drove around to the other side of the block.  This is 10th St.  There on that street were four old friends, well three anyway.  There was a new woman there, her name was Brigette and she was very pregnant.  Well, the three of them started telling her about me and simply referred to me as Pastor and that I was family.  I was kind of bummed out because there were four of them and I only had three sandwiches left.  Somehow, no one complained.  They asked for blankets too, but I had given them all out at the first stop.  I ended up promising to stop there first next week and giving them blankets then.  I did give out several tarps which they greatly appreciated and let them go through the clothes in the back of the car.  So they all gathered around when I prayed for them and locked arms around shoulders (it was a very special moment).  So I'm not sure how it happened that I ended up standing with Brigette and her man.  Now this is the guy in the picture from the last blog who was with Bree.  You may recall she had been pregnant I assumed with him and had lost her baby and asked me to pray especially for her situation.  I don't know, but I assumed at the time she had a miscarriage. So now Don Juan (I don't know his name for sure) has a new woman and she's pregnant.  So he's pointing to her pregnant belly and with pride telling me he's very happy.  I step towards Brigette and place my hand on her belly and start praying a special blessing for this child.  When I finished I opened my eyes and he was crying.  He tells Brigette, "This is why he's Pastor John".  It was a good trip.  God is faithful.  I reconnected.  --Until next time.  John

PS.  So I started this blog with an old testament story about king Hezekiah and the imminent military threat from the Assyrian army led by Sennacharib.  It was like David facing Goliath.  The odds were overwhelming.  Well, just like those people in that day, we face issues with overwhelming odds against us.  You could be homeless or not homeless, but life presents us with situations that are overwhelming at times.  The cornerstone of faith begins with prayer and believing in our God, who is Lord over the impossible, to take charge over our impossible situation.  Begin today.  Pray for the impossible.  --John      



  

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