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| Standing outside of YWAM base camp before outreach |
We sat on a curb outside of a federal building on the plaza, pulled out the guitars and percussion instruments and began singing. This singing began to attract a small crowd and soon the team began interacting with the people at the worship space. Not long after that, team members went off in groups to interact with the homeless gathered throughout the plaza. Charlene, Becca, Hannah, and I met with "Tio Javier" (Uncle Javier), a 50 year-old alcoholic who said he wanted to stop drinking, but it was hard for him. We asked about his life, his family, and his needs. He asked us to pray for his drinking, for him to be able "to keep living," and for pain he was experiencing after being hit by a car a few years ago. We met two people in that park who had injuries from being hit by cars. The other guy still had a cast on his arm. After a while, I caught the eye of a man sitting off a distance, smiled, and did that guy thing of tilting the head as if saying, "what's up?" It was enough of a cue to feel okay going up to him. The man's name was AJ, which were the letters of his two first names that "are difficult for Americans to pronounce." AJ was from Afghanistan. He was smoking marijuana as we spoke, hoping, as he said, it would mellow him out. I thought it a strange comment because he seemed perfectly relaxed. AJ talked to me about life in Afghanistan, in Pakistan where he family moved, and his years in America. He spoke of a failed arranged marriage. He spoke of his hopes to be able to earn money to move back to Afghanistan. "It may not be much to look at, but when you live there, you realize how enjoyable the place can be."He also spoke of faith. His home countries were predominantly Muslim, but he rejected that faith because he felt like it was forced on him. He felt suffocated by the rules of Islam and without openly rejecting it, he just wandered away from it. I told him I was a Christian and hoped that the conversation would drift toward spiritual truth and decisions. It didn't. I couldn't help but agree that just accepting a body of doctrine was not what God wanted. I didn't get to have the discussion that faith, and especially Christianity, is not about religion; it is about a relationship with God through Jesus Christ. Unfortunately, our group had to leave and our conversation was cut short. If I lived here, I would go back tomorrow and as many days as possible to continue the conversation. I only hope our conversation was one small piece of opening his heart to meet Christ in a real and personal way.
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| At worship time in the plaza |
After lunch, we went to do group processing of the trip then went to worship and large group processing. That was a great time to spend in worship and prayer before God. Students got to journal, draw, nail burdens written on slips of paper onto a cross, pray together, and doodle on the sidewalk with chalk. It was a time to express what God had done in them or said to them in this week's work. Nicky and I used this as a time to take a few of the students aside and affirm them in their faith. When Nicky, MacKenzie and I were talking on a small porch behind the building, the wind blew the door back into the building shut. What we didn't know was that everyone had left inside and we were locked out. We thought we were going to have to jump the fence then found a gate that led us into a construction zone that took us about 15 minutes to find our way out. When we got back, the team had eaten, all of the food was gone, and the three of us went to Subway down the street. It was a little mini-adventure.
Tonight, the game plan was perfect. Relaxing. Some slept, a group of us gathered on a couch and looked at photos and videos on the computer, and enjoyed hanging out. We also planned our day ahead with our leader, Daniel, who will join us in showing some of the sights of San Francisco.
For now, it's bed time...
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