Week #1

Day #1: I flew out of DFW at 8 am this morning, and had an uneventful flight to San Fran. I was picked up from the airport by two of the staffers and we went to eat while we waited on another student, Kelly, to come out of customs. After that we were brought back to the base and had the afternoon off. So after settling down a bit, Kelly and I decided to explore the city and ended up walking for nearly 2 hours. It was so cool to see everything (Starbucks on every other block!) and try to realize that this is real. I really am here!! Incredibly surreal. We didn’t have much in the way of official business today, so tomorrow the real fun begins. There are many incredible people with incredible backgrounds here and I look forward to getting to know them! At the moment, I’m going to get to know my bed. Morning comes at 6:45 :P

Well, that was all I had to say then but now I feel like I could write a book already! This week has been absolutely amazing. Monday it was all surreal, but now it’s started to feel like home and it’s sunk in that we’re all really here for 3 months! We finished staff testimonies and sharing our student testimonies on Thursday and it was so great to learn where everyone came from. A bit daunting to be so vulnerable, but the atmosphere was all encouragement and love. Almost hippie and definitely awesome =]

The city is thrilling and gorgeous but most of all I’m impacted by the people. You can’t walk down from our rooms without seeing the homeless. They’re everywhere: sleeping outside the door, all along the sidewalk, and especially lining up across the street for the soup kitchen in the early morning. I get up at 5:45 each morning to do worship before breakfast with my amazing roomie Michelle and one of the YWAMers, and even at that early hour there is a line half a block long of homeless standing and waiting to get their food.

It’s Saturday night, and today we had a tour of the city. It was cool to get out of the Tenderloin (our neighborhood) and see the tourist destinations of the city. We were set lose in groups of 4-5, given a piece of paper with instructions and a bus card and told to be at the last stop at 5:15! It was 10 am. I know I could write pages and pages just about the wonderful walk and exploration of the city, but I’ll hold in that desire for now. Needless to say it was all gorgeous and fun and tiring and stressful and enlightening and draining and wonderful- all at the same time!

I have two stories I want to share about this week. The first is the story of a prayer walk we did through the TL (Tenderloin aka our neighborhood). My first prayer walk was in Belize, at the YWAM base there, so I felt a little bit better going into this one having already done one before. I was teamed up with my two fellow students, both from Australia, and we were told to go where we felt led and don’t be afraid to ask people if you can pray for them. Amazingly, I did ask 2 people if I could pray for them in spite of my shyness. I was declined both times. The first time was a rough looking young woman, and I think it’s safe to say she was hardened to the church. The second time was a construction worker on break. He was curiously watching us as we prayed over a massage parlor (75% of which are fronts for brothels), so I approached and he asked what we were doing. I explained and even though he declined my request, we stopped a little ways away and prayed anyways. I can’t get this young man out of my head. I feel like I should have shared more about what we were doing and how loved he is to Jesus, and I didn’t. Now I’m beseeching God to put him in my path again so I can redeem that missed opportunity before.

My second story is about a homeless man I talked to on the streets. As we were walking back from our bus stop we passed a man holding a sign that said “Jesus loves you” in bright red letters, and as I caught his eye he smiled so wide! And I had the idea to get him a cup of hot chocolate. It was bitterly cold tonight, harsh wind and freezing air. I couldn’t imagine standing on the sidewalk for hours just holding a sign trying to be a light of love. And I’ve seen him there every time I go downtown, which is pretty much every day since I’ve been here. So I couldn’t get the idea out of my head, and after I dropped off my bag at the base I grabbed two friends and we were off! I took the Starbucks card one of my friends had given me as a going away gift to use to buy it, and after we got to the square I looked around for him... And he wasn’t there. Rather than drink it though, I still felt like I should give it away so I kept looking. We crossed the street and I saw a homeless man sitting by the steps to the train, and I didn’t want to stop. It looked like he was asking for money but as I drew closer I realized his sign actually just said “any kindness.”

  I knew I was supposed to give it to him so I knelt down, still pretty apprehensive, and offered him the cup. His eyes immediately welled up as he took it gratefully and I asked if I could pray for him. He readily agreed and after I finished he was wiping tears from his eyes. I sat down beside him as the people on the sidewalk gave us a wide circle as they passed on. It was amazing, to say the least! His whole life story sounds like it should be in a movie. At first I was hesitant to believe him, but there was no outlandishness in his tale. Just a tale of loss. Sons who abandoned him in his time of need, a wife who took him for all he had and then left him, and a newly found daughter who visits him on the street and takes him to breakfast as often as she can. He kept referring back to his Bible beside him and insisting that he was doing alright, making it from day to day. He smiled and laughed and said he knew Jesus loved him and he knew he was doing a lot better than some folks so he wasn’t worried.

He said he wasn’t worried. He has lived on the street I saw him on for the past 1 and a half years! And he isn’t worried? It’s incredible to me. How can that be? How can I sleep in a bed every night, get plenty of food at every meal, have SO many perks, hot water for a shower whenever I want it, friends and family who stick by me, and the opportunities of a lifetime at my fingertips! I’m young, I’m not dying, and I’ve been given a wealth of experience and chances. Yet I worry enough to kill myself. I worry about money, about clothes, about my image, about my school, what my friends think of me, how I’m going to get from one day to another, and about boys. I worry constantly. I bring myself down and carry a cloud like a balloon. But this man Craig who sleeps, eats, and lives on the sidewalk, doesn’t worry at all. What is his attitude? “Even Jesus was homeless.”

I want that attitude! I want that view of my life. And I want to remember Craig and visit him as often as I can. Because he is an inspiration to me and a wakeup call in my life. Where’s your wakeup call? Did you walk past it today like I almost did? Never be afraid to step out on a limb and trust God. Sometimes people say no, but sometimes they say yes.