So I have been wanting to write about ministry week for a couple of days now, let me just say...it was AMAZING! Never in my life have I had a week like that....Let me break it down for ya'll.
Well first my team was amazing! We all got along really well and seemed to unite our different personalities under Christ. It was awesome to see so many different people loving Jesus in their own way and how it just gelled.
One project that we got to do was to paint the church's sanctuary. Now let me describe this church to you...it's a southern baptist church that has heavy metal worship service, the pastor has long blond hair but wears sorta prep clothes and leather sandals (love it!) and the church was really this 3 story house with a basement. It was so wild! The sanctuary was totally white and so the pastor took the five who would be doing the main painting (Fox, JP, Becca, Suzanna, and I) to this paint store and let us loose. Seriously he was totally hands off the entire project. So we put our creative juice a workin sent up a bazillion prayers for God to lead our hands and started picking out colors and painting. And let me tell you....God answers prayers because by Friday night at 3 am after five days of painting it was the sweetest sanctuary in the whole wide world!
Now personally it really challenged me to rely on God and to trust that he had given me a gift and that I could use it. My job was to paint all the doors. First I was totally stoked, but after a couple of days I began to feel really inadequate, looking at all the other's and what they were doing. My doors weren't turning out how I wanted and so I was frustrated up the wazzoo! But late on Friday night (or early Sat. morning, however you want to look at it) I just gave up and ended up just being me instead of trying to use everyone else's style to paint. We unhinged the doors, took them outside and I splatter painted the heck out of 'em. And guess what? When we put the back up it totally rocked! Seriously it just seemed to bring the room together and also add a crazy random element that hadn't been there before. It was GREAT! The Lord taught me a lot about walking out in my gifts and talent's and not being ashamed, and also just to be myself.
Ok so ministry wise it was crazy insane! I'll just tell one story but trust me, there were many amazing things that God did. But for my one story I'm gonna tell you about Johnny.
Johnny was a homeless man I met in downtown Minneapolis. He was sitting on a bench with a few other men, every once in a while he would pull his jacket back and steal a gulp of Listerine, this was the only alcohol he could afford. His hair was greasy, cloths were dirty and to top it off he was drooling. Needless to say on any given day I would have passed him by, tried my best to avoid eye contact and would have forgotten all about him 2.3 seconds later.
But not that day.
He had grabbed my friend Becca and after them talking for a min or two he asked for a bible. Now I was the only one with a backpack and happened to have a couple of Gospel's of John. I went and stood near him fully ready to just give him a bible and leave, because of course I had more important things to do like pray....right??
Wrong.
Something about his demeanor and eyes broke me.
I sat down and started praying because I didn't have a clue what to say. I asked him if he had ever read the bible he said, "yes....in prison". And that's when the conversation took off....He brought up the prodigal son story and kept repeating how the Father had loved his son and had taken him back even though he was a sinner. Then he would lapse into some random talk, take a gulp of Listerine and drool. I kept engaging him in conversation until once again the lights would come on and he would start telling me about the love of the Father for the son who was a sinner.
It blew my mind, after all the things in this man's life he remembered a story that spoke directly about the Gospel message. I knew that God was working and so I prayed and continued to talk to him. Johnny kept lapsing, but I prayed for my opportunity.
And it arrived.
Once again he brought up the story and that's when I looked him in the eyes and told him how much God loved him, how no matter what he has done God is that Father and so ready to accept him back. That we were all sinners but God still loves us. He stared at me and nodded but his eyes spoke of such great pain. Brokenness seeped through this man and I began to realize how much my heart was breaking for him.
In that moment I saw how much God DID love Johnny and how much Johnny was desired. That Jesus died for Johnny and that Johnny was valuable to the Lord. In fact Johnny was the exact type of person who Jesus would have sat down next to and had a conversation with. Maybe for one of the first time I saw the value of people whom this world passes by, I saw the harsh reality of the streets carved on this man's soul but I also knew in that instant that when Jesus died he died for Johnny. All this happened in a second but it was overwhelming.
I reached my hand out to him and asked if I could pray for him, he nodded sure. It occurred to me that no one probably touches Johnny and so I put my hand in his and closed my eyes. Never before have I prayed for someone like that but it was like my heart would burst if I didn't get it out. I wanted to weep for the bondage of this man and how the lies of the enemy had clouded his mind to the truth of a Living Loving God. While I prayed he began to squeeze my hand like it was a lifeline or something, it was wild. I closed the prayer with an Amen and looked up, and there was Johnny tears streaming down his face and I just looked at him and told him how much Jesus loved him. He didn't wipe away the tears, they ran unchecked but his dull eyes shone with hope. And I knew that God was after his heart and this indeed was a divine encounter. But all to soon the moment ended and he lapsed back into his mumblings. So I gave him a Gospel of John, squeezed his shoulder and said goodbye. But I walked away changed.
Jesus came to seek and save those who were lost, and Johnny was lost. But he was not beyond the reach of Jesus, in fact he was within his grasp. I don't know what plans God has for Johnny but I do know that if let me, a 20 year old white suburban girl talk and pray to him then He is after his heart. I feel honored and humbled that God would allow me to be the one to talk to Johnny, I had no understanding of where he was at in life, I haven't experienced over half the things he has but still God used me to show Johnny his love.
So here it is, don't walk by the broken because maybe God wants you to speak life where there has only been death, don't avoid eye contact because you'll miss the lifeless eyes of a beggar and the hunger he has for not just food but love, and don't forget them because they are still there after you walk by and God hasn't forgotten them. Think...God came after us in our filthy mess, he received us back into his arms just as we were, can He not do the same for those who look more messy than ourselves? Does He not desire them too? Johnny taught me to really look and listen, God used Johnny to teach me about love and boldness. So go be bold in a broken place and experience the richness of God's amazing grace.
ay, i think, my dad took Anna and I to this park downtown...it was amazingly beautiful and great to walk around in but it had many cool things like a lake, ducks, but one of the greatest was this tree that you could climb inside!! It was great...