We can sleep when we're dead

It has been an awesome week! I should have been blogging as I went, but I’m just now finding time to sit down and write. I’ll try to keep this short, but there are just so many precious faces, and each one has their own story. These are some of my experiences this week.

Thursday morning I met Dr. Tweez and the boys for their homeless breakfast outreach. We swung by the Alamo to pick up Miss Dolly*, a new friend of ours that has spent the majority of the last twenty years living on the streets. She’s a fascinating woman who has a story to tell about everything. It’s obvious that she suffers with some form of mental health issue, and Thursday morning she told me that she has multiple personality disorder and schizophrenia. She did assure me that she’s only schizophrenic because she needs glasses. Okay. I spent about 2 ½ hours with her and heard at least 5 hours of conversation. She can talk about twice as fast as I can listen. We talked about dumpster-diving, riding the rails, and living in the woods along the river. She may be leaving for Florida next week, as there’s a mission in Clearwater that she liked a lot and wants to return to. For entirely selfish reasons, I hope she changes her mind.

Thursday night we had corporate prayer at Highland Campus. Several dozen people showed up to cry out to God for the lost, the hurting and the poor. We stood at the alter, in the gap for those who hadn’t yet found their way to the doors of the church. We thanked God for all He had done, and then asked Him to do even more. His presence was tangible.

Friday morning we had four different ministries come to the warehouse to pick up food. We also had Ladies Thrive, our support group for women in the community. We had five ladies in attendance and we talked about God being our strength and our refuge. There were smiles and tears as the ladies discussed their trials and tragedies. Afterwards we got to pray for them and give them food to take home to their families. All were grateful.

Saturday we headed out to 47th Street for a block party/bar-b-que. For anyone unfamiliar with the 47th Street area, it’s not a place you want to be unless you’ve been called there by God. Under the watchful eye of gang-bangers and drug dealers, we rolled out the grill, set up our tents and started playing in the street. We had girls jumping double-dutch and guys shooting hoops, while the really little kids played with bubble wands and hula-hoops. Soon the air was filled with Christian rap and the scent of meat on the grill. Within about three hours we had handed out 200 hotdogs and hamburgers, along with about 180 bags of groceries and 576 jars of dill pickles. We’re all about random give-aways, and the community loves it.

As I was standing at the pickles/peppers/snacks table, a group of young girls (probably aged 9 or 10) came up and handed me a piece of paper. It had been made on a computer and in blue ink it said, “Thank you for coming to 47th Street”. How cool is that?

So it’s now Saturday afternoon and I’m still in my Serve shirt that smells like smoke and my blue jeans that smell like pickles (there was an unfortunate pickle-dropping accident very close to my leg). If I belonged to any other church, I wouldn’t even think about going to service like this. But since I belong to HPC, I gotta run.
All glory to God!

(* not her real name)