I just spent the weekend in San Francisco working with YWAM to serve the homeless and to share Christ's love with them. This is my 4th year going and every year I come away learning new lessons and seeing God work in incredible ways. Here are just a few of the highlights:
Friday night:
- Arrive at YWAM around 6:30
- Begin orientation
- Brackney sets his eyes on one of the YWAM leaders, Amanda...now becoming a missions trip tradition
- Head out for hot chocolate ministry where I see the homeless man that we (Matt and I) had purchased a "bed in a bag" for (from Ross Dress For Less) a few months earlier...he no longer had the blankets :-(
- Met some incredible people: Joey who has been homeless since 14, got hit by a car at 19 and his dad is now dying from cancer but won't talk to his son-a really neat guy who simply had a terrible childhood and is still struggling from it and another man who I could not understand but provided us with a little giggle...we thought he fell asleep while we were talking with him, turns out he was just preparing to pray, for about 2 minutes....
- Went to bed late and got no sleep...
Saturday:
- Woke up at 5...thanks to some lovely girls from another church....
- Went on a prayer walk around the city...prayed for strip clubs and "massage" parlors
- A student realized why the city smells so bad when he saw a man peeing on a wall...
- Met a beautiful lady named Grace-we bought her some yogurt and cranberry juice and prayed with her, we prayed that her family would come back together and as soon as we finished praying her grandchildren walked up to her...what an incredible answer to prayer right in front of us!! Oh, she also called one of our chubbier students "a chunk"...she really meant it in a nice way....
- Went to lunch on Hippie Hill on Haight...always walk away with the stench of pot stuck in your nose but this activity always leads to great conversations
- Set up a prayer station where Aaron had to pray without using pronouns because he didn't know if Billie was a male or female...he said it was the most difficult prayer he ever had to pray
- Students bought homeless people lunch...an incredible selfless act who spoke volumes to other people who witnessed the actions
- Went to Blondies for lunch....greatest place for pizza by the slice...especially when you had breakfast at 7 and no lunch till 4....
- Corporate worship time when I really got to see how mature our jr. high students are....the other group at YWAM had high school students who were goofing around, writing on each other and even sleeping on the floor...did I mention even their pastor was sleeping on the floor....ugh! Our students did great and were very respectful
- Walk to Grace Cathedral where we had team worship time...Aaron Wolfe did great leading us in worship...he is such a stud and I think all the ladies should take notice of him....
- On the walk to Grace a student asked me what "exotic nudge shows" are...I had to correct him because the sign said "exotic nude shows"....awkward!
- Another student saw a corner store in which she thought she had been to before where she had the best hot chocolate...turns out it was a pretty wild bar....I hope she was mistaken
- Late night walk to Burger King...yum!
- Finally got a few hours of sleep
Sunday:
- Doughnuts/donuts...both spelling are correct by the way....from Happy Donuts....best donuts in Northern California!
- Church at PromiseLand...a Charismatic church
- Service started at 10:30...pastor started speaking at 11:40....they did some healings and claimed prophecies....interesting cross-cultural experience!
- Got home at 3:00
Had an amazing time and the junior high students did an incredible job of stepping out of their comfort zones and showing people the love of Christ in practical ways. I encourage you to drop any stereotypes of homeless people because they are not all lazy drug addicts and alcoholics. You can learn a lot from homeless people too as most of them are more appreciative of what they have, as little as it may be, compared to those of us who can have pretty much anything we want. Take 20 minutes this month and chat it up with someone living on the streets, you may be surprised by what you learn....and remember volunteers are sexy!
2 comments:
Wow Heather. Great post. That trip sounds ridiculously awesome. I can't wait to hear about it when I come home tomorrow. However I am not surprised at all that Brackney had another woman throwing herself at him. The Lord giveth and if Bracks not going to do anything about it and keep batting for the other team the Lord is gonna taketh away.
Can't wait to see you this week pal!
Awesome post.
Wow indeed, thanks for sharing about the trip to SFO.
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