The "church"

Oh goodness, where do I even start? It has taken me a few weeks to process my fourth adventure with this thing called Poverty Simulation. Well that’s what this guy Jimmy calls it. I don’t know that I agree with him so I will refer to it as a "glimpse of homelessness". 

So the goal with each adventure is to take a team of six professionals from the community. My hope is that they would be emptied and then filled again through this experience. It serves as a reminder of why and how we should serve others. This particular outing would prove to be the most challenging one yet.  Days before we are scheduled to leave, half our team drops out and to top it off, this week the naysayers were louder than usual. So loud in fact that I had to use Ephesians 6:12 For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms, for most of the week. I shutter at the mere thought of me having to endure this weekend, emotionally spent. Because obviously it is all about me, right!

I consider scrapping this adventure but I am louder than my naysayers so I make the journey anyway. My naysayers well they kind of drive me. I want to do more every time they hate out loud. In my odd way of being maybe just maybe there are days when I want to give them something to talk about. Ok maybe I'm just being tacky now, so I'll stop.

Lets get back to my adventure. Friday and we have arrived in Waco. I am ready to get this thing going and over with. I’m focused on just getting this thing done. I decide I’m going to look at this adventure as if it were a Band-Aid. Yes a Band-Aid, you know, the quicker you strip off a Band-Aid the less painful it is. Well that’s the idea anyway, but probably not quite how it works most of the time. Friday evening and we are preparing to get the show on the road and of course I sit in anticipation. I look over at my colleagues and I am certain I see fear in their eyes. One is told she cannot keep any of her items and tears fill her eyes. My heart hurts as she is in need and I cannot help. She is afraid and I cannot comfort her. She reaches unknowing what she is even reaching for. Out under the stars yet we manage the best we can and make it through the night. I have never been camping but I assume this is what its like. Well without the tent, food, water and campfire. I guess.

Saturday morning and we are already hungry. Did I tell you we have a team of three at this point? Yes I am complaining. Well, not for long because as we are walking down this treacherous street, not. One of our team members trips and hurts her foot, so off to urgent care she goes. I’m not too good at math but it’s clear we are down to two. I am asking God if He needs my help with planning how my adventure should go. He doesn't respond.

Not sure what time it is but we are hungry and worried that we will not find food. Yes “we realize this is just a “simulation” but still I reach for Matthew 11:30 “For my yoke is easy and my burden is light." We have walked for a while and I’m just not as young as I use to be so again, I am tired and hungry. Have I said that enough? I’ve had a tough week and I am just spent. I look over at my colleague and express my need to pray. She politely allows my need to be met. We stop in the middle of nowhere and yet in the center of everything. I grab her hands and we bow our heads and I pray. I tell God I trust him and I tell Him I believe Him and I ask Him to rescue us. We say amen and begin to walk again. We take 5 to 7 steps and out of nowhere we hear a woman yell in our direction, “Hey are you hungry? I put my hand on my heart and whisper to my Savior, “you heard me.” I think to my self, did I really trust Him? Did I really believe Him?

We hurriedly make our way across the street. I hear Him whisper, Hebrews 13:5 Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said, “Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.” I cannot hold in the tears and I cannot wait to get to where this voice is calling for me. My tears, they cover my dirty face and my body can not contain my excitement and again He whispers, Matthew 6:25-26 “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?

At this point I look over at my colleague and she too allows the tears to wash her face. It’s really unexplainable and there are no words. We know that all we have to do is get to the “church” and all will be well. There is a man standing outside of a doorway and I can see he struggles with addiction and even with that reality, there is safety in this “church” we are walking towards. Mathew 21:13"It is written," he said to them, "'My house will be called a house of prayer,' but you are making it 'a den of robbers." We are not the cleanest of people at this point in the day and yet the “church’ embraces us. They are not concerned with how we look, how we smell or how we got here. They embrace us as I imagine Jesus would if He still walked this earth. We gather as one and bow our heads in prayer. Everything that He has just whispered is repeated by the “church” in prayer. Their love for us is deep and wide and without condition. We cannot speak as His presence has embraced us and qualified us as worthy. They love us with food and something to drink. Again He whispers, Matthew 25:35 For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in,

His message is clear, His “church” is not a building but rather people that will take Isaiah 61 The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me, because the Lord has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners, to heart.

We stand in the parking lot of an apartment complex and it is unsavory to say the least. There is nothing right about this place and yet the peace I feel is overwhelming. A woman approaches and she too is offered worth. I cannot make sense of the safety that abounds in this parking lot.  We walk away embracing each other and still no words are spoken. We find a church building and take the shade it offers. We sit thankful for provision. We have just experienced an encounter with God.

Humbly my colleague finds words and she softly speaks, “I didn’t believe God was real .....until today”. Imagine a “church” without walls that would love like Jesus and allow a way for salvation in the midst of this “simulation”. In all this mess we would see Jesus.