Week#2

Another week has past, and a lot has happend. 

Tuesday night we went down to the Bridges again - the community where we will work quite a bit. Before the homework club we walked around for a while, to pray and to get a feel for what God wants us to do there. In a way it felt like we where at a camp - the houses look kind of temporary and there were kids everywhere. They were playing soccer and games, playing at the park and having fun. We really think that God wants do to great things there, it's amazing how it has opened up for us.  We're soon gonna start a girls group fo the teenage girls there. We're really excited about it, there aren't many things for the girls - we almost only saw boys outside. Homework club is going really well, they have really accepted us. It's a lot of fun to get to now them, to get close and see their home and their everyday life.

I love it when it rains. I love to walk outside and feel the tiny raindrops on my face. I love to sit inside in the warmth and listen to the heavy drops when they fall against the window. Safe, dry, sheltered. I've realized that there's another side to it as well. When we where down at street church wednesday night it rained. It rained a lot. For me that was not a big problem. I got wet, yes, but when I came home I could change. I could easily get warm again. Not everyone can do that. Some people have to wait for the sun to dry their clothes and bodies. Now, every times it rains I think of them. Cause they have faces to me now. They are not just numbers, people you hear about or see on TV. They have faces, names. Natasha with her little baby boy, Alex who don't know how to get home, Scott who desperately tries to protect his few belongings. To them, rain does not mean a cozy time on the couch with a book and a cup of tea. A different reality...

Friday night we went back down to the Montrose area in downtown Houston. This is an area with high crime, heavy drugs and a lot of homosexuality. Most of the bars there are gay bars. This is where many of the homeless people live. Almost every friday night for the past eight years a few faithful people have walked the streets of Montrose - shared Jesus, prayed with them, tried to get them off the streets. This year I will join them. I have to admitt I was pretty nervous at first. I didn't know what to expect, I didn't know what I could do. Before we went out we met under a tree and worshiped God and prayed for a while. It was amazing to stand there, in the middle of a big city, and lift up the name of our great God. Very humbling. My prayer was that whatever He could do through me and in me that night, He would do it. And He did. We met a lot of broken people that night. People with no home, no family, no jobs, no hope. People stuck in drugs, gangs, homosexuality. Some people who where there because of their own bad choices, some people who where there because of what others had done to them. I didn't talk much that night. I mostly observed, prayed, listened. And then, when we were on our way back, I cried. I cried for their hurts, their wounds, their lonelyness, for what had been done to them. I cried for their attitudes, their blindness, their unwillingness to get help. I cried for a world in coldness and pain. I cried in frustration over not knowing what to do. I wanted to just grab them and shake them, scream at them, scream at the world. I didn't know what to do.

It's not easy to see all this. I no longer have a tv-screen between me and the people who suffer. They are right there in front of me. They are talking to me, shaking my hand.  

This is what God has shown me this week. We have to get close. If things are gonna change we have to get close.

We have to get close enough to see the people behind the numbers, the faces behind the stories, the beauty behind the pain. Not until then can we understand. Maybe not even then.