Today was a day that most people never experience. You know the stories in the Bible where the Lord throws his people into confrontations and how if only one minute detail had shifted the whole story would have never happened? That happened to me today. At work I got to thinking how I needed to go ahead and invest in a Spanish to English Bible and begin memorizing scripture in spanish to share with my spanish employees as well as the fact I will need it for my calling. Luckily, my good friend Phillip's dad is a pastor, he gets a discount at Lifeway Christian Bookstore and Phillip offered to let me use the discount. We decided to go to Lifeway once we got to leave to leave the golden grease and heat of McDonalds. We got off work, changed clothes, lingered around Project for a while then hit the road. We thought we knew where we were going, "it's not hard to find man" Phillip confidently said seeing as he had been before. After an hour had passed we admitted we may not know exactly where we were going, we call them up and get directions, we were a ways away from Lifeway but at this point it was almost a matter of pride that we absolutely had to get there. We refused to be defeated by all the confusing overpasses as streets. As we pulled into a sonic to turn around Phillip's supped-up, white with left over brown spots from past fun, 78 Ford just died. It rolled forward then stopped. We looked at each other and he tried to start her back up, nothing. Thankfully across the street was a gas station. We dig through the tool bed, find some gas tanks and head over to fill it up. As we walk back sloshing the premium gasoline on our fingers we see a man admiring Pip's redneck beauty of a truck. We start talking and tell him about why we are here and he continues on his way. We start the truck back up and gently glide across the road to the gas station to really quench the truck's thirst. As we're filling her up a man approaches us and you could see the desperation on his face, he fearfully and almost painfully asked us for a ride just up the road to the wal-mart. He said, "Please sirs, my wife and I just need to get to wal-mart so many people turn up down. We'll give you beer or money, just please I was in a motorcycle wreck and can't walk that far." Pip and I exchanged a look that showed that both of our parents ingrained into our brains the old saying, "never give a ride to strangers." But, somehow we knew we had to let them get in. They hop in the truck bed and Phillip starts driving, I stick my hands and head out the back window and start talking with them; they had lost their car, wrecked their motorcycle, and just got out of the hospital, and had been ignored by people all day and were so thankful for "the Lord's grace." When we pulled up to wal-mart I ask them if I can pray for them. They grabbed my hands and grasped tightly as I went to the Lord, I just asked the Lord to engulf them and protect and bless them. After we prayed they told us they had no money but would pay in pills. We declined and left feeling a little defeated and used. But still excited that we got to plant a seed for the Lord in their lives. As we pull out of the parking lot we see two homeless people a man and woman with a sign that read, "Please Lord just bring us food." We looked at each other and decided after Lifeway we would come back and talk with them and bring them food. Back on the road again to Lifeway and this time we find it. Ironically enough it was not a 10 minute drive from our hotel. We'll remember that next time. We walk inside and Phillip just crashes on the floor. We laughed about how the Lord is good and I walk around to find my Spanish-English Bible. I search and unfortunately discover my hunt was to no Avail. I walk back over to Pip and he excited stands up with a huge smile on his face grabs my head and points it towards the cards in the aisle across from where he was sitting, "It says Doing good to others means doing good to God," he said excitedly, "God is good." I tell him there was not a good Spanish-English Bible and we decide to drive to the other end of the mall to the Books-A-Million and check there. We make our way to the Bibles and not two minutes after we start looking a woman approaches us and asks us where the Christian Literature is, we point it out to her and she laughs and says she hopes BAM will have her book because she has been looking for the Lifeway store all day. Phillip and I erupt into laughter and tell her about our day's adventures in searching for the same store. We start talking and the conversation goes deep, straight to the Lord and fast. She tells us she just got back from the airport because she wanted to see her mom, she laughed loudly and awkwardly and said, "I'm a 50 year old woman but I just needed to see my mommy." She explains how she was just put on a thirty day heart monitor, how she left her husband after 24 years of an unhealthy marriage, and how talking to us was such an example of the Lords providence to her. I tell her about how crazily and providentially my internship with MTW came about and Pip explained how crazily and providential it was that he was even at Leadership Project. She starts crying and tell us she doesn't know why she is telling us this but that she was date raped when she was 22 and because of that married that man and stayed with him for 24 years. We continue to talk about the Lord's providence and she tells us that she needs to leave but takes out her wallet, I start instantly refusing and she stops me, hug me and hand Phillip 17 dollars says, "Listen honey, I need to do this for some reason. I guess it is because I am a mom." We thank her and go our separate ways and with the money in Pip's hand we rushed back to the car excited that the Lord just provided us with a way to buy the homeless people dinner. We rush back to wal-mart and can't find them anywhere. Disappointed we just start driving in silence, after we pray for the Lord to put them back in our path we turn the corner and see them in an abandoned parking lot. We cut across three lanes of traffic and excitedly jump out of the truck. They see us and the man says, "It's yall!" We get out of the car, I'm not going to lie I was a little nervous. The man was most likely in his fourties, ha was a short man, skinny, with wispy long strands of blond hair escaping from under his dirty black and purple cap. He was wearing ripped beaten jeans and a shirt missing a sleeve and covered in grease and sweat. He introduced us to his girl explaining that they are together but can't be married. He proudly showed me the ring on his left hand, a silver plastic thing and with beaming toothless grin said, "She gave this to me, we are going to make it real one day." They looked at each other and I was jealous of how completely together they were, totally unhindered to anything clinging only to each other. To him, she was a princess. To her, he was a knight. The woman was missing a front tooth along with others and laughed and played with her mustache as her husband explained what how awful the spiders are in Myrtle Beach pointing out several huge festering boils on his leg. She laughed and recalled him gashing one open. I found myself disgusted at myself for wanting to shudder at the though, that disgust turned into pity. We tried to give them food but they couldn't take more than one wal-mart bag full because of where they lived. "The raccoon's found our home," the man said, "if we take more than we need they eat it up when our backs are turned." More than they need?! They had nothing! Daily they had no idea where their next meal would come from! No one would hire either one of them, "because the hispanics and young one like you fellas work for cheaper and do better." We got to talking about church trying to make the leap into the Gospel and I asked the woman about her shirt, it was a picture of Christ upon the cross and she lauged and said, "Son I love this shirt, Uncle, my friend I call him Uncle, gave it to me off his very back one day. It means so much to me." We continued to talk and push the gospel until the man told us he'd heard this before and that he would pray with us but they needed to leave. We thanked him and went to the Lord. Two college students, one from Alabama and one from the Carolina's joining hands with two homeless image bearers in an abandoned parking lot on the side of the highway. Such is the kingdom of God, all praise and glory be to the King. As we finished praying the man said, "I, I want to say something too," we excitedly and hurriedly thanked him. "Lord," he said, "I thank you for blessing these boys with a fine job, with good work. Be with and bless their fellow employees. Thank you for them and their love, bless them as they are trying to bless us, and, I thank you. End." We looked up, trying to hide the hot tears threatening to spill at any word and I meet eyes with the woman, I felt convicted and I offered her my shirt. She looked hurt and hugged her shirt to her self and fervently said, "No! NO! I will not trade shirts with you!." I then took off my shirt and gave it to her, Phillip did the same and gave his to the man. Such joy sprung into her face I knew it was something God wanted us to do. Undoubtedly. "Listen son," the man said, "we don't ever tell people this but our home, it is right over there. Maybe we will see yall again..." his voice faded as he looked where he pointed. A huge rusted abandoned storage house, as big as a Wal-Mart but completely overridden with weeds and rust. "In the back corner is our home," said the woman proudly, strongly. And with that, they turned and were gone. Phillip and I got in the car and fell at the feet of the Lord utterly broken and humbled by his love, providence, and power. Thank you Father for this day.
