On Saturday (November 12th) I was looking forward to bringing coats, hats, socks, and lunches to the homeless that the people of our church had donated. I was anticipating the Lord to work in a mighty way as we started out driving down to the Minneapolis bridges and wooded areas that many people use for shelter. I enjoy these God adventures, and I enjoy being with people who respond to God's calling.
There were some highlights from the night that I will never forget. The first one was the encounter with the young Native American man. As we unloaded the cars under the bridges I thought no one would show up. But then this young man appeared almost out of nowhere. He had been under a highway overpass and must have noticed our caravan. At first he was cautiously checking us out and then walked over. He needed a winter coat. As we were pulling out coats from the bags of coats and having him try them on he noticed a coat laying separately by the back seat of the car. That coat wasn't with the bag of coats but he noticed it. It was a camouflage coat that had some company logo on the front. He tried it on and I could tell he liked this coat. Also on the front the coat was an embroidered name. The name stitched into the coat was Beaver. Staci mentioned something about how people are going to call him Beaver. Then he said, that is my name. His Native American name translated in English is Brown Beaver. Wow, how cool is that? God had delivered this young guy a coat with his name on it! I thought to myself how good God is and how he knows us by name!
The other highlight was going to the homeless shelter and handing out the clothing and food. I was helping to find coats and clothes that were the right sizes. As the night went on my attitude and thinking changed from seeing these people as a group of unknown indistinguishable people to individuals with character and self worth. They are going through an extremely stressful and humbling time as they are completely dependent on others. Yet they were kind and friendly. They looked out for each other and made sure some of the less able had clothes.
We let them know that God cared for them. We handed out almost all the clothes and all the Bibles. I kept thinking how I wish I had gathered more coats. At the end of the night I realized how much I had been blessed by the people we served. Their graciousness and friendliness was humbling.
Jay