Jesus, not me

“For He will deliver the needy when He cries,
The poor also, and him who has no helper.
He will spare the poor and needy,
And will save the souls of the needy.
He will redeem their life from oppression and violence;
And precious shall be their blood in His sight.” (Ps 72:12-14, NKJV)

The above was part of my Bible reading guide this morning and it spoke volumes due to what we had done yesterday. Yesterday, we had put on a BBQ in probably the roughest neighbourhood in our inner city, a free BBQ to feed the homeless, helpless, and the less fortunate. Why did we do this? Because we love God, and we know He loves these people and street people are of value as well (which the above verse definitely indicates!), and they deserve to be shown the same dignity and respect that we are all accustomed to.

This is the third year this event has been put on, and preparation for it began months ago. There were preparations in the natural, of course, soliciting donations for the event, but there were also preparations in the spiritual realm. Twice we had done prayer walks around the field, just praying that God would do what He does best: meet with people, transform people, that His Spirit would be there in a very real way. As organizers, we had prayed together and individually for this thing for weeks beforehand.

Yesterday morning I was up at six in the morning, preparing to be down at the site for eight in the morning to begin setup. That morning I was reading from the book of Acts, and the works of the early church inspired me for the day. What powerful things the early church had done! What beautiful adoration to God, to His Word, to His divine purpose! What a humbling thing to try and recreate by the work we were doing!

The BBQ was an absolute success. Despite little technical setbacks early on that, in the grand scheme of things, really amounted to nothing, we had an opportunity to feed at least 500-700 people. Local media was out, so we got a few seconds of exposure on the local TV stations (keep reading to see the clips) and there should be an article in the local newspaper regarding it as well. It was a hot day, up to 24C and many of us got sun burnt. We gave away so much, a thousand hot dogs and a thousand hamburgers, brand-new clothes that were donated, pillows, donuts, fruit, chips, pop, bottles of water. Thank you to the many companies that supported us and gave freely to the event, and thank you to the many volunteers that helped. God bless you all!

Now that the natural results have been described, I need to describe the spiritual. And this is what made this day so exciting, so powerful, and so exhausting. As I said, we were praying for weeks before the event and even driving down, the music in the car was off, and I was praying for the BBQ, for the volunteers, for the food, for the people that were coming to the event. And God moved in an absolutely powerful way! Thank You God that You listen to the heart-felt prayers of Your people who are striving to be obedient and do Your will! There is so much to describe, so it may be a bit disjointed — please bear with me.

First and foremost, there was such a sense of joy among the volunteers. There were no arguments, no one complained about having to do more than others, or do something they didn’t like. We were united in one purpose. There were smiles everywhere, people were so welcoming to those coming through the line to be fed, there was a genuine servanthood evident. There was such complete _peace_ in that place. You need to understand that these are people who are accustomed to a life of strife and fighting, that literally fight over scraps of food. Yet it was so peaceful in the field. There was no striving for places in line. They were patient, despite the heat, and they were grateful for the food. They were polite, thankful. To put this in perspective, I drove off-site around 2:30 in order to get some coffee. Not even a block away I saw two men yelling at each other and fighting. When we were loading the left over supplies into the church at 6:00 there were young men and women, right before the doors of the church (which is also right in the middle of downtown) fighting and swearing and arguing. But in that place, at that time, there was complete and utter peace. No fighting, no arguing, no dissension.
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Before I became a Christian I had little faith in mankind and the future of this world. So much that I did not even want to bring kids into a world with such bleak prospects. I lived for weekends to relax and weekdays to make a living. I was in a rut, living without hope or real purpose. To put things in perspective, the early 1970′s were the years of “make love, not war”, hippies, drugs, parties. The world was going to hell in a hand-basket.

My conversion took place in 1974 while attending a Cal Hays crusade with a number of other people from our church. I became convinced by the Holy Spirit that Jesus could bring hope into my empty life. I went forward and received Jesus Christ as my Lord and Saviour.
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I grew up very loved in a family of six. We went to a United church a little bit when I was young, but never really knew God or Jesus. When I got into my teenage years and went off to college I really didn’t believe in anything. I played around with tarot cards; I was in college for Technical Theatre and was surrounded with people who had New Age type ideas. Nothing really took hold of my heart when it came to believing in something.

I worried a lot about stuff (I don’t know how I didn’t get an ulcer). I meet my future husband and fell deeply in love and we married soon afterwards but I still would worry about work, bills, money….. you know the regular stuff that seems to keep people awake at night.

He was from a Christian home and wanted to go to church. Church! No way, I didn’t want to get out of bed for boring old church. He would not give up though. He kept asking his mom for different places he could take me.
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I am a grateful believer who struggles with insecurity and who is recovering from low self-esteem.

My sister and I enjoyed a protected, carefree childhood surrounded by friends and family but my parents could not get along with each other. They eventually split up and dad left us when I was 13. He never came back, or visited and it seemed like he didn’t care how we were doing. I was worried that if friends found out, they would think there was something wrong with me that made me unworthy to be loved, because it felt like my father was leaving me – not mum. Mum taught me never to trust any man – especially if he said he loved you. My sister and I grew up amongst Methodists. I was baptised when I was 17, but stopped going to church, shunning Christians for 30 years because I witnessed a member of the clergy make a mistake. I determined that I didn’t want to be part of the hypocrisy. I could not see that it wasn’t God who had let me down – it was man.
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