These past few Saturdays, we've gone up to San Francisco and joined with some different ministries to serve the area. The first week, we hooked up with City Team Ministries and passed out care packages to the poor residents of the nearby Baldwin "Hotel". Oh, and by "hotel", I mean the most run-down, rat-infested hellhole you can imagine. One guy on Project said that the place reminded him of the building in the movie Se7en, where Brad Pitt and Morgan Freeman chase after the serial killer. It was pretty intense. While there, a somewhat mentally unstable resident, who at one time served in the Army, decided to demonstrate how to break a man's arm...by using my arm as an example! Fortunately, he was drunk and not overly strong. I don't think I'd have enjoyed it very much if he had succeeded. At the end of our time with City Team, we debriefed with them and heard testimonies from many of their people. These were the ones who we got to serve alongside of that day. They were passionate about their mission, for many of them have come through the City Team rehab and reeducation program and now serve as volunteers. It was humbling to see their faith in God's ability to radically change a person. Their lives testify to that. I pray for those guys...
Another time, we worked the Soup Kitchen lines at Glide Memorial Church and served lunch to the homeless. We were all blessed to see the Ebert family bring their 3 kids to serve the lines with the rest of the Project! That's Timothy Ebert passing out a plate. We also helped put on a barbecue grill out for runaway kids at the Page Street Baptist Center. Most of the kids are high school dropouts, live on the streets, have experience with drugs. Yeah, most of them are also homosexual/transgender. This was a really stretching time for all of us because we spent the entire afternoon just talking to them. We couldn't even hide behind our work at the Soup Kitchen lunch lines or our task in passing out care packages. We had to enter into their world in ways that few of us have ever had to before. Is this a little bit of what it means to be Christ-incarnate? We pray that the presence of Christ was evident through our actions that day. Overall, these days in San Fran were some of the most memorable so far.
One of our Men's Time activities was going to the shooting range. We treated it like a rite of passage, of sorts. At first, I thought we'd have to scrap the plans because there is a policy that you have to be over 21 to rent a handgun and some in our group were not quite there. Undaunted, we started to ask around. Fortunately, Tommy Dyo had come to town to visit the Project and had mentioned that he might know some people who know some people...you know how that goes. Anyway, Tommy hooks us up with some AACF dudes that own their own guns and were willing to take our guys shooting. First, I didn't know that Asians even owned guns! Second, if they did own a gun, it would certainly be only ONE. Okay, these AACF guys show up and, well, let's just say that each of them brought multiple firearms to the party. Not just some sissy girl-guns, either. It was quite impressive, actually. For me, it was my first time to fire a gun. That's me in the picture, aiming a Colt 45. Anyway, we all had a great time.
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