Last Sunday something amazing happened.
Our house church family, and a few of our
friends, drove over to a local homeless encampment that has been
building up along the Santa Ana riverbed, in the shadow of the Los
Angeles Angels baseball stadium, which is a few blocks from my house.
Our plan was simple: We had purchased a few
hundred dollar’s worth of batteries [AA and AAA size], and several
packages of socks [both black and white], and a handful of umbrellas
[because it had started to rain], to pass out to those who lived in what
we had come to refer to as “Tent City”.
There were 12 of us, so we split up into three
teams of four. One group went south while the other two went north,
moving in a leapfrog pattern. As we came up to a tent we called out,
“Free batteries, socks and umbrellas” and those who were interested, or
at home, would come out and eagerly receive our gifts.
After we introduced ourselves to them and shook
their hands, we asked them if they needed prayer or anything. About half
of them said “yes”, like Thomas and Diane who asked for help with
education [since Thomas was going back to school] and for health [which
is what Diane asked for]. So we held hands, lifted them up in prayer,
and then moved on to the next tent as the rain started to increase in
intensity.
We met a Christian brother among the homeless
community there, J.R., who took our hands and prayed for us, and then we
returned the favor.
Eventually we were all out of batteries and socks and umbrellas so we turned around to head home. Our work complete.
Or so we thought.
Our team was being filmed as we moved along from
tent to tent that afternoon. A friend was shooting a documentary and
wanted to feature our little house church community in action. So, we
had allowed them to tag along with a few caveats about not filming
people who didn’t want to be filmed and respecting everyone’s privacy.
It had all worked out much better than I had hoped, until we turned
around to head home.
My friend who was filming the documentary asked
me to say a few last words into the camera about what we had experienced
that day. The rain was really coming down pretty hard at this point.
Just before we started to film the sound guy announced that the battery
was nearly dead on the audio recorder. So, we decided to see how much we
could get before everything died.
I started to summarize our day, the rain kept
pouring down, I wrapped up my sentence and at just that moment the
battery died. The sound guy and my friend with the camera both erupted
into shouts of joy and disbelief. For them it was the perfect capstone
to our amazing morning and afternoon together. But that wasn’t the end
of it.
After a few high-fives between us, we started to
hear someone faintly yelling at us. We turned around to see a woman in a
black and white jacket, with black hair and black jeans walking towards
us, waving both hands in the air over her head. My first thought was
that maybe we had missed her in our battery and sock rotation and she
was complaining about not getting her share.
As she got closer I started to hear what she was
saying, and it wasn’t good. Every other word was an F-bomb, and it was
aimed squarely at me, and my friends with the camera equipment. “What do
you think you’re doing? You can’t come out here and take pictures of
yourselves like that! I’m out here trying to find my father who’s living
out here and you guys are taking pictures like this is some kind of a
game!”
This is exactly the sort of thing I was afraid might happen, and now it was exploding in our faces.
“I’m sorry,” I told her. “We were out here
passing out batteries and socks to people and praying for them. We
didn’t film anyone who didn’t want to be filmed.”
She continued waving her arms over her head and
shouting at us, dropping more F-bombs every other word. “My grandmother
is in the truck over there,” she pointed behind her, “and she’s got
Alzheimer’s and my Dad is living out here in these tents and he’s an
addict but she doesn’t care. She just wants her son to come home. I
don’t want to be out here but she won’t let me go home until I find him
and bring him home.”
“Do you want us to help you find your Dad?” I asked.
“I know where he is, but he won’t come home with
me. I know he won’t. He just wants to stay out here.” And then the
floodgates burst open. She started to sob uncontrollably.
She buried her face in her hands and wept loudly. “I was an addict too,” she said.
I put my arm around her and told her we would go
with her to find her Dad. My friend, Vincent started to pray over her as she
continued to cry.
We stood there, in the pouring rain, the three of
us holding on to one another as she cried. Vincent prayed, and I hugged
her shoulders and prayed silently.
Eventually she looked up and said, “I’m sorry.”
“It’s ok,” I said. “We’ll go with you to talk to your Dad.”
As we walked together, she started to tell us
more about her situation with her Dad. She told us about how she had
been taking care of her Grandmother –her Dad’s mom – as she struggled
with dementia. She told us about her Grandmother’s twin sister who was
also in their home and needed help. She told us about her own son who
she was also looking after. Then she mentioned her Dad being a diabetic
and needing to take his medications.
Her emotions were still pretty raw. I was
concerned that her Father wouldn’t respond very well if she were to
confront him with all of this emotion that had been building up in her
for who knows how long.
“When we get there, do you want me to go and talk to your Dad alone? Maybe he’ll listen to me,” I said.
“No, he won’t,” she said. “He won’t listen to anyone.”
“Ok,” I said. “But while you’re talking, we will all be standing right next to you and praying for you,” I said.
That seemed to calm her down a little.
Eventually we got to her Dad’s tent which was
directly underneath the bridge at Chapman. One of our other teams was
already standing around his tent talking with some of the residents. As
our new friend walked up to her Dad’s tent and called out his name, I
stepped over to our team and caught them up on the situation, asking
them to pray.
After a few moments, her Father came out of his
tent. A few of our church family were standing behind her in a show of
quiet solidarity as she waited for him to come over.
I walked next to her father as he approached the group. He wasn’t much older than me.
Eventually we got close enough for her to talk to him. She was standing defiant, arms crossed, chin out, ready for a fight.
“You need to come home!” she said to him, the tears streaming down her face.
“Why?” he asked.
“Your Mom wants you to come home. She said she
doesn’t care if you’re using or not. She just wants her son to come
home, Dad. She just wants you to come home.”
I watched her Father’s face as she talked. He
didn’t show any emotion, unlike his daughter, but he kept his eyes on
her the whole time.
“Ok, I’ll come home,” he said.
Just like that. No argument. No excuses. No fight.
“Let me get my stuff,” he said and then he turned
around to walk back to his tent. She fell to the ground in a heap,
sobbing uncontrollably. We all sat down on the ground next to her and
put our hands on her shoulders.
We told her it was going to be ok. We reminded her that she was brave, and strong.
“You’ve been carrying a lot of this weight all by yourself,” I said to her. “You can let go of that now.”
Vincent knelt down next to her. “I want you to
know something,” he told her. “A few minutes ago, before you came up to
us, I prayed for your Dad. I didn’t know what the situation was, but
when I asked him if he wanted prayer, he did not refuse it. Most people
are too proud to ask for prayer, but your Dad didn’t. He allowed us to
pray for him, and when I prayed for him the Lord gave me a word to speak
over him. I felt the Lord wanted me to say, “This is a faithful man”
and as I prayed that over him he received it.”
“I’m so sorry for those things I said to you,”
she said. “I thought you were just out here playing around, but you
weren’t. You were really out here to help people.”
“It’s ok,” we said. “God had something bigger planned for all of us today.”
We stood there with here while her father broke down his tent. We helped him carry his load up the hill and around the corner to the trail leading back up to the street above.
As I walked next to her dad he said, over his shoulder, "Goodbye Home!" which really disturbed me. Even though he was leaving with his daughter, he still felt an emotional attachment to that space among the addicts and homeless under that bridge. [Please pray for him and his daughter to fully reconcile their issues and to lean on God for wisdom].
Once we got up top, we waited in the rain for his daughter to pull her truck around, and we helped them load everything up.
It was an amazing day, even more great things happened than this, but I can't write it all in one post or this will become a small book.
We look forward to returning next month and we pray in the meantime that the Lord would bless those people who live in Tent City.
Please pray with us.
-kg
