Well. God's angels show up at random times and in random cloaks. So, I shall start at the beginning. Michaela, Fran, and myself were handing out peanut butter and jelly sandwiches in UN plaza (next to City Hall) when Chrystal came up to us asking for prayer. When we finished our long prayer with her in a tight huddle she told us that her mother had recently died. At this, and other comments, we all began to feel God's nudge on our conscience. When Chrystal asked for Fran's simple cross necklace, Fran began to cry and felt that she should give her the necklace; so she wrapped it on Chrystal's neck. She in turn demanded to give Fran her personal bracelet. We gave her our last sandwich, which she used as communion sacraments. To make a long story short (in order to write the next segment and go to bed...) we all were crying as Mike Stelle came up and talked for a minute. After many hugs and "God Bless's" we said good-bye and went to sit on a curb to think about what just happened. As we finished digesting what just happened, an old, Chinese, homeless lady, who spoke almost no English. We all said hello as she walked past. Micheala told the group: "I wish we had more sandwiches, I fell like I can't approach homeless for conversation without something to give them," as soon as she finished saying this when the old lady (God's angel) walked back around and demanded to give us two dollars. We tried to give it back to her but she ran away through the park. We didn't quite understand until Mike said "Well... Micheala, your prayer is answered." With this, we went to the dollar store and bought chewy bars to start more conversations. We looked for the old lady and saw her at a distance, drifting quickly away from the us, into the crowd. God totally answered our prayers directly after explicitly showing us His daughter and His love!
-Joel Rurik
On Wednesday this week, I experienced my first "ow" moment. My team was doing the city search, which entailed buying lunch with ten dollars and finding a homeless person to share our meal with. After wandering the Tenderloin area of San Francisco for what felt like hours, I know I was getting frustrated as I missed opportunity after opportunity to strike up a conversation with the people on the sides of the street. I think we were all nervous, but someone needed to step up and get us somewhere. In the end, we found a wonderful man named Rodney sitting by a fountain in a plaza. We shared foccacia bread and nectarines with him as we listened to his story of hardships. He had lived in Palm Springs for most of his life, and came to San Fran in 2002 to visit his brother. As he walked along the streets bordering the very plaza where we were sitting, he had come upon a former high school classmate who proceeded to ask him for money. Rodney refused, turned to walk away, and was hit in the back of the head with a pipe. He lost everything. His two jobs, his wife, and part of his mind. As we sat and listened, Katlyn, Erik and I were all extremely moved that this man was even still alive. And then at one point in the conversation, Rodney told us we could leave if we wanted to. That we didn't have to stay and listen to his story and that he didn't want to take up any more of our time. And I realized that all this man really wanted was someone to talk to, but he was willing to put us and our time before himself. As we left a half an hour later, praying for him, he called after us "I'll be fine. I've got Him. Don't y'all worry about me." Rodney has been by far the most influential person on this trip so far, and no matter what he says, he will be in my prayers for a long time to come.
-Hannah Long
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