Yesterday, our little church was visited by a bunch of new faces. Several homeless men we had never seen came by. They stayed for some doughnuts and listened in on our conversations and politely excused themselves before the “message” began. That’s fine with me. Most of our church is made up of people who–at one time or another–just came by for a doughnut or some coffee.
One of the guys who lives in that park who I have become a friend to has been going through a very rough time. His situation was made just a little bit worse this week when his vision gave out. He is fairly young and is now legally blind without glasses. This was very bad for him. He came for some prayer and to grab some doughnuts for his wife (who was guarding their stuff). I prayed for him. He just seemed so hopeless and defeated. I told him that Jesus can heal him and how we’ve seen several people get healed of similar conditions.
The part that really struck me about our conversation was that he said he knew he could come to us for help. He said he didn’t have anyone he could talk to about this but that he knew he could come to us. It really struck me that we were this man’s only hope. I knew that he wasn’t a believer and asked if he wanted to give his life to Jesus today. He said he did and we prayed. I got to tell him more about Jesus and give him lots of hugs. Now I know that he can place his hope in Jesus–someone infinitely more reliable and capable than me.
