Community Outreach Randomness

Every other wednesday this quarter our base staff go out into the community and serve. Some people go to the Boys and Girls Club, some go clean a local coffee shop, some help with a christian school, and then there's trash pick up. Guess which one I get to do? Haha.

So, this wednesday afternoon we headed down to the little hippie town of Paia armed with gloves, trash bags, and good attitudes. We dropped a few people off at the local coffee shop "Anthony's" and decided to pray before we headed out to pick up some trash. There are four of us on trash duty. Sam from Colorado. Jasmine from New Mexico. Tik Pimpaeng from Thailand, and myself. So, I pray to just bless our time of trash picking and I also prayed something that I don't normally pray, that we would meet people that God wanted us to meet while picking up trash.

Sam and Jasmine head off one way, Tik and I head off towards the beach. We are about ten minutes in, walking across the basketball court towards the beach, obviously with our eyes on the ground searching for any misplaced rubbish. Out of nowhere we hear 'hey! are you guys ywam'ers?' and we were like 'yeah!'.

A semi-intoxicated man (Tommy) in his fifties approached us when we looked up to see who was calling our way. He say's "hey, Loren Cunningham baptized me in Switzerland!". Now normally I would just kind of laugh off these kind of guys, there's a lot of crazies in Paia. But something here was different. He knew the name of the founder of our missions organization. And, Loren Cunningham did spend a good share of time in Switzerland. He goes on to explain/slur that he did a dts back in the seventies and spent some time in Kona, where the main center of YWAM is. This spiked our interest.

About the time he stops explaining this seemingly random coincidince his friend, who is also innebriated approaches us. Introduces himself, asks us if we are from church. We tell him that we're with YWAM. That got him really excited because in his memories of ywam'ers he recalled the time that they came to the beach with milk and cookies as well as the time there was a free barbecue. He said that it was then that he knew someone out there really loved him, half jokingly of course. Then back to the Tommy, he say's "yeah! that's what God is all about! Unconditional love! You can't accept it because you can't understand it! But that's what God is!"

His friend quickly pointed out to us that he wasn't a christian. Tommy then pointed out that he needed to get him some sandals. He said, well I guess we'll just have to trust that God will provide. Immediately I knew that I had to give him my sandals, there wasn't really any thought to it. So I slipped my sandals off and scooted them toward him, apologizing that they weren't in the best shape. Just as quickly as he put my sandals on, they both decided they needed to go buy a beer. And off they went.

Not too often do you get to hear one drunk guy tell another drunk guy the gospel! I hope that both of them turn their hearts toward God and recieve his unconditional love.