Day 7: Closed doors and open hearts

We didn’t have any particular plans this morning, and were planning on doing an ATL (Ask The Lord) which is where you pray, and just do whatever you feel like the Lord is telling you. John is big on these, and it was definitely a sweet new experience.

 

Before the ATL we headed to Confluence Ministries located in the fifth most at risk neighborhood in Denver. We got a tour, and heard about their ministry from a guy named Jude and a young woman named Sha’Shawn who worked with some of the youth. James and I agreed she was very beautiful.

 

We went on a prayer walk around the neighborhood after Confluence and did our ATL at the same time. By the end we all felt compelled to head to a local school, where a lunch for youth went on, so that we could connect with the kids and build some bridges.

 

The following still doesn’t make sense to me. The school said that for security reasons we couldn’t do our plan. This was strange because we had all felt as though God was leading us to do that. So we came up with another plan, and God closed that door too. Our next several ideas were followed by closed doors and no go’s.

 

(FYI right now as I’m writing this Robbie just emptied James’s air mattress and hence James attacked Robbie with a barrage of missiles in the form of a rubber ball)

 

We needed a break after a fruitless morning and so we decided to head downtown and eat at Chik-a-fila. Robbie, James and I (I’m not even sure how it happened yet) sat down and started talking to this guy who called himself ‘Jimmy the coach’. As we begin talking to Jimmy, who was possibly the nicest guy ever, we started to talk about basketball and sports and schools and general topics. After a few minutes we discovered he was a fellow believer and we opened up to him and vise versa. Turns out he’s a missionary of sorts, who goes around campus’s and places and shares the gospel. He was so encouraging to us after a horrible morning. I believe that we also encouraged him. He was talking about America and how lost we are, and he kept saying we were the future and how cool that was. I think it was good for him to see young people out doing something good. All in all he was one of my favorite people we met on this trip.

 

We all felt dejected and God sent us to Chik-a-Fila to meet Jimmy. I’m sure of it.  

 

We finally decided to head to Sloan Lake where there’s a park and hopefully be able to get into some sports ministry. Within minutes after we unloaded in the park a thunderstorm rolls in. We head to the van to wait it out, and while we are sitting there a warning comes over the radio about how severe it’s going to be etc. Once again a closed door.

 

We realized that the storm wasn’t going to blow over quickly so we decided to go to an old folks home and visit with the elderly.

 

Robbie, Cathy, James and I sat down and talked with Karin, Richard, June and another Richard. We talked for a long time, and they loved having us. Richard and June got excited and wanted to show us the 18^th floor where there was a balcony around the whole building. It was so awesome to see all of Denver, from downtown to the surrounding mountains from this balcony.

 

We discovered that June was already a believer but that Richard (these were the two that we talked with the most) was not. They were very good friends, but Richard never let June pray for him, even though he had a triple by pass heart surgery coming up soon.

 

When it was time to go we all said bye and stood up, but God wouldn’t let me leave. I looked at Richard and asked him if we could pray for him, he smiled and said yes. We prayed with June and Richard about their relationship with God, and the heart surgery and just for them. It was a sweet moment.

 

We went back to the church and on the way stopped at seven eleven and had very very large slurpees, at least James, Robbie and I did. Yum Yum.

 

We ate dinner and set off for our last night of VBS. It was the last time for me to see Marcos, and Jose (by the way I spelled Devonte’s name wrong). For me those kids at Joshua station were set on my heart more than anything, I really feel for them. It was crazy sad to leave, I love those kids.

 

Even though today was insane, and unorganized it was all God’s day and I am happy about what we did today, and can’t wait to see the fruit of our labor in heaven someday.

 

We have a long ride home tomorrow so pray for safety and sanity in the van, and peace with each other.

 

Pray for the people we came in contact with this week, the homeless, the kids and everyone here.

 

Pray that seeds were planted and that people would come to Christ because of this week.

 

I have to go to bed now, so I can survive tomorrow.