To re-cap, ATL stands for “Ask The Lord” and we were given this task on one of our last nights at training camp to listen and go. My team sat in a circle at the Safe House, a homeless shelter in downtown Atlanta where we stayed for two nights, asking God what he wanted us to do.
I have so much to learn from my amazing teammates on listening to God’s voice and am pumped to do it. After our prayer, I had no clue what God was telling me, but my teammate Hope said she felt the need to pray for the political system in the city of Atlanta. Maybe pray over the buildings in which political shadiness takes place? We all nodded, said “OK” and took off.
After being super pumped about what happened with Anthony and The Coat (read Part 1 of this story here), some of my teammates needed to take a potty break and went inside of a restaurant while the rest of us waited outside. After a few minutes of standing there we saw a police officer on a segway looping through the building’s columns headed our way. He and his partner, who joined him a few seconds later, were being silly and started chatting and joking around with us. The second, Officer Hubbard, kept telling inappropriate joke after inapporpriate joke, which we laughed at and both of them kept calling us tourists or college students. I don’t remember who, but someone told them we were neither and that they wouldn’t believe what we were if we told them. Finally, we said “we’re missionaries” (insert another inappropriate joke here), we told them about The World Race and the mood changed slightly.
Officer Hubbard told us what most of us have heard and/or thought, “What you guys are doing can be seen as either really stupid or really amazing. And I think what you’re doing is really amazing.”
My team leader Melanie, in all her wisdom, asked if there was anything we could pray for for the city of Atlanta. They proceeded to tell us of a lot of things that are wrong in this city and its political system. They also told us about the high rate of STDs in the area.
So after a couple of more jokes about “How do we pray?” “Do we hold hands?” “What do we do?” and the team response of “Do whatever you like, this isn’t religion, it’s Freedom!” the two burly police officers held hands in a big circle as each of us took turns praying for the city, them and their work.
At the end of our prayers instead of awkwardly telling us thanks or walking away, Officer Hubbard prayed for US, asking God to protect us and bless us. As my teammate Emily put it, we had a deep connection with these men. Inappropriate jokes or not, we are both doing something that can be seen by others as really stupid or really amazing.
And we both choose to be amazed.
