Imagine yourself as a 7, 8, 9, 10 or 11 year old. Maybe you are a little older, maybe you are a little younger. You live in a family with an abusive mom or dad. Or maybe your parents make you sell things on the street to help support your family. Perhaps your parents died and you have been left orphaned or are living in a non ideal situation so you run away to what looks like a better life and with no where to go, you find yourself living on the street. But living on the street brings many temptations. The main one is drugs. So you give in to the drugs and become addicted. It becomes a vicious cycle and a coping mechanism and you cannot find your way out. The drugs are better than dealing with the reality of your life. You have your friends that you live with on the street and your drugs and that becomes enough to make you not feel any of your pain.
Now imagine yourself as you are and ask yourself how many times you have walked past a person sitting on the street and not even acknowledged their presence. I know that I am guilty. The Lord has wrecked me of this over the past two weeks. Every time my team goes to the street, I get a glimpse of this. I get to see people through the eyes of Jesus. The people that I encounter are not just some homeless people that smell and are drugged up. The have names. They are children of the King of Kings. They have some of the sweetest spirits I have ever encountered. They are kind and loving. They are funny and accept you as you are. I have been able to briefly sit in the shoes of the people we hang out with. They are the unseen and unworthy in the eyes of the culture. They are not even worth a glance or a smile. Everyday, we go to the streets and sit on the ground,essentially in the home of many street youth/adults. We get to experience their lifestyle. Just the other day, we helped them cook a meal on the sidewalk and then were offered food to eat. Out of their little, they still wanted to bless us. We play games and hear their stories. Their stories are heartbreaking, but worth hearing.
The women have children living with their parents and get high because their lives are so sad and empty.
The 17 year old boys have been kicked out of their houses for doing drugs.
They have been beaten, so they run away.
Parents have died and they are left as orphans and the streets seem to be the best option.
They have been let down by so many people in their lives.
They are people with many wounds looking for something to fulfill them, just like you and me.
Almost all of them fill that void with drugs. I watch men and women who live on the streets come to buy drugs as I play games with the drug dealers. Each of them has the same sad look in their eyes. They are in search of something more, but are constantly high to numb the pain.
But what is most heartbreaking for me is to watch so many people pass by them every single day with judgmental glances in their eyes. People who could take a few minutes to sit with someone and just listen. People who could give a pat on a back or a handshake. My team has received the same glances for simply sitting on the ground and hanging out with them. These are quite possibly the same glances that you and I would give without actually learning about a person. But Jesus has called us to reach out to the least of these. To dig into their lives. To treat people the way that we have been called to treat them. To sit with them in their world and really get to know their stories and in turn share about the hope that we have in Jesus Christ.
You see, you and I are not all that different at all.
No, maybe we haven’t been kicked out of our house at a young age and maybe we haven’t found ourselves living on the streets at a young age. But we have all had pain in our lives and voids we want to fill.
Maybe we fill them with drugs like the people I encounter daily or maybe it is with alcohol, porn, relationships, sex, food, perfectionism, and the list can go on and on, just fill it in with your own void filling substance.
Now imagine if most people didn’t give you the time of day because of that circumstance. It would be a lonely life. I have learned that a smile and looking into a person’s eyes is just as valuable as anything you could ever say. It makes a person feel seen. Investing time into them and not just giving hand out means even more. In turn they will want to get to know you and you will most likely develop a sweet, sweet friendship. Look for the unseen in your life and get to know them.
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***Continue to pray for open doors for my team as we head in to our last week with The Street Revolution. Pray for God to do some big things and break chains. Next week we head to debrief with our squad and then on November 1st we will be heading out of Guatemala and on to Africa. Our first stop happens to be a route change. We will now be going to Zambia instead of Zimbabwe!
