*Please note. This blog was written QUITE a while ago….just now got around to posting. Sorry it’s a bit lengthy, but it’s about a day I will probably remember for the rest of my life.
Among other things, the title to this blog is painfully true. We had ministry in the Bar District. The “Bar District” in Puerto Barrios is about prostitution and getting drunk. It’s a cycle that the people live in. In all honesty, I wish that the bar we visited was like the ones in America. I honestly wish that bars like the one we went to didn’t exist anywhere in the world.
We parked on the side of the street and had to walk off the main road, between some buildings and behind some liquor stores to get to the bar. The bars I’ve seen in the states always seem to make it a point to be seen from the main streets, but this one was hidden. To our left were houses behind rusty barbed wire fencing. The ground was littered with glass beer bottles. We walked a little ways down the path and then saw the bar. Not sure if it had a name; it was made of old cement blocks and chain link fencing and stood one story tall.
It was here, in the moment that I saw this particular bar that God broke my heart. It was dark inside. I don’t know if they had electricity in the place or not, because that’s how dark it looked to us from outside. We didn’t go in. You don’t go in to the bars here – it’s a cultural thing that Christians don’t drink, and besides that, we’ve got a lot of women the guys would have to protect. Our ministry outline was simple: pray over the bars. And to be honest, I had my doubts. I wanted to go inside and talk with the people and just do something – but I knew I had to follow directions and be obedient. So I put my hands on the cement walls, knelt down on the filthy ground, and prayed. And my prayers were coming from a place of brokenness for the people who were inside the walls, just past my hands. Something heavy was radiating from that building; I could feel it as strong as I could feel the humidity in the air. I hadn’t expected that.
I also didn’t expect to draw much attention.
Immediately after we finished praying, a woman who seemed to be sober came up to Brooks and started talking with him. I joined, mainly because I thought she might be more open with a female presence there. She told us that her husband was inside the bar, and she doesn’t know what to do because they don’t have money for food for their kids. My understanding is that the husband drinks all the hard-earned money away. For a moment I thought she was going to cry. The pain in her eyes was as raw and as real as you can get…we prayed with her, and then she wandered off.
After the lady left, a man named Oscar came up to us. And his is the story that I have to tell.
His age is hard to say. I’d guess mid 30’s but I have no idea. He was clearly drunk. At the beginning, he told us that “God is not here, not here in Puerto Barrios, not at this bar.” He seemed angry, but I couldn’t quite catch why (my spanish skills are somewhat limited!). We kept talking to him, listening mainly, prayed for him, and read some verses. He cried when we prayed over him. Imagine that…there we were, strangers from the United States, praying over a drunk man, in a language he couldn’t understand, and he just broke down. The kicker is that right before he started crying, I was praying that God would break his heart and get through to him somehow. Oscar told us that he had left the bar to go to the bathroom (pretty sure that just means the side of the pathway that we were standing/kneeling on while praying) and he saw us. Only he didn’t see us . He said he saw angels…and he knew that God was with us. That’s why he came over to us and started to tell us about his life…and by the end of the conversation, he had transitioned into telling us about how much he needed God.
There was an older woman who came out of the bar, watched us for a while, then sat on the curb and started crying. And I’m not talking about the kind of crying with silent tears running down her cheeks; no I’m talking about the kind of crying that’s from the soul – she was sobbing. Nikki and Cara were praying with her and trying to catch bits and pieces of her story. They said it sounded like she’d been through a whole lot, and with her crying that loudly, I believe it. Meanwhile, Oscar started crying again off and on…and there was a moment that I saw it in his eyes: that even if he doesn’t remember much once he’s sober, something will stick. He was so broken by his past, by his present, and where he thinks he’s headed. It seemed like the things the world offers as a solution have plagued him, and he knows what’s right and what’s true, but he keeps running back to the sins that are destroying him.
There was an older man who came up to part of the group and he told them something pretty crazy – that God had told him that we were coming today. The group with him began to pray with him, and he was clearly moved. When I tore my gaze from Oscar, I saw the older man with his arms lifted high, just crying out to God. He kneeled – which is kind of a big deal in a place where the ground is just filthy with who knows what – and prayed.
Around that same time, a younger man who was extremely drunk stumbled out of the bar and sat down in front of some of the girls on the team who were sitting on the sidewalk. In the middle of them trying to talk with him, the man would yell (extremely loudly) pretty randomly, but I couldn’t understand a thing besides his use of the f word. When Kevin (one of our awesome awesome Guatemalan brothers here!) joined them, the young man panicked a little and stood up, fell over, and sat back down on the opposite side of the street we were on. Later I found out that the young man looked at Kevin and was convinced that he was a healer.
All these things were happening pretty simultaneously. At one point while we were praying for Oscar, I looked around me and saw it all happening and was overwhelmed. All we had planned on was praying over some buildings! And here before my eyes were 4 broken people crying out to God – and countless others just watching. With those four, it didn’t seem like we were all strangers. Not with my hand on the back of a sobbing man whose eyes were filled with pain; not with my brothers and sisters around me praying their hearts out over a handful of drunk people. They weren’t strangers.
And now I’m tired. I’m so exhausted. I keep dozing off for seconds and then waking up, and I know I have to finish this before I go to bed. I have to make sure that it’s still fresh and raw to me when I write about it, otherwise it turns out sounded scripted and dead…I think today was the first day I really started feeling more like a tool for God to use. I was afraid there in the Bar District, I’ll admit. It was a misplaced fear since I knew I was safe. But scared nonetheless. I went from an awesome morning of worship and joy and contentness to fear and insecurity…and then to joy and brokenheartedness for people I’d just met. Peace, it rained on me today. God reminded me that I’m right where He wants me to be – and I have a purpose here too.
I don’t know where Oscar is right now. Maybe he’s right back in that bar. Along with the woman who was crying on the sidewalk, and the young man who seemed angry and lost, and the older man who had kneeled on the dirty ground with his arms raised as he cried out to God. Maybe nothing came out of us being there.
But…maybe it did. I believe that I may not be a world-changer – maybe I’m just a seed planter. I’m praying that God will make those seeds grow into something extravagant. Oscar has a special place in my heart. I wonder if he knows that someone’s still praying for him.
