This blog is about the afternoon after my team shared with Jeff. It was just a day of movement overall, so I want you to know what happened in the afternoon. So, for more context before this please read my blog titled Peace.
We ate lunch in the van and shared our stories with each other. We ended lunch by deciding where to go for the afternoon ATL session, which ended up being a street by the train station where Austin believed we might find some of the places we had heard from the Lord that morning, such as murals.
Austin joined the group with Erica, Rebekah, and me. So the four of us walked down the street together when a man at a street corner caught my eye because he had a cross necklace. I saw it as a perfect ice breaker and stopped to compliment the necklace. Nathan was very straight forward and immediately shared pieces of his story with us. He told us he was heading down the street to see if one of the restaurants had any free food on their table outside. I acknowledged his hunger and offered for us to buy him lunch. Erica was very moved by the idea, feeling called to provide from her own money, and offered to take him to any of the restaurants on the street he wanted. He wanted pizza.
So, we all sat with him while he ate and talked about our Christian walks and faith. He said he is a Christian but he is struggling in being homeless and having some issues with the law. We spent our time together trying to encourage him and lift him up.
He also acknowledged he didn’t have a Bible, so Austin tried to help him figure out how to get a Bible app on his phone, but because Nathan didn’t know all of his log in information we couldn’t easily get an electronic Bible. We wished we had a paper copy to give him.
Our time passed quickly and it came close to the time to meet the rest of our group. We messaged everyone where we were and Hannah and Bethaney came and joined us in the pizza place.
By a miracle, Bethaney had recently gotten a new Bible and she had the old one in her bag, ready to give away. It also happened to be almost exactly Nathan’s preferred translation (KJV) because Bethaney prefers the New King James Version.
And so she gave it to him.
And now we pray for Nathan. We pray for blessings and provisions in his life. We pray that Bible is a prized possession helping him to live a new life.
