Chicken Nuggets and Chain Prayers!

There are days in ministry when I feel one disappointment after the other! I go home and am disheartened in the effort to help the kids of the neighborhood. These are usually the days that are filled with fist fights, promiscuous teenagers or a cuss word repeated one too many times. It is in these times that the Lord stops me in my tracks and reminds me in one way or another that I'm not at NW 9th and McKinley to save the world. I'm there to love. That's it...and very simple. Love them with the love of the Lord.

Yesterday was a CRAZY day. It began at 9 in the morning and ended at 11 in the evening. All 14 hours were filled with chaos. I won't go into the details of the chaos but one of the events involved Luke, Ron and I peeling a horde of kids off of each other in a mass jumping. Despite some of the rough things, at the end of the day I was able to look Ron and Luke in the eye and tell them "today was a good day". They looked at me with faces of horror but I was able to do this because of one event.

The Hornets donated some tickets to us for the Mavs game last night. We invited some of the kids and were excited about the trip because none of them had been to a Hornets game before. We had intentions to cook dinner at Rock Island before we left but we ran out of time so we headed down the street for a healthy meal at Mickey D's. My mind was still racing from the day as I ate my food. I paused my thinking just long enough to look up and choke on my grilled chicken! There, in the middle of a McDonalds on NW 23rd were 5 of our so-called "street kids" holding hands and having a chain prayer! I sat in awe as every single one of them prayed aloud! They didn't care who saw them or how their "gangsta" friends might have thought they looked. They were just spending some time with the Lord right there in the midst of our day. Now, I have to be encouraged by that. We may not be saving them from drug lords and gang wars but I truly feel that I would have never seen that a month ago. The Lord is changing hearts and lives a little bit at a time and it is good!