An act of love in a home of hate!

I have more than a few favorite moments in the last year at Cross & Crown. Some are funny, some are sad. On January 1 I plan to blog about the top 10 moments from the last year, but for right now I wanna share a little story from one of those favorite moments.

Every Thursday morning the mission is closed and the staff meets for a staff meeting, afterwards we try to do one act of community service out in the neighborhood, such as mowing a neighbors yard, planting flowers or just visiting one of the older people that can't get out. 2 weeks ago during our staff meeting, our truck driver from the Regional Food Bank called. He had just dropped off 10,000 lbs of food the day before that we had ordered and paid for, but because of our relationship with him, he had another load of produce that was about to go bad that he wanted to give us. We were expecting a few boxes of tomatoes, but we were shocked when Dwayne (the driver) showed up in the biggest semi the Regional Food Bank owns. Full of milk, eggs, tomatoes, potatoes, lettuce, onions, mushrooms and tortillas. ALL FREE! We were so excited and immediately began loading the mission trailer full of everything. It was like Christmas, Paul drove slowly down NW9th, 8th and 7th as Ron and I knocked on every door and delivered the gifts. All the neighbors were coming outside and were so excited. Some even followed us around the neighborhood and helped us give away everything. It was a precious time in community.... I tell all that to get to the real good story.

There is a house in our neighborhood that I am scared of. I think to some extent I'm a tough person and not much in the neighborhood frightens me, but this house does. It's painted with all the gang symbols of a particular white supremacist gang, has about 10 different pit bulls strategically placed on chains throughout the property, and in the 6 years I've been at Cross & Crown, I've never seen even one person come out during the day. So, when we reached that house, I was not jumping for joy to walk up and ring the doorbell, but one of their neighbors said there were kids there, so we should try. So Paul, being the great leader he is, got out of the van and stood in the middle of the street yelling at the front door, the dogs wouldn't even allow us on the sidewalk. After a few minutes of yelling, the scariest looking man I have ever seen came outside. He was huge and buff, wasn't wearing a shirt, was a skinhead and had what looked to be the letters 666 tattooed on his forehead. I didn't say a word, I just stared. Paul followed by saying that we heard he had kids and wanted to bless his family with free groceries. The man just held his ground in the middle of his porch and scowled at us. I was on the verge of running screaming in the other direction when the man stepped out into the street and in complete silence he began picking groceries of our trailer that he wanted. ( I forgot to tell you that we blew a tire 5 minutes into our delivery and had been driving on the rim for the last 2 hours) Just as he was about to head back in the house, he turned and said, "Hey, do you need some help with that tire? I've got one in the back you can have." And then he walked to the back yard and came back rolling his peace offering... a great big Firestone tire. You see... this man probably didn't know the way or words to say thank you, so he did the best thing he could. As we drove off, he still never smiled one bit, but I could see the Spirit of God in him, I could feel it. Despite those letters on his forehead and the hate in his eyes, I can sense that the Holy Spirit is hanging around that house... just waiting for the right moment. I don't think it's the last we will see of him... and that doesn't scare me anymore.

I am going to start driving by that house everyday and I will pray the anointing of the Holy Spirit... I pray that the light will penetrate the darkness and the chains that Satan has placed there will be broken and that the people that live there will finally be set free by the blood of Jesus.