We've crossed into enemy territory!-- Chandy

This story all starts with a house. A drug house to be exact. It is located about 100 yards from Rock Island and is the main source for almost every dealer, addict and teenager in the neighborhood. I have spent several times just sitting outside staring at the house and praying for it, all the while watching literally dozens of people file in and out. It's always busy, whether it's 3:00 in the morning or noon. There are always people coming out of that house. And it makes me sick.. what originally made me sad has now turned into a little bit of anger. I have seen the owners of this house use kids as young as 8 years old to run drugs for them. I'm just fed up. As we were talking about that house this week, Luke said that he has actually prayed many times that the house would burn to the ground. Finally... after years of being untouched by the Oklahoma City Police, they busted the house a few weeks ago. We watched out the windows as drug task forces carried dozens of styrofoam ice chests as evidence. I felt like we finally had our peace. But we were wrong. Only a week later the drug running picked up again and it's like the bust never happened. I know that God has a detailed plan of what is going to happen with that house, but I just wish I knew what it was. I will wait... because I know his timing is perfect.

The people who live in that house have never come over to Cross and Crown. Apparently they have been doing well enough financially that they haven't needed any of our services. But God's plan was put into motion when the house was busted. They lost ALOT of money! That is why on Wednesday, two of the inhabitants actually came over and signed the list to get supplies from our food pantry. The second I looked out the window and saw them walking up, I knew something good was going to happen. The two that came over were a mother and daughter pair. The mother is the boss and you can tell by looking at her that she has it all together. She is clean and well kept, it's obvious she only deals and doesn't abuse. But then there is her daughter, who has obviously been using everything that comes through the house. Her teeth are all rotted out, her body is covered in soars and she doesn't even have the strength to hold her own head up. She can barely walk and sort of shuffles her feet, she is on the verge of death. I'm not sure how old she is... she looks to be about 50, but most likely she is close to my age of 24.

They signed our food list at 9:00 am and when it was time to open the doors at 11:00, only the daughter showed back up. Again, all part of God's plan. Just a side note about our food pantry, every one that comes for our services must first go through the "prayer room" where they meet with a prayer counselor to pray about their needs. We'll call the daughter "Pam". When it was Pam's turn to go into the prayer room she sat down with one of our very special counselors, Don (and his sidekick Jacob). I have a feeling that had she not sat down with Don, none of this would have ever happened. I don't know many details about their conversation, but I do know that about 20 minutes after that, I was helping Jacob get the baptistry filled up. "Pam" had decided to accept Christ and wanted to be baptized. I can't really explain the sight of seeing her crawl into the baptistry, except that she basically had to be lifted and set in. Once she was sitting in the water, she actually had to lay her head on the side so that she didn't tip over. Don said a few words and asked her to tell everyone why she wanted to accept Jesus and be baptized and her specific slurred words were, "I want Satan to leave me alone".

One person made the comment, "she is so out of it, do you think she even knows what she is doing?" She knew... the way I looked at it is that on Wednesday she could have laid in that house in her drugged up state and never left, but she chose to cross the street and accept Christ. We are going to take advantage of that.

"Pam" may not ever get clean or stop dealing drugs but I do know one thing, she is covered in the Holy Spirit and when she walked back into that demon-filled house on Wednesday, all the evil shuddered in fear, because the spirt of Jesus Christ is there now. God has done something that we didn't even think to pray for, he has implanted himself in the middle of that house. I can't wait to sit and watch and pray for that house now, because I know that the Lord is at work in there and is shaking things up. To him be all the glory!