Connecting With Homelessness

The last few weeks I have been spending some time with a homeless guy in downtown Chicago. We grab lunch and sometimes I buy him a place to stay for the night. Presently I am working to get him into the Men's Shelter I serve at. Assisting anyone who shares such different paradigms is always a challenge. Pray that God gives me the insight to serve in the manner he sees fitting.

J

Blood Donation

For the first time ever I gave blood. I qualified for the special machine that takes out just red blood cells because I have a ton of iron in my blood (16.1 something or other). So I guess I ended up giving the equivalent red blood cells of like 16 people donating. So I guess I am the man. Can't give blood though for like 4 months though. Also got a cool sticker.

Ricky

Today as I was going into Panda Express there was a man holding the door open for everyone and asking if he could get something to eat. I invited him in and got him some food. I convinced him to sit with me and eat. It was a good time of getting to know each other. He told me about Mississippi (where he was from), what he was doing here, and how he was getting by. It was a good story and his accent made it better. We are having lunch again next Tuesday. Hopefully it will be as enjoyable.

Something to think about: I was just going to Panda to get my lunch to go. There was a teleconference I wanted to listen to that might help my new business. It was free so I cost me nothing but I decided to miss it to eat with Ricky. This reminded me of something I have thought a lot about after reading Robert Lupton's book "Theirs is the Kingdom". He talked about God and efficiency. He maybe he should stop and talk to someone in need even he will be late for his big donor meeting. Maybe God isn't about efficiency and doesn't want us to always be "responsible" in the way we classically think. Something to think about.

Update on Doing Life Together

So our house church/missional community/emergent church/new monastic/cell group/sect just finished sharing our stories over the last four weeks. It was good to hear where everyone came from. It was good to here were people wanted to be going. It was good and bad that no one knows where this is going.

Last week we discussed the idea of community and doing life together. We talked about what we thought it was, what was the point of doing it, and then if X was the point did we still want to do it.

This week we are discussing the book of common prayer and what it has to say for this week. Hopefully we will also talk about what people want to do in regards to service and World Relief.

World Relief

Also got in contact with World Relief today. Will be speaking with there director of refugee resettlement about volunteering in the near future. I think this could be awesome.

J

Service

I feel that at times service needs to hurt. We need to be uncomfortable in doing it and it should suck but we strive on.

I've been spending time with someone who I meet at a homeless shelter who is there until he can get a job that will allow him to make enough money to live on his own. He has a tough time with finding great work because he spent most of his life in jail. Now that he has been out for a few years he has yet find steady work even though he gives more of an effort at it then I ever have.

The things about all this is that it isn't service really anymore. We go driving once a week to get him a better at driving to go and get a drivers license in a few weeks and last week we hang out with some people on Sunday. We hung out though because I wanted to just hangout and thought he could show us some of the stuff that the uptown area has in the realm of service and such. He served me.

Actually he teaches me things constantly. I know I teach him things and I'm all in favor of this but its really not this service is horrible thing I bought into. I feel bad at times because we have such a good time. He isn't a charity case and I don't think he ever was. He's my friend.

Now I just need to figure out what this all means when those you are serving are serving you just as much and you are having a good time.