2010 Garvin Park Outreach - Be Careful What You Pray For!

Remember how I said I wasn't sure how I got this way, this person I'm turning into? I had a taste of that yesterday. I will preface this by saying Be Careful What You Pray For. Seriously.

Yesterday morning, I was standing in my bathroom drying my hair and Brandon Heath's Give Me Your Eyes came on. Now, I've heard this song hundreds of times. There have been times where it's come on and I haven't paid attention. Other times I've kinda hummed along. And other times, I've seriously prayed it. I've closed my eyes and raised my hands and really meant it. The last time I remember doing that was right before Halloween, and then I woke up one day and wanted to feed hungry people. Yesterday morning was another one of those times. I was running a bit late for work, but didn't realize that something was going to happen that would make me even later. Let's call it a Divine Appointment. I was walking out to the car, and saw a guy just in front of our house pushing a shopping cart full of cans. Now, I don't know that he was necessarily homeless, but he was definitely underprivileged. Right up my alley. So, I grabbed some Outreach flyers out of the car and gave him a dozen or so. He said he lives on Fulton. I've learned in the last 6 months that "I live on Fulton" doesn't necessarily mean he lives in a house on Fulton. Richard said he lived on 1st Avenue by JD Byrider. We later found out he meant under the bridge on 1st Avenue. I then invited the man to go through our recycling bin every other week to get our cans. Who does that?!? The thing was, he was SO appreciative, SO humble. He was seriously a nice guy!

Now, here's why I say be careful what you pray for. Here are the lyrics to the chorus of the song that I was belting out to my Father.

Give me Your eyes for just one second
Give me Your eyes so I can see
Everything that I keep missing
Give me Your love for humanity
Give me Your arms for the brokenhearted
Ones that are far beyond my reach
Give me Your heart for the ones forgotten
Give me Your eyes so I can see

Give me Your heart for the ones forgotten. Be careful with that. Because if it's part of His plan, He will! Don't ask to Tear Down The Walls, because He will make it happen! Maybe as I was singing these songs, I didn't really mean it. Well, it's a bit late for that. He has changed my heart forever. He's given me a heart for the ones forgotten. And I'm hoping that we can reach every single one of those people that He wants us to reach on Saturday. I really truly believe that serving a ham and cheese sandwich and some potato salad and a soda will help at least one person realize that they aren't forgotten.

Now, as far as the Outreach goes, we can still use cash, as we are donating that to the Barnards. You can find out more information at barnardkids.blogspot.com I'd like to give them as much as we can. As far as supplies and food, I think we're good. The only thing we will need is ice, if you'd like to bring some. We'll find out on Saturday if we've got enough food, and worst case scenario, we'll have to go buy more. And, we still need volunteers! Either at 8:00 a.m. for Food Prep, or 12:00 for serving and hospitality. It's really important to me that we have people walking around just talking to these people. I've recently discovered that sometimes all they need is for someone to just sit down and talk to them like they're normal people. If you aren't able to make it, please join us in prayer at 8:00 a.m. and 12:15 p.m. I will post some prayer points later. If you'd like to come to the park just for prayer, please feel free. And if you can only volunteer for an hour, or would like to stay the whole 11 hours, please come on down. Thank for your support guys. I feel so honored to be doing life with people who are so generous and willing to make sacrifices.