Friday the 13th - Outreach

I've been really bad at blogging about outreach lately. People ask me how it goes and then I direct them to the blog that 'I will be writing soon' but I never do. Oops!

To start, here's how my Friday went (this may end up being long winded - forgive me - but who reads these anyway? Hi mom and Courtney. You better comment! haha):

I met my dear friend Kathy for breakfast at 6am yesterday. When I first got there, I was the only person there along with the waiter who had worked all night. You could tell he was tired and had a boring night. We talked about his evening, about the idea of being paid to do nothing and it being overrated, and about having to sleep during the day after a night shift like that. Soon after, Kathy got there. We were pretty much the only people there for quite a while and our poor waiter seemed to enjoy listening in to our conversation as his only form of entertainment at the time.

After breakfast, I headed out to work and decided to listen to a Mark Cahill sermon that I had listened to a couple years ago but for whatever reason I decided to listen to it again. It was about witnessing and about using EVERY opportunity to share Christ's love with people and His gospel because you never know how God could use one short conversation. I thought about our waiter. I had a good 5-10 minutes with him before Kathy got there (I was running early for once lol). Why didn't I get deeper with him?? Convicted, I wrote Kathy an email as soon as I got to work telling her that I want to start praying about how God could use our early morning breakfasts to reach people. I have let so many God-given opportunities slip through my fingers. I don't want it to happen again...

Reflecting on our waiter and on the sermon through out the day is what prepared me for outreach that night. I kept thinking about what we do out there and the importance and urgency of making sure these girls (and guys) know exactly what God wants them to know. And turns out, in all God's sovereign graciousness, my heart wasn't the only one God had been working in about it. When I met up with the After Hours team last night, one of the first things Daryl said was, "We need to start bringing this to the next level." And he was right. We have gained the trust (somewhat) of these girls and they are familiar with us because of the gift bags. Now it was time to start bringing more meat to the streets.


In all, we talked to about 10 girls. Most of them knew who we were and were more than comfortable enough with letting us give them a gift bag. It was when we started to get a little more personal that they started to get a little uncomfortable. Trying to figure out how to 'bring it to the next level,' I followed Jen's and Daryl's lead as they began to ask the girls more questions about their time on the streets, if they have a pimp, and what they would rather do if they weren't out there. I had never thought of what a personal question that must be to them, to have to remember back to their childhood (but most of the girls are still children anyway!) to the dreams they used to have.

When life has become such a mess, those dreams get pushed as far out of your head as possible so as not to hope for things that seem untouchable. It made me sad to think of these girls who at one point did have dreams, possibly to be doctors, lawyers, astronauts... and now they find themselves, working for a 'boyfriend' who doesn't really love them and doing things they never thought they would do. Holding on to those dreams would only be torture.


I now sit here in my comfortable bedroom, reflecting on the night and on the dreams I had growing up. Sure, living in a beach house with my best friend as we do investigative journalism together never happened (wow the things kids come up with), but I can look back on those 'dreams' with fondness. And I can look forward to the future that I have when I see Christ in all His glory. And focusing on Him daily is what makes every day a day for Him and his purposes. It's even better than any dream I could have come up with! I want these girls to have that too.