That afternoon our group began working on a VBS type kids program for the community, and Amanda and I got to go down the street to a women's shelter. This shelter is for women who have been through the worst life can throw at them including addictions, abuse, and prostitution. We were asked to talk about how to have a healthy family. With such a broad topic, we just assumed we knew what to say to these women. However, when we started to write down things that we wanted to talk about, we soon realized how difficult this would actually be. When you come from middle class America, live in a safe neighborhood, have a good and stable job, and generally live very comfortably, what do you say to people who have never experienced any of that? How can you relate to them without seeming shallow, self-centered, and selfish? We chose to pray about what to say and trusted the Lord to use our mouths.
When we arrived at the shelter it was made clear to us that we couldn't preach the Gospel. This is a federally funded facility and therefore can't be associated with church work. Additionally, these women were being forced to come listen to us as part of their program of recovery. When we heard that it actually made us feel better because we felt that it wouldn't be right to preach the Gospel to people who are there under compulsion. It might have the unintended effect of turning them away from Him, and that would be wrong. So, our strategy was simply to tell the Gospel through what He has done in the life of our family. We talked about adoption.
It's a strange thing to sit across the room from the very people that your adopted children came from. When you're receiving training prior to adoption you begin to hear the sad stories about how truly broken and destitute families are in America. You develop a deep sense of sadness and sometimes anger when you think about choices that people have made and how they have exposed children to the most evil things our society can produce. How can you do those things to children? What's wrong with you? How dare you think of yourself before your children! But then when you sit across from these same individuals, you see what it is really about. They don't have Jesus. They have a massive black hole at the center of their being and they are desperately trying to fill it up with anything that will make them forget their emptiness and need. At that point, you sense the strong love and compassion that Christ has for people, and your desire becomes bringing them to Him.
We told our story on adoption from start to finish, telling these ladies about how God had told us to adopt, selected our children, been with our children when they were in a pit of despair, and brought us all together. Within about 15 minutes most of the women were in tears listening to the story, and they began asking questions. Mostly, they wanted to know how to find a man that would take care of them and their children. We told them not to compromise because they are better people than that, and their kids deserve better. We spoke to choices in life, and tried to keep things practical. We did get to invite them to the kids events happening every night, but at all points kept coming back to what Jesus had done for us. We walked away clearly feeling like the Holy Spirit had been there with us, and these ladies were clearly impacted by what had been said. We were in awe of God.
We spend our days in local parks cooking food and talking to anyone who happened to walk by on the streets. Many homeless are in Tacoma and we struck up conversations with many of them about Jesus and His power to save. They were quite receptive and grateful for a meal at the same time. On a Wednesday evening, we went to Bobby and Kelli's house to help with a block party they were setting up for their neighbors. They use events such as these to build community with their neighbors and develop friendships. Through those the Gospel message is told. We met many dear people from their Intentional Community Group who love the Lord and others who are still seeking but are interested in Him.
During one of the days we drove to downtown Seattle to get a picture of the scope of the spiritual need there. We were in an area of downtown known only as The Blade, a name earned through years and years of knifings and stabbings on the streets. There is a very high homeless population in this area because Seattle has many social services that other surrounding cities and even states do not have. Because of this, those cities and states find ways to get their homeless population to Seattle. What is left is a mass of people, many of whom are addicted to drugs and are down and out, wandering the streets of downtown each and every day.
We chose to prayer walk there with Brian Harper, another church planter who lives near the downtown area. We went to a local park and were greeted to a strong police and security presence. It seemed as though every 10 feet there was a police officer. Homeless individuals were everywhere and it was clear that some of them were either drug dealers or were looking for their next fix. We struck up a conversation with a homeless man who was running a large chess board for the city parks department. He was 29, was from the Dallas area, and had gotten to Seattle over the prior 2 weeks hoping to get a job on an Alaskan fishing boat. This sort of thing is common in Seattle, probably because of the celebrity surrounding Deadliest Catch.
It turns out that this guy had been kicked out of his dad's house and was now trying to make it on his own. He told us that he lived in a homeless shelter at night, and that the prior day he had been offered heroin from a dealer on the street. He seemed genuinely shaken by this experience but seemed to imply that this sort of thing was common on the street. We talked about Jesus with him and he listened with interest, but became visibly offended when we stated that He is the only way to the Father. Many there believe that there are many paths to God, so saying that there is only one way is offensive. However, he overcame that and continued to listen to us, although he did not make a decision that day.
Later that morning we did more prayer walking, frequently passing prostitutes who were looking for work, and we even walked by a young homeless man in an alley who was smoking crack out in the open. We were shocked at the degree of lostness that we saw in this great city. It could be argued that literally everyone we were looking at was not a follower of Jesus. We had never seen this anywhere before.
As the week came to a close, we began to get a significant sense of calling to the Seattle area. It was almost as though we were "home" even though we were on this mission trip. The feeling can't really be described in tangible terms. What I can say is that when we got on the plane to leave we both strongly felt like we were leaving home and going to visit Houston. Landing in Houston was even more difficult as we felt a sense that we no longer belonged. We were mere visitors, passers by, even vacationers here. So we prayed, and we waited.
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