Take It To the Streets

I spent this last weekend in San Francisco for "Take It To The Streets," a special program that focuses on training youth in practical ministries. Hosted by YWAM (Youth With a Mission), it was a unique opportunity to learn about the poverty here in the United States--poverty that had previously been invisible to me.After school on Friday, we loaded the cars with not only our luggage, but with bags full of clothes and toiletries for the homeless. We took off for San Francisco, where we unloaded everything at YWAM's building there. The bulk of the afternoon and evening were spent just settling in and getting to know each other. Then, we were shown some training videos before being sent outside, into the Tenderloin district, to talk and pray with the homeless. The next morning, my group went to the Glide Memorial across the street to help them with their soup kitchen. It was breakfast, so it wasn't soup, but a fairly decent meal, and each person was allowed to have two trays. I got to work in the dining room for the disabled, which was quite an experience. One lady had a book with a bunch of Da Vinci drawings in it, and we talked awhile about them. Another lady jabbered away enthusiastically in Korean, and even though I didn't understand a word of what she was saying, she was so friendly that we still sort of managed to communicate.When we returned to YWAM, we were given "Justice Education," where we learned about how people become homeless and what we can do to combat poverty. My blood boiled to hear that the 500 billionaires in the world have fifty percent of the world's wealth. No country has as large a gap between the rich and the poor as the US--on one hand, we have Bill Gates, the world's wealthiest man; on the other, we have the people we saw in the streets this weekend, who probably don't have even a dollar to their name.Then, we started out on a Skyscraper Safari. We walked to the financial district and prayed for the people and the businesses there--the Transamerica Pyramid, US Customs and Immigration, the Embarcadero, even the headquarters for USA Today--we wanered all over. We ended up in a park in China Town, where we prayed for the whole city. When we returned, we went out again and did a Living Water ministry where we handed out bottles of water with verses on them on Powell Street. We then went to supper at Naan and Curry, an Indian restaurant which served just that, with excellent Chai tea as well. After that, we had a commitment service, where we sang, listened to one of the pastors give a talk, then went through three stations--foot washing, writing something we wished to give up and nailing it onto the wooden cross they had there, and writing in a journal they provided how we wished to commit ourselves to God. Our last morning, we went out and served coffee and doughnuts to the homeless. One man said, "There's no U-hauls going to heaven." That's sure the truth. As my group was headed back to YWAM, we stopped to offer two women on the street doughnuts. It turned out that one was having a seizure, and the other said she was trained to handle this, but would appreciate prayer. We did so, and fortunately, someone called an ambulance and they came. Soon after, we left. It had been an amazing weekend; I have never seen so much of San Francisco before. It gave me the energy to study for the finals that are this week and to deal with whatever bug I've caught that's making my throat feel as though it's on fire. Wish me luck on the finals; we've never had them so late in the school year before.