Remember the LORD who is great and awesome

I first saw Freddie on Saturday as we arrived at the ‘adopt-a-block rally’ at the Dreamcenter gym. We walked in and there was worship music playing and people spread all over the gym praying. Some were seated, some were bowed down and some were pacing across the front. It was neat to start out the day of ministry first seeking God. I remember seeing Freddie sometime at the beginning, he was wearing camouflage pants and hat and a green t-shirt. He had long hair put up in a bunch of little braids. But he had a humbleness about him, I remember thinking that He must love God a lot, just in the way he carried himself.
Freddie was the leader of our group to skid row. As we boarded the bus, he handed out some ‘our daily bread’ devotional books and some flyers telling people about when the bus comes. Freddie apologized for not having any food to hand out and said that today we would just have to give them the gospel because that is the most important thing anyways. The bus had Bible verses over each window which was a reminder of who we are doing this for and the great power that He has over everything. ‘Remember the Lord who is great and awesome’, read one of the verses (Ne. 4:14).
We pulled up on Skid row in the bus and all piled out. Right as we pulled up a truck pulled up right behind us and unloaded two boxes of apples. The driver asked if we would like them. YES! We passed them out to people that we met on skid row and thanked God for providing. We even had leftovers. We met a few people and talked with them for a bit. I was a little disappointed that we only had an hour, I had wanted to sit down and have some really good conversations with people, but I guess that since I still am not sure what exactly to say to someone who is at such a different area of life, I have nothing in common with them. I felt very safe as we walked around, I know who was with us and we have no reason to fear men.
We returned to the Dreamcenter to eat lunch at the café and Kevin, Cat and I sat down to eat with Freddie. He began sharing his story with us: Freddie is from Southern California, the third of four boys. When he was in high school he began to get involved in a gang. His younger brother would tag along with him sometimes but was not involved. Freddie would go with his gang and they would rumble at different high schools with other gangs, he became a leader in the gang.
One time they were at a Quinceanos celebration and another gang got upset because they thought that Freddie’s brother was in an enemy gang. Freddie decided that they would leave and as he was waiting for the music to stop to tell his friends to leave some guys came up behind him, broke a glass bottle over his head and started punching him. He said that was the first fight that he knew that he couldn’t win. He heard gunshots going off and then he fell faking that he got shot. The guys left and then he ran and hid behind the speakers while people were yelling and trying to escape. After the commotion died down a bit he heard people yelling his name. he went over and his younger brother had been shot. They carried him outside and put him in a vehicle to go to the hospital. He said that he kept thinking that he was going to kill the person who was responsible for killing his brother. They went to the hospital and the police told him to not try to take revenge on the other gang. He went into the room where his brother was and he had died from the gunshot wounds. He had one gunshot to the front and two to the back.
He said after his brother died he realized that he didn’t get pleasure from the drugs and alcohol and fighting anymore. Freddie started meeting with the leaders of the other gangs and discussing how they would get the other gang back for killing his brother. They were saving money and buying tons of ammunition. He told the guys in his gang that it was going to get messy from this point on and if they wanted out they could just leave. Gangs don’t work like that, but he really didn’t want to kill the others just the guy who was responsible for killing his brother. His mom kicked him out because he was not working or helping out at home anymore. One day the guy that he was living with said, ‘lets go get some money’ so they went to rob a store. All four of them got caught and went to jail.
When he was there one of the guys told him about Jesus. He had a Bible and he began reading it. On one occasion he said that his friend, Angel, told him ‘those two guys over there are involved in spiritual warfare’, Freddie wanted to see so he walked over and saw one guy reading his bible and the other guy full of anger. He said he saw the evil in the guy and as he looked around he could see the evil spirits in all over the guys. He realized that he was not fighting against humans, he was fighting against evil but that since he had Christ, Satan could not harm him.
He started leading a Bible study and prayer every night with the guys in the jail. He went to court and the last day when they were going to do the final sentencing with the possibility of 18 years in prison. The evidence started disappearing. The tape would not play anymore. The lady that would testify against them could not because she had also gotten in trouble with the law and it would hurt her case. Then the officer that arrested them who was to say that she had, in fact, arrested them, she recognized the other three but said that she had never seen Freddie before. They released him that very day.
He went home and told his family and every day he would ride his bike around knocking on doors and telling everyone about Christ. He said that after a while he realized that if he stayed there he would start to go back to his old habits and it was then that he learned about the Dreamcenter. He enrolled in the discipleship program and has been there for two and a half years.
He has been going to skid row for a year or a year and half and he loves it. Later, Kevin said that it was neat to see all the homeless people that Freddie had build relationships with coming up to him and just to see the trust and love that he attained from them, they knew that he really cared for them and loved them. Freddie said that the people on skid row needed deliverance. They didn’t just need a job and money and a home. He said you can dress them up and make them look pretty but they are still going to be broken on the inside. But he wants to see them delivered.

Los Angeles

University of Texas at San Antonio Baptist Student Ministry

Los Angeles: A Journey of Love, Hope and Faith

So we've been back for four days, thinking, processing and praying. What does this mean for us? How do we use principles that we saw in action, how do we transfer lessons that we learned, how do we keep that humbleness when real life sets in?

The God that was at work on Skid Row and at the Dreamcenter and in the poor neighborhoods of Los Angeles is at work in the streets of San Antonio. God loves San Antonians as much as He loves Los Angelians. AND, furthermore, we didn't accidentally end up in San Antonio. God has placed us here for a reason. And He sent us to Los Angeles for a reason.
I pray that we take what we learned and experienced there and keep remembering it. He is good and He showed us a lot of neat things while we were there.

We talked about failure, a theme that kept recurring over the week. Sometimes failure is necessary to move on. We are not always going to be successful when serving God. But the difference is that He can make something beautiful out of the broken and messy. We learn. We grow.
One thing that Brittany said that was just a beautiful picture of what we saw was last Sunday when we were talking after church. She said, 'Los Angeles is a beautiful city. Once you get inside though, it is hectic and messy and broken, just like the people.' She went on to say how her and David had fallen in love with the city and the people of Los Angeles. And we could see their love by the heart that they had as they shared their experiences and their refusal to settle for less than what God had called them to, even if others thought they were crazy.