Street Church

Every Sunday we will be doing church on the streets. Last Sunday was our first time doing it in Tegucigalpa.

The first man that we talked to was a homeless man named Angel. He is crippled on the right side of his body. He asked for prayer and afterwards we asked him if he was hungry. Katie is the only person on our team that is fluent in Spanish. She told us that we could take Angel to eat as long as we did it by ourselves so we could work on learning the language. So, after finally communicating to him with hand motions and the few Spanish words that we know, we explained to him that we wanted to take him into the mall to get a meal. Kevin, Samantha, and I all walked with Angel into the mall. Everyone looked at us like we were crazy, like they couldn’t believe that we were with him. We walked up and down the food court trying to explain to Angel that he could choose whatever he wanted for lunch.  He finally understood that we were letting him choose and he decided on a Japanese restaurant. He ordered it to go and I told him we should sit at a table but he wouldn’t because he was to embarrassed. Cassie later told me that it is very common for public places to kick people out if they are dirty or look like they are from the streets. We walked out of the mall and back to the spot we had first met him. He didn’t touch his food. After a while of it just sitting there I unwrapped the food and handed it to him. His eyes lite up like he was amazed I was actually giving him the food to eat. He said “Por mi?… Por mi?” while he ate his food we continued to visit with him and show him love. He is so accustomed to being treated like garbage; it was super awesome to see how much his spirit lifted after being showered with kindness.
 

Down the road we saw a guy in a wheel chair and I said I suggested we go pray for him. We approached the group of teenagers that we boy was with and just started making small talk. We eventually asked if we could pray for any of them. We said, “God wants to heal, does anyone have anything they would like Him to heal?” One girl pointed to the boy next to her and said he always has headaches. He agreed to let us pray for him even though all of his friends were snickering and poking fun of him. He told us that he believed that God would heal it and after we prayed his headache was completely gone. Now they believed that it was real and I began to share the story of my shoulder with them.  We asked if anyone else wanted prayer and all of the boys and girls pointed to the boy in the wheel chair. He was so scared. He wouldn’t look us in the eyes or say anything to us.  The boy that was pushing his wheel chair told us we could pray for him. We began praying and soon all of the kids that were laughing at the start were now on their knees gathered around the lame boy. They desperately wanted to see their friend walk and they truly believed that God could do it. Katie looked him in the eyes and said, “you don’t have to go to church, you don’t have to read the bible, you don’t have to be perfect, you just have to believe in your heart that God can heal you. Do you want him to heal you?” He simply shook his head no.
The boy was literally crippled by fear. 

Although he didn’t want to be healed God was so present and was certainly doing something in the hearts of the teenagers and the heart of the lame boy. We will be in the same place every Sunday for the next 8 weeks. Please join us in prayer that God will put these kids back in our path and that we will again be able to make some kind of difference. I believe that he will shake that spirit of fear and that we will no longer be crippled physically and emotionally. Jesus heals!! All we have to do is accept that He died for us and accept that He loves us and believe that ANYTHING is possible with Jesus Christ our Savior!!