The USA, A Land With Desperate People

Liney and I had a good time in California visiting our friends and family members recently. We enjoyed our time there so much ..all the way from San Diego in the south with Lisa Dorrin and my nephew Dutch (who we are so proud of and will be going into the Air Force soon) up to Malibu with Kym and Kyle near LA. We had some great beach-time and fellowship in more than one church too! I always love to see my old pastor and literally hundreds of people coming forward (sometimes weekly) to receive God’s greatest miracle, as they are born again for real! What out there is better than to be in close proximity to where God is actually performing His greatest miracle! Salvation, Jesus still pulls this off with the worse of us.. with people like me. If you ever get out to SoCal, you've gotta go visit with him and his friends.

Liney and I were all over the map for two weeks it seemed, and we feel so very grateful for all the hospitality from everyone. Felt kinda like a spoiled kid with a popsicle on a carnival cruse ..if you can picture that. I even had the opportunity to share my testimony in Our Lady of Fatima Catholic Church in San Clement. Real sweet people there.

Thanks for your notes and prayers! And please do continue to pray for my parent's health, they weren’t even feeling all that great while we were with them (it's been hard to breathe for em).

We still experienced joy and laughs together ..most of the time. But one night it was kind of interesting for us as we went to The Coffee Bean near the beach to sip some hot Joe by the bright fire pit out in front of this coffee shop located on Wilshire Blvd. Yup, it was while visiting in Santa Monica with my brother Kyle. Man, it's another world up there in Hollywood and the surrounding areas. He and his wife Kym have been so happy with their new baby girl, Peyton--we loved visiting them. 

Anyways, we just grabbed a seat at the Coffee Bean and were all warming ourselves along with baby Peyton in a stroller as she also watched the flickering flames from that outdoor fireplace, and I started chatting with the two people to my right, who had their feet up and were also enjoying the cozy little bonfire. They were very nice people. they talked a bit and chuckled with us etc. Then after a little small talk, they were done, quickly got up and hit the street. I didn’t think much of it, but it turns out these people where homeless and I didn’t even recognize it.

Sobering moment for me. How my eyes fail to tell me the whole story.. too often. I hate that!!! Way sad! But God sees it all just like it really is with people in their struggles and He deeply cares about the homeless ..those society avoids. Some use, abuse, and lose, but all matter to God. He is also concerned about who in the Church will reach out to them.. if they can only do better than I and tell who is homeless. Hey He cares deeply for you as well! Do you know Him, or merely about Him?

Several Christians I know personally go feed and regularly reach out to homeless people too. I haven’t done that enough. But they collect food late at night from area restaurants and go feed them in Dallas on the streets. Very cool so say the least!

There are so many homeless people in LA as in other major cities these days; it just breaks your heart! It hurts Christ’s heart bad—He indeed has a home for each one of them and He knows their names too. He knows their hurting parent’s names as well. I’m sure many don’t even know where their sons or daughters are.

Sometimes their dead bodies are picked up from their make shift homes in the bushes near the freeway there too. My little brother who has his practice there has seen this happen. Some of them live solely on alcohol until they are not to be found anywhere.

And with the jobless rate and economy the way it is today, it would seem that we will be seeing a lot more homeless people in our nation on the streets in the near future.

Look on my right hand and see, for there is no one who acknowledges me; refuge has failed me; no one cares for my soul. —Psalm 142:4

A lot of people feel like no one could give a flip. And with a lot of elderly people, it’s true, no one they know (other than the Lord) could even give them the time of day. Many are viewed as “merely in the way” by some prominent leaders in our government. There needs to be more outrage against the evil we’ve grown so used to seeing!

At the Dana Point harbor one day, Liney and I saw a burglar who literally went off the Dana Point cliff (yes, he fell from some 75 feet in the air).

It was while he was fleeing from the police who were chased him after he committed a crime at a house on top. Man, we are glad that he survived (I think he did).

People out there seem to be desperate these days due to the economy, bad habits etc.

We didn’t learn this jumper’s name (perhaps you saw the two FB photos I posted?) but there was a Christian lady there who said she started praying for his life to be spared when she saw him actually falling. We also heard about another man that went over that same cliff the previous week, but it was little bit farther to the north below the Canons Restaurant where my brother, Kevin, used to work.

Q: Are we as a people really prepared to encounter desperate people in our own land? We can be!

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