Day 6--March 15, 2007

Again, I started the day off doing chores for Bill—scraped, painted, and trash. Nothing big, but when I was done I went to the prayer room. The prayer room is real neat. It’s a room on the second floor with candles, oil, and then posters and maps to write prayer requests on. On the right side of the room, there was a window overlooking the sanctuary/altar, and on the left side of the room were windows looking out into the streets of Philadelphia. I thought this was real cool, to be able to pray for both the church and the streets while looking at them. I sat down and wrote out a prayer, asking God to show us something big—something we had never seen before. I asked God to bring a revolution, and break down barriers—asking him to find favor with me for being a faithful and obedient servant. I was getting more excited.
As I waited on Major to take me out for a real Philly Cheese Steak (yes, the real thing at the original place where it all started), I opened up my Bible to read a little. I had been starting to read the Bible straight through from beginning to end. I had read up to Deuteronomy. But I just felt like skipping that book for now and read some of Joshua, the book after. What I read in the first few verses was basically, “Moses died; Joshua you will now take the people to the promise land.” I immediately thought, “Well that’s not fair.” Moses was faithful in going to the Pharoah and leading his people out of Egypt. God said he was going to lead them to the Promise land where it flows with milk and honey. But they’ve been stuck out in some desert all this time, leaving Moses anxious to finally see the glory promised—he’s just waiting with hope. Then… Moses just dies? He dies before ever seeing the Promise land? After all that he did and how he faithfully served God, he doesn’t even get to see the promise fulfilled! To me that didn’t seem fair. But at the same time, I just thought about the prayer I had just prayed and wondered if God was telling me something. That maybe, yes, a revolution would come—a promise was made about this trip (and I felt there to be a true promise), but that I would not get to see it. If big things didn’t happen tonight (at least what I was expecting), then that doesn’t mean it won’t happen after I leave.
After going back to Franklin to pass out fliers about tonight, I went to McDonald’s to pick up my order. I had gone in the morning to put in an order for 30 double cheeseburgers, 30 crispy ranch snack wraps, and 30 small fries. I figured with such a big order, it’d only be fair to give it to them in advance. When I came for my pickup, they started piling it all in boxes and as they were doing that, the manager in charge asked what it was for. I explained to her what I had been doing throughout the week, why I was doing it, and then what was going on tonight. “Aww, how nice, that’s awesome,” she told me. Then, without even thinking about what I was doing, I reached into my wallet and asked her how many were working. She counted off 17 employers and then for some reason I just pulled out 80 dollars, gave it to her, and said, “Here, divide this up as tip for everybody. I know it was a big order to put through. Will you just tell them it’s a gift from Jesus Christ and they need to check out the Salvation Army on Allegheny Ave?” As I walked out I heard her shout, “We just got a tip Y’all!” and saw her waving the money in the air. I know I ordered a lot of food, but I didn’t want to underestimate my God—I was dreaming big. And even if hardly any gotten eaten, at least I got to do that (tip them).
So then it’s all going down. I set up the McDonalds and simply wait. Mike called me and said he got my message and said he was on his way. I waited—45 minutes, 1 hour, 1 ½ hours… no one was showing up. But this open gym wasn’t something I planned. The SA has open gym every Thursday and Friday and I was told that usually 11 guys come. Well Luke came to me in the front and said, “There more guys than usual. About 20 of them are playing back there, maybe some of them are your guys.” I doubted it, because they had never been to the SA and wouldn’t know to go through the side door to get to the gym, but I went back there to check. There was one guy there that I had met/played with at the park. The rest were all new to me. I caught a few guys getting ready to walk out the door to leave and before they could make it all the way out the door I told them there was free McDonald’s for them downstairs. “Free McDonald’s! Hell yeah!” was their response. They came rushing up the steps and started telling everyone else that there was McDonald’s. I guess for tonight, God intended me to talk to different people. I brought the food and Gatorade up, passed them out, and then passed out gospel tracts. I had so many people thank me and as they thanked me, I sat down and started to share. I gave them a gospel tract, saying that this book changed my life and it can change yours. I started to share my testimony. I moved on down the bench to talk so more guys. The last guy I talked to I had gotten out of jail last August after being there for a year. He told me that while he was there, someone gave him the Book of John to read also, and he said he started to, but couldn’t understand it. I was able to outline it for him, and encourage him to come to a church and ask questions. Later, I took someone home and when I came back all the guys had left. But Luke told me that as they were leaving, each and every person there asked him who I was. This reminded me of a verse in John about “When Jesus entered the temple, whole town was stirred and asked ‘Who is this man?’” No, I am not Jesus, but Jesus is why I was there doing what I did and because of that, “the whole gym was stirred and asked ‘Who is this man?’” One more thing happened later that night. I got to put my money somewhere I didn’t expect to. Luie’s brother, Patrick, stayed overnight with me at the SA to just chill and have a good time. I spent a lot of time with him and spent most of his time telling me how he had a band, but no bass guitar. He had been wanting a simple, 4-string bass guitar for years, but his family can’t afford it (nor can he). I was going to make a donation to the SA for all their help, but I changed my mind. I set aside 70 dollars for myself to make it home; the remaining 111 dollars was put in an envelope addressed to Major Phill… in it, I explained that I wanted it to go toward a bass guitar for Patrick. I was 140 short, but I figured it would help.