A Mile High

On July 5th at 6:30 in the morning and hoard of us left the Grace Bible Church parking lot bound for Denver, CO the site of the annual youth missions trip. (For those of you wondering, a hoard is strictly defined as 5 white 12 passenger vans consisting of 38 people and luggage).  As this was my first trip with the youth I had no preconceived notions on what would or would not happen.  I did know that I wanted to impact the people of the city, have our kids impacted by understanding that God cares about the needy, the poor and the afflicted and that Jesus desires for us to be like Him and in doing so will serve those less fortunate and often times forgotten.

During the trip we spent the mornings in two groups, the first doing a Bible kids camp at a park for children living in the projects surrounding the park.  The second group spent their time in partnership with Confluence Ministries and their "Extreme Community Makeover".  This project consisted of cleaning up trash around the neighborhood and painting homes for people. The afternoons were filled with a variety of various services from preparing food for the homeless and delivering it later that night, to visiting with people in a rest home, to helping a person infected with HIV move.    With each service we discussed what God was seeing, if God was there, what impact was this having on people and if Jesus walked on earth would He be here and ultimately were we projecting the light of Christ with actions?  Really, can one show the love of Jesus by cleaning trash, painting a house or playing frisbee with a little kid?

The answer to this question came from the most unlikely of sources . . . The Denver Police Department.  

Half-way through our week I received a call from a detective with the Denver Police Department, she went on to tell me one of their officers had noticed us feeding and speaking with the homeless and thought it was suspicious so he called it in.  

She began to ask me if we were there to "protest the Democratic National Convention?"  No I assured her, but wish we could be there to minister to the protestors.  "What about abortion clinics, will you protest those or the girls entering those?" she asked.  No, I answered again.  I told her that we would want the girl to understand that we could never comprehend her pain and confusion and while we wished she would not get an abortion, we would want her to know that whatever decision she made God loved her and Jesus Christ died for her.  The detective did not answer, but was silent.  I then asked her why we were deemed "suspicious"?  Her reply was the answer we had been seeking the entire week . . . .  She replied, "because clean-cut white kids do not hang out with homeless people."  WOW!!!! There was our answer.  I replied with the only words I could summon and that was "Well these kids do."  She asked why they did and I was able to tell her that we firmly believed that if Jesus was still here on earth He would be there as well.

What transpired the rest of the week was amazing!  The unity of service, the praising of God, little kids coming to know Him and Carson Leslie, our student battling brain cancer ascending a 13,295ft peak!  

God was with us on our trip with the homeless, in the rest home, in the dirty alleys and on the mountain top.  What a trip!  What a God!