Day 6
Good evening Hope Church Family ! Xiaoming here. Today’s plan was to give food and bottled water to homeless people in a plaza, and hopefully engage in conversation with them and ask whether they would like us to pray for them. This was the best day and I had been waiting for it all through the week.
We made quite some (forty-six) sandwiches in the morning in our lodging place, but had little idea how quickly the food would run out.
With food and bottle waters in our hands, we divided ourselves into four groups with one Spanish speaker in each group and set off. As we walked across streets to the plaza, we did not see many people and I started to wonder how this was going to be. But as soon as we got to the plaza, the food just disappeared. People came out of nowhere and rushed over asking for food and water. We were totally not expecting that. Basically within minutes, all our food and water were taken and we did not even have much opportunities to talk to anybody. I suggested that we just continue our walk and meet any people in our way so that we can talk to them. But some were concerned that without food, homeless people probably would not even want to talk to us.
As we were discussing our next step, we saw Jennifer sitting on the sidewalk and a senior guy walked over in his walker and sat next to her, so we decided to talk to him. As we were approaching, he looked at me in my eyes and say something about sniper. I thought he was complaining about me being too close. But with Uzi’s help, we found out that he actually is a veteran sniper in the military. He showed us his VA card and told us his story of being deployed in Vietnam war. His name is Mario and if we did not talk to him, there is no way that we could know he had been in a horrific war. He said if his legs could be strong again, he won’t hesitate to be deployed once more to serve this country. We thanked him for being willing sacrificing his life. Uzi asked him whether he would allow us to pray for him. He said he was ok but he did not have specific requests. I was very moved by his story – a hero by all standards, but now in some way, rejected by his fellow country. So I prayed for Mario. I thanked God to have such wonderful encounter with him, get to know his story, his bravery and sacrifice for his country. I prayed for God’s healing over his body and soul so that he will have peace and strength to face challenges everyday. I prayed that he will be reminded that Jesus died on cross for our sins, so that no matter what happens, the love of Jesus will always be with us.
After we prayed, I saw he was wiping tears from his eyes. I felt that our words and actions were so limited but may God lift him up and comfort him. As we continued our conversation and we were very surprised to hear that he is now working with the veteran affairs office in PR to help other veterans to cope with PTSD and other issues, given his own situation. He also mentioned that his dad was also a soldier when World War II broke. They had experienced the cruelty of wars. He said he did not want to kill anybody, even if they were his worst enemies, but he had no choice. He had wrestled his burden with God and asked God to give peace. Jennifer looked into his eyes and assured him that God had already given him peace. As he continued his talking, I heard one phrase from him “man does not work, should not eat” , I told him that it was from the Bible and told him that there was another Bible phrase “show me a man with diligence, and he can stand before king”. I said to him that he had already shown his diligence in serving his country.
As we are close to the end of our conversation, I asked him and he was very happy to take a picture with us. I shook his hands and hugged him, blessed him with “Dios le bendigo” and said goodbye to our friend Mario.
Even though we did not meet lots of people as I originally expected, God had a different plan to take away all our food and water so that we could have a very great deep conversation with Mario and pray for him.