New Blog Site

I am moving our blog site to a different location. I have had problems trying to post to this site, not letting me load things and it has given me problems trying to post to facebook, so I am going to try wordpress. You can connect with us there at https://mosaicstreetministry.wordpress.com/  I will try and post here when it doesn't give me problems. Thanks for following us and I hope to see you on our new page.

Preyed on

We were getting ready to pack it up today at the park, when a young woman asked if she could take another plate for her and her friends to share. She said that they had been staying at the shelter, but had made enough money to get a hotel room and wanted something to eat for later that evening. Everyone had eaten, so we packed up what was left and filled a bag of food for her and her friends. As we were doing this, not to faraway was one of the young men that I have know for awhile. He was tweeking and tweeking pretty hard. I was keeping a eye on him as the young woman and I talked, I didn't want him to start something with others there. She saw me looking at him and told me she didn't like him. She then told me she had just gotten out of prison and was on probation for 15 years and was trying to do right and he makes it hard for her. I asked why and she told me that from the time she has gotten out, a lot of the men try and force her to do things with them. She said this man (the tweeker) had grabbed her in a manner that I will not go into, she thought about calling the police, but was afraid of causing problems and maybe going back to jail. She then told me how the tweeker and many of the other men have been taking advantage of a woman, I will call her Sue, who is mental unstable. Because of her mental situation, she has become a target for many to prey on.

My son knows a lot of the homeless and goes to the underpass to see some of them from time to time. When I got home I told him about the woman I was speaking to in the park and story about the woman being preyed on. He looked right at me and said that would be "Sue". You know her I asked and he said he did. He went on to tell me about how (in his words) "The drunks and druggies use and abuse her". 

As I talked to the woman in the park, she put on a hard exterior, but there was softness to her. A lost little girl that only wanted to be loved. I saw this in her when I told her about the beauty I saw in her and how no man had the right to use and abuse her in any manner. Then I think of Sue and why someone  with her mental situation is on the streets and why there is not help for people like her. It is hard enough being on the streets and trying to survive day to day, but to be a woman on the streets is twice as hard. A woman not only has to just survive, but has to fight to not be preyed on, abused, raped, prostituted and the list goes on and for someone like Sue, who may not understand what is happening to her, god only knows what horrors she is going thru. How do you protect them, how do you find help for the Sue's out there? I don't know, but I know it needs to stop.

Pray for the women on your streets.......no matter what city you live in, you have those who are being preyed on and they need your prayers.

Lovely day in the Park

We were blessed once again to have some really great folks from True North Church, as well as some of the nursing students come down today. First of the month and it is typically smaller amounts of people showing up, but I am always reminded that those that are suppose to be there are there. Got to love on some really awesome people. Was a special day for me, with the extra help I was able to connect with some of the guys and sit and have a good chat with them, something I have not been able to do in awhile. Plenty of food left over so we hauled it down to the underpass. I was excited about going down. I haven't been down in awhile and even though I knew some of the folk there, there are many new faces on the streets and it was great to get to know them as well. There were a few things that stuck out to me today and something's that really pulled at my heart. Pastor Jason from True North as been to the underpass before talking to the guys there and he told me about a young man Miguel who told Jason that he would have his back and no one would mess with him. Well after everyone left, I stayed awhile longer talking to Pat, he was pouring his heart out and crying when Miguel came up. Miguel looked at me and asked what is going on. Pat stopped him right there and proceeded to tell him who I was and what I was doing there, explaining that we go back since the beginning of when I started going to the park. Miguel looked me up and down and held out his hand to shake, we shook and in his world things were alright. He accepted me and I understand were he is coming from. He is the self appointed protector, the folks on the streets are his family and no one messes with family. He asked about Jason. I realized Jason also has been accepted into a community that not all are welcome in. Pastor Jason's church will soon embark on starting their own picnic in the park for our friends outside and their going to be great. Our friends outside are going to be in good hands. Mike and Kirsten have been coming down the last few weeks, with their teenage kids and this is a family you just fall in love with. Such beautiful loving people and hearts as big as they get. I had wondered from time to time how their kids liked coming down to the park, not every teenage kid would give up part of his or her weekend to spend time with those on the streets. As I was standing near their son, I looked over and asked how he was doing, he turned looked strait in the eyes and with the biggest smile on his face said "This is the highlight of my week." I asked him how old he was and he said in a few months he will be eighteen. In a brief moment I saw my son in this young man. My son was a few months away from his eighteenth birthday when he passed away, my son had so much love and compassion for people and so much wanted to make a difference in the lives of those who may not have. That is what I saw in the heart of this young man. So I came home cried a little...was missing my son, but rejoiced in the fact that one day we will see each other again, I pictured him smiling down on us saying "Give them a hug for me too." So we go down to love on our friends who live outside, hoping in some small way we can make a difference in the lives of those whom others have forgotten, hoping the Lord will touch their hearts and some days we walk away being the ones touched. Give someone a big hug and let them know you love them....the chance to do so many not come a second time. Love you All

In the Little things

God never stops amazing me. We had a small group of people show up in the park today and inquire about what we do there. We shared a lot things with them and hope to have the chance to share more. One thing I pointed out to them is, if they are looking for big grand moves of God down here in the park then they will miss God in the little things. Things like the Lord putting a smile on a face that has not smiled in a long time or a heart that is letting it's walls down. I also explained that it is the quiet moments after we are done serving that we get to see God move on the people.  Not more than a few minutes later, guess who made his presence known?

 

We are standing in a circle, all talking and one of the women from the park walks right thru everyone, stands in the middle of the circle and states I need prayer. The group that came down were very loving and kind to our friend, surrounded her, loved on her and prayed for her. I stepped back when she asked for prayer, not that I didn't want to pray with her, but I wanted to see how this group would react. I also had to step back and take in what was going on. The woman asking for prayer is a regular of ours and has been coming to the park for years. She usually has had way to much to drink, is lots of times angry, has more walls surrounding her heart than you can imagine and doesn't really engage with us. So for this woman to come over and boldly step into a group of people she doesn't know,  then make herself vulnerable and bare her heart....this is a move of God. These are the moments that put a smile on my face, make my heart jump for joy and bring tears to my eyes. These little moves of the Lord bring hope to a hopeless heart, love to someone who doesn't feel worthy of love and changes the lives of all who are present.

 

Let them see You

Let it be your feet and your footsteps that I follow, footsteps that will  take me to places no one else will go.  Let it be your hands thru me, that will touch and hold those that no one else will hold. Let it be your eyes that I see others thru, let me see the treasure each one holds, let me see how precious they are  in your sight and the love you have for them. Share your   heart so I can feel the compassion you have for all. Most of all Lord when I look upon them and see you, may they also in turn look and see you in me.

Alone

I never understood for the longest time why women on the streets would bounce from one man to the next, but then you learn that it is a form of survival. Even though the women are some of the strongest  people I have met, they are still at risk when being alone on the streets . A man provides a form of protection, even though that may come at a cost to the woman. I have seen women do everything from standing on a street corner panhandling to selling them selves to make money for their man. When that man leaves for one reason or another, you see many of the women take up with another. In other cases they try to make it on their own. This is the case of one that I had a conversation with a few weeks ago. Her man will be spending about six months in jail and she says she will not get with anyone else. This has left her being a target. She stood crying, telling me how those who claimed to be her friends are now hounding her to sleep with them and if she refuses, they beat her. She said that no matter what, she won't do it, she won't give in and she will survive on her one. In the week to follow she was doing good. The next week she showed up with a couple of guys whom she said were taking care of her. The last few weeks I have not seen her and I worry about her. I pray that she is alright. Pray for these women. Pray for their safety.

HOPE

I was not conceived out of love, but out of a need of a high. She sold her body for a quick fix and in that moment the miracle of life began to form in her body. At the same moment that miracle started, I also started fighting, fighting to survive the poison that ran thru her veins. For nine months I fought to enter this world, maybe even then I had hope of a bright future.
Even after I arrived I fought to survive. She stayed clean long enough to give birth, not for my sake but for hers, for if they found drugs in her or me she would have been take in to jail and I would have been put in foster care. You see I was her meal ticket. She brought me home and she seemed to be overjoyed to have me in her life, even then I had hope she would give me a good life.
As time pasted the poison she once craved came calling again and I saw less and less of her. I would cry out in hunger, for need to be taken care of and in need of love. She had to make a choice and one day she laid me down and walked away. Alone and scared I cried out for someone, anyone to come to my rescue. Someone came, I don’t know whom, but I found myself in a home that seemed nice. I had hope that this is where I could be happy, safe and loved.
This home instead was a place of neglect and abuse. I was a monthly check for them and was left to fend for myself, again alone and on my own. As I grew older I would find myself more and more wandering the streets, looking for a place to belong, someone to care and a hope for a brighter future.
I never found any of that on the streets. I found more hurt, pain, loneliness and an escape from the world that I had once hoped in. I found the demon, the poison that ran thru my mother’s veins. The sweet release of the pain of this world, transporting me to a place with no worries, no pain and the numbness that blocked out the need for companionship or love. So now I follow in her footsteps, I sell my body to acquire a few moments of being released from this world, a few moments of feeling warm and a few moments of being transported to a place where the world seems like not such a painful place to be. A place where I forget about my hopes, hopes that in time will fade.
I now spend my days wandering the streets, trying to stay numb, trying to survive. Funny that this is how I started my life, poison running thru me, fighting to survive and this is how my life will end also. I am once again discarded, not looked upon, treated like the trash that you put out on the side of the road, this time discarded by the world. I spend my days watching you and there are times when I still have that hope I once had. Now it is a hope that one day you will see me for who I am, what I could have been and for the special person I am, but most of all I hope that one day you will look me in the eyes and tell me I matter and I am loved.

All the torment, struggles, pain and abuse I went thru all my life would be worth it if you could just tell me I have worth. When I close my eyes and take my last breath and find myself sitting at the feet of our creator, I want to look up into his eyes and with a smile on my face, I want to tell him of the wonderful person who extended a kind word, put their arms around me and for once in my life told me I had worth, but most of all showed me I was loved. I hope you are the person I will speak to him about. I will be waiting here for you to show me were I can find hope once again. You can’t miss me, there are many of us and we are all around you, you just need open eyes to see us and a loving heart to love us.
A street friend