We often get to entertain travelers. These are modern-day hobos, traveling from city to city. But the reason they travel isn't often post-depression economics. It's usually because they have been so deeply hurt that they want no connection with society. They often call themselves "houseless" or "home-free." We just call them street-dependent, and we love working with them.
You can read more about travelers here.
Here's another faith encounter with with a traveler:
"I want God to stop taking a dump on my life. I feel like he just plays with me. He gives us rules and yet he doesn't follow them. He just does what he wants!" We discussed God's authorship of the universe and apparent right to do as He wants, but how the Bible teaches that God is good and right. Then we talked about what God really wants, which is us to live well and right and to know Him. That led to a discussion of grace and forgiveness. The traveler really wanted to believe that, but jumped to the conclusion, "So Jesus is just a whipping boy for everything that people do wrong. So I can just keep on doing it." I showed him how Paul had explored the very same questions. And ultimately we stop doing bad not out of fear of punishment and not because we are actually perfect. We stop doing bad things because we come to love Jesus, the guy who takes the bullet for our past sins. We start to understand: "Why would I keep on doing that to my friend, Jesus. Maybe I can control myself. Maybe I can stop heaping more crap onto Jesus. Maybe I can stop taking a dump on Jesus' life." The traveler recognized this is where we started. He smiled as he comprehended that maybe a relationship with God was bidirectional. We pray that this new information will transform his entire life!
"To know, love and serve street dependent youth."
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