First Day as Street Pastor

I'm highly irritated my first composition simply disappeared from a site error. Blogger is a little cranky with Elinks. Bear with me as I try to reconstruct what I wrote earlier.

Several things struck me. First, I had to learn where the most pedestrian traffic is Downtown. Turns out that nice fountain park on Couch Drive is mostly vacant in summer. The action is in front of the new Downtown Library.

It was mostly indigent folks, because no one hassles them there as long as they behave well enough. They can also get some Internet time for free. A surprising number have a presence online of some sort. I chatted with one fellow as he waited his time in the busy computer station schedule.

I could have given away a lot of food. Some were digging in the trash cans. They didn't bother anyone, even when a bunch of day-campers trooped down the street, then sat down as a herd in opulent shadow of the library to have a sack lunch. The "bums" simply moved out of their way and found other places to sit. I didn't have any food to offer.

I'm trying to discern if my calling to the downtown area includes that sort of thing. God would have to provide some donors, because I couldn't afford to give away much. I can't even carry much, since I'm on the bicycle. Downtown parking is painfully expensive for motor vehicles, so the bike is the only way, to go with lots of bike rack space in front of the library.

I've had lots of experience with that type of charity work, and I know full well doing food distribution is both rewarding and frustrating. These people have had so much "ear beating" as the price at too many food kitchens, I would expect only scripted responses if I tried to engage them in spiritual discussion. It has to come from them to ask before it does any good. And giving away food gets a lot of conversation, so I could easily do some counseling. Not sure how the burning urge to teach would find an outlet there.

The ride home was long and hot, but not so much I didn't have time to pray and wonder. But I'm not giving up. Regardless what I end up doing the most, showing up regularly is the foundation of anything significant I might do.