Love Bags

The week before Spring Break, our youth group had the opportunity to hear from Perry Emerick, the Mesa Campus Pastor at Central. Perry talked about homelessness and challenged the students to make a difference in these peoples' lives. He set before us a challenge to go out into Mesa and hand out what we call, love bags. These are bags filled with daily essential items such as a toothbrush & toothpaste, chapstick, water, snacks, deodarant, and much more. Our 9th grade small group girls decided that they wanted to do it together as a small group, so we set a date and time and went for it.

One week later, we sat in the youth ministry offices at church and put together our bags complete with the above items, as well as, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. It was incredible seeing the excitement in these young girls' eyes. The excitement of putting together a few bags with items they purchased on their own, the excitement of knowing they would be helping people in desperate need, the excitement of realizing that at their young age of 14 or 15 years, they can make a difference. After completing the bags, we set out into downtown Mesa. Without any luck at first, we prayed that Jesus would lead us to who He had planned for us to encounter. Within a three minutes, we found ourselves pulling into a small park in the middle of a run-down neighborhood where six different homeless people were hanging out. With nervous excitement, we delivered the bags. It was quite an amusing experience because of the things we learned from these people. We learned that the world is coming to an end very soon. We learned that their friends bus went into the sky and never came back. We learned (what we should already know) that it takes three days to travel to the Sun. And that "A" Mountain in Tempe was named after the very man we were speaking to. Yes, bizarre information, but it was a blast talking with these people and being Jesus' light through our actions.

We hugged them, said goodbye, and were thankful we found someone to bless. But, we still had one bag left to give away. On our way to the park, we had spotted a man passed out on the side of the road on the hard concrete sidewalk. We decided if he was still there, we would share the bag with him. To our surprise, he was there, but had moved a few feet away into the shade. We parked and headed towards him.

Meet Robert. A fellow Christian. A man in need. As soon as we handed him the bag, he said, "Oh, so you feel sorry for me." "No!!" We did not want him to feel embarrassed or that we pitied him. So we explained what we were doing, and that we just wanted to help out. He let us know how grateful he was and immediately asked if we would pray with him. So, on the side of the busy road, one of our 9th grade girls, myself, and my co-leader sat in a circle with Robert, held hands, recited the Lord's Prayer, and listened to him pray to His savior for blessing him that day. I was humbled. We were humbled. We will never forget Robert, and we will continue to pray for him.

That day, we learned that a few small items that we may take for granted can make an incredible impact in one person's life. While it might not change his life or provide for his every need, we trust that Jesus in all his power, would deliver them out of this dark and difficult time in their lives. That through our efforts and our love and support, the Lord will do incredible things. And it won't stop there. We hope to continue in our efforts to be the change in this city.