Airtime...

I've heard that no press is bad press. Is there such a thing as bad press? You know, news coverage, airtime, a slot on the morning newscast? Last week we had an opportunity to get a little news coverage of our downtown activities. We didn't seek it out. It found us. I have been intentional over the past couple of weeks about offering more people the opportunity to jump in and help in any way possible. I've put notices on the electronic bulletin board on the intranet at work. I've posted messages on various Husker message boards. I've asked people personally. We've asked people personally. You see, this is too good for us to not let people know. People need to know. People have to know. So I posted a message on the Husker Power Hour message board. What a name. The Husker Power Hour!! This community is one of Husker fanatics who sit and spout off about all things Nebraska. Sports that is. Husker football mainly, but there are smatterings of NU baseball, Creighton sports and whatever else happens to come up. There are various "rooms" one can post in, but there is etiquette to follow. I mean, we're talking about well coiffed, highly mannered, sophisticated individuals here. You don't just go posting needs for the homeless on the football board. No sir. That's strictly for the "Cigar Room". Where anything goes. Now I have to tell you, it is a fairly tame arena, but it can get a little racy at times, re, language etc... After having been a member of this particular message board for a few years now, you pretty much know how to maneuver your way around. And there are all kinds of folks hanging out in there. Lawyers, pastors, me, whatever. All kinds.

So when I posted my latest needs message on the general board, I had no idea what kind of response we'd get. But these are great resources to draw from. I know there are big, fat football fans who have clothes and things to give away. And if they are big, hefty football fellows, they must be eating pretty good, right? Somebody must know how to cook, right? Tailgate parties come to mind. Recliners and buckets o' chili and chips. So, I post a message explaining ways a person might want to get connected up with us in our downtown fellowshippin'. I get the usual responses from people telling us what a great thing it is we are doing. One guy says he and his family have gone to a mission in KC at Thanksgiving and Christmas to help out. Says we must be saints to do this every weekend? Man, we'd be foolish not to do it every weekend. It's an absolute blast. We'd be denying the Almighty if we didn't do it every weekend. It's His job for us. His mission for us. We also get what I've come to know as the goodwillers. These are the folks who ask how they can help, what we need, etc. They have stuff they were going to take to the Goodwill, but we can certainly have it if we so desire. Seems a smaller percentage of these folks actually follow through, and that's ok. We just have to be subtle and intentional about nudgin' 'em when possible. I'm talking strictly about this message board environment here. Don't get me wrong. We've been ginormously blessed in so many ways. Ways that have allowed our friends downtown to be blessed in huge ways also. It is all good. What I'm saying is sometimes, people, me included, have good intentions, but the follow through just kind of gets misplaced. I believe we call that living life. You know, kid's football practice, cub scouts, school. Stuff. So we go through our closets and bag some stuff up, put it in the garage and have every intention of getting it to Goodwill. Or the Salvation Army. Wherever. But maybe it sits. And sits. So, I imagine that some of these guys who offer to bring stuff over get caught up in the life cycle. Cool. The cool thing is that every week we get just what His provisions are for the week. Every single week.

One guy made an offer that was pretty cool. His screen name is mszone. He's a local reporter for the morning news. His initials are MS. He also does an afternoon sports show on one of the local sports stations. 1620 the Zone. Hence the name, mszone. Well this fellow saw my begging message and responded. Mentioned that he might be able to get us a little air time if we were interested and if we hadn't already gotten any. My first thought was H*$& yeah! jk. Actually my initial thought was one of concern. How will it be portrayed? How about editorial control? Right. That happens. Will it get a message out to the right people? Should we even do it? Well, I have to tell you that not doing it really never crossed my mind. I prayed about it and I prayed some more about it. Look. One of the ideas here is to raise awareness of what it is God is doing here every weekend. Raise a little awareness as to the greatness of the people we hang out with on a given Sunday. Let people know that God is blessing our happenings on that corner every single time we pop our table out of the van and put His people's provisions out for their needs to be met. Give anyone who is looking for something a little different an opportunity to join us on Sunday to witness Christ's love in action. He is there. His love is there. We do nothing but the physical side. He is there.

So Mr. Mszone arranges for us to get a little airtime. We make arrangements to meet him on the very corner where our church meets on Sundays. Of course, Robin is anxious...bless her heart. She is anxious because this is our passion. Has to be portrayed in the right way. What if it comes off as self-serving? What if they portray it as something it isn't? What if the city officials see it and decide that we need to find a different meeting place? We've been kind of flying under the radar for about 5 months now. Not even the slightest hint that they would give us any trouble. But what if, by putting ourselves out there, we raise the wrong kind of awareness? Well, that was just going to have to be a chance we'd be willing to take. So we meet there last Thursday afternoon. KETV sends a photojournalist, Ben Gray to do the interview. The whole thing took about 15 minutes. It had been raining most of the day, but we were blessed to get a brief window to make it happen. At one point during the interview, Ben turned off the camera and asked us a pretty pointed question. Do we want to address the fact that the city probably doesn't want us down there? Apparently, and I don't know many details, they have shut down several different groups who were doing similar things. You see, Omaha is in the middle of a downtown revitalization project. Local downtown businesses don't particularly care for these types of congregational gatherings, if you catch my drift. It is unsightly. Can't have homeless folks massing up, ya know. Bad for the scenery. Whatever. The thing is, we haven't so much as had a police officer tell us to clear the sidewalk where we meet. And when we went down some weekends and there was 6, 8, 10 inches of snow, you better believe we set our stuff right on the sidewalk. The guys even showed up with a snow shovel one snowy weekend and had a path shoveled for us when we got there. So, he just didn't want to blind side us with the question on camera. So I turned it around and asked him what he thought of our situation? He plainly stated that we should continue what we were doing. We came to an agreement that we would not address the question on camera. Blissful ignorance. But let me tell you, if they try to "remove" us from that corner, and they probably will at some point, we are going to have a tussle on our hands. :) Pray for us. We don't need to expend energy in that direction. There is too much to do otherwise. No time to waste on that sort of thing.

So the interview goes off. The intent from mszone's perspective was to run the interview several times over the morning newscast Friday morning and offer people an opportunity to help on Sunday. The intent from our perspective was to get people to jump into Gods mission field. Right here in downtown Omaha. Our piece ran about 4 or 5 times over the 2 hour broadcast. They portrayed it exactly as God would have it. Funny how that works. The news started at 5 a.m. Thank goodness for tivo. We were able to see all the spots they aired. About the only thing they didn't get was that we already have several people helping on a regular basis. Apparently, we did not get that properly conveyed to them I guess. I think that Robin's 6,498 apologetic emails conveyed that to all those we were concerned about. We have been blessed by God to have a wonderful group of people that are all in. They are amazing. And God knows it! AMAZING!

Anyway, mission accomplished. The one important thing they neglected to get across - our contact information. So we weren't sure what to expect on Sunday. They simply said that if anyone wanted to help, they should show up on Sunday at noon. Well, they did. We pulled up, and Wolf, a big strapping fellow who is always one of the first people we see as we round the corner, points to a couple of bags of clothing someone dropped off. Wolf is a fellow from New York. Been here in Omaha 4 years. Probably about 6' 6'', around 300 or so pounds. Big dude. Now my first inclination was to wonder why the clothing was still there. Are these people not homeless? In need of this kind of stuff? Why didn't they pounce on this stuff? Because in spite of what some people think, these are decent, good, respectful people. We've not had the slightest inkling that we would have any kind of problem from day one. There have been a couple of times that I thought we might, maybe have an issue. Keith didn't care for the fact that Horatio lifted his new boots right from under his nose one Sunday. He got his boots back and we got Horatio boots the next week. Here I am trying to run interference. Riiiiight. That's my forte...or not. Things like that. But in all honesty, in 5 months, I can think of 1 or 2 times that I felt that way. That's it.

So anyway, people show up. Not just our homeless friends. But people we don't know who have shown up to help. 3 new couples. Another fine lady. A young mom and her 8 year old son - Dadrionne (sp?). Coolest little fellow. Collected several bags and a box of his clothing and wanted to bring it down. His own stuff. That is what it is all about. Everybody chipping in to help. People offering to help cook. People bringing down food. The opportunity exists to show God's love. All we have to do is act. It is so simple. So. Simple. No walls. No buildings. All inclusive. Anyone is welcome. Everyone is welcome. God is there. It is amazing. AMAZING.

So the press was good. And this week? Easter dinner!! Ham...potatoes...dinner rolls...Easter dinner stuff. With our friends. On that great corner. I can't wait. And people to help. To share in our Lord's wonderful works. On the weekend of His Resurrection. I can't wait to share His story with our friends. I know most of them know it. But we'll share it with them again. And again. And again. Give 'em the news. The Good News. He sent us. He blessed our mission. He is the sole reason we do what we do. We are so blessed. As Lindsay, a little friend of mine says in her cute little southern drawl..."thank you for our blessins"!!

That's it. This time my eyes are bleeding...sorry. :)

Peace and have a great and blessed week.

..."it matters to that one"... :)