Don’t thank me…

"Thanks Dave". Seems like I hear those words about a hundred times or more every Sunday. Thanks Dave. Thanks for the socks. Thanks for the shoes. Thanks for the meal. Thanks for the…whatever. The thing is I try to emphasize that it isn’t me. It isn’t us. And the funnier thing is I’m starting to get the same responses from different people. "Thank both of you". Now that’s one I like. I don’t want, for one second, anyone giving me thanks for anything I do on Sunday or any other day for that matter. I certainly don’t deserve thanks. I most especially don’t want it. I simply wish for our friends to know from where it all comes. Whenever anyone thanks me for anything? I simply tell them to not. Please. I’m simply the one that does a little of the leg work. The tool as my friend Bill once said. Others have called me much worse. A tool? In some places that has a pretty negative connotation. In this case? I’ll take it. I’ll be an instrument of the Lord any day. Because there is no one I’d rather serve. And each time I get the opportunity to give someone a pair of socks or pray with someone on that corner I’m reminded just how blessed I really am.

Here’s yet another crazy story, to me anyway. I met a couple today. Richard and Miranda. Never seen them before. As it turns out, I’m guessing I’ll never see them again. They show up on our corner today. After sleeping in some bushes last night. Hey, they found some cardboard to make things a little more comfortable. For whatever reason, it’s getting cooler here a little early this year. We actually had long sleeves on yesterday at Nick’s football game. So I’m guessing sleeping under the bushes by the Omaha Children’s Museum last night was a little frosty. Now these guys don’t know this city. How they got there last night I have no idea. What happens when you get off a bus in a strange city? Do you go looking for the most comfortable bushes you can find? Not in this case. The came in from Sioux City yesterday. Seems a church there was able to help them get as far as Omaha. I guess it costs a little more to get to Austin than to Omaha? Obviously. But let me back up a bit. This couple was visiting family in South Dakota. They had driven up with friends from Austin, Texas. On the way back, the friends were arrested in Sioux City, Iowa. Now why the friends would even go through Sioux City when they had outstanding warrants in that city is for another time, but they did. So they get arrested, therefore stranding this couple there. So they get a little help and show up in Omaha yesterday. They try their luck at the shelter, but it seems they forgot to pack there marriage certificate for this trip. I do that all the time! Doggone marriage certificate. I wouldn’t know where ours is. And the shelter needs a marriage certificate to put them up together. Rules. So the shelter offers them separate quarters. Only thing is they can only give her an upper bunk. And it seems Miranda has a medical condition which causes her to have seizures. Not a good combination. Seizures and an upper bunk. Bad combo. Oh and someone from the shelter, who shall go unnamed, offered to help with bus tickets. Told them to wait out front and she’d get back to them. After about an hour and a half, said person left for the day out the back door. No explanation or anything. Seems she was going to try to get a local church to pay for the tickets. The church turned them down for some reason. So they weren’t having much luck. Somehow, they showed up on our corner today. I met them in the line. They asked if we could help. We? Oh, you mean the both of us? Well, get a bite to eat and we’ll chat after things settle down a little. That’s a pretty pat answer for me. Lots of people seem to need to talk. To both of us. :) So they mentioned their situation and I told them to give me some time and "we’d" see if we could do anything. So, after we got the trailer loaded up, I spent a bit of time talking to Richard and Miranda. I sometimes wonder, when people I’ve never met before, begin to tell me of their circumstances if they are really being square with me. It’s so hard not to be cynical sometimes. But if "we" have the money, and we’ve been blessed with various donations, how can we not help. But I have to admit, it’s a real struggle for me sometimes. So anyway we make arrangements to get the bus tickets for them and get them on their way. They leave Omaha at 7:45 tonight and get to Austin tomorrow afternoon. Now I wouldn’t wish that bus trip on anyone, but I’m guessing this couple will take it. Look, I can’t imagine being stranded in a strange city. Sleeping under a bush. On a piece of cardboard. And wondering if I’d ever get back and how? I cannot imagine.

I had a fellow come up to me today and tell me the funniest thing, yet it was pretty awesome at the same time. Robert is an older fellow who had started coming down in recent months. I’m really not sure how long he’s been coming down and I think he has an apartment nearby. He stopped me today to tell me some news. He pulls me close and tells me he joined the Lord today. Joined the Lord? That’s the first time I’ve heard it described quite like that. He said he had to. I told him he was absolutely right. He did have to. And I fully intend on joining up with him in coming weeks to hear how his "joining" is going! Joined the Lord! I like that one.

And finally, and this has absolutely nothing to do with anything, but it was a moment we’ll be talking about in our family for a while, no doubt. We leave the downtown area today and we’re heading south. We’d stopped at my Mom’s house for a few minutes on the way home and were leaving South Omaha. Heading down 13th Street. As we passed through an intersection, I noticed a flock of birds clearing the road and thought I might hit one of them. Guess I should have thought differently. As they flew close to the front of the van, I was very suddenly aware of the fact that something had come in through the window of the van and grazed the top of my rather large melon. A baby bird had flown right smack in the window, took a glancing blow off my head and landed inside on the back window of the van. Now it all happened rather quickly, and by the time I turned around to see exactly what the heck had just grazed me, the neighbor girl who made the trip with us downtown today was standing in her seat, screaming in a vain attempt to avoid this crazy bird. She was terrified! And the bird flies across to Christian’s side and bounces of his window. I’m looking back, trying to figure this all out and of course I’m driving the van. While looking back. And did I mention we are in the middle of a construction zone? One lane either direction. So I might have crossed a front, left tire into the oncoming lane for a second or two. I did get notice from the truck that was coming from the other direction that this game of chicken was going to end pretty quickly if one of us didn’t do something differently. So I get back into my lane and the bird finds a place in the back of the van. We are able to stop a ways up the road once we’d cleared all the pylons and construction cones and free this crazy bird. Don’t know the moral of this one, just a crazy moment and one we’ll be talking about for a while.

So, aside from the bird incident, it was a great day. Another opportunity to be the wall-less, door-less, roof-less open air "building" that this thing has become. And when I got a call from Richard and Miranda a few minutes ago thanking me for the chance to get home? Well, I simply told them not to thank me.

Thank God.

Peace and have a great and blessed week.

Go out and make a difference.

…it matters to that one… :)