Don’t Talk About It Be About It (Waikiki Homeless Outreach)

YWAM Honolulu just restarted the Tuesday night homeless feeding that Pastor RK started years ago. He’s since moved his family to Paraguay and is doing missions work there, and around that time the homeless feeding got shut down in March 2020 because of Covid.

If you’ve been following me for a while you probably remember this was one of my favorite outreaches and I wrote about it a lot in previous years starting about a decade ago.

I went with Spencer the YWAM Honolulu Director to pick up the pizza’s from Papa Johns. We parked at the zoo and walked them over to the first pavilion. I was slightly nervous because it has been such a long time since I had been down there.

What would we encounter? In the past month both Spencer and I have had separate near violent encounters with the homeless where the police had to be called. I read an article that meth that is hitting the streets now is literally frying peoples brains and making them violent. Pray for our protection as we continue to minister.

Our School of Missions and Evangelism (SOME) students and staff set up a folding table and started inviting people to come get pizza.

As the line formed, Billy the SOME director gave a short gospel presentation and one of the staff prayed.

We started talking with a guy named “T”.

It was great to see Billy do what he’s so gifted at. Easily engaging people in conversation and effortlessly sharing the gospel.

He later shared with one of the students that it’s not effortless, that he still gets nervous and he just pushes through it and has to choose to kill his fear of man. That’s a good reminder.

“T” had only been on the street for 4 days, he just flew in from California. Young guy, 20’s, still clean, bright eyed and alert. The street hadn’t hardened him yet.

Billy chatted with him about where he was from. I heard “T” say he needed a phone.

Billy was upfront and bold with “T.” You need to get off these streets man, you need to get a job and a place to stay you need an address.

Throughout the conversation we found out that “T” was raised in church and had a knowledge of gospel. Billy prayed for him and then gave space for “T” to pray too.

You could see God meeting with “T” as he closed his eyes and silently prayed on the verge of tears.

Billy moved on to chat with a group of young (I’m pretty sure drunk) language students from Europe. It seemed like they were in Waikiki to party. 3 of the 4 were engaged with the conversation. The 4th guy kept trying to get the rest of the group to leave.

Billy later shared he asked them why Jesus had to die on the cross. They responded “to be a good example?” They had no understanding of the gospel. Billy got to share with them while I finished up my conversation with “T”

“Why are you really out here man?” I asked T, as his eyes shifted around, he stared at the ground.

“My girlfriend of 7 years had a brain aneurism and died, I had to get out of there man, and get a fresh start, everything reminded me of her.”

“I’m so sorry.” I responded.

There’s always a deeper why.

I asked him if he had family back in California. He said his parents, but he said they don’t have money like that.

“I should have a better plan” he repeated a few times during our chat.

I asked him if he was running into trouble out here, he responded “I heard that people like to jack your stuff out here so I’ve been keeping my ID and my social security card on me, and I’m just trying to protect my bag.”

He shook my hand, half smiled and walked away.

I’ve been thinking a lot about personalities lately. Aggressive versus passive. I appreciated that Billy was so upfront with “T” and boldly shared the gospel with him and told him he needed to get off the streets. I wish I would have been more aggressive or at least assertive last night.

I prayed that I’d run back into “T” as we walked back to our car. I wanted to help get him a phone. I didn’t see him. Pray that I run into him next week. Miracles happen. Remember when we found “B” in a city of a million people?

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I recently tweeted something like “Don’t make any excuse to not live by your values.”

If you have a tragedy in your life you might be tempted to make an excuse to do dumb things. Maybe this is playing out in your own life on a smaller scale.

Maybe you’ve had a hard day so you’re going to make an excuse to indulge in some food that’s not good for you, or escape and have a few more drinks than usual.

What if we didn’t allow hardship, rejection, unmet expectations to derail us from what we truly valued?

Yesterdays Proverb that stuck out to me was Proverbs 18:1.

“Whoever isolates himself seeks his own desire; he breaks out against all sound judgement.”

Don’t let “no one will understand” be an excuse to isolate. Nothing good grows alone in the dark.

We all need a support network. Cultivate yours today. Be vulnerable with trusted friends. Are we all just one tragedy and a few poor choices away from being on the streets?

I like Waikiki evangelism because you hear real peoples stories. And when you hear real peoples stories from their own mouth empathy leads the way.

What if through a slice of pizza, a listening ear, the power of the Holy Spirit and the good news of the Gospel we gave hope to people who are headed down a dark path, what if that cost us our time, our comfort and even some resources?

I’ve heard of a man and one of the few stories I heard about him was that he stepped over homeless people and as he did, he’d say “get a job like the rest of us you bum.” I don’t want that to be my legacy.

Spencer and I drove back home. He shared how he was talking to two guys who he had met a few weeks ago. One guy was from South Dakota and had only been here for 4 weeks. He even had a plane ticket back, but got his ID stolen. He talked about how he was on a bunch of heart medicines but didn’t have the money to get them and didn’t know if he was going to live or not. Spencer met up with them the next day took them to the pharmacy, got him a phone and got the guys prescriptions filled and encouraged him to get his ID which he hadn’t yet.

It’s crazy that we’re meeting people who are brand new to the street. The cycle is predictable. Live on the street, get your stuff stolen, now you don’t have an ID so you can’t work or do anything or get assistance. Lose motivation, start drinking or doing drugs and now you’re a statistic.

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I appreciate that our director isn’t just leading from a high back office chair. He’s on the streets doing the stuff and following up with people the next day on his own time, and his own dime.

I appreciate that our SOME director is down there with his daughter even though they just lost a family member.

I’m blessed to be apart of this community. A community that prioritizes and values what they say they value. A community that challenges, encourages me and makes space for me to prioritize the Gospel. There are a million excuses to not take action.

I’m grateful to be spurred on to not just talk about it, but to be about.

Don’t talk about it, be about it.

Sorry for the stock photo, I forgot to take a picture last night.