First Night of Outreach! And First Day of Lecture!

Yesterday, we got up, breakfast, then loaded the buses to head down to the Arvada base. We got there and began worship with the other two schools that are staying down there. Worship was great! We then spilt up into assigned groups that are our intercession groups with whom we meet every Monday! I am the only girl in my group and there are four guys from BDTS and three from the other two schools. We began praying, asking God to lead us to a country that He wants us to pray and interceed for every Monday from now until the end of the lecture phase. We prayed for quite some time, getting random verses, images, songs, phrases, etc. All of them pointing to the same three locations. Those being Cambodia, Vietnam, and Thailand. Next week we're going to pray again, asking for one specific country! I'm excited! Then we got together to prepare for our evening outreach! There were tons of different groups and I was in the group that was going to the skatepark, but it was freezing AND snowing (which was lovely) so we decided not to go the skatepark because it'd be us and the concrete. So we improvised. We gathered up the money from our pockets and bought two big jugs of Starbucks coffee and thirty cups and lids. Then, as we drove to downtown Denver, we prayed, invited the Holy Spirit to work through us and bless people, and sang worship songs. It was awesome! We got to our destination, split into two teams, and made our way to God's peolpe! We got on the bus and basically went in circles talking to people, praying for and with people, handing out free coffee! It was a good time! I believe God planted some great seeds and did some great work through our willingness to serve Him and just love on His people! One particular man that I spoke with was riding the bus simply because he didn't know what else to do. He was homeless, very drunk, and had no idea where he was going. He said his name was Michael. I offered him coffee and he looked at me with his wide, dialated eyes in disbelief. "Now why do you think you're doing that? Why exactly are you here giving me coffee right now? Why me?" He asked. I could tell in his eyes that he was thinking, 'I am so trashed, I am so unworthy. I don't even deserve a cup of free coffee.' I answered by telling him that I was out with a group of God's children, with the mission to love more of His children. So essentially, this coffee is for him, from God. I didn't think Michael's eyes could get wider, but somehow, they managed to. "Did you... honestly? Really? Did you really just say that to me?" He felt God's unconditional love. "I am covered, I mean, I am so covered in beer right now. I'm trying to hide this beer on my lap from you. And for you to come up and give me a cup of coffee... I mean..." Yes, he was drunk, but I believe he felt loved. But a kind of love that he wasn't aware existed. He couldn't believe it existed. Here he was, riding the free public transportation, no direction, no self worth, beating himself up for past occurences and the Father God of the universe bends down and hands him a cup of coffee. Michael then opened up and told on of my roommates all about he hurt, his struggles, and how he got to this point. I was called over by the guys on my team because I was holding the coffee. I left Michael and Kathleen in the back of the bus and served more coffee. I talked to a man about my God given joy. We rode the bus around town, then when we had run out of coffee and it was time to go, we got off the bus at our stop and Michael got off with us, because he wasn't finished learning about this amazing love displayed to him earlier. At this point, he was talking to three of the guys on my team and I went over to join them, and tell them that we had to get moving. As I was waiting for the chance to speak, Michael told us that this cup of coffee and this display of love was so impacting that he is going to start praying again. A renewal of faith through a cup of coffee. God moves in every way you could imagine, you just have to invite Him into it. He has amazing plans!! All of that was last night, and now it's the end of today. Today was our first official day of the lecture phase. Our speaker for this week is Jeff Pratt. He has ana amazing story, and worth while things to say about the Father Heart of God. He told many stories of demonstrations by earthly fathers that help us better understand the love of our Heavenly father. At the end of his teaching, he had us stand and ask God to have mercy on us for things we have done. It was a freeing moment! This group of people amazes me more and more each moment we're together! We also began work duties today! Me, along with Alecia get to watch John and Bethany Murphy's kids at least two days out of each week! Their kids are amazing! And Alecia is amazing! So our work duty time is going to be a lot more like play time! It's going to be so fun! And now it's finally free time and I should be reading my book! So I'm going to get on that!