Matthew 25:34-40 ³⁴"Then the King will say to those on
his right, 'Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your
inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the
world. ³⁵For I was hungry and you gave me
something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I
was a stranger and you invited me in, ³⁶I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.'³⁷"Then
the righteous will answer him, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry and
feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? ³⁸When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? ³⁹When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?'⁴⁰"The King will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.'

Well, I don't know where to start this week's blog. There has been little that has gone on and a lot that has happened. I'm going to make a bold statement here: I looked into the face of Jesus this week. There I said it, you can stone me if it's too blasphemous to understand, but I got to truly experience the compassion of Christ.
This is my main story for this week. Sunday night, Luke and I had talked about going out to eat at one of the local restaurants in town. While I was just hanging out in the cabin reading, waiting for Luke to get back from the beach so we could go out and eat, he was busy conversing with one of the local street bums. Finally Luke comes in, and tells me he's ready to go out and grab something to eat, I was thinking, Finally, cause I'm starving. On the way out to the cabin, he mentions to me that there is a bum he was talking to and invited him out to dinner with us. Great, I thought, just what I want, a smelly street bum to wreck my good meal (yeah, I know my attitude was horrible, it gets worse, but I've repented). We walk the 2ish blocks down to the main road where most of the businesses are, that are right on the beach basically. Luke looks up and down the road and says, "I told him to wait right here." Kind of frustrated he strains his neck to look behind cars and what not, Me, I'm thinking, Good I didn't want a bum to eat dinner with anyways. As I'm looking around I see A.B. a white, Safrican bum who we had met the day before and got to talk with him, so I waved him down and I could tell as he was walking over that he was plastered out of his mind. Great, A.B. looks like a sailor, he's old and grumpy and lots of scars on his weather worn face. So I strike up a conversation with him about how he was doing since yesterday. Meanwhile Luke found his bum, whose name is Gram, and is talking to him right behind A.B and me. I turn around and say hey to him shake his hand and put on my fake smile, meanwhile, A.B. who still has a lot of prejudice in his blood sees that Gram has a bucket with a cloth in it to wash windows, A.B. starts cussing up a storm, and tries to rip the bucket from Gram's hands, and ends up breaking the bucket. I grab A.B. and yank him off of Gram and get him away and put myself between the two while Luke grabs Gram, who isn't really in a fighting mood, but ticked that his livelihood is now broken. I try and calm down A.B. who is swearing at the top of his lungs at Gram, while I try and lead him away, I get him across another street before I tell him to take it easy and have a nice night.
I walk over to where Gram and Luke are trying to decide where to eat, which happens to be right in front of a burger joint. I tell them that I am in the mood for Mexican which is right around the corner, but Gram tells us that they wouldn't let him in there, I'm thinking big deal, we're with you so therefore they have to let you in, but he keeps telling us that he can't go in. So I tell Luke, lets just buy him a burger from the burger joint and we'll go and eat Mexican and have a good night. Ha, like that's all that Jesus had for us…
Gram starts singing, a gospel tune he came up with, which now all the customers at the burger joint are looking at Luke, and me like Get this guy out of here. So we walk down the street after Gram is finished with his song in English and Afrikaans, I think he would have kept going but we started walking with him in tow, so he tells us he wants to go to the Sunflower, where the people have nice smiles. It's a little café joint that I did not want to eat at, but we went down there and sat down. The staff there were a bit surprised that 2 nice "vacationers" were bringing in a bum with them, but since we were their only customers they couldn't complain.
We had a heck of time ordering, all Gram did as soon as we sat down was start talking to us, so when the waitress came over I ordered for him (a coke and a double burger, which he did really enjoy). Not really wanting to talk with Gram, I start talking to the waitress (Tiffany, yeah I got her number… just kidding), but quit as soon as 3 more of our teammates walk in. One being Abby, who comes and sits with us, as soon as she introduces herself, Gram starts singing to her the song that he sang for us, both versions.
Gram keeps talking until our food gets there, where HE TELLS US that it's time to pray. His prayer was simple, it went something like blessing the food, thanking God for it, then thanking God that he had new friends who cared. That's the first turning point in my heart towards this man. As we eat he tells us about his family, which he no longer has, his history, he's been a bum for a very long time, why he was on the streets, he had no one and no where to go back to, and everything, he gets to a point to though where he just broke down completely. He sobs in front of us telling us that nobody likes him, he has no friends, and no one even cares to ask him how his day is, then two people he's never met, and only wanted to wash our car windows takes him out to dinner to listen to him and be with him and sit with him and care for him. I almost broke down myself, my heart was terribly convicted, one being that I had categorized "ministry" being 3-7, then its over, and how dare anyone ask me to do ministry on the weekend. Seriously? My heart was broken from the hard ice that had covered it, my ministry is never over, it never stops, and it is to everyone (even at home this Christmas). The second point being almost a direct voice from the Lord, himself, saying, JB, How dare you think that you are better than this man here? You think because you have a family, you are from America, you have friends, you have a nice church, that you are better in my eyes than this child of mine? Wow, it felt like a punch in the stomach, because it was something that I had been struggling with the last couple of days. My heart went out to this man, and I gave Gram, the bum off the street who smelled like alcohol and who knows what else, who shirt had probably never been washed, who hadn't bathed in who knows how long, a hug. A hug that could only come from the compassion that Christ had for him, and wanted him to know. As I embraced that man, tears did well up in my eyes, in the love that not only Gram gets from God, but myself as well, the dirty rotten sinner I am.
I know this may not be the best explanation of what happened, and I apologize for that, but I hope that you can understand and feel that our Holy and Blameless savior loves each one of you very dearly (Yeah excuse me for the cheesy, big-eyed angel moment).
And something that I have been noticing in my own life now is the fact that I get to love people, there is no judgment coming from my eyes (something God is still working on).
Well I pray that this touches some of you, actually all of you, and that you will keep Gram in your prayers. We have not been able to see him since, but we still have another week here. God Bless.