a hard day.

We wandered off the street and ushered ourselves down sandbag stairs until we lost sight of the road and had a clear view of the murky river carrying trash to it's next unwanted destination. I saw the bridge. I put one foot in front of the other and made my way into the "under-the-bridge-slum". Two stories. Darkness. Random light bulbs. And this is their home. A complete community whose life is embodied by the cars' safe transport over the river.

I felt overwhelmed. I was done seeing suffering. No more injustice.

And we were invited into someone's house before I soak in anymore anger.

We stared at the women sitting across from us. She began telling us about the friends they had made with a previous wave of "buleh". We inquired about who was related to who, shared about our time here and stared some more. We learned that the young woman had moved here temporarily because her house is flooded. She smiled at us meekly as she shrugged off the weather of the city, accepting that these are the conditions she lives in, and that is that.

Soon we began to ask if they knew Jesus. They shared that they had heard about him and were beginning to know him through a Bible that the mother of the young woman had. She is forboden to read it by her husband. She smiled as she shared she is reading through the book of John. Shortly a man appeared in the corner. Our local friend told us we could no longer talk about Jesus because he was a Muslim.

As we invited him into the circle we asked about his life. He is 36 and lives with his mother. He hasn't left the house lately but needs to get a job. We started to share about a Provider that we know of. Little by little we told the story of a Jesus who loves us and only has good in his heart. The man seemed puzzled and uniterested. We piped up about the vastness of his grace. "I am a sinner and you are too. He died for you. He died for me." No convincing is necessary, we could tell he was waiting for more though. When we asked him if we could stop and pray for God to open his heart to recieve he said that he wanted to know Jesus today. One prayer after the other, he met Jesus. I will not easily forget the questioning in his voice when he closed the prayer and said "I feel...free?...It is like the dark has been wiped off my eyes."

The story goes on...some of it I am still working through.

This much I wanted to share though. Earlier, I felt that the world had abandoned this corner of the city. How could we have let such a quaint city build itself up under the bridge? Surely this isn't where God has intended for people to live? And I believe that still. However, it was through this man, his release of dullness and embracing of freedom that brought forth the kingdom that day, it has brought to this lost city. Bit by bit, Jesus is breaking through.

Salvation bears hope.