"Just Give"

Almost a month ago, Common Grounds hosted "Just Give". Following is a "brief" (ha!) rundown of our day. What an incredible, inspiring time!

Sunday, March 16 a group of people gathered together to “Just Give”. We had collected $150 and our mission was pretty simple – go make a difference in someone’s life. It wasn’t about $$ - it was about living out our Christianity. We covered the day in prayer and took Isaiah 58 as our “marching orders”. So many things happened that afternoon and everyone that participated was impacted. We split into teams and brainstormed ideas. There were many – so we tried to figure out what were the most effective things to do. One team headed to a neighbor’s house. The neighbor suffers from mental illness and is a hoarder. Although one of the team members has lived near her for quite some time – she had never realized the neighbor had a driveway since it was covered with packed leaves and debris. This neighbor had agreed to let the team come to work outside her home to clean up trash. It wasn’t simply manual labor that day although those involved invested quite a lot of that. It was a mentally, emotionally tough day as well. It was a very sensitive thing to work with her to give up what she had gathered, even though it was trash. Team members had to get over fears and phobias of roaches and spiders and just filth to do what needed to be done. One of the team shared that it brought her back to a time in her life when she lived in addiction and reminded her of how far she had come.

That team later went to a gas station and gave out $$ to pay for fuel (with the cost of fuel being so high right now). One lady responded with “Great! A church is giving me money (instead of taking it!)”. The team member that gave it to her was concerned she had picked the wrong person but we realized that she obviously had strong, negative perceptions about church and we were able to plant a seed to change that perception.

My team headed out with a cooler of cold bottled water and first stopped at several corners where guys were selling our local newspaper. We simply told them that we didn’t want to buy anything – just thought they could use a bottle of water. It was in the 80’s that day and many of them stand there all day long (this was about 3:30pm – 4pm in the afternoon). They get paid minimum wage to do this. One of the men we gave water to was so sunburned his skin was literally blistering on his face. When we handed him the water, he immediately opened it and drained it in just a few seconds. The smiles and “thanks” we got were truly humbling. One of our team had observed that if we started with giving away gas money – that was to people that at least had a car. So we felt inspired to focus on those that didn’t. We figured out that $3 would pay bus fare (round trip). So we hit the bus stops – first at the mall. The people we encountered there were really interesting. The first person we talked to was a guy that was very skeptical. “Is this for real?” was what we heard over and over, or “Seriously?” People could not believe that someone would offer them something of value with no expectation. People kept thanking us and telling us “God Bless You.” Our purpose was to simply serve so we didn’t push our church, instead what we usually said was something to the effect of “We are with our church out blessing our community today and we would like to pay your bus fare.” Usually after the shock wore off there were questions of “what church” etc. We also had people that turned us down and one lady in particular acted offended. But we had prayed for wisdom and discernment and know that we planted a seed anyway. We definitely had some comical moments as well. We had driven for a distance without seeing anyone at bus stops and so Brandi (one of our team) started to pray. She had said, “Keep your eyes open, watch God send someone in the middle of our prayer”. And He did exactly that, we literally pulled to the side of the road, opened our doors and gave bus fare to a guy. We then got back in the van and finished our prayer! We also saw a lady at a bus stop and had to make a very fast stop right on the side of the road. Brandi & I flung open our doors and the lady looked completely shocked. In retrospect I am sure it probably was a little frightening to see a van cut across traffic on a busy street and stop suddenly right in front of you and the doors to be flung open! We were on the south side in a higher crime area when we spotted a gentleman standing at a bus stop. I jumped out of the van and ran towards him holding a small wad of cash to give him. Even though he was a big guy and my team was actually worried about me going by myself; the guy actually jumped back and put his hands up as if to say “Don’t hurt me”. He was very hesitant until I explained what I wanted to give him. Later on we realized that he might have thought I was approaching him to try to buy drugs or something and he was obviously not that kind of guy (even though the area is one that would probably be normal). We went back to the mall bus stop and gave out our remaining bus fare. In all we paid bus fare for 17 people and gave out bottled water to 8-10 people. At that stop we also gave out beads to a little girl waiting with her mom and had 2 more interesting experiences as well as many more meaningful conversations. The 2 comical ones were one guy that raced to the next bus shelter to try to get us to give him more $$ (thinking we wouldn’t recognize him from just seconds before!), and one gentleman that actually sniffed the cash. No idea why but it was funny. One older guy turned the fare down since he had a bus pass but was very appreciative of the offer. While my other team members were talking to people, I headed back towards the van. The guy stopped me and asked to talk. He wanted to tell us what an awesome thing we were doing and must have said 4 times “People don’t do this anymore (help people)”. He told me that we were an inspiration and since he volunteers 4 days a week with the VA hospital, he understands what it means to give of our time. He thanked me over and over. We were nearing the end of our time and we had $20 left to give. We decided to head to a gas station and put $20 of gas into someone’s car. We went to one gas station and it was apparent that it was not the right place. We went to another one and prayed that God would send the right car there. When we pulled into the station we passed a homeless man on the corner. We sat there and waited for a car and finally someone said, “Maybe this isn’t the right thing. We are praying for a car and that guy over there doesn’t even have a home.” So we got out and headed to the corner. When we got there to cross the street towards him, we realized that another homeless guy was on the opposite corner. We looked at each other and said “Which one?” At that moment, the light turned for us to walk in the direction of the original guy we had noticed. That was our sign – literally! So we headed there and asked him if we could buy him some food at the convenience store. He was very emotional as he shared that his birthday was the next day and told us his condensed life story, Vietnam vet, lost his wife to brain cancer, 58 years old. We took him in the store and told him to get whatever food and drinks he wanted up to $20. He asked for a sandwich and a bottle of water. He kept insisting that was all he needed. We all felt compelled to give him the rest of the money and he told us (without a word being said by us), “I’m not going to do with this what you think I will, I’m not going to buy alcohol or cigarettes or drugs.” He was very emotional and asked if he could give us a hug. It was emotional for us as well.
I guess summing up “Just Give” was “when I was hungry, you fed me, when I was thirsty, you gave me something to drink…” We didn’t serve people, we served Jesus. Everyone wanted to do it again soon, like next month, next week! But someone reminded us that we needed to not let it be about a certain day or time but always look for opportunities to “Just Give” and then when we meet again it will be a celebration of all that has already been done and a chance for us to brainstorm more and corporately “Just Give”! Following is Genniser’s “story” from “Just Give”:
I had the privilege of participating in the “Just Give” activity Sunday, and I’ve been asked to share one particular part of our experience that afternoon.

The group that came to the church was split into three teams, and I had the opportunity to be on a team with Joe Lorenzo and Daniel Costa. We left with $50 and a lot of ideas on how to best use the money. We decided right off the bat to go to the Shell gas station right down the street from the church and give away $10 to some folks for gas.

The first opportunity we had to give gas money was this group of people that looked friendly. A man came out of the car, and I went ahead and offered the $10 and explained what we were doing. Immediately he responded by saying, “Well, I want to give you something”, and he pulled out another $10 bill…a Canadian $10 bill! He explained that he was deacon of a church and his friend was a priest. (ASIDE: It all happened so fast, and I thought to myself this is sort of defeating the purpose of what we’re trying to do! I certainly don’t want to create an awkward moment with a priest and a deacon over a Canadian $10 bill!) So, I took the Canadian $10 bill. Our team walked back to the car, somewhat excited about giving away the $10, but somewhat confused as to what actually just happened.

Our next stop was to Checker’s. We knew that Checker’s had a $.69 hamburger deal on Sundays; so, we decided to pick up ten of those and give them away to people along our way. Our first stop with our burgers was St. Pete General. We decided to give a burger and bottled water, which we had picked up earlier, to the volunteer receptionist working the emergency room. As Joe and Daniel made the delivery, I stayed in the “getaway car” in case there was a real emergency and I had to move for someone that really needed to get to the hospital entrance. As I waited, a man came out that was in need of directions.

He approached me, and asked, “Are you from here?” I said. “Yes.”

Holding a map, he said, “I need help with some directions. I’m vacationing from Canada…”

I cut the man off somewhat rudely and explained what I was doing at the hospital and quickly offered him the Canadian $10 bill. He laughed, pulled out his wallet, and offered to exchange the money. I quickly turned down the money and he responded by saying, “this is ridiculous” with a big smile on his face! After that, I assured him that it was legit and that I was legit and helped him with his directions – just in time for the guys to come out from their burger delivery.

This was just one of the experiences that we had yesterday. The afternoon was filled with “God moments” just like this that made us fully aware that God was orchestrating every encounter we had.