Friends in All Places

I love running into people I thought I would never see again. This happened over and over again on Friday. It started out as a pretty slow day. We did a lot of studying in the morning, then a friend of Pastor Andy's came and talked to us to give us a "street view" of the neighborhood. And we learned that Steven has officially started his detox program!

Next we walked around Little 5 and ran into Gus, our traveling hippy friend. He played a song for us and told us how much it meant to him that we walk with him the other day and he was sorry for losing his temper. After lunch we went to Hurt park and I talked to Ed for a long time (thought I'd never see him again either). We talked about lots of things, life in general. Then he taught us some quick math tricks. He was obviously happy to be able to teach us, to serve us, as someone who is always being served and talk down to.

After Hurt, we walked over to Woodruff park. Here I talked to 2 guys I had never met, James and Jimmy. James is a poet and shared with me his poem, "Peace of Mind". Jimmy is a singer and sang a few of his songs for me. Afterwards we played some chess (and I lost as usual). While I was talking with these guys, Rodney came over and said hey to me. I was surprised and so happy to see him. We stopped by the lot on our way back and I talked with Cody, I guy I met at the Lutheran church on our first day! He is a great guy. I remembered his bald head, smile, and positive attitude. We again, talked about life, God, everything. It amazes me how often a conversation that starts off "Hey, what's your name" ends up about God.

Saturday was another great sunny day in the park. I met a few guys while Lauren and I picked up trash, but spent most of my time playing cards with a guy from Nigeria. It was fairly uneventful, but a very good day.