"It's people like you..."

Sorry about the delay!!  First and foremost, pleeeeeeeeeease, please, PLEASE know that I am writing this to bring glory and honor to Christ... The guy in this story complimented us over and over, and I always have a hard time talking about it because I don't want any of the praise for myself, but all for our Lord... After passing out as many sandwiches as possible, we were stuck on what to do with the rest.  We didn't want to leave them under the bridge, in case nobody picked them up... but we also didn't wanna take them back with us, because we knew that there were people on the street that could use them.  On our way back to the car ,we ran into a lil guy from Batom Rouge, who was out on the street after being kicked out by his wife.

He was supposed to be headed back to Baton Rouge, but he missed his bus, so he was goin to be staying in the city for a while longer.  After giving him a few sandwiches, we went on our way.  As we were leaving, he yelled out "HEY!!  If yall are looking to get ride of thsoe sandwiches, I know a place they can go!!"  Honestly, my initial thought was "absolutely not..."... I had no intentions of following a man I didn't know, into a place I had NO idea where it was...(seems like I've read that somewhere before)....Right as I was about to say no, the other two guys I was with said "YEA ABSOLUTELY!!!"  So releuctantly, I followed, praying like crazy that the Lord would keep us safe.  After a few blocks, we stumbled upon a burnt out and abandoned house.  There were a few guys standing outside, drinking mad dog beer, and a few folks on the inside of the house.  Our lil crazy friend introduced us to everyone, and we handed them out a few sandwiches.  They asked what church or group we were with, and we just explained that we were coming to simply love folks and pass out some food.   A VERY intoxicated man named Shane introduced himself to us, telling us over and over again that he was "tanked"... we exchanged names, where we were from, how we liked the city, etc..He introduced us to his girlfriend, Mary, and best friend Jacob.... as we were exchanging introductions, Mary and Jacob started rolling a few joints... They offerend us a little bit of their weed and alcohol... They were determined to share their stuff with us, since we had shared our food with them...  After talking for about thirty minutes, Shane stopped mid-sentence and said "wait, wait wait... you guys are Christians aren't yall... yall dont drink, yall don't do drugs, yall don't smoke, yall are giving out free food... yall are christians!!"  I just knew that I was about to be lynched... I was very reluctant to answer, but finally I said  "yea... well, yea.. .but we're not like the other ones you know!!"  In New Orleans, christians have a terrible reputation for being extremely negative to the homeless community, so I expected the worse.  Shane just kinda laughed and was like "yeah man, that's cool, I used to be a christian too."  He explained to us how he had a horrible experience when he was younger, and turned his back on the church and God, but that he was very impressed with what we were doing.  He said "man, I think it's awesome that you guys are talking to me even though I'm tanked.  Yall don't care that I'm drunk, yall don't care that she's smoking pot, yall just wanna hang out... ya know, it's guys like yall that make me think I could believe in God again someday."  That COMPLETELY blew me away... Words can't even express what I felt that day... To know that someone simply NOT turning their back on him because he was drunk, could make him possibly believe in God again... wow... A sandwich and love is what this guy needed to encounter Christ, but there is no doubt it my mind that we encountered Christ in every single person we met that day... After finally wrapping his head around the fact that we were christians, he said  "guys that's awesome... HEY MARY!!  MARY!!!  THESE GUYS ARE CHRISTIANS!!!  CAN YOU BELIEVE IT!!  THEY'RE CHRISTIANS, BUT THEY STILL WANNA HANG OUT WITH US!!"... She kinda shurgged it off, but Shane just kept on and on about how awesome it was that we just wanted to love them, reguardless... I think for the first time, "and they will know we are christians by our love" really made sense to me... God bless, GOd love!!