Ever so often i find myself shocked to a moment of pause and awe as i realize that i want to soak up every moment of what is happening. Minneapolis had a festival yesterday to celebrate water... Aquafest... or something like that. So a group of us from the boiler house jammed down there. We took a big board and all these roughly cut up pieces of cardboard. We also took all these drums and a few painting easels and loads of paints with us. We parked it up in this church parking lot and then we just celebrated. The evening was going pretty good and i was all soaking up the moment, thanking God for being great and just for letting us celebrate him. Little did i know how much we were going to celebrate!

About two hours later they tell us we are re-locating our "joy fest". I'm instructed to help carry over two huge coolers of sandwiches we had made earlier that day and we headed off down an away from the Aquafest celebrations. We walked about two blocks... maybe three blocks... and i was astonished by how the vibe of a city could change in a moment. We no longer were surrounded by heaps of white upper-middle class suburbaner out enjoying an evening parade. Instead the people that roughly were lining this street were doing so in an attempt to get a bed in one of the few shelters that the city offers.

Replacing the noise and celebration of water was the silence of trying to hush the reality of these forgotten ones lives. The street had no lights, no color, no vibe.... just a bland single line of hopeless people caught up in a hopeless system. the four of us that carried the sandwiches plumped the coolers down waked open the lids and then moves away. Slowly our parade of possibilities made it way down this dark street. Drums were set up, easels were opened, paint was unpacked, our cardboard prayer wall was propped up against the wall.

there we were two extremely different peoples, two extremely different cultures, with two extremely different realities capable of unfolding. As i stood there in that moment as the very street seemed to hold her breath... i just kept looking at the line of them vs. the line of us. What were were doing here? what were they do there? then slowly one brave soul stepped forward for a sandwich as another brave soul stepped forward to start a conversation. with in moments a reality had been chosen and it was one of JOY!

For the next two hours i had one of the best nights laughing with prostitutes, writing down prayer of a drunk man, dancing with some of the homeless, watching a desperate man beat out his song of celebration on the top of a newspaper vending machine, hug a displaced woman from Louisiana....

It was in that moment that i so appreciated a God that doesn't just exist in the places we think he would be, but one that shows up in the places we sometimes forget that He never leaves! Christ on the street... thats where it be at!