Est. 1991

Amazing. Empowering. Astonishing. Indescribable. Flabbergasting.

These all describe the effect that God had on my life Sunday. It was a group of us. We were just heading to Chicago to film a video for the Freshman Class to use in the Ollies Follies variety show. We left late. One of us got pulled over. I got bit by a spider. We missed our train. We waited at the train station for 2 hours. We took the wrong exit out of the train station. Things didn’t exactly start off that great… As we got off the train all we were focused on one thing: get this video done! We walked up and down Michigan Avenue goofing off, filming fun stuff, and basically making total fools of ourselves. Little did we know the plans that God had for us!

Several of us have been talking since as early as February and sharing our hearts for God’s will in our lives. So many of us have such a passion to minister to people. A passion for them to come to know God like we’ve learned to do over the past few months of “knowing” each other. We felt it was a God thing that we were “brought together.” But that was just Facebook. The dynamics increased so very much when we finally met in person. We knew that God had a plan for us and that there was a reason we were friends.

It was nearing the time we had to return to the Metra station for our return trip and we were hungry, so we started looking for a fast food restaurant. We found a McDonald’s near the Wrigly Building and as we were walking over a guy started yelling at us. He said, “Hey kids! Stay in school and always listen to you’re parents! Stay in school kids! Don’t disobey your parents!” He kept yelling it over and over again. Our initial reaction was, “Oh boy… Some drunk, homeless guy… Just what we needed…” He asked us for money, but most of us didn’t have any cash, just plastic. The few that had change (mainly the girls…) gave him some of what they had and we moved on. Except for Lukas. He stopped and talked to him. Discovered his name. His name was Roland. He prayed with him. Showed him Jesus. As we were coming out of McDonald’s, Lukas and Ronald came walking up. Lukas introduced us to him, and Ronald just started pouring out his heart to us! Turns out, he was a hardcore, die hard, on fire Christian! To think, we had immediately assumed he was just some old drunk guy looking for beer money when all  along he was a brother in Christ! That was our first eye opener. He continued to pour himself out and share his testimony.

This guy was incredible! He spent 20 years of his life in prison, during which he had a total life transformation through Jesus. He had a tough time within those years. One of the things he shared with us about that time was when 5 guys tried to rape him. They hit him over the head with a pipe, which knocked him out cold. But God was watching over him, and when they saw him pass out they thought he was dead and ran! Our God is good! Then he shared two instances in which he knew he had been radically transformed. One time when he was on the streets he was begging for change when a man walked past him and spit in his face. Roland said that it could’ve been so easy for him to fight back, but rather, because he was filled with the Holy Spirit, he turned and walked away. It hurt, but he swallowed his pride and did what Jesus did. He then shared about another time when he was begging and a woman who was passing by to get on the bus gave him $50. As she walked away, she left her purse sitting on the trashcan next to him, in which it fell off into his lap revealing $2500 more.  Satan began to attack him saying, “Think of all you could do with that money! You need that! Just take it and run! It’ll help you!” But rather than listening to the devil and falling into temptation, right as she was about to step onto the bus Roland yelled out and ran to her to return the purse. He knew he was a whole new Roland.

One of the most amazing things about Roland wasn’t the transformation or the story, but his spirit and what he does with his day-to-day life. This man walks around the streets of Chicago day-in-day-out proclaiming the Glory of God and telling kids to stay in school and listen to their parents. What an example!

We asked him if there was anything he needed- food, money, anything at all. He repeatedly told us that all he wanted was for us to pray for him. We finally convinced him to let us help him out some. We bought him 2 cookies and an ice cream cone (he wouldn’t accept anything more!). He asked if we maybe had any socks, and Lukas and I immediately took our shoes off and offered him ours, but he refused. He didn’t want to take anything way from us. All he would take was an extra shirt that Lukas had. In spite of everything he was going through, he was completely selfless! A pure example of Christ’s love!

Finally, after putting our shoes and socks back on, we took a couple of pictures with him (at his request) and we told him we wanted to pray for him. Another homeless man named Robert heard us saying this and asked us if we would pray for him too. So we gathered around them and I prayed for them. They were both incredibly thankful. As we were leaving we gave Roland a bunch of change so he could go buy himself some socks. It was a numbing experience. We were in total shock of what God had just taught us!

We were walking down Michigan Avenue thanking God and realizing how much He had just answered prayer. We had been praying and begging God to do something with the Freshman class of 2013 and give us a guiding for what His plan was for us, and most all of us felt that God gave us that tonight. We feel that God has called us to return to Chicago often bearing gifts for the homeless: food, water, socks, shirts, Bibles, etc. We want to reach out to them and be Jesus to them when nobody else is (besides Roland).

The ride home on the Metra was a wonderful time of basking in God’s glory and talking about everything we had just experienced. It was hard to believe that a day that started out with the goal of completing a stupid video to beat some Sophomores, Juniors, and Seniors turned into an absolutely life changing day! For many of us, it was confirmation and answer to prayer.

But for me, it was so much more.

It was a call. Recently, God shook things up in my life and put a big haze over what I thought my future was going to be (at least, a big haze over the part I was actually allowing Him to have control over). He had made me open to whatever it was He wanted for my life to be. I’ve been patiently waiting for Him to answer what exactly it is He wants and I feel He has now revealed a big chunk of what it just may be: urban ministry. All throughout the train ride back I couldn’t get my mind off of it.

So we started bad, messed around, then God flipped our boat over and revealed something totally different that He had in store for us!

Intense. Exotic. Revealing. Epic. Undeniably life changing.