Homeless traveller needs Jesus. Please pray!

Some of you know that I live in San Francisco near all the bad neighborhoods where I get to serve in a number of ways. I thought I’d share a prayer request now and then from my various friendship quests. Since I get sort of overwhelmed when asked by missionary types to pray for a long list of people, I’m going to just feature one person at a time. For the most part, I’ll change the names to protect the “needy.” If you’re not up for it for one reason or another, don’t feel guilty; just keep praying for those in your own sphere of influence. God likes it when we ask him to touch, heal, and save people!

One of my favorite places to serve is in Golden Gate Park with a few kids that I call my “Dreadlocked hippie Christian friends.” They’re a couple of urban missionaries that live in the Mission District in a house they call, “Heaven.” They call their team “The Outercircle,” denoting their love for people who are on the fringe, not ones who would ever be mistaken for an “inner circle” of anything. They’re mostly homeless travellers who do lots of drugs and sleep in the park while in SF.

We make pancakes on a grill and bring coffee in urns to give to people who come out of the bushes where they’ve spent the previous night. Our conversations lately have been particularly rich and several are considering following Jesus. I’m always praying for greater saturation with the Spirit for our times out there and I’ll ask you to pray for the same. Since prayers and singing have spontaneously broken out recently we’ve been talking about doing some sort of “service” with worship and Bible teaching along with our pancakes. More, Lord!

We’ve been befriending Jake, a 25 year-old homeless traveller from the East Coast. My friends have brought him to “Heaven” for showers, food, and to spend the night on several occasions lately. The thing is, Jake has felt, seen, and heard demons for pretty much his whole life and which hassle him especially at night. I think his mother had some sort of occult involvement that might have disposed him toward a sensitivity to that dark world, but interestingly enough, he knows it’s a dangerous realm and feels compelled to combat it in some way. The fact is, though he’s really close to the Kingdom he’s not born-again yet and has no business doing spiritual warfare until he is. He probably has some oppression of his own to deal with. Please pray for Jake to get fully saved and saturated with the Spirit soon so he can become the warrior for Christ that he seems called to be!