Thirty-Eight
____________
Eclipsing the
Darkness
Hopeless Child
With feet cold and
bare,
This poor hopeless
child,
Walks dark, wet
streets,
Mile after mile.
In bleakness of
night,
Sorrow, cold and
despair,
This empty heart's
offspring,
Will die young I
fear.
For that temporal
care,
We oftentimes give,
Will not alter the
future,
This child must
live.
Without love,
purpose or dream,
Destiny's heir
cannot,
Face the arduous
challenge,
This world has
brought.
In backstreet
alleys,
Huddled in fear,
This hopeless child
awaits,
The death ever so
near.
And our lives will
go on,
Day after day.
Not a tear will be
shed,
Not a word will we
say.
1 Corinthians 13:3
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
As the petite investigative
journalist sat down on the dirty concrete step in the dark, dingy back-alley,
she studied the young woman seated next to her carefully. She could see the
creases in the face, etched through time by a former life and her current
endeavors in the back-alleys of the inner city. The reporter could envision this
woman as a young teen, a teen that had lived and breathed the stench of
back-alley life on a daily basis, who now as a grown woman, had returned to
this darkened world to bring a breath of fresh air to others imprisoned between
these graffiti covered walls. She saw a woman who had sacrificed all for the
benefit of others. The pungent aroma of urine, rotting garbage, human and
animal feces, and dampness permeated the atmosphere. Journalist Poppy Fields
switched on her recorder.
“This must be a tough Christian
ministry. You must have experienced the loss of willing workers due to the
stark realities faced every day and every night you walk these back streets.
What are your feelings about that, Jenny?” the journalist inquired curiously.
“Yes, Miss Fields, that’s true,
some individuals have left this ministry over time. I feel that many of them
came expecting the arena style glories of an evangelistic crusade, but they
soon found that our ministry stands up against the borders of hell. We are
reaching out to those on the verge of falling into a fiery pit of hopelessness,
despair, and eternal emptiness. Those who have left this ministry to seek after
selfish ends soon find that the flames of hell’s reality are not the
self-serving glories that they may have expected. No flags waving, streamers,
jumpers, dancers, or other assorted jesters of the court can be found here,
only those who are willing to climb their personal hill to Golgotha to die to
self on their own life’s cross; only those willing to live and die for Christ.”
Jenny took a deep breath and looked around the alley before continuing, “Those
willing to suffer the scourges, beatings, sleepless nights, and pains of
sacrificial service to reach individuals who are fanning the flames of their
own life’s hellish existence. When we walk the pathway through the lives of
these people trapped in the valley of the shadow of death… we clean and clear
the pathway and then rid the valley of its weeds!”
The journalist adjusted herself
on the concrete step then inquired, “Do you ever cry? I have found over my
years of interviewing that many street people, as they are often called, do not
cry. Is, or was, this true of your experience?”
A gentle smile revealed itself
upon Jenny’s face as she replied, “I cry for the lost, for specific people most
of the time. Someone I have come across out here that for some reason becomes a
burden for me deep in my heart. For those people I cry. Before I came to have a
real living relationship with God I don’t think I ever cried. I was dead inside;
lonely, empty, lost feeling, hurting, but I quenched all of those feeling with
coldness, anger and hate. Jesus Christ changed me and gave me the ability to
cry, not for myself, but for those who need to be released from the horrors of
their lives like I was.”
“If you don’t mind me asking,
Jenny, what about love?”
“Love?” Jenny thought deeply
before replying, “I honestly believe that I hated love, absolutely detested the
thought of lovie-dovie couples gazing romantically into each other’s eyes with
the look of a sick puppy. I knew that was not real love, I also knew, all too
well, that sex was not love. It wasn’t until God’s Holy Spirit rebirthed me and
filled me with real love that I began to understand what love really was, God
is love.”
Poppy asked, “Can—”
Jenny continued, “When one
studies the life of Christ, sees his actions, reads his prayers and hears his
words, along with the rest of the Bible’s writings, especially the New
Testament, then it becomes clear what love is and how love responds in every
situation imaginable.”
“And what about your fiancé?
Love? How did that relationship come into being?”
“Renaldo,” Jenny smiled softly,
“I met Renaldo Reyes just as I was contemplating how to go about starting an
outreach ministry to reach people who live and frequent the back-alleys and
side streets of the inner city. I was still working at FHG—”
“FHG?”
“Oh, yes,” Jenny apologized for
using an acronym, “For His Glory Youth Home, the place I went to upon early
release from the Y-MAX youth prison for teen women, anyway—”
“Oh, yes. Continue.”
“I was talking about my goals,
dreams, and hopeful plans with one of the counselors and she offered to contact
a young man who had just started a street ministry in the San Francisco Bay
Area. He was working part-time at a place in North Richmond at the time.”
“Just a moment,” Poppy
interjected, “The place didn’t happen to be one of Cyrene Ministry’s homes, did
it?”
A look of amazement filled
Jenny’s face like a flashlight in a dark tunnel, “Yes, it was, in fact.”
Poppy excitedly replied, “I met
two young men up at a super Y-MAX international youth prison way up at an
ice-cold place called Svalbard.”
“You know Renie, Renwick Stone?”
“And Cornell Purdue. I spent
over a week with them covering a criminal deterrent program—”
“Final Hope!”
“What a small world,” Poppy
commented. “Please, go on.”
“Just a side note, Miss Fields,”
Jenny leaned back against the block wall, “Cornell Purdue went to work on the
Australian Y-MAX prison and stayed there when it was completed. He heads up a
prison ministry that involves only inmates. He’s been doing well. He knows he
may never get out of prison, but he is known for saying neither did the Apostle
Paul.”
“Amazing.”
“And Renie, well, we keep in
contact. In fact, he will be coming here soon to conduct a back-alley
evangelistic crusade. It’s more of a stack-up-boxes-and-preach type of thing,
but it is very effective.”
Feeling the time fleeting away,
Poppy said, “Well, let’s get back to your fiancé and those details, if that’s
ok with you.”
“Yes, yes, of course,” Jenny
replied, “Once I was placed in touch with Renaldo, we just sort of hit it off.
We both remained very cautious, skeptical is a better word for it I think,
setting our feelings aside to take the time to get to know each other’s hearts.
We both secretly wanted to know how the other felt, thought, believed, and how
we reacted to life’s ever-changing situations… both good and bad.”
“That is so great, Jenny, I
admire you both for that.”
“After we decided to start this
ministry, about a year later or so, we both knew that our commitment ability
matched up pretty well, so—”
“Romance!” Poppy shouted.
“Sort of, in a way. We decided
to pursue a more committed relationship with each other, a pure one, one not
based on selfish ideals, sex, or what others thought about us. Just us two. We
got engaged the following year at the Cyrene Youth Ministry place in North
Richmond. And here we are.”
Poppy continued her inquiry, “I
understand that your fiancé was involved in the drug trade at one time.”
“Renaldo… El Rey, as his friends
called him, he was a drug smuggler, a very good one, at least until he got
caught.”
The two women laughed.
“And his brother is involved in
this outreach effort also, I hear.”
“Hernando, yes, he is. He began
helping us to hand out food to the homeless. He’s such a goodhearted young
man!” Jenny exclaimed.
“And—”
Five shots echoed from around
the corner of the alley interrupting the interview abruptly.
“We better run now, Miss
Fields,” Jenny commanded, “literally!”
The two stood and sprinted for the opposite end of
the alley. Poppy lost an earring in the process somehow, but did not seem to
care in the least.
Next Chapter: Life on the Streets
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