Filed under: various
For the past couple of days I’ve been at home on fall break and Philip [who I am now dating] has been in Durham at an event at the Rutba House called the School for Conversion. The School for Conversion is basically a teaching and learning weekend for those interested in or wanting to live in an intentional Christian community [http://www.newmonasticism.org/]. Philip’s weekend in Durham was coming to an end Sunday afternoon and I decided to head to UNCG to spend time him with and hear about what he had learned from the weekend. Philip and I headed downtown for our first date since officially starting to date Friday before he left for the Rutba House. We ended up drinking chai tea and hot chocolate at Cheesecakes by Alex sitting and talking with each other about our weekends. After sitting in the outside seating for a while, a very polite man approached us asking us if we had any money we could spare to help him, but both of us had no cash, only debit cards. After discovering that neither of us could help him financially, the man left fairly quickly, leaving us feeling helpless and unsure how to help the man. Philip immediately felt that we should try and find the man again, hoping to offer him company and perhaps a prayer and encouraging word, but the idea did not make it any further. Not long after meeting the first man, a familiar voice and face appeared, asking Philip and I if we had any money we could spare. The man was a homeless friend named Willy Brooks we had a met several weeks prior when serving pancakes out of our friend Chase’s Jeep. We had set up a pancake breakfast on the side of a road and Will had showed up to eat. After realizing that the man was Will, we invited him to come sit with us and figure out if we could help him. He said he needed cash and a place to stay for the night. Will informed us that there was an ATM down the road and Philip decided that he would go to the ATM and give Will money that would hopefully be spent on a hotel room. As we were walking down to the ATM, I was quite frankly unsure if this was even safe or reasonable. It was dark in the middle of downtown and we were walking with this man we barely knew to withdraw money from Philip’s bank account. If everything went okay and we did give Will money to help him, how would we know that we are not only fueling a possible addiction to alcohol or drugs that many other homeless people fall victim to. Will was very afraid of the cops downtown and did not want to be seen with “two white folks” at an ATM; he said the cops would think he was pestering us and that the cops would stop him later and basically harass him and ask for his id and call downtown to see if he had a warrant or a reason to arrest him. So as Philip and I head to the ATM, Will keeps walking down the street to wait on us after we withdraw the money. Philip and I are both unsure if we should even be doing this or if this is the right thing to do, and Philip suggests that we should pray and ask God what to do and to bless the money that we give Will, that he would use it for positive and not negative. It was encouraging to see how Philip immediately turned to prayer and asking God to help us because I often lack prayer with God at simple moments like this, when the obvious solution would be prayer. After praying, Philip decided to withdraw forty and give Will twenty. When we go to met Will and give him the money we ask if we could pray for him and he gladly agrees and we all form a circle to pray with him. After Philip prays for Will, Will begins to pray for us, and he thanks God for us and he then begins to recite scripture from memory and it was such a good feeling to be able to pray with him and hear him talk with our Father. We all talk for a while and Will shares his dream of being a professor and talking at a university before we all leave and head opposite ways. Walking back to our car, Philip and I just shared in the delight God had given us in that we were able to help Will and talk and pray with him. Philip and I head back to campus to finish watching a movie we had started earlier last week, and in the middle of watching the movie, Philip’s phone rings and it’s Will. Will is at a hotel and he needs more money in order to get a room. Comfortably watching a movie together, we debate whether or not we want to head back downtown and attempt to find Will in order to give him more money. Fairly quick, we decide that we have started to help Will and we should finish helping him. We head downtown and after stopping for directions, we arrive at the Greensboro Inn to see Will and one of his friends sitting outside the hotel office. Philip gives Will his remaining twenty and Will is able to get a room with his friend Rodney. After everything that happened last night on Philip and I’s first date, I am happy to say that I would have not wanted anything to happen differently. Yes, we could have stayed and finished our movie, but instead we would have ignored God’s call. Like Philip said, when judgement day comes, God will not ask us if we finished watching a movie, He will ask us if we helped Him get a hotel room.
