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  Sarah Tijerina and I preached at the Mission last night and after the service a woman, about sixty, approached me and held out her hands for me to hold as she began unfolding her story. As I held her hands I could feel tremors pulsing through them the entire conversation. She had a gentle spirit and pleasant appearance without many of the distressing signs of homelessness. My warmth of affection was kindled more and more as she spoke and I reached out to hug her, and as I did it was as if she exhaled all her fears, and her frail body wilted into my chest. At that moment the love of Jesus poured from my heart and I felt so close it was if I had known her all my life. I didn't solve any of her problems that night but that warm and personal moment must be what it is to give a cup of water to a parched soul.

 Outside on the street Sarah was sharing her story of redemption from homelessness and Christ's unfailing love to a man towering over her: and as she did I began a conversation with a woman I've seen many times at the mission. It began a bit clumsy but as I asked her about her life I found she was 49 years old and at age nineteen she ran away and lived on the streets of Alaska for 20 years; then went in hopes of help to her mother in New Mexico, only to be rejected and spent more time on the streets there and eventually made her way to Seattle and then down to Portland where she has continued her thirty years of homelessness. She's an interesting woman, taller and broader than I, with one eye hazed over with a cataract but the other steel blue eye and piercing. If we were ever to have a bout, in fairness to you, I'd advise you to wager on her as the winner. I asked her how she's made it living on the streets; she simply said, "I'm tough!" And she looks tough, but with glimmers of beauty under her chiseled face with teeth in need of care and a solemn visage but she was open with me and her mind was sharp and clear. It was almost like I was talking over the fence to a neighbor, natural and warm. She noticed a friend and kindly, but briskly, said goodbye and left me standing there watching her blend in the crowd.