Al Kyte's Life Take-Aways

     

For more than 20 years Barbara and I gathered volunteers to join us each month in making about 100 lunches, putting each in a bag along with a water, socks, and a hygiene kit, and taking them out to the streets of west Oakland.  Most often we went to a park near a popular recycling center where it typically took us an hour to give out those lunches to people, many of whom were homeless.  But one morning was different.

After we had handed out roughly half of the lunches, there were no more people coming by.  In all our years on the streets we had never experienced that.  It was as if a curfew had gone into effect with no one being allowed out on those streets.

We would have to go elsewhere to give out the remaining lunches, but where?  We thought back to a time when we had given out lunches at other nearby parks.   Someone suggested one on 25th street.  I thought about it and said, “There are some good people who hang out there, but they aren’t as needy as those in some other parks.  No, we’re not going there”.  I have since tried without success to recall the conversation that followed, because somehow we ended up at that park. 

On arriving at that park, we saw a surprising number of people we had enjoyed being with before.  As we gave out lunches, we found ourselves joking and laughing with them.  At one point I happened to notice a man watching us intently from a ways off with what seemed to be a critical expression.  Finally, he came over and asked, “Are you in charge here?”  I said, “We believe Jesus is in charge,” but then added, “What can I do for you?”

He told me he was a pastor and that some of the people there were in his flock.  He pointed to an upstairs window of a nearby house and said he had just been up in that room praying.  He told us he had recently become discouraged because no one seemed to care about his people.  He said he had just finished crying out to God, “If I can’t see a sign of your love, I’m going to give up my ministry.”  At that moment he heard a commotion down in the park, moved across to the window, and saw our group arriving.  He came outside to get a closer look at what we were doing.

He said, “I saw your provisions and praying.  But what really drew my attention was the way you were hugging my people, laughing and having fun the way old friends do.  Apparently you have been here before.  Everywhere I looked in that park, I saw God’s love being poured out.  It was exactly what I had just been crying out for.  I am now so excited I can’t wait to keep serving my Lord.  Thank you for being here today.”

Was that a divine appointment?  I thought about it.  Who was it that so abruptly and unexpectedly stopped the flow of foot traffic, forcing us to move?  Who overrode my decision not to go to that particular park?  Who gathered together so many of the people we had previously loved being with?  Who got us there at the moment that pastor was crying out to God?  Was that all merely coincidence?  I know you could not convince any of us that it was accidental.  We believe God had a purpose for us that day and was set on accomplishing it—that Jesus truly was in charge.

Al and the pastor