memories in bits and pieces

After joining Lauren, Matt and Marce, Sunday, at a Save Darfur rally, I thought a review of my Invisible Children experience might be appropriate:

April 29, 2006 – Saturday – Global Night Commute for the Invisible Children of Northern Uganda – Pioneer Courthouse Square, Portland, Oregon

Nine hundred people were signed up for this event the other day.  When Jeremy and I went online today, before leaving Salem, there were over 1300 registered.  Go God!  I feared people would drop out as we learned of possible rain.  As I sit here on my sleeping bag on the second mini-amphitheatre ledge below the Starbucks, and look east into the sky, I notice you blew the rain clouds briskly over the city without a drop falling.  The sky is now completely clear.  No doubt, quite a few of us were praying!

Great work – thank you so much!  And thank you for sending Jeremy to join me – I feel so much freer and relaxed than if I’d come alone.  And thank you for the stream of cars on the inside lane of Interstate 5 with “Invisible Children” messages painted on their rear windshields.  What encouragement!  Why didn’t I think of that (old age!)?  Thank you for the young women, backpacks harnessed and sleeping bags dangling, that we encountered at the park-and-ride, and whom we followed on the MAX train, here.  And especially, thank you for the young man behind me who played his guitar and sang a string of worship songs to help us feel at home. 

I am amazed at the number of young families who arrived with strollers and toddling children in tow.  Right now, there are eleven children aged twelve months to ten years sitting within fifteen feet of me.  Brave, bold parents!  This is the ultimate team-building activity for their family to look back on together – laying aside comfort, convenience and safety (not to mention Saturday night TV) to bless the lives of children they’ve never met – halfway across the globe – who may never know who they are, or what they’ve done.

Father, not everyone here knows you – but clearly a great many do.  I ask you would protect this assemblage from the wiles of the enemy.  I pray you would be glorified in this place, this weekend.  I pray there would be no incidents that would bring shame upon your name – that the media and the city would only have grateful and supportive comments to make.  I pray these gatherings around the world would begin to give people a new picture of what living Jesus’ life in these bodies is all about.  Use this event to call people to want to know this God of love and compassion and sacrifice, personally.

I made a quick call to Nate and Lauren, expecting them to be in the thick of the commotion in Dallas (Texas).  With the time difference, it would have been 10:30 pm, there.  I got two surprises.  They were not in Dallas – they were in Houston, as Nate had been asked to do the filming at the Houston site.  He was climbing up to get a rooftop shot when I called.  Thank you for giving him the opportunity to experience the convergence of all his passions in this one event:  needy children, third-world countries and film.

I can’t remember his name.  Was it “Gregory?”  This gentleman was about fifty years old, with wiry, short-cut black hair lightly sprinkled with gray, and darkened, leathery skin weathered from many days of homelessness.  He was aggressively nice and chatty, like someone who’s a seasoned hand at deftly manufacturing flowery tales as the opportunities present themselves – a true con man.

“This event by Christian people has caused me to give my heart back to God.  This is just amazing,” he exclaimed.

I wasn’t sure if he meant it, or if after countless nights of hearing the Christian lingo at the rescue missions, he knew what to say to work his way into our hearts.  Regardless of his authenticity (or lack of), he did a remarkable job of behaving like Jesus.  Even before he met me and Jeremy, he had made the acquaintance of Kristen, who had come alone, intentionally, armed with a greater knowledge of the issue, having seen the Invisible Children film on her college campus.

She also came completely unprepared – albeit knowingly unprepared.  Gregory had already offered her the use of his sleeping bag.  He spent the night cocooned in his quilted bedspread.

Gregory entertained us with his entrepreneurial dreams.  He explained his plan to rent out bicycles on Waterfront Park to families, couples, adventurers – he just needed about $15,000 in capital.  I, of course, am the last person on earth to hit up for money, having far more debt than assets.  But it wasn’t difficult for me to manage a few encouraging words, “What a great idea!  That is a wonderful spot for cycling.”

”Father, I pray that Gregory feels like a valued human being as he spends time with us, tonight.  I ask that warm memories of tonight would encourage him for many days.  And I pray that he truly would give his life back to you – permanently, no strings attached.

I finally made an effort to turn my focus from Gregory’s stories, leaving Kirsten and Jeremy to respond, so that I could finish my letters to the President and Senator Smith.  I believe Ronald Reagan was the last President I wrote.  I can’t imagine what I thought I needed to say to him.  I still have his office’s reply in a box, somewhere.  I don’t suppose I’ll get a reply to this one.  If all 57,000 people registered for the Global Night Commute write letters, I suspect mine will get lost in the shuffle…