No Greater Love

There are some moments in your life when there is no doubt in your entire being that there is a divine God who is good, who loves his children and provides in such an amazing way. Tonight was one of those nights. I was in the City Center of Cape Town doing some street ministry with Git. If ya'll know me pretty well you'd probably know that street evangelism is one of my LEAST favorite things. It just seems so shallow to me. Tonight was completely God ordained though. We were standing on a street corner and there was a young man standing about 20 feet from us leaning on a wall watching the crowd pass by towards the new Cape Town Stadium for tonight's soccer match. Git began to talk to him. He didn't really feel comfortable talking in english so I stood by and smiled and prayed while Git conversed with him. Later on in the night I was able to pick up some bits of his story. His name is Raymond. Today is his 25th birthday. He was standing waiting for his shift to start at a restaurant he works in. As he waited he was watching all the people going by to the stadium celebrating, blowing their vuvuzelas, laughing and having fun. He was reminiscing all the birthdays he had as a youth when his family would celebrate and laugh with him. He has only seen his family once in the last three years. He moved to Cape Town in search of work to support his family back home and has only been able to accumulate enough time off to visit home. Tonight he was thinking about how alone he feels on his birthday. He has no friends in Cape Town and has spent a lot of time lately questioning his existence, questioning God. Tonight we were able to celebrate his birthday with him. Though it was brief and only consisted of a can of Coke and a muffin from the 7/11. It meant something to him. He said that tonight was an affirmation of the questions that he had been asking. God cares about him. God desires relationship with him, and he wants that relationship. Thursday and Friday are his days off so we are going to pick him up Wednesday night and bring him out to stay at Apostle and come along our outreaches. God is so so good. Not the we have done much for him, but that God had divinely appointed us as a blessing in his life tonight. Greater love has none than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.