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| Pastor Jeff, telling it how it is... (New Life Community Church & Capital on the Edge) |
We had no way of
getting there and time was not on our side. It had been a jam-packed week with
the New Life Church in Fair Oakes (Sacramento) and if anything the theme for
our week in Sacramento came straight out of Matthew 25:
“Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come,
you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared
for you since the creation of the world.
For I was hungry and you gave me something to
eat,
I was thirsty and you gave me something to
drink,
I was a stranger and you invited me in,
I needed clothes and you clothed me,
I was sick and you looked after me,
I was in prison and you came to visit me.’
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| Pastor Jeff of New Life Community Church and Capital on the Edge |
“Then the righteous will answer him,
‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you,
or thirsty and give you something to drink?
When did we see you a stranger and invite you
in,
or needing clothes and clothe you?
When did we see you sick or in prison and go to
visit you?’
“The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you,
whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine,
you did for me.’
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| Jonny walking through a homeless person's home (Capital on the Edge in Sacramento) |
That was it! But the
program of “IT” was to continue… Because amongst our ranks were the hungry, the
thirsty, the stranger, the poor, the sick and the imprisoned (if not
physically, well certainly emotionally and spiritually).
We were due to be in San
Francisco the following day with our brothers and sisters at the Casa De
Oracion, but had no way of getting there. We had no money either. AMTRAK (God
Love!) & Greyhound prices were through the roof. I investigated hire car,
but may have well bought a new vehicle on account of the prices. I chatted with
one of my heroes, New Life Community Church Youth Pastor, Jeff Pitnikoff.
Pastor Jeff asked
around and before long we had 2 drivers, Jamie and Carl. Jeff also shot me one
of his Hollywood smiles as he jingle-jangled another set of keys in front of
me. Glenn and Andrietta, a phenomenal pair, had offered the loan of a car.
Well, this thing was being pieced together, all thanks and glory to God above.
And so in carefree
glee we cruised on down the freeway, along the flat and tranquil plain between salubrious
Sacramento and scandalous San Francisco.
Of course, Sezni, our
never-a-dull-moment son, had saved his entire day’s toileting urges for the
first five minutes of our extraordinarily grand voyage to the West Coast. “WHY
DIDN’T YA GO BEFORE WE LEFT!?!?!?” I screamed hoarsely, nearly scaring poor
Carl to death on account of my dulcet missionary tones.
“Go in a cup” I huffily
howled, not even agreeing with my own absurd order. I started to shake my head
painfully, “gaaaaaaaaaooooooooooookaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay! Pull off at the next exit
and get straight back onto the freeway. He can skedaddle behind a tree at the
entrance to the freeway.”
Our plan worked, and
although we’d lost our old wagon train, we hadn’t lost much time. “Go West!” I
ordered. “Life is peaceful there…”
We arrived at the
beautiful Casa de Oracion in South San Francisco with hours to spare. Pastors
Joel and Flor, a good looking Latino couple, came out with their kids to greet us.
Now Casa de Oracion, from the outset, has held a special place in our hearts
because of the ethnicity of many of their congregation – they’re Nicaraguan.
After we’d been
brought inside the Church building, a little old lady from Nicaragua announced
the names of delicious food dishes she’d prepared earlier for us all to eat.
Upon hearing the names of these delicacies, our Nicaraguan lads fell, cross-eyed
to the floor and made groaning noises of gratitude from deep inside their guts.
(Flor’s eyes glanced awkwardly away from the boys… And slightly upwards…)
They called out, as if
they’d just saved a drowning infant child from the fate of death “O gracias a
dios!” (THANK YOU GOD!) This moment I will treasure forever. Culture is culture
and it doesn’t matter where you are from, some things are just irreplaceable.
Let me be clear by way
of example… Trying to take fried cheese away from a Nicaraguan boy is like
trying to take chocolate away from Elizabeth Brien. Yes, it may be done, but
not with all of your fingers intact!
Now I must be fair to
American fare. The boys have loved American food, and why not – it’s delicious!
However, the regular complaint that each Nica-lad has had, is that they never
feel “full.” Why? Because for a Nicaraguan to be truly satisfied, they need to
eat heaps of steaming Gallo Pinto (the Nicaraguan name for rice and beans). Now
tell me AM I right or AM I right? Claro que si!
And so we chatted, laughed
and enjoyed our culture and theirs. After dinner the boys crossed the road and
played basketball in the park, whilst I received the low-down from Pastor Joel
and helped to organise the evening service. Time ticked by and before we knew
it the show had to go on.
Performing Created, at
Casa de Oracion was BRILLIANT! The Nicaraguan congregation were right behind our
troupe, though many of the invited did not attend due to the “dancing” in our
production. We’ve come across this issue in Nicaragua, and it is the reason we
struggled to find a Church who would commission our boys as “missionaries.”
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| The opening number and Beycker performs some "Tricking" moves |
Nicaraguan Christians
DO NOT DANCE. In Nicaragua, even rehearsed dances are not permissible, except
for when little girls perform in gaudy pink dresses with either banners or
ribbons. Our boys shake their groove thing/tail feather. It’s a big, wiggly
finger “no, no” in Nicaragua.
In fact, last year I
was blessed to speak at another Nicaraguan Church in downtown San Francisco and
was welcomed back to preach, but not to perform our street theatre production, “Created.”
Yes, Nicaraguan Christians understand the logic behind what we’re doing, but no
– they will have NONE of it! I just thank the Lord for the vision Pastors Joel
and Flor have. They’re being a bit “Jesus”, to their community, thinking
outside of the box and giving the Kingdom a “go.”
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| Capital on the Edge, dancing the Nicaraguan Atlantic Coast dance, the "Palo de Mayo" |
In addition to the
dancing, is the “Palo de Mayo” factor. Yikes!!! Now the “Palo de Mayo” is an Atlantic
Coastal dance, frowned upon by Nicaraguan Christians. We use the dance in our street
theatre production, minus hip thrusting, to convey sin and our need for a savior.
It’s very possible
that our dance might come across as offensive to some Nicaraguan non-Christians,
because we are making the dance out to be “sinful”, but that is not our
intention. We’re trying to show that only God can be the center of a culture,
and not us, nor anything else….
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| Capital on the Edge, performing "Created" |
Well, whatever the
case, God used our simplistic, beginner production to minister to nearly every
person at the Casa de Oracion on that Saturday night (myself included).
After the performance
everyone was in a state of shock. The people watching gave tearful expressions
of “what the???”and the boys mirrored those sentiments. There was a wee bit of
confusion but then the wise ol’ Pastor Joel took to the microphone and preached/prayed
up a storm!
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| Pastor Joel, of Casa de Oracion, preaching up a storm with Capital on the Edge |
Practically every member
of the congregation responded emotionally to the alter call, and by the end there
was not a dry eye in the house!
We drove home (HELLO
NEW LIFE COMMUNITY CHURCH!) in a state of silent contentment. In fact, I was so
happy that Sez could’ve whizzed out the window of our speeding auto, and I wouldn’t
have cared less.
We arrived at Steve
& Pam’s house and it was time for everyone to bathe. The line only seemed
to grow longer and I didn’t find my bod in a bed until 3am…
We were meant to be at
New Life Community Church by 8am. However, as can sometimes occur on groundbreaking
tours, we overslept (hush to you naysayers!) and didn’t hear the gentle rat-a-tat-tat
of Carl’s clonking knuckle on the front door.
At 8:35am I was awoken
by a frightening Francesca, who informed me that Carl was actually on the
blower. He sergeant majored my weary butt out of bed and toot-sweet I was
standing breathless by my good friend, Jeff, the youth pastor, at 9am.
Easter Sunday! New
Life Community Church ran not one, but TWO phenomenal services, with great use
of audio visual, an awesome sermon, singers who sang angelically (to say the
least), and our very own Capital on the Edge!
We introduced our
group, what we’re about, and what we’re going to be doing, and performed a
routine we’ve thrown together against the song “Te Doy Gloria.” The Church supported
us and applauded loudly. So terrific that God has us on this path – encouraging
the Church to grab a hold of the Great Commission, and to get a bit excited
about Jesus…
And so we bid New Life
Community Church farewell for the second, but not the final time (sigh).
We caught a Greyhound
Coach right into the very heart of downtown San Francisco and walked for half
an hour with ALL of our bags/kids/youths to the Cal-Train (which heads for San
Jose, but our stop took only 30 minutes - San Carlos).
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| Elizabeth & Rafael, walking the streets of San Francisco |
This travel day, and
specifically the walk from one point in downtown Frisco to another, was the
birthplace of bazaar events on our tour. I am deadly serious when I tell you
that somebody, a complete stranger, earnestly protested against Liz for making
Rafael walk so far with his small wheelie bag. We were told we smell like dogs.
People spat at us. We saw nudity, violent fighting, beggers, winos. I had told our
team “don’t worry, they won’t bite!” By the end of this walk I was telling the group
to “RUN FOR YOUR LIVES! SAVE YOURSELVES!!!”
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| Capital on the Edge, navigating the streets of San Francisco |
And so we feverishly
boarded our train for San Carlos, heaping our bags in the bicycle-only section.
I nearly assaulted the rail conductor
when he protested our bag positioning. Well actually no, that’s not quite true.
He asked me to move the bags into another car and I threatened to let Yordy of
his leash and barked a hearty argument for keeping the bags where they were.
The conductor laughed and let us be as we were.
In fact, with the
chug-chug-toot-toot of the train we actually became great ol’ friends, the
conductor and I. So where we’d started the ride as fierce opponents (from my
side only, I guess…), by the end we were like ol’ sailin buddies sitting atop a
wine barrel (pile of suitcases), swigging rum (Coca Cola) and singin New-World pirate-tunes
(talking American politics). Aaaah the Land of the Free!
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| In the bicycle car of the Caltrain |
Now I usually do a
check of planes, trains and automobiles when we disembark a transporting
machine, however today, when getting off of the Cal-Train in San Carlos, I
jumped out first so as to direct everyone - It’s not only Lizzie that has a pair
of “bossy boots.”
Of course, when I told
everyone to prepare for going ashore, one of the Brien children put her
computer into our laptop sack, but left the darned thing on the train. Yes, and
how many computers did this bag allegedly contain? 3! Three!! Iii!!! What a sorry
bunch we were after that. Miss Lizzy did NOT do well…
Still, what more could
go wrong after Franny’s faux pah?
Well… Whilst waiting
for the pastoral staff to arrive from the House, San Carlos (one of the coolest
south San Francisco Churches you’ll ever visit), Sezni - the blessed little chap,
decided to call 911 and had a rather nice little chat with the folks on the
other end.
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| Sezni on the phone in San Carlos - CAN YOU BELIEVE WE TOOK A PICTURE OF IT!!!? |
So… Whilst we were
having a scintillating little meet & greet chat with the pastoral staff, our
newest hosts - not one, but TWO copper cars screamed into the train station car
park, with lights and sirens afire, causing quite the terrible scene.
“Good gracious,
someone’s in trouble” I scoffed in my mind. Of course at this point Sezni went
as white as a sheet. The police officers walked past us and I followed them
with my eyes. My broad smile turned to a grin, and then to a state of small
satisfaction, slightly downwards into disappointment and then further south to
all-out-fury…
I watched the Police Officers
as they walked over to where Sezni cowered. I looked on in horror. What could I
do?! I offered genuine assistance to the law enforcement officers as they took
our little Sezzy into custody. Sez turned from white, to grey, to purple, to
red, to black, to blue… Poor lad, learnt a valuable lesson that day.
Still, things picked
up. We arrived at the House, San Carlos and what a myriad of blessings to
follow. Although it felt like Egyptians were chasing us out of the city, the
sea opened wide and we walked through onto dry ground! Our only request being…
Lord, please don’t let it be 40 years of wandering around in the desert!
If you would
like to learn more about who our Nica-Youths are, or to support them, please
visit their page, SUPPORT
Nica-Talent
To learn more about our
street theatre production, "CREATED", please visit our page, NICAVANGELISTS:
"CREATED", North American Tour (2013)
If you would
like to see a video of some of our Nica-Youths practicing, please CLICK
HERE.
We are not up
to budget, and travelling with 14 people is very expensive. We need an
investment from Christian people for our next evangelism tour to the Midwest.
To support us or make a once off donation, please visit our page, Contemplating
SUPPORTING something significant?
To learn more
about New Life Community Church, please CLICK HERE
To learn more about Casa de Oracion, please CLICK HERE
To learn more about the House: San Carlos, please CLICK HERE
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