The Thresholds Shook...

"He touched my tears…”

      Least, Last, Lost in L.A.

            She pulled me in for a kiss… and I let her have it. Sherry’s breath and smell made me cringe, but love for her told me to let her pull my left cheek to her lips. A murderer, guilty of first-degree man slaughter, Miss Sherry Patchoulli found herself on skid row ten years ago. She’s kept their by her pistol-hot attitude and her addiction to alcohol. I have never seen Sherry Sober. But we had a good laugh as the Carolina-sweet-pea (Sherry) danced in her blankets and yelled at people across the street. We laughed with Sherry about where life had taken her, and cried when she showed us her the newly developed bald spots on her white mohawk - since she's been on chemo-therepy for the breast cancer that has been living inside her little body. She told me last night: "well... I'm dyin' Kyle..." So we prayed. When I met Sherry, she was crying and saying, “they stole ma' blankets… they stole all ma’ blankets.” I sat down while my friend took off his jacket and gave it to her. I told Sherry as I wiped her alcohol-smelling tears from her eyes, “You can’t cry! Please don’t cry!” She looked at my friend Theresa and said with some degree of surprise, “He touched ma' tears… Why did he touch ma’ tears?” I asked her, “Sherry, who loves you?” She said, “I dunno, Gawd a’ guess!?” I said, “Sherry, if anyone ever asks you again, you tell em’ Kyle loves you because Jesus loves him.”

            Mr. Eddie Coe, a homeless man walking the streets, saw our team praying and shouted, “can I get in on this?!” We welcomed him in and he prayed for us… a little drunk, paranoid, or high, I am not sure, but Mr. Eddie Coe had lost touch with reality as he tried to recall the Gospel for us to hear. “My wife was born in 1909…” and other statements caught us off guard. Then he began quoting a Christian favorite: “…that whoever should believe in Him should not perish but have ever lasting life… (turning to Geoff) and yo’ head look like a bell-peppa’!” and turning to Frank, “and yo’ head look like a poppy-seed!” We had a good laugh as Geoff remarked, “I’ve never gotten that one before!”

            Team Mongolia walked the streets of Skid Row well past most American’s bed-time, and well after our official meeting times ended. We prayed for the demon-possessed and the crippled, the destitute and the addicted. We found Jesus. Undeniably and raw… Jesus in blaring glory and brokenness for His creation. It was like we could feel the concrete moving beneath us, groaning for reconciliation and redemption. We sat and prayed over Henry, we prayed with Mr. Eddie Coe, we met with Miss Sherry, Brad, Vaughnia, a handful of others, and we asked God to move on the streets where literally ten-thousand homeless men and women lay their heads each night.

            Skid row. A fifty-block district overlooked by the LAPD. Where the homeless can sleep on the streets and drug-dealers can make a living without any hassle. Their tents, cardboard boxes, and bodies curled-up in blankets line every street. Some want to talk. Some want you to go away. Some want help. Some want to feed their addiction. But whatever it is, this place is dark. You can literally feel a shift in the heavenlies when you cross the line that separates the cosmopolitan from the crooked and corrupted streets of Skid Row. Demons are not hiding in Skid Row, they are well and at work with full-awareness of the ones they oppress. So we prayed, and we will pray.

        

“Father, break the bonds of oppression that keeps your creation from seeing you in Skid Row. Would you fulfill the longing and let your glory shine in that place. Yes Lord, would you cast out demons, heal disease, and comfort the suffering! But Lord, please open blind eyes to see your face. And in the light of your face, would the darkness of souls be exposed and turn towards you.”

                                                        

Come Lord Jesus.                  Come!

Last night, after I prayed for Sherry, I pulled that dirty, alcohol-smelling mohawk towards me, and planted a big kiss on her forehead; and another on her scabbed up hand. Sherry knows she's loved. And it didn't take much. We didn't have money, blankets, or food. Just time set aside for the agenda of being with Jesus. Compassion without Compromise. 

This week, continue to be in prayer for my team! Our %50 deadline for fundraising is tomorrow. We are currently $10,354.⁰⁰ short of that goal! We have a big God - so we ask for BIG things! Please pray big for team Mongolia!

         

Team Budget: $28,572.⁰⁰

Deadline - %50 by April 20^th

Current: $5,751.⁰⁰

Needed to reach %50 - $8,535.⁰⁰

Blessings in Christ,
Brother Kyle

Fresh Wind... Fresh Fire

"And you will know…

That I am The Lord.”

Dear friends, dear… warriors,

            Today I hear reverberations of God’s kingdom. Echoes from a thundering and countless audience of Angels, even of saints of old.  Yet I have felt like we have been lead through the exile, that life-changing wilderness that the Israelites walked through and waited on the Lord. Therein life was breathed in; a still small whisper of the Most High to a weary and rag-tag group of wanderers, saying: “When you search for me with all of your heart, you will find me!” So comes the exhortation of that great cloud of witnesses envisioned by some holy saint in Hebrews chapter 12: “Come on! Run! Search with all your heart! Be thirsty no more!”

            As sons of a Good Father we are learning to love the wilderness. We are reminded that our Father has never failed us. He is not like men, He cannot be likened to a saint or a god of human imagination, for at His voice the mountains rise, stars fly out of His breath, and the oceans fill with water.

           “¹ Oh, that you would burst from the heavens and come down!

                       How the mountains would quake in your presence!

           ² As when fire sets wood ablaze, and water to boil,

                       Your coming would make the nations tremble.

                 Then your enemies would learn the reason for your flame!

           ³ When you came down long ago,

                    You did awesome things beyond our highest expectations.

               And oh, how the mountains quaked!

           ⁴ For since the world began,

                       no ear has heard and no eye has seen a God like you,

                 who works for those who wait for Him!”

                                                                                   - Isaiah 64:1-4

When my God breathes, man is raised from the dust.

When my God breathes, the stars are formed.

When my God breathes, peace consumes the chaos.

Hearts, knit together in prayer

While others ate Raisins and Rice... 

            Last weekend my team and I retreated to a church few blocks from Biola’s campus. Though the church was a stone’s through from our dorms and cafeteria we had entered another country. We walked through “customs”, had our phones and MP3 players confiscated. In different exercises we learned humility. While the all-girl team (team Kenya) ate rice and raisins, we, the men, were given a comparative feast. Since in most countries the men are treated as such. We were humbled. Later we were asked to feed one another. Grown men, putting food into one another’s mouth… few other things will humble a person like being spoon-fed by another grown man.

Team Exercise with Team Nepal

           

In recent weeks our King has lead us through that furnace of refinement. We have been attentive as His subjects. We have walked by faith and not by sight. 3 weeks ago our contacts for Mongolia fell through… “we do not have people on the ground who can manage the responsibility of hosting a team” they explained. And we understood. So we began praying for people. Within 36 hours we had skyped with an Expatriate Missionary to Mongolia fresh off the field. “I’ll have my guys pick you up at the airport, give you a place to stay, and set you on your way!” Just hours before we had been wrestling: “God, we feel called, but we don’t feel equipped!” I am now reminded that God always equips the ones He calls – His sovereignty reigned supreme as Saul walked into Jerusalem though friends and prophets told him he would die. God’s sovereignty has taken its place on our team – we can trust Him – and it is our new desire that His sovereign would reign unchallenged in our team. Where He leads, we will follow. What it takes, we will give. Six weeks of leg-work and discomfort in exchange for crowns that don’t fail.

I rest in this: That as we have walked through the exile, God has known the plans He has for us. He has refined us through the furnace of uncertainty – stretching our faith to submit to His reign. Here we are. More formed into His likeness. More in love with our Father. And here we are, in a more passionate longing for the Kingdom to come in Mongolia and on the earth than ever before!

Yesterday a teammate and I visited a Mongolian Church in downtown LA... one of the only Mongolian Christian gatherings in California... maybe the nation... They took us in, greeted us warmly. Fed us and taught us about their culture. We worshipped with 25 new brothers and sisters in a language we don't speak (a language filled with Dental and Glottal affricates - A.K.A. "difficult for a white person to speak well"). We sang in a room with no windows and Jesus was made King. We got a taste of community as we ate soup and laughed about how terrible I was at pronouncing Mongolian names. We could have talked all night. When we left we left with an assuring goodbye: "You are welcome here." I, for one, cannot wait to go worship with my brothers and sisters again, and learn more deeply what it means to have a family in the body of Christ. To pastor T.K., Uyanga (and Jamie), Seth, Aebee, Undraa, Zoul, and the two James - thank you for your warm greeting! I know Jesus better because of the way you loved us last night!

Some of the Mongolian Brothers and Sisters we met last night

// Our teams current financial situation:

Team Budget: $28,572.⁰⁰

Deadline - %50 by April 20^th

Current: $3,882.⁰⁰

Needed to reach %50 - $10,404.^{00 - by wednesday April 20th}

Please pray that God would provide! Please consider supporting our team financially and please continue praying for us!
Please let me know if I can give you a prayer card or support letter - whether for yourself or to give to others! (kyle.b.donn@biola.edu)

Blessings!

Kyle