Prayer Cafe

After Thanksgiving-ish time I started to think a lot through how this year was going as an Emerging Leader. Over the course of doing some thinking/praying/talking with some of my mentors and leaders, we decided I should switch up what I was doing with some of my time in the community...

Which more or less means a lot of really random things were condensed into one thing and now I am currently overseeing a Prayer Cafe at a non-profit in East Austin called Mission Possible. Mission Possible is located at an intersection in Austin known for drugs and prostitution. And the Prayer Cafe is meant to be a place of rest and peace for people from the street to come in and get coffee, a pastry and prayer if they would like. So... needless to say, I see people from all walks of life pretty consistently.

Just getting to Mission Possible was such an answer to prayer... It is a crazy story about how the guy who had been running the cafe consistently since it opened a few months ago, had a stroke the weekend before I came in. So as he has been on leave and recovering, we've been able to continue ministry in the cafe.

I figure most people who read this know some about this experience as I've told quite a few people, but for those who haven't... I wanted to just put it out there. It's been such a growing experience for me even over the last few weeks. There are so many things that ministry in this way forces me to deal with... I know I will share some of those soon...

But for now, something that really encouraged me recently was a verse I've known for so long and yet had never really felt the impact of the end... Matthew 28:19-20... Some days you wonder how God is going to work things out for His glory, at least I do. Especially when you see things that just seem so impossible to change (and yet I work at Mission Possible). But this really encouraged me and just made me realize that He is working and He is in the process of redeeming people....

"and surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age."