Connect with the lost before it’s too late | #01

Left church today during worship to retrieve my cell phone from the car.
Máxima, one of the greeters, suggested I just leave it in the car.
“Don’t want it to be stolen,” was my reply.
Since the church doesn’t have a parking lot, we have to park on the street.

As I was walking in to church, I glanced sidewise and noticed a transvestite sitting on the bus stop bench not 50 feet from the church door.
I sat down in the middle of the bench, four feet from him.
“You over there, and I am here!” he stated emphatically due to the effect of the alcohol.

He had dreadlocks dyed red on the ends and was wearing a bra.
His fingernails were painted light blue.
His eye makeup was pretty good and he was sucking on a lollipop.
In his hand was a bag with a large bottle of beer.

So I moved way down to the end.
“I’m thirty three. The age of Jesus Christ,” he announced loudly.
“Here, let me show you how I eat this lollipop.
Only I can do it this way, and it is my way.”
He went on, “I’m umbandista (a voodoo cult) to the end.
And the most powerful is Oshalá.”
I asked his permission to present four questions to him.
“Sure! All you want.”
In the meantime, seven people had arrived at the bus stop and were standing nearby, trying to act like they were not tuning in to the very colorful conversation.
“What is the word or phrase you have for this year?”

He was too drunk to grasp the question.
“What bothers you?”
I struck out again.
“What hurts you?”
Now he was beginning to listen.
“One more.”
“When you stand at the door of Heaven and Jesus Christ asks you why He should let you into His Heaven, what will you answer?”*
Three street sweepers walked up and started working near us, taking pictures of each other with their cell phones and looking at us a little bemused.
“Here! Take my picture!” he said and started posing for them.
“Too bad you have to work on Sunday sweeping up, right?” I said to them.
“But it’s because of all the garbage that is left strewn around after Saturday night, right?”
The word “garbage” got my friend’s attention, and he went into motion, suggesting in a loud voice that they keep doing their work and sweep up all the garbage.
They laughed and moved on.
Then I said to him, “Varón!”
I’m not a man; I’m a woman.
“You used to study the Word in Sunday School, right? And someone hurt you deeply.”
I started praying out loud that God would show him how much he values and loves him.
“Camila” had moved beyond the center of the bench in my direction and was sitting not three feet away.
Two buses had stopped and gone on.
We had been conversing for about twenty minutes.
As he talked, once in a while he would spray alcohol in my face.
But it was totally fine.
What was he saying? “There is only one Jesus Christ.” Wow.
And then, the word slipped out. He called him Lord.
I knew he had been in church, somewhere way back before all the pain.
He had called Him Lord!
I excused myself and went back into the church service.
Two of the larger men of our church had been standing close by, just in case…
I walked in just in time for communion.
But my mind and my heart were out on that bus stop bench.

What if we trained and sent ten people per Sunday out of the service to go find a few hurting people?
What if we spent twenty minutes just listening to someone?
We would miss part of the service.
But we would have a chance to approach people and hear their hearts.
Great church growth method–very novel.
Connect with the lost before it’s too late.

*Note: I learned this question from Evangelism Explosion.