the lady in the red scarf

Picture it....a Turkish guy, a Kazakhstani girl and me walking around our Ukrainian city seeking God's heart for the homeless. Praying. Listening to God's voice. Obeying Him. None of us at this point have worked with the homeless in Ternopil yet. Only one of us can speak Russian, the second can speak enough Russian to translate between me and the non-English speaking team mate. Talk about learning to work together - he he! We are on a "spiritual scouting" mission.

Holy Spirit leads us to the train station. There are people everywhere and we ask a lady that has a booth to sell food and drinks outside if she knows where the homeless people "hang out". (I use that term loosely...they aren't really hanging out - they have no where else to go!) This lady tells us that they are around, we just need to find them and they usually don't come to the train station until later in the evening. She gave us a hint, however. All homeless people in Ternopil wear scarves! She told us to look for the scarves.

We decid to continue praying, seeking God and we enter the train station, just to walk around and pray for the homeless people that would be going there in a few hours. We pray for the ministries that minister and reach out to the homeless people and we sit down on some benches where most of them are full of people waiting for their trains to wherever they are going.

Right across from us is a lady with a long coat and a red scarf. She is sleeping. Our Turkish teammate says, "Hey, maybe she is homeless." I respond with laughter, because by this point this team member has thought that at least 5 people that we have seen have been homeless (most of which were seniors - babushkas - from the village). We talk about how just because someone might look "homeless" in our opinion, does not mean that they are homeless. Assumption.

This lady sitting next to us, "wakes up" and we realize that she is totally plastered drunk. And yes, she is homeless. We decide just to sit where we are and pray for her. She mocks us, even though we are not talking to her or anything, and acting up and then she gets up, stumbles around and approaches a lady for some money. This woman in the red scarf has very little physical control at this point and she gets quite close to the woman and invades her space.

To our surprise, the woman screams at the lady in the red scarf, hits and kicks her and pushes her to the ground with great anger and violence. We, seeing the entire thing, reacted right away and ran to the lady who is now prostrate on the ground and clearly in pain, felt or not due to her intoxication. We help her up and lead her to another seat to sit down. THE ENTIRE SECOND FLOOR WAITING ROOM JUST SITS AND WATCHES THE ENTIRE TIME AND MANY PEOPLE ARE LAUGHING. After we help the lady up, the people are laughing at us too, not to mention giving us that cold eastern European GLARE filled with shame!

We give the woman tissues to clean her bleeding cut on her brow from her fall. As we sit with her, all we can do is pray and she welcomes our prayer. As our one Russian speaking team member prays out loud, tears stream down the woman's face. From our point of view, we are helpless in serving this woman, as all we can offer her is Jesus through our prayer. Yet, with confidence we know that Jesus cares so deeply for this one and He is touching her through us in this short moment.

We go and buy her some bread to eat and just as we do the "police" or security show up. Now it is getting interesting! At this moment we realize that we need to go. We have done everything we feel that God sent us there to do. We get up and move, still staying in the train station to see how the police deal with this woman. Another hard situation to witness, but the reality of this woman. The police act very rudely and they call for one of the cleaners to come and "remove" her. They very obviously did not want to touch her or smell her. They are holding their coat collars up to their noses in a very demonstrative fashion to prove the point that this woman stinks.

We watch as they drag her out of the train station, forgetting her bread behind on the bench. Just as we go to get the bread to give to the lady, the woman appointed to remove the lady in the red scarf comes and retrieves the bread.

As we walk home, we pray for the lady in the red scarf, for the police, for the many bystanders and scoffers. We talk together and realize that we were not prepared to see and experience what we just saw and experienced. But it happened and it was an eye opener to how we can so easily judge, especially those despised and outcast, and how they need the same love and care that Jesus offers to us all so freely. Only if we are willing to identify with them in their humiliation and stand for them.

God's love in us and communicated through us for these ones (and all people) must outweigh our desire to retain any kind of reputation. I have re-learned again that all I have to offer of any lasting value to anyone, to society, is Jesus Christ. If there are things that stand in my way from sharing Jesus' life with others then it is rooted in my own pride to save myself and my reputation. Remembering what Jesus said, "Whoever saves their life, they will lose it; but whoever gives up their life for my sake and the sake of the gospel will find it."

I pray and believe God with all my heart that the lady in the red scarf will lose her present life of bondage and sin in Christ and find the life that He has planned for her. The power of the new creation.

We will see the lady in the red scarf tomorrow night again when we return to the train station with a local church outreach team to feed the homeless. What would I rather do this Christmas eve.....NOTHING!