El Diablo: A Homeless Man

One way to describe our church is in the words of Bono, who describes himself as "a friend of the poor, and sometimes the rich."

It's hard to read the Bible and miss the fact that God has a special affection for the poor. Rhetorically, Politicians have a heart for the poor, but in reality their heart is with the rich. We know the temptation to give special attention to the rich (they have money and power), but we are striving to be a community whose ethos is to care for the poor (James 2, for example).

Recently, I've had an amazing opportunity to share with a guy from the streets of Chicago, who is here visiting his sister. In a recent conversation, he was very close to giving his life to Jesus. Please pray for Terrell.

But this morning I was reminded of another unfolding story in our community of love toward a homeless man, "El Diablo." I read this post this morning from James (I just wrote about James and James music- click here), and it about wrecked me.

Here's the story of Keith (aka "El Diablo"). Listen to the rap song they recorded and produced with Keith. It made me cry, as I listened to the slurred rant of a confused, proud and yet broken homeless guy: http://jamesfromames.wordpress.com/2010/09/16/999-red-balloons/

Here are some pics of El Diablo...

This was the first ever encounter with El Diablo last March, when he shared about his exploits as a cage fighter and gambler:

We asked him how he did at the casino, and as if to add an exclamation on how he rules the casino, he said, "I walked in with a twenty, and out with a hundy."

Our second Diablo sighting at the bank:

This picture was taken the first time we learned his real name, and why we were seeing him all the time: Keith is a homeless man.

Oh God, can you transform the mind and heart of a person with such unique mental, emotional, and spiritual struggles?

yes, Yes, YES!