I have done my homework. I spent time in prayer, spent time in God’s Word. I have read the relevant books & literature, listened to the lectures, had the conversations. Talked to Churches, small groups, asked for support, but in the end, I can’t keep asking for permission, asking for my Church to get involved, asking for help. I need to just get involved. If I get help and support - fantastic - if not, then regardless of failure, I’ve been faithful to what God has convicted me of.
I pickup a sunshade, water and snacks at Costco. I ordered a few boxes of coffee from Dunkin. Stockpiled some Gospels of John and coffee invitations to hand out as well.
Here.
We.
Go.
The morning was overcast when we first approached the Lee Memorial. My wife and I had been praying about this for about a week now. I didn’t know what to expect, but I’m not going to lie, I was very excited about doing this.
As we approached the freshly erected bollards surrounding the memorial and the statue of Robert E. Lee, a number of parked cars blocked key points of the roundabout. Young men and women, in well-worn black clothing lounge atop cars parked in the middle of the road.
An ANTIFA group.
They gesture for us to move along and were attempting to control the traffic flow.
I rolled down my window and waved. “Hey!”
“You can just move along – go down that alley over there” a young man instructed us as he got down off the hood of a tan Ford Taurus and gestured.
“Hey, why are you guys blocking traffic? We’re actually trying to get to the memorial.”
“Nah, you’ll need to go down the alley” he reiterated, his compatriots follow suit and jump off their cars as well.
Not wanting to start the day this way I ask, ”Why are you trying to control traffic, dude?” (I use ‘dude’ a pejorative, as my strong California instincts kick in.)
“Excuse me?”
My wife interjected and saved me from my ego “Hey, we’re just here to handout coffee and snacks and waters”
The expression on his face changed immediately.
“Yeah – I spoke with some of the people at the other tents and they said it was cool if we just came by to hand out supplies” I eagerly added.
One of his tired looking friends asked “Coffee?”
I quickly prayed and responded, “Yeah, uh, we’ve got fresh coffee, snacks, waters, masks, hand sanitizer….”
They quickly conferred and nodded to each other “Just find a place to park and we’ll help you unload and setup.”
Thank you God.
The morning
There is a parking spot no more than 5 feet away so we quickly backed in and started to unload.
“Hey, yeah, sorry about that, we’ve been here all night and there was some really sketchy stuff going down this morning”
“Oh really? You guys slept here? What’s going on?”
“It might be an active shooter situation”
“Oh?”
“Yeah, there was some weirdo who broke into that building over there” says one of the young women, as she gestured to one of the buildings. “He was hanging out on the roof, taking photos and it looked like he had a rifle… the SWAT team over there should have him out of the building soon.”
It’s at this moment I noticed the armored SWAT van parked under a tree adjacent to the building she gestured at.
“Oh… Thanks for the heads up!” I exclaimed with some nervous laughter.
The ANTIFA members are surprisingly friendly. Not only do they help us unpack they also help carry the waters, ice, coffee, tables, the tent, and everything else 40 yards, to the base of the statue. We idly chat and they help us setup the sunshade while the SWAT team are staging outside of the door.
“What church are you guys from?”
“Oh, we go to Area 10 Church, but we’re here on our own, we just wanted to show our support and hand out coffee and invite people to chat and to engage in some dialogue”
“Oh! That’s really cool, thanks for coming out!”
My wife chimed in, “Yeah! I know it sounds kinda cheesy, but we just want to share Christ’s love with everyone because Jesus was all about the poor and the oppressed.”
“Yeah, we started this non-profit called Coffee With a Christian” I added “we simply invite people to get coffee and meet them wherever they are at, we’ve built an app to help people connect.”
“I like that!” one of the young women exclaimed, as she took one of our invite cards.
The SWAT team breached into the main building behind us around this time.
And just like that, we’re in.
Everyone in the ANTIFA group politely helps us finish setting up before pouring themselves a round of coffee. A few linger near the tent while the rest return to their checkpoint. The next 4 hours fly’s by. We are busy non-stop, handing out coffee, Gospels, coffee date invitations and chatting with people until 2PM. In this short 5-hour time span over 100 people drop by the tent and we are able to share Christ with around 20 individuals. Just as the sun is getting high and we’re getting ready to head out, a young Satanist drops by the tent.