sweater for mad dog

I'm feeling quite Carrie-ish (from "Sex and the City") as I type about today...except that I'm not sitting cross-legged on my bed with a laptop, wearing a satin camisole, nor am I writing about sex. Far from that. I'm sitting in my parents' study room, typing on their computer, wearing jeans and a sweater, writing about homeless people in Sacramento. Not quite HBO material.

A few years ago, Trish and I started this annual activity to pass out bag lunches to the homeless in downtown Sac. We do it either during Thanksgiving or Christmas break, whenever we're both in town. Some years, we have had other friends join us, sometimes it's just us two. This year, Dorc joined in with making the sandwiches and stuffing the bags with Capri Sun, Gospel tracts, a cookie, bag of chips and sandwich. She was unable to come with us to pass them out, so Trish and I braved the light rain and headed out around 3:30 p.m.

It was hard to find a lot of people, so we ended up giving each person two bags. We had a bag of winter clothes too, and gave them all to one woman who just kept saying "God bless you, mi hija...gracias." The turning point, however, was meeting Mike, or as people call him, "Mad Dog."

When I first approached "Mad Dog" with the lunches, he didn't take them right away. He looked at us with suspicion and asked if there were poisonous. He was obviously distrustful and we all had an understanding that during these war times, everyone had a reason to be extra cautious. He asked why we were doing this...we explained that it was a nice gesture for the holidays. I was disappointed that I didn't seize that moment to share that we wanted to share God's love with others. But I got a second chance...when Trish turned to give some lunches to another man passing by, Mike asked again. "So why are you guys doing this? Who are you doing it for? For yourselves? For God? For Allah? Who?" I responded that we were Christians and believe that God gave us His son as a gift and we also want to share that gift with others.

He pulled up his sleeve to show me a tattooed cross on his hand. "See that? That's a cross so they can't put the 666 on me. The Bible says that in the end, everyone will have the mark of the beast, but they can't do that to me because I have this cross here." He then elaborated on how he believed in Jesus and how he helped some people out because the thought that was "what Jesus would do." He gave us a long speech about what the past few days in Sacramento were like for him...the negative encounters that he had, the frustrations and anger that he felt, yet he would end his outbursts with little glimmers of hope, acknowledging that Jesus was watching out and would take care of his people.

A few minutes later, the guys across the street came our way and Mike told us to help them out with some lunches. We did so, and one of them, John, told us that yes, Mike had given him a Bible earlier that day. Another guy chimed in to bring Bibles next time we came around. They wanted some extra tracts that I was holding in my hand.

I got into a long conversation with John...actually he did all the talking. He said he was a mountain man from Idaho and mentioned all these things that God led him to do...people that God led to him and how their lives were saved. Halfway through the conversation, his wife came by and said that they needed to go. He said, half jokingly, "When it comes to God, you're second place, so get back in your place." She responded, "I *AM* in my place, but I'm telling you, we have to get going! You could talk forever!" It was really funny.