Spring Break: San Francisco

Ben Patterson, director of junior high ministries at Orchard Hill, led a trip to SF. He writes this post:

San Francisco was a fantastic experience, I know we’d do it all again.

A group of 23 students and staff flew out to California where we would spend a week staying at Youth With a Mission (YWAM) located in the Tenderloin district of San Francisco. Why is it called the “Tenderloin” you ask? Well, years ago the area was run amuck with all sorts of crime that the San Francisco Police Dept. actually had to pay officers a premium salary to work that particular district otherwise it would not have been patrolled. With that premium salary, it was said that they could buy the “prime cut of meat” which is the tenderloin. Still even to this day the Tenderloin is run by drugs, violence, prostitution and homelessness.

Of our group of 23 we had fourteen high school juniors and seniors along with three staff and then six college students. The college students were able to branch off and do their own activities through the week which worked well. This mission trip is driven by evangelism and witnessing to the people on the streets of the Tenderloin. We did a few work activities like spending a morning at Glide Memorial Church serving breakfast to the homeless, as well as Bucket Brigade which we went to the area shops and businesses and offered our services free of charge for any custodial work; but a lot of our activities were walking the streets and talking to the people.

The Hot Chocolate ministry is popular with the missionaries at YWAM as well as the homeless on the streets. What we would do is each evening groups of four would take a canister of hot chocolate and some cups and roam the streets asking people if they’d like some hot chocolate. It is a great way to open conversation with someone, to ask them how their day has been and to learn about their life and possibly turn the conversation to spirituality. Many of the conversations ended with a prayer. It was amazing how many people asked that we’d pray for them and how much they enjoyed the conversation.

Another great activity we put on was the Love Feast. We made a spaghetti dinner complimented with salad, french bread and an amazing brownie and invited the people on the streets to come take part in the feast. We provided the entertainment (songs, jokes, and testimonies) and ate lunch with the homeless. Many of them were so thrilled to be able to eat a meal in which they had choices such as “regular sauce or meat sauce” and “ranch, french or thousand island on your salad.” Laughter roared through the building, yet every prayer was heard. It was an amazing event.

There’s so many stories from a powerful week in the Tenderloin. It’s likely that our group took more from the experience than we even offered but you could certainly say that God’s presence was evident. The whole group was inspired to come back home and “live faith out loud” like we did for that week in ‘Frisco. You can learn more about YWAM San Francisco at http://www.ywamsanfrancisco.org/ and please pray for a continued impact in the Tenderloin.