julia_christin3

I worked at UrbanPromise Ministries in Camden, New Jersey a couple years ago with a guy named Matt Law. Matt Law is in the right hand side of this picture. He just sent me some cool news I'd like to share with you. The first is of healing, and the second of deliverance.

One of my first memories of Camden was a mock opening program the streetleaders put on for us my first summer and the two streetleaders who went absolutely crazy pumping everybody up. One of those streetleaders was Daniel, who I found to be one of the funniest, craziest, most athletic and energetic people I have ever met. When I saw him a year later, however, he was subdued, and much less visible, and I often saw him sleeping on a couch instead of playing a joke on someone. Since I had seen him last, Daniel had had fairly routine surgery, but during the procedure, the doctor had clipped his kidney, resulting in painful and apparently irreparable damage. I learned all this recently from Josh, the director I mentioned in the last letter, who told this story with Daniel looking on. A number of weeks ago, Daniel came into Josh’s office, and Josh, who was there with another intern, asked if they could pray for him. As Daniel told it, while they prayed together, a warm sensation filled his torso, and that night, when he went home, he slept easily without pain for the first time in months. A week later he came to Josh with the incredible news that his body had healed itself; a medical miracle. In recent weeks Daniel has returned to his normal self and found a job helping out with facilities around UrbanPromise.

More recently Garrett, my site director, told us a story in a staff meeting as he met with myself and the three other interns at our site to plan and pray for the day. Ever since we’d been at Camp Grace we’d seen the same dealer on the street outside the church on a daily basis. Garrett, who’s been there for two years now, had gotten to know him to the point that he would give him food and water and even let him charge his phone in the church. Recently, however, he had disappeared, and Garrett told us this story about what had happened after camp one day. It was dark outside and we had finished doing take-homes on the UrbanPromise bus. We loaded up our van to go back to the intern house for the night, and as Garrett drove past on his way home, he yelled “You’re awesome!” out the window at us, as he is prone to do. Some time later on the drive home, he told us, he felt strangely compelled to turn around and return, alone, to the corner where he would find that same dealer who was always there. After a few blocks of indecision, he made the turn and drove back to the church where we have program. To his surprise, the man was waiting for him. “I heard what you said to me when you were driving off,” he told Garrett, “and nobody has ever really encouraged me like that.” Confused, Garrett realized that the man had mistaken what he yelled at us as directed to him. Before he could say anything to the contrary, however, the man started pouring his heart out to him. He had once been addicted to the drugs he was selling, but then he got clean and began to experience the joy of life free of his addiction. Recently, however, he had found that he just couldn’t keep it up, and the addiction had returned. Things were spiraling into a mess, and he just didn’t think he could ever ultimately live free of his drugs. To Garrett’s surprise, the conversation turned to the Holy Spirit and how God could take away and replace the need that fueled his addiction. Finally, they prayed together, and Garrett asked not only that God might fill the man’s life and grant him the help he needed to become clean again, but that we might not ever see him on that corner again, and that this change might be one of finality in his life. The very next day he disappeared, and the dealer who was a fixture outside our camp has not been seen there since.