Dan Jones

Not Broken Yet

If you remember the story of Tattoo, you're maybe wondering if anything has happened since with the guy. Well, as you may have guessed, something has. Why else would I mention it?

Tattoo and another homeless friend showed up at our meeting Tuesday night. I think the question of everyone's mind was, "What the heck do we do now?" Pretty good question if you ask me. Tattoo's friend ended up getting a lift from us to the Greyhound station, and hopped a bus to Iowa City, looking for work. I really think he's got a great chance 2nd chance on life.

Tattoo...well, I don't know what to say. He still scares the heck out of all of us, one way or another. We've got to be pretty careful, but I'm not as worried as I once was (I wonder, how many comments will say "be careful dan!!!"). I think God is doing something, pray for a mighty work. For our safety. For the Spirit of God to work powerfully in Tattoo's life.

***

I entitled this entry "Not Broken Yet" for a reason. Every day I go downtown I am asked for money. Every single time. It breaks my heart. I know each guy asking me for money is lying to me.

The Pacific Garden Mission has been active in Chicago for nearly 127 years. They can feed everyone who shows up, and then some. And there are more organizations out there capable of the same. Heck, they're feeding us at SALT (30 people) a free meal in 2 weeks when we visit. If there wasn't an abundance we wouldn't be able to do this.

Every homeless and needed person knows exactly where they need to go when they really need food or shelter. So why do they beg? As I was told by a professional at PGM, for drugs and booze. Thats it.

I have heard lines by some pretty poor actors. Lines that have been told many, many times. So many times, you can tell they're just regurgitating it. There are good actors though. I think I was had the other day. A pretty clean, well dressed guy asked me for help. He's locked his keys out of his truck and needed a train pass to get back home. His story sounded legit and unrehearsed. I think he was just good at what he does.

Despite being lied too, I still want to have compassion on these people. I see so many people every day I wish I could help in some way. Despite all the lies and tricks, I pray we would never lose our compassionate hearts for the needy.

REI

I just finished placing an order with REI: best customer service EVER. Okay, well, best customer service after Kronk. I needed to get a few parts for my bike in order to get it to usable condition. Some of the parts I wasn't sure about. On their site they had an online live help section, sort of like a chat room. Amazing. Then I needed to call them up, and they were extremely nice and helpful. Isn't this just the way it should be? Now lets just hope the backorder stuff gets here before the summer is over...

In SALT news, we're putting on a free self defense workshop to try to meet some people. Garry Riedemann and some of his crew from Ames are coming up. I'm pretty excited about this. Maybe I'll take some classes back in Ames sometime. Anyway, we put up flyers around the neighborhood for this thing. I think every business we asked, except for THE THAI BOWL (read in: don't eat there), gladly let us put up our flyer. We were able to hand out a bunch of handouts to individuals too. I really hope this thing is a success, that lots of people come check it out. If not, I guess I'll just have a better chance of winning the wooden practice sword setting we're raffling off!

What?

Last night, a little after 1am I woke up. I wasn't sure why, my room wasn't especially warm or cold, I didn't hear anything. Oh well. Hit the bathroom and crawl back into bed. All is well...

I check the news the morning and find out there was an earthquake at 1:11 am this morning 70 miles from Chicago!

Now, that was one thing I was not expecting to experiance ever, much less this summer. I guess no real damage was done by the 4.5 quake. After talking to people this morning, a few noticed it, but for the most part it went by without any attention. Joel felt his bed shake as he was watching a movie. Amanda heard something like the pipes rattling.

Tattoo

Have you ever met anyone who:

-was shot and beaten with baseball bat 3 days prior?
-still has the bullet in his back and the bumps on his skull?
-was selling crack, had been shot, had shot people, by the age of 8?
-killed his own father at the age of 10?
-spent ages 10-19 in a prison?
-didn't learn to read until teenage years?
-has been shot 10 times?
-is bitter because America is investing billions of dollars in the War on Terrorism, chasing people who behead Americans, while a friend was beheaded a few weeks ago, his severed head tossed in the trunk of a car?
-grew up in Cabrini Green? (Cabrini Green, for those who don't know, is notorious for being one of the most dangerous, impoverished projects every built, located near downtown Chicago)

I met Tattoo on Saturday, the day Tom Short preached near Taste of Chicago. I don't know if any of what he told me was true. From the looks of him, it likely was. But still, not everything lined up all the time. Tattoo is maybe mid 30's (I don't really know). He's a skinny, white, somewhat muscular, tattooed man with long brown hair. His arm was in a sling from a broken hand. On his shirtless back was a huge bruise near some gauze, covering a bullet wound. After he ran across Michigan Avenue I watched a cop yell at him, then frisk him for weapons. Apperently they knew him. He sweet talked the girls, telling them about their beautiful eyes, through which he could see their souls, saying he'd like to draw them. He made vulgar comments to the guys when the girls were out of earshot. He invited many to go to a concert with him in Garfield Park, which is one of the places we were told NOT to go by our Chicago-native friends. After finally telling him no, he invited himself back to the dorms with us, to "get some more people to go to the concert." Walking back toward the campus, the guys and myself wondered what the heck we would do. This guy was not going to be coming into the dorms.

I'm from Iowa. Many of my friends have never even shot a gun. I'm very glad Chad was there, a former marine who enjoys martial arts. Still, I have not been afraid much before in my life. I have never been afraid of anyone so much in my entire life as I was then.

So what do you do? How do you love this guy? Afterall, Jesus' second greatest commandment, after "love the Lord your God with all of your heart, with all of your soul, with all of your mind, and with all of your strength" was "love your neighbor as yourself."

What do you do when this guy wants to be around the girls in your group, not showing much interest in the guys, and not showing any particular interest in learning about God? When he wants to come back to where you live?

I finally had to tell him we were gonna call it a night. That we couldn't go with him, that he couldn't come back with us. And that no one else in our group would be going with him either. I was speaking for all of the SALT participants, and all the people visiting from Ames and Iowa City. I guess that's the burden of leadership. Hope I did the right thing. Everyone in our group was awesome. In leadership of any kind, my greatest fear is that people will disagree and not follow. Several people thanked me for what I did. I very much appreciated them. All of us here in Chicago are growing more into a family every day. Please keep us in your prayers!

Photo's!

Photo's from project day at Glen Arbor, Rick Whitney, and Miracle Whip! Enjoy!

This is the container of Miracle Whip I'm eating my way through. If you look closely, you notice the size of this container. 1 gallon! I'm roughly 1/4 of the way through it, which means I've eaten nearly one quater of a gallon of miracle whip. Eh. Blech. Not very appetizing is it? I'm actually starting to dislike it...

Are You Proud?

Today I want to share one of the coolest experiences I've ever had as a Christian. Tuesday night our worship band of Mike Biang, Amber Ruppert, and Brandon Klieke led worship at The Bridge while the rest of us attended the service.

The Bridge is part of a ministry called Mission USA. They work to introduce saved ex-cons and those who are going through drug and alcohol rehab to area churches. Every Tuesday night they bring these men to The Bridge, where several pastors from area churches share short messages on the same topic.

Much of the time I come off as a "not very emotional guy", but I do have my moments. Worship, for me, is a time to connect with God, to praise and honor him. Occasionally something will really strike a chord with me and really choke me up. I'm not really sure if that was the situation last night, but I have to say that during worship last night, I was incredibly proud to be a Christian.

Sitting toward the back of the room (where we were told to) I had a good view of all the men attending. The worship service started with 3 old school GCM songs. I highly doubt that the "roof has ever been raised" during an old school GCM song before, nor ever will again. After that, Biang and the gang played some more modern songs. During "All In All", it all seemed to come together.

Let me set the stage for you. We're in a big room, 10 foot ceilings, with yellow walls and a hardwood floor. Behind me sit in metal folding chairs about 15 SALTers and in front about 7 SALTers and maybe 40 ex-cons, ex-alcoholics, and ex-drug addicts. About the middle of "All In All" all the men singing out loudly in front of me begins to really be heard over the moderate sound system. I mean, it was the powerful sound of 40+ male voices singing out to God. Shouts of praise filled the room.

Most the time, at large group worship times, you hear the band. Sometimes you can't even hear yourself. These guys nearly drowned out the guitars. These men, whom have likely been in places I could never imagine, were putting most of us to shame from their zeal and praise. I thought about where they had been in their lives, and what I was witnessing before me. I was reminded of the redemptive power of Christ. I thought about all the lives that have been powerfully changed by the gospel. It's not often that I've thought about the proud history of Christianity. From all different backgrounds, we were united in the family of God.

True Christianity has seen some amazing moments. Christianity can get a bad rap for the hypocrisies that can exist and events such as the crusades and such. But as Christians, as part of God's plan, we have had profound impact on the world. Lets be proud of it.

Twinkie The Kid

Have you ever heard the song "Billy the Kid" by Billy Dean? It's a good country song. Well, by some peoples definitions. Anyway we (Mark Harle & I) got bored and wrote our own lyrics. Enjoy.

Opened up my lunch box, and I licked my lips
Two golden twinkies and some ‘tater chips
I’d tear through the wrapper they’d say
Here comes young Twinkie and he’s gonna taste good~
I nearly swallow ‘em whole, even if they were hard
Pretending they were bad guys, or candy bars
Known for my hunger both far and near, being late for lunch was my only fear

These days I don’t know who side to be on.
There’s thin white frosting between right and wrong.
I live and learn do the best that I can
There's only so much you can do as a man

Sad, I know.

aim

Finally got Aol AIM. Strati0tes is ME! That's a "zero" not an "o".

Kronk!

Saturday evening the guys and gals at SALT split up to have a 'guys night' and a 'girls night'. From what I'm told, the girls made a lot of good food, watched movies, and got really silly. That IS what I was told. The guys went to Ponderosa Steak House in Aurora, Il, where we had the best waiter ever.

Mike "Kronk" Infinity (we really only know his first name, but he signed it Mike followed by the infinity symbol) was huge! Probably 6'2" and obviously he had lifted a few heavy things in his day. Due to his voice, demeanor, and eagerness to serve, he soon became known as Kronk.

He constantly brought out plates and napkins without being asked to, in fact, I don't think we ever asked him to bring anything - he had it all already. Whenever our glasses got to be only half full, he already had another on the way.

The best was when the steak was brought out. The guy comes around the corner carrying two huge serving platters, totaling to be 10 steaks, at the same time! After getting our steak, he paused to ask if we wanted steak sauce, then pulled out several bottles of A1 and the house brand. He then paused to ask if we wanted sour cream for our potatoes, then proceeded to pull out little containers of sour cream. Amazing. He got a good tip.

Before we left, he dropped a card off at the table that read "I hope you have an effervescent evening.", whatever that means.

And why does every day off look like this?

The South Side

Due to high demand, I will tell the story of "the night we went to the southside of Chicago." Six of us had decided to go to Galyans after dinner Wednesday night. On the way back, it was Mark Harle, Andy Wagner, and myself. Rather than taking the Reagan Expressway (wanting to save 40 cents) I took another road east toward downtown. After taking FOREVER, and realizing we weren't getting anywhere fast, I decided to turn south. After awhile I realize I missed the expressway, so I figured I would just keep heading south until I hit a road I knew. Which was pretty stupid, because the expressway runs south of downtown as you go west, so we were more south than I thought. We turn east again, get into a really bad part of town. All the businesses are closed. Not for the night, for good. The only signs we see on are for liquor stores and check cashing. It's 11 o'clock. There are lots of people on the street corners for that late. I'm no rascist, but the only white people in sight were in my car. Some of the sidewalks are torn up, like they had been ground up into chunks about the size of your fist, but then left and forgotten. As we're driving along, wondering how the heck we're going to get out, this car pulls out in front of me (like a bad scene from Black Hawk Down) and stops halfway across my lane. There are no other cars anywhere around us. This crazy looking guy glares at us for a long second or two while we're stopped in the road. Then he tears off down the street. As we follow him down the street, he starts swerving into the other lane. In front of oncoming cars. We decided, yeah, he's crazy. The highlight (lowlight) of the experiance is when we pull up to an intersection and get stuck behind this bus. There are people all over. Questionable looking people. We see bums downtown all the time. A guy in a wheel chair comes over and starts yelling at me. Luckily I had left 3 car lengths between myself and the bus in case this sort of things happens, so I drive ahead and hope to God theres a way out. By now Wagner has rolled up his window. I decide to go around the bus, it doesn't look like it's going anyway fast. As I swerve around the thing, a big ROAD CLOSED sign looms ahead. Crap. I turn north instead and find Halsted St. We get home okay. It was a stupid night. Next time I pay A LOT more attention where I'm going. End of story.

What's Your Sign?

An excerpt from Bumper Sticker Christianity, an article on RELEVANT magazine by Jason Barr:

"What is bumper sticker Christianity? It’s a method of Christianity enabling us to bypass personal, intimate relationships. Instead of influencing the lives of others by loving and serving people as Christ did, we attempt to influence others with our bumper stickers; we wear Christian t-shirts, we carry our bibles to work and school, and who can forget the most famous bumper sticker of the past few years: the WWJD bracelet. Are these things wrong? Of course not, but when you become defined by your bumper sticker, when your bumper sticker says more about God’s love than your actual life does, then it’s a problem. When we hide behind our bumper sticker, when we convince ourselves that it’s okay not to reach out because our bumper sticker tells everyone that we love God, then we have a problem. Now before we go any further let’s be honest, we’ve all been there."

Here at SALT, we've spent our last two Saturday's evangelizing at Navy Pier and Grand Park. As a group, we've gotten a chance to share with dozens of people. One man received Christ as his Savior, and another reaffirmed his faith and became confident of his salvation. Praise God!

Going out and sharing is a stretching experience for me. I often wrestle with the question of "Why are we doing this? Does it even make a difference?" These questions may be justifiable, but they mostly arise from my sense of self preservation. Which itself is something to deal with. Taking it to an extreme, I'm already dead physically (unless Christ comes in my lifetime, I'm guaranteed to be someday) so why not take more "risks", evangelistically speaking?

I'm not trying to attempt to be deep and meaningful (ok, maybe I am), but I thought I'd pass on the article, as it made me think of my own ways of tipping someone off to my Christianity, hoping they bite and I don't have to do anything uncomfortable to show them the love of Christ.

I love pictures. This is Eryn enjoying a turkey leg & Aaron feeding my Cheez-It's to the birds.

Have you noticed Aaron is in a LOT of pictures?

I should mention I had a "Chicago Style" hot dog a few days ago. Amazing! A dog on a poppy seed bun, covered with a dill pickel spear, onions, celery salt, sliced tomatoes, and a pepper. Mmmm. Worth the $3. Eating plain dogs will never quite satisfy again.

A Fable...

Right now, a line by line story is being composed on the message board of Mars Hill. As of yet, the story is:

Once upon a time there was a fish named Erik who lived on a farm and ate pork chops. His best friend was a goat who had dreadlocks coming from his beard. One lovely day in the warm afternoon sun, Erik turned to Goat and said,
"Golly gee Goat, I think we ought to go into town and buy ourselves some hats." Thus beginning the journey that would span 13 months and 3 continents. Goat carried nothing with him aside from a small banner, inscripted with the words "Living la Vida Loca". It was slow going because Erik the fish was in a little plastic baggie and had to roll himself along; Goat had no hands. As they rolled and walked along, outside the town of Eyebrow, Saskatchewan, they happened upon a 3 legged tarantula named Shaniqua. taken aback by the condition of goats beard, Shaniqua exclaimed, "Dude! here use some of my antibacterial soap!" So she pulled some soap out of her pouch and started washing the goat's beard, when suddenly goats head fell off! Goat was pretty old...

Pretty sad blog entry, I know. But I thought I would share the goodness with those on the outside, and invite them to come in.

FOOD!

Now that I've been in Chicago for a few weeks (3), I've had a chance to enjoy some of the food the city is known for. Giordano's deep dish pizza: a large, inch-thick-double-crust-with-the-sauce-on-top sausage and pepporoni pizza pie. Greek Town's Mr. Greek gyro (the #1) complete with lamb, onion sauce, onion, and tomato.

I've haven't gotten a Chicago-style hot dog, yet. I have to admit I'm not really sure what a Chicago-style hot dog consists of, but I do plan on finding out. If you have any suggestions of what is the finest representation of one of these tubes of meat, by all means let me know!

After getting some late night gyros a few nights ago, I had the most crazy dream I've had in a while. Everyone who had a gyro that night had some kind of dream, and most could remember them, except for Mark "The Bruise" Harle.

I dreamt I was in a war zone, hit by an explosive of some sort and lost my feet just above the ankle. It was one of my more vivid dreams. In my dream, my feet were amputated, then replaced not with prosthetics, but with the feet of some dead guy. I never regained feeling. I remember sitting in a stadium surrounded by other military men feeling completely sorry for myself and full of pity. Thinking about the dream afterward brought me to a conclusion. There are times in my life when I really want to feel sorry for myself. And that disgusts me. Afterall, I really don't have any reason for it.

Pat Sokoll gave an inspiring message tonight, much of it on the topic of what kind of attitude it will require to become great men and women in the kingdom of God. I think I'll be chewing on some of his thoughts for a while.

Mark 9:35
"Sitting down, Jesus called the Twelve and said, "If anyone wants to be first, he must be the very last, and the servant of all."

What really makes a servant, and is God's idea of a servant different than my own?

Lincoln Park

Lincoln Park the band? Nope. Lincoln Park the zoo. Last Friday, Aaron, Jackie, Tiffany, Christy, Eryn, and I went to the Lincoln Park Zoo to take a break from work and job hunting. It's free, and since we took the free trolley from downtown it didn't cost us a dime. The best exhibit would have most likely been the great apes - the gorrilla's and chimps. But, it was closed for construction and the animals were off at other zoo's until July. Since it's free, I plan on going back to see them then. I was also pretty pumped up to see the lions and tigers (oh my) but the lions were inside somewhere and the tigers were hiding in the shade sleeping. Still, it was a pretty decent zoo.

Last night we went out evangelizing for the first time during SALT. Many people, including myself, had somewhat low expectations. We went to Navy Pier, which is mostly couples there to see the ever romantic fireworks and stroll, and families with little kids playing on the ferris wheel and other attractions. Christy and I met the cutest little girl I think I've ever seen, who told us all about her new Barbie and My Little Pony.

Whatever our expectations, we went out with boldness and zeal, hoping to find some people receptive to what we were doing. Many people came back reporting great conversations, and Mara and Micah even saw a 28 yr old named Israel come to Christ. Christy Korthals and I paired up and talked to several people, included a vietnamese girl named Dung who was working a lemonade stand. We got into good (relatively - she was working) spiritual conversation with here, and she almost invited herself to come check out our church at SALT. So, of course I invited here and gave her my number. Pray she would call and come check us out! She also has a cousin who attends UIC, so God may be preparing a work there.

Until next time...

Photos

The mighty leader of the most powerful country of the world.

The Agape House, where we hold our meetings and eat together.

Break Time

Hey everyone. It's about 2 o'clock on Wednesday afternoon and I'm taking a break. I haven't discussed SALT much on this blog, so I thought I'd give everyone an update on what's been happening. Most of us, actually, it was everybody, arrived here on May 23rd. We met in West Chicago at Glen Arbor Community Church then caravaned down to the University of Illinois-Chicago campus. Every got moved in to the dorms. The rooms are pretty small, just big enough for a bed, a dresser, a desk, and an extremely small bookself. The actual size and shape of each room varies depending on the room. Some rooms have enough space for 1 person to sleep on the floor. Other rooms have enough space for like 4 people to sleep on the floor. Sleep on the floor? Why does that matter? Well, it matters because I'm sleeping on the floor for a few days. My cousin-in-law (my cousin's husband, Justin) is staying with me for a night or two while he looks for an apartment. They just got married the weekend of the May 22nd and are moving to the Chicagoland area.

We have our meetings at the Agape House, which is about a 7 minute walk from the dorms. There is a big meeting room upstairs and a large eating area downstairs, as well as a small kitchen. I'll probably get some pictures of it all sometime...

We meet on Tuesday and Thursday evenings for a message from Chris Biang, Tim Borseth, or a visiting pastor. Chris Biang is talking again Thursday, while Pat Sokoll is talking about servant leadership next week.

Last night Chris challenged us all with a talk entitled, "Gods Will For Your Life". Many people ponder, what is God's will for my life. We may sit around all of our days and try to answer that question ourselves, or we can get the answer from the author of life - God. Chris, ahem, Pastor Biang, explained how throughout the New Testament, God paints a picture of his will for our lives. Some of the major points of Gods will are:

1. Love God with everything you have.
2. Worship and Serve God only.
3. That we would proclaim the excellence and awesomeness of God.
4. Following Christ means denying self.

It was a challenging message, and is similiar to a book we are reading at SALT, True Discipleship. There will (hopefully) soon be messages availble online, most likely on the SALT website or Tims site. So check those out frequently if you're interested or email me.

Hope you're all doing well. I wish I had more of a chance to keep in touch with all my friends and family. I'm thinking of you all, miss you all, and love you all very much!

SALT, and I, is/am in need of some prayer warriors, people who commit to prayer. Some of our needs our:

-Jobs for everyone. About 5 people still need jobs. Jobs that meet their financial needs, hourly and schedule needs. Places that are safe, co-workers to reach out to...

-A continuing work on the UIC campus. We want to see lots happen and build something that will last! We're getting a bible study or two started, discussion group, some soccer or volleyball games, and even a book club.

Please bathe these things in prayer! Talk to you soon!