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| Mr. Bruner's neighborhood |
Aaron Parsons and Randy Sain are CSM’s experienced construction and engineering experts behind all the reconstruction work of our Housing ministry in our under-served communities. They came in the office the other day excited to share how affirmed they felt in their ministry. “We go out in twos so that we can always pick each other up, no matter what we face in a day. We don’t want to be so hyper-focused on the tasks at hand that we miss what God is doing all around us. Every day we see how man makes his plans, but God ordains his steps. In our previous professional lives, we would have been head-down in our work. Now we see that the work puts us in proximity to people who need Jesus.”
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| Aaron (right) up on the roof |
This is the story they told: Aaron and Randy left CSM one recent morning to check on the Samuel Bruner job, where they had workers replacing his roof. As they were leaving, an older gentleman mowing his yard two houses up the street sees Randy and Aaron and leaves his mower running to hurry in their direction shouting, “Jesus is Lord!” As they engaged in conversation with him this bold believer told them, “I am a street evangelist. This world is my church and everybody needs to know Jesus!” Randy and Aaron affirmed him, “Wow! The Holy Spirit is evident in you. We know the Holy Spirit is here and we are united in Him.”
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| Randy happy when he is helping others and has on the tool-belt |
From there, Randy and Aaron grabbed lunch at a ‘meat-and-three’ near Acipco, where their waitress immediately let them know that she is “a street evangelist… out of the church and into the streets to share Christ.” Aaron says, “We were stunned to meet two people who referred to themselves as street evangelists within a matter of hours.” They felt that God was impressing on them that they were street evangelists, too!
After lunch, they returned to the truck and were about to pull out of the parking lot when we heard a tap on the window. There was a woman who merely said to them, “I am hungry.” Randy leaned toward her and said, “Hey kiddo, how are you doing? My name is Randy. Let’s go inside and get you something to eat.” They went back through the cafeteria line. The server looked at the woman and pulled out a “to-go” box. But Randy stopped him and said, “This is not a to-go order. She will be eating with us.” Then he told her, “Order whatever you would like.”
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| Completed Bruner house |
As they were finding a table, Randy flagged the “street evangelist” waitress and told her, “I am bringing the street to you! She is hungry and has had a rough time, and she needs prayer.” So, the waitress stopped what she was doing and prayed over the woman in a powerful way. Afterwards, the waitress looked at the woman and said, “You need to know that Jesus loves you,” then told Randy, “I can take it from here.”
Aaron and Randy were clearly moved by all that happened that day. “We knew we were seeing the perfection of God in a very simple thing. That is exactly what Jesus would do… comfort hurting people as a father or brother. We want to be open to engage with people so that they would be drawn to Him.” This is one of many ways that CSM brings the Gospel to Birmingham.
