Walking home from church

Last Sunday, Courtney, the boys, our good friend Danny, and I were walking home after trying a new church together.  As is often the case when talking with Danny, our conversation had shifted from chit chat to teaching. Since transitioning from 14 years of street life and drug dealing, Danny has become our resident professor of hustle and addiction. Always glad to share his knowledge, the topic of the day was a rap sheet.  Danny, who was working to get his record expunged, possessed the most current edition of his own, and was guiding us through the details of its numerous pages (SF county charges only) when we came upon a group of people talking and smoking at the corner of 15th and Valencia.

This group on the sidewalk was the after party of High Noon, an AA meeting known to draw the sober punks of SF.  As we threaded through the crowd with our giant orange twin stroller, Danny picked out our friend Ryan standing near the doorway to the meeting.  We went over to him, said hello, and talked for a bit before continuing on towards home.

Since finding Ryan in Dolores Park about a month ago, he has made some significant changes in his life.  A few days after our night together, Ryan checked himself into a treatment program.  Since then he has been sober.  He has temporary housing, and is trying to figure out his next steps.

We have the privilege of being invited into this figuring out next steps process with Ryan.  Right now, the Outer Circle is a vital part of his support and faith community, and we consider all of this a blessing, a tangible work of God.  Ryan is hanging out with us, participating in our weekly small group fellowship, Amigos, and plans on attending Christian Summer Camp with us over Labor Day weekend. 

There's another bit of follow up from that night at Dolores Park.  Sara and Aaron, the couple I mentioned in the last post,  recently called up the team to tell us that they are going to get married.  We all feel like this a good step for them as a couple. A day after the announcement of their engagement, Aaron called me and asked if I would be willing to officiate their wedding.  After thinking and praying, I agreed to do premarital counseling and their wedding.  All of this is supposed to go down in February and I am glad to have a little time to prepare.  I feel like this could be a great opportunity to come along side these two as they rethink life and their identity as a couple.

We are getting ready to head to Christian Summer Camp outside of Fresno.  We leave on Wednesday.  The last CSC in central Oregon was one of the highlights of our year, so we are very excited about this year's gathering.