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The Basics:
Thirty (30) new Mocha Club sign-ups today alone, at Crossroads Community Church in Vancouver, WA, and sold out of all but two remaining Not For Sale bags. This performance wasn’t on our schedule until two weeks ago. Tonight’s event with the young adults of The Bridge wasn’t on our schedule until 2:00pm today.
Forty-Eight (48) total new Mocha Club sign-ups for the last three weeks. Provision for basic necessities. Countless new host homes full of families who never knew us but welcomed us in nonetheless. We haven’t yet had to shake the dust off our feet.
The Depth:
Two older women (mid-60’s) shared their stories today of passion for the Jewish women of Israel and Palestine, and for the young people of the slums in India. They may not have joined Mocha Club, but they’re doing their part. One of these women recently brought a neighbor into her home at 7:00am after finding the neighbor wandering around the neighborhood looking for an open door or a turned-on light…a place to escape the brutal beating she’d received from the bar hound she’d picked up and brought home the night before.
One woman’s story of love and compassion for Mercy and Dusty. It hit home for her, as she recently took in her own niece after learning that her sister’s boyfriend was molesting the 11-year-old child. The girl joined Mocha Club this morning. The aunt also took in another nephew. She’s their safe house.
A college student this evening talked about how she’s had four opportunities now to join Mocha Club, and has felt pulled to the organization every time, but found some financial excuse not to join up until tonight. But upon hearing Mercy’s story, she couldn’t not join. Her words. She had to do something.
One man who’s been in a band for quite some time, but can’t find the right venue or audience for their hardcore christian music. Simply giving him a few contact names brightened his evening and spun the wheels. He left a little more hopeful.
Five women this morning purchased bags made by former sex slaves because they’d personally known or been close to similarly abused women in their own lives, and saw the difference that simple gift of purchase gives. They’re not giving hand-outs, but supporting a livelihood. And wearing it on their arms.
And that’s just today.
But maybe two of the most significant stories from this tour are the following.
Last weekend, in San Jose (Milpitas), at another show that hadn’t made our schedule until a week or so into touring, I recounted Mercy’s story, inviting people to join Mocha Club and be part of the redemption efforts on behalf of abused women and children and their abusers. The seven-year-old daughter of Prince’s (yeah, THE Prince) former saxaphonist (I even remembered him from the old mtv videos) spent fifteen minutes with me afterward asking about Mercy and other girls like her, how they’re living now, if their needs are being met, and if they’re being protected from the monsters. She said Mercy was so much like her, she felt bad she got to live in America, and wished she could trade places with Mercy. But instead, she settled for my promise to send her a picture of Mercy with Mark, so that she could pray for her every day, “and maybe someday go and meet her.” This, from a seven-year-old.
And last Monday, after I shared my two girls’ stories at our concert in Reno, NV, recounting how my neighbor growing up ended up pregnant with her own father’s child at age 13 and likely aborted it, one 14-year-old student approached me, visibly agitated and struggling. She said, “My mom told me that abortion is wrong. But if that girl’s daddy is the one who did it to her, he’s wrong too. So which one is worse?” It both broke and lifted my heart to tell her simply, “It’s a sick, ugly cycle of sin. And to our God, sin is sin is sin, and there is only One cure. And that’s what we’re doing here: we’re giving people the medicine for their sickness. Because all of them are wholly innocent and wholly guilty.” The girl simply replied, “Well, at least Jesus loves them all and can save them.” Indeed, young friend, indeed. And Lord bless her for asking the hard questions!
I feel like we’re beginning to reap the blessings of a tour marked by simple if clumsy and occasionally foolish faith.
But I’m learning there is no such thing as foolhardy faith when it is faith in God.
He has taken what little we had at the start and multiplied it on behalf of thousands of people in Africa, around the world, and right here in the States. On our behalf, even. And I feel utterly small and overwhelmed by His magnificent grace seeping through every seam and filling every crack.
I am in awe.
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amy courts: en route 