?? God’s Plan For The Homeless

?Faith doesn‘t deny a problem‘s existence, but it denies it a place of influence.“

—Bill Johnson

There is an incredible amount of homeless people in Los Angeles: 40.000 ! That is an entire city of people within a city. I was blown away by that number at first! And as the crisis continues to unfold there are more people facing the loss of everything including the loss of their home every day. Two thousand homeless people have been estimated to be in Hamburg, Germany‘s second largest city. Even more might be swept ashore during the cold winter months when they come from the surrounding cities to the more metropolitan area of the rich Hanse city.

Hamburg is one of the favorite cities for the homeless in northern Central Europe, because even though it is cold you can really make it through the winter well here. Still more people than in other cities have a lot to give here, and it seems like that still the homeless are being treated with respect by the majority of the people and what seems special to Hamburg, also vice versa: The homeless respect the people who have everything; for the vast majority to say at least. And this seems to be the case because of a history of special people who made it their responsibility to take care of the homeless in this city. People about whom you don’t talk about a lot. There seems to be a specially prepared soil in Hamburg, where the homeless can and like to develop their shallow roots.

?Consider it a gift, when God becomes your only option.“

—Brian Johnson

Well, talking about roots, the image of a tree, which is biblical for a person, comes to mind, but in the situations when God leads us to the homeless it is often, when they are at their worst: mid winter, no sleeping bag, no nothing. They often make the appearance of a chopped down tree, where the damage is so obvious, that you wouldn’t take a chance on expecting restoration. But we have seen it many times, that God looks at this from a totally different perspective. He is attracted to you if you have more than average size problems. He is attracted to situations where he can pay back a loss. He is interested in people who invite him into the center of their problems.

?God‘s love is attracted to anything lost.“

—Eric Johnson

We find this everything! He wants that they invite Him into their hearts, so that he can be with them every step that they take and that the most outrageous scandalous thing that the world has seen comes directly into their life: the gospel (das Evangelium)! Often we ask them: ?Don‘t you want God to be with you everywhere you go? To help you find a safe spot for the night, and to be with you in those lonely nights?“

“Our faith can only go as far as our awareness of God‘s goodness.“

—Bill Johnson

We often have encounters where we have no idea what’s gonna happen next because we at this point of time cannot clearly see the level of a person’s faith. God can. In our prayer rooms we have made good experiences teaching people to use anointing oil and put it on sick body parts, or anoint their rooms, beds, places where they spend their nights. We teach them that the oil represents the presence of the Spirit— a reminder, a faith helper, and we teach them, that as your faith grows you will need these supporting actions less.

The anointing oil is only a visible sign of the invisible Holy Spirit surrounding you or touching you, but if there is faith in your heart Heaven is attracted to this.

—Heaven is attracted by faith —

We gave a bottle of anointing oil to one woman, not knowing the level of her faith, and explained to her, why the Bible teaches to anoint your surroundings with oil. Then we said goodbye at the Notunterkunft. Two weeks later we met her again, and she said: ?When I put the anointing oil on my forehead, the same evening I had a hotel room. Jicks!!! There have been some hotel owners in Hamburg, that have opened up a limited number of rooms for the homeless and as you can tell, there might be a run for these rooms. But she just got one—without any extra effort, God just put her at the right place at the right time to receive a blessing. Before that she had prayed for the entire Notunterkunft and left a severe blessing on the place, anointing it with the oil that we gave her.

—The Reeperbahn: Place of Redemption—

Another man invited God into his heart on the world famous Reeperbahn. And here‘s what happened: Some new plan and some new surprises were scheduled to happen in his life, because heaven was attracted by his faith. He said: ?I just sat there at the spot where I always hang out during days, and a car stopped right in front of me (this was in December). The guy came to me with a big bag and said to me: ?Well tonight is Christmas for you!“ And he handed me a bag that was full of clothes and different things to eat, and what hit him most: A brand new pair of Nike shoes, that were exactly his size. —Selah (Well, let this sink...).

I asked the Lord today as I am writing this: ?How did you do that, Lord?“ Well, He said: “It is not that difficult for me: I found a guy, who is exactly the same size like Pete (let‘s cll him Pete), even the same shoe size. and for three and a half weeks I have been convincing him—without him knowing that I was talking to him in his thoughts— that he should set apart some of his stuff, and even those shoes, which he really liked, but he decided that he‘d rather give them away, because he had so many sneakers already.“

—In tears because of God‘s visible Grace—

That blew me away, and I am in tears when I am writing this, because I met Pete that night and when he came out of his sleeping bag to talk to us, he wore those shiny Nikes. And he did not only have this story to share; there were even more stories waiting in heaven to happen in his then near future, which will blow you away:

That night He shared with us, that all his papers had been stolen: ID card, passport, bank card, everything plus all the money that he had. And he tried to get it back, but this was impossible. Remember, you can only get a bank card, when you have an address and a job. Same thing with any official card—So it was a huge mountain named ?Impossible‘. But we prayed and heaven was attracted by his faith that God would help with more than with Nike shoes and clothing. That night I also gave him some money which I had set apart, just coins.—I normally don’t give money, except when the Lord specifically tells me to—and we prayed that God would somehow get his cards and passport back, and that God would release a financial blessing upon him beyond just coins. Two weeks later we met him again: He had all his papers back (I do not know how this can be possible—maybe they were found) and a government agency had transferred him a large sum of money, so much money that he was fully perplexed, unable to think of what to do with the money. Heaven was attracted to Pete, because of that extraterrestrial substance called faith that heaven found in his heart.

—The Restauration of a Lithuanian Man

When we met R., he was really in bad shape. He had had a good job in London up until the lockdowns hit and he had to leave England. Well he stranded in Hamburg like so many. For weeks in the cold German winter he had survived on Wodka; two bottles per day were his ration. The first time we met him we talked to him, gave him food and something to drink and a sleeping bag. He really had some theological questions bothering him: Is Jesus the son of God? Or was he just a normal man, like you and me?

He had formed a ?little team“ with a Polish man, and that night we really helped his friend. We needed an ambulance because he had a groce infected wound on his arm and was in a lot of pain. When I was trying to call an ambulance one stopped right next to us —let this sink: God was prepared, he just needed someone to go— they took him into the hospital where they operated his arm and kept him there for two nights. two nights where he didn’t have to be in the cold! When we came back to the spot they where they spent their nights the Polish man was back, but R. was in bad condition; he had drunk so much Wodka, and he looked like a dead person, when we pulled the sleeping bag from his head. We fed him and it was obvious that he was s frozen through, so that we called the ?K?lte-Bus‘ —a group of people that pick up homeless who might freeze to death (10 is the count for this year as one homeless guy told me) and bring them to the next Notunterkunft.— and from this day on we see the plan of God unfolding in his life at such a speed that you can hardly keep up.

First he started coming with us, feeding and praying for the homeless even though he only speaks Russian and Lithuanian, and can only keep up a conversation with one of our team members. Then he got baptized, and this is when God’s Power really came upon him to restore what the enemy had stolen. He hasn’t touched a drop of alcohol ever since that moment when he was baptized.

?Now, if anyone is enfolded into Christ, he has become an entirely new* creation. All that is related to the old order has vanished. Behold, everything is fresh and new*.“

—2. Corinthians 5:17 (Passion Translation)

The scandalous thing about the gospel that not so many people know is that when Christ lives inside of you, He sort of operates like a computer virus: He installs a new operating system into your heart, soul and mind. And there is even more!! Meanwhile He deletes all other viruses that are not Him! You thought you had your hard drives well managed and all of a sudden you have a heavenly operating system running on you that changes everything, and you have become what the Bible calls A NEW CREATION! The word Paul used here when he wrote his letter to the church in Corinth is ?KAINOS.“

?Jesus came to destroy and end the old man and begin a brand new species.“

—Justin Abraham

Justin Abraham writes in his book ?Beyond Human“: “KAINOS” is a very revealing word, a word that will help you grasp the enormous wonder of the Gospel. It will give you a grid for where we are going next as a planet and as a species. Slow down and digest this. “KAINOS” doesn’t just mean ‘new’ as in a replacement for the old. That’s not the Gospel. Christ didn’t come to just change Adam with another newer Adam of the same human nature. He wasn’t like a smartphone upgrade. No way! Jesus did not come here to create a newer replacement for the old fallen man. He came to destroy and end the old man and begin a brand new species of “KAINOS” design. A species “Beyond Human”, living in Divine union with a limitless capacity to grow.

The same happened to R. —He started reading the Bible after we ordered a Lithuanian Bible for him. Then he started attending a Russian speaking church, where he made all kinds of friends. He came to our prayer groups where he received prayer regularly— and not the kind of prayer where you are not sure whether God will answer it. Yesterday I met him in Church and he told me that he has a job! Jicks!!! I was perplexed because a few days before I had him on my heart and I wasn‘t even asking the Lord for a good job for him— I tried to think of one myself. But the Lord had already pushed him into that arena, because he was ready to work again. Sooner or later (which is just a saying—but the truth is, when the Lord opens the door and he walks through, he will have a nice place to live in Hamburg.

Three times a week he comes with us to feed the homeless. And whenever there is a Russian homeless person, he is on target praying for them and sharing the powerful Gospel with them that swept him out of his darkest hours.

I am pretty confident that it will stay that way with R . At work it will be a pleasure for all the others to work with him, because he is such a friendly, strong and agile man. And he has been working all kinds of jobs in his life, in all kinds of cultures. And he really opened up his heart for God to change his operating system to a new creation level.

“In the Spirit you are bigger than any mountain.“

A mountain symbolizes an obstacle that in your human form you cannot move. But in the Spirit you are bigger than any mountain. Thats why Jesus taught his disciples to command mountains to lift themselves up and be thrown into the sea. And He said it would be easy. The homeless that we have met, all have their mountains, but once they are realizing that Christ will make them Kainos* sons and daughters of the kingdom of Heaven, then the mountains start dissolving

“I know that you can do all things; no purpose of yours can be thwarted. ...

My ears had heard of you, but now my eyes have seen you.“

—Job 42:2-5

Let me at the end of this article just share a few words about the the team with which we visit the homeless: We are only a group of people that have all, at one point of time lost everything— and then experienced the supernatural kainos restoration movement of the Lord— and the homeless people we meet, they are people who know what it is to hit rock bottom—And that seems to be a good prerequisite when you are about to get into God‘s RESTORATION PLAN.