We volunteered with this dope organization in Australia that goes into festivals (or EVENTS) and parties and “spring break” type of hot spots and takes care of drunk people. They offer them water, they help when they’re puking, they guide people home and to taxis, they listen to them, they help bring them to the hospital, they help make sure that they get the care they need. The founder was a Christian dude who saw so much brokenness, rape, abuse, literal death, and N E E D for people that he loved to have help as they partied. Walking in, I wrestled as the word ENABLING darted into my mind. But I see God loving me into his kingdom and his arms in all of my brokenness, some of which came without my inviting, and SOME OF WHICH I MARCHED UP TO, TOOK HOLD OF, AND DRAGGED INTO MY HEART MYSELF, so there, problem solved, go love the people that choose brokenness as much as you love the people that don’t. Love is love, yeah? Let’s love some people into the kingdom of heaven. And, like, come on, who doesn’t want to protect an 18 year old from unwanted advances or help the 16 year old who’s friends have run off and left them puking and alone or the 43 year old that’s trying to fight a 20-something over nothing. GET IN THERE DAWG, THAT’S THE ONLY THING THAT MAKES SENSE!!!
We started training at 9, got to the event around 11:30, and stayed until around midnight. It was a looooooonngggg day.
As expected, the first part of the day was pretty relaxed. People don’t really start getting krunk until mid-afternoon anyway. So, there I was, filling coolers to the Glory of the Lord, that the people may be hydrated and kept safe.
I don’t have much of an issue in environments like that, having grown up in California, and having *partaketh of such activities once upon a not that long ago. I hoofed around praying in my mind for all the people I passed and seeing God’s love upon them, deeply, truly, thoroughly.
Around 2:00, I saw a couple of underage kids get kicked out for being wasted. BUT WHEN IT RAINS IT POURS BBY. Next, I saw a young girl secluded in a little tent and puking on herself with eyes half closed. My partner and I introduced ourselves, brought her some water, and sat with her a few minutes. Eventually one of her girlfriends came and took over, and they headed toward the tent where our organization was posted up with coolers and seats and cover from the sun and friendly, forgiving faces. Soon after, I got sent into “the pit” where hot bodies were all conglomerated, and congealed to the very front of the stage blocks. We walked up and down with water cups, doing our best to get one into every hand that opened for it. IT WAS SO HOT IN THERE, I DON’T KNOW HOW PEOPLE WERE VOLUNTARILY HOLDING ON!
**Low key, really fun getting to walk through that restricted access area ! ! i don’t know you guys, I just think you should try it sometime!
The organization first got started BECUZ JESUS, next got invited because candy, which is part of their trademark! They carry around this famous Australian candy and share it with people. Helps build street cred for later when people are barfing and we’re like: “hey, I passed you a lolly earlier” and they’re like: “Bllaarrfffff, oh yeah, pls help.” And we’re like, “I would love to, let me hold your hair back.”
So I did of couple of laps with an open bag and a pal, laughing and giving people some sugar and being goofy. A lot of people actually knew the organization and were thanking us for things we’d never done…”Thank you guys for saving my daughter in 2017 from drowning.” “Thank you for volunteering, you guys took me to the hospital one year.” “Thank you for taking care of my friend last year.” …What if people thought of Christians this way? We were meant to be the Salt of the earth, A lamp on a hill, Children of the Light, but sometimes I see us stamping on God’s creation, and preaching AT people instead of meeting them where they’re at like God does for us. God, restore us! Make us a people that love people the way YOU love them!!
BUT I DIGRESS: We were getting our fair share of high fives and suspicious stares, and of course you’re gonna have a little crowd of people whose feathers are ruffled at your “goody two-shoes, nice to be nice” thing that you’ve got going on, but I’ll take all that AND MORE to be able to enter in and love people who need love and serve people who need serving. YOU AIN’T SCARIN ME!!! I have a B U D D Y!! (JESUS) And another Buddy (Holy Spirit) and one more (God the Father, do you even know who my Dad is BRAH??) And one more than that even, her name is Alissa, she’s pretty tight too!!
Also: Amazing how much authority matching shirts will give you in a public place, I don’t know you guys, had a lot of people deferring our knowledge and wisdom on a variety of topics all because of our matching shirts 🙂
We patrol the inside of the events, but we also patrol the outside. Drunk people like to wander to where it’s dark and quiet for their rests and ralphs, so we look for those places to offer a hand. My partner and I found a couple of those sneaky snakes and offered water. We talked, we encouraged them, we helped their friends calm down, and we kept walking when it was time. Walked some people to their cars. Consoled some people who got kicked out.
Let me tell you, the space just outside the gates was an event unto itself. I prayed for this guy who was stomping around without his shirt off and yelling obscenities at the top of his lungs at the security guards to have peace, and guess what? He stopped yelling after that! How cool is God?? I didn’t even lay hands!!
We did that for a while, but then things started picking up inside, and we were asked to return. Back on the inside, it was more of the same, people trying to fill up on what doesn’t offer life, this was about the time that things started to feel a little hard for me. So many friends leaving friends behind because they were impatient and didn’t want to deal with their drunkenness. So many guys who were over 18 approaching young girls with drugs and propositions. So many young women putting themselves in really dangerous positions. So much brokenness. It was hard to watch and only be able to intervene so much, but we did what we could.
Several of the people on my squad were feeling the weight and grieved for the lives they’d lived before Jesus transformed their hearts. They interceded for true freedom that doesn’t lead us into compulsively hurtling towards numbing and escape, dulling our identity, screaming lies about our worth, leading us into danger and death, but the kind of F R E E D O M that we’re all seeking that restores us to ourselves, to the people around us, and to God. That pulls together all the gifts, and all the life, and all the love in us and allows it all to be fully utilized. The kind of freedom that willingly sacrifices for our friends, and for strangers, that beats it’s breast and says I WILL CHOOSE LOVE IN EVERY CIRCUMSTANCE! No compulsion, no trap, no one way out, but complete and total FREEDOM!!! Taste and See that He is Good!!!! I hugged those heavy hearted and asked God to stir more compassion in me. And I listened. Sometimes, that’s all we need.
At the end of the night, after my last car escort, I came back into the field where the event had been, grass trampled and muddy, lights still strung, dimly flickering, just as exhausted as I was, bits of trash here and there, crumpled and lonely. And I saw a friend, sitting there, two people around her comforting, and one guarding. I passed by at first, but felt a distinct tug, so I turned on my heel and went straight for her, praying, and then just holding on. Just holding on. Boogers that weren’t mine down my shirt, tears falling on my shoulder and chest, body shaking in my arms. And I just held on. Singing softly and praying over her.
It was a sweet end to the night, getting to love a friend as they loved a friend. Because somebody that they love deeply and hold so dear has been consumed by addiction, just like lots of people you know too, just like lots of people I know. Getting to sit together, cry together, mourn together, move on together, step forward together.
When we got back to the place we were staying I grabbed the guitar and my shower things and went to the green room it was located in. There was a line: WHICH I WAS PREPARED FOR, and I worshiped. I worshiped God and allowed Him to refill me. I asked Him to refill the people around me that had poured themselves out. To refill the people from the event that had been poured out. And I felt heaviness leave, my more painful memories of the day softened, the disappointments and failures growing strangely dim, in the light of His Glory and Grace. What a Good Father.
The next morning we found ourselves at a church that had just passed out 5,500 flyers inviting people to come and be loved. 5,500 people had attended the music event the day before. Two separate occasions, but try to tell me that God isn’t precise, persistent, and pursuing His people??? Like, COME ON!!!!
“Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God, believe also in me. My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. You know the way to the place where I am going.” John 14:1-4
” Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.” John 14:27
Read em and weep baby, those are CAPITAL R E D WORDS! Outta the mouth of the King HIMSELF!!
Peace be with you, do not be afraid, he is with you, and preparing where you’ll go if you’ll let him.
All our Love,
Ari
