Dave Walters

     The day is Friday December 31st, and I am currently on an airplane traveling to Atlanta. This trip has been planned for months now, I am going to the Passion Conference. Basically 20,000 college aged Christians are all gathering in one place. God is going to bring down the house... He is going to move us, break us, and point us in new and wonderful directions. I am sure He will be working enormously at this conference... And I am STOKED to experience it all. My favorite author will be speaking as well: Francis Chan. He wrote the book Crazy Love. 

Anyways, here I am.... Sitting in DIA waiting for my flight to quit getting delayed. I am sitting around doing a Bible study with Dan wondering about all of the great things God is going to do on this trip. And then God started doing amazing things before I even got on the plane to Atlanta. I met an incredible person... His name is Dave Walters.

He first approached us to ask to use one of our cell phones. I let him barrow my iPhone. I am very protective of my phone, and so why I handed it over to a complete stranger is completely beyond me... But it worked out to my advantage. He talked for a few minutes with his mom, and then proceeded to take off further down the terminal

About 20 minutes later he came back and handed us a book. He was like, “Here you go, just finished it.” And so to avoid more awkwardness we asked what it was about. He said it was about some kid and a voyage he took that strengthened his faith. My first thought was, “Faith in what?” Then, I noticed he was carrying a Bible. Conversation proceeded, and we asked where he was going (he sat down next to us and so we had to talk to him lol). He said, “I am going to Portland, Oregon. I am going to start a church!”

Okay, wait.... What?? He was going to start a church, just flying out there... Now he had my attention... The three of us talked for about an hour, I want to share his story with you... I am going purely off of memory here and I am typing as fast as I can so I don’t forget any details, so please bare with me... 

Dave’s father died when he was in high school. At this point his mother gave him two choices (I am assuming because this bankrupted the family): Go to Military School, or go move to his relative’s (I think his aunt) house in Oregon. He chose the “move to Oregon” route. Dave worked on a farm there. Dave was raised an Atheist, and came to a very Christian town with a very Christian family to live. This obviously wasn’t going to go over well... He was, very shortly after arriving, invited to a medium sized bible study at someone’s house. He said that when he got there the first thing they did was pray. Some lady said something along the lines of, “God thank you for Dave. I know that you have brought him here for a reason. We thank you that he could be with us tonight.”

Later on that night the group proceeded to pray again, and in order to just fit in (he didn’t know what he was doing) Dave bowed his head and closed his eyes. These are Dave’s exact words: “I didn’t know what I was doing, I didn’t know what they said, but when I closed my eyes I just felt like I was floating. I felt like there was someone out there that made himself known to me. I was scared, I didn’t know what to think or what was going on. But I was literally floating, some creator made himself known to me that day. It sounds weird, and I can’t describe it. But I knew I was missing something...”

It’s funny that just before I met him I finished writing about how everyone has their own individual stories and reasons to believe in God. His story sounds even more far fetched than when I tell people that I felt God reach into me and take away my pride. But God works in the weirdest ways, and because of our different life experiences we come to know God. And Dave would start to do that from this point after... He would start to know and find God in an amazing way

Dave was very educated when it came to the Bible and Christianity. He had basically been going around and seeing how different churches were doing things so that he could get an idea of how he wanted to run his church. He routinely repeated long bible verses word for word. He even went into Bible history, talking about all of the different translations of different stories of the Bible. Did you know that the Book of Matthew wasn’t originally written in Greek? I didn’t... He just knew SO much about Christianity... He told us random facts like that whenever the opportunity presented itself. The bottom line is this, I would have assumed he had gone to seminary school or something... But the story gets better.

He didn’t really explain how he came to such circumstances, but Dave was homeless until very recently. He spent 3 years on and off living on the streets of Portland. He said he was the only one amongst all of the Homeless people he had met that didn’t ever commit or crime or do some jail time. And he came out of being homeless in an even more amazing way... He used the financial aid offered through Portland Community College. That’s right, Dave went to college as a homeless person. And he used the 500 or so dollars extra  from his aid each semester to slowly get himself off of the streets... Combined with the shelter of a local church and donated home (the homeless house he lived in was donated by Christian singer/songwriter Dan York) Dave got out of his “mess”. 

Now he makes enough money to rent a place with a friend, he makes money by taking apart trashed electronics and selling the parts to people in other countries that actually attempt to repair their equipment (because in America we throw thing away when they stop working, and in other poorer countries our old electronics are ground breaking and brand new to them)... He didn’t really mention any other jobs, I don’t think he had any. And how he got enough money to travel was beyond me. He lived off of food stamps... But some how, I ran into him in DIA right as he was heading back home. 

Now for the best part, Dave was going to start a church for homeless people. He was going to have his church under the Burnside Bridge. This is church like Jesus intended, not a huge building but just a gathering of people. It was going to be an independent Protestant Church: “Truth instead of Tradition” was the motto. He was starting the church with his girlfriend, and it was going to have a sermon and then be an art school after the message. Basically homeless people could come hear God’s work and then make art under the instruction of Dave’s (extremely artistically gifted) girl friend. And then the art work they would keep and sell to companies and individuals in Portland with all of the proceeds going towards the church. 

Dave professed his passion for the homeless to us, he truly had a heart after God and a desire to help people. He said you wouldn’t believe how many homeless people are strong followers of Christ. And than he said this, “I don’t know where this church thing will go, I don’t know if it will work, it may ruin me. It may take all of my resources and leave me back on the streets. But I don’t care, I am not scared. I can’t live in fear, it will be worth it to try this... Even if I end up back on the streets, I am not scared.”

I was left speechless by this man. I got his house number, and I plan on staying in touch with him, I plan on praying for his work out in Portland. He inspired me in a million different ways... There was so much more that was said in our conversation, and I am still digesting a lot of it. But we should all be praying for him... We should all be encouraged and model our lives after such selflessness... God bless you Dave...... I will be praying for you constantly... 

God has laid so much on my heart already in these last few hours... And I am not even at this conference yet.... How great is our God? Please pray for me and the group of Kids I am with. Pray that God will do great work in our lives this weekend....... To God be all of the glory!