Street Stories - A Ringside Seat To Over 4 Decades Of Taking Jesus To The Streets Of The World

Pastors Walt and JoAnn, and the conference attendees, laid hands-on Dot and me and prayed for us, as they knew I would be heading to New York City to minister as soon as commercial flights resumed. By the time Dot and I finished our ministry schedule in Texas, airline flights had resumed, and we flew back home to Los Angeles. One of the first things I did when I got home was to call Pastors Rick and Arlene Del Rio who were the Founding Pastors of Abounding Grace Church in the Lower East Side of New York City. For many years, Pastors Rick and Arlene, along with their three amazing sons, Jeremy, Jonathan and Jamie, had pioneered a powerful outreach and street ministry, Abounding Grace, and had been such a powerful and faithful presence in the Lower East Side for Jesus. Their slogan and mission scripture, found in Romans 5:20, was so appropriate for them; “ Where sin abounds, grace does much more abound.” Sin certainly abounded on the streets of New York City, but members of Abounding Grace Church were always faithful to bring God’s grace to the hurting and broken on the streets. For many years, Abounding Grace hosted an annual 7-day frontline street outreach all throughout New York City called, Jesus Loves You, New York. This incredible outreach was held in July each year. The very first year of Jesus Loves You, New York, I participated, I had never been to New York City. All of us ministering at the outreach stayed in the dorms at Wagner College in Staten Island, New York.

One night I was out on the balcony of the high rise building and, for the first time in my life, I could look

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