Thursday, July 19, 2007

Ohio Trip Again: Day 3


Well it was the big day M:Y fest was here and I was kinda nervous , especially when lionheart told me I'd be doing some public speaking but not to prepair for it. I was part of a few skits and just told a little bit about myself and what I do. I started painting a 4x8 board some kids wanted their t-shirts painted and one guy brought over his truck to paint outta nowhere so I painted the truck. He said he was going to take it to the rodeo and show it off. The first plywood piece was raffled off to a kid who gave it to a youth centre. I finished the second painting late and after the last band played on stage at the festival Lionheart got up in front of the crowd and said he was going to raffle off the last painting. He called me up to the stage and said something like...

"we're not in the habit of glorifying anyone of us but let me tell you about this guy battle. He's been painting since 1:00 and when a truck showed up he said let's paint that too and he kept painting until 11:00. His car broke down before he came here but he said 'I still wanna come out and support M:Y fest' so he took a 12 hour bus ride to get here. You Christians wanna learn about perseverance take a lesson from Battle... and ain't nobody pay his way and he's trusting God to get him back home. We want you to know something... No matter what you've done or what you've been through Jesus is waiting to hear from you."

And he went on to give an impassioned short message of the redemptive power of Jesus and Jesus' ability to turn a life around. I stepped off the stage with a slight feeling of embarrassment from being haled as an example of perseverance. When some guy came up to me and gave me a handshake with some bills in it. Embarrassed I reluctantly accepted it and realized Lionheart's "and ain't nobody pay his way" comment prompted this generosity. Fearing more awkward exchanges I made a bee line towards the truck where I planned to wait out the rest of the night. Then I hear a woman shouting "Battle!" but I ignored it until she was so close and so loud that I couldn't pretend I didn't hear her and another awkward exchange occurs. The second board that I painted ironically went to a fellow graffiti artist named "Windex" I talked with him for a long while about God, Graffiti and the law. Lionheart tracked me down and delivered a fist full of donations given to him on my behalf and I told him I didn't like accepting money. He told me that I better get used to it, you didn't ask for anything and these people are getting blessed by the act of giving and you are getting blessed by the act of receiving and it just covered the cost of my bus tickets.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

That's awesome man...when you give you will recieve...I'm very happy for you.