By MITCH Graves

14⎪January 2021⎪shop . cmausa . org

morning I hopped on my motorcycle and headed out to meet a friend for breakfast . Afterward , I stopped by the church to pick up the mail . The property behind the church was recently purchased and the rock quarry was being cleared out by heavy equipment . Out of curiosity , I walked back there to look at what they were doing . Before the cleanup activity , the quarry was a popular place for the homeless to camp out for the night .

Walking back across the back lot , I noticed a man walking towards me with a backpack . I asked him where he was headed and he confessed that he didn ' t really know . He said he was checking out the area . Knowing he was scouting out a place for later tonight , I explained that it is a dead end back there and there is nothing back that way for him .

He noticed my CMA motorcycle vest and he said he remembered me and that I bought him lunch a few weeks ago . We had an event at our church a few weeks ago with a lot of Christian Motorcyclists ( State Rally ), and some of our people bought lunch for a few of the homeless people . He said he was trying to locate the church since that day and it looks like he found it . He was wanting to reconnect with God and come to church on Sunday .

Now , when I stopped off at church , I was only going to be there for a few minutes to pick up

the mail and check out the building to make sure everything was okay . My mind was on the work I needed to get done that day . So , when this person stopped and started talking to me , I was going to let him know there wasn ' t anything back there for him and to rush him off , so I could go about my day . But when he said he wanted to reconnect with God , I heard the Lord say to me , “ Slow down , listen to what he has to say .” And that is what I did .

I won ' t tell you the whole story , but his name is Eric . Eric is struggling to stay clean , looking for work , has an injury with his bicep , and wants to reconnect with God . I asked Eric if I could place my hand on his shoulder and pray for him . His eyes opened wide and he responded with an enthusiastic “ Yes !” I went to put my hand on his shoulder and he put his hand on my back . I prayed for him , and when the prayer was finished , he thanked me with teary eyes . He went on to tell me of some of the things he wasn ' t proud of and that he needs to straighten out his life . Then he allowed me to speak into his life .

I told him about a young man who was into all kinds of things that a young man shouldn ' t be involved in . It got to the point that when he was 14 , he was sent away to a Christian boys ’ home to deal with the issues he was going through . There , the young man learned about Jesus and gave his