The world has gone mad without God. Many young people are lost these days. They are hooked on violent video games, porn, and drugs. Some have even lost all hope and have committed suicide. Today, they need Christ more than ever.
Let me tell you about Josh. I stopped at a Race Track gas station for gasoline and a cup of good cappuccino coffee. Upon entering, I turned left in search of my coffee, and there at a long table in front of the big plate glass windows sat a young man charging his severely screen-cracked cell phone – which was given to him – at an electrical outlet. The young man looked to be in his late teens. He looked up at me with puppy dog eyes, and I asked if he had eaten breakfast. “I don’t have no money” he replied with a forlorn look on his face.
“Here’s a ten spot; get yourself something to eat,” I said as I handed him the bill. He jumped at it with a huge smile and got up, and gave me a big hug.
“Thank you, sir; thank you very much!”
I went to get my coffee and sat at a little table in the middle of the station to enjoy it. The young man came over and sat with me with who knows what. Holding out his hand, he said, “My name is Josh.” Just then, the gas station manager came over and told Josh sternly not to be begging the customers for food. “He didn’t ask me for anything,” I replied. I’m a Bible-believing Christian, and we are commanded to love our neighbors as ourselves. Are you a Christian?” I implored.
Flustered, the manager backpedaled and said, “I yam nodding.”
I said, “Here, take my card and learn how to be saved,” and become a follower of Jesus Christ. And I’m just doing what every Christian should do, loving my neighbor as myself.
He took my card and exclaimed, “Jou arre a goot man; tanks.” Glancing at it, he shuffled away.
And so, that was my introduction to 19-year-old Josh. Josh was lean with short blond hair. (He is almost skinny from not eating regular meals.) He had been living on the streets in Naples for two months and was now sleeping behind the gas station on the ground beneath a small 10-foot tree with few branches and leaves that barely offered any cover.
I felt pity for the kid from Michigan and felt determined to help him in any way I could, especially after I learned that his father had died from a drug overdose when he was still a young kid. His mother, by then, was smoking pot each day and had a new lover every weekend. Her last lover would beat Josh and lock him in his bedroom for days at a time while he and his mother did their “thing.” His grandparents took him in for a while and began taking him to church, where he received Christ and got baptized not three months before we met.
Not having any kind of guidance in his early formative years, he became a recluse and spent many hours on a laptop playing video games and learning how to make videos himself. A highly gifted child, he also learned to play guitar and piano while visiting his grandparents when they babysat him while his mother went barhopping. They even bought him a Fender guitar and had a piano in the house for him to play on, and so he taught himself to play by ear. Despite his handicaps, Josh is very intelligent and quick to learn.
The Department of Children and Families said he could be on his own only after he was 18 years old. So, he hit the road with only the clothes on his back – hitchhiking to Florida. He was wearing the same raggedy clothes when we met. A bicycle and a broken cell phone were given to him by a young man his age that he met at a local church, yet no other adult would touch him with a ten-foot pole. He kept himself clean by using public facilities wherever he found them.
Now, for my side of the story.
I had been praying for someone to help me make a movie based on my first book, Miracles, Signs and Wonders, but since I couldn’t find a producer, I had decided to make a “preview/ trailer” made up of a montage of scenes instead – to shop the project around with. The problem was that I had forgotten how to do video editing, and now, with time running out, I would shoot the short scenes myself and was praying for a professional editor to help me out. Then, lo and behold, I met Josh (the homeless whiz kid). and we began yesterday to shoot the very first scene – music and all with his expertise. God had answered my prayer – yet again.
Because of this incredible blessing, I woke up inspired to begin putting retired professionals together with young men to mentor them, thereby salvaging young men’s lives and enhancing our own – to say nothing of pleasing God.
With nothing better to do than play golf and go to church, such retired professionals could contribute to young men’s lives by mentoring them with life skills and making them contributors to our communities, plus the kingdom of God. The requirement for such mentors is that they be “Born Again” Christians familiar with scripture.
If America is going to continue to exist until the rapture, then this may be a way for you to contribute to the kingdom of God. Yes, you too can be a mentor to such a young man like me and be a much-needed “Mentor for Christ” by contacting me at jt.filmmaker@yahoo.com for more information.
YBIC
Jim Towers
You can write me at jt.filmmaker@yahoo.com or visit me at www.dropzonedelta.com. You can also find me on my newly restructured website www.propheticsignsandwonders.com, which now features the Gospel and videos of worldwide events taking place in the present time, as well as proof of God’s existence and the reality of Biblical places, and Moses himself.