The Salvage Yard

Simon

“Uh, Hey my name's Simon. I'm new here at The Salvage Yard.”

“Hey Allie, why am I doin this again?”

“Just introduce yourself.”

“What do you mean, introduce myself?”

“Tell them who you are, so that people know more about you. And tell them about how much Jesus loves us. Got it?”

“Got it. Thanks Allie. . . . Oh right, she told me that already.”

“Ok lets see. I'm from Southie, that's what we call Southtown. I guess I ought to start a few years back.  Things were kind of rough in the last few years of elementary school and junior high school.  I never did understand it. I just wanted to do my own thing.  Cutter, Tom and I used to hang together, we were buddies.  Kinda the family we never felt we had. Well when some of the older guys asked us to hang out with them, so we went along.  After all it was cool to hang out with the older kids.  At first, we just smoked cigarettes, but it wasn't long before we were smokin weed and hangin out in the hood.”

“When we were at school, we would go into the can, and light up a cigarette. Tom and I were lucky, we always just seemed to have a knack for gettin out before trouble started. Except for the one time that we got caught and suspended for a week from school.”

“In fact it was then that I met Allie.  You see Tom was one of my best friends along with Cutter. When Tom started datin Allie, well I got to know her too.  She was a cute cat even back then.”

“Hey Simon, I thought you were goin to tell them about yourself not me, besides which you know you had a crush on me.”

“Yeah you're right, you did tell me that but I thought I would let the people know how we met.  And you have always said I had a big crush on you. In your dreams maybe.”

“Sir, Yes Sir! ! Lets just get back to tellin them about how you met Jesus.”

“Just like a woman, bossy. Stop starin at me like that.”

“Like I said, Sir, Yes Sir!!”

“Well ok back to my story.  Sometimes, I wonder how I got all the way through high school and even went to college for a while.  I spent a lot of time with the gang but Mom kept tellin me to finish school and go to college. All threw high school and college, Allie's and my paths kept crossin.  First Allie was Tom's girlfriend and then we both worked at Doug's Pizza Parlor together. Allie used to help serve the pizza and occasionally make the pizza's.  I mostly delivered the pizzas. Occasionally, I would take phone orders and mess one up so that I could have some pizza. They sure were good!”
 
“Well as I spent more and more time with the gang, I started doin more and more drugs.  It was a tough keepin everything together. One day we were not even doin the hard stuff, just smokin a joint, with Cutter, when we heard sirens blaring.  Cutter and I just ran for all we were worth.  Cutter was quicker and luckier than I was.  It didn't help that I was a little overweight.  I got charged with possession and taken to jail.  Funny we used to call the high school prison, and the principal the warden. A real jail just wasn't the same. I was put in a cell to wait for my trial.  I had to sit in that jail for three months.  One day when I was in Jail, I saw Allie come in.  I could not believe my eyes; what was she doin here?  I found out later that she was there to talk to and encourage the female prisoners.”

“As it turned out she was a part of a prison ministry with Pastor Rick. Pastor Rick gave me a bible and would speak with me every Thursday when they came in. I hated prison, I felt so lonely like nobody really cared. I kept thinkin about my problems.  In jail everybody was so tough and nobody cared about anyone but themselves. I used to look forward to talkin to Pastor Rick. Somehow he just seemed to care.” 

“Somethin must have happened because I was sure I was goin to jail for a long time.  I was really scared, I did not want to stay in jail. When I stepped before the judge, he asked me some questions, and said somethin about needin to straighten out my life; how the prisons were crowded; how he would accept time already served; probation; a $1,000 fine; and community service.  I felt so lucky not to be goin to prison, that everything else was just sort of a blur.”

“I wasn't real sure about all of this. When I got out I tried to look up Cutter to see if he could help me.  I know, they told me not to hang around with any criminals that I would be breakin my probation.  I could not help myself.  Well when I tried to find Cutter in the normal places, I could not find him.  Finally I asked a few people and found out Cutter had gotten arrested a few days after I did.  What I didn't know was that he had been stealin things and the Police thought he was also dealing drugs. They were after him when they got me.  As far as I know, he is still in jail.”

“Well when I talked to my parole officer, he told me I would have to do 200 hours of community service.  I could not believe it.  They told me to report to The Salvage Yard.  When I got there, I was asked to help unload the trucks when they arrived.  It sure was BORING, but it wasn't hard work.  One day I was sittin on a bag of rice at the loadin dock when Allie came out of one of the back rooms.  She seemed surprised to see me.  Almost as surprised as I was to see her.  Somehow I was glad to see her.  A familiar face and all.  Stop smilin Allie!”

“I wasn't smilin.”

“Sure you were a Cheshire cat grin.”

“Simon I think those drugs got to your vision.”

“Yeah she still thinks I got a crush on her.”

“Stop it. Get back to your story.”

“Well she sat down beside me and told me how she does volunteer work at The Salvage Yard. We talked a little bit and found that she would be there quite a bit when I was there. She asked me if I had kept the Bible when I was in prison.  I told her no that I had left it there for others.”

“On the very next time I came to The Salvage Yard, I was workin in the back, and Allie came up to me.  The first thing she did was hand me a Bible.  A Bible! What use did I have for a Bible? We started talkin mostly about how I had landed in jail.”

“Then Allie looked me straight in the eyes and said just two words, 'Got Jesus?'”

“It was so off the subject that at first I didn't know what she meant.  I just smiled and kept on talkin. But Allie wasn't goin to let me off the hook that easy.”

“She butted in and said, 'I'm not jokin Simon, I WANT TO KNOW!'”

“I said, 'Know what?'”

“She said, 'IF YOU GOT Jesus?'”

“I asked her if she meant like was I a Christian.”

“She told me, 'Yes'.”

“I told her, 'No.'”

“She then asked me if I wanted to know more. Since she had been a friend for so long, somehow I knew that I should at least listen to her so I told her yes. She began tellin me how much God and Jesus loved me and how God desired to have a personal relationship with me.  I thought about that for a while, and began to wonder what it would be like to have a personal relationship with God.  Allie assured me that she had a personal relationship with God.  She told me it was one in which not only she talked to God but one in which God talked to her. That got me thinkin.”

“For two days, I thought about about it, I couldn't get those words out of my mind.  God wanted to have a personal relationship with me.  God wanted to. . . . God wanted to. . . . GOD WANTED TO. . . GOD WANTED TO. . . . I just couldn't get away from that thought.  As I went to The Salvage Yard two days later I went hopin Allie was there.  Sure enough, she was there.”

“She asked me if I had been thinkin about what we had said.”
 
“I told her yes and that I could not stop thinkin about it.  She asked me if I had read the Bible.  I told her not the whole thing, and then admitted that I did not know where to start.  She then asked me if I wanted to know more?”

“I told her yes that I would.  So she took out a copy of her Bible and began
to read passages and explain them about our need for God, God's plan and most of all how God had sent his son to die for our sins.  And she also showed me how God wants to continue to change our lives so that Christ can live in us.”

“As she read and talked, I became more and more convinced I wanted what she had.  Allie talked about some of the things God was doin in her life and I became more and more convinced that I wanted to know God too.  Then she asked me if I would like to know Jesus too?”

“I told her yes I would. She got a big grin on her face, kind of like the one she has now.”

“Stop it Simon.”

“Do you want me to stop tellin my story. Ok I will leave.”

“NO SIMON. Stop picking on me and tell them what happened.”

“Ok.”

“Now who has a Grin on their face.  Are you grinnin Simon because you got my goat or because of what Jesus did for you.”

“Oh of course because of what Jesus has done for me. Sir, Yes Sir.”

“Stop MAKIN fun of me.”

“Like I said Sir, Yes Sir. You see Allie when Allie was being brought up, her Dad was in the Army, and well she responds like that sometimes.”

“Come on Simon.”

“OK!!, Well we stood there, right in the middle of the loading dock for ten minutes, prayin and cryin.  OK just for Allie we were PRAYING and CRYING. People would walk by and look, we did not care.  Allie gave me a big hug and I felt much better, somehow I felt a peace come over me that I had never felt before.”

“When we were through, Allie told me she and some of her friends at The Salvage Yard had been trying to help raise some money for me to help me out to pay my fine. She told me they had collected $563 that she would take to the county court house which could be used to help pay my fine.”

“Somehow when I went home that night, I had such a peace that I never felt before.  I began to realize that God really cares about me.  For the first time in my life I felt at home and I felt not only did God love me, but Allie and the guys at The Salvage Yard really cared.”

“During these last several months I can see God has begun to change me.  I know that God wants to do more.  Each day, I can sense his presence and have realized that when Allie said God wants a personal relationship with me, I too am beginnin to hear God and see him at work as he tries to change my life.”
 

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