Gods' Care Van A Play in Two Acts

Act I
Scene I
IT IS A STREET SCENE ON HASTINGS IN VANCOUVER, A VERY ROUGH PART OF THE CITY. IT’S A PLACE WHERE LOST PEOPLE GATHER AND TOO OFTEN FIND REFUGE WITH THOSE WHO EXPLOIT THEM AND ENSURE THAT THEY HAVE NO ESCAPE. A WHITE VAN WITH CHRISTIAN MESSAGES WRITTEN ON ITS SIDE PANELS IS PARKED ON THE STREET.
A CHICKEN DANCER LURCHES PAST(STREET TERMINOLOGY FOR ADDICTS WHEN THEY EXHIBIT ERADIC BODY ACTIONS CAUSED BY THEIR ADDICITION).
OTHER PEOPLE EXHIBIT MANNERISMS AND WEAR CLOTHING THAT BLENDS THEM INTO THE STREET CULTURE OF THE AREA. SOME LOOK IN DISGUST AT THE VAN, SOME APPEAR TO BE WAITING FOR WHATEVER THE VAN MAY OFFER AND OTHER ARE OBLIVIOUS.
A YOUNG MAN AND WOMAN GET OUT OF THE VAN. THE MAN WEARS A TINY YALMACA ON HIS HEAD AND A STAR OF DAVID ON A CHAIN AROUND HIS NECK. THE YOUNG WOMAN HAS A RICH ARAB HERITAGE ETCHED IN HER BROWN FEATURES.
THEY COME TOGETHER AT THE BACK OF THE VAN ENGAGED IN EXPRESSIVE, ARM WAVING CONVERSATION WHICH WE CANNOT HEAR.


CRESSA: You’re a crazy man! There is ABSOLUTELY no way we get this van from Hastings Street in Vancouver to Jerusalem. No way!

DEVON: Why not? Don’t you believe the song the youth group from Maple Ridge sang at Missionfest last week? (He sings) All things are possible! All things are possible!

CRESSA: No this. (She smiles at his enthusiasm but shakes her head no)

DEVON: All things are possible! All things are possible! (He laughs and dances around Cressa with childish exuberance)

CRESSA: (She acknowledges that she knows his passion for a challenge.) Even if….What about
this mission? (waves her arm toward the van) God’s Care Van is touching many lives right here. Do we not change hopelessness to hope every day, right here?

DEVON: Hey, wasn’t this just a dream once? Remember when I drew that picture of God’s Care Van on the back of a scrap of paper I’d written a song on? Or even before that when I told you about how this old van parked down the stree from where I lived just seemed to be calling out to me and I couldn’t figure out why?

CRESSA: Hey,I know how stoked you get telling me about how one night you were laying in bed and it just came to you…this picture of Gods Care Van….a van that just parked by people and offered help, like some food, or some clothing or someone that would just listen to people who have something in their life they need to talk to about, or sharing the music of God with people that might come around the van to check it out.

DEVON: And look at us! Are there two more unlikely people to be out on the street sharing the love of Jesus? We blow the minds of most of our friends when they just think about me being raised Jewish and you growing up in an Arab Muslim home.

CRESSA: Yeah we’re the odd couple for sure. Maybe that’s why people don’t get that offended down here or at least we seem to get away with it.. They figure if we believe or if we think alike, maybe there is something to believing in God.


STREET PEOPLE BEGINNING TO GATHER AROUND THE VAN. HE REACHES INTO THE VAN AND PULLS OUT A GUITAR. SHE REACHES IN AND BRINGS OUT A BOX THAT CONTAINS BIBLES AND SHE TAKES ONE IN HER HAND AND OPENS IT.

CRESSA: In Isaiah 53 it says: "All we like sheep have gone astray. "

That means all of us.(waves her arm in a big circle and ends pointing at her own heart)

Each and every single person in this world. With no exceptions, not me, not you, not the Prime Minister, not the Pope. Each one of us needs a Saviour. Why? Well for starters that’s what it says so here in God's Word (holds the Bible up to them)

"Each of us has gone his own way."
In this line, God is telling us that we all have within us our biggest fault as a human being.

We want to do our own will over God's will. When we look around our world today the evidence is overwhelming. And not just here where it looks like we’re in hell. Money may seem like a saviour but it's not. So called successful people wear themselves out ! Yes! Wear themselves out looking for happiness, looking for peace in their heart. Believe it. They are often worse off for having made what you might think of as all the right decisions with their lives because they have nice things and live adventurous lives. Those that are not following Gods will for their lives are suffering as much as anyone standing here. In this verse of prophecy in Isaiah there is one solution to this problem.
"The Lord has laid on Him the inequity of us all."
This is a prophecy in the Bible written hundreds of years before Jesus but the Him God is foretelling Isaiah about is Jesus, His Son who will come and die in payment for every inequity, that means every sin or every shortfall we commit. The Lord has laid of Jesus the sins of all
human kind for all of time.

Devon: (Playing guitar softly in the back ground now becomes louder and begins to sing. As the song progress more people come around the van. Some sing and celebrate some stand and listen others peer from dark corners as if they don’t want to be noticed)

There will be peace when we belong to Jesus

Evil will cease when we belong to Jesus.

His arms will open and He will receive

All of His people who come to believe

And there will be peace when we belong to Jesus

Evil will cease when we belong to Jesus


That Jesus a Jew – most famous of all

Is who He said – went to the cross

And there will be peace when we belong to Jesus

Evil will cease when we belong to Jesus


Died for our sins – stands outside our door

Awaits for your call to wash sin away

There will be peace when you belong to Jesus

Evil will cease when you belong to Jesus.

When we belong to Jesus enemies will fall

When we belong to Jesus Heaven will be ours

When you belong to Jesus, Jesus belongs to you

When you belong to Jesus enemies will fall

When you belong to Jesus Heaven will be yours

When you belong to Jesus, Jesus belongs to you

Yes when you belong to Jesus, Jesus belongs to you


CRESSA: (Taking in the scene around the van) I just can’t imagine doing this in Israel. Someone would blow us up! Not to mention even being allowed in that country. Public worship is barely legal in this country.


DEVON: Hey there’s a growing movement of Jews for Jesus. Maybe God is saying to me that the timing is right for this to happen. Who better than Jesus to divert attention from all the conflict that exists there now?

CRESSA: Just because your grandmothers maiden name was Rosenberg doesn’t mean you’ll be seen as a Jew bringing news of Jesus much less the wonderful word that He really is their Messiah.

DEVON: No one can mistake a nose like this even if I don’t wear a yalmaka. Just like you…and I mean this in a beautiful way but that solid line of hair above your eyes that you call your eye brows makes you look right out of Iraq, even though you and I know its just a genetic remnant from a second cousin in your fathers lineage. We’ll fit right in, in Jerusalem.


CRESSA: I think it’s crazy talk Ted.

DEVON: (Looking skyward as if he sees what he talks.) Imagine! Gods Care Van reconnecting Jews with their true King. And Muslims drawn to us. They too can come to see that only Jesus died for sins. Think of us as world Christians. I heard someone say that not long ago.

CRESSA: This is not the 14th Century Devon. Maybe there was a time when Christians and Jews and Muslims peacefully shared Jerusalem as a holy place but a lot has happened since those times. I just don’t see it. Just look at our challenge here just reaching out to people who have lost hope and faith without any of the other baggage. I know what it means to be a Muslim. I was raised one. Believe me. I pretty much lost my family when Jesus entered my life.

DEVON: (Puts his arm softly around her shoulders) Did you see that movie (Field of Dreams with Kevin Costner? Build it and they will come. That’s what I feel inside me. I know there’s parts of my life that I’ve lost by putting my trust in Jesus. (They begin to sing)

I never knew what you could do

Until I loved you Lord, until I loved you Lord

I never knew that you loved me Lord

No matter how much I failed, no matter how much I failed.

I opened my heart and let Your love in

Life began in the way you provide

I gave you my life for what Jesus gave me

Suddenly I felt so alive, so alive, so alive, so alive

What a feeling to know God loves me

What a great joy to serve Him

To hold Him high, oh most high

Hold hands high…to Him

(repeat song and at end repeat last two lines twice
more)

A MYSTICAL NARRATOR APPEARS AS THE STREET SCENE FADES TO BLACK. A SLIDE COLLAGE BEGINS ON SEVERAL SCREENS AT DIFFERENT ANGLES. THE PICTURES WILL RELATE TO THE NARRATORS STORY.

NARRATOR: There are some things about Jews that you don’t hear much. You don’t hear much that there are Jews for Jesus. There’s even organizations like Jews For
Jesus. Jesus said to the Jews in Matthew 23:
"You shall see me no more ‘til you say blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord. "

Defining moments of prophecy have shaped Jewish recognition that Jesus is who He said He was. So prophetical was the creation of Israel in December,1948. So overwhelming, the victory of Israel in the Six Day War in 1967.  Jerusalem is the chosen place. Jews are Gods’ chosen
people. Remember the milkman in Fiddler on the Roof when he said, ‘maybe You could choose someone else for a change’. There is such truth for Jews but for now Jerusalem continues to attract much world attention.
God is clearly saying that this is the place where His plan for His people will be executed. If Jews and their nation had been wiped out, the prophecies in the Bible would carry no weight. Their exile…. their extinction through the holocaust would have worked. Is their another such example of people streaming back to a homeland from which they were exiled?
God keeps his promises. He promised Abraham to make his name great. Look at Judaism. Look at Christianity. Look at Islam and how it has grown and Mohammed came along several centuries after Jesus. The truth is that all these are are children of Abraham. All honour the name of Abraham. In the New World of western civilization, Scripture served as the foundation for ethics and jurisprudence. The way may be shown from this side of the planet. Maybe we are the bystander with the missing piece of the puzzle for Gods’ plan. What we see in the world today are great chasms of separation between these followers. And in the human
capability for wisdom it might seem incomprehensible that they could come together. And there is one monumental stumbling block. Grace and mercy are the only weapons that bind these
children together. And the Bible tells us Grace and Mercy can only be experienced through Jesus Christ. This is a simple truth lost in the complexity of human free will. The miracle of truth that is being recognized by Jews accepting Jesus as their Saviour! There is still much to be done. Things are not nearly as they should be. The Apostle Paul referred to ‘partial blindness in Romans 11:25. The truth now is that Israel and Islamic nations do not recognize Jesus for who He is even though it can be said that in these nations they 'severely' persecute those who proclaim Him. In Ecclesiastes it says: God has firmly lodged eternity in our hearts. We cannot help that we sense that there is something more to our lives than this brief snapshot of a lifetime within a physical body that we have only for use this on earth. Believing in and serving Jesus Christ means more than an assurance of our place in heaven. It means believing that there is work for us to do before He returns.


NARRATOR EXITS.


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