Seattle, Washington — Evangelists who visited the city of Seattle last night report that men are now begging on the streets for money to buy drugs since marijuana use has been legalized in the state.

Don Karns and Shawn Holes are currently conducting a tour of the West Coast, and stopped in Seattle Saturday night to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ on the streets near the popular Pike’s Market. Even though they have been to the city on several occasions, they stated that this year’s visit was unlike any other.

“I was really shocked,” Karns told Christian News Network. “I was grieved at the way the city has fallen since the last time I was here. … There were about four to five men with these cardboard signs — homemade signs — talking about their need for marijuana. … I was grieved that things had come to that place where grown men are holding signs obviously begging for marijuana.”

He shared a story of one man that broke his heart.

“We saw one young man that was sitting there. He claimed his wife was pregnant,” Karns explained. “He showed concern for his wife because she was with child, [but] then he stood up at one point and held up a sign that said, ‘Want Money for Weed.'”

“[I just saw] people as being reduced to not seeing anything as important other than to just get their pleasure from pot smoking,” he lamented.

Holes said that one man that was smoking marijuana purposefully targeted him with fumes as he preached.

“[There was this] one guy who was blowing his smoke continually in my face, and I was asking him to stop and he wouldn’t,” he recalled. “He just kept doing it over and over and over right up against my face.”

One man approached Karns and Holes who works for a ministry that feeds the poor, and informed them that in the city, it is illegal to feed the homeless. He gave the men burritos and said they could share them with others if they stated they were hungry.

Karns said he was saddened that it was legal to smoke pot in the city, but illegal to help feed the homeless.

“[W]e see a city that would … make it easier for people to get marijuana … but at the same time, pass a law that would say that it would be illegal to feed a hungry man real food.”

Holes, who was preaching across the street from a crowd of 200 people that were waiting in line to enter a movie theater, said that the rejection of God on the streets was the greatest he had witnessed over the five years that he has been ministering in the city.

“There was such a hatred for the Gospel,” he explained. “There was such anger toward the name of Jesus Christ. We were proclaiming the Good News, and there was such a resistance, and it was so disturbing. All we were trying to do was bring the Good News to the city of Seattle, and all we were getting was rejection, and worse than ever. [It was] just a displayed rebellion against God.”

Karns stated that he believes the city will continue to deteriorate unless God breaks the hearts of the people.

“I don’t see a turn around,” he said. “I would think it is going to continue to digress and continue to get worse next year. I don’t expect to see five people there begging for marijuana [next year]; I expect to see 25 people begging — 25 grown adults declaring their want and their desire for more marijuana.”

“My hope is that through preaching [lives will change]. And maybe some other people would come out and share the Gospel with the people,” Karns said. “Because until God changes the heart, I just see the city continuing to sink into depravity.”

Holes agreed. He spoke at an area church today about his heart for the city.

“My prayer for Seattle — and I told the church this — is that some of the young people in the church would hear the call to go out and share the Gospel, that they would respond to the Great Commission of ‘Go,'” Holes said. “My prayer for Seattle is that somebody will go and tell them the good news of Jesus Christ.”

“We’re supposed to love our neighbor as ourselves,” he concluded, his voice breaking as he fought tears. “I’m just hoping that the Christians in the world will start realizing that — that we need to love our neighbors enough to go tell them the good news about Jesus Christ.”

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