Fresno, CA - If We Could Look With the Eyes of Jesus

I imagine that if you pictured "homelessness" in your mind's eye,  Fresno would likely live up to that picture. Complete with grocery carts and cardboard signs stating "will work for food," Fresno's homeless is a picture of America's homeless.  So many stories of poor childhoods, abuse, neglect, and inevitable drug and alcohol abuse.  But if we could look with the eyes of Jesus, past the shell that we see, into the hearts of the people living on the street, I believe we would treat homeless people so differently.

We arrived in Fresno very late at night.  The next morning we went out on the street to find someone to talk to and ran across a guy named Marcos. We still had oranges left over so we asked if he wanted oranges and a bottle of water.  He just looked scared and so lost.  He’d been living on the street, had no money and was trying to get to his mom’s.  I asked if he was a Christian and he said no, he was really trying, but he knew who Christ was.  

He’d been out of jail for about 3 months and couldn’t find work. I asked why he’d been in jail and he responded he’d tried to choke  his girlfriend in a rage, (said he had anger issues).  I asked why he was so angry, and he said he’d been on Meth for 6 years and was having a hard time getting off of it. When I asked if I could pray for him, his prayers were for his family; his dad had cancer, his mom was a bad diabetic, and his brother has a very fragile bone disease.  He said “I’m the healthy one, and I’m a screw up.”  

He asked me to pray for guidance for him to find the right path and get off drugs.  And then he started crying.  I continued to talk to him about his walk with the Lord and gave him a Bible.  I asked him to please try to find a program to get into and stay at to find that guidance and right path we’d prayed for.  We hugged each other goodbye, and he hugged me so hard. I felt like a lifeline for him.  It was hard to leave him there. But the Lord had work for us to do at the Mission. 

Fresno is a city that tries to keep all their homeless in a concentrated area, so all the streets around the mission were lined up like Skid Row. Tent camps everywhere, like the one pictured here. When we approached the mission for the first time, we stopped by the Poverello House which was next door to the mission. I was so excited because I saw two fenced in lots with little sheds like I used to live in.  Each was housing for two people to share for as long as they wanted to be there.  

Funny that I would find comfort in that memory and a sense of community with the people who lived there.

I have so many stories I could share with you about our time in Fresno; about the mission, the house next to the mission, the homeless we met, but I'll save those stories for the book when it comes out. Right now, I want to share the story of Michael Hamilton with you.

Michael is in his final stages of his 18 month program at the Rescue Mission for drug and alcohol rehabilitation, and is on staff as the Community Care Provider at the mission.  As for how he got there, well, that's a long story.  Michael had had a good career, played hockey, had a family, he'd had a good life. But in 2000, in New Orleans, his daughter developed pneumonia, had an asthma attack, and died.  A chaplain there told him that his daughter was in a better place and that it was 'just her time.'  Michael said, "That might have been true, but not what you should say to a grieving father. I was angry at that Chaplain, and even more angry with God.  My daughter was 8 years old.  It angered me so I said a few choice words to the Chaplain and a few choice words to God.  I left God out of my life from that point forward from 2000 until now. “

But Michael's tragic story doesn't end there.  In fact, it doesn't even begin there.  In 1981, Michael's father murdered his mother, who was 7.5 months pregnant at the time. He was sentenced to death, and served 30 years of his sentence, when his sentence was overturned.  Michael returned to Fresno to take part in the legal battle there.

I asked him, "Once you got to Fresno, what happened?"  The short answer is he was down on his luck, no job, no food, no place to live, and he turned to crime and got caught.  Michael said, "Being in jail for me was a new low.  I had literally lost everything. Once I was released, I had nowhere to go, nowhere to live, so the state considered me homeless and sent me here, to the mission, to go through a drug and alcohol rehabilitation program."

Here was a man, desperately alone in the world.  His daughter had died, his father had killed his mother, he'd lost his job, his freedom, everything.  I couldn't help but ask, "What was the turning point for you, Michael?"

Michael said, “When I came here to the mission, no one was on my side, no one to turn to, no family, the grandparents that raised me turned their back on me, my sister tuned her back on me, and I had nowhere else to turn. Then I realized that God never turned His back on me, I had turned my back on Him.  Even after all these years He had accepted me back and that was refreshing to me.”

Almost 18 months later, and near the end of his state ordered program, Michael was offered a job by the mission.  “I work with the homeless that come in off the street to transition back into society.  It’s a 30 day transitional program.  We offer them the help they need.  Help them find a job, a place to sleep, food, clothing, anything they need to get back into society.  We also help people with their medical needs that have nowhere else to go.  Again food, shelter, providing anything else they need.  I also do overnights, working security to be sure everybody at the mission is OK and that the people on the streets around us are OK,“  Michael responded.

I've said this so many times, but it bears repeating.  We cannot lump or categorize the homeless into one group.  These are people, most of whom have incredibly tragic stories and difficult lives. Granted, some of their stories are of their own doing, but regardless, they are people, human beings, and God loves them just as passionately as He loves you and I.  And He calls us to love them too, in a real and tangible way.

The people that we encounter who work in these missions, many of them are former homeless people whose lives have been changed because someone took the time to care for them, love them, and tell them about Jesus.  That's why I'm out here on the road.  I've been homeless.  I understand their loneliness, their despair, their need to be loved by a Savior and by others.  I cannot picture doing anything else with my life.

Sammie