Week Three: We are All Called to Serve

As I’m on the street,  I see these homeless people, so many of them Christians, that have so little but are so in love with God and thankful for what they do have, some as little as a blanket for cover at night. And then we have “Christians” (I think sometimes they treat it as a club) that think going to church on Sunday and sometimes Wednesday is all there is to being a Christian.

I was one of those at one time, so I know.  I think the word “Christian” is used too freely.  I love to use the words “disciple for Christ.”  A true disciple is being a student of Jesus and follower of Him.  It’s also one who accepts and assists in spreading the doctrines of our Lord Jesus Christ.

As I think of many Christians that go to church and have it all, I wonder why some of them don’t hear the cry of their brothers and sisters unfortunate enough to be on the street. I want to say “Why don’t you come out into the streets and see what the real world is like and see what you could do to help?”  Be a doer, not a talker.  I don’t think they know how blessed they are and how their kids are raised so separated from the real world.  It breaks my heart because I see it every day.

I know that not everyone is called to work on the streets with the homeless.  We all have our calling.  But that's my point.  We all have our calling.  And some of us are not living out our calling.  We are attending church, but we aren't serving.  God created us to serve others.  He created you to serve.

Well, how's that for a sweet gentle entrance into a blog post?

I met some wonderfully, sweet people on the streets this week.  I don't have many pictures to share (it's been a trying week of technology!)  Here is a glimpse of many of their stories:

Josephine: Has been homeless off and on for 20 years.  This last time she’s been consistently homeless and on the streets due to loss of job.  She’s around 55 and has a very sweet spirit.  I asked if she kept warm at night and she said “Oh yes, I’ve been blessed with blankets.”  I gave her a Bible and toiletries, and she put them up with a bag of tortillas someone had been given her.  She’d picked up a stray puppy and was trying to take care of it until she can find it a home.  I prayed with her for healing and a job.

Sky:  A tall thin black man with vision in only one eye.  He’s been on the street a long time and is neighbors with Josephine.  He’s almost blind and not really in good health.  When I asked if he wanted prayer he said he did and said “This is how I like to do it” and knelt on the concrete.  We prayed for his health and for shelter.  He was cold and needed gloves.  I gave him mine because I didn’t have any extras, only those on my hands, so I took them off and gave them to him.  He said “I don’t want no girls gloves,” and I said they were unisex but I’d get him some pink ones if he wanted! He said “That ain’t gonna be happening.”  We laughed and he put on the black fuzzy gloves and they fit.

(Pastor Robert Davis asked Kathy to put Sky and Josephine in our prayers because Sky would often get angry about not being able to see and he’d take it out on Josephine.)

Bob was one of the first guys I spoke to.  I asked if he knew Jesus Christ was his savior.  He shrugged his shoulders and said "Nah”.  I asked if he’d like to know the Lord and he said “I think you only live once.”  I proceeded to ask him did he know, when he died, where he would go, Heaven or Hell.  His answer was “You only live once.”  I went through all the things I knew to say to him;  he was so lost, I felt sad for him.  I proceeded to try to plant a seed in him and prayed that God would help it grow, as he had no desire to think anything outside of the life on earth.  What a lost soul.

Maria:  What a beautiful young lady.  She and her friends came to eat a little too late.  (The night she came, it was 34 degrees outside.  37 people were fed that night, but a dozen or so more did not get food.)  Maria, her girlfriend, her girlfriend's two babies and two guys got there just before the food was all gone.  Brian scraped the bottom of the pot to try to see that they got something.  He warned them to come earlier as he hated to see anyone go without.  Kathy told me there was no more food and the babies didn’t get much, so I went to car and got peanut butter crackers for the kids.  We tried to get the kids to eat something.  While we were doing this I noticed Maria.  She was so beautiful, but you could tell something was wrong.  Along with her pretty face and all her body jewelry, she looked sad.  I gave her and her friend a Bible.  She held the Bible, and I knew she’d probably read it.  

I left her and walked around praying with others while she was eating.  I came back and said “Maria, what I can I pray for for you?”  She looked at me with her sad, beautiful eyes.  She said “I need prayer.  CPS took my kids.”  Because a lot of people were around us I took her by the hand to an area about 10 feet away, and I asked her to tell me her story.  She said “CPS took my 3 kids because I have problems.  I’m in the streets.”  I asked why she was in the streets and she said “drugs.”  She doesn’t have a job and can’t get off drugs.  I asked if she knew Jesus Christ as her Savior and she said she was working on it.  I asked what “working on it” meant.  She said she wasn’t sure.  I asked her if she knew if she died right then would she go to heaven or hell.  I could tell by her eyes that she didn’t know what to say, but she didn’t want to say the word hell.

I said, “Maria I’m going to pray 2 times for you.  The first prayer will be for God to open up your heart to listen to what I’m saying, and I’ll tell you about the other prayer later.”  I proceeded to pray for the Lord to open her heart to know the He loves her and to know that there is nothing that she has done that He can’t handle and that Jesus Christ died on the cross for all our sins.  I told her that I’m a sinner too, and I have to pray for forgiveness every day and she needn’t feel bad about the things she has done, and that she can get out of this.  She kept saying “Oh but the drugs, the drugs.”  I said I could pray the surrender prayer for her right then.  She was right on the edge, but I could tell she felt she wasn’t good enough.  She said she had a Bible with her kids' pictures in it.  She kept caressing the pink Bible I gave her and said “I’m going to read this one.”  She’s just not at the point of letting go, so I will continue to pray for her salvation and that of her children.  Drugs are bad, this is a perfect example of their destructive power and our powerlessness without Jesus.

People on drugs are not the only ones affected, the people around them suffer too.  Her children were taken away because of her addiction.  My marriage was taken away because of my husband’s addictions.  One addiction leads to others making it harder to recover, impossible without the Lord.

We left San Antonio with heavy hearts for all the homeless we met.  But we were joyful for all the wonderful servants that God has in place in San Antonio, Texas.  We leave here headed for El Paso.  Praying God's blessing over  all we have met.

Week Two: Two Women's Journey on the Street - Denise and Deanna's Stories

This is only our second week on the road, and already I can tell that deciding whose story to tell is going to be incredibly difficult.  We meet so many homeless people, each with their own tragic story, some still living in the misery of their lives, some content to do so, but others who are looking for the way off the streets.

We (Kathy, my faithful traveling companion and I)  have to constantly remind ourselves that our job isn't to rescue the homeless from the streets.  In truth, there is no way that we could.  Our job, the mission that we have been called by God to do, is to raise awareness for and bring hope to the homeless of this nation.

There were some great people we met this week though.  One sweet girl, I don't know her name, was cold. And because we didn't come equipped with blankets and coats (just Bibles and big hearts) I did the only thing I knew to do . . . I gave her my blanket.

She was so happy when I gave her my blanket. Her mom was overwhelmed.  It takes so little to
minister to the hearts of the homeless. Did you know that 1.3 million children are homeless in America?

I've narrowed down the stories to two I want to share with you from our time in Austin, Texas.
I met a woman named Denise, 57 years old, originally from up north, but has been in Austin for many years.  Denise was kicked out of her house by her boyfriend.  She called the cops and they wouldn’t help, couldn't help.  I don't dive too deeply into their stories.  I know that the circumstances that got her to the streets were caused from domestic abuse.  Her story is not unlike many of the women we meet.  Most escape to the streets to survive or are thrust into the streets because they have no place else to go.  25% of the nation's homeless are women and 50% of those women are on the streets because of domestic violence.

After some time on the street, Denise has now found a warm bed at the Salvation Army shelter.  We asked if she had a Bible and she said someone stole it, so we gave her one.  I asked her if she knew the Lord as her Savior. She paused and her words were “I’m working on it.”  I then asked her straight up if she wanted to commit her heart to Jesus that day and she said “Yes.”

 She was not smiling before we prayed.  I love this picture though.  It was taken after she prayed to receive Christ as her Savior, and she stayed like that the rest of the day.  Every time we saw her she was smiling big just like this.




The other story I want to share with you is Deanna's story.  Deanna is 43 years old and originally a native of Alvin, Texas.  Her homeless journey spanned 18 years of her life, starting in her late teens.

We met Deanna on our last night in Austin at Church Under the Bridge.  Deanna was homeless for 18 years by choice (her words). Her life on the street consisted of drugs, alcohol, mental instability and prostitution.  During this time she had 6 daughters, all of whom she put up for adoption.  Though Deanna is no longer on the street, her life is far from picturesque.  She lives in a trailer with a man she doesn’t love, nor does she think loves her.  But she chooses to stay for fear of being alone or worse yet, of being back on the streets.  The lure of her addiction and the life she once knew is incredibly powerful in her life.  Deanna told me that she had been off drugs for quite some time but during a recent personal tragedy she “slipped.”  She’s been clean again for a few months and is looking for group that will help her stay that way.

Deanna is a Christian, and her prayer is to be in God’s will and help others.  She serves faithfully at Church Under the Bridge because she knows the desperation of homelessness.  I think a part of her is there each week because she feels at home among the homeless of Austin.  Though she fears returning to that life, she's working to serve others and to overcome her fear.  She said, "God wants me to do this."

It is difficult to know what to say as we depart these cities, as we leave behind these people we meet.  So we pray and we trust God to rescue and redeem them for His glory.

Week One: Being Homeless to Survive - Kito's Story

One of the most common questions that people ask us as it relates to homeless people is, "How did they become homeless?"  I believe that most people have a perception that homeless people are all drug addicts or alcoholics, people that couldn't or didn't care to get their lives together and instead chose to live their life on the streets. First of all, that is an extremely judgmental and short-sighted perception.  People have so many different reasons as to why they become homeless.  It is true, for some people, their addictions become everything to them, and they are willing to sacrifice it all for the sake of their addiction.  For others, sudden job loss, dire financial circumstances, even a death in the family can cause someone to be homeless.  For some, turning to the streets is an act of survival.  And that is Kito's story. We met Kito in Unity Park, a park specifically created for the homeless in the Near East Side of Forth Worth.   Kito's story is one of courage and determination, and in many ways, a story of sacrifice.  She lived in Indiana with her three beautiful children, but her life was anything but idyllic.  Her life was filled with drug abuse, alcoholism and abusive control by her family and her husband. Kito reached a place where she was so depressed and saw no end in sight to the constant abuse and exposure to drugs and alcohol that she and her children experienced daily.  She literally felt like she had no hope and no choice but to leave Indiana if she wanted to rescue her children.  Believing that God wanted her to go to Texas, she loaded up her kids and drove south, finally ending up in Ft. Worth, where she and her 3 beautiful children are now living in a shelter. She wants so much for her family, but not in terms of material things. She wants to be free of the hurt and pain she has gone through and for her kids to have a normal life.  She wants them to experience a normal life, at least a life that is different from the one they knew in Indiana. She spoke of her kids going to a school in the neighborhood where she used to live, and as she spoke, her eyes lit up with a beautiful smile, hoping that some day they would once again attend a neighborhood school. And though work has eluded her, she has been faithfully looking for a job, remaining hopeful that she will find work that will allow her to find a home she can afford. Kito absolutely beams the light of the Lord and when she speaks you can see the glow of the Lord's hand of favor upon her.  We prayed that the Lord would deliver her from the place she is, but she was so graciously pleased to have what she has.  She is a light in the shelter where she lives with her children, but she wants to be a light in HER neighborhood. Sammie