Blessed by the Homeless…

But when thou makest a feast, call the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind – Luke 14:13

I am going to do my best to keep this post as short as possible but that might not happen, I have a lot of thoughts in my head and I feel like I need to share them.  This past week we had some of the most brutal winter weather to hit Arkansas in a long time, and my good friend Aaron Reddin put out a message on Twitter about a church in downtown Little Rock, Canvas Community, that was opening their doors to the homeless community but they needed volunteers.  I immediately informed my wife that this ministry had been on my heart for a long time and that we were fixing to get involved, fortunately I married a woman who goes along w/ my crazy whims.

I called Aaron and told him we were heading his direction with a couple bags of clothes and that we were his for the evening to do whatever we could do to help out. Little did I know that I would see some things that evening that would send me home w/ tears in my eyes. Yes, I said tears. I try to be as macho as the next guy, and don’t even cry during Hallmark movies, but after seeing the faces of these people and having the opportunity to interact w/ a few of them left me w/ a feeling that even today I can’t put into words. In my crazy southern churched vernacular I just call it “being wrecked”.  I knew in my heart though that I wanted to get more involved.

Now, I will make no bones about it, my entire life I have been blessed, I have always had more to do with than what I needed. I will admit that there were points in my life that I did my dead level best to piss it all away though, and came close on a few occasions, I learned later that that makes me human. Just like these people are humans, most of them have done nothing worse in their lives than I ever did. The only things that separate me from them is that I had a support system and a GOD encounter that straightened my dumb ass out. (pardon the language, there might be more following…)

Twitter Community Helped Keep the Doors Open…

I can’t say enough nice things about the central Arkansas twitter community, but this next part still overwhelms me. While we were at the Canvas Community I learned that they needed $200 a night to keep an armed police officer on duty to stay all night at the shelter.  I am still not for sure how I feel about there even being a police presence on site, but regardless, the city would not provide a police officer for free.  Before we left that evening we made sure the church wasn’t out that money and we posted tweets for friends to see if they could help out as well.  The very next day a dear friend on twitter who is an absolute sweetheart, I would love to mention her name but I don’t know if she wants to remain anonymous of not, but she knows who she is, dropped off two checks at my house before we headed down to make sure the shelter stayed open the remainder of the week.

There was also a few messages posted to Facebook regarding some needs that the church had regarding food, clothing, etc. Those requests were also met by this same group, in a big way. In fact, one person, @kerrijack even went out of her way to prepare a vegetarian casserole because yes, even homeless people are vegetarians.

The Man w/ No Socks & Starbucks Coffee…

That evening I was helping setup the cots for everyone to sleep on and a man approached me and asked me if I knew where he could find some warm socks. I glanced down and he was barefooted and carrying around some soaked mismatched shoes. I immediately pointed him in the right direction and he got some warm socks.  I also helped a man w/ one leg out of his chair and onto the cot in the floor for him to sleep for the night. As I was lifting him from his chair I remember thinking to myself how rock solid his arms were when I was lifting him, and that he probably needed my help as much as I needed a giraffe.

The next morning I was heading out of town for business and I pulled into Starbucks to start my day like I have done a million times and ordered up my usual $5 cup of coffee.  Instead of enjoying my Venti White Mocha, I kept thinking back to the man that had walked across town w/ no socks to find shelter for the night. I don’t think I have ever had a cup of coffee that tasted so bitter…

Meeting Friends for the First Time…

While we hung around the shelter that evening and I had the opportunity to meet and chat w/ Ryan Byrd and John Hardin, from Eikon Church, another small church working in conjunction w/ Canvas to serve the homeless community.  Just hanging out w/ these guys for a few minutes I felt an instant bond w/ them that I haven’t felt in a long time.

We also had the opportunity to meet Jamey Bentley and his wife, who planted the Canvas Community, along w/ several other friends from Twitter that I have been following for a long time like @gubeltrut and @ang0823.

Tireless Dedication Defined…

While there were a ton of people involved w/ the warming shelter it would be impossible for me to name them all in this post, they know who they are, but there are a few people that were involved that really blessed me and convicted me at the same time by their actions.  One person is Robby Matthews, who is someone I am proud to call a good friend.  Robby stayed all night and supervised the shelter and showed a ton of compassion by doing so. The thing that I know, that a lot of people might not now about Robby is that he is going through a tough time lately, his father is extremely sick and is under hospice care.  I can’t imagine what Robby was going through not knowing if the phone was going to ring and something be wrong w/ his father.  I didn’t ask Robby’s permission to post this, nor does he even know I put it out there but being good friends w/ him I felt like it was important to pass along and not let it go unnoticed.

Another person that I mentioned earlier that has a undying devotion to the homeless is Aaron Reddin.  His wife Laney Beth needs to also be included in this equation because behind every good man, there is a good woman.  I know for a fact that Aaron was out on the streets, during one of the worst winter snow events we have had in a while, driving around looking for homeless and trying to get them to the warming center.  Aaron has a unique relationship w/ the homeless in that he knows where their camps are and also how to communicate w/ them. I am not saying that they are dense, or hard to communicate with, but there are several ways to turn them off in a way that they won’t let you into their world to reason with them.  Aaron does this very well, I have watched him closely and it’s a gift that’s hard to explain combined w/ supernatural devotion that fuels this guy.

A few days prior to us even learning about winter weather in the forecast for our region, Aaron notified me of a family living in a car right here in Conway. Fortunately through our network of good friends we were able to put together a plan to get this woman and her daughter off the streets, where they had been since before Christmas.  We probably drove right past them and didn’t know a thing in the world was wrong.  I can’t imagine how hard that must have been to spend Christmas w/ your family sleeping in a car. Had he not put the word out about this family, we probably wouldn’t have ever known about them. I am struggling to sleep at night knowing their might be more out there…

Tragic Misconceptions…

I tend to live a pretty transparent life through social media, that’s the choice I have made.  People know where I am, what I am doing, what I am thinking (for better or worse), simply by following me on twitter or facebook. Upon learning that I was involved w/ helping out w/ the shelter I had several people ask me if I wasn’t scared to be around “those people” and was there any trouble w/ any of them. My responses to these questions just got tiring because no matter how I answered there was no way I was going to shatter the misconception that these people are free-basing junkies that are out to steal my wallet.  I did my best, but I don’t know how good of a job I managed to do.

As I mentioned earlier, these people are no different than you and I.  Many of them haven’t done anything worse than we have all gotten away with in our lifetime. They just haven’t had the opportunities that we have had laid out in front of us.

Before leaving one evening to head to the shelter my wife asked if it would be cool if we brought our new puppy along.  At first I was hesitant but gave in, which I am doing a lot these days when it comes to that dog. That was a decision that in retrospect I am glad I made. Upon seeing this puppy many of the people in the shelter immediately ran to him and their faces lighted up in a way that I hadn’t seen previous nights.  Many of them asked to hold him and of course he loved the attention.  It was during this time that I had the opportunity to speak openly w/ them and find out a little bit about their lives.  One man had probably the most severe case of arthritis I had ever seen in his fingers but he carried on a better conversation than a lot of people I know, and seemed to have a positive attitude on life despite his difficult circumstances. I couldn’t help but think to myself, that this guy is someone’s brother, father, or uncle. I was “wrecked” again.

Tweeting Things I Shouldn’t…

This has become a way of life for me I guess, most of the time I am guilty of oversharing, but occasionally I ruffle some feathers.  One such tweet happened this week. I merely mentioned that one one side of town a church opened their doors up to the homeless and across town another church had movie night (or something to that respect). I got phone calls about that one, turns out I struck a nerve w/ that one. I wasn’t implying that there was anything wrong w/ movie night, just stating the facts, and I left it up to the reader to come to their own conclusions.

There were a lot of churches that got involved w/ helping out Canvas Community while the shelter was open, and I know that they know they are appreciated. They were just acting under the same conviction that the rest of us were.

I have never been a fan of church fellowships and potluck dinners, my wife can attest to that.  It’s not that I don’t like the people in my church, I love the people I go to church with, it’s just one of my quirks I guess. But I will tell you this, I think my time is better spent sharing a casserole w/ the homeless than it is across the table from the people I worship with each Sunday and already have their lives moving in a positive direction.  Call me a turd, or whatever, but that’s just how I feel about it…

Now, How You Can Help…

I have had several people ask me how they can get involved and help out.  The best thing I can recommend is following @homelessheretic on Twitter.  This is an account maintained by Aaron where he tweets out frequently the needs he has in his ministry.  Another Twitter account is @helpingarkansas.  You can also subscribe to Helping Arkansas Blog, they do a great job keeping us in the loop as well.

As of right now there is a dire need for men’s coats, size XL, 2XL, 3XL, 4XL, and yes, 5XL.  Also, while helping Aaron transfer socks, coats, and food from their storage to his truck for distribution I bet we crashed 5 cardboard boxes that were on their last legs.  Aaron would never ask for anything like that because it can’t immediately go to help the homeless but I am pleading w/ you to donate as many of those large plastic storage containers as you can so he won’t have to worry about boxes falling apart.

I have also never heard Aaron ask for this but I am going to throw it out there anyway, if you don’t have anything to donate but still want to help out, go by wal-mart and pick up a gift card for them.  He can then use these cards for whatever needs might arise.  One resident at the warming shelter was in need of an over the counter medication the other night, things like this we might not ever think of that can be life changing to our homeless brothers and sisters. Finally, the last thing you can do to help out is to rebut the misconceptions regarding the homeless that you might hear.

Disclaimer

I know for a fact that there are a lot of dynamics regarding the homeless shelter / warming center that went on this past week that I didn’t mention, and I am sorry. I wish I could have documented every little detail as well as thanked every person who was involved, but that wasn’t possible.  I just wanted to share some things that have been swirling around in my head…  Feel free to jump on board though and leave your comments.  I don’t think that this is something we need to let go undocumented by all of us.  Kerri Jack posted an awesome post on her blog the other day, I recommend reading that one as well…