I told him that my heart was heavy about the closing of the winter shelters for the homeless. I told him I’d been at the women’s winter shelter the night before and talked to women who were leaving the shelter without a permanent place to go. Their faces and their stories were fresh on my mind this morning. And moments earlier, on my way to church, I’d driven past the soup kitchen and seen a man carrying a duffel bag, as well as a full trash bag slung over his shoulder. It seemed likely that he was among those who had stayed in a winter shelter, and was now carrying all of his belongings with him, with no place to go. I’d also talked to the guys at the tent city that morning and was planning to take food and other necessities to them after church. They’d had three new residents come in even before the shelters closed, and they expected more. Adding to my concern was the recent spate of bridge and camp cleanups by the City and private property owners. Where will people go, I wondered? My worry and anxiety were evident in my words.

The gentleman sitting beside me listened in silence. There was a quiet pause after I finished speaking, as if he were carefully considering my words and his response. And then he said, “You remind me of someone. I used to be out there. And one day, when I was sleeping, a woman came and ‘tap, tap, tap’, knocked and woke me up and asked, ‘Are you hungry?’ And then she prayed for me. And she came back, with her father, this time. And she prayed for me again. And not two weeks later, a man came by and offered me a room in a place that I could afford. And I’ve been there ever since. And when you came walking up the lawn, I thought, that’s how she looked when she walked up to me.”

I felt very still inside. I felt as if the LORD Himself had spoken to me. I could feel His presence there with us. I could feel His spirit replacing my worry and the anxiety with quiet and calm. My Father God said to me, “Go. Feed my sheep. Pray for them. Be with me. Trust me.”

I said to my new friend beside me, “God is good.” And he answered, “Yes, he is.”

We sat quietly for a few moments and enjoyed the green grass and the blue sky and the white clouds and the huge trees and the soft breeze and the birds flying and the insect sounds and the worship music coming through the windows and the God of the universe who uses the willing and cares for the broken and answers our prayers and makes a way where there’s no way.

And when we parted, my friend said to me, “I hope I see you again here.” I said, “Me, too.” He said, “You look for me, and I’ll look for you.” And I said, “I will.” And then I went inside to go to the service, with my heart and spirit full of the worship experience I’d just had.

Blessed. Grateful.

you don’t know my story, only bits and pieces, i treat homelessness like its my main thesis. I’ve walked in those shoes, I’ve slept on those streets, i used to be chronically homeless,and ppl looked at me like i was a disease.that was me, you used to pass on that block, tipping up that forty, to keep myself out of the cold shock.

melissa gayle

That was me freezing on those 27 below nights, that was me you prayed for, to survive throughout the night. That was me you used to serve, from that disaster unit truck, that was me you tried to comfort, in a world full of hurt. My passion is helping the homeless, my pain is seeing us fail, why cant we all get together, and take away this living hell? What happened to being christians, and helping our fellow man? What happened to coming together, to share with the whole world Gods plan? How many more ppl will die on our streets, strickended below poverty? They suffer everyday, they are the face of homelessness. They walk in those worn out shoes. Will they survive? Or die? U choose.

Melissa Gayle gave a spoken word performance of “my story” on December 21, 2011 at a memorial service at Grace Community Church, commemorating National Homeless Persons’ Memorial Day 2011.

In the face of historic deficits, the nation faces unavoidable choices about how to balance needs and resources and allocate burdens and sacrifices. These choices are economic, political — and moral.

As Christians, we believe the moral measure of the debate is how the most poor and vulnerable people fare. We look at every budget proposal from the bottom up—how it treats those Jesus called “the least of these” (Matthew 25:45). They do not have powerful lobbies, but they have the most compelling claim on our consciences and common resources. The Christian community has an obligation to help them be heard, to join with others to insist that programs that serve the most vulnerable in our nation and around the world are protected. We know from our experience serving hungry and homeless people that these programs meet basic human needs and protect the lives and dignity of the most vulnerable. We believe that God is calling us to pray, fast, give alms, and to speak out for justice.

As Christian leaders, we are committed to fiscal responsibility and shared sacrifice. We are also committed to resist budget cuts that undermine the lives, dignity, and rights of poor and vulnerable people. Therefore, we join with others to form a Circle of Protection around programs that meet the essential needs of hungry and poor people at home and abroad.

Key Principles:

1. The nation needs to substantially reduce future deficits, but not at the expense of hungry and poor people.
2. Funding focused on reducing poverty should not be cut. It should be made as effective as possible, but not cut.
3. We urge our leaders to protect and improve poverty-focused development and humanitarian assistance to promote a better, safer world.
4. National leaders must review and consider tax revenues, military spending, and entitlements in the search for ways to share sacrifice and cut deficits.
5. A fundamental task is to create jobs and spur economic growth. Decent jobs at decent wages are the best path out of poverty, and restoring growth is a powerful way to reduce deficits.
6. The budget debate has a central moral dimension. Christians are asking how we protect “the least of these.” “What would Jesus cut?” “How do we share sacrifice?”
7. As believers, we turn to God with prayer and fasting, to ask for guidance as our nation makes decisions about our priorities as a people.
8. God continues to shower our nation and the world with blessings. As Christians, we are rooted in the love of God in Jesus Christ. Our task is to share these blessings with love and justice and with a special priority for those who are poor.

» Continue reading A Circle of Protection: A Statement on Why We Need to Protect Programs for the Poor

…Sometimes Christians, in their eagerness to be compassionate and Christ-like, fail to recognize that God put limitations on this aspect of our discipleship. It is not always good stewardship to expend the time and energy to teach the truth or to render assistance to those apparently in need of such. In fact, sometimes to do so is poor stewardship and betrays our Lord’s trust in us. While we do not want this fact to be used as an excuse to ignore our responsibilities to act, neither do we want to waste the things the Lord has entrusted to us, including our lives and ourselves…

» Read all of Matthew 7:6: Pearls and Pigs

I want to cultivate the wisdom and discernment to hear when God is saying “yes” and when God is saying “no”.

“One person with passion and courage becomes a majority.”
– John Haynes

I loved it. I wrote it on my napkin so I could share it with you. I think it’s what we’re all called to do, in pursuing Biblically-based social justice. Follow the passion that God has created in you. Walk with courage. Become the majority.

“While they were eating, Jesus took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to his disciples, saying, ‘Take and eat; this is my body.’ Then he took the cup, gave thanks and offered it to them, saying, ‘Drink from it, all of you. This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. I tell you, I will not drink of this fruit of the vine from now on until that day when I drink it anew with you in my Father’s kingdom.’”
— Matthew 26:26-27

The Salvation Army of Greensboro's winter shelter closes until next year.

The cold weather shelter programs at both homeless shelters ended yesterday, and Greensboro Urban Ministry Executive Director Mike Aiken and Salvation Army Major Paul Egan say they won’t reopen before next winter unless the weather becomes life-threatening. Salvation Army was providing emergency shelter for about 40-50 people, and Greensboro Urban Ministry’s overnight shelter was sheltering dozens more. Those 80 or more homeless people are now back on the street. Where are they sleeping?

A homeless man sleeps outside Greensboro Urban Ministry.

The NightWatch team found that the group of homeless people who met us in the parking lot of Grace Community Church had more than doubled from last week. The efforts of Grace’s outreach staff and the Family Service of the Piedmont housing support team had decreased the numbers of folks sleeping outside at Grace from more than a dozen regulars last summer down to an average of three recently, at least one of whom will be moving into permanent housing this week, but with the closing of the winter shelters, we saw a new group of faces at Grace on this night.

Erik put a blanket on the man sleeping outside the shelter.

When we got to one of the big bridges downtown, we found that the number there had doubled, as well. Our friend JM, who has the spot nearest the path, announced that “the bridge is full.” There were men sleeping in every available space underneath the bridge. The spaces between the bridge’s support beams are just wide enough to hold a mattress, and all of the mattresses were occupied.

But the hardest thing for me came later in the night, when we went to check the parking lot of Greensboro Urban Ministry before going home for the night, and we found at least a half dozen people sleeping there, some of them on the concrete right outside the doors of the shelter — including a woman. As I knelt down to speak to them, feeling helpless and trying to think of what in the world I could say, one of the men locked eyes with me and softly said, “It’s just inhumane.” His eyes welled up and he turned away. I put my head down and prayed, “God, please help me…” I felt sick. Words were inadequate.

I thought of Mike Aiken, the director of that shelter, who is involved in every effort that I know about to end homelessness. I thought of my earlier conversation with Jackie Lucas, the director of the Salvation Army shelter, who told me that she’d been able to move five people into transitional housing before winter shelter closed. She’s also involved in efforts to end homelessness, and she’s always looking for new ways to stretch limited resources to better serve homeless people. I know and love Mike and Jackie, and I’m thankful for their service and commitment to serve and show God’s love to homeless people. And I also realize that neither has the space, the staff or the funding to shelter everyone.

And then I looked back to the face of the man in front of me — a kind, intelligent, dignified and weary survivor, who is trying to get his life together — and I hurt for him. He told me that he’d lost his job and just recently found a new one, but he hadn’t gotten his first paycheck yet. He was struggling. “It’s like Job,” he said, and there was both resignation and determination in his voice.

He continued on, telling me that he knew that it was going to be alright, that his trust was in God. I reached for his hand, and asked if I could pray for him. When he nodded, I began, “God, I know You’re here with us,” and beside me, he said, “Yes, You are.” His voice was firm and strong and the intimacy with which he spoke to his God was unmistakable. I did not feel strong. I felt small and inadequate and humbled by the strength of the faith of this man, steadfastly trusting the Lord even as he spent the night on the hard concrete outside the closed doors of a homeless shelter.

On the drive home, I prayed out loud for the man of faith to be rewarded, for this to be the year that JM finally leaves the bridge and gets a home, for my friend who sleeps at Grace who’s moving into housing and who needs to be encouraged [prayer answered], for a homeless friend who has found his voice and is using it to advocate for others, for L whose heart is beautiful even though he doesn’t realize it yet, for V who is a precious princess, for all my friends who need a home and hope and a new start, for my friends who work tirelessly to provide shelter and housing but can’t do it all and who need to be free from the burden of thinking that they have to, for my friends who serve on the street, for the Church and the community to have the eyes and the heart to see the needs of their homeless brothers and sisters and to respond, and for God to give me faith, wisdom, and strength to serve in love, and grace, mercy and forgiveness for my many failures and shortcomings.

I soon learned that hours before I prayed that prayer, God had already begun to answer me, by sending His word to me through a friend. When I got home from NightWatch, I saw that Jordan Green had posted this on my Facebook:

Thought of you when I read this:

“Yet we who have this spiritual treasure are like common clay pots, in order to show that the supreme power belongs to God, not to us. We are often troubled, but not crushed; sometimes in doubt, but never in despair, there are many enemies, but we are never without a friend; and though badly hurt at times, we are not destroyed. At all times we carry in our mortal bodies the death of Jesus, so that his life also may be seen in our bodies.” ~ 2 Chronicles 4:7-10

This I know: God’s love never fails.

[video link]

Lyrics below.

“By His Wounds,” Mac Powell

He was pierced for our transgressions
He was crushed for our sins
The punishment that brought us peace
Was upon Him
And by His wounds
By His wounds, we are healed

We are healed by Your sacrifice
And the life that You gave
We are healed for You paid the price
By Your grace, we are saved
We are saved

What can wash away my sin
Nothing but the blood of Jesus

Amen.

What helps you not use?

“God. Prayer. Church.”

What can Christians say to you that will help you in your recovery? Like, when you relapse? What can we say that would help you the most then?

“What Marshall and Diane always say to me. That I’m still beautiful to God. That He still loves me. That Jesus was tempted, too. What you say to me about when I fall off the bike, I have to get right back on it and ride.”

When people talk to you and pray for you and the focus is on you being a sinner, and they ask, “If you died tonight, would you go to heaven or hell?,” how does that make you feel?

“Disapproved of. Looked down on. Judged. You figure, oh well, I’m already going to hell, I might as well keep using.”

What else helps you to not use?

“Quality time instead of idle time. Having something useful to do. Volunteering. Doing needle point. If I’m working on cross stitch, I’ll go hours without even smoking a cigarette.”

What else do you have to do to not use?

“Learn how to make different choices in my thinking and my responses.”

Who has helped you learn to do that?

“My (12-step) sponsor and my psychiatrist.”

Have 12-step meetings helped you?

“The one good thing about meetings is that I found a sponsor there. But I can sit around and talk about drinking and drugging in my own room.”

Is talking about your addiction at a meeting a trigger for you? Does it make you want to use?

“Oh, yeah. You start reliving the glory days. I been doing it for 35 years. Must be something good about it.”

I thought of that last statement later as we sat in a Bible study class. Another of our friends talked about how he once used drinking and drugs to numb the pain of his child’s death. Alcohol and drugs decrease pain and increase pleasure. But only for a while. The Bible study was about how God can use our times of pain and suffering to draw us close to Him and mature our faith:

“… we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope.” — Romans 5:3-4

Drinking and drugging is a way to escape suffering. But that means we lose out on perseverance, character… and hope.

During the worship service, the pastor said:

“Being a Christian is not about being perfect. It’s about being perfected. It’s not about being grown. It’s about growing.”

With a huge smile, my recovering friend leaned over and whispered to me:

“I’m growing! Yay!”

Me, too. Amen!

So the other night, I was studying my Bible and preparing to speak to some college students about homeless ministry, and I was reading through the Isaiah 58 passage that I get my web site name from:

“Is this not the fast which I choose… to divide your bread with the hungry and bring the homeless poor into the house…” (v. 6-7)

And then I got to the end of the chapter, and verses 10-12 just jumped out at me:

“And if you give yourself to the hungry
And satisfy the desire of the afflicted,
Then your light will rise in darkness
And your gloom will become like midday.
And the LORD will continually guide you
And satisfy your desire in scorched places,
And give strength to your bones;
And you will be like a watered garden,
And like a spring of water whose waters do not fail.
Those from among you will rebuild the ancient ruins;
You will raise up the age-old foundations;
And you will be called the repairer of the breach,
The restorer of the streets in which to dwell.”

Wow. So cool. God is always right on time.