Steven

I've done homeless minstry for years. You know, stand behind a table and scoop out some patatoes and slap them on the plate of a man who looks like he was drug through the dirt by a pick up truck. His eyes saggy and red. The smell of cheap whiskey or vodka in his breath, not to mention the oder of not having bathed for a few day while wearing the same cloths.



I've done homeless ministry before. I have walked around the streets trying to pass out stale bread and pastries to groups of people huddled in a court yard. Ungreatful to find that there is nothing in the bag they would eat. To be honest there was nothing in the bag i would have eaten. To be even more honest, they weren't begging for food either. I just thought they needed it, not knowing they all could get around 5 meals a day going to any mission or just by hustling each day.



I've done homeless minsitry before. I would take bags of worn out cloths down dark allies at night and give people an extra shirt or coat they could put on to keep them warm. Funny it was rare to ask their name. Or even shake their hand. What if i would get sick? What disease could they give me? What would i do if they had gone to the bathroom multiple times an hadn't washed their hands, thats just sick! Where is my hand sanitizer when i need it.



I've done homeless ministry before. I have walked down the street in the middle of winter with my nice warm coat on as a man wearing a long sleve shirt walked up and asked if we had a coat we could give him. We all stared at each other and said no, then we prayed for him. I felt good about that. I walked home got to my room and hung my nice warm coat up next to the 3 other nice warm coats i had in my closet. Oh yeah.....i thought about those when i prayed for that guy, but it was cold out and i needed to walk two more miles to get home. I needed my coat.....



What would it look like if i stopped doing homeless ministry and started to be apart of a homeless community? What if i could not even use the word homeless anymore to describe a person in the community because they were my friend? What if i stopped trying to bring my friends stale bread because i knew them so well that they would use it more as a toy to throw around then a sourse of nutrition? What if? What if i no longer worried about food, but focused on the season because of the change of needs that my friends have each season. Like hand warmers, or socks, or shoes or scarfs. What if everytime i saw one of my friend, regardless of look or smell, I would give them a hug, look them in the eye say their name and tell them i loved them. Not just to make them feel good, but because i actually felt like they were part of my own community, my own family. what if they new me so well that they could tell me about who they are. That they could cry infront of me even though they have not cried in over a year, and they would dare not cry infront of another man? What if i knew their names, Shawn-foots, Larry-Solomon, Chuck...well he's just Chuck, same as Stephen, Neil, Chris, Chris, Chris, Dan, Kim, Kim, Earnst, Melvin, Ron, and the list goes on? What if they knew me so well that they called me as their own. That they looked at me and thought of me more for who i was then just that guy that comes down ever week or so to pass something out. What if, they would all get together and wait in the same spot ever week, for me to get there because they knew they had a friend coming who they could talk to and share life with and joke around with and hang out with. What if i looked so forward to that day that i would not do anything else but make it down to that spot at the same time every week...maybe even every day. What if i felt i needed them in my life just as much as i thought they needed me? What if i knew i would not be the same with out them?

About 10 months ago, i started to do "homeless ministry" again. I started to go down town with a group of friends, thinking I would be doing the same things i was use to. Passing out coffee, cloths, prayers, and so on. What i didn't realize 10 months ago, that soon these people who i took pity on, who i thought i was better off then, would become my friends. They would become the people i would share my life with. The guys that i would joke around with, smoke cigarettes with, laugh with and cry with. The guys that would teach me about life, from a perspective I never could have imagined. These are the guys that taught me more about the love and grace of Christ then any sermon i had ever heard or any friend i had ever had.

It started with Stephen. He was drunker then drunk the first time i met him. He had a little to much juice that day, as he might say. I did not like him. I thought he was scatchy as hell the first time i met him. he was loud, inappropriate, and sarcastic. We were having a pizza party for thanksgiving. He walked in and hugged one of my friends, and this was not a pleasnt hug for the girl. She bassically had to push herself away from him. At some point in the night i decided to get over my own pride and disgust and go talk with him. He soon became a little more sober and started to talk for real. Still loud at times and still very inappropriate, he started to tell us about his family. He spoke of his father with a lot of pride. He said if he could be half the man of his father he would be in a much better place. He also talked about the abuse he went through with his father. He talked about how his dad would beat him, and how his mother ironically would beat the crap out of his dad. My disgust and pride turned to love and care for stephen that night.

Over the next few weeks stephen and i became very close. He would see our group at the train station and shy away seeing if we would notice him or not. Everytime, we would see him, and call him over to us, or walk over to him. for those first few weeks i don't think i ever saw him with out a bottle half empty and the smell of liquer on his breath. I don't think i ever saw him sober. But there was something about this guy. I remember one day he pulled me aside and started to tell me about his family again. He would have tears in his eyes because of how much pain he had inside and how much he missed them. I don't think he ever talked to anyone else about his family as much as he did me. Usually it was always the same story. the same story he told at the thanksgiving pizza dinner. Exept it slowly changed from how much he loved his father to how much he hated him. He was hurting, and I was the person he could tell that too. I was the one he could cry infront of. i was the one who he could share his pain with.

He would always stop at some point and take a drink from his bottle, afterwards he would ask permission, or let me and who ever else was around know that it was who he was and that we needed to be able to accept that. For the longest time I would let him know that his drinking would not make us leave. I would tell him that we would be there for him whether he was drunk or not. I would tell him that we loved him anyways. I soon realized that I needed to add something to that. I started telling him that we would love him anyways, but that we wanted better for him. For about the next five weeks or so we would have this same conversation about his drinking. We would pray for him, and he would pray for us. I would pray with him and he would pray for me. I would pray for him and he would cry. I would give him a hug and let him know that i loved him. He would say he loved me too. He would tell me how thankful he was for the community that would be there every week. He would tell me how much we meant and that we were his family.

Something started to change with Stephen after a while. We would see him and he would be sober, a week later he would drunk again, then for two weeks he would show up sober, then he would be drunk again. Then i started sharing my desire to stop smoking with him, and he started sharing his desire to stop drinking. He said to me at one point that if he was still a drunk after us hanging out with us for a year that he didn't want us to hang out with him any more. I told him that that would not happen. I told him we would be there everyweek for him regardless of where he was at.

Stephen had a cell phone and soon gave me the number. I would call him everyonce in a while and plan times to meet with him after i got off work. We would go to mcdonalds and get some food and just talk about life. One day my friend cole and I met with him at his church. Afterwards we walked to a reasturant and got some breakfast. He told me that he wanted to try and be sober for one month. I was honestly hoping he would say one week. My mouth about hit the floor. One month! that was huge. So for the next few weeks we would call and talk, i would tell him if i stumbled with smoking and he would tell me about being sober. I remember one day i had a cigarette. I called Stephen to see how he was doing and told him i had had a cigarette, he was honest with me and told me he had a beer a few nights before with a couple friends.

Stephen would call me so often during the winter when he would not be able to making out to the train station during the winter. He would call me and ask if we were there and just let me know he was not going to make it, I would ask how the drinking was going, and he would let me know. For a long period of time he would not show up on sundays. Which was always sad for me, but it was always great when he did. One day he was there and wanted to sing, because he loved singing. It was his passion. He would always sing. So one day he wanted to sing amazing grace. It was the most soulfilled song i have ever heard steven sing. He was drunk, but man, he meant every word he sang.

Something that most people would not realize about Stephen is that he is a Christian. The diffrences between Stephen and me, his brokenness is visiable, mine is hidden. His sin is visible, mine is hidden. His ability to function with his brokenness and sin was not there, but let me be blunt, that in no way made him less of a Christ follower then me. I learned more about Grace from stephen then any other person on this planet. I learned that God does not walk away from us because we sin, but sits by us and tells us that he loves us and wants better and that he won't walk away from us. I learned that God is always waiting for us to show up, but we might choose not to go to him. I am in no way saying that I am like God. It took someone to point out to me that my love for stephen was like the love that God has for me and all his creation.

It has been some time since i have seen Stephen. I was out of town for a few weeks and he loses his phone about every other week. So i was not able to connect with him. But one week while i was out of town my phone rang. Stephen was on the other end. He asked if we were going to be downtown and where we would be. I was in seattle so i told him i would not be around. He said he really needed to connect with some people. I got his number called my friend and had them contact him. He was able to go meet with them. I was stoked. I had tried calling stephen many times after that. It had been over a month since i had seen him or heard from him. His phone had been disconnected. After that i heard from a friend that stephen had started going to rehab and hated sobriety, but was trying hard to stick with it. A couple weeks after hearing this I was downtown again with our community and my phone rang. Stephen was on the other line. He told me he was in Cincinati. I asked him what he was doing there, he replied that he had no idea, but that he was comming back soon. He just called to say hi and see how things were going. It was a great phone call. It was a blessing to me.

Never in my life would i think that a 50+ homeless black man would be my friend. Never would i have imagined that this man would have taught me more about Jesus, grace, and honesty. His brokenness is out in the open and it is a blessing to him because he knows he is loved for who he is, and not a mask he tries to wear. He knows that we know him, he knows that we care about him and love him. I have to ask myself how much to i know that I am loved. How much do i know that people really know me? How often do i allow people to really know me? If i walk around acting like i have it all together, like there is no pain or brokenness in me can people really know who i am, or do they just like the mask that i wear? I know Jesus loves Stephen. I know that he wants so much more for him, but i know that he still loves him right now whether drunk or sober, dirty or clean, right where he is at. I know that Stephen loves Jesus and is more greatful for his grace then i think i might ever be. I know this because Stephen has come to a place where he cannot hide his brokenness. He can't fake it, he can't pretend its not there. But he knows God's love and grace still surround him and guide him. He is homeless, he is an alchololic, he is mentally damaged, and physically in pain, but more then any of those titles which we might put first on him, Stephen is a Christian, and he is a brother that i am so incredibly thankful to have in my life.