January 25, 2022
The theme for this week is Grit. I’m still pretty shook up as I type this to you. I’ll try to take you through our night.
Traci and I hit the streets tonight in a great mood. We arrived in plenty of time to chat it up with the other volunteers. We agreed that we were going to try and help our friends who were shelter challenged first. The weather app on my phone said it would get down to 0 degrees tonight. The weather can kill. It hurts me after a few minutes. The air was aggressive cold tonight.
The violence has gotten heavy lately. A lot more shootings in the neighborhoods and at the gas stations where we stop every week. We can hear the gunfire in the background. Last week, a girl was attacked with a box cutter. She had 2 large gashes on her face. He would have killed her but for the PEPPER SPRAY she had with her that allowed her to escape. Someone talked of another girl who was killed with a box cutter on Michigan Avenue and bled out right there on the sidewalk. I don’t worry about me. I worry about them when I’m not there.
We stayed on the southwest side. The first stop we went to was a familiar one. A few other volunteers went behind the buildings and to the back of the lot. Traci and I watched them knock on the doors of abandoned vans and cars. Sometimes people would live under tarps covering piles of wood and pallets. After a few minutes, our friends emerge. The first woman we saw was wearing a windbreaker and a yellow knit blanket wrapped around her waist. She didn’t own any pants. No pants. The woman was so thin it looked like she might blow away and it was barely even windy. Traci redressed her. The poor thing just stood there while Traci layered her with warm shirts and a real winter coat, hat and gloves. She saw a price tag still on the pants we gave her. (Thank you Katie N!) Traci said she could have cried.
We found a man who needed a tent. We had a tent! He didn’t want to take anything else he felt he didn’t need. He kept reminding Traci that he had a driver’s license still. Everyone was super hungry. The Mags Bags are still a hit. It’s all the payment in the world when I see how relieved someone is when I explain what is in there- hat, gloves, socks, hand and toe warmers, hard candy, a hygiene kit including baby wipes, tissues, feminine hygiene products, and sometimes manicure sets and hair ties or a random special.
We drove around for a while and found a couple people here and there. We visited our friends who live under bridges and some in tents in abandoned lots. We passed out a lot of flashlights and pepper spray to anyone we could.
At one point, the medical team was off doing medical stuff so Traci and I followed the other teams over to another spot to wait. They had their own clients as well. We waited for several minutes before someone came and told us what was going on. Things got pretty dramatic and I can’t go into it here. But we saw some really dark stuff tonight. Stuff I’m not going to shake off. That’s all I am willing to put on the internet.
The weather is life or death. First-aid can be life or death. Walking, sitting, sleeping, talking, not talking, food, everything, anything. All of it all the time. This is not a lifestyle someone chooses because its so effortless.
Since I started coming to Detroit I met people who were intentionally shot, crippled by drive-by shooters, run over, thrown out of cars, robbed, raped, stabbed, had all their belonging set on fire, all their hair chopped off, branded, or worse. We try to offer a moment of reprieve. A glimmer of hope. And that is all they need to keep going a little longer.
Grit…
Other teams wanted to keep going on to some other houses where they knew they were needed. Traci and I gave them our last 8 meals, some bags, blankets and sweatshirts, then called it a night in Detroit.
Now I am in my warm house. I’m drinking a Sam Adams beer then I’m going to go lay down in my warm bed with lots of blankets and my foam pillows. First, I’ll look around for a snack to eat while I fall asleep safely watching cartoons. My sweet and sober husband is snoring softly for the next few hours until he goes to work. I’ll be able to get up with my kids, take a shower, and then drive them to school.
My friends on the streets can not do any of those things. Not a single one. Yet, I will most likely not be shot, run over, robbed, raped, stabbed, had all my belongings set on fire, branded, or worse. Not that I haven’t experienced any of that at some point. It’s just that if it happened now, it would be out of the ordinary. For those girls, it’s just a potential threat of every moment their life. They gotta have grit to survive.
I’m praying for them. They so tiny. Their friends are just awful. I’m so glad Andy and the other volunteers were there at the exact moment they were. I am grateful for everything everyone has ever donated to Magdalene’s Mission so we can be there to do whatever is we can for people.
Because that’s how we do it in Detroit. Amen.
#magdalenesmission #peaceloveandhygiene
