PEACE, LOVE & HYGIENE- VOLUME 100!
100 essays of over a hundred trips to Detroit. Over 100 times we had enough donations to provide food, hygiene, and clothing to Detroit’s vulnerable homeless people. If you read my reports, you know that we go to neighborhoods that don’t have shelters, or food banks. We climb under bridges and through abandoned buildings, behind alley’s, and over piles of broken boards to get to our people. We go to where we are needed and to wherever God leads us.We go with Doctors, nurses, councilors, dentists, podiatrists, housing specialists, artists, friends from church, friends from work, and friends for life.
You would also know from reading past reports that what we pass out is so much more than food, hygiene, and clothing. We pass out blankets, towels, tents, tarps, flashlights, phone chargers, McDonald’s gift cards, backpacks, notebooks, pens, literature, reading glasses, hugs, and hope. There are thousands of homeless in Detroit alone.
Did you know that Detroit has one of the lower rates of homelessness compared to other larger cities? That’s because there is actually affordable housing available in Detroit. Which would explain why I have seen so many people be able to get off the streets and into apartments this past year.
Magdalene’s Mission has still been going to Detroit on Tuesday nights. I’ve been sending Traci out with supplies and a partner. A couple of weeks ago, Traci and I went out to Detroit.I didn’t write my report as soon as I came home. I wrote it the next morning. It came out too weird, so I never published it. Something really weird happened to me that night. I ran into someone I knew personally while I was doing outreach. That wasn’t where I knew him from, though. I hadn’t hung out with him for years. I even sat down on the broken sidewalk with him next to the wooden box he lived in. I’ve been talking to him and writing about him for over a year. I hadn’t even recognized him. It wasn’t until the next day that I finally figured out who he was. Suffice to say, it was a night to remember but difficult to write about.
Traci went out last night. She said people were asking for blankets and warm clothes again. I’ve been able to make some storage space in my garage. It’s not a ton of room, but I can take donations of warm clothing. I’m especially hard up for men’s clothes. And socks. I could never have too many socks.
Here is my personal story that is going to sum up what Magdalene’s Mission is, what it means to people, and why it is important to God that we do this.
The other day I was at work, and as is common for me, I ran into someone I knew. It was a Sunday afternoon so I asked them how they enjoyed church service that morning. Was it a good sermon?
They replied that it was a good Sunday service. The message was about helping others. Like, how it is good to help people, but there are some people who you don’t have to help. Like, homeless people who you know are drug addicts and will just spend your money on drugs.
You’re not required to help them.
I was speechless.
I was courteous.
I went back to work.
Soon after that, another woman who knows me from Magdalene’s Mission stopped by my work to see me. She had a very thoughtful donation of several purses, each one filled with useful gifts. She is a very kind woman, slightly older than me. She has a soft face, and kind eyes. She’s the sort of person who you know is really listening to you when you speak. Anyhow, she pulled me over to the side of her vehicle to talk to me away from customers.She wanted me to know that her daughter called her recently.
See, her daughter was a victim caught in the opioid epidemic. They did all the right things as parents. Their daughter did all the right things as a kid. But right now, she’s on the streets somewhere, addicted, homeless, and helpless. Her mother is always praying and hoping that her daughter will run into someone like me and Traci. She begs God for some charity to give her daughter a sandwich and a bottle of water. Maybe they would give her a blanket so she isn’t cold, or sleeping on the ground. She prays that her daughter might have a flashlight at night, and pepper spray to protect herself. She wants her baby to survive so she can come home and finish healing.
She told me all this through teary eyes, “It was such a relief just to hear her voice. She tried asking for money again, but I told her we won’t do that for her. I told her that I am in a judgment free zone. I don’t care where she’s been, she doesn’t have to be ashamed of anything. I will always love her no matter what.She will always be loved by me.”
“She is a valued person to someone no matter what she might look like to someone else who sees her standing at an intersection holding a sign.”
You can’t imagine how many people tell me a nearly identical story.
They just want their daughter/son/mother/father/brother/sister/cousin/aunt/uncle/cousin/best friend to please live long enough to recover. Because so many people do. I see it first hand all the time. For over 100 weeks we watched people suffer, and we watched people heal. Some of the flowers in our garden of friends have withered and died. Some of them within hours of seeing us. Some just stay the same. Some of them take off like an arrow into a sky of success. We never give up hope everyone will eventually get to be free one day.
We are never required to help anyone, ever, at all.
We do it because it is our privilege.
And because for over 100 weeks-
THAT’S how we do it,
And how God does it
in Detroit.
Amen.
