Peace, love & hygiene: vol.105-

Good morning beautiful people! This weeks post actually covers the last few weeks. There were two weeks that I went to Detroit and couldn’t even talk about it when I got back. Last night was my and Traci’s By week. Avalon goes out with the medical team and passes out food, clothes, and other survival resources. That was a good thing. I needed time off to think. I was ready to close down Magdalene’s Mission for good. When I say, for good, I mean for the good of my sanity.

Here are the notes. Then I’ll explain my reasons. Then, there will be a lists of events in response. Have I ever expressed how crazy this Ministry is, and we operate on chaos and miracles?

3 weeks ago- First stop, east side. Young girl and toothless guy. Police stopped and asked us if we were alright. I told them we were a non-profit. They said “Cool.’ and drove away. We are giving them a little of everything. The girl has a medical need. The Stanbulance is a mini van this week.

Alternatives For Girls just drove by. I swear they stalk us.

The medical team are symphony of finely tuned instruments of medicine and compassion.

A train whistle blows in the distance. They walk away smiling. The angels pack their wares and take notes. No one lost or left behind.

Next stop, people begging on a bridge. Feeding. Healing wounds. The Moon approves.

“Thank you guys. Bless you guys. God bless you guys for what you do. You ae wonderful.” I wanted to pass that along.

Fire trucks and sports cars off in the distance.

Two Spanish speaking men. The first three guys keep coming back for more things. The Spanish men are using their cell phones to communicate with the nurse.

PLH v104, I went to Detroit. Passed stuff out. Came home. The end.

People were so desperate and needy that night. I couldn’t give anyone enough. I was exhausted. I was scraped out by the time I came home. I couldn’t even write about it.

Next week, Traci and I went to Detroit for Halloween. You read all about it.

Last week. Last week I came home and I wanted to quit. I was up and starting to work on outreach by 8 am. Around noon, Traci’s cold was so bad she could’ make it out. Without a third person, my People’s volunteer couldn’t come with me. So I did everything from start to finish by myself. I made 35 peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. I would have made more, but 2 loaves of bread had went moldy. I packed up lunches, I prepped 40 hygiene kits. I packed clothes, blankets, cat food, flashlights and pepper spray. I got everything ready and made it to Detroit. I had a couple of the other volunteers ride around with me.

First stop, a crowd of hungry people.

Second stop, we went to the place where the Hobbits used to live. There is another couple living in that same spot. They are sober and trying to get back into functioning society starting with nothing. From what I could hear, some agencies are more useful than others. There is a housing resource specialist that comes out with us all the time now. We can thank her in our prayers for the multitudes of people who won’t freeze to death outside this winter. They went so far as to get permission from the property owner to temporarily be there as long as they take care of the area. Don’t attract attention, or leave a bunch of trash laying around. They are wonderful people. I look forward to seeing them reclaim their humanity.

I found out that my Brothers are out of the abandoned factory and live in a real apartment now.

The people who lived behind the one factory have been cleared out. They are still in the same area. We just have to find out where the new hide outs are. We always do. My buddy, Skater Dude, He is super smart. He builds and uses science a lot. He would be scary successful if you put him in a college classroom. He built a heating system derived from used pipes and hand sanitizer. and had it safely set up in a fort that he built out of abandoned pieces of boards and drywall, box spring, etc. The cat came in and somehow knocked the lit part over. The hand sanitizer caught fire and the fire spread through the whole inside of the fort and outside as well. He got it put out. But he was starting from scratch rebuilding a safe environment to live in for himself and a couple of other guys who are nice guys but aren’t clever in the way he is. They would freeze to death without Skater Dude. We argue over music sometimes. He claims that Bauhaus is quintessential to Goth music. I claim that Robert Smith and The Cure out-Goth Peter Murphy and Bauhaus all night and every time. Robert Smith is the true King of Goth music. Then we laugh and hug it out, because nothing really matters.

A few more people, then we were at my last stop of the night. It’s a busy spot. I cleaned out of food rather quickly. After I was cleaned out of food, a man in a hoodie came up and asked for help. I told him I just ran out of food. He immediately transformed into a small child. “But they said you had food! I’m so hungry!” Then he walked slowly over to the curb. He sat down, put his head in his hands and cried.

I wanted to leave. I needed to wait. The vehicles don’t like to travel alone. That’s how someone got held up at gun point one night. The guy in the house across the street was outside on his balcony waving a gun at them earlier.

Then, I saw HER. She stumbled towards the van in a dramatic ‘S’ path. She walked as straight as a snake. She’s usually about as friendly, too. That night , she was in a silly mood. She walked up to van, joking around. But she also had food in her hand. It was falling out of her mouth and inside the van through my rolled down passenger side window.

When I told her I was out of food, she threw her head back and wailed. I told her there was no more clothes to go through and shrew threw herself down in a fit in the middle of the road. I rolled up my van window, and drove back to Whitmore Lake without pause. When I came home that night, I didn’t want to talk about it. I didn’t like the way I felt.

That’s what happened. Here’s how it worked out:

I called on my sisters for advice. They told me to follow my gut. My instincts are good. My logic was solid. Traci was not supportive of tearing down MM. No, no, no. Friday November 17 will be the 3 year anniversary of Magdalene’s Mission. It is the day we officially became a company. I still don’t have a facility to operate from that isn’t my tiny house. I’m still buried under clothes. The garage sale was a disaster. The storage units are an absolute cash drain. My husband has been paying for car insurance on the van for years. Last couple of weeks, I paid for gas myself so we could have food and water. My garage is a nightmare. I’m sure my land lady hates it. I haven’t written a grant. I can’t. I can’t even hire or find a grant writer. Every lead fizzles. I’m operating a full-time non-profit that requires infrastructure and a full-time staff. But I don’t have either of those things. I have a version of that that we make do with.

What am I even doing? What would make me think I should be doing this? It’s not even MY thing. This is all God’s thing, and I was just a chauffeur.

Naturally, prayer and meditations followed. I tried something a little new this time. I didn’t ask God for and answer or a sign. That’s rude. God isn’t my puppy. His grace follows faith. If you start demanding evidence, it ruins the whole deal. I was thinking of really awesome other things I could do with my time, my garage, and my basement, other than store stuff for other people. But something in my heart knows that what I do with and for these homeless people in Detroit is significant. We’ve done so much, but I feel we are still in the beginning of our journey. love the feeling of purpose that this gives me. I don’t want to work for other people. It always ruins it. I’ve got a great method. I’m just…

I kept my mouth shut and my eyes open. I’m in love with the book of James right now. James was Jesus’ brother. It was the first testament written after Jesus was crucified. He wrote it only a few years later.

James 1:19 19 My dear brothers and sisters, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, 20 because human anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires.

Therefore, I shut up and listened to what the universe had to say. I watched for signs, but I didn’t beg for them. I prayed for open eyes, ready to receive. I sat back and waited for it. I decided that I was disappointed because I hadn’t lived up to the dream I had for myself. My dream is good, but what I’m doing already is enough. It’s perfect. I keep learning the lessons of how companies get too big, It becomes hyper-regulated and a dehumanized method of supporting machines and systems instead of humans who it the system was created by and for. So maybe I’ll just focus on food and hygiene. Later that day the husband of a woman who attends Christian Community Church in Sterling heights dropped off four cases of feminine hygiene products, and two large boxes of snack food. The youth groups at People’s are going to rock out hundreds of hygiene kits for me today. Traci’s client Julie Grandquiste is keeping us stocked up on peanut butter jelly and bread, at the moment. Now what about those darned clothes? God had a plan. God’s got more plans than the A Team.

Last Thursday, Traci and her sister Jillana, met a woman who owns a 2nd hand store in downtown Brighton. it’s called Grace & Whimsy- Sustainable Resale. If Traci loves anything, she loves to talk about Magdalene’s Mission. She has opened up so many doors by just being herself. It just so happens that the store owners non-profit is focused on keeping clothes out of landfills! How crazy cool is that?!?! She is going to take ALL of our unusable clothes. Finally.

Yesterday, Traci and I used our outreach time to go to Dan’s house, empty out his garage and drive it across the street to the storage unit. Technically, my best bro Nick had to let us borrow his van because the battery died in Maggie.

Can anyone help attach a rear view mirror? A deer hit my car a few weeks ago. Mouse ordered me another one, but I can’t figure out how to get it on.

I don’t know how to introduce this next part, other than, “Look what I found while studying the Bible that you may have forgotten about”

James 1:27- ²⁷ Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.

James 2:14-26 Faith and Deeds

¹⁴ What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save them? ¹⁵ Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food. ¹⁶ If one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it? ¹⁷ In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.

¹⁸ But someone will say, “You have faith; I have deeds.” Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by my deeds. ¹⁹ You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that—and shudder….

… ²⁴ You see that a person is considered righteous by what they do and not by faith alone.

²⁵ In the same way, was not even Rahab the prostitute considered righteous for what she did when she gave lodging to the spies and sent them off in a different direction? ²⁶ As the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without deeds is dead.

And a favorite:

John 15:12- ¹² My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. ¹³ Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. ¹⁴ You are my friends if you do what I command. ¹⁵ I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. ¹⁶ You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit—fruit that will last—and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you. ¹⁷ This is my command: Love each other.

So for those reasons, Magdalene’s Mission marches on. I’ll keep making peanut butter and jelly or banana sandwiches. The youth group will keep me stocked up on hygiene kits. I’ll keep collecting blankets, flashlights, pepper spray, coats, boots, practical clothes and socks. I just won’t store overages anymore.

I can handle that. That is what I do well.

Its time for me to head to church. I have Jets Pizza from Hartland Jets to deliver to a bunch of hungry middle and high schoolers. They’re going to pack hundreds of hygiene kits for me in just a couple of hours. I can handle that.

I couldn’t pull off the dream I had and I was very disappointed in myself because I believed I was not being effective enough.

But then I remembered Ephesians 2:10 ¹⁰ For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

And so,

That’s how we do it in Detroit.

Amen.