4/3/2024
The theme for this week is Grateful. Magdalene’s Mission connects people to who or what is useful for personal success. Their success is a reward for us, and our success is a reward for them. Whatever side of my van you happen to be on- you are a part of this mission.
Bonnie Sheldon asked me if I could use a roasting pan of spaghetti and meatballs. Sure! I didn’t ask why or where it came from but the next day, I had a HUGE roaster full of warm food. I found some leftover Styrofoam clamshells that I have always wondered when the heck I was going to need them. I’m a pro at saving things for the right moment. Even if that moment is two-years later.
We were packed to the gills this week. We had plenty of everything we are proud to serve. Thank you.
The weather spanned all the moods of a rainy day. Sometimes, it was misty. Sometimes, it was raining hard. Sometimes, it was something in between. It was muddy, damp, and dark. But before Nick, Traci and I left, Detroit was drenched in love.
We saw two men on the east side before we drove across town to our familiar haunts on the southwest side. It was a great night!
The first person we visited was a man the medic team had just found. He wasn’t open to talking to anyone, but I put together a meal with a hygiene kit and walked it over to a pile of trash in front of a bricked-up doorway. It was the side of some old factory. It looked like it was probably a very busy important place once upon a decade.
It was raining lightly. I didn’t want his stuff to be wet when he got it, but I wanted to make sure he found it. I saw a cardboard box. I started to make it into a hutch when I saw a face pop out of the pile of trash! Surprised the crap out of me!
“Hi there sir!” I politely introduced myself. I told him about the warm food, extra food, desserts, fruit, and hygiene that I was leaving him. He only had one tooth in his face, but it was the only one his smile needed to let me know how grateful he was. I asked him his name. I told him he had a cool warriors name. “Peace, Love & Hygiene! God bless you, dear!”
When I got back to our van, the medic team thanked me and told me they couldn’t get that guy to talk to them at all. I got his first and last name at first contact. Sometimes, it’s good to look like a freak. There isn’t a stereotype you can put me in. I’m not like other people. You can tell. I don’t look like other people. And if you know me well, that’s the way I am most comfortable warning others. I like being honest and accessible. I like how God uses my oddness to help others on Tuesday night. I like being useful, just like everyone else.
The next elderly gentleman lived in a tent. It seemed odd that it wasn’t better hidden, but for all I know the business owner knows he is there.
Then to the southwest…
Big Hands is on “Me probation”. He got a little overly excited to meet another female medical volunteer earlier in the day. We agreed to let a male drop off food and we traveled on.
I got to see my buddy! I know, I have a lot of friends out here on the streets. This guy is awesome. I’ve talked about his before. He’s the one who builds the really cool forts for people even though he has a hunched back and is all crippled up. It looks like extreme scoliosis. He’s a tiny dude, but so sweet. His son graduated as valedictorian of his high school. His son lives with other family members. Every time I see him, he’s always helping someone else. I got a care package together for him and helped him carry it back behind the building where he lived with his friend. That’s us in the picture.
I introduced myself to his friend. I told him that I had a team of doctors and nurses who were ready to help him with any of his medical needs. He definitely had that. He showed me his hands. On his right hand (I’ve never seen this before) the ends of his fingers were missing. Some fingers had two knuckles, some only one. He had a different remaining amounts left of each finger. I led him to the medic van. We waited for quite a while for him to be treated. When he was finished, the nurse came over to our van. She asked if we could give him an extra meal because his body desperately needed protein to heal.
When he came over to collect his wares, I helped him carry it back to the wet fort. A small campfire was smoldering a few feet away. He was so grateful for everything. I asked him what happened to his hand to make him look like a high school shop teacher.
He said, “Frost bite. I went to the hospital. It’s so cold out here. The morning is so cold. At night its so cold you can’t even sleep. You just wait for it to be morning, but it stays so cold. The mud is so cold. You never warm up. You just keep staying cold. My fingers… The pain… They turned blue, then purple, then black. The pain was so intense. I went to the hospital, but they would only give me ibuprofen. It didn’t help at all, so I left.”
Genuinely concerned, I asked him, “Well what did you do?”
He shrugged his shoulders and looked down into the mud puddle. “I cut it off myself. I just pulled at it until I ripped the dead parts of my fingers off.”
He said that to me casually. Like someone describing ripping off a hangnail.
I was very grateful for all the gloves we still had left to pass out.
I saw a man on crutches begging at an intersection. He doesn’t have feet. He is another veteran of the Vietnam War. He is a very kind man. He was excited about having a sleeping bag and a lantern.
We parked for a few minutes at a busy spot. We saw Andy! What a gift. We saw a friend of ours who is going into rehab today. He mom has successfully completed a rehab program recently. She looked great. I’m excited to see her daughter follow suit. I know they can do it. They can be free from the prison of addiction.
It’s a prison where the only key to get out is buried deep, deep, down, inside of yourself. The darkness inside of us is the scariest place in the whole world to be.
A beat up old red truck pulled up behind the medic van. A lady jumped out and talked to the medics. I approached her and asked how I could help. She informed me that her house burned down. She had nothing left. I got her food and hygiene, and Traci got her dressed warmly. Nice lady. Nice husband. I hope they end up okay.
We drove on. Found my Miss Betty Boop again. This time, five or six more people emerged from the shadows behind the house.
Of course, I saw my buddy, Milo the cat. He devoured 2 cans of cat food while we served people.
Miss Boop told me a story. She told me that someone who was staying in that abandoned burned up house where they all were, woke up in the morning with their arm around something big and warm. They assumed it was Milo, so they snuggled up to him and started to pet his back. That’s when they felt the big, long rat tail! Ah!
I asked Mr. Boop what was up with their apartment. He was embarrassed to tell me this, but he doesn’t like that element in their home. If they use, he would rather they come out there. At least he’s honest.
The next few people that wandered out were… well, let’s just say, I don’t think a drug addiction was the beginning of their problems. The first guy was kind of big. Not as big as Nick, but larger stature than most. We were struggling a bit to communicate. His body language was odd. Very guarded. Every time I tried to make eye contact; he would turn his entire body away from me. I could tell that the words he was using were adjacent to the ones he wanted to use. My experience says autism and perhaps a bit of a learning disability. I adjusted my approach. I stopped looking at him when I spoke. I kept arm’s length away instead of my usual huggee-lovey approach. He seemed less overwhelmed as I led him gently over to the clothes and coats.
Another man came out of the boarded-up house, then another couple.
One of the young girls was just batty. We meet some cranky people sometimes. We meet people who are fussy, complaining that we don’t have what they want, etc. It happens. This chick though. She is a special case. She freaks out when people hand her things. Yeah. Work with that. She is in a hyper state of defense mode about everything, every detail. She needed a coat. She was freezing. Traci handed her a new, thick, warm, fur lined winter jacket.
“I can’t wear that! I can’t wear purple!”
Traci told me that her arm is covered in bruises and rotted skin from necrosis. She fought about antibiotics. She fought about bandages. She even fought over taking vitamins. It was the stuff you see in mental hospitals. With her large glasses, and black hair in a top bun, she looked like some severe Wall Street lawyer.
There were abscesses aplenty at that one spot. Traci informed our friend that he needed to stay up on those. We’ve lost friends from untreated abscess wounds. He didn’t know that was possible. Now he does. Dear Lord.
It was late. No one was walking around in the rain. We hit up all our usual haunts. We made a collective decision between the teams to find my Widow and leave the rest in her area. She lives in the abandoned minivan with a thousand other people.
The medic van and Nick’s van pulled up alongside the mud lake lot. Another medic volunteer and I announced our presence to a black bag covering a window. I heard my precious Widow sweetly say she would be out in a moment.
Her boyfriend was out of jail. He looked pretty good, actually. He had a very worried look on his face. He had a new job to start in the morning. He really was praying hard that God would keep his head straight and lead him and the Widow out of this hellscape.
Nick looked him in the eye, man to man. He told him, “You can do this. Just don’t give up. Don’t ever give up. 15 years ago, I had nothing. Now I own my own business. You just can’t give up, and that’s how you’ll make it. You can do this.”
I saw the young lady I gave pepper spray to last week. I haven’t gotten a chance to really talk to her yet. She’s obviously a sex-worker. She always seems very busy, and not happy at her job though. She’s guarded. It’s cool. I’ve got time for her to come to me when she decides she’s ready.
Jesus said to be a light on the table that draws people near it. The light pushes away the darkness, the unknown. The light is warm.
Most importantly, the light doesn’t shine for itself.
Because that’s how we do it in Detroit.
Amen.
