Honesty, transparency, genuineness. Before I dive into our friend’s adventures on the street, you should know how we’re doing business wise. The Peace, Love & Hygiene Report informs you on not only what it’s like to live on the streets of Detroit, but also what it takes to be useful on the streets as a nonprofit. Both are wild adventures with Jesus.
HUGE new potential developments for us.
If you have been following along these past few years, you will have noticed/heard that I am exacerbated with clothes. It’s so important to my people out there, but it overwhelms me. Donors have become much more mindful and in tune with what is actually useful and what is not. Thank you! Unfortunately, I’m still sorting through three years worth of big, black, garbage bags. What’s even more frustrating is that I don’t have room in my house for the volunteers it would take to help to deal with it. It’s a catch 22.
We have the blessing of a ton of donations, but the hurdle of not being able to keep up with it, combined with only being able to disperse it one mini-van at a time. It’s a wicked balancing act. I have been working and dreaming and praying for over 3 years to move the business out of my house and into a facility where all this potential could be utilized. But I can’t seem to make it happen.
That’s what I commonly refer to as a “plot twist”. Fine. I’ll scale down the mission to hygiene, and some food. Not every prayer gets answered. Not every dream comes true. Disappointing, but that’s part of being an adult.
And just when I was ready to give up…
God’s got jokes.
Last week when I saw the medic team’s new digs, I was also informed that there is a huge open area with tons of shelves, clothing racks, and storage area, as well as big long tables, that are available for another nonprofit to use. Everything about it would be a dream come true. We could rent the space for $50 per month. Right now I pay $115 a month for a storage unit. AND we would be right beside the medic team we work symbiotically with every week.
It hasn’t happened yet. I called the woman at that church. I have to write her an informative email that she can present to her board.
Currently, I have $120.79 in our business account. $115 comes out today to pay for storage. The only reason we were able to make it out last night, is because Nick covered gas and a little extra food, and then Sean bought the 5 loaves of bread to make sandwiches. So that’s how tight it is.
But we made it out- me, Nick and Traci.
It was busy! People were out everywhere tonight! There were several stops, but most of our goods were received at only 2 or 3 places. We passed out a lot of hugs and pepper spray. We had backpacks and blankets which is always an exciting bonus as well.
We saw one woman who was rushing down the sidewalk. We recognized her and pulled over. She talked to the medic team for a couple of seconds, and then hopped in the back of the ambulance. We drove her a couple of miles down the road to where she had some friends who lived behind the buildings. Someone was aggressively stalking her in their car. We had to give her food and pepper spray quickly so she could go back into hiding right away.
One of our girls is getting into rehab on the 11th! She was relieved to have a bag, and some of her own things to take with her. She’s tried before. She’s trying again. Obviously, we prayed it out big time before she left.
Here is one of the many other high costs of adding fentanyl to drugs:
The most common withdrawal symptom from heroin, after extreme nausea, is seizures. When a person goes into rehab they have to detox the heroin out of their system before they can take suboxone to counteract their deadly withdrawal symptoms. Unfortunately, fentanyl stays in their system much longer than heroin does. If you take any suboxone while you still have fentanyl in your system you can overdose and die from the medicine you take to help you. That’s exactly what happened to our friend who is going to try again. She almost died from a suboxone overdose. Another catch 22.
She’s going in on her mother’s birthday. Her mother is the one who took care of a lot of people for a while. Then her boyfriend died. Then she became homeless. Then her daughter died an hour after we saw them together. Then she was just a wisp of a ghost. Then I prayed and wept with her. Then she got into rehab. Then when she got out, we rooted her on. Then she kept clean and got an apartment. Now, her mother is a success.
She is smart, beautiful, and kind. Just like her mother. I know she can do it, too! The xylazine is starting to rot holes on her gorgeous face. She is not afraid of death. She is scared to die like this. Not like this. Not an addict on the street. She refuses to accept that as her fate. She’s so ready. Another success story is happening in front of us.
Krokodil is in Detroit now. Look it up. It’s gross. A different animal tranquilizer that causes the flesh to die and scale up, like a crocodile belly.
Your donations keep us coming out there so we can cheer these people on. We might be the only people they ever see who are on their side. But I know from personal experience in my life, that may be all you need. I wouldn’t be here without the grace of God and the encouragement of my friends and family. Someone has to pray for them, too. It’s going to be us.
We aren’t going out next Tuesday. That’s Avalon’s week. So I have 2 weeks to see how God is going to pull off our continuing outreach.
Please pray that we can rent a spot at this church in Detroit. We could have plenty of room for all the volunteers we can muster so that we may operate at peak performance. I really want Magdalene’s Mission to live up to the potential God has laid out before us.
I’ll keep on believing in my dream until it happens.
Because that’s how we do it in Detroit.
Amen.
