This report is about the 2 people Traci and I served yesterday. With all due respect to their privacy, I’m still not going to sugar-coat it. This is who we serve:
They are an adorable married couple who have been together for nearly two decades. They came here from another state to be near their family. After a series of unfortunate events, they were left with nothing but the streets. Like my girl said, “The real gate-way drug is the trauma that happens to make you think you need that stuff.”
Or, as her husband put it, “Heroin was bad, but we quit that. After the relapse, now there’s this fentanyl crap in everything and you’ll die before you get it out of your system.”
When they got together, they built a successful family, and a pretty little all-American life. The house, the cars, the kids, all of it is gone now.
The first thing she wanted me to see was how well her face had healed. The last time I had contact with her husband, he called me in the middle of the night. He told me that his wife was ‘working’. She was attacked with a knife. The man told her he was going to kill her and throw away her body. She cleverly escaped the trunk of his car (somehow, thank you, Jesus) and made it back to him. “What do we do, Kayla? I can’t take her to the hospital!”
The stitches scars on her face reminded me of a rag doll. She is right. It did heal nicely. One can hardly see it.
They live in an abandoned property on the eastside of Detroit. They said that the neighbors have left them alone for over a year now. They keep the property clean, and don’t allow drug use in their den. He’s found a way to access electricity, and they bring water back in five-gallon buckets for drinking and cleaning.
It was a beautiful day. Every once in a while she would move herself backwards into the van. “I’m trying to not let them see me.” She said, “That guy is weird.”
The husband blocks her from view.
“Those are just customers. We don’t need to deal with them right now.”
We talked about all the people we knew from that area that we hadn’t seen in a couple of years. The list of names of people who have died was extensive. Just about everyone we knew from that house on the eastside we used to see every week is gone. Not all though. A few still survive.
I assumed overdoses, but the Wife claims it is the resurgence of AIDS. Too many girls aren’t using protection. The diseases spread like a wildfire.
Traci and I loaded them up with supplies. Shortly after I left, the husband thanked me for the feeling of clean socks. We got them plugged in with some people who can help them get their lives back again. They don’t give up on eachother. We won’t give up on them. They knew that finding that mangled up business card was going to turn their luck around. Here’s to hoping, my friends.
Because that’s how we do it in Detroit.
Amen.
Post-script: The Fort St. Church volunteers are nothing short of heroes behind the scenes.
Also, the basement we are in is also THE FIRST INDOOR BASKETBALL COURT IN THE UNITED STATES! Every week, I found out something historically amazing about this place! Beauty in every cobblestone. I choose to see it.
