The fog over Detroit felt like driving through the clouds. Serving the homeless in Detroit felt like being at home in God’s Kingdom. We are winning the war on homelessness. All of us together.
It starts with the volunteers.
My faithful Traci helped me load up donations of clothes, prepared sandwiches, leftover Hostess Cakes, cookies, and sleeping bags.
Our dear Cecelia took time from work to come to Detroit. She helped me prepare hygiene kits, bag blankets, and load the van. Our committed friend stuck it out the entire night with us passing out food and hygiene kits.
My new friend of a friend is a real workhorse of a volunteer. He packed up about forty meals in about an hour. What an angel!
The Anderson’s showed up with their monthly load of hygiene items, backpacks, and baggies of hard candy.
Nick showed up in time to be our driver.
We have a van full of everything we need to keep people alive. That’s our part. We keep people alive long enough so they can save themselves. And they do! It takes time. It’s a case-by-case scenario. But we’re getting it done.
Magdalene’s Mission is an INDEPENDENT 501c3 Non-profit. That’s means no company or organization controls anything we do. It also means I will work with anyone who is willing to help us on our mission. We volunteer alongside some stellar individuals. One of them is from a group that helps people get into housing.
We spent a lot of time with many people who were still shelter challenged, but did the work, and now they are just waiting for their number to be called.
It’s a tough road. A lot of or people are locked up or died over the winter.
It takes soft hearts and thick skin.
We came across several people living outside, but only for now.
We met a lady sitting outside. The caravan pulled over to see if she needed anything. I jumped out of the van and offered her food. I added my homemade beef stew to the snacks and sandwiches. I gave her all we had to offer. She just kept smiling bigger and bigger.
I offered her pepper spray. She asked me to repeat myself twice. She couldn’t believe I had that to offer her. She was ecstatic. Her husband trekked to the gas station to buy them a pop. He was going to be so surprised when he came back. We were parked around the corner from her but could still see her. Nick, Cecelia and I got to watch her husband walk back to her. We could see the shadows of two people unpacking little sacks and then jumping up and down and celebrating.
We kept driving around and finding another person until one a.m. We helped at least 20 people.
That many more people are going to live another day. Everyone has a story. Everyone’s life is a journey. We can be the plot twist to a happy ending. We can write our own happy endings. We can share our stories and inspire other people to never give up on their own.
We can and we will.
Because that’s how we do it in Detroit.
Amen.
