We survived the coldest night in 8 years! We survived, as well as every homeless person we could find last night. We literally drove from one end of Detroit to the other, and back again.
It was another week where the account was bare and all I had for food was peanut butter and jelly. Between the amount of donations that showed up on my doorstep, and what I collected from People’s Church it was enough to make me weep. A few people stepped up and sent some money to MagdalenesMission@Venmo. That was our gas money to get out there and back.
You people. Our people. People are good. We were created to be good, to love one another. We are all connected. Last night, you connected with people you will never meet, but you saved their lives with blankets, socks, handwarmers, cups, bread, and spare coats, hats, scarves and gloves.
By the time we left, we were packed from floor to roof with all the above. Every atom was imbibed with prayers of love.
Traci and I gave out our first blanket before we even made it to the church. A woman we recognized was standing at an intersection with her tiny cardboard sign. We grabbed a large comforter from behind my seat. I shoved it out the window at her and told her we would be back out later with the rest of the team. Her eyes got huge when she saw the blanket.
“Oh! Thank you! God bless you guys!”
“May God bless you, baby girl.”
Once we had the team together, we were on a fort finding mission. We drove down a hundred back alleys behind every type of building. We looked under bridges, and searched large, abandoned fields. It took nearly three hours in that deadly cold, but we gave away all the food, all the sleeping bags, blankets, and 3 tents.
The last swarm we had kept us outside of the vehicle for a while as we served more and more homeless who came out when they saw their friends coming back. I was blessed to be wearing leather with rabbit fur lined gloves. Even so, after fifteen minutes, my fingers were already frostbitten. One of the nurses came and took over food distribution.
It was a night we’ll never forget, but our journey did not end there. On the way home, I usually take the back roads. It’s a safer drive, and it gives us time to discuss and process the evening. We stopped at a little gas station on 6 Mile. While I was waited for Traci to come out, the kind man behind the counter started small talk about the weather. I cannot go anywhere without bring up Magdalene’s Mission. God finds a way to inject it into all sorts of random encounters.
The man told me that there were tons of homeless people who wandered in and out of his gas station. By the time we left, we had another spot to drop of hygiene kits packed with hats, socks, and gloves.
God doesn’t only work in mysterious ways. God also works in obvious ways. God works in simple ways. God works in random ways. God works always.
1 Corinthians 12:21-27 21 The eye cannot say to the hand, “I don’t need you!” And the head cannot say to the feet, “I don’t need you!” 22 On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, 23 and the parts that we think are less honorable we treat with special honor. And the parts that are unpresentable are treated with special modesty, 24 while our presentable parts need no special treatment. But God has put the body together, giving greater honor to the parts that lacked it, 25 so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other. 26 If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it.
27 Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it.
Because that’s how we do it in Detroit.
Amen.