Our theme for this week was adapting our Style of Outreach. What we do, where we go, and who we do it for determines how we distribute donations. When it’s busier and we get the swarms, we must be extra alert. We hyper-focus, but on seventy-seventy different things at once. Then we prioritize our attention without losing focus on each person in the crowd. It’s exciting. It’s a mad rush. We’re having fun and being both effective and efficient. We serve everyone and try to ration out donations so that we have enough for everyone who we see that night.
“Those other girls get here before me, and they take all the good stuff!”
Last night was different. Last night we got to take our time and have actual conversations with people. Check in. Get updates on their lives, and the wellbeing of mutual friends. We saw plenty of people who were both desperate and grateful. They were spread out over 3 and a half hours.
The first person we stopped to help was my Little Red-Haired Girl. She was both happy and angry to see us. Happy, because she was hungry. Angry, because she just bought herself an outfit from the Family Dollar because she needed clothes and didn’t know if she would see us.
Someone graciously donated a couple of packages of women’s underwear. Talk about an instant game changer in someone’s faith! She looks like she’s losing some weight. Especially in her face. That’s another reason to need new clothes. I heard her and Traci talking behind the van. I heard the Little Red-Haired Girl tell Traci, “I just want to be clean because it makes me feel so good, and I feel better about myself when I feel good.”
We stayed there for a while waiting for more people to come out and approach the vans. Only a few did. With the weather being warm, I thought for sure we would see throngs. Not so much. Flashlights were a jackpot in the donation this week.
We looked in some alleys, and behind a few buildings, but all the forts and tents had been torn down and disposed of. It means, as you may have read before, that we must try and find everyone all over again. A lot of people with ongoing medical issues, or who were working with volunteers to get back on track but are now lost.
I ran into The Girls Who Reads! I had not seen her in quite some time. That’s because she’s busy with twins! She just had them. She has an apartment. I asked what she needed. She told me she needs everything. So, if you have any baby stuff, I can save you a trip to Salvation Army. Drop it off on my front porch. I even have receipts.
I got to see my best-girl, Darla, Darla’s puppy Baby, and Darla’s Person. When I got out of the van to see Darla, I could not find her. I walked all the way around the Stanbulance, but she wasn’t there. That’s because she was already sitting in the front seat of my van with a smile as big as a pit bull can smile. I gave her some food, and a chew treat. I made sure Darla’s Person, and Baby the puppy, was well cared for, too. Then she followed me back to the van and hung out with me. Her Person came to collect her, but she jumped right back into the driver seat of the van. She turned her face away from him and had a huge grin from ear to ear. What a character!
The day before, I was thinking about Darla and her unconditional love for me. I didn’t have to be anything for her to love me. I just had to accept her love. She doesn’t care if I couldn’t quit smoking cigarettes, again, this week. She doesn’t care about any of the things I am constantly riding myself or judging myself for. It’s not relevant to her love for me. I lay down on the ground of a parking lot like an idiot, and she smothers me with kisses. And in that sacred moment, I understood how unconditional love, how to love as profound God love’s, can be a part of something that can be as unfair as Nature.
We drove up and down the streets looking for anyone we recognized, or anyone sleeping in a doorway. Traci served them all. The nice thing about a slow night like last night, a trickle not a swarm, is that we can spend time with each person. We can let them browse through all the clothing, because the weather is so nice. We can let them take as much as they need, and it always ends up being the people who are normally the last ones served. We can pass out double meals. That’s a big deal, because meals have been on the smaller size lately But it’s something, and it’s (mostly) good for you. It gives each person a chance to be a person and a friend, not just another hand reaching out to the van, grasping for survival.
At one random, bored, moment at the end of the evening. I decided to experiment with my pepper spray. I mean, I had never actually sprayed one before. I walked several feet away and pointed it downwind. I flipped up the cap, then pressed the button. Nothing. I flipped the cap in the other direction and gave it a tiny squeeze, then jumped back. Immediately, even from the one or two tiny air particles, my nose burned, and I began to sneeze violently four times. Traci yelled out, “What’s that awful smell?”
“Pepper spray. I carry it. I should know how to us it.”
An older homeless man who was standing by us and talking to Traci, calmly asked, “Why? You don’t need that.”
He looked me dead in the eyes and said to me, “No one around here would ever want harm you or hurt you. They would have an unbelievable number of people coming after them.”
The power of the unconditional love of God. It’s found in nature. It’s found in people. I found it standing in a gutter and laying on the ground in a parking lot.
Because that’s how we do it in Detroit.
Amen.
