12/19/2010

I was reminded tonight as we departed to give blankets, coats, hats, gloves and warm drink to the homeless how roles have switched since that first Christmas.  On the first Christmas it was the lowly shepherds heralding the good news, and now it is us communicating such back to them, "the least of these".  They are no longer in lonely fields east of Bethlehem, but hunkered down in a shed, vacant warehouse, in the woods, or under a bridge.  We found them, and most were in a joyous mood.

Our first stop was an old friend and a new place.  We parked behind a large storage warehouse and followed a path a short distance behind the building down where an old railroad track lay in ruin.  Tucked away out of view of most of the world is an old delapidated large building with a dock and large sliding door.  We shouted as we apporached Big John's abode.  After a while he finally cracked the door and stepped out looking much less "big" than he used to - more gaunt, as he confessed he wasn't doing well physically.  Big John was in desparate need of a smoke, but none of our group of 30 or so smoked.  We talked briefly, he spoke of the lost cause of his Buffalo Bills (his home town) and he showed me his "door stop" as he called it just inside the sliding door.  It was a gun, an absolute necessity for protection.  The warehouse was packed full of John's stuff and a small TV played a late NFL game.  We prayed and left.

After stopping and seeing Michael Lewis and a friend at the OC, we encoutnered a man named "Rodrigues" outside a building off Captial street.  We prayed for him and then he requested to pray for us.  He asked the children with us to put their hands on top of his, and for mothers to place their hands on the children.  Then he pray a most eloquent prayer. 

Just below the DreamZ club we encountered several men at the corner of Captial and Galatin.  Their names were varied and they had coffee, were given warm gloves, knit hats, blankets and sleeping bags.  We prayed more then went north on Galatin to check out a shed where men were believed to be sheltered.  I turned into the lot between two larger buildings and saw a pallet lined outpost mostly open to the wind in the far corner.  There were three men there bedding down for the night. Behind the shed was the railroad tracks and the slow moving trains entering and exiting the nearby depot creaked and eased along.  Any of them could catch a train and be in another state before morning.  Another man emerged from the darkness behind one of the larger buildings and spoke with John Hart.  He had a familiar story of trying to get somewhere and being stranded here.  We prayed, we gave and departed.

We then meandered over to Mill Street to check out the old Jitney building where Dave Knepper and Gerry Varner lived for years.  By flashlight we entered off the street through the one open door to the ruinous building.  We found no one, but someone had seriously cleaned up the place from years ago.  The huge hole in the building from one of the many fires was still there.  With signs all over the place that people had been there, we prayed for those who would find shelter there and asked God to protect them and give them safe haven.

Just up the road from the Jitney we encountered three more of our friends.  One, Vernon sang a song he wrote some time ago just sitting in the woods with his guitar.  He had an Amtrac ticket to New Orleans for tomorrow morning.  He was going home, full of joy and expectation.

We went back through the bus and train depot and there were probably 10-12 folks there including Eugene out in his truck.  I believe this is the first time we have ever seen him with his transportation.  Folks fanned out and spoke with many of the homeless, lots of coffee was made, and lots of prayers offered.

Next we headed south down Galatin toward some of our I-20 friends.  This was much a path we walk every Wednesday night and we saw Mark and Connie in the woods, Frankie at a service station, another man walking along a frontage road to hwy 80 and then both Raymond and Geoff at their bridge.  As always Raymond regaled with his stories to the delight of the younger kids and old alike.  He has lost much weight and we worry about him.  We left them checked Mead's bridge and found it empty, as usual, and finally found Dean at Sid's gas station.  He seemed happy and bid us farewell to go sneak into a nearby "beer joint", as he calls it, where they allow him to sleep the night.  Funny isn't it, churches stand empty and warm all around him, but the only shelter he can find is in a beer joint. 

The evening wrapped up with a few more folks including Anthony Brown just near Gateway, and as I turned right onto Captial and headed back through downtown it was clear to me the changes that have taken place downtown.  The King Edward is functional and cars line the streets where a few years ago only the Mayflower was open.  Life is coming back to downtown and that pushes our friends out further and into more dangerous territory.  It is the price of progress and it developls new borders and different places we must travel.  But, travel we are called to do, and travel we must in response to the grace gifted us.  Travel we will.

-M

T’was the night before the night before Christmas and all through the streets…

On Sunday, 12-23-2007, the Jackson Street Ministry went back in time.  Back, way back, to how things used to be when this effort was first started traveling throughout the downtown areas finding the homeless and disenfranchised of the city.  This effort we called the Shepherd’s Sleigh and sledding we did.  No, there wasn’t snow, but it was cold enough…

A beautiful full moon peeked at us through the bare winter limbs of a small tree as we met at the Library.  It was a clear, cold and crisp night; a night weather wise, that in my mind I imagine that first Christmas night to be.  The van was loaded with over 100 blankets all donated by others who sought to give something to the homeless.  We also had two tubs of hot coffee complimentary from The Mississippi Coffee Company.  (Thank you Scott Allen for your generosity and work to prepare).  Could grace be communicated with a hot cup of coffee and a blanket on a cold night? 

We left the library at about 5pm after a prayer.  Our first stop was the Opportunity Center where we were to pick up our homeless guide for the evening, Mr. Michael Lewis.  Michael had already started walking our way and we picked him up at the bus depot and proceeded on to the OC, as we affectionately call it.  Here we saw some old friends and served up some of our hot coffee and gave out some blankets.  We discovered, this night, that by far and away the most preferred coffee concoction is about 1/3 coffee, 1/3 sugar, and 1/3 cream.  We called it the street blend.  Lee Miller jokingly said he will be taking the idea to Starbucks.  I personally can’t wait to order a “Venti Coffee Street Blend, please.”  Perhaps they could donate a nickel for every purchase to go toward helping the homeless?  Perhaps Lee should send the idea in?

We left the OC and moved across the street to Poindexter Park.  Several more folks came by and we handed out our goodies.  We met up with a dear friend we hadn’t seen in months – Jerry Varner.  There were hugs from Jerry and he seemed overjoyed to see us.  He wanted to know where “Hickory” was?  Hickory, from our college ministry team, didn’t make it down for the Shepherd’s Sleigh effort, but we assured Jerry she routinely visits the OC every Wednesday night.  Perhaps they can catch up on things soon.  Everyone at Poindexter  was very appreciative, but my thoughts were that the blankets we were giving out were woefully inadequate to provide warmth on a night like we were experiencing.  The low bottomed out at 29 degrees.  The coldest night of the year so far.

There was an abandoned building just back across Capital that our inner city Missionary, JW, checked out with Ray Robertson.  Pallets were arranged for beds and room like settings marked different areas of the building.  Those staying here would be out of the weather.

We left Poindexter Park and went to another park.  Smith Park is situated between the Governor’s Mansion and the Capital building, nestled down in between the buildings of downtown.  It is a nice little green haven usually flowing with streams of water, but not during the winter.  It is normally alive with Christmas lights, but they weren’t turned on yet.  We gave our friend Rick a ride to Smith Park – he wanted to stay there for the night.  Here we found a few more folks all grateful for their blankets and street blend coffee.  Walter Blankenship and his son Taylor discovered a cardboard mat underneath the back drop of the stage area.  It was hard to imagine it was someone’s home.  That someone was a man named Terry.  He had served some time and now was out on the street.  He continually thanked God for what he had.  When you have next to nothing your gratitude for what little you do have is off the charts.  How could we be more grateful?  I’m not sure, it’d probably take us losing most all we have to find the same measure of thankfulness.  JW prayed with Terry and encouraged him to seek help and pray for shelter. 

JW, our inner city Missionary, stays at Crestwood Newlife Church and has been a Godsend.  JW knows the struggle of the street for he has walked that path.  He has felt the feel of concrete as he was homeless for about 3 years on the streets of Houston, Texas.  He also knows the unrelenting addiction to drugs and has served time for making bad decisions.  There is no one we come in contact with that JW cannot in some way identify with.  His credibility comes from those experiences and most of the people of the street give him great respect.  He gives them hope that through the Lord’s help all those demons can be overcome victoriously.  JW is living walking proof.  He talks their language.  He knows their game.  He has lived their ways.  They refer to him simply as “Rev”.  It was a pleasure to see him work as he met and greeted folks on the street.  He will be going out on Christmas day to pick up many of the folks we met for a special Christmas dinner at church. 

We left Smith Park promising to come back to give Rick another blanket if we had any leftovers.  Next, we went by Farish Street Park and talked with a single solitary man sitting on a bench in the park.  Many times in one area you may only see one or two as the people of the street are spread out over a wide area.  This man looked like he was freezing.  We prayed with him and wished him well.

We continued north on Farish street and at the corner of Cohea street we stopped to talk with a couple of homeless men.  A few more showed up.  Then kids came running from an adjoining street.  Then people arrived in cars.  It all happened quickly and the scene turned from the graciousness of our homeless friends to greedy grabbing and taking.  A little boy snatched something away from his sister.  A man wanted another blanket for his mother, but was unwilling to give her the one he had as a gift as requested by JW.  It was time to move on and our departure was met with cursing and insults.  JW, a true fighter for the truth, if there ever was one, was especially disturbed.  God had been cursed and he couldn’t take that.  We did what Jesus instructed: 

Matthew 10:14
If anyone will not welcome you or listen to your words, shake the dust off your feet when you leave that home or town.

We then turned on Cohea and went by the home of Amy and David Lancaster.  Their services were already over by that time and we gave out a couple of blankets and departed.  The plan was to come back with any leftovers and donate to their inner city cause.

It was time to move south.  We would take Gallatin street south toward I-20 and check around some of the areas known to be frequented by the homeless.  On the way, we spotted three friends at the bus depot.  Charlie, one of the first people I met when I first started coming to the street, Lucas – our servant LD’s cousin and a man named Hammer, whom I had never met.  These men were waiting on the van to go to Southside Assembly of God.  They were in great spirits in spite of the cold and graciously accepted our gifts of coffee and blankets.  It was a stark contrast to what we had experienced at the corner of Farish and Cohea. 

After the short respite at the depot we again headed south on Gallatin toward I-20.  About half way down we met a husband and wife who were on the street and heading to a relative’s house for the night.  We gave them blankets and wished them well.  At I-20, we let JW out of the van and he made his way over to a grove of trees just off the interstate while we would proceed down to a truck stop to turn around.  There was  an obviously homeless man outside the truck stop by the front door.  He had a pack with him and puffed on a cigarette.  His face was long and in despair.  We parked and I approached him to see if he would accept a blanket and coffee.  He said yes.  I was soon joined by Lee Miller and we discovered the man’s name was Randy.  His journey had begun in Peoria, Illinois and he was on his way to Lake City Florida.  In my mind I questioned the route, but Peoria is just off I-55 which goes straight through Jackson and if traveling in winter, going south as quickly as possible is probably sage advice.  We prayed with him and attempted to get him a spot in a shelter.  Brumfield was full.  Gateway would have probably taken him even though he had been drinking.  He was not belligerent in any way.  He was just homeless, far away from home, miles away from family, just a few nights before Christmas.  I wondered what was his story?  Ray Robertson gave him a hamburger from inside the truck stop.  My cell phone rang.  It was JW, he had found two men in the grove of trees and was waiting.  I hated leaving Randy.  Join us in praying for this man nightly. 

As we approached the grove of trees it was apparent there was no where to park so we jumped the curb up on the grass just by the exit. JW had found David and Andrew in the grove of trees and Andrew was especially quite a character and entertained the van crew regaling them with a story of how animals are smarter than people.  My oldest son, Jake, recalled every facet of the story later when we got home.  Andrew had a small puppy with him, which was also a big hit with our team.  David was very talkative and spoke much of his past when things were normal.  I never did get a sense of what happened or why he was were he was now.  These two men were a joy to serve, well, I think they served us on second thought.  They both lifted my spirits after the despair I felt from the experience with Randy.  We should have taken Randy down to stay with these two in the grove of woods next to I-20 in retrospect. 

We checked one more truck stop in the area finding no one and made our way down a frontage road to Terry road and then quickly turned left on Raymond road.  Under the bridge we met four homeless folks.  Two men on their way to the store.  Another man, who had built a fire across the way at the other end of the bridge.  He was homeless with a lady he called his fiancé.  She was back by the fire.  We gave him two blankets.  Then David came over to see us.  He had a buggy and was known as the “can” man.  Lee knew him as David the man who had a twin brother named Dennis.  They both had lived on the street, but on January 22 2007, Dennis passed away leaving David alone on the street.  Lee remembered David from the old days and we had a delightful conversation with him.  His spirits were high, but you could feel the pain of the loss of his twin brother.  No doubt the holiday season would be tough as David experienced the first holiday season of his life without his brother.  They had been together since conception.
Lee prayed a beautiful prayer over David and we left.  Heading back toward town via Terry road we saw the old porn store where Skip and Lee would stop and pray with the security guard.  They told the guard they were praying the porn store would be shut down.  It was.  We drove buy a boarded up and empty shell of a building where Satan used to rule with the lure of sex outside the blueprint of God’s purposes for this blessing.

 
A short distance down the road we found a man on the steps of an old home.  He had “Pat Boone” shoes on as JW would call them.  They were white as new snow. 
We then took Michael back to his abandoned home, a trek I have made many times before.  I hope he knows just how much we appreciate him and how big a help he was.  He truly was an expert guide.

We checked by Daybreak day mission and found no one.  On the way back into downtown we found another dear friend at the Depot, David Patterson.  David is the street chess player and was sitting on a bench on the Capital street side of the depot.  We also met two more men around the depot and then made our way back to Smith Park to  give Rick another blanket as promised.  Off Capital we found our last homeless man at about 8:05pm.  He was lying on a bench beneath a night deposit drop box covered with a blanket.  He didn’t bother to get up, so we took out a blanket and carefully tucked it in around him.  We offered him a hot cup of coffee and headed back to the library.  We dropped off about half our crew and then took the van by Amy and David Lancaster’s home to give the remaining blankets to them.  We dropped off a little over 20 blankets, so we gave out about 80 to the people of the street of Jackson MS.  David and Amy will be heading to Chile on mission the Thursday after Christmas.  They are a great family of faith bringing the amazing beauty of God’s kingdom fresh into the mess of the world – downtown Jackson included.  I thank God for them and what they mean to the people there.  We come down one night a week they LIVE there.  I thank God for what they mean to us.

All our blankets were gone.  You know, blankets are so symbolic in many ways.  They have a security feel to them that give children the assurance that all is right.  My oldest son still has his blanket with Disney characters all over it.  The Goofy corner is still his favorite corner, for as an infant he would search for that one corner to rub against his mouth as he lay ready for sleep.  It was always the same corner, the Goofy corner, and he wasn’t old enough to know what a Goofy was.  He just knew it when he felt it.  My second oldest actually became one with his blanket.  He attached himself to one of those small cotton baby blankets that the hospital gives out at birth.  That small blanket from Greenville Memorial Hospital (S.C.) went everywhere with him.  He had a nasty habit of chewing on the blanket and slowly over time the blanket got smaller and smaller.  We no longer called it a blanket, but it was referred to as the “piece”.  It finally disappeared, no one is sure when, and no remnants remain.  His blanket was now part of him.  My third oldest boy was attached to the tag on his blanket.  I’m not sure how many times Robin sewed the tag back on.  The youngest has two blankets and is very possessive of them.  We wait to see if they stand the test of time, get imbibed, or repaired with a sewing kit many times over.  I hope our homeless friends see the blankets we gave as gifts of God.  I hope they wrap in the Spirit of God each night while on the streets of Jackson. 

In a little over three hours we encountered people and we all felt like we had left the comfort of the visitor’s center to venture out on the mountain and what a glorious mountain it was.  Special thanks to Gary Haugen, who termed that thought of experiencing our faith on the mountains of the world and not just the clean sanitized sanctuary of the church building.

I would like to thank everyone who went or gave up their time or money to help make the Shepherd’s sleigh happen.  I hope you are blessed by either what you saw in the experience or what you read about the experience.  Also, special thanks to Gerry Printz, who documented the night in pictures.  His images capture more in one shot than a thousand words as the old saying goes.  I can’t wait to see how the photos turn out. 
Finally, I would just like to thank God.  Truly, without him none of this outreach would even be possible.  He is doing a mighty work in the hearts of his servants all around Metro Jackson.  That is a joyous thought this Christmas season.  He is the power behind all we do, we are merely His agents of Grace.  I will conclude with the words given those Shepherds we have attempted to honor.  Before them was a heavenly host more numerous than the stars in the sky.   The host  proclaimed that first Christmas night:

Glory to God in the Highest, Peace on Earth, Goodwill toward Men!

It’s still the good news of the Savior even over 2,000 years later.
All His Grace to You this Christmas Season,

m.