Too busy…

My Buddy Joey

One day early in the week a few weeks ago, I was working at the Salvation Army Center of Hope with the team from Fountain City UMC.  Like every other day, I tried my best to keep a smile on and be friendly around the homeless men, women and children that sit outside the homeless shelter.  However, that day I ran into a 9-year-old boy named Joey.  I casually introduced myself and went on with my day.  Later the next day he stopped me as I walked by and said, “Hey Nathan, that’s your name right?” Continuing he said, “Will you play soccer with me after you’re done working today?”  It was late in the afternoon already, I was tired, and I really just wanted to get back to the office to unload and then go home.  But I said I would play with him for a couple minutes after I was done.  The team packed up and went back to The Mission House for the day and I went back to the excited Joey to play soccer.  A couple minutes turned into twenty and I really had a good time playing with Joey.  While he was draining the last of my water, I introduced myself to Jennifer, his mother and she held onto my hand after shaking and looked me in the eye and said, “thank you” and then smiled, picked up Julia, her infant daughter, and watched as I walked away. 

From my best assumption, Jennifer looked like many of the other homeless women I had seen at that shelter.  She looked frail, tired, and she did not smile a whole lot.  I had instantly labeled her as “another one of them” despite her sincere gratitude.  The next day Natalie, another Mission House intern, stayed for a few minutes and played with Joey and me.  This time Joey’s younger brothers James and Isaac played with us.  The next day, Joey was even more comfortable around us and asked Natalie if he could help stain the fence.  She gladly allowed him to participate and he loved every minute.  The next week there weren’t any teams working at the Salvation Army so I didn’t really see the boys or Jennifer.  However, I was there on Tuesday with Brad, a Mission House volunteer, when a man came over and asked, “Are you the one that’s been playing with my boy’s while I am at work?”  I replied, “Yes sir.” He shook my hand and thanked me.  I guess the kids or Jennifer must have told him.

The next week I felt even more comfortable around Jennifer and had a few conversations with her.  She is from Michigan and they came to Louisville looking for work after Kevin, her husband, lost his job.  I introduced the five members of the youth group from Immanuel UMC that were working at the Center of Hope to Joey and his brothers and parents and they enjoyed talking with them.  But on Tuesday, I couldn’t make it to the site most of the days as I was making supply runs.  While I was gone, the group allowed Joey and his brothers to help chisel out the boards they were working on, which if I had been there, I probably wouldn’t have allowed to happen for safety reasons.  However, the rest of the week that is all those three boys would talk about.  “I got to wear safety glasses!”  “I got to use a hammer and a chisel,” they would exclaim. 

Thursday morning I woke up and opened up the news paper and on the front page was Jennifer, Isaac, James, and Julia, sitting on a couch under the headline “Louisville Homeless Population Up 5%.”  Surprised, I read the article over breakfast and realized just how wrong my first judgment of that family had been.  They had only been homeless for about a month.  They were a middle class family, like mine.  They just had a bas streak of luck and found themselves without a home.  This article allowed me to be even more open when I showed it to Jennifer who was even more surprised to see herself on the front page of the Courier Journal.  She said that they were just normal people; both she and her husband have college degrees and had sound jobs before.  She was scared when she first came to live there but within a month of diligently looking for jobs and houses, they have found a home nearby to live in for the time being.  I feel like both myself and the youth and adults involved with EDGE at the Salvation Army have gotten a glance into the life of a homeless family.  The Robbins family has put a new face on homelessness for the youth and me.  They made it personal for us.  However, I hope, pray, and think that maybe the Mission House youth have been able to make the homeless shelter a positive memory for Joseph, and his brothers, James and Isaac rather than one they wish to forget.  I know they won’t forget the short time they had with us.  As Jennifer put it on Friday, when I walked up to the wall by which the elevated yard is held in, she said, “Hello Mr. Popular.  The kids go jumping off the wall scraping their knees just to get to you.”  Having friends in situations like that make me realize that I am living in a broken world too.  Steve Corbett and Brian Fikkert say in the book, When Helping Hurts, “But part of our striving [for reconciliation] is also to fall on our knees every day and pray, ‘Lord be merciful to me and to my friends here, because we are both sinners.’”  We are on the same level, I am no better than any one of the people at the shelter.  But with God’s help I can strive with them for God’s healing touch in our lives.

Saturday I received a text message from Mama and Emma, who were waiting for the harvester to make another round and empty the wheat into the truck in which they were sitting.  They were passing time reading the Cornerstones section of the Progressive Farmer magazine and decided to send me the quote, “Character is what emerges from all the little things you were too busy to do yesterday, but did anyway.”  At first I didn’t get it but when I called she explained, you were way too busy to play soccer with Joey, think about what would have, or rather wouldn’t have if you hadn’t played with him.  I would like to encourage you today to take the five or ten minutes to make a difference.  You never know who it will effect, but that twenty minute game of soccer changed my perspective of homeless friends forever.

If you want to read the article from the front page of the Courier Journal you can follow this link.

http://www.courier-journal.com/article/20100630/NEWS01/6300405/Louisville-homeless-population-up-5-

And to see more pictures from this week visit http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=190180&id=622756834&l=c1893995d2

מִנְחָה֙