phone is a person on a bicycle who rides from one group to another, bringing news and linking people to what’s happening nearby. Thanks to the “cell phones” cycling around the areas we worked in, a lot more people heard about us and came running. We were grateful for them, as they allowed us to reach out to so many more.
The number of bags we handed out rapidly jumped from 75 to 100, to 125 and then to 150. We’d been doing it for a while when we finally upped the numbers to 200, and then to 250, and on some nights 300. You didn’t have to do anything to qualify for a bag. All you had to do was be there. People who said they needed another one for a husband, a wife, a girlfriend or boyfriend, or just a pal who was in his crib three blocks away and too sick to walk to us, were given the additional bag they said they needed. Who were we to question if what they said was true? Life was tough enough for them, without our making it more so. And to this day, I know and believe that in almost every instance, those bags were not sold to buy illegal substances or traded for them. Everyone we saw immediately opened the bags and put everything on, and ripped open the food bags with trembling hands. I saw many of those bags around the city, in the hands where they belonged, as people carried their possessions in them. For the most part, the bags stayed where they were meant to.
Theft is a bigger problem on the streets, and too often people reported to us that they had been ripped off. I can’t tell you how many times we went out and had people come running up to us in despair, saying their bag had been stolen only days before (or taken by the DPW and tossed in a garbage truck). “I knew you’d come back,” more than one said to us. “I started praying for you to come this morning. Where were you? I needed a new bag.… Thank God, you made it.” Providence seems to have shoved us out the door and onto the streets on the days we were most needed. And with impressive honesty, many times someone would shake their head with a smile, and say, “You got me last time, I’m okay.…” Or tell us they needed only a jacket but not a sleeping bag. Need is acute on the streets, but greed is rare, almost nonexistent. And time and time again, they wanted to make sure we gave something to their buddy, who they said needed it more.
I can’t say I was never afraid as scary-looking people rushed toward us. I’m not crazy, and this was an unfamiliar world to me for a long time, full of people who at times could look ominous, disoriented, or even deranged. Sometimes they were less frightening when we started to talk to them, and at other times, they became considerably worse, and more alarming. In my earliest days on the streets, on a night when several very disturbing-looking people ran up to me, I pulled myself together and thought,
If Jesus came to me looking like thisman, would I run? Or would I stand right where I am, face him, and embrace him?
I forced myself to see Jesus in him every time I saw someone who scared me, and eventually I felt blessed, not frightened. And the people who had seemed so upsetting to me melted into the kind people, who welcomed us into their world. That vision worked for me.
To remind myself of it, I bought a nearly life-size painting at an art fair. It was a painted cutout of a man, with the face of Jesus and a crown of barbed wire on his head, dressed in bright colors, holding a sign that says “Will work for food.” It is unnervingly lifelike, and I put it on the wall outside my bedroom, where I can see it from my bed. Many times in the moonlight, I have jumped when I saw it, thinking there was a strange man standing outside my bedroom. And then I remember what it is, and what it was meant to remind me of. I love that painting, because it reminds me of the people I see on the streets and imagine with the face of Jesus, the people who no longer scare me. It is a constant reminder of the work we loved
The number of bags we handed out rapidly jumped from 75 to 100, to 125 and then to 150. We’d been doing it for a while when we finally upped the numbers to 200, and then to 250, and on some nights 300. You didn’t have to do anything to qualify for a bag. All you had to do was be there. People who said they needed another one for a husband, a wife, a girlfriend or boyfriend, or just a pal who was in his crib three blocks away and too sick to walk to us, were given the additional bag they said they needed. Who were we to question if what they said was true? Life was tough enough for them, without our making it more so. And to this day, I know and believe that in almost every instance, those bags were not sold to buy illegal substances or traded for them. Everyone we saw immediately opened the bags and put everything on, and ripped open the food bags with trembling hands. I saw many of those bags around the city, in the hands where they belonged, as people carried their possessions in them. For the most part, the bags stayed where they were meant to.
Theft is a bigger problem on the streets, and too often people reported to us that they had been ripped off. I can’t tell you how many times we went out and had people come running up to us in despair, saying their bag had been stolen only days before (or taken by the DPW and tossed in a garbage truck). “I knew you’d come back,” more than one said to us. “I started praying for you to come this morning. Where were you? I needed a new bag.… Thank God, you made it.” Providence seems to have shoved us out the door and onto the streets on the days we were most needed. And with impressive honesty, many times someone would shake their head with a smile, and say, “You got me last time, I’m okay.…” Or tell us they needed only a jacket but not a sleeping bag. Need is acute on the streets, but greed is rare, almost nonexistent. And time and time again, they wanted to make sure we gave something to their buddy, who they said needed it more.
I can’t say I was never afraid as scary-looking people rushed toward us. I’m not crazy, and this was an unfamiliar world to me for a long time, full of people who at times could look ominous, disoriented, or even deranged. Sometimes they were less frightening when we started to talk to them, and at other times, they became considerably worse, and more alarming. In my earliest days on the streets, on a night when several very disturbing-looking people ran up to me, I pulled myself together and thought,
If Jesus came to me looking like thisman, would I run? Or would I stand right where I am, face him, and embrace him?
I forced myself to see Jesus in him every time I saw someone who scared me, and eventually I felt blessed, not frightened. And the people who had seemed so upsetting to me melted into the kind people, who welcomed us into their world. That vision worked for me.
To remind myself of it, I bought a nearly life-size painting at an art fair. It was a painted cutout of a man, with the face of Jesus and a crown of barbed wire on his head, dressed in bright colors, holding a sign that says “Will work for food.” It is unnervingly lifelike, and I put it on the wall outside my bedroom, where I can see it from my bed. Many times in the moonlight, I have jumped when I saw it, thinking there was a strange man standing outside my bedroom. And then I remember what it is, and what it was meant to remind me of. I love that painting, because it reminds me of the people I see on the streets and imagine with the face of Jesus, the people who no longer scare me. It is a constant reminder of the work we loved
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