They have been forgotten from their parents, their friend, their pastor, they have been forgotten by society. When most of us think about the homeless, we think about some drunk holding a sign on the side of the road begging for money. After years of serving the land living homeless, that is truly not the real homeless. Most people you see on the side of the road with cardboard signs reading "will work for food, God Bless" are not homeless. They work the system and have homes and drive cars. The real land living homeless live in small camps and they live right next to places you and I work everyday.
My family has served the homeless for several years. They have become our friends and are part of our family. Most of you know my family and the love we have for our friends on the streets. We have seen many things: families united, people getting clean, someone being baptized and watching their life turn around, laughter from an elderly lady that guarantees that Big Mike (me) is due anytime, and many many others. We have also seen the hard parts when it comes to living on the streets: mental illness, violence against our homeless friends, suicide, camp fires, forced prostitution, system failures in our government (don't even get my wife started on this one), brush off by the authorities, and so on. We have received calls from the police to come and identify a homeless person at the morgue. We have lost brothers who served along side of us that were in the wrong place at the wrong time by themselves. I could go on and on both good and bad. The simple thing is we have found the forgotten and they are now part of us.
This Blog is something my family has decided to do together. You have myself, my wife Nicole, and our children: Austin, Abigail, and Joseph. We are founders of the Light of Salvation. We are not writers. We are just a family that enjoys serving the homeless and we wanted to share with others what we go through every week.
Michael
I am just going to throw it out there that this blogging thing is kinda scary. My rough draft is my final draft (okay it doesn't have to be, but it is going to be :))and there isn't anyone checking this thing to make sure I'm not rambling on like a complete idiot . . .Oh . . .Okay . . . .Seriously, doing this ministry can sometimes be really difficult. As it can be in doing any of God's work. I really believe you have to have a heart for this ministry. We have seen many volunteers come and go. It is very easy to get burnt out or become numb to the entire process. I know many weeks Michael and I have walked away feeling defeated or even frustrated and angry. We have felt the rejection of someone being mad because we didn't have what they wanted, their size, or a hot meal. How dare they be mad after all we do for them!! Ha! What am I thinking?? There were also many times that we have walked away going, "Wow! We really are supposed to be here. We really are making a difference in their lives." An example of this (and I could give tons), would be recently one of the fellows we had been serving for about a year was put in jail because he failed to report his address. After being released, he immediately contacted my husband. He told Michael that when he was in prison, the thing he thought about the most and that helped him through was our family. Knowing that our family loved him unconditionally and that we prayed with and for him all of the time. We accepted him. He was not forgotten. . . . But wait, it gets better! He then started to open up to my husband about his not so perfect past. These were things we already knew because we had done our homework. The bottom line was that he was completely blown away that we already knew all these things and we still loved him and allowed our entire family to be around him and to love him too. I just thank the Lord for allowing us to be a vehicle to show our friend a small glimpse into His sweet mercies!
Side note . . .there's a chicken . . . Can you imagine what our world would be like if we would all just love one another that way? Oh, my goodness, I don't think I can even completely imagine. . . . Okay, back to topic.
Chapter 3, Verse 5 in the Book of Isaiah states, "The people will oppress one another, man against man, neighbor against neighbor; the youth will act arrogantly toward the elder, and the worthless toward the honorable." This could not be more evident in our experiences serving the homeless. I hope each week we can give you insight to our experiences with our friends. It is my wish that this may be used as a tool to stop the behavior spoken of in Isaiah. That we will stop oppressing one another and turn to loving one another instead! I pray you will continue to read each week and take this wonderful journey with our family!!
God Bless, Nicole :)
"How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? How long must I wrestle with my thoughts and every day have sorrow in my heart? How long will my enemy triumph over me? Look on me and answer, O Lord my God. Give light to my eyes, or I will sleep in death; my enemy will say, "I have overcome him," and my foes will rejoice when I fall. But I trust in your unfailing love; my heart rejoices in your salvation. I will sing to the Lord, for he has been good to me," Psalm 13: 1-6
I like going out and help the homeless. I enjoy when at one of the stops one of the homeless plays a guitar for us. I worry about them and hope they get a real home.
Austin
This week I was happy to see Shorty out of jail. I was really worried about him. I love you Shorty.
Abigail
Be careful homeless friends, I love you.
Joseph
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