[the 72 project] churches, zoos, and salt shakers

It is not a habit of mine to sugarcoat things. Every time I write one of these posts, I reread it over and over and find myself grimacing at the words I use. I want to clean it up, soften it, make it “PC”, water it down. I don’t like telling you that Malinda, sweet and beautiful as she was, had rotting teeth. I don’t like that I described the difference between how I was dressed and how the kids on the street in Nashville were dressed. I wonder every time I use the words “homeless” and “poor” if it will offend someone.

The truth of the matter is that we have met people who are homeless. They are dirt poor. In the end, I refuse to mince words. Malinda’s teeth were brown and rotting, and I’ll tell you that so that you understand that these beautiful people have to prioritize surviving on what amount of money they can get panhandling, and teeth sometimes come up low on that priority list. These people do not have homes like you and I. They are poor, they are dressed in what they can find or afford, they eat when it is possible, and they live different lifestyles than us middle class.

So again, I won’t water down what is happening on these streets. I hate that I am describing human beings in the way I am, but it is how it is, my friends. I have hugged men that smelled like urine. I have sat and talked to women who had no teeth at all. I feel like as Christians, we have become too clean, too comfortable, and so we struggle to reach out to these broken people who need Christ more than anything.

One of my favorite quotes is by Mark Batterson in his book, Primal. He said he went to the Galapagos Islands and saw all of the beautiful wild animals and was amazed. Then the next week, he went to the San Diego Zoo. Now the SD zoo is an amazing experience if you go, but compared to the raw, beautiful wildlife of the Galapagos Islands, Batterson was left thinking to himself, “I wonder if churches do to Christians what zoos do to animals.”

We tend to clean up our Christians, make them content with cushy status quo, and nurture that comfort. This is not how it should be. Jesus lived homeless. He left everything to serve others. If we are true followers of Christ, are we not supposed to leave everything to follow? Peter and Andrew left everything, their boats, their nets, their families, their entire livelihoods to follow this crazy man who told them he could teach them to fish for men. Their lives were uncomfortable, unusual, dynamic, and dangerous after that. That is the type of life we are called to as Christians. Following Christ is no soft pursuit.

We, as Christians, are the salt of the earth, as Christ declared (Matthew 5:13). And yet, as Arron Chambers puts it in his book, Eats with Sinners, “Salt in a saltshaker is worthless. Its value comes when it is poured out of the saltshaker.” Are we, as Christians, stuck in our salt shaker? How are we supposed to add flavor to this dull existence if we just sit in our saltshakers, in our church buildings? The world we were commissioned to love is outside of that building. It’s time to go!

Mike Yankoski was a student at Westmont in Santa Barbara, CA, a prestigious Christian university in a very wealthy and beautiful area. He left everything to live with the homeless on the streets for six months. What prompted this radical decision was a revelation one Sunday. He said that on that Sunday, he was suddenly shocked to realize he had driven twenty minutes past the world that needed him to be the Christian he says he is, to sit in a building, listening to a sermon titled, “Be the Christian you say you are.” The irony of it disturbed him enough for him to drop the comfort zone he had created all his life, and leave everything for the cold city sidewalks and panhandling on street corners.

Sometimes, in trying to bring God to the people on the streets, I find Him already there. The group of young people I hung out with on the streets in Nashville had put together very quickly that I was a Christian, so at one point while Rob was messing around on his guitar, Jay J shouted over to him, “Hey! Play that ‘imagine’ song. You know… that one about heaven.” Rob began to play something else, so Jay J decided to start singing a few lines to try and figure it out. “I can only imagine what it will be like when I walk by your side. I can only imagine what my eyes will see when your face is before me,” he sang. I joined him. “Surrounded by your glory, what will my heart feel? Will I dance for you, Jesus, or in awe of you be still?” Heather and Jackie were arguing over something. Rob was playing a country song on his guitar. The city cars and tourist noise enveloped us. But Jay J and I were there, offering up those few lines in worship, and I’m sure God appreciated it just as much as a church choir on Sunday morning.

I sometimes think the Christians here in the United States need to be truly disturbed. I hope and pray that Obama makes every day a challenge to be a Christian. It is not until we are shaken out of our comfortable salt shakers, released from our cush zoos, that we are going to be truly effective in this world. It is then that we will lift our hands to heaven in praise because it is in experiencing that overwhelming redemption that God has offered to this undeserving, broken world that we will feel and know at least a portion of God’s love for us.

Malinda may have had rotting teeth, but her smile was beautiful. Sleepy may live on the streets, but he knows God and he ministered to Viktor and I more than the pastor who preached to us the following Sunday. Jay J may have been shirtless, covered in tattoos, and sitting on that street corner, but his song of worship was just as sweet, if not sweeter than those you hear in church on Sunday. God loves these people, and so do I.

[Jesus said to them, "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners." ] Mark 2:17

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[the 72 project] young and homeless

Now Nashville… Well it is a long ways from California, geographically and culturally. It’s a whole ‘nother world out here. This is not my first trip to Nashville, but this time my purpose is different; I’m here to see — really see with God’s eyes — the homeless and impoverished on the streets and serve them in whatever way I can. Today, I was walking through downtown merely taking in all of the flashing signs for saloons and music venues and the tourists all decked out in cowboy hats and Nashville memorabilia, wondering at the odd country-city culture. Engrossed in all of this, I almost passed a group of three young people leaning against a planter on Broadway Street. They looked liked locals to me so I didn’t have any reason to be interested in them — that is, until the girl on the end aggressively stuck out her hand and said, “Have any change?”

It was getting late and I had spent the majority of my day grocery shopping and caught up in my own interests. Those three words changed everything, however, revealing God’s purpose for my being there that day at that time. He has a funny way of doing that.

Immediately stopping, I explained that I had no change, but started talking to them about the weather (a storm had just blown through and left as quick as it came). There were two girls and a boy with a guitar. Heather, Jackie, and Rob. I came to learn that Heather and Rob were barely 20 and Jackie was 16. We were soon joined by Jay J, who was 21 and had been on the streets since he was 9 years old if you believe him.

In all of my helping with the homeless, this was my first encounter with anyone this young. Like all young people involved in the music scene, we talked about music and Rob played us some Johnny Cash and Tom Petty on his guitar. Eventually, I asked the girls if they needed shoes. They said they did, so I told them I had some in my car if they wanted to walk over there with me. They agreed and the boys joined us, so we all walked out to my car parked on a curb just outside the main street.

At my car, I helped the girls find shoes their sizes and fill up some bags to take with them. It was then that I remembered I had recently bought a little travel stove. It had one burner and ran on little tanks of butane. I pulled that out, along with a saucepan, a big can of refried beans, a can of corn, and a handful of Snapples. We then proceeded to sit on the curb in the middle of downtown Nashville, serving up and eating an odd but warm dinner for the five of us.

Coincidentally, earlier that day I had picked up the book, Eats with Sinners from a Christian book store. The back description reads, “In Jesus’ day, eating with someone acknowledged that person as an equal. Religious leaders considered it unthinkable for a Jewish teacher to eat with common people. But Jesus cared more about saving souls than saving face. So who are you eating with?” I didn’t read that until after my meal with my new friends, and it made me laugh.

I could have just given them the donations and walked back to downtown. I was well-dressed for a day in the city and had enough money to find some friends and have a nice dinner on Broadway. And the group I was with was a motley crew to say the least. Heather was wearing Jay J’s huge shirt, pulled over a white dress that had been soaked in the storm. Jackie was in pants that were torn up and a shirt slightly too small. Jay J was shirtless and in a wheelchair due to a foot injury. Rob was simply in dirty jeans and a t-shirt. And apparently I looked “like California”, in a simple black dress, an over-sized bracelet, faux Ray-Bans, and multiple facial piercings. The girls said I looked like some kinda rocker girl from Southern California. I guess they had me pegged. We were quite a ragtag group.

It was Rob who was the first to notice and get irritated by the leering passersby who intentionally drove on the wrong side of the road to put even more distance between them and our group on the curb. I just found it all entertaining. There I was creating friendships with young people my age who were ridiculously excited when I pulled out a bag full of candy. Two blocks away, cowboy-hat-wearing tourists dressed to the “T” were piling into the Hard Rock Cafe and the other upscale restaurants to spend more money on drinks alone than what our whole dinner had cost. I have to say, I was right where I was supposed to be and wouldn’t have traded places for anything.

Fortunately, I’ll be spending a few weeks here in Nashville, and I know that God has orchestrated this entire situation. I made sure to figure out how I could meet up with the young kids again and assured them I’d be back. And that I will. Jesus made friends with prostitutes, tax collectors, and fishermen. I have no reason not to befriend the young people that were scrounging for change from tourists on the streets of Nashville, and cannot wait to share more meals with them and get to know them better.

This week, I’d like to give you a challenge. I wholly encourage you to take someone out to coffee or lunch who you typically wouldn’t go out to coffee with. They could be homeless, a new coworker that you haven’t talked to much yet, a mother in need of a break from her kids, your grandma. Jesus often broke bread with those that others refused to associate with. He ate with sinners. He touched lepers. He talked to prostitutes. The least we can do is share coffee with someone in need of maybe just a friendly conversation. More often than not, God will bless you in the experience.

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[the 72 project] divine interactions in austin

So Austin, TX… This post has been a bit delayed now that I am situated in the Nashville, TN area, but I feel it incredibly important to recount what happened in that city.

It is quite a city.

While it was hard to find homeless in Phoenix, one would have to be blind to not see all of the poverty in the streets of Austin. There were panhandlers on every corner, men holding signs in the middle of huge crowds, and groups of homeless crowded around various shelters throughout the city. And the crowds were eclectic. The homeless had creative signs, some reading simply and honestly “Need beer and grass.” The people we met on the streets were very diverse. Again, God pointed us in the right direction by having people tell us what not to do. A woman we got to talking to in a salon pointedly told us, “You guys have fun in the city. Just don’t give any money to the bums!” It reminded me of the signs in Monterey, CA, along the beach that read “Don’t feed the squirrels.” Viktor and I just laughed as we walked out, because that was not our intention. Nope, we were going to just go make friends with those bums.

One particular group that Viktor and I ended up talking to consisted of two women and a man. They were sitting off on a side street, away from the main crowds, enjoying a conversation about the weather and whatnot. When we walked up… well I’ll confess, we must have “Californian” written on our foreheads, because those Texans could sniff us out as foreigners from a mile away. The woman sitting closest to us called out to me, “Hey, what’re the two of you up to?”

When it was obvious that she knew we weren’t from the area, I explained that we were on a road trip from California and just checking out the city. That seemed to satisfy her aggressive curiosity and so she started explaining to me parts of the city that we should visit and such. She occasionally interjected, with a shake of her head and a drag at her cigarette, “Dunno why you’d f-in come here.” Her name was Theresa, and she was there with her friends Malinda and Christopher.

The best way I can describe Malinda’s personality would be to say she was a southern belle. Her appearance was a slightly different issue, however. For being on the streets, she had managed to maintain a decent appearance with a cute blouse and jeans, but her smile displayed rotting teeth and her flip flops were a size too small and falling apart. When she introduced herself to me, however, she delicately took my hand, and with a cordial nod, gave me a very friendly smile. Christopher, sitting next to her, was in cargo shorts and had decided to ditch his shirt because of the horrid heat. He shook my hand energetically and gave me a friendly grin.

We talked for a few minutes with them, after offering them some waters from our bag. (Again, these water bottles were quite a blessing on this trip and proved as amazing conversation starters). Viktor began talking to Christopher about something, so I struck up a conversation with the two women. I remembered that I had some of the care packages from Bridgeway Christian Church in my bag still, so I asked the girls if they needed toothbrushes or toothpaste. I told them I’d been given them as donations for the trip and Theresa gave me a surly “Sure.” I handed her some toothpaste and a toothbrush. Christopher saw what I was doing and so I offered him some toothpaste and a toothbrush, as well, and ended up handing him the whole bag. Malinda, however, turned down everything I offered her.

Finally, I pulled out two pairs of flip flops from my bag, also donated by Bridgeway. I have to say, it made my day when I saw Theresa and Malinda’s eyes light up. I handed them the shoes, which thank God they were the right size. They started giggling and were deciding who would get the pair with plaid crosshatching on the souls and who would get the pair decorated in colorful peace signs.

Malinda and Theresa became engrossed in talking about shoes and I took some cues from Malinda that it was time for us to move on. We began to say our goodbyes, God-bless-yous, have-a-good-days, and they all expressed their gratitude for us stopping to talk with them. Christopher jumped up and gave both Viktor and I huge hugs, which I really appreciated.

I have been told I’m one of those people who is very approachable. I often have strangers in public places strike up random conversations with me, or I’ll initiate friendly small talk with people near me. So it’s not unusual for me to have random conversations with complete strangers, but I’ll tell you that all of the deepest or most friendly or most honest interactions I’ve had have been with those people that I’ve seen most other people just walk past and ignore. The homeless and the poor are so blunt and open and honest most of the time, it really is a breath of fresh air. All of the civilities we dance around with the people in line at Starbucks get tiresome. Sitting on a stained sidewalk under the ridiculously hot sun, sweating until makeup and deodorant are worthless, puts conversations on a completely different level.

Anyways, following Malinda’s cues, we then said goodbye and began walking along the river, stepping over a man passed out halfway in the water. We met a pair of men smoking joints and dipping their feet in the river a few yards down, and they pointed us in the direction of a church that was supposedly serving dinner at the time. I’m sure now that it was God’s will that we never found that church. We walked all over and drove all over with no luck, but when we were about to give up the search, I spotted a man behind a tree on the side of the road. All I saw as we passed was his ragged gray hair and shirtless back bent over his foot, pouring hydrogen peroxide on it.

“Viktor! Let’s go help him!” We parked quickly (and illegally, actually — thank goodness we weren’t towed) and grabbed some of the supplies from the first aid kits donated by Viktor’s friends. Armed with bandaids and neosporin, we walked up to the man.

We stopped in front of him and he looked up, surprised as if he expected us to just keep walking. I skipped introductions, figuring he was in pain, and tried to ask him if he could use some neosporin and bandaids. At first, he looked at me blankly, then in Spanish, began explaining that he hurt his foot. I’m not sure he had understood me at first, but Viktor and I backed up and introduced ourselves (en español) and asked his name.

“Me llamo Alfredo. I appreciate. Dañé mi dedo del pie. Uhh. My toe.” He kept pointing to his toe, which was bubbling and white because of the hydrogen peroxide he had just poured on it. It looked like it had been smashed or like the toe nail had been ripped off. I could not tell and didn’t want to stare.

I offered him the neosporin, hoping he understood. He nodded his head vigorously, taking the neosporin and bandaids and repeatedly telling us, “I appreciate!” Viktor and I offered him what Spanish we could come up with at the moment, then took our leave of him. As he set to work on his foot and we jumped back in my car, I told Viktor, “Well, there’s a reason we ended up here instead of the church!”

We had a lot of these divine interactions in Austin and all along the trip. We ended up in the right place at the right time all too often. God had us where He wanted us for every step of the way. Not only that, but He had the people we were supposed to meet in the right places at the right times. Looking back at that day, there are so many big events that would have never occurred if it wasn’t for small details like a wrong turn in the city, a man on the street telling us of a good church to check out, or my impulsive, “Let’s take a left at this street, for the heck of it.” God definitely took care of us and the people we met in Phoenix and Austin.

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[the 72 project] a dream and a smile

Sleepy, our friend at CASS, the homeless shelter on Madison in downtown Phoenix, conveniently had directed Viktor and I to the Phoenix Dream Center on Grand Ave. We drove up to it later that day and I decided I wanted to give that place some of the donations we had received. I just got a “good vibe” from it.

We walked in through the front door and I asked a woman at the desk if she could use some of the stuff we had. She eagerly nodded and so we brought the car around and began unloading. There was a second woman at the desk, and when she saw the car and how many donations we were unloading, she got excited and called some men over to help us. We unloaded probably 75 bags full of toiletries such as toothpaste, toothbrushes, soap, floss, feminine products, and utensils, most of which were donated to us in care packages by Bridgeway Christian Church of Roseville, CA.

Leona, the second woman, began telling us what a huge blessing the donations were. Her excitement just confirmed my “vibe.” She said they were going to give out the packages to the homeless “overflow” that they took in every day, and that they would give one to each of the live-in “disciples” at the center.

Basically, we found out that the Dream Center ran a program that took in the homeless and incarcerated, giving them a place to sleep, food to eat, and responsibilities to put them back into the normal routine of life and keep them off the streets. The program as she described it just blew me away. They took in both men and women and the patients would go through different “phases,” first being introduced to the program, then put into a more rigorous routine to become “disciples.” These disciples would then go back out in the streets to bring in more of the broken and poor to the center to receive help.

Leona was completely bubbly and passionate about explaining the program. She, herself, had been in it for a year. Coincidentally, she was a native Californian, as well, hailing from San Bernadino. She ended up in Arizona at the Dream Center though unfortunate circumstances, but it was obvious to see how much her life had been turned around by the place. I don’t know how else to put it other than she wreaked of God’s love and joy.

We felt absolutely blessed to have been able to help out the Dream Center. If anyone ever finds themselves in the Phoenix area, I encourage them to help out at the Dream Center. The people there are amazing.

Another poignant moment for Viktor and I in Phoenix was during the day, when we were just walking around downtown, we saw a man, whose name is Mark, sitting on a curb eating a Subway sandwich. He kept shooting us glances, muttering something about my dress, but averting his eyes every time we made eye contact. We walked right up to him and offered a water.

He mumbled something about how he had a drink, pointing to his cup, but kept nodding his head and muttering, “Thanks for talking to this old fart, you two young people. Thank you and God bless.” He then looked away, but noticed we weren’t just walking away like people normally do. So he turned to us and said, “So where you from? Where you traveling to? You’re not from around here.” We told him we were from Long Beach and he got excited, talking about the Pike and how it’s not anything like it used to be. Apparently, he had been there when he was a little kid.

Then, randomly, he asked if we skateboarded. Since Viktor and I both longboard, and mine was actually in my car at the moment, we said yes. He got excited and quickly told us to pretend we were on our boards because he wanted to show us something. We effected the pose, and he preceded to teach us a little skateboard trick. It was comical to see, I’m sure, but when we took our leave of Mark, he was grinning and very grateful to us for stopping to talk to him.

I’ve heard from a number of people that poor people truly appreciate when you give them more than just the change in your pocket; they really appreciate your time and your conversation. They have names and they want you to know them. They have complaints about the weather, favorite coffee drinks, opinions about today’s politics, and spiritual insight to scripture. Yet so often in the past, I’ve seen them as less interesting than a stray dog in the street; I have just walked past them like they may as well be a stain on the sidewalk — curious but not worth my time. I hope that statement offends you, makes you uncomfortable, makes you stop and think. I’ll tell you now how truly wrong I was.

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