Category: Word on the Street

For nearly eight years, a man lived in the woods only connecting with the outside world through a local church. In return for their friendship, occasional benevolence and the opportunity to escape the elements, he was helpful in their food pantry. The church, however, knew that greater things were possible for this man and frequently leveraged Micah’s help to problem-solve his various obstacles.

“It was hard for me to trust other people,” he later confessed. “My life has not particularly been full of experiences that validate other people’s intentions. I’m not used to believing other people want to help.”

His perspective broadened, however, as he gradually began to engage with the ministry the churches have organized through Micah. Once he could accept it, housing was made available to him. Care was coordinated through any number of community services, such as the Moss Clinic, Rappahannock Area Community Services Board and Social Security. And his landlord even opted to try him out on a couple of painting jobs.

“The next thing I knew I was saving money, helping to pay rent and living life and loving it once again,” he later wrote to Micah and its churches. “You all have had a part in helping me to transform my life in such a dramatical and systematic way that after being here at my home for almost a year I still sit down and think about how everyone at Micah worked as a team to help get my life and my way of thinking back to normal. I must say that it makes me cry like a little child with praise and appreciation for all that the churches are doing through Micah. May you all have a very high place in heaven and may God bless you all for saving my life.”

This story was possible last year because our churches have mobilized time, resources and influence to move people from the street to permanent housing. In the last year, the churches have supported 75 of the most challenged homeless individuals people with permanent housing. Many of them live with mental illness, learning disabilities, physical illnesses and other disabilities that would have made it impossible for them to self-resolve. Since 2010, efforts the churches have made to house people has reduced chronic homelessness by 84%.

A 62-year-old Army veteran, found himself living in his car after leaving a challenging marriage. Having spent much of his life as a truck driver for a manufacturing plant and living independently, he wasn’t good at asking for help. But when his health started to decline and he could no longer work he found himself reaching out for shelter.

In partnership with Mary Washington Hospital, the churches have created a safe place through Micah for people to recover or die with dignity. The gentle man, with a long white beard found himself there when his esophageal cancer left him with a feeding tube and a steep slope of radiation and chemotherapy.

While staying in the respite house, the man—nicknamed “Santa”—became friends with one of the churches that came on a regular basis to serve dinner. They continued to visit him after he moved back into housing and by the time he died he was coming back to respite as a part of their monthly dinner team.

As the man’s condition kept him from eating for many of the months he stayed in respite, he talked often of the home-cooked meal—steak and baked potato—he hoped to have again someday. Some months after he left the program and moved into his own apartment the friends he made his respite made that meal possible. Eating the meal he had waited so long for was one thing, he said, but sharing it with a community gave new meaning to “home-cooked.”

This story was possible last year because our churches have mobilized time, resources and care through a Respite Home.  In nine years of operation, this ministry has become a vital source of support for people to rest, navigate health resources and build relationships that make heal the deepest wounds.  Every year, the respite house cares for 50 to 75 different individuals who would have otherwise left the hospital without a safe place to recover. In addition to improving patient care for homeless individuals in our community, the ministry reduces unnecessary health care costs by lowering readmissions and decreasing the length of time someone must stay in the hospital.

Recently, a case manager stopped by to visit a long-time friend in need. The woman and her husband had lived on the streets in our community for many years before making it back into permanent housing. 

Getting back indoors made a tremendous difference in their stability. They began to address their disabilities, learned valuable life skills and even increased their income. Although they eventually became independent, they still remained an important part of the community our collaboration of churches has cultivated.

In fact, the very reason the case manager was visiting that day was to take this woman for a training in newest ministry our collaboration of churches have coordinated, the community cafe. After several months of working in the kitchen of this full-service, pay what you can restaurant, she wrote a letter saying the following:

“Before I started working in the cafe, I was a very anxious person.I never dreamed that I could do anything outside my house. I had horrible personal relationship skills and very little self-confidence.This program has helped me by providing a safe place for people such as myself to learn new skills, work on obstacles that hinder us from everyday life and grow.”

This story was possible last year because our churches have mobilized time, resources and shared experiences through a community café. In just over a year of operation, this ministry has become a vital source of food, dignity, and training for those living through homelessness. Every day the café is open, more than 200 hungry people are fed with a meal, menu choices and restaurant-quality service. Twenty-one people have received food service training through this ministry in the last year and countless others have found purpose in volunteering their time.

For the last year, Micah has partnered with Stafford food security to provide food bags to kids in city schools. Our churches have been packing about 160 bags a month for the kids at Walker Grant and Lafayette. Recently, an additional need of 50 bags a week was identified at Hugh Mercer’s. The existing churches have upped their numbers a little bit to help with this need, but it would be extraordinarily helpful if additonal churches and resources could be identified churches to support the rotation of bag preparation.

The Need
• Church commitment to one or two months of bag packing.They can be packed easily on a Sunday after church (or on a convenient day/time of your choosing). Food is purchased and provided by Stafford Food Security. Volunteers just have to show up and pack the bags. It takes about an hour and a half.
• Bags are stored at the Presbyterian church and volunteers for your month would come once a week and deliver a weekly allotment to the schools
• A financial commitment: Covering Hugh Mercer’s need for the rest of the school year) will cost about $12,000 (roughly $400 a week/ $1680 a month). The more churches that participate, the lower the cost for everyone

Please consider giving toward this effort or recruiting your church to help with labor and cost. If this is something that your congregation is interested in, please email [email protected] and we will put you in touch with the right people.

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She came to see me about her mother’s ashes

I had come into possession of them following a sudden death, an absent next of kin and a request from the community police to find a resting place.

Barely an adult herself, the young woman was equally ill-equipped to balance the emotional turmoil of a deceased parent with burial arrangements and funeral costs. Yet, she meandered into my office with the bravery of a seasoned warrior.  As we sunk into our conversation, I began to learn just how long she had waged that battle.

For many years, the woman and both her parents had been in and out of our lives. They were often homeless. Her parents were frequently incarcerated, and the last time she herself could remember a stable living arrangement was the age of five.

When her parents were available they hopped from short-term hotel stays to friends’ couches, occasionally making a bed in the back seat of a car. When mom and dad were not available, her home was the foster system, occasionally a family member and, as she got older, anywhere she could fly under the radar.

By the time she was in high school, the school system hardly knew she existed. Her mom had convinced someone they were homeschooling. But the only schooling she could remember was teaching her dad how to use a computer to produce the counterfeit checks that paid for their next meal.

Unfortunately, this deeply confusing childhood launched her into adulthood with a diminished self-worth and a distorted view of relationship. So desperate was her need to belong, that she joined the acquaintances she had met on the street in a string of brake-ins and got caught.

Sitting in a jail cell those many months, she reflected on the parental footsteps she had followed and reckoned with choosing a life quite different. She loved her parents, and knew they loved her in the best ways they knew how. But the path she had traveled with them had left her with little understanding about being anything other than homeless, addicted and now incarcerated.

She was only weeks away from release when the worst news came.  Her mother had been found dead in her apartment, and the courthouse send off before she went to jail for six months would be her last memory.

Upon her release, she found her way to my office where I heard this story for the first time.

As she unraveled detail after detail of her twisted childhood and subsequent challenges, I thought of the implications of 2 Timothy. In what is often considered Paul’s final letter before his death, the apostle addresses his fellow missionary to whom he is close enough to call a “son.” Paul’s charge to his beloved Timothy is mostly concerned with how he will stand firm in the message of Christ’s church despite the circumstances he might find himself.

“The spirit God gave us does not make us timid, but gives us power, love and self-discipline,” verse 1:7 reads.  In spite of any amount of suffering the world might give us, I’ve learned this truth is paramount in understanding who we are and helping others become all that they are meant to be.

So, in my best ‘you can do this’ voice, I started digging for the spirit of God within her.

“You are 19-years old, with the whole rest of your life ahead of you,” I said. “What are you going to do with it?”

I was prepared to hear her hopes and dreams. I planned to talk about school, how to help her get a job, the steps to find permanent housing. What I got was a lesson in adversity and a new appreciation for the faith required to overcome it.

“It just isn’t that simple,” she said. “My whole life has been a certain way. It’s all I know and all I understand.”

“You ever play Jenga?” she asked. I nodded.

“My life is kind of like that. I know I’m capable of building the tower taller than you can imagine.  Who I am, the real me, is better than what my life has been, thus far. But to build that tower, I have to choose piece after piece from the bottom of the stack and place it on top of an already fragile tower,” she said.  “Those pieces are painfully difficult to identify and remove.”

“Although I have a lot to gain with going to school, finding work, remaining in a stable home, it also means I have that much further to fall when the tower topples over,” she continued. “Inevitably, my experience so far says the tower can only get so big. So, I have chosen not to build it at all.”

Lost in her words, I reflected on the complexity of becoming all that God intends us to be. Are the challenges of those walking through our doors so great that they may not even own “a game of jenga?” How often do any of us, for that matter, refuse to move forward, be who we are or take a risk that brings us closer to who God created us to be simply because we are afraid of falling?

As 2 Timothy points out so profoundly, the risk, the strategy, and the suffering of our lives is actually what this life with Jesus is all about. Those who embrace their suffering, therefore, are actually more equipped than anyone to tackle a lifetime of “Jenga towers.”

For “If we have died with him, we will also live with him. If we endure, we will also reign with him. If we deny him, he will also deny him. If we are faithless, he remains faithful—for he cannot deny himself” (2 Timothy 2:11-13).

The winter season was almost over, but every morning for 18 weeks the same volunteer had done the morning bus run for the cold weather shelter.

For 126 mornings, he climbed from his bed at quarter to six and drove to the lot where the bus was parked. It took a good thirty minutes to warm up the hand-me-down, 26-passenger; and sometimes, the fuses would pop at the hand of an overnight frost.

Picking up the bus and making it to the shelter on time could have taken a mere 30 minutes under other circumstances, but time for changing fuses and starting the bus just right had to be calculated. Once prepared and ready, he’d make the five-mile drive to the shelter, load up all 37 guests over a couple of trips and deliver them to the designated morning breakfast.

Not only was this volunteer’s care for our neighbors relentless and sacrificial, his daily interaction with our shelter guests earned him a special reputation that did not go unnoticed. By the end of the season, he knew most of them by name and became a trusted confidant for the various life issues they were facing.

On the side, he’d make special arrangements to help them move their campsites or take care of other important business. He would listen to their stories, celebrate victories and sit with them in their sorrows. He wasn’t shy about offering a word of prayer or sharing how the love of Christ had been transformative in his own life.

Thus, his relationship with Fredericksburg’s street friends was so much more than a bus driver.  He was their friend and connector to the normalcies of the world that often seemed so inaccessible.

The true impact of these relationships became blatantly apparent as the shelter season wound to a close.

As the last passengers exited the bus one morning, a young gentleman hung behind.

“Need something, buddy,” the volunteer asked. The young man quietly sauntered to the front and slid in the passenger seat behind the driver.

“I wanted to ask you something,” he said quietly.

“Whatcha got?” the driver replied.

“You see, I see you every morning and I know what you done for some of these fellas out here. You keep doing and giving and helping, but you don’t ask nothin’ of any of them,” he continued. “I don’t really need anything–well, at least not anything you don’t know about. I just wondered what you thought it would take to get a life like yours.”

Unsure of the appropriate response, the driver sat awkwardly silent until the discomfort required him to say something.

“I don’t know that I ever thought of it that way,” the driver said. “But what I do know is that it isn’t really about me. I’m a follower of Jesus Christ, who died on the cross so that I could be forgiven for the many ways I have disappointed God. He didn’t ask anything in return, but I figure I could at least try to repay him by doing the same for other people.”

In weeks to come, the two would have many more conversations about their lives and the subtle ways they could see God in it. The shelter guest would go on to find stable employment and a home; and the driver would continue giving the best he had to anyone who needed it.

We may never know how much the guest’s self-determination or the driver’s encouragement really mattered. But one thing is clear: living with a full heart and abundant soul gave at least one neighbor in need a glimpse at the ultimate home–the kingdom of God.

At her lowest point, almost eight years ago, a neighbor in need was hunched over a chair while a case manager snipped her long blonde locks to the floor. In her months of staying outside and holding up in cheap motels she had collected such a horrendous case of head lice that no amount of treatment could restore her former tresses.

This hopeless place was not where the Mary Washington College alum and private high school graduate had pictured herself at the peak of her life. Her sites had once been set on law school, a husband and a family. But the journey, riddled with one tragedy after another, sent her spiraling time and again.

Two months after graduating college, her mother died. She passed up law school, began a career in the IT industry and got married instead. One of her three children, born at 23 weeks, died fourteen days after birth. Her marriage began to grow apart. After nine years of marriage, she split with her husband. He was killed in a car accident three weeks later.

Drinking numbed her pain, but it cost her a job, home and custody of her children. And for more than half a decade it left her in a tent, begging for money and at the doorstep of Micah Ministries. So chronically homeless was she then, that she became one of the first candidates for Micah’s housing program. While her roommates stabilized quickly, acquiring benefits and developing other supports, she spent her first year of housing laying on the couch in the same green sweatshirt and grey pants with a beer handily tucked behind the couch corner.

At about the year mark, there was little support that her household continued to require. Her liver wasn’t functioning properly and she was showing signs of nerve damage, but there was nothing about her pattern that led us to believe there was any more we could do.

Months went by.

Little changed until the phone rang one day with a strange request. She was still housed, hadn’t had a drink in several weeks and was searching for something good to occupy her time. She wanted to volunteer. It started with a few hours and slowly grew to two and three times a week. Before too long, we weren’t the only place she was lending her time. Our friend began attending Alcoholics Anonymous quite regularly. She had taken well to the community it offered, found a sponsor and put her computer skills to work by taking on the responsibility of updating their monthly meeting list.

On her own, she sought professional assistance with panic attacks and clinical depression, which she learned had triggered her alcoholism so many years ago. She took initiative to ask Micah for help finding a job, and by November 2013, she cashed her first paycheck in years. She has maintained her connection to the Micah community for many years, helping others in their efforts to move off the street. Likewise, Micah continued to be a support to her, working through the process to reinstate a driver’s license, seek advancement in employment opportunities and get a car.

To hear her tell the story today, her decision to change her lifestyle had a lot to do with the old idea of getting “sick and tired of being sick and tired.” But her persistence to maintain that decision, she attributes to the consistent community available throughout her journey.

“Were it not for the love, support and consistency, which was about the only consistent thing in my life, it’s unlikely I’d be here today,” she says. “The community showed me love and offered me a way out countless times—even times when I was not very lovable. It took me a while to take that hand, but I eventually did.”

In Exodus 3, God tells Moses he has been chosen to lead the Hebrew people from slavery in Egypt.

“Why on earth would the Egyptians believe I have the authority to do that?” Moses replies. All you need to tell them, God says, is “I am who I am.” As we know, Moses took that charge and he did not fail.

Sometimes, I think it is this same “burning bush” moment that each of us need in order to embrace the process of becoming our best selves. It is far easier to believe we are unworthy, incapable or unqualified than it is to look in the mirror and tackle the day with same battle cry—“I am who I am.”

If God cannot direct the path into his vision any more than the call to “I am,” who are we to expect any more from ourselves and others than simply being the best version of self that any of us were created to be?

Certainly, that was the case for the friend in this story. But it was not any grandiose solution that brought her life full circle.

Simply put, the time and presence of the great “I am” working through the children of God allowed her to become her best self, and all of us learned a valuable lesson about the process each and every one of us faces in our journey toward God’s vision for our lives.

If you listen closely among the homeless community—at least those who have been around for a while—you will hear them talk about a woman who was incredibly important to them.

The late Barbara Gear spent 20 of her retirement years feeding, counseling and sheltering some of the most challenging homeless in our community.

No doubt, the tangible impact she had on people’s lives was immeasurable. Yet, I am always struck that people who remember her most do not talk of the things she did for them, but that she was their friend.

I was a teenager and young adult when Barbara was at the peak of her ministry. I knew of the work and appreciated it; but mostly, I admired from a distance the ways she would meaningfully connect with neighbors on the street.

Then one summer, I sought Barbara’s guidance on how I too could be useful to the community.

When she answered the phone, I launched into a dissertation of my life and stirring passion that was brewing in my heart. I had barely rounded the corner of wanting to save the world when she abruptly interrupted.

“Tuesday,” she said. “Meet me at the warehouse and we will go from there.”

No interrogation.

No directives.

Just an invitation to come along and be a part of whatever was happening.

I had no idea what I was showing up for when I arrived that Tuesday. I only knew that the way Barbara connected with people on the street was intriguing to me, and I wanted to be a part of it.

The warehouse door was unlocked when I got there. I went inside and followed the shuffling sound to where Barbara was already packing boxes on the loading dock. We squeezed them into her 1980-something hooptie and we embarked on a tour of the downtown hotels and ally-ways.

I wondered as we drove, how these people on the street would know we were coming. Was there an advertisement put out or something? How would they know where and when to find us? But as we pulled up to the first stop it would be blatantly clear that Barbara knew a whole lot more about people on the street than I ever imagined.

The car had barely come to a full stop in the first motel parking lot before we were surrounded. Mamas toting babies approached. Strapping men that hadn’t showered in weeks lingered in the background. And slowly behind came the middle-aged adults whose canes and weathered complexions told more of their story than words ever could. They knew their friend was coming, and they were waiting.

Barbara popped the trunk and I stationed myself at the back, handing bagged meals and water bottles to those who approached. On the surface, our job that day was routine. The need was overwhelming. And the brokenness we encountered made it difficult to pull away believing that we had made any kind of difference at all. But what I saw Barbara doing in the background, changed me.

She talked for a long time with a man whose eye was so damaged that it looked as if the ball had fallen from the socket and deflated on his face.

I recognized another man and his wife from other projects Barbara had been involved in. They were often working alongside her in a kitchen or carrying heavy boxes to and from her car.

She bear hugged a young girl and whispered something in her ear, but as she pulled away I watched whatever pain had been bottled up inside trickle down her face.

I never learned the context of these interactions, nor do I know if these stories had a happy ending. But whatever the details, they were unnecessary to understand that something important was happening.

From the dawn of civilization and the creation of mankind, our scripture tells us “it is not good for man to be alone” (Genesis 2:18). Thus, God created woman to accompany the primal male on his journey through life.

In Jesus’ final prayer with the disciples in the upper room, he plead for unity and companionship as his disciples carried forth his mission. “My prayer is not for them alone,” Jesus says (John 17:20-23). “I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message that all of them (emphasis on the all of them) may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you.”

As the New Testament reminds time and again, we are made for loving neighbor, helping one another and interconnecting as closely as heavenly father is to messianic son.

We see in countless other Biblical friendships, that the greatest of God’s children are only such because of a neighborly bond. David had Jonathan, whose loyalty, compassion and sacrificial giving protected and supported the young king’s rise to God’s call in his life.  Moses had Aaron, who supported and often spoke for him in convincing Pharaoh to free the Hebrews. Naomi had Ruth, a daughter-in-law who did not abandon her in the days she may have struggled to survive.

In much the same ways, Barbara sought to be the friend of those she met on the street. The empathy, compassion and relentless hope she demonstrated may not have made them less homeless or resolved the trauma that led them there, but she saw them and loved them. And at least in that moment, the people she touched knew that they mattered.

A few months before Barbara died, I took some time to go and visit her.  Although, weak from her treatment and deeply impacted by illness, we talked for some time and expressed our gratitude for one another.

But as I left her house, it occurred to me that I too had been transformed by her love. Her invitation to me that summer day in my early adulthood had not looked a whole lot different than the embrace she offered to her street friends in the motel parking lot.

No interrogation.

No directives.

Just the kind of love that opened the door and cleared the way for God to do the rest.

The United Nations’ General Assembly has declared Friday, September 21, 2018  as a day devoted to strengthening the ideals of peace, both within and among all nations and peoples. The theme of the 2018 International day of peace is “The Right to Peace.” The International Day of peace, aka “Peace Day” Provides an opportunity for individuals, organizations and nations to undertake acts of peace and kindness. People across the globe will engage in diverse and meaningful ways, from observing a minute of silence to participation in peace marches.

The Rappahannock Rotary Club believes that “The Right to Peace” starts right here in our own community As part of our celebration of Peace Day, we would like to invite you to join us for an evening of conversation on Promoting Peace and Civility in our Community.This event will begin at 7 p.m. in the fellowship hall of the Fredericksburg Baptist Church (the Caroline St. entrance) and will conclude at 9 pm

As part of its mission to cultivate community and care for neighbors, Micah encourages participating in this important community discussion.

It was sometime in 2008 that Micah housed its first homeless person.

Admittedly, the event transpired in the aftermath of a minor crisis in which we feared the worst had occurred for one of our street friends.

But it was a notable beginning to what we have come to understand about the making of a home for those who have gone without for quite some time.

Nearly every morning for about three years, our friend was often the first face to peek through the glass window of the original day center. Promptly at 9am, he would take his seat at the breakfast table and begin a daily download. Sometimes people listened, but most of the time he muttered on with useless facts, street gossip and a wild story or two.  If something had happened in the homeless community, he was the guy you could count on to make the report. Before too long, anyone who had been paying attention could usually finish his jokes. And if you spent much time in his world you were sure to acquire a cleverly alliterated nickname.

Then one day, he didn’t come.

When his absence the next day turned into a week, we began to get quite worried. He wasn’t at our day center. He had not been to the downtown dinners. And no one in the homeless community had seen him.

On the evening of a heavy Spring rainstorm, we could not wait any longer.  We knew him to camp near the river. And if something was wrong, we needed to find him fast.

Two of us set off in the storm, bound and determined to find him. But hours later we returned to the office drenched, defeated and grieving our ruined pairs of shoes. There was nothing more we could do than go home and pray that he would surface safely very soon.

It would be three more days before the rain would lift. As we would later learn, it was 72 treacherous hours that our friend had zipped himself away in a tent, hoping to keep himself and few worldly belongings from getting soaked.

When he finally did appear and the tears and the hugs settled down, it would be the last night he would spend without a roof.

This was a turning point for us. Helping people survive with food, showers, clothing and a bit of troubleshooting was no longer enough. The people we worked with were valuable treasures of God that should not be left to the mercy of the elements.

Our plan hatched quickly. Money cobbled together from our pockets kept him in a hotel for a few weeks. A local landlord graciously agreed to take a chance on him, even though he hadn’t a dime to his name on the day he signed a lease. Our church connections rallied the basics he would need to set up a home. And thankfully the combination of disability and a local work program for aging adults arrived soon to pay the bills soon after.

Seemingly, it was so easy that first time that housing became our thing—so much, that we raised money, sought grants and did it over and over again. Hundreds of people later, however, we’d tell you that a house, an income and a few sticks of furniture is also not enough to truly care for our friends with the face of Christ.

In 2 Samuel, chapter 7, King David similarly thought he could honor God by moving the Ark of the Covenant from a tent to a house as magnificent as the one he had built for himself. On the night David had professed his plans, however, God came to the prophet Nathan with a different perspective. “I have not lived in a house since the day I brought up the people of Israel from Egypt to this day,” God said, clarifying that he had not asked for a house, nor was it a physical structure where the true reality of His kingdom would come to fruition.

“The Lord will make you a house,” He tells Nathan. Just as He had done for David when He carried him from shepherd field to palace, God wanted to be the homemaker for the people of Israel. But it would not come in the form of bricks and mortar. It would come through a human-to-human, heart-to-heart connection—the flesh of God’s son Jesus Christ.

After all these years, we too have heard the truth in this prophecy. God’s valuable treasures cannot be left in a tent. But it is also not enough to put them in a house and believe the kingdom work is done. If God is to be the homemaker and the children of God are to experience the love and redemption He desires, the warmth of one another must be present in their lives so that God can do his work.

It would have taken very little for David to construct that house for the Ark of the Covenant. Likewise, the task of housing someone who is homeless can be mastered by anyone with a few connections, resources and the determination to make a difference.

But God desires more than that.

He wants a home for all of his creation. And that can only be achieved when each of us commit to the always pursuing, relentlessly faithful, never give up on you love of God. It is the search for days, come rain or shine, muddy shoe kind of friendship that turns the houses we put people into homes.