How it all began

August 13, 2012
Kelley and I had a conversation at the end of VBS about the fact that none of the sack lunches that were made for the Boys and Girls Club were taken. She and her son, Andrew, ended up driving around town looking for people to hand them out to. In their driving around, someone told them about the existence of a tent village somewhere in town. Andrew's immediate response was, "Why are we not out there? Why don't we know about this?" Some friends and I agreed with this sentiment, so we made plans to go find the tent village the following day with Kelley.
We first pulled up to the wooded area where we thought the tent village may have been located. We came upon a gentleman with a bike, sitting at the entrance to what appeared to be a trail into the woods. As we approached with our big naive smiles, he says, "Is there a problem? Am I doing something wrong?" Our first bit of education about the homeless. People don't approach them to do or say nice things. When someone approaches them, they are typically in trouble.
We told him our little story and gave him a lunch for himself as well as a few extras in case he saw anyone who needed one. In our minds, he was sitting at the entrance to this big tent village full of people who needed to eat. Since then we have found out that in reality, the tent village no longer exists because the city had it bulldozed in the spring, and this was not the location of it in the first place.  When the city decided to bulldoze the tent city, they did offer bus tickets to the homeless..."Probably to get them back to their summer homes in the Hamptons," said someone snarkier than me.
We asked that wonderful gentleman, who we have not seen again since that day, if he knew where others might be. He told us of a few locations to look, and sure enough, we found small group of men gathered.
I will never forget walking up to the guys that very first time and meeting Big Dennis, Double D, Russ and 'Bama. They were so happy about the lunches and when I asked what else they needed, DD joked about needing a job and the others mentioned socks and underwear. I was instantly humbled. Sock and underwear were the greatest needs.
The next day, Dave really wanted to serve the lunches after he heard how wonderful our experiences were. Then, it rained, and when Dave showed up, no one was out.
Another thing we have learned. When we get wet, we go home, change clothes and are dry again. When they get wet, they are wet and cold for days. To avoid this, when it rains, they don't leave their tents. They get to somewhere dry, and they don't come out, even for food. Minor let down for Dave.
Luckily, he had better luck the next day. It was a great experience for him and that very day he declared, "I am going to do this every day on my lunch break!" I thought he was crazy to make a commitment like this the week before school started, you know, the time of year when he is already weeks behind before he even begins, but he made it all work. Scratch that....God made it all work. God continues to make it all work day after day.
We are far from perfect at this ministry thing, but as I research other organizations that work with the homeless population, I am also learning that we are farther from doing it wrong. We are learning from our experiences as well as from others who have embarked on this journey before us.