Over the last few months I’ve become involved with a great organization here in Indianapolis called Tear Down the Walls Ministries. TDWM helps a number of homeless men and women as well as inner-city youth; so far the street outreach to the homeless is what I have been most involved with.
Coming from such a small community I had never had the chance to encounter someone begging for money, let alone someone who actually LIVED on the streets. My only insight came from my family and friends, and maybe the media. A lot of the time I heard things like “There are so many jobs in that big city, they are just lazy…” or “It’s their fault they ended up where they are…they must have done something wrong…”. So naturally, when I passed by a person who was panhandling, my first instinct was to NOT make eye contact and maybe even walk a little faster.
After being in the city for about a year I was lucky to have some friends who were not so frightened by these situations. We went out one night and just talked to and spent time with some of the people shaking cups and sleeping in doorways. That helped open my eyes to the fact that they were people, no different than me and my friends. After that I went out every once in a while to talk to the homeless folks around town, we even made sack lunches a couple times to take and hand out.
Over the next year God just really began to tug at my heart and I knew that I had to do something. I started doing small things on my own and I was really glad that God was able to use me, even if it was something as little as handing a note or a couple snacks to the few people who would stand at the end of the off ramp I drove down nearly every day.
So, that is kind of how I got to where I am now. I got involved with TDWM after looking for an opportunity to serve with my small group. After the first night of street outreach I was hooked.
When I showed up at the DAT House that first night, we were told that we could walk around downtown to pass out food and visit with the homeless people or we could drive to the camps and do the same. I was curious about this whole “camp” business. Since I had walked around downtown plenty of times doing similar things, I wanted to check this out. That night we visited Davidson Street Bridge (also known as Dodge City), Pine Street Bridge, some people living on the porch of an abandoned house, a guy living in a random bus stop shelter, another guy living in his car, and about three camps along the banks of the White River. Wow, did I feel ignorant…well, actually, I felt A LOT of things after experiencing each of these place and all of the people. I had seen things like that on the news and in movies, but that didn’t happen in Indiana, did it? I mean, I can see Chicago, New York, and LA…but, Indiana? Driving home that night I could not say a word, I couldn’t even open my mouth to sing along to the radio. I lied awake in bed trying to take in everything that I had just seen. Honestly, I was silent the next morning as well. It was such an eye-opener; something I certainly needed to see.
After a couple weeks I feel like things started to fall right into place and I began developing relationships with the people we were serving each week. It is unreal how positive and how much faith some of these people have. I’m so lucky to have met so many great people with fascinating stories and lessons to share. I just pray that people will see that not every person they pass on the street is a “lazy, drug-addicted, alcoholic”. They are real, living, breathing people with hearts and feelings just like you and me.
I would love to tell you all the stories about all the awesome people I’ve met and some of our crazy adventures, but this might get really long – so I’ll save those for another time. However, I would like to tell you about Spanky. He promised that was his real name, so as far as I know, Spanky really is Spanky. We bumped into him tonight on Meridian Street. He told us he dances in front of the bars and sometimes that is how he earns money; he was actually dancing when we approached him tonight. He definitely got a smile out of all of us. What really bothers me though, is what happened to him and his friends last night. Spanky and his friends sleep in a parking garage downtown and he woke up last night to someone kicking him in the side, once he realized he wasn’t dreaming and that someone had really just KICKED him WHILE HE WAS SLEEPING, they did it again. He told us he asked them why they were kicking him, but that is about as far as he took it since he is a pretty small guy and he didn’t want to get into a fight. Then he told us he was really scared about things going on in town this weekend. He mentioned that in the past years, during this same weekend of festivities, he has had other homeless friends both SHOT and STABBED, for no other reason than hatred. I’m really uneasy about all of that. I’m not sure how someone can have the nerve to kick a sleeping man, let alone stab someone just because their lifestyle seems strange or bizarre. And this sure isn’t the only story I’ve heard about violent acts being carried out against the homeless people of this city, but this is just fresh in my heart and in my mind.
So, if you would, please just pray for the safety of our friends that have ended up in situations that are less than ideal and in sleeping arrangements that aren’t extremely safe.
