Our Beautiful Friend, Mickey...

I've been home for a couple hours now, but my toes are still freezing. It was so cold and so windy tonight, but I'm thankful that we were able to make it out to the streets. I FINALLY got to see Mickey tonight. It's been months since I've seen him; and the last thing we heard before we lost touch with him was that he had a heart attack and was in the hospital. We searched and searched and searched, but no luck.

The night we first met Mickey was unforgettable. We got a call from Plainfield United Methodist, who also does outreach on Wednesday nights, asking if we had any blankets. There was a new guy under one of the bridges who had nothing...he wasn't prepared at all to be sleeping outside. As Kim and I sat down to try to get to know this new face, the first thing I noticed was his clothes. Not your everyday homeless guy get-up. He had on a nice collared shirt, dressy pants and shoes, and a peacoat. It was his second night on the streets. Not second night this time around, second night EVER! He told us incredible stories about his life. He is a really neat man...born in Russia, retired school teacher, Jewish, has a handful of children, concert pianist, and it went on and on. None of us wanted to see him stay out there another night, but he said he knew that God wanted him there. So we continued to visit him and tried to get to know him a little better each week for the next few weeks...but it wasn't long until he dissappeared.

A few weeks ago, I had taken some of the High School kids from the Riverside neighborhood downtown to do outreach, while the rest of the "grown-ups" went to the bridges and camps. We all ended up back at the DAT House looking for more stuff...coats, blankets, gloves, and things of the sort. It was then that Kim told me that Mickey was back! NO WAY! I was really glad to hear that...well, not glad that he was back under the bridge, but glad that he was alive! He really did have a heart attack and after he was released from the hospital he visited some friends and family up in Michigan, then made his way back down to Indianapolis.

Honestly though, he is looking rough...the streets and his health are really taking a toll on him. Tonight was the first night I actually got to see him and talk to him since he's been back. He's been asleep a couple of the other times I had come under the bridge...but, he also had ANOTHER heart attack last week! He's talked about "the end" since the day we met him, but he is talking about it a lot more these days. Mickey is certain that it's almost his time. He tells us that he feels blessed to know that...it gave him a chance to make peace with himself, with God, and with a few people...and he is ready to go. I know reading that may sound sad, but if you could talk to him and hear it from his mouth, I promise you would smile as big as we were tonight! I'll tell you that he flipped my night upside down...God sure spoke through him tonight! It's funny how that happens...EVERYTIME, everytime I'm having a crappy day or am in a bad mood or just being a jerk for no real reason. It's almost like God is saying, "Yeah, go ahead. Just TRY to act like you have ANYTHING to complain about. Seriously!" He's funny like that! I wish everyone could sit and talk with Mickey...I can almost promise you would get something incredible out of it as well!

One thing that he did mention tonight was that he would REALLY love to be able to play the piano one last time! (Okay, that part was sad...even with his big beautiful smile.) We are working on making that happen...so pray with us on that one, please!

A few of us are going to try and take him out for lunch Saturday afternoon and hopefully hunt down a piano somewhere downtown...if you've got ideas, those would be super helpful!

Thank You, Jesus...

Thank you. There isn't much more to say, really.

Simply & Only God...

"No soul can be really at rest until it has given up all dependence on everything else and has been forced to depend on the Lord alone. As long as our expectation is from other things, nothing but disappointment awaits us. Feelings may change, and will change with our changing circumstances; doctrines and dogmas may be upset; Christian work may come to naught; prayers may seem to lose their fervency; promises may seem to fail; everything that we have believed in or depended upon may seem to be swept away, and only God is left, just God, the bare God, if I may be allowed the expression; simply and only God."

-- Hannah Whitall Smith

Chyaa...that's what I want...SIMPLY AND ONLY, GOD! I know when I depend on me to fix my problems or ease my pain or restore my joy, none of that ever really happens. Sure, I can fake it with the best of 'em...but I end up back where I started. It's really just a waste of time and energy...seriously, I've been there more than once or twice. And I've also lived in moments where I was bankin' on God and God alone! I'm reminding myself and promising you, that fully depending on God will be pretty freaking hard and frankly painful; but those moments of difficulty and grief are nothing compared to my God...the maker of the universe, the creator of EV-ER-Y-THING!

Some Things...

Life has been a kind of rough lately and times like these make it easy to just retreat and be mad at the world, seriously! But, I know God has a plan...and even when my selfish flesh steps in and throws a big fat wrench in things...He ends up using it. Now, how can I not be thankful for that. The "crap" I've done and been through the last 23 years can and WILL be used for His glory. The moments I actually cling to that are the ones I experience the most peace and freedom!

And those of you who really know me know that music and lyrics are one of my "escapes"...so needless to say...the music has been BLARING the last few days! :) This song has been a favorite for a long time...and it's perfect right now! I'm not going to say it doesn't hurt, but...I really am "Thankful, For Every Break In My Heart, I'm Grateful, For Every Scar..." Because I've been here before and know all too well that I can't go backward...so I'll go forward and just keep learning.

Lessons Learned -- Carrie Underwood

There's Some Things That I Regret,
Some Words I Wish Had Gone Unsaid,
Some Starts,
That Had Some Better Endings,
Been Some Bad Times I've Been Through,
Damage I Cannot Undo.
Some Things,
I Wish I Could Do All All Over Again,
But It Don't Really Matter,
When Life Gets That Much Harder,
It Makes You That Much Stronger,
Oh, Some Pages Turned,
Some Bridges Burned,
But There Were,
Lessons Learned.

And Every Tear That Had To Fall From My Eyes,
And Everyday I Wondered How I'd Get Through The Night,
Every Change, Life Has Thrown Me,
I'm Thankful, For Every Break In My Heart,
I'm Grateful, For Every Scar,
Some Pages Turned,
Some Bridges Burned,
But There Were Lessons Learned.

There's Mistakes That I Have Made,
Some Chances I Just Threw Away,
Some Roads,
I Never Should Have Taken,
Been Some Signs I Didn't See,
Hearts That I Hurt Needlessly,
Some Wounds,
That I Wish I Could Have One More Chance To Mend,
But It Don't Make No Difference,
The Past Can't Be Rewritten,
You Get The Life You're Given,
Oh, Some Pages Turned,
Some Bridges Burned,
But There Were,
Lessons Learned.

And All The Things That Break You,
Are The Things That Make You Strong.
You Can't Change The Past,
Cause It's Gone.
And You Just Gotta Move On,
Because It's All
Lessons Learned.

Spanky...

Despite the fact that it is barely 25° degrees outside this evening...I'm really glad I was able to be outside hanging out with my friends on the streets!

A lesson I learned quickly when I started doing outreach was not to get too bummed out when we "lose" someone...people are ALWAYS moving around...ALL the time...so it's impossible to keep in touch with everyone you meet out there. Once in awhile we "find" someone out of the blue. Well, it's never an accident...God always seem to put us where He needs us...and sometimes it turns into a nice surprise!

Kim and I met Spanky back in July...and as I walked under a bridge downtown tonight to visit my friend, Rodney, I was introduced to this "new" guy...Rodney was like, "This is my friend, Jena! I'm famous, she will tell you!"...and he does this almost every time I see him. (I was looking at pictures on Flickr one day and someone had taken a picture of him out panhandling...I told him about it and joked that he was famous because he was on the internet...now he tells everyone...it makes me smile!) So, naturally, I asked him what his name was and he says, "Spanky". I got pretty excited...Here is a little bit of what I wrote back when I met him this summer...

"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." [Rude Awakening...]

We looked for Spanky in quite a few parking garages downtown for a couple weeks after that...no luck. He tried to explain to us where he slept, but we couldn't find him.

But, back to tonight...Rodney told me he found Spanky laying in an alley and he was really, really drunk! He said he "drug" him under the bridge and had been taking care of him for a couple days! Rodney is such a sweet guy...I just love him! We did our best to get Spanky whatever he needed...socks, gloves, a meal...but unfortunatly no underwear. He made sure to tell me he was "free-ballin' it", haha! But seriously...Spanky needs some prayers. He is supposed to be going into rehab on Tuesday. He told us he would find us when he gets out and that he would be a different man. We let him know we were going to hold him to that. So, it looks like I'm going to "lose" Spanky again...but this time I hope I DON'T see him for a while...pray that he can stick it out in rehab and get back on his feet and off the streets!