Once a month I team up with a church I don't attend and travel to downtown Dallas to one of the homeless shelters to feed the hungry. If there's anything I've learned from this experience it's that homeless shelters will teach you so much about yourself, society, and your Christian walk. “ I was hungry, and you gave me food; I was thirsty, and you gave Me drink; I was a stranger, and you took Me in ” (Matthew 25:35)
The first time I did it, it broke my heart and I tried to hide from these people because I realized just how blessed I was, and that made me feel incredibly guilty and ungrateful. I've got very little, but it's still more than what the shelter residents have, and that's a huge blessing! If someone looked at my life, they'd say I had hit rock bottom and started to dig. I've been downsized twice and had my credit ruined by the poor economic conditions in Texas ; it only got measurably worse with 75,000 additional people to contend with after Hurricane Katrina. So I'm branded unfairly as a lazy person because for each job, 160 applicants apply, and with bad credit, I'm an automatic theft risk (as unfair as that classification is). Instead of climbing the corporate ladder in the health insurance field after twelve years' experience, I have been kicked off it. It is only by the grace of God and the help of an amazing friend I can only describe as a true gift, that I am not in one of these homeless shelters.
It is in that light I'm sensitive to those who are in the shelter due to corporate America 's narrow, short sided, and discriminatory practices. There's no such thing in today's world as a second chance – ask someone who's been released from prison after having paid their debt to society (they can't get past the job wall, either despite tax breaks). We love to quip, “ America is the land of opportunity! Work hard and you can become somebody!” The problem is, when we push them off the ladder, we blame them for the gap in their resume'. I always wondered how many in the shelter were there for one of those two reasons. It's always easy to blame it on drugs, alcohol, or some other reason, but the people I have met don't always fit that stereotypical profile.
I have met many people in the homeless shelter and been blessed to have served meals to a lot grateful people. After two or three of these feedings, I got up the nerve to ask the leader of the group, “Why aren't we evangelizing to these people?” His answer was simple, to the point, and yet disingenuous: “members of this church are not allowed to evangelize to the people per the pastor's instructions.” I was flabbergasted! The pastor told them they couldn't evangelize?? What theological school did he attend that he missed the command “ …'Go into all the world, proclaim the gospel to all the creation.' ” (Mark 16:15)? I said to the group leader, “well, that doesn't apply to me because I'm not part of your church, so I'm going to evangelize”. He smiled and told me to go for it, as he thumbed through my stack of gospel tracts.
People will tell you in order to evangelize you need to be a bold and powerful speaker…that's a load of bull cookies. I stood there with my knees knocking, my heart racing, and my voice quivering. “I can do all thing through Christ who strengthens me!” (Phil 4:13) I repeated this scripture over and over again in my head, and asked God to use me. I stood in between hungry people and their food line, which might not have been the wisest decision. People did finally ask me, “Why are you doing this?” All I could say in return was, “Because I love you enough to want to make sure I see you in Heaven. It's easy enough for me to feed you spaghetti and dessert, but who's feeding your soul?” They were taken aback by the fact someone put their money where their mouth was and passed out gospel tracts and talked to them about eternity.
“Are you recruiting for your church?” one person snapped. “Nope. This isn't my church at all, and no, I'm not recruiting for any church. I don't want your money. I only want to make sure I see you in Heaven when the time comes. If I honesty didn't love you, I'd only feed your stomach and ignore your soul.”
