I’ve “served” Chicago’s homeless for several years, through churches, organizations, and small gifts on the street.  But it wasn’t until my Different Kind of Birthday Party that I entered into what I didn’t even know then would become real true friendships with people living on the street.  And it has changed me.  For one thing, it has given me a Different View of Homelessness.  But this was just the beginning.
A couple of weeks ago, I was serving breakfast and fun down by the tents along the Chicago river, which now happens on a regular basis.  And there was a new guy.  No one knew much about him but he said he lived a little further away from everyone else, and had heard about us serving breakfast.

He was more eager than anyone else I’d met to receive anything and everything we had to offer.  I quickly gathered that he was in worse circumstances than the others.  He reacted to our gift of handwarmers as if we had given him something worth hundreds of dollars. I wanted to learn more about him, his story, and how we could connect him to even more resources.  I asked if my husband and I could come visit him where he “lived.”

He said yes and we visited.  And I am tearing up right now again, just thinking about it.  I can’t believe this type of poverty happens in the United States; I’ve seen better accommodations in Africa and India than this.

What he had said was true: he was living on the other side of the bridge, further away from everyone else along the river.  But he didn’t even have a tent. For the past few months, he had been living outside in Chicago, in the middle of winter, almost literally freezing to death with only cardboard to shield him from the elements.

Well this was obviously unacceptable.

Over the course of the next couple of weeks, I loved him.  It was a powerful God-given love, because I don’t naturally just love everyone I see at this level without any limits (wish I could say I did).  But when I saw the cold, miserable life he was living, I wanted to enter into it.  I wanted to share his burden.

In the Word, it says to “Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.” Galatians 6:2

So he ate lunch with us, which turned into coming over to our house for dinner, which turned into a couple games of Scrabble.  We bought toiletry items and a change of clothes so he could shower at our house and be able to change into a clean outfit afterwards.  While he showered, I did his laundry.  The first time I did his laundry the smell was so overwhelming that I felt like I might be sick. I looked around our house and worried I’d have to throw anything made of fabric away, because the smell was so permeating. But then I stopped worrying and realized he was worth it. That was the day I think whatever bit of materialism idol I had left in me, broke.  Praise God.

I learned a lesson while doing that laundry: Serving isn’t the same as giving. Serving is what I had been doing for years for “Chicago’s homeless.”  But now I was learning to give.  To give of my time, my convenience, my home, and my heart.  I was opening myself up to be hurt, disappointed, or angry.  Because that’s what you do when you love-for-real.  Ironically, serving always sounded more noble to me than giving, but it wasn’t until I gave that it actually interrupted my life in a major way.  I learned that carrying someone’s burdens and being available to them, and sharing everything you have with them, is a lot more than serving breakfast on a Saturday morning by the river.

It shocked and even concerned people when they found out we had started inviting the homeless into our home.  And it made me sad that this was such a foreign concept.  In my previous post about how Jesus was homeless, I discovered we can often have a certain ‘view’ of homeless people, and it’s hard to imagine the Messiah lying on a park bench with a blanket.  But it seems even crazier to me that we might invite a homeless Jesus into our heart, but would still have trouble inviting him into our home.

One night our friend confided in us that he had been in prison for 7 years and had recently been released, with nowhere to go, and nowhere to work because of a felony charge.  I don’t know what he did to go to prison, and I honestly don’t care.  All I saw in front of me was a friend that needed help, and some genuine grace and love to get back on his feet.  And I had an idea.

I knew some of the other tents had small propane heaters used for camping, that people used at night to stay warm in sub-zero temperatures.  But he had nothing.  We found out he’d been finding public garages to sit in for a few hours each night to stay warm.  After months of this routine, he was completely exhausted.  I remember when he came to church with us and fell asleep, and rather than being irritated I was relieved.

The night we took him a propane heater was the night that has been so hard for me to process, and probably one I’ll never forget.  I have never been so cold in my life.  And that’s saying something because I was raised in Minnesota and live in Chicago.  But something was extra-awful that night about the wind whipping off the river; I had to turn my face away not to get windburn or frostbite.  Maybe it’s always that miserable down by the Chicago river late at night in February.  I wouldn’t really know.

My eyes were watering, partly because I was freezing and partly because I was so desperate for God to reach down with His mighty Hand and save this man from these unbearable circumstances.  It was difficult for me to endure this biting cold for several minutes, and it broke my heart in a deep place to know he had been reduced to sleeping and living out here for several months.

As we worked to assemble the heater, we huddled together, and I looked up into the dark. “Suffer with people as though you were there yourself.  Share in their struggles and sorrow as if you felt their pain in your own bodies.” (Hebrews 13:3)

I suffered with him that night.

We finally got the heater working and we were all so thankful and relieved.  Some words came to my heart so I decided to share them. I said he wasn’t a “homeless person” and that I knew he wouldn’t be living this way for much longer. That I saw something special in him that I didn’t see in everyone else, and knew all he needed was a little boost to get back onto his feet.  It’s interesting: when you treat someone like they are loved and worthy of love, they start to act like it.  They start to believe it.

And he did.

I found out yesterday that he is no longer sleeping alongside the river.  He is making changes in his life and seeking the resources he needs to reach for something more again.  And I believe it’s because of the warmth of that propane heater and the warmth of the words God gave me to speak to him that night.

He’s not in the area anymore and I miss him.  I have a Godly love for him that isn’t going away.  I don’t know when we’ll see him again, but until we do, I pray for that same supernatural love of God to flow through my heart for others.

My prayer is that I continue to learn what it means to not only “serve” but to give of myself.  And that I’m always willing to literally get into the trenches by the river with someone when it’s cold and miserable, just so they don’t have to be alone.