The Homeless on our Doorstep

Diane and I often have the chance to serve the homeless here in Brazil. Usually it’s at CENA in São Paulo where we feed, bathe and share the gospel with many who live on the streets or here in Rio where we evangelize on the streets, often in the harshest areas. When the day or week is over, we get into our car and return to our home where life is fairly clean, safe and normal. We serve in that world and then return to ours.

This past week the world of the homeless was literally on our doorsteps. Outside of our wall a homeless man had “set up camp” in our front yard. In the middle of the day was an extremely dirty man sleeping soundly under our tree. Because he was sleeping soundly in the middle of the day, we assumed that drugs or alcohol were involved. We were shook up a little bit, wondering how we should react. We prayed and felt we should reach out to him, as we do to the homeless on the streets.

After just finishing a Rio Team Meeting, my fellow missionary Craig and I walked over and woke him up, and proceeded to engage him in conversation to find out about him and his life. His name is Carlos, he has lived on the streets for about 35 years, his family was in another state of Brazil. He has made a little money by finding things to sell, like scrap metal. I asked him if he drank and he responded “only at night and only one small glass to help me sleep”. I don’t know if this was true, but my guess is that he was understating his problem. You don’t live on the streets for 35 years and have broken your ties with your family without some influence from drugs and/or alcohol. It was obvious that his life was in ruins.

A question we usually ask in this situation is if the person considers his life as being good. When asked this, he replied “no it’s not, but I can’t change it, it is what it is”. We then shared the gospel message with him. He knew some of the gospel, but mostly just the names. We told him that God had a better life for him, but he had to choose this, through God’s son Jesus Christ. We told him that we knew of places where he could get help. He was not interested. He asked us for a shirt, as he was extremely filthy and smelled horrible.

I gave Carlos a t-shirt of mine, one that said “Arizona” on the front so I would recognize him if I saw him again on the street and also something distinctive that would remind him of us and what we shared with him. We told Carlos that we were pastors/missionaries and that we lived in the house where he had set up his camp. Carlos told us that he did not want to disturb us and so he said he was moving on to a vacant lot where he could set up a new camp.

We asked Carlos if we could pray for him and he said “yes”, so we laid hands on Carlos and prayed for him, that God would speak to him and he would respond. We asked God to provide for him and protect him. Then Carlos packed up his belongings into a couple dirty plastic bags and left our world.

All of us at some time or another have a chance to reach out to the homeless, the poor (economically) and the lost in the world. Sometimes through direct contact, like we had with Carlos, and sometimes indirect, like giving to an organization that serves them. This is a complex and long-standing problem in our world. If you are like me, you can get frustrated on how best to serve them. You want to help, but you want your help to be affective. Like in our case I thought about the possibility that Carlos would sell the shirt I gave him and use it for drugs or alcohol.

I recently read a book called “When Helping Hurts”, by Steve Corbett and Brian Fikkert. This book deals with how to alleviate poverty without hurting the poor. I highly recommend this book to all, especially those involved in Missions!! It will give you wonderful and Godly direction on this topic.

Boldly and Gently Sharing the Gospel,

Jeff