The Strangers

A few weeks ago (Oct. 14th) Megan and I (my wife) took a small weekend camping trip out to Maplewood State Park. This particular park is gorgeous this time of year albeit most of the leaves had already turned from their brilliant hues to a more matte-finished dull brown. We still had a blast hiking, playing with our dog Charlie, and eating delicious camping food.

(see Hobo stew recipe here.)

The only draw back to tent camping this late in the Fall was that the temperatures got pretty low at night. Oh, did I not mention that my wife and I are hardcore and will NEVER camp with a silly camper? Because we are. Staying in a crowded campground with generators running and your car 2 feet from you is not camping.

But on this particular evening the temperature was flirting with freezing. We were miserable. Even fully clothed and curled up in our mummy bags we still had a hard time keeping our teeth from chattering constantly. Add to this experience the fact that my wife is 15 weeks pregnant and takes frequent bathroom breaks and you've got a recipe for misery.

Fast-forward to last week. It was a chilly Wednesday night. I was driving home from work around 9pm and decided to stop and get gas. Sitting outside the gas station were two shabby-looking people, charging their cell phone near an outside plug-in. Beside them lay two giant packs weighing around 60 lbs. each I'd guess. They looked miserable. At that moment all I could think about was how cold Megan and I had been weeks earlier on our camping trip.

I approached the couple, maybe in their mid-twenties, and asked them if they had a place to stay for the night. They said they couldn't stay in the shelter because they had pets. (Wrapped up in the woman's coat were two Labrador pups that couldn't have been more than a few months old, visibly shivering.) They told me they had heard of a park they could set up their tent in 17 blocks away. Again, a flashback to our camping experience crossed my mind.

I decided I couldn't just let them sleep outside. At the cautious request of my wife, I offered to put them up in a hotel for the night. They gladly accepted and we loaded up their packs (much heavier than 60 lbs. I found out) and drove to the nearest hotel.

As we drove I asked them what had brought them to this life on the streets. They said they were freight train jumpers. (think old school train jumpers, sleeping in boxcars filled with hay...but this life-style has changed much since those days.) The man had been living out on the streets for nearly two years, his father imprisoned and his mother a prostitute. The woman had been living with her mother until 5 months ago when she expectantly died of a medical condition. So here they were, these two companions, riding the rails of America, searching for God knows what.

In Matthew 25: 40 Jesus says, "Truly I tell you, just as you have done for the least of these, you have done unto me."

I really believe that when the bible tells us to feed the hungry, it means feed the hungry. When the bible tells us to clothe the naked or to welcome a stranger or to take care of the sick, these aren't just words. These are very clear instructions on how to live your life like Jesus did. He fed the hungry. He clothed the naked. He cared for the sick. He loved the least of us.

So what's stopping us from literally following these instructions in our everyday lives? It's easy for us to say "I'm praying for you" and think that we've done our part. Now, to be clear, I'm not downplaying the importance of prayer. I believe the Holy Spirit works through prayer in amazing ways. But it's when we ignore the things that we can physically do to help our fellow man that we ignore what Jesus was really calling us to be.

It's when we sacrifice our own comfort to someone in need that we really do become the hands and feet of Christ.

The look on those two transients' faces when they saw their nice warm bed, a shower, and a free meal in the morning was priceless. It was like Jesus was standing there smiling back at me saying, "thank you for what you do for the least of these, for you have done the same for me."

For an interesting look into homelessness, I'd encourage you to check out a book called "Under the Overpass" by a guy named Mike Yankowski. Follow the link here for more info.