Bags

I met Michael Jackson on Sunday.

Shortly after, I met Greg, and then Sean. These were three homeless men living in downtown Cincinnati. I met them in Washington Park. Here's my story...and little of theirs.

If you have been reading my blog, you know I was having a hard time with the whole gift-getting and gift-giving thing this year. I didn't want anyone to get me stuff I didn't need because the "season" told them to, and I didn't want to feel obligated to get stuff for other people who already had way too much. I didn't need anything...and there are so many people who need just the basics or a little help. I wanted to give away more this year than I got.

So Jess and I decided to fill bags with blankets, food, water bottles, toiletries, gloves and hats...and then give them to people who were in real need. We made five bags.

Sunday morning I decided to go out and drive around and look for people in real need - homeless people and those asking for a handout. This shouldn't be hard in a city like Cincinnati, right? We see people like this all over the place when we drive in closer to the city. So my oldest son, Gavin, came with me and we set out. No real plan; no real direction. Just looking forward to where God might lead us and how He might show up.

Gavin and I drove around for about 45 minutes and never spotted a person in need. On one hand, we should have been thrilled, but we had five bags we wanted to give away. At one point Gavin said, "I never thought this would be hard." I just quietly kept praying for God to show us where to go. We saw parts of Cinci that I never knew existed (and if I could tell you how to get there, you probably wouldn't either).

We came to this one red light and stopped. I looked across the street and there was a mural painted on the side of a building. It read, "Jesus said, If you love me, Feed my people." I pointed for Gavin to read and said, "We're trying...but we can't find them."

Less than a mile down the road, we passed Washington Park and saw a number of people that were clearly homeless and in need. This is where we had been heading all day. We parked the car, got out, and started walking across the park with each of us carrying a bag.

It wasn't long before a gentleman called out, "Hey! You guys giving stuff away?" I replied that we were looking to help some homeless people with what we had brought. That section of the park came alive with men shouting, "I'm homeless", "He's homeless", "That guy over there is homeless". We were overwhelmed.

We met Michael Jackson (hey...I'm taking his word for it). He is 53 and was recently laid off from his job. He has 13 children - all grown - and now alone. He said it is rough being homeless down in this area because it is not safe. He was humble enough to ask for a bag. I could see a hint of shame in his face, but tried to erase that away with conversation that communicated "we are the same, you and me".

We met Greg, 58, who asked for prayer because he lost his mother a couple weeks earlier and it was really rough on him. A few years previously, he lost his wife. He was without a job also. We had a bag for him.

And we met Sean, who came walking over to the car as we were pulling away from the park, and waved us down to see if we had another bag to give out. We had just one more - for him. He was a young guy. He explained that he had been married for 12 years but was separated from his wife. He and she drank too much and he was trying to stay dry. He asked for prayer to get into a shelter up the road that was difficult to get a place at.

If we had 20 more bags that day, we could have given them all out.

I left Washington Park that morning hoping that a little kindness would pay big dividends for the guys looking for a little hope and help.