Terminally Invisible. Kat N.L.M. Flickr.
This is third and final part of a three-part series about my experiences from a recent outreach my family took to inner city Dallas. Part One. Part Two.
We all tumbled out of the van, glancing awkwardly at one another out of the corner of our eyes. Now what have we gotten ourselves into? As we unloaded and peered around, it was immediately obvious that there wasn’t a more crowded or busy place we could have come to on this outreach. I think we all took a collective gulp. We broke up into several smaller groups and each group grabbed a cooler full of water and tugged it along behind us as we set out to pick a spot best suited to engaging strangers in conversation. Needless to say, we weren’t inconspicuous, as aside from the cooler toddling along behind us, we no doubt had a deer-in-the-headlights look about us.
Of all the things we were asked to do on outreach this was the hardest one for me. I had felt right at home standing on the street corner talking with the drunks and homeless the day before – the nobodies that no one really notices and so, therefore, probably wouldn’t notice me much, either. And for some reason I related more with those helpless people. This is probably something I should psycho-analyze about myself, but for now I’ll let it go. But now we were in the very heart of very busy downtown Dallas. The buses and trains race through so quickly I don’t how everyone keeps track and the people bustle and elbow their way, hurrying up to wait at their stop. These are people from all walks of life, all races, and all socioeconomic statuses. There are drunks and homeless here, who the police quickly shuffle away. There are rushing businessmen, doctors and nurses, and transients all bottled up in this little pulsing square of inner Dallas.
I was well out of my element.
I approached a woman. “Would you like a bottle of water? We’re just here this afternoon to bless people. Could I pray for you?”
She was a big black woman, scowling as I approached her. At my offer I watched her eyes grow big and round, her mouth open in shock. I cringed inwardly as I was sure she was about to tell me where I could shove my water. But then she laughed a little and I saw the mist start in her eyes and I realized I felt pretty at home here after all.
“Yes, you can pray for me! You won’t believe how amazing it is that you are here right now of all days! I just came back from court and it looks like my son is going to prison for twelve years.” And her story poured out of her broken heart. Quickly, lest she miss her bus. I gathered her hands in mine and together we bowed our heads on that busy corner.
“Would you like a bottle of water?” I asked again. And again. “Yes.” And “Yes” again. Over and over again men and women reached for the water bottles and again and again opened their weary hearts to a stranger willing to listen.
And then there was Tina.
I watched her sit on the garden ledge. I recognized the sense of trouble, and shame, and desperation which clung to her. She hunched her shoulders and ducked her head into her hands, hiding in this place – perhaps the easiest place of all to hide, this metropolis of hopelessness. A small, dark man approached her. He belligerently got down into her face, speaking quietly, but forcibly. She cringed deep into herself and I watched as he pushed his advantage and struck her with hateful, belittling words. I could not hear what he said, but I knew the words all the same. I hesitated for a moment, frightened I suppose of the mean little man. Because he was frightening.
Decision made, I approached with a smile I didn’t feel and intentionally stood uncomfortably close to the man, looked right into the woman’s face. “Would you like a bottle of water?” As she accepted the water, I drew closer to her, met the man’s eyes and breathed a sigh of relief as he scuttled away.
And so began an encounter that snagged my heart. Tina was her name. She was running away from that mean little man. She had money for a bus ticket, but didn’t know where to go. She didn’t feel like she could go “home” to family, though I tried to encourage her to do so. She was drunk – admitted to me she’d been drinking too much lately because she was so miserable. No, she wasn’t a prostitute. Just a woman all alone in the world. I wondered if she disappeared if anyone but me would ever know or care. She cried and I put my arm around her. As she poured out her troubles I silently prayed that God would give me wisdom. I would pray for her, but I knew I couldn’t leave her with just words on the wind to sustain her. Don’t get me wrong. I know how powerful prayer is. But I just had this sense that I was looking into the eyes of woman who was staring into an abyss.
So I sent Tina to a church in Dallas we’d all come to know about, though none of us had been there. I told her she could go there and they’d help her. “Nah, I can’t go there. I’ve been drinking.” And my heart broke inside; not for the first time this trip. Because the neediest among us know they can’t walk through our doors until they clean up their lives, even as they are helpless to fix what’s broken without our help. But I had been assured that this church was different. And so I sent her there. And it felt so good to be able to tell someone that, yes, there is a safe place, and yes, you can go just as you are.
As I walked away, I saw Tina looking up the church address on her phone. I knew I could only pray that she would follow through and go. I think of Tina some days and pray for her. And my heart squeezes a little because I know that at the end of the day the Tina’s of the world have to fight for themselves. This I told Tina – that she has value; that she has to fight for herself; that she is worth more than mean little men tell her she is.
I was reminded yet again on this week-long outreach that “the least among us” are prized highly and especially by God Most High. They are as much the pearl of great price to Jesus as any among us who sit pretty in our clean churches every Sunday. I was convicted and challenged to stop looking through them and to really see them. To hear them. To love them as God loves them.
For Tina, the pearl of great price:
“The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field. Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant looking for fine pearls. When he found one of great value, he went away and sold everything he had and bought it.” Matthew 13:44-46
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