I forget that when living at the Dream Center there is no such thing as normal. When I step outside my front door, I'm on a battleground and there are souls at stake. The days are long but the nights usually calm as the hustle and bustle of visitors on campus halts. Last night was different.
After a few
errands, I arrived back to the Dream Center and decided to play basketball with
a friend. I play almost every day... that's normal. I headed inside the main
building to have our security guard Matthew unlock the court. When I entered
through the main doors, there was a family sitting in the chairs outside the
front office. Although it was after hours and the staff had been long gone I
didn't think much of it because that's not something that's unusual. I moved
along towards the security office. Matt and I arranged a time later in the
evening that he would unlock the basketball court for my friend and I to play.
I went back to our house across the parking lot to tend to a few chores.
When the time
arrived for Matt to open the court my friend Jaime joined me for a game of
horse. It didn't last very long though because it was freezing that night. We
both decided that it was way too cold to continue playing. That's not normal.
Basketball is my favorite sport. I play in the rain, sleet, snow, and hail. OK,
maybe that's an exaggeration but typically weather doesn't stop me from
playing. It's my favorite thing so for me to say it was too cold to continue
was a big deal. The temperature said it was 27 degree's but the wind gusts were
blistering and made it feel much more frigid.
For
no clear reason, I headed back into the main building. Over an hour
had passed and yet the same family was in the same spot seated in the chairs
outside the front office.
"Matt,
what are they doing here?” I finally asked.
He
shared what he knew.
The mother had
found herself homeless the day before. She really needed a place to charge her
phone and use the restroom. He had gotten the family some food and let
them sit in the hallway. It was a family of six. One Mom, five children. The
youngest being only a few months... and this was the night that she found
herself with no place to go.
As I sat in
the chair outside the security office, something caught the corner of my
eye. Two of the five children were walking past the door, smiling and
waving at me. It was adorable. I said hello and smiled while waving back in
their direction. They kept walking.
Moments later
the little girl had made her way back to me. This time she took one step into
the hallway I was in but stood at the door as if waiting for permission to come
closer.
"Watcha doin'?", I asked her.
"Nothin'",
she responded.
"Hey,
ya know what? Do you want to color with me?” I asked.
She smiled and said yes. I turned to ask Matt for the keys
to the kid's ministry classrooms.
"You
think it'd be ok if I went up there with them and let them play for a
while?"
"I
won't tell if you won't.”
We made our
way upstairs. As I unlocked the door and flipped the lights on, each child
stood amazed at the room before them. It was still a mess from the service that
morning, but they didn't care.
"Wow.
This is awesome", I heard their little voices say.
They scurried
straight towards the video game systems when I turned them on. They had no idea
how to play, though. I'm certain that they had never touched one in their
lives. I taught each of them step by step how to play their game. They loved
every second of it.
The mom came
in shortly after with the baby, uttering the same words the children had.
I showed her some of the other classrooms and shared with her the
heart behind what we do. She thought everything was just the bee's knees. As the kid's
continued playing, I moved to go sit down on the couch next to her. We began
with small talk about how awesome everything was until I asked her how she
ended up at the Dream Center that night.
"We
needed a place to brush our teeth and use the bathroom. The Dream Center has
always been such a big help to my family that I figured we'd come here..."
"You've
been here before?” I asked since I didn't recognize them.
"Oh
yeah, I've been comin' to the pantry and using the clothing
boutique for probably about a year now."
(How awesome
is it that because we continually met her physical need she knew the Dream
Center was a safe place to come in an emergency!)
She continued
to share her story. All I had to do was sit back and listen. I think more than
anything she just wanted someone to care. The stories were terrible. The
beautiful baby boy who lie in her arms, just a few months old, almost
wasn't born because the father beat her so bad. I could see the tears welling
in her eyes. Never did she let them out. She was strong for her family. She
talked about how scared she was and how this had never happened before. She
told me why other people, including relatives, wouldn't take her in and how she
wasn't eligible for food stamps to feed her children either.
I told her I
understood why she didn't leave the guy any sooner. She felt so much shame for
remaining with him as long as she did. I shared with her that as a kid I had
the same type of relationship with a family member. When you're in an
abusive situation you're don't think clearly and often you switch into survival
mode. You're view on love gets twisted - you hope that eventually things
will change but typically they don't so it becomes a cruel cycle. We
connected over the fact that even though we were completely different we shared
similar life stories. I love that the age gap between her and I could be
so great but it didn't matter in the grand scheme of life.
"Do you know where you're going tonight?” I eventually asked.
"No. I
called some shelters but most of them went to voicemail and the ones that
didn't said to come in tomorrow."
Having some experience with shelters, I thought I could
help. I called around the area to see if there was any information about
emergency services with the temperature being so low.
Nope.
They were
not very nice... and definitely not helpful. My heart broke at that moment for
this mother of five because I wasn't able to find her somewhere to go but
also because this was the system she was entering into. The people running it
didn't care whether she was in their shelter or on the streets. It broke my
heart to go back into the classroom and share the news.
We knew the evening was winding down and soon they would be heading back out into the cold. I gave each kid a stuffed animal friend to take with them on the journey. It wouldn't be easy and I figured they could use a friend to hold when it gets hard. They also wanted Joyce's book on salvation. I wouldn't dare tell them no!
We began
cleaning up. The children were so helpful! They tried cleaning the whole room
even though they didn't make half the mess! That made the coming goodbye much
more difficult.
With that, I
approached the mother. I don't think I even introduced myself. I simply offered
to let her kids go play for a while. She left it up to them and it was a
unanimous "yes!”
"Wow.
This is great... really, really great."
When Matt
joined us upstairs he offered to grab a few blankets for the family to take
with them. We snapped a quick picture because I wanted to remember them, their
faces, and this story.
It was time
for goodbye. The mother wanted to hug me, sleeping baby in arm. I absolutely
wanted to hug her. My heart sank.
